How to Be a Better Human

How to make (and keep) friends | from A Slight Change of Plans

February 16, 2026

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  • Friendships expand our sense of self by exposing us to different ways of living and bringing out different sides of our identity, which is crucial for well-being. 
  • Adult friendships require intentional effort, as they do not form organically like they might in childhood, and recognizing this effort is linked to lower loneliness. 
  • Healthy, strong friendships act as a buffer against stress and conflict in other relationships, such as romantic partnerships, and can improve the mental health of connected partners. 

Segments

Friendship Deprioritization Harm
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(00:00:18)
  • Key Takeaway: Not prioritizing friendships can harm an individual’s health and well-being, contrary to cultural narratives that place romantic relationships at the top of the hierarchy.
  • Summary: Meeting people as an adult is easy, but building deep, lasting friendships requires shared experience, vulnerability, and repeated time together. Society often teaches that friendship is secondary to family or romantic partners, which can limit a person’s sense of self. Research shows that having a diversity of support, not just relying on a spouse, is linked to better overall well-being and resilience in other relationships.
Friendship and Self-Identity Link
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(00:07:24)
  • Key Takeaway: Each friend acts as an advertisement for a different way to live, allowing us to experience and expand different sides of our identity.
  • Summary: Interacting with different people brings out new and different sides of one’s identity through exposure to varied hobbies and interests. Relying solely on one relationship, like a spouse, can limit the parts of one’s identity that are expressed or experienced. Feeling a wider palette of emotions through different friendships can make one feel more expansive and alive.
Making Friends in Adulthood
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(00:11:28)
  • Key Takeaway: Friendship formation in adulthood requires intentional effort because the environments that fostered organic childhood friendships (repeated unplanned interaction and shared vulnerability) are often absent.
  • Summary: The mere exposure effect dictates that we like people more the more familiar we become with them, provided they do not cause harm, which necessitates repeated interaction. People who view friendship as requiring effort are less lonely over time than those who expect it to happen organically. Overcoming the fear of rejection is aided by research showing people generally like you more than you anticipate (the liking gap).
Maintaining and Deepening Friendships
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(00:20:01)
  • Key Takeaway: Investment in existing friendships should be guided by mutuality, which prioritizes whose needs make sense to meet in a given situation rather than strict reciprocity.
  • Summary: Behaviors showing affection, generosity, and vulnerability signal to a friend that they won’t be rejected, encouraging them to invest more in the relationship. Mutuality means recognizing that relationships ebb and flow, and one person may need to invest more during times of stress or major life changes. Affirming a friend’s new identity, even if it differs from your own life experience, maintains closeness and offers an opportunity for personal expansion.
Conflict and Friendship Breakups
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(00:27:06)
  • Key Takeaway: Addressing problems through open, empathic conflict is correlated with deeper intimacy and dynamic safety, while avoiding conflict leads to ‘flaccid safety’ or withdrawal.
  • Summary: Healthy conflict should be framed as an act of love to affirm the importance of the friendship, utilizing ‘I’ statements and perspective-taking. If a friendship must end, providing closure through direct communication is kinder than ghosting, which causes ambiguous loss and prolonged grief for the other person. The pain from losing a close friend is a form of disenfranchised grief that society devalues, requiring individuals to consciously validate their own loss to heal.
Elevating Friendship Value
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(00:36:08)
  • Key Takeaway: The most valued trait in a friend is ego support—making someone feel valued and loved—which is more important than being charismatic or entertaining.
  • Summary: Aspiring to hold friendship at the same regard as romantic relationships means offering similar levels of support, such as picking a friend up from the airport late at night. Believing people care about you encourages better friendship behavior, while assuming rejection licenses harmful actions like ghosting. Making friends is fundamentally about being loving toward others, as ego support is the trait people value most in their friendships.