Table of Contents

1. Displacement: How did we get here?

2. General Premises of Friendship

3. Misconceptions and Roadblocks

4. Revisiting The 6 Friend Types

5. Friend Self-Management Best Practices

6. Friend Holidays to Drive Connection

7. Friendology Operations and Math

8. Accelerants to the Friendship Stage

9. Actions to Take to Enhance Your Friend Development

Appendix 1

Intro

This paper is Volume 2 of Friendology. Volume 1 is Friendology: A New Take on Friendship. You should read volume 1 first if you have not already.

In Volume 1 the three pillars were constructed:

Much stability can come from the lateral friend network.

• Friends supply the renewable energy your nervous system actually runs on. Imprint is the friendship pattern between two people.
• It’s the living neural space that lights up when someone matters. Reciprocity keeps the friendship field alive.
• Invitations, interest, and effort circulate warmth through the connection.

In this Volume 2, I will share my field notes on making friends in the real world.

After eleven of my twelve friends moved away, I was down to 1 friend, a stable marriage, and a few independent family members who I enjoyed spending time with when they were available. I was almost always available because I only had the one friend. I watched a lot of TV. I went to the gym, and inevitably I worked more, like 50+ hours a week. Why not? It was either work or watch TV, and at least work kept my mind active and allowed me to focus and get into flow state.

When I began my friend network rebuilding with a goal of making 59 friends, I started paying close attention to what was working and what was not and writing it down to make sure I could capture and reuse it. That became Friendology Volumes 1 and 2.

I loved to discuss what I was doing in Friendology and get input and arguments from other people. The dissenter arguments were the most useful. I would go home and think and write out a response to their question or argument, add it to these field notes, and send them a copy by email to close the loop.

Many people openly scoffed and said they preferred to make friends organically and preferred quality over quantity. Multiple people asked about introverts and incorrectly claimed that they do not need friends. Another asked about neurodivergent people who do not react or miss people in the same way.

No one liked or believed the 59-friend target. At least 2 people who I considered and consider friends questioned whether I liked them or just wanted to add them to the count. I heard “Am I just a number to you?” I thought: Yes, the best kind of number, someone I consider a friend. I hope you consider me one of your number too, whether that is 3, 7, 27 or whatever, and I hope we connect in a way that makes you miss me enough to stay in touch and spend time together. In an emerging social environment new contacts who heard the number often said, “You can count me as one of them,” or “I hope you will count me as one of them.” Oddly, those people often did not work out because they did not set the bar high enough for what is a friend and often did not do the reciprocal work. A better thought and question might be, “What do you think it will take for us to become friends?” After months of that, I dropped the specific number and said, "I am actively trying to make more friends."

The biggest pushback was against using math to understand the challenge of making friends. It was as if I was a threat and had corrupted the pure and sacred practice of human bonding by breaking down the challenge with numbers and building it back up as a system I could use. That math was the original breakthrough, but the blowback from reviewers was so consistent that I had to bury it to keep it from derailing the discussion and preventing the reader from finishing. You will find it in section 7. The math was the key for me. I hope you can keep an open mind.

I think what I value most about these field notes is where I figured out what was not working: activity groups, couples, convenient sources, events with short and shallow conversations, so I could reallocate my efforts to the approaches that were working better. In a task as inefficient as making friends, I needed every insight and support I could muster.

I decided to keep the original field-note format, which includes a LOT of lists, a feature almost every reviewer objected to. Think of it as “behind-the-scenes footage.” I believe the longer the whole volume gets, the fewer people will read it. It is a trade off I am willing to make. You will see I broke up the longest lists and forced myself to add case studies and commentaries. I hope that helps make it more readable and you make it to the last items on the lists. Any one item could catalyze a breakthrough for you.

I used AI extensively at all levels in Volume 1. This Volume 2 is 100% human writing. Less polish but hopefully more relatable pearls per page brought to you in a native human voice.

How to Use this Manual

This is a tactical manual for making new local, in-person friends based on 133 findings from my own efforts. Any 5 will make a noticeable impact on your friend grid building.

Read it through at whatever depth and speed make sense for you for the first pass. Print out the manual and put marks on the findings as follows:

3 High expected impact

2 Medium expected impact

1 Low expected impact or unsure for now

0 Not applicable for me at this time

On your next pass through the manual, tag each marked finding with:

More – do this more often

Less – do this less frequently

Stop – stop using or doing these things

This will tailor the manual to your living social environment and make it more useful for you. This becomes your personalized guidebook to making more local friends.

Then bring it to life with your existing and new connections. Do more of what works. Do less of what does not.

Get out, meet people, practice and enjoy how many more new connections and friends you create.

1. The Danger of Displacement in 6 Areas

Why is it so damn hard to make friends?

You are not imagining it. It is much harder to make friends than 10, 20, or 30 years ago. Displacement drives the decrease in friends and the increase in difficulty finding new ones. Without trying to be too negative or fatalistic, this section highlights activities and factors to watch for in yourself and others:

1. Social media, online gaming, online gambling, pornography, personal video consumption, headphones, and podcasts all displace in-person friend development and get togethers. These activities simulate contact, mask and relieve loneliness and boredom, and keep people from getting out of the house.

2. Addiction to work, money, remodeling the house, drama, drugs, or alcohol can and will disrupt friend development and social time and will lead to erratic, selfish behavior that will dissolve friendships faster.

3. Overly close family ties will displace friend development. For example, adult children living with their parents and being best friends with their children greatly weakens their children’s social skills and motivation to make friends.

4. Groups and couples will provide social interaction but may not provide personal friendship.

5. Remote work also keeps people in the house far more than regular M-F hours at the office. No face-to-face meetings, no water cooler chat, and no lunches with other people.

6. Low-quality and weaker friends will displace finding better ones.

These displacers may weaken social skills to the point of making people far less able to socialize and make friends.

It is friendships and relationships that bear the brunt of this unprecedented displacement. There are about half as many friendships in the US vs. 1990. The friendship population is being decimated. It is time to reverse that.

If Not Displaced, then Just Placed

I personally don’t look at social media, do online or video games, gamble, listen to podcasts, wacth online videos, work for money, think my brother is my friend, and I stopped going to group events that were not focused on real conversation or friend introductions. I let my unhealthy friendships and contacts fade away.

I did join 2 paid membership social clubs, start hosting movie events, throwing parties at my house and at restaurants. I converted my travel budget to my make-friends budget. I met people in person any time that fit their schedule. The less TV I watched the more friends I spent time with.

2. General Principles and Premises

Foundational Observations

1. You cannot make friends with someone who is not willing to make new friends. I estimate that fewer than 1% of adults 35 to 65 are actively (effectively) looking for friends.

2. Find and use quality sources (see 4 below) for the kind of people you are looking for. Avoid falling back onto convenient, low-quality sources.

3. You will probably lose Friends every 3 years, especially local friends. New friends will fall off at an even higher rate in the first year. Most people lose 1 friend per year.

4. Smiling makes you happier and helps you meet and connect with people. Happiness and smiling correlates to more and better relationships.

5. Proximity will have a large impact on frequency of meeting. Frequency is a driver of trust.

6. Statistically, each good friend should extend your life about 2 years. How much would people pay for a pill that made them 24% healthier and live 22% longer? Yet, few adults invest enough or anything in finding local friends, which are proven to do the same.

7. Family relationships (parents, kids, siblings, cousins) operating as friends will disrupt and displace friend development.

If They Don’t Want New Friends

I have always wanted more friends, so I never expected to find that almost all men over 45 are not looking for friends. It makes it hard to find potential friends in contacts and makes a person to fall back on less probable sources, like people at work or the workers at the bar or the restaurant. Using better sources, see below, helps a lot but even in those environments I try to drop into conversation, “Are you looking for more friends?” or I look for the “no vacancy” signals, like I am slammed at work. I have 3 teenagers. We have 2 toddlers. I travel 2 weeks a month for work. Intent is an inescapable requirement.

Perceptual and Contextual Insights

8. People vastly underestimate how many connections and friends they will lose and how many new ones they need to develop and maintain.

9. Relationships develop from one level to the next, so the relationships in one bound the potential relationships in another. It’s a connected pipeline that requires attention at each stage for overall success.

10. Money is not much comfort if you are friendless.

11. Like and Love are the same energy at different points along the same spectrum with similar beneficial effects on life satisfaction and health. This premise helps highlight the power and value of friendships.

12. Love is probably unlimited, but time and energy are not; work and nuclear family responsibilities will compete with time for friends and may limit the capacity and number of friends someone has at a particular stage in life. That is the main reason why people are not available to make new friends. Giving up on friends is a less obvious process than breaking up with lovers.

13. It is easier to love someone than to be friends with them. Love is feeling-driven, but being friends requires a significant logistical and tactical alignment.

14. Most people have specific quantitative earning and retirement goals, and all would benefit from having specific friend goals. It is hard to succeed without a defined goal.

15. Making friends gets harder each decade from 20s through 60s, so focusing on friend development and maintenance sooner will lead to better outcomes later. It is better to maintain more friends at each stage of life than to try to build from zero when you retire.

A Very Big Friend Goal

I went to my brother’s 60th birthday party and he had 45 guests with 10 family and 35 friends. I did not have a birthday party that year because I had 1 local friend. I often ask people how many friends they have and most get defensive or uncomfortable and reply consistently, “Depends on how you define friends.” To which I say, “A friend is someone you see at least 4 times a year privately, and they invite at least one of those times.” They do not expect me to have that ready to roll. Then I watch and listen as they take inventory and eventually tell me a few. So, when I was 58, I made a goal of having 59 friends by my 59th birthday. Having a clear goal galvanized my efforts. I didn’t make it, but I got about 1/3 of the way there. 59 friends was my north star and most people supported it and rooted for me at least to my face. People hate applying numbers to friends because they are sentimental and pure—they believe that it is an organic process that just magically happens. Bullshit, it takes effort and a plan, and a plan needs a number to make sense. Start with 5 total local friends as the goal. 5 good local friends has support in the published research and will make a world of difference.

Stop the Phantom Census of Crappy Friends

17. Not everyone should or will progress to good friend, and that is ok. Forcing people into the wrong group could be awkward, backfire, and cause disconnection.

18. Quantity can and will drive quality. Quantity of friends is the most reliable way to develop more good friends. When you have few friends, you are more likely to allow yourself to be mistreated.

19. Maintaining low-quality friends will displace finding better-quality new ones.

20. Having interests in common is probably less important than having values and social practices in common. Diversity in most areas of life is healthy.

21. Friends require accountability and consistency. Many people (these days) do not want to be held to that and so prefer not to have official friends and like mostly anonymous group activities and Meetups where they get agency and some social contact and almost no commitment.

22. Making friends is a skill, and you will get better at it the more consistently you do it. Your ability to read people and understand what matters to them and you will get better.

“You Only Care About Quantity”

If I had a dollar for every time I heard this in my quest for 59 friends or discussions about Friendology, I would have over fifty. If you have 0 friends, do you have a quantity problem or a quality problem? If you were looking to hire someone, would you rather review 100 resumes or just 2? Why? Because quantity allows you to be more selective in the quest to find more people with initial fit and offers a better chance to become quality friends. Of course quality matters. At my age, there are hardly enough years left to wait and hope to get lucky and bump into 1 perfect quality friend every 3 years. The key is to find the places and sources that increase your odds of finding the good ones and start exploring.

3. Misconceptions and Roadblocks

Figuring out the issues in this section were among the biggest breakthroughs for me and freed up about 30% of my energy to focus on what was working. So many single phrases in this section and this field manual created huge shifts in my momentum and progress. Read them carefully. Watch for that feeling of recognition when your nervous system brightens and lightens. Make a note and take it from field manual to field work.

Priority

The misconception is that someone does not like you and does not want to be friends even though it feels like they do and nothing seems to have gone wrong. The truth may be that they do not like you enough relative to their available capacity. There are at least three variables: liking, capacity, and priority.

Priority indicates where you fall in their hierarchy and capacity. In their available capacity they will allocate their time based on the priority they have for people. Capacity can run out before you get time and lead to disappointment and frustration. It may require unbalanced effort on your part to secure a priority that gets you some capacity. Priority and capacity are two more reasons why having more friends is better. A mix of friends with different capacities for you will keep you from feeling rejected, lonely, and frustrated.

Resistance and Friction

The misconception is that they do like you but are busy, and it will work out.

This is a between state where contacts and friends respond very slowly, make a lot of

excuses in response to invites or never respond. Maybe they don’t like you and don’t want

to have or build a relationship with you, but they are also not willing to tell you directly that they don’t. Maybe they like you enough to see you if you do all the work but not enough to do some of the work. Or you are not high enough on their priority. Reciprocation clears this doubt and frustration.

Couple Friends

The misconception is that if one partner likes their friend, their partner will like their friend’s partner. The problem is that the selection pool is just one, odds are against two people liking each other. It’s like two darts hitting on the tips.

Couple friends can be a tremendous friend experience when they work, but the reality is

that the majority of time they do not. If we contextualize the couple friends, we can see that they are actually a collection of individual relationships of varying strength.

Each person in two couples has a relationship with 3 other people. If we assume that the people like their partner, then there are 4 new relationships, 2 people liking the 2 people in the other couple. However, the liking has to go both ways, which is 8 connections. All 8 connections being positive is 4 times less likely (25%) than 2 people liking each other.

Group Friends

The misconceptions in groups are many: 1) that if you are in a group of 10 friends that you have 9 friends, 2) groups are a good place to make friends, 3) groups are stable, 4) having activities in common makes you friends.

Being part of a friend group is stimulating and rewarding. Research shows it reduces loneliness and improves resilience. Dyadic friendships provide more emotional and physical health benefits. Groups can be an effective resource for personal friends, but time and attention should be applied to build one-on-one relationships by meeting in pairs outside the group, but that is often frowned upon by the group organizer because it weakens the group and excludes the organizer. Groups seem more stable than dyads or triads of friends, but as they become more stable and predictable, people have a tendency to compete, stir up drama, and gossip. Removing a problem member from a group is a mess. Enforcing appropriate behaviors is problematic. Networks with loose borders and refreshing membership are more stable. Activities like sports often require groups of 4 or 5 people, so see you as beneficial but usually not a friend. In recent times, people are using team interaction as a substitute for personal friendships, which is displacing and suboptimal. Ask yourself this about your friend or activity groups: How many would drive pick you up at the airport? How many of them will drive 45 minutes to come to your funeral? It’s not zero, but it’s close.

Introversion and Extraversion

In this popular misconception, introverts do not need friends and extraverts like having many and shallow friends.

Introverts need less external stimulation and are drained by being around acquaintances and strangers. Extraverts need more stimulation and are more likely to enjoy or at least tolerate acquaintances and strangers. Even highly introverted people benefit from and desire close, meaningful social ties. What typically differs is the preferred style of socializing (smaller groups, one-on-one, less frequent, or more depth). No research suggests that introverts do not enjoy time with friends. A research study found a directional tendency that introverts prefer fewer closer friends to extraverts who prefer both close friends and more friends. A separate research study found that strong extraverts have about 2 more friends than strong introverts, but the causation might be from the greater comfort meeting people and not the trait itself. There is no research that finds that introverts need no friends and will be completely happy alone. None. Studies on loneliness and introversion (e.g., Saklofske & Yackulic, 1989) find that introverts report higher loneliness than extraverts when they lack friends, which they are more likely to experience.

The introversion/extraversion spectrum does not at all negate the Friendology math (see below). 3 close friends requires a person to make more than 10 casual friends. 10 casual friends requires meeting about 100 contacts. Unless you can make a close friend without making a casual friend, you have to widen your social activity. This misunderstanding of introversion is being used by some as an excuse (one of many excuses) not to invest in making friends. My position is that more good friends is better, and my position is backed by over 12 dozen research studies.

4. Sidebar: Revisiting Definitions of Friend Relationships in 6 Types

A friend likes and misses you enough to initiate contact and invite you to meet. Those who don’t are Connections, Acquaintances, or Teammates.

Good friend– very high trust, very few boundaries

Friend – high trust, few boundaries

Casual Friend – medium trust, medium boundaries, fit a little off, those waning or plateaued

Connection– someone whose contact info you have and who has yours

Acquaintance– someone you know and interact with

Teammate– someone you meet and can contact but you always meet in a group or at work or place or doing an activity; they are not friends unless you have a personal relationship outside of the team or place.

Many people count place-friends as friends, but they are not the same. This will prove out if the coffee shop, gym, bar, company, or social club closes as you are unlikely to see them again. The place and activity friends mask the lack of personal friends.

Good Friends

Why do we like people? Why do we trust them? Why do we laugh more with some than others? It seems a bit mysterious. A lot of the reason is frequency of contact—they prove we can trust them at multiple levels. Some people mount our rescue during a crisis and “earn a place in our heart” or at least our neural imprint of them. They listen; they see us; they get us. They understand things we never tell them. We can be ourselves with them without fear of judgment. They often believe in us more than we do ourselves and offer a source of power and strength that transcends us. They confirm we are likable and loved.

Among people you like, successful Friendships are largely tactical and work best with many areas of fit and overlap. The key areas to look for fit are:

1. Time available to meet

2. Frequency other party is interested in meeting

3. Self-employed or working for someone will be a primary driver of schedule availability

4. Age can be correlated to lifestyle, like caring for kids or semi-retired or retired

5. Marital or partner status, 2 single people will have many opportunities to meet, while someone with a difficult or demanding spouse will have much less

6. Activities, interests, and topics of discussion in common

You are likely to have a better friendship with someone with a high tactical fit who you like well enough than someone you like more with a poor fit. Frequency drives affinity.

Loneliness can and should be a motivator to invest more in friend development, but it can be a struggle when people have no friends, confidence, confidants, or a framework for doing it. Friendology will transform understanding, approach, and results for building your chosen community of friends.

5. Friend Self-Management Best Practices

It is not just you, almost everyone is rusty at making friends. Getting back out there on the friend scene is a bit intimidating if you, like I did, have a voice in your head that says, “Since I have only 1 friend, I must not be very likable.” Drown that out with the 5-letter operating manual below.

Friendship is not a mystery; it’s an interaction pattern. And every pattern runs on signals. IEEET is the simplest, most reliable signal pattern I’ve ever found for turning a stranger into a connection, a connection into a friend, and a friend into someone who actually misses you. If Volume 1 gave you the physics of imprint, IEEET in practice gives you the behavioral code your nervous system can deploy instantly. You don’t need to change who you are; you just need to send and receive signals in a more stable and appealing manner.

Here is a simple, memorable framework for connecting and accelerating imprinting, I call it the IEEET or I Triple E T. The are the signals of the state of being friendful. Being friendful is another way of saying being friendly, mindful, and likable.

I Interest, be genuinely interested in the other person E Eye contact, connect without glaring or staring E Empathy, the glue that makes the other 4 work E Effort/Ears/Engaged listening T Thanks, appreciate and express appreciation

This friendful behavior will improve your ability to imprint (Pillar 2), establish relationships, and be missed enough to get invited to meet.

It Starts with Grounding Yourself

1. Filter yourself and your comments more in the beginning and then less as you become closer friends. Consider filtering 90% at the first meeting and 10% less in each successive meeting. Make sure you like, understand, and trust each other before you share your unfiltered you. Doing so too soon may hinder the relationship development.

2. Don’t take your friends for granted. Any living thing that is not nurtured will wither and die. Feed the relationship with the gifts of attention and time. New relationship energy will atrophy at a rate I estimate at 10% per week, meaning if you don’t contact a new contact or friend at all for 5 weeks, the relationship strength will drop in half. More established friends will atrophy at a lower rate of 1% per week. Long-time friends will not drop as much, but who wants a friend who doesn’t ever reach out?

3. Happiness is a subjective choice. Be as happy as possible as you set out to make friends. Research shows that happier friends make a person happier by 15%. It also found that happiness or lack of affects not only your friends but their friends and their friends’ friends. Almost no one wants a friend less happy than they are. Misery loves company; happy loves happy company.

4. Ask good questions and listen with genuine interest. Validate other people.

5. Be empathetic. Perceive and understand friends’ issues and needs.

The Cascading Filter

Sometimes it makes sense that we reveal ourselves more completely and sometimes we forget anyway, which is more endearing. We say too much. We give too much away too soon. If we don’t lower our filter and let our authentic selves be seen, we are unlikely to make good friends. Filtering is difficult and consumes attention and energy; it seems like we are rewarded for being obedient fractions of ourselves. A gradual approach to decreasing the filter usually works best—cascade the filter down a bit each visit as trust comes up. It’s another reason why frequency of meeting plays such an impactful role.

Don’t Waste Good Opportunities by Acting Detached Like Other People

6. Always signal positively to the people you like. For example, positive and supportive comments, always propose a specific alternative to an invite you cannot accept. Avoid the brakes and build momentum toward friends.

7. Everything we do to sabotage ourselves and our relationships probably comes from insecurity and self-worth issues. You have to like yourself to connect well with others and have them like you.

8. If you are failing to connect well early, it is probably your manners. If you are failing later, you probably need to adjust for the fit of people you are connecting with. If you are failing middle and late, you may need to work out an issue that is blocking you from being your best self.

9. Trust people faster. Consider them friends faster. While you expose yourself to disappointment, you maximize the number and duration of friends before they move away or move on from you. Enjoy the people you can now, while they are here, and don’t worry about future disconnection. Better to have more friends along the way.

10. When people do not return calls and texts and do not make an effort to see you, it usually means: 1) they don’t like you, 2) they like you but don’t want new friends, or 3) they have a bad mental state or bad manners. After some number of attempts it is logical to give up and move on. Life is too short to start a friendship with someone who does not value your attention.

Manners Matter a LOT to Almost Everyone and They Often Expect More from Others than They Expect from Themselves

Since I was young, I underindexed on manners. Maybe I was not self-aware. I was a latchkey free-range kid that grew up with a lot of freedom. Maybe I liked uniqueness and diversity instead of consistency and conformity. I did not mind if other people’s manners were rough if they were high energy and interesting. My wife is Japanese, where manners are taught, emphasized, and reinforced at every level. Recently, I have come to understand that they show respect and deference when people do not know and like or love us yet. Manners are the onramp to friendship. Ignore them and you will see a lot of quick offramps.

6. Celebrate Friends on These Established and Emerging Friend Holidays

Holidays help drive frequency of meeting which strengthens friendships. Celebrate friendship on the friend holidays or just before or after the traditional ones. Narrow definitions of holiday experiences usually confine us to family traditions that, while traditional, can be stressful and tired. Friend holidays promise to be dynamic and fresh. Add a short thematic component, like a speech, to your celebration to provide context and more meaning and model group coherence, focus, and listening.

Transformative Friend Holidays

After the Friendology math, this section is the most useful, but the one that never got any comments from reviewers. I didn’t like holidays for many reasons. My parents divorced and remarried, so the holidays were excruciatingly awkward growing up. I married a Japanese woman, and both of us feel a bit disappointed that the other person does not have any instilled feeling for each of our favorites. I de-emphasized the holidays to avoid the disappointment. I came to prefer the sabbath holiday the most because expectations are so low for it that it delivered every time. (I am not a religious person and am happy to adapt from any religion or culture).

1. Birthdays– Throw yourself at least a small party every year, mix your friend groups

2. Palentine’s Day – Around February 14, expand the definition to include friends you love

3. Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday/Carnival – marks the beginning of Lent and Easter. Feb 17, 2026

4. Holi – Marks the triumph of good over evil March 4, 2026

5. Good Friends Friday – April 18, the Friday before or after Good Friday to celebrate your good friends

6. Friendquinox Days – March 20 and September 21 – the 50/50 days of balance and reciprocity

7. Summer Friendstice – June 21, the longest day of the year to be with friends

8. Friendtoberfest – a natural friend celebration Sept 20 to Oktober 5

9. Diwali – The Indian festival of lights October 20, 2025

10. Halloween and Day of the Dead – already popular friend holidays October 31 and November 1

11. Friendsgiving – any of the days around Thanksgiving

12. Winter Friendstice – Dec 21, Night Owl’s Eve, a great night for club hopping with friends

13. Friendsmas, Friendsnukah – Dec 15 to 30, host a dinner

14. New Year’s Eve – already a friend-oriented holiday

Friendsgiving

After I joined the Capital Club in San Jose, I wanted to attend as many events as possible, thinking I could make dozens of friends from the hundreds of members. It was hit and miss, but what worked was when I subscribed to a wine locker and opened and poured free wine for people. “Wines flows and people goes,” you could say. For Friendsgiving I booked the biggest table off the lounge and invited 7 guests and added 2 more from the event that preceded it. I focused the group with some roundtable questions and everyone had a great time. That’s what inspired me to make a calendar of friend holidays.

Friendquinox and Friendstice

Do you cringe or smile when you say the words? Yeah, me too. Friendquinox and Friendstice are my very original naming and creation that I hope will be one of my legacies. There is a Friendquinox on each equinox and a Friendstice on each solstice. At each event, I invite 3 of my friends who want to make more friends and require that they bring a friend who wants to make more friends. If they can’t find one, they cannot attend. It is harder to find their guest than people think because people now have so few friends and so few people overall are looking for friends. Look at the math, odds are good that everyone makes 3 new friends. Note that these are events, not independent groups. People feel the energy and connection at these events and want to keep the band together. The people I invite change every time. Despite what people think, groups are unstable and entropy to conflict and chaos, but living, breathing friend networks do not. They are more pliable, renewing, and resilient.

Hierarchy of Personal Invitations

The list reads down generally toward events with less personal time, effort, and cost. People usually start towards the bottom and work up as they figure out if they like someone. The higher events on the list would signal more interest and better connection.

Depending on how much you like and trust someone, invite them to:

1. To travel with you

2. To the house/apartment and cook a meal

3. Dinner at a restaurant

4. Lunch, brunch, or breakfast at a restaurant

5. Out to a bar for a drink, bar games

6. A movie or a show or a museum

7. An activity, like golf, tennis, or a walk

8. Coffee or ice cream or dessert

9. Shopping, more likely for women

10. Friendology Operations and Math

The math here will help you calibrate your efforts to your friend goals. It will help you realize that you are not failing but not failing enough given the expected effort required to make a friend.

1. Understand what attributes and behaviors matter to you to help define the kind of

friends you are looking for. When you meet a person showing many of those qualities

exchange contact information and that converts them to a connection.

2. Find and use quality sources for the kind of people you are looking for. Avoid falling back

onto convenient low-quality sources.

3. Invite people out to coffees, lunches, dinners, hikes, parties, and outings. Build frequency

and trust. The more often you meet, the faster you can build understanding and trust.

4. Use Accelerants (next section) to move connections to friends faster.

5. Remember relationships will end, so meet 15+ new people for every friend you need to replace.

6. Figure out how many friends you want.

1. How many times a week do you want to go out with Friends?

2. How often will you go out with each type of Friend? How often can they go out?

3. If you want to go out 4 times a week and your friends can meet once a month, you need at least 16 friends (4 x 4 = 16 friend visits per month) if they want to go out twice a month it is fewer at 16/2 = 8.

7. Figure out how many connections you need to make a friend and how many acquaintances you need to make a connection

1. If you meet 6 and connect with 1 and connect with 3 and become friends with 1, then you need to meet 18 people to make 1 friend

2. If you are trying to make 8 local friends, you need to meet 120 local people

8. Reconsider your application of time and connection. Become adept at communicating and connecting with people in moments instead of hours. An hour has at least 60 more moments, giving you far more capacity to connect with friends. You do not have to meet a friend for 2 hours to connect. A well-placed text takes 20 seconds.

9. Consider this the best single metric of your friend network: How many invitations do you receive per year to get together 1-to-1 with friends or more broadly include invites to group events and parties? Do not count couple events unless the invitation comes directly to you. This number will reflect the breadth, quality, and strength of your friend network.

The Math Is Not the Problem, the Realities of the Challenge Are

So here we are at the part the people hate the most. I think the reality of how many people you have to meet to make 5 friends is what causes extra aversion to the math above. The larger the pool the better quality you will end up with. Some people tell me that they know well-connected people who selectively introduce them to people who are a good match. That does not negate the math, it just shifts it to someone else who did the homework and met hundreds of people. If someone gives you such a wonderful gift, it would make sense for you to do the same for them, but if you do not have a robust network you can’t because you do not know that many people. If it were easy, the population of friendships would not be dropping as fast.

8. Accelerants to the Friendship Stage

Figuring out if a person is a friend sooner is better than later. If they are a friend you get positive friend experience sooner. If they are not, you can move on sooner.

Tactical – To Dos

1. Text them a few times a week outside of logistical texts for meeting

2. When you find an article or blog they would like, send it with your comments and highlights

3. Invite and meet more frequently

4. Follow them on social media to learn their activities and give more points to connect with

5. Spend more hours together per visit, double-function outings, like walk and meal

6. Travel together, but you could also accelerate in the opposite direction sooner

7. Get drunk together, if you drink, which usually lowers barriers and leads to more communication and connection

8. Give praise verbally and in writing, show you are not competitive

9. Give physical gifts that show thoughtful understanding

10. Give time or service gifts

11. Invite to your home

12. Cook for them

13. Treat for a meal, drink, or outing

14. Show genuine appreciation for their time, character, and achievements

15. Use the advice they give you and report the results

16. Plan longer phone calls when unable to meet

Wanna Come to My Place?

Being invited to someone’s house is like being invited into their sanctum, where their energy, style, garden, food, scents, and prized possessions all reside around them, a one-of-a-kind masterpiece. Nothing helps me understand a person better than seeing them where they are the most relaxed and excited at the same time, where their vibe oscillates at its true frequency. They radiate their hospitality and pride. And, having people over can be a lot of work—some cleaning, the shopping, the prep, the cooking, but it is usually a 2X or 3X accelerant to become friends or closer. House parties are way better than restaurant parties because they are less time bound and usually more affordable. “Yes, I would be delighted to attend.”

Strategic To Dos – Communicate, Listen, Build Connection

1. Don’t unnecessarily withhold considering someone a friend longer than needed, in other words don't set the bar too high and have too few friends,

2. Tell someone you consider them a friend or a good friend without expecting them to reciprocate the comment immediately and be ok if you like them more. Being liked is an attractive element that usually engenders the same.

3. Be more open and authentic, share important issues and problems (in moderation).

4. Listen better, be genuinely interested in what the other person is saying.

5. Validate them by using empathy and attunement (aligning to their true self and needs)

6. Constructive confrontation: be willing to risk to make the relationship better, repair and strengthen it.

7. Introduce adventure, adrenaline, or mild stressors to your activities together.

8. Show up big when people are sick or infirm or experience loss. Attend milestone events -- funerals, showers, weddings, birthday parties, and retirements to show support.

9. Attune yourself to them and gain insights without being told, share your extrapolated

guesses with them, if you are right it will be a significant alignment and progression.

10. Create a bi-lateral interaction, like taking turns watching kids so the other person can attend an important work function.

11. Provide strong agency for them to decide and direct the activities about half the time (don’t be bossy).

“My Dad Died”

Brian was a new friend I met on the BFF app. We hung out more than 4 times and were at the friend stage within 4 weeks. His ailing father passed away. I asked when and where the funeral was and attended. My friend of 56 years, Jeff, thought it was weird that I was going to the funeral of the father of someone he did not approve of me even calling him a friend. It was transformative in many ways, I met his mom, his brother, his ex-wife and his kids not so much by speaking to them but by listening to the eulogies. Together they painted me a picture of Brian’s dad and Brian’s history that could never be equaled. We buried his father a few hundred yards from my father. His family was very stoic, I bawled my eyes out as Taps played for this military doctor and heart surgeon as they lowered him into the earth. People only bury their father once. Attending made Brian and I like old friends instead of new ones.

9. Actions to Take to Enhance Your Friend Development

Bias for Action

1. Watch less TV and go out and meet people a few times a week

2. At each event you go to focus on remembering and using names.

3. Try to secure at least 2 new connections with people who live in your area per event.

4. Exchange contact information with people you meet that you like.

a. Start sending digital messages within 24 hours to people you met to build momentum before the memory fades.

5. Invite people out for coffee, lunch, dinner, movies, activities, parties, try a few times before giving up.

6. Host parties at your home or at restaurants, it’s a one-to-many ask that creates frequency without as much personal intimacy. When you host at restaurants, you can host an afternoon happy hour or meal when the restaurant is less crowded and more flexible for group seating and group pricing.

7. Encourage and support connections and friends to host parties and offer to help invite—many people are worried they do not know enough people to populate a party.

8. Introduce friends to friends, ask to be introduced to their friends in small get togethers.

9. Try to say yes when people invite you to do things (unless you want to disconnect with them ongoing), if you decline, do so with a specific proposal for another date and time.

If you decline, it is clearly your turn to invite out next.

Throw a Party – Not for You, For the Guests

I encourage people to throw a little birthday party and hear a lot of excuses: "I don’t want to make a big deal about me." "I don’t have the space for it." But in most cases, just like me a year ago, many people do not throw parties because they are worried they do not have enough friends to fill a room. I tell people that if they do not get enough postive RSVPs that I could bring some people and fill in any gaps. And, get over yourself, throwing a party is not a way to charge your own battery, it is a way to your local network’s battery.

Lean In, Extend Your Hand, Do the Work

10. Make friends with the opposite sex, it doubles the number of people to befriend, but if you are married or committed you have to keep a boundary on romantic involvement.

11. Discuss the friendship; express appreciation for it. Consider discussing if someone is a friend or a close friend, removing the ambiguity will accelerate the development.

12. Conflict resolution: If the relationship requires too much of this examine the fit.

13. Give people a second and third chance. Some days people are off. Two or three strikes

will indicate a pattern that is probably permanent.

14. Respond quickly and warmly, avoid abbreviations and acronyms in messages, listen at least as much as you talk, be interested, be upbeat, don’t talk too much, don’t talk too loud, don’t get too drunk, say please and thank you, curb your cursing, and be punctual. Never flake.

15. Digital tools are an excellent way to maintain existing non-local relationships. New all-digital relationships are not as valuable and appear to be displacing time and energy that could be used to build local in-person friendships.

16. Your phone and social media are programmed for addiction, and addiction’s goal is to blot out all other competitors for your time and attention. If you used drugs or alcohol 4 hours a day every day, the problem would be more obvious.

17. Responding promptly sends a positive signal that the person is important and valued.

Making the First Move

In my quest for the 59, I invited hundreds of people to get together. At first it stung and bummed me out when it did not work out, but I got used to it and just saw it as part of the process. Many people tell me that you have to have something in common with people to be friends, and I reply “Everyone likes to eat lunch.” That’s enough to start.

Conclusion

So, there are 7,500 words and over 133 finding on 18 pages in this friend-making field guide. The lists made counting that just now easier. I believe any of the 133 could be a key breakthrough for you and your friend network.

For a first step, set a goal of 1 or more new friends. Think of some good starter questions to ask people you meet. Try, “How was the week? What are the highlights?” Use the IEEET to connect better and faster. Ask someone for their contact information sooner, say “Hey, let’s keep in touch. What’s your number?” Second, ask them to coffee or lunch. Third, ask them out again. Fourth, look for some reciprocal intent. And do it again and then again with other connections.

Internalize and operationalize the 3 pillars from volume 1

Much stability can come from the lateral friend network.

• Friends supply the renewable energy your nervous system actually runs on. Imprint is the friendship pattern between two people.
• It’s the living neural space that lights up when someone matters. Reciprocity keeps the friendship field alive.
• Invitations, interest, and effort circulate warmth through the connection.

You can do it. Having more friends will improve your life, your health, and your life satisfaction.

Erik Newton

Appendix – Data on Friends

Here is a collection of research and data on friends:

• 53% of men in the US between 50 and 64 have 1 to 4 friends with an average of 2; among those 53% 15% have 0 friends, 49% have 3 or fewer friends

o This data is assumed to include friends that do not live in the same area. I would

estimate that at least half of the 2 friends are out of area, leaving 1 friend avg in area

▪ Why so few friends? People move, friendships end, people change, people marry or marry different people, political differences, digital relationships confuse and displace real-life relationships, overwork, people change, people pass away, and drug and alcohol problems.

▪ The fact that friendships can end has 3 major impacts

• Your local friend count will decrease every 5 years without an effort to expand and add friends

• There is more effort and urgency to maintain the friendships

• People see and can exercise the possibility of renewing their friend base

• 21% of single men report having 0 close friends

• 68% of Americans (men and women) have fewer than 5 friends, including friends who live remotely

• The percentage of men with 6 friends dropped from 55% to 27% from 1991 to 2021

• Men spend only 4 hours per week total communicating with friends

• Men spend only 90 minutes a week in person with friends

• 30% of their 4 friends were made in high school, only 25% of high school friends will continue into adulthood

• Men with no close friends increased from 3% to 15% since 1990

• Friendships last on average 10 years

• 52% of young men 18-29 are living with their parents, 44% of young women are, (Pew 2020)

• People who spend more time with family spend less time with friends

• 39% of young men rely on their parents to help with a personal issue

• 58% of Black people are satisfied with how many friends they have only 49% of whites

• 58% of people have an opposite sex friend

• People who have a best friend has declined from 75% to 59%

• 75% of people with 10+ friends are very satisfied with how many they have

o Only 43% of people with 3 friends are satisfied

o 56% of people with 5 friends are satisfied, could be optimal given time scarcity

• All of these statistics got worse after covid, roughly 50% of people lost contact with friends

Traditional friend-development model from Psychology Today. This model requires too much linear time and can be greatly accelerated with Friendology.

• Casual Friends: Transitioning from acquaintances to casual friends typically involves spending about 50 hours together.

• Friends: Evolving from casual friends to regular friends generally requires approximately 90 hours of interaction.

• Close Friends: Forming a close or best friendship often demands more than 200 hours of shared time.

• I believe most people over-report the number and quality of their friendships and many of them are not meeting in real life and independent of work.