Friendship deep dive

5 things I learned about friendship

Feb 06, 2023

Every year, I try to read several books on one subject I’m particularly interested in. One area for me has been friendship, which I’ve read 6-ish books about over the last 6 months. I chose it as a topic given 1) it’s really important and 2) is something I don’t feel I have a ton of time for - as a midcareer father to young kids, most of my waking hours are accounted for. I don’t think I’m unusual - a lot of people my age prioritize their careers and their family and don’t have a ton of time to socialize or try new hobbies (which is probably the right prioritization).

I read the following books (more details on each of them at the end). As opposed to summarizing each one, I’ve put some of the broader themes / key takeaways below. I have a bunch more that I’ll publish in a separate post

Key Takeaways

Making new friends requires taking risks, which can be scary. But ask yourself, “what is the worst thing that can really happen?” In MWF, the author tries to go on 52 new “friend dates” in a year. This requires her to put herself out there and take lots of risks - she “asks out” dozens of women, including someone who works at a clothing boutique she frequents, a waitress at a restaurant she thought was cool, and lots of friends of friends. This can seems scary, but the worst things that happen are:
1. some awkward or boring 90-minute dinners
2. she might not have a ton of chemistry with someone, then see them again, and it’s fine
3. she is interested in a second “date” and they aren’t
4. 1 or 2 people cancel before the date
Nothing catastrophic happens. This echoed some advice from How to Be Yourself, which focuses largely on social anxiety and people’s “inner critics.” People with social anxiety might be afraid to do something because they think the consequences will be terrible (e.g., “I don’t want to go to a party because I might say something stupid”). The author, Hendriksen, advises people to try to specify what exactly will happen and how bad it can really be (“I might say a joke that’s not too funny. Some people might not laugh or think it’s a bit strange, but the topic will quickly shift.”). For many of us, we might hold back socially out of fear of rejection or awkwardness, but if you force yourself to think about it, it’s really not that bad.
You can’t get everything from one person. Rebecca from MWF goes on her quest because she realizes that her husband, while great, cannot fill all of her social needs. With friends as well, different people offer different things - you might have a friend who is great to run with, one who gives great career advice, and one who is spontaneous and always down for an adventure. The concept of the platonic BFF where one person provides everything - deep conversations, spontaneous adventures, common interests, a shared past - is a really high bar and might not even exist at certain stages of your life.
It takes time. Research shows it takes 100 hours to make a friend and 200 hours to make a best friend. This has several implications:
1. It becomes tougher to make friends as you get older, just because you have less time and hours to allocate to people.
2. You can be creative to get in “hours” with people - you can hang out together like you would in college, do errands together, whatever. There is sometimes a norm about only seeing people in “formal” environments or spaces like restaurants, bars, etc, which can limit the time we have with people.
3. Another thing you can do is try to make friends where you’re already spending time: recurring activities like gym classes, volunteering, or religious communities can be effective given you potentially have a lot of hours with people and don’t have to worry about the schedule.
There are lots of different barriers to making friends
1. Social anxiety / shyness - as mentioned, this is the focus of How to be Yourself. Social anxiety causes people to avoid social situations as they perceive them as dangerous and that something negative about them will be revealed if they interact with others (e.g., their imagined lack of social skills, the fact that they’re sweating and nervous). The book has lots of suggestions on how to address this.
2. Introversion - this is NOT the same thing as social anxiety. Social anxiety means you are scared of social events; introversion means that large social events drain you, but aren’t intimidating. People suffering from social anxiety want to because it makes them feel less anxious; introverts want to be alone because it makes them feel good. Of course, there is overlap, but this distinction was super interesting and something I hadn’t thought of before. There are shy extroverts as well as introverts that are comfortable around people. Sorry I’m Late has the word “introvert” on its cover, but I think it’s just as much as about social anxiety. As someone who is introverted, I think it’s important to 1) find social settings that you enjoy being in more (e.g., maybe small conversations, not huge parties), 2) accept that you will have to go to some bigger events and figure out how to enjoy them (which Sorry I’m Late discusses) and 3) actively manage your energy and take time to recharge when you need it
3. Moving to a new city - this is the focus of MWF and We Should Get Together to some extent. When you’re in a new city and people already have their friend groups, how do you find friends? This is also harder if you are shy and / or introverted. The answer is to meet people through friends of friends, do meetups, and generally actively work to make friends - you might have to invite somebody to something multiple times before they reciprocate. Living in cities can be particularly lonely - there’s something about being physically close to lots of people but not having any connections with them that is hard for humans. People also can feel like they’re transient and it’s not worth investing the time into the friendship. You can reframe that as “We’re not here for that long, so let’s have as much fun as possible.”
4. Logistics / timing - what if you (or others) don’t have that much time? This was a big focus of We Need to Hang Out. This is probably most acute once you have kids and when you’re trying to coordinate a large group, but can impact anyone. One trick, as mentioned above, is to build friends into the recurring parts of your life (gym / exercise routine, other extracurriculars, religious or civic organizations). Another thing to keep in mind is that life is (hopefully) long - there are multiple friend groups I’m part of where we haven’t been in the same room for years, but at some point, life will get a bit less hectic. But as several of the books point out, phone calls are a good way to maintain / grow friendships that are already strong.
Hosting v. hanging out. One challenge as we get older is pressure to “host” or “entertain” people. Think about your good friends in college - you probably spent lots of time in each other’s rooms just hanging out, or going to the grocery store together, or chatting during the interstitial moments of time as you’d walk to class. As we get older, you feel expected to “host” or “entertain” people - if you want to invite people over, the expectation is that your house is super clean, you’re playing some kind of Spotify playlist from a Sonos speaker, and that you’ve cooked a delicious multi-course meal for them. This is great, but also makes it harder to interact with people as “hosting” is more work than just hanging out. Vellos in We Should Get Together suggests intentionally inviting people over when there are dishes in the sink or the house isn’t perfect to realize it doesn’t really matter. As you get older (and especially when you have kids), there’s this whole thing where if someone comes over you need to feel like you need to apologize for your house being messy, even though everyone’s house is somewhat messy. Can we get rid of that?

Book Thoughts

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Book Thoughts

Friendship deep dive

5 things I learned about friendship

Key Takeaways

More on the Books I Read

Discussion about this post