How to Build Closer Friendships
- A couple of days ago we went over some tips
on how to meet new people and make new friends.
But as everyone knows, friendship is a complex
and multifaceted concept.
There isn't just one level of friendship.
You have your casual acquaintances,
but you also have your best friends.
Your Tulios and Miguels.
Your Leslies and Annes.
Your Rustys and Dannys.
Your Batmans and.
- Batman works alone.
- Well, maybe not Batman.
But you get the point.
Also, just saying here, have you ever seen Batman
and me in the same room at the same time?
Anyway, I'm sure that you feel just
as strongly as I do that having nothing
but shallow surface level friendships is
no way to go through life.
So as a follow up to that video,
today I wanna talk about how to actually strengthen
the relationships with the friends that you already have.
How do you make those connections deeper
and more meaningful?
And since we haven't seen them in
a couple of videos, let's queue those lamas.
(bass music)
Now in just a few minutes we're gonna talk about
some actual tactics for strengthening your relationships.
Things that you can actually do.
But before we get into those things
we have to talk about what is the foundation
for strong friendships.
And that is time.
As Aristotle once said, "Wishing to be friends
is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit."
Now this statement might seem obvious
but there is more than just common wisdom behind it.
There was actually a study done in
the University of Kansas recently
that shed some light on just how long
it takes to move through the different stages of friendship.
From the responses they collected, researchers found out
that it takes on average between 40 and 60 hours
of interaction to go from mere acquaintances
to casual friends.
To have somebody call you one of their actual friends
it takes between 80 and 100 hours.
And again, this is an average figure.
And over 200 hours before you're considered close friends.
This is the biggest reason why busy college students
and adults especially find it so difficult
to build meaningful relationships with people
who they haven't already known for a long time.
We're all just so busy, right?
We've all got packed schedules.
We're running all over the place
and this is why we find it so hard
to spend any decent amount of time with any one person.
And when we were kids, it was a very different story.
I remember when I was a kid growing up in the neighborhood
I would go out every single day in the summer
and I would knock on the doors of all my friends
in the neighborhood and see if they were available to play.
And if they were I would probably end up spending between
six to eight hours every single day with those friends.
And even when I was in high school,
if I didn't have sports practice
or if I wasn't working, I would be going over
to a friend's house almost every single day after school.
And over the course of a week, if I'm doing that
and I'm spending four to five hours there,
well, you do the math.
So before we get into the rest of the tips
in this video, keep this in mind.
You have to put in the time.
Ask yourself, how closely does
your daily experience right now match up
to that story I just told about me in high school?
If it's a very different story, if you find
that your schedule's super packed with all kinds of stuff
and the only time you're gonna see that one person
you wanna be friends with is like next weekend
for a two hour barbecue and then not again until October,
well you're not gonna become very good friends
with that person.
So you have to start making time to see these people
and you have to do it on a regular basis.
Now, how exactly do you do that?
Well.
(bass music)
Yes.
Be the organizer, be the leader.
This is my first and I think most important actionable tip
from this video.
You have to be the person that puts things together.
Now you might think that this is unfair.
You might think that you're building one-way friendships.
Why aren't they reaching out to me?
Why aren't they organizing events?
Well, here's the thing.
Everybody is thinking that, right?
Everyone's like, "Why haven't my friends reached
out to me in a long time?"
"Why haven't they invited me to go do something cool?"
"Why haven't they invited me to bungee jump
out of a helicopter?"
Will Smith's doing that on Instagram but my friends aren't.
Well the thing is people, when they get older
they get into their comfort zone.
They get into their routines.
They have all this kind of stuff going on in their life.
They've got their job, they've got their relationships.
All these demands on their time.
And a lot of people, in response to
that crazy schedule, don't reach out.
Don't organize.
Don't be the person who takes action.
So you have to be that person.
There's a saying that goes around in YouTube
and blogging and "content creations spheres"
that goes like this.
"Only five percent of people are creators,
the other 95 percent are simply consumers."
And I think that this applies to friendships
and relationships as well.
Only five percent of people are the organizers.
Only five percent of the people are the action takers.
The people that will put something together.
The other 95%?
Well, they're willing to do things, they'll show up.
But they wanna be told when and where to be.
So, if you wanna find more of your hours filled
with meaningful interactions with people
that you'd like to be better friends with
then be the person who sends out the invitations.
Be the person who organizes things.
Let people show up and be okay with being the leader.
Additionally, be very deliberate about
the activities you choose.
Yes, the hours you put in is very important.
Is probably the main factor as that study showed.
But what you choose to do with those hours,
the quality of those hours also matters a lot.
Friendship doesn't happen simply by osmosis.
And there's a big difference between say, having somebody
come over just to watch a movie where
you're both staring at a screen, not talking
to each other at all, and maybe inviting them
to go climb a mountain together where
you're out in nature and you're talking the entire time.
(bass music)
All right, something else that I think
is really important to talk about here
is the difference between group interactions
and one-on-one interactions.
Group interactions seem to be the norm.
And this makes since.
A lot of times when invites are going out
they're going out to lists of people.
They're going out to work places.
They're going out to clubs so everyone can show up.
And these can be a lot of fun.
A lot of inside jokes come out of them.
There's a lot of shared experiences.
And there's less pressure on you individually
to contribute to the conversation all the time
since a lot of people are there.
But the problem with group interactions
is that there's really no room for
deep, meaningful conversations with any one person.
Since everyone has to be included,
you kinda have to make sure the activities
you do choose and the topics of conversation
are palatable to all involved.
And as you add more people into the mix,
things inevitably become more general and surface level.
Like, if I wanna talk about say
the deep lyrical meanings behind
the Mars Volta song "Drunkship of Lanterns"
I can probably do it with you.
And by you I mean you, Ashley.
But, if I wanna talk with every single person watching
this video right now in one big group,
well we probably can't even pick
a Marvel movie to talk about without
a lot of people getting bored.
And actually, aside from that hypothetical example,
I do have a real story about this.
Last year I went to a sushi dinner with probably six
or seven of my friends, including my best friend Martin.
Now in that group of friends was another guy
who I didn't know super well at the time
but who was pretty into linguistics.
And as any of you who listen to my podcasts know
Martin is also very into linguistics.
And at one point during the dinner
they got into this very deep linguistics conversation.
But it became apparent after about 30 seconds
that everyone else at the table
had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.
And after a while, that conversation became
kind of awkward because everyone else
kinda got quiet and really couldn't contribute.
And I remember talking with Martin afterwards
and hearing him say that he wished he could've
had a longer conversation about linguistics with that guy.
But he said that he felt like he needed to
kind of cut the conversation off because
it wasn't relevant to the whole group.
So, in addition to your group interactions
and your ultimate frisbee games
and you 6v6 Overwatch matches, make sure
you're also making time for one-on-one interactions
with specific people.
This is where people are gonna open up about
the things they truly care about.
And we're gonna have conversations about
the passions that you both share.
And unlike with your group interactions
where in my experience the conversation usually consists
of memes and shared inside jokes
and surface level talk, when you hang out
with somebody alone they tend to get more vulnerable.
They tend to open up more.
So, these are the hours that are gonna lead
to closer friendships developing.
(bass music)
Now it's important to know that friendship isn't
just about having fun together.
It isn't just about hanging out.
Friendship is about being there for the other person.
So if you wanna build closer friendships
make sure that you are there for that person.
Make sure that you're there to help out.
This applies in both an emotional capacity,
when somebody's hurting be there to support them.
But also in other capacities.
And yes, I'm talking about helping people move.
If one of your friends has some big chore
to do next weekend and you're free that weekend
then why not show up and help them out with that chore?
They're going to be greatly appreciative
and you're actually gonna enjoy the time
even though it's work because you're
with somebody that you like.
And even though this is a video about
building deeper friendships, I do wanna add
one more tip to last week's video about making more friends.
If you're in college and if you're moving into
a dorm or an apartment and you're kinda done
with all of your own stuff, why not offer
to help somebody else who's moving in?
Who's gonna be your neighbor?
If you've got time on your hands, do that
and you're probably gonna make yourself a new friend.
(bass music)
Lastly, even if you don't get to see
your friends in person all that often
don't let a whole lot of time go by without
at least letting them know that you're thinking about them.
And this doesn't actually have to involve a lot of effort.
My friend Martin does this all the time by,
as he puts it, texting his friends nonsense.
And sometimes this literally is nonsense.
I have seen him text one of our friends the word "dogs".
Just the word "dogs" and nothing else.
But it's still a little blip on the radar, right?
It's still you popping up on your friends phone
and letting them know hey, I'm thinking about you.
I care about you enough to text
you the word "dogs", I guess.
I'm not just going about my life and forgetting about you.
And this process is integral to
maintaining your friendships.
If you don't get to see people all the time,
if you don't get to have those face-to-face interactions
every single week, at least keep the fire going.
So when you do get to see people, there isn't
a whole lot of catch up to do.
You can just sort of pick right up where you left off.
To give you a personal example, my friend Andrew
lives about a thousand miles away from me
now that I moved to Denver.
But even still, he probably texts me
at least once a week just to tell me about
things going on in his business
or things going on back home.
Or just to share a new app that he's discovered with me.
Though with regards to that last one
since he and I are both Mac geeks
that constant daily of app recommendations
can really put a hurting on my wallet.
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I wanna give a big thanks to Setup for sponsoring
this video and being a supporter of this channel.
And as always guys, thank you so much for watching.
If you enjoy this video and you found it informative
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Thanks so much for watching and if you missed
the first video in the series on how
to make new friends, that'll be in
the description down below, so check that out as well.
Otherwise I will see you in the next one.
