A friend recently shared an article entitled “The Curse of the Connector.” Its tagline? “It’s easy to never be alone and yet very lonely.” The writer describes a glamorous Gatsby whirlwind of life in his social circle, in which everyone is supposed to always be doing something exciting and “crushing it.” But, he says, “The world desperately needs more “connections” to become true friendships.”
I live in the Silicon Valley, and I’ve experienced the culture the author is talking about. The “crush it” culture exhausts me because, on the surface at least, it seems to focus heavily on appearances. In addition, there is the “always busy” mentality. Meanwhile, we like to speculate on whether social media is making us more lonely. All of these ideas are interconnected, as they relate to the type and depth of connections with which we surround ourselves.
I’m going to rush right by the fact that the first mention about true friends in this article is that they make excellent personal brand consultants. (Really?!? That’s the first thing that comes to mind about friendship? Really?!?) At its heart, this article is about the realization that our lives are better when we have close friends as well as a large number of acquaintances, that friendship isn’t a numbers game or a mere ego boost.
Photo Credit: h.koppdelaney via Compfight cc
Yes, friendship takes time. Yes, it takes work. Yes, sometimes it can be quite difficult to find kindred spirits with whom to be close. Since last year was the Year of Friendship for me, I spent a lot of time thinking about these things, and now I have a few theories about friendship:
The Once a Week Theory: The more often you see somebody, the more likely you are to become close friends. Once a week or more is optimal. Once every other week is adequate. Less than once a month and the friendship probably doesn’t have the time to form right now. (For long distance friendship making, texts, emails, and Skypes can be substituted for in-person time. For established friendships, you can sometimes get by on less, but eventually you won’t be as close.)
It is no coincidence that many of my close friends get together every week for game night. I think of other close friends I’ve made, and there is generally either a concerted effort to see each other regularly, or a steady stream of texts or emails.
The One-on-One Theory: Sure, I can have good times with people at parties or group outings. But for me, a friendship becomes closer when I spend time one-on-one or in small groups (probably no more than four or five). The more one-on-one time I spend with somebody, the more likely we are to become close friends.
The Diminishing Returns Theory: Not everyone is going to be a perfect friend match. Maybe she’s too busy, maybe he’s going through a rough patch, maybe the two of us just didn’t click (or it was a one-sided click). Maybe there’s something in the friendship dynamic that isn’t working too well. It doesn’t mean you aren’t both great people, it just means you’re not going to become close. Happily, there are many more fabulous people out there who might become good friends. It works better to invest time with the people who will invest their time in you and can be part of a balanced and positive friendship. (Yes, friendship can be surprisingly like dating.)
Taylor’s Party Corollary: The closer the friend, the earlier you plan to arrive at their parties. It’s nice when a close friend arrives close to the start time. They can help set up, chat comfortably, hang out before the party picks up speed, or occupy early-arriving acquaintances and help the conversation flow. (Note: I am not good at this. I almost always arrive late to parties.)
How about you? Have any theories of your own about friendship?
The Practical Free Spirit 
I have my own theories but I like your idea about arriving early at the party. Sharing a few before event nerves is a great way to bond
Plus then you know at least one person is coming! 😉
I am coming from the viewpoint of a married man with four kids, so our social life can be difficult to actively manage. We have a wonderful group of close friends, all different ages and convictions. We let relationships grow naturally to avoid the guesswork of what we might be doing wrong. The right people for us stick around so we use that indicator for the effort we make to connect with them. Some of us even have invisible connections that draw us to each other naturally. 🙂
Oh sure, just going with the flow with friendships often works quite well. Doesn’t make for much of a blog post, though. And also it isn’t perhaps quite as useful when you’re in full-on make new friends mode. 😉
You’re right. It’s like dating. I have forgotten what dating a stranger is like. I date the same person all the time. 😉
I can totally see how Taylor’s friendship-party corollary works. Yet it is only *sometimes* is true for me.
The way I see it, 1:1 time is more likely to include depth connection, parties are more for breadth/group/crowd connection. The makeup/purpose of the party and one’s familiarity with the people involved help determine your experience of breadth vs. depth connection. Most parties end up being for a) finding and experiencing new connections with (or just ‘watching’) people you don’t know well – but who may be somewhat ‘vetted’ through shared friends or interests and/or (breadth) b) places to have followup connection or maintenance/renewal catchup with a subset of friends, which is especially useful if you’re crunched for time. (combo breadth+depth)
I go to networking events that are some subset of the latter (sometimes clothed in work-valuations) all the time. Yet I so highly value un-noisy depth over breadth (and most parties are the latter, even among friends) that parties have often become a net negative, unless they’re heavily weighted toward a high potential for deep friend-connections (even new ones), and/or are a place with quieter nooks/crannies to have real conversation (the joy of spontaneous 1:1 spark within a crowd is awesome).
I so highly value my work & my sparse one-on-one time with others that my just _showing up_ to a party, even or especially on the late side, is a sign that I really highly value your friendship and/or the people you might bring to it. This is partially because the only people I want to hang out with when I’m tired late at night, or risk tilting my sleep schedule for, are the ‘real’ friends I don’t have to be perfectly ‘on’ for. When I was younger I also sometimes came to parties to help set up, connect 1:1 or in a small group because I *know* we can lock in around schedules then, bond over productivity… and then left once the party actually started hopping. (Though I should say that, while I highly value ‘doers’, there is sometimes a false conflation risk in treating all ‘helpers’ as true friends. Plus, it sucks to throw a party and have you and all your closest friends so tuckered from the work involved that you don’t enjoy it as much – which is one of the reasons why I rarely throw birthday parties for myself. This is mitigated by good pre-party planning, and some of my friends get around this by having stuff catered. Not everyone has has that luxury, though… and you *can* make party prep spontaneously fun. =)
I think I might not have done justice to Taylor’s corollary in my explanation. While the helping out part is nice, the way I understand it the most important part of showing up early is being there to break the ice of the party, so to speak. For example, if you show up early and then some acquaintances of the hostess show up next, you can chat with the acquaintances and make the whole thing seem less awkward. So basically you’re helping out your good friend, which is certainly not required but a nice thing to do if it happens to work out.
Inversely, if you are a slight acquaintance, you might want to show up to the party later so there will be plenty of people there for you to circulate through (or perhaps more people who you know, which makes settling into the party easier for some people).
And yes, what you call depth vs. breadth I tend to call strong vs. weak ties, but I think we’re talking about the same thing. 🙂
Depth is more likely to be stronger, I think! But I do think they are subtly different – in this case it’s a matter of the nature of the event or experience itself characteristically lending to a different kind of focus.
If I show up at a big party with a bunch of my super-close friends (strong ties), it’s still far more likely to be a higher ‘breadth’ experience just because it’s harder to get time/focus-wise into super-deep or vulnerable, intimate conversation in a dedicated fashion due to being friendly, getting distracted saying hello to others I know well. So even among close friends one seems more likely due to the nature of parties/# of folks to have a similar catchup conversation where we skate along the top of similar details multiple times.
In this case it’s often still more fulfilling than the very first time I meet a random person (even if it doesn’t have the pop of some first-zing connection). This happened recently to me at a wedding; it was my favorite wedding ever, just due to the fact that I knew and had fun dancing around_so many_ great people in the room.
Did I have really soul-baringly deep conversations with most of the people there? No. The same update words strangers might’ve considered light had much more resonance and meaning when shared among ‘strong’ and ‘deep/depthful’ friends. And it felt amazingly, uniquely satisfying to have that sheer number of people I loved in the room celebrating my friends’ marriage together. Yet the # of strong connections in the room still didn’t replace the focused, individualized depth of connection that happens one-on-one. =)
And +++! I totally agree that being a good icebreaker at the beginning of a friend’s event is a great and noble quality. (Being a good ‘introducer’, facilitator, or entertainer during larger events/group dynamics is of similar value.) It’s always great to have more than one social ‘host’ in that way, and friends who have and exercise that capacity are golden.
What a lovely topic! Thank-you!
I have a lot of acquaintances, and it was the reason why I never stayed living in a city. I didn’t have a close friendship to stay; without a close friendship, it was just another town.
My current partner is the only one I ever got dating started after we hit it off as friends (no date intentions). Simultaneously we both exclaimed “I wish dating was like this.” (no pressure, no facades, not goal/agenda oriented).
She is really my best friend and had also gone through her own tested-by-fire experience to where our experiences were different (her blog- christmascancer.com ), but were stronger and tested people because of it. I feel too that it is the feeling of a true peer-an equal who is different but on the same level.
In my experience I have found out that some friendships are seemingly geographical-once somebody moves things just go silently into the night. I
I know if I can count on one friend, its one more than just flying solo for comfort and support.
-L
Yeah, I agree with you that close friendships/relationships really tie me to a place in a way that few others things do.
I always try to arrive at the start, if the party is being thrown by someone I know (even if I don’t know them well). I figure that’ll be my best time to talk to them, and to talk to people individually, as they arrive. I also often stay to the end….I just like parties.
Going early or staying late seem to be better for spending time with the party throwers. But early has the upside of them not being tired yet. 🙂
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