How to make friends
Bryan Apr 19, 2023
Boom. You’re 22, now 23. You graduated, moved moving to a new city. Everyone is spread out, working, and you just aren’t near all your friends from school anymore. To be honest, your friends from school dropped off fast during covid-19 anyways.
Here’s what you do.
Come in with a goal: Figure out what is missing in your life. There’s probably some need missing.
90% of meeting people is reaching out, so, unless you’re already very well-known, most of your network building will consist of actively initiating conversations.
Online
First, be active online. This means Instagram (2023). It is a vice and honestly a lot of my advice (taken to extremes) may be bad for you. But in the end it’s a useful vice. You are not too cool for Instagram.
First, redo your feed.
- This is everyone’s impression of you. Flanderize yourself… you are 10,000 things, but unfortunately most people can only understand one simple thing at a time. A bit dehumanizing, but remember social media is f a k e
- If there’s too much baggage from 8 years ago, make a new account whatever. But you have to be shameless in posting. Sorry.
- Smash them on the head in your bio with who you are… don’t make them guess. The only thing you should not say is your attractiveness or money — those should be obvious and exaggerated. Everyone needs to be “something”... be it your job or your aspiring side hustle or your school or whatever.
- Even if you have an existing feed, a bad feed is worse than nothing. As a man, you get a pass if you have no feed, which is neutral. However, an empty feed means you rely completely on in-person interactions.
- Make people gravitate towards you. This means having a public feed. A good litmus test is Do you have a good rate of people follow you back if you cold-follow them?
- It should have at least 21 pictures (this is 7 rows, at least 1 swipe). It should be obvious by your 9 pictures in the thumbnails who you are without them clicking into it.
- This should be done at least monthly, preferably weekly until you hit 30 posts.
- Photodumps
- First picture is on your profile
- Second is seen again
- I would not put reels on your main profile, keep it in the 2nd tab.
- Don’t overthink it though.
Second, post on stories.
- This is how people actually are reminded you exist.
- Post content that reminds them what they could be doing with you
- Do it consistently… this is the place where you can up it to daily
- Pretty things that don’t stand on their own.
- Filler: don’t fit feed: Cool formats, too bright, ootd in closet, things without you
- Once you’re big enough: links, videos, Q&A, interactions
- Then, create a list of shit that breaks down who you are in your highlights: ootd, vacation, etc
Third, DM people.
- Comment, Reply to their stories, Like their stuff. These are all so low effort ways to start a conversation and to basically getting ways to hang out with someone. You should basically support them in some way with replies.
- There’s a rule in nyc that if you meet someone you need to hang out with them in quick succession afterwards to be friends. I think this is true for anyone… it’s basically a forgetting curve:
- Therefore, you need interactions to remind them who you are unless you want to scale meeting 12 people the week after a party. Obviously, just do it with people you really, really fw.
Generally your follower counts do matter. So does your ratio. How do you improve these?
In-person
Online is pretty useless unless you actually meet people. Instagram is not a good place to meet people, even online.
I am really bad at putting effort into friendships. But it’s something you need to do, treat them well.
Buy housewarming gifts, cook for them, be there for them, give them deals on things you’re selling, send them memes.
1. Friends - give love to them: buy housewarming gifts, cook for them, be there for them, give them deals on things you’re selling, send them memes,
2. Companions - Do above but less
3. Acquaintances - birthdays, like their posts, respond to them
Now, if you have friends, how do you maintain them at scale?
Host Parties
Or “events”. Invite people over
Easy ones: poker night, pregame,
Go to Parties