How to make friends

I made more new friends in a month in college than in a year after graduating. This experience isn’t unique and after moving to a new city I’m trying to learn how to better make friends. A rough formula is:

% chance of new friend = Density * Probability * Quality 

Breaking down each of these further

1. Density = amount of people nearby
   • Without anyone nearby you, it’s hard to make friends
   • Denser locations like cities offer more potential people to interact with, but it’s critical you actually can interact with them. Bringing us to #2.
2. Probability = the chance that you’ll interact with people on a daily basis
   • Research from sociologists indicates friendships are often dictated by proximity and frequency of interactions. Even where children sit in school dictates the likelihood of making friends.
   • So not only do you have to be in a place where people are, but also in a place where everyone’s guard is down and you might interact (ie coffee shop vs street)
3. Quality = an artificial similarity bar unique to each person.
   • College is such a great place because everyone you meet is within a similar four year age band, roughly same intelligence, and likely similar backgrounds.
   • While much of this applies at work, it’s also true when you join a rock climbing club or sports league. In these cases you’re interacting with people who you can easily spark conversations with.

My takeaway is while friendships can’t be forced, you can expand the opportunity to make friends through actions like:

1. Joining sports leagues, hobbies, religious clubs and repeatedly attending them.
2. Being a “regular” at places like coffee shops or even the water cooler at work.
3. Even more importantly being in person at events. This is especially the case if you have kids where you can imagine talking to a parent during baseball games.

A few other items playing into this is 

1. Mimetic Desire posits that our interests aren’t unique to us, but are imitated from others
   • This podcast jumps into the implications more deeply and my big takeaway is the power of networks
   • You’re more likely to become friends with friends of your friends so as your network grows so does your surface area for friendship
2. Additionally there’s different levels of friends
   • Robert Dunbar is famous for Dunbar’s number of 150 friends, but in this podcast he explains each of us has different “layers of friends” from 1.5 → 150
     • 1.5 is closest friends and generally romantic relationships
     • 5 are shoulders to cry on. Where you can be most emotionally vulnerable
     • 50 is sympathy
     • 150 is people who would attend your funeral 
   • When making new friends, people will start lower down before jumping up to different levels 

Making a friend is like tending a garden. It doesn’t look like much at first, but with deliberate effort and time it can blossom into something beautiful.