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 Lesleys and Annes, your Rustys and Dannys, your Batmans and Batman. 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 cue those llamas. Now, in just a few minutes, we're gonna talk about some actionable 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 at 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, the 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 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, 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 on the YouTube and blogging and content creation spheres that goes like this. Only 5% of people are creators. The other 95% are simply consumers. And I think that this applies to friendships and relationships as well. Only 5% of people are the organizers. Only 5% 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 want to be told when and where to be. So, if you want to 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. 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 sense. A lot of times when invites are going out, they're going out to lists of people. They're going out to workplaces. 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 kind of have to make sure the activities you 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 want to talk about, say, the deep lyrical meanings behind the Mars Volta song Drunk Ship of Lanterns, I can probably do it with you. And by you, I mean you, Ashley. But if I want to 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 podcast 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 kind of got quiet and really couldn't contribute. And I remember talking with Martin afterwards and hearing him say that he wished he could have 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 your 6v6 Overwatch matches, make sure that 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. Now, it's important to note 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 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 gonna 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 kind of 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. 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 friend's phone, 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 1,000 miles away from me now that I've 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 deluge of app recommendations can really put a hurting on my wallet. Or at least it would, if not for Setapp. Setapp is a service that gets you unlimited access to over 120 excellently designed Mac apps for just one low monthly price. These are apps that you normally have to buy individually, either online or in the Mac App Store, and a lot of times they have ads or in-app purchases with them. 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To get started, you can get a seven-day, completely free trial of their service, unlimited access to everything for seven days, absolutely free by going and signing up with the link in the description down below. I wanna give a big thanks to Setapp for sponsoring this video and being a supporter of this channel, and as always, guys, thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video and you found it informative and useful, maybe give it a like and subscribe right there if you don't wanna miss new videos when they come out every single week. You can also get a free copy of my book on how to earn better grades right over here, follow me on Instagram, at TomFrankly, or check out one more video on this channel right over here. Thanks so much for watching, and if you missed the first video in this 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.