[danenania]

A hack that takes advantage of this is to look for activities/events where you spend a lot of sustained time with others.

So instead of a meetup once a month, go to a week-long retreat or an all weekend hackathon.

Or if there’s someone you’d like to get closer to as a friend, instead of just inviting them to hang out once in awhile, invite them to go on a trip somewhere.

Once you reach the tipping point of enough shared time/context by fast-forwarding in this way, it’s easier to then settle into a more ordinary rhythm where you see people periodically but still feel they are real friends.

[crossroadsguy]

Neither of the two examples are sustained time events.

Retreats are rather group focused (and even if it’s just two people — it can’t be regular and long enough; especially in the beginning) and a hackathon is, well, a hackathon. One has logistics challenge and another has logistics as well as intimacy challenge (or maybe we are talking about different kind of hackathons).

I’d rather suggest activities which are regular and repeated. That’s how I have made friends after college ended and I started working. Sports has worked for me in this regard.

[autoexec]

> Sports has worked for me in this regard.

For the on-athletic amongst us, regularly volunteering can help you to meet more people and find friends, but as with all "work friends" bridging the gap between "work buddy" and "friend" can be difficult. I imagine it's easier if you can get a gig helping out with something you're both passionate about since it can help give common ground quickly.

[nicky0]

Joining a running club made a huge difference to my social life, personally.

[Cd00d]

Running long has a fascinating effect of getting people to talk about things that they normally wouldn't, in my experience.

I have a close friend that I've known since we started graduate school 20 years ago. For 4 months we trained for a marathon together, and the majority of my understanding of his deeper thoughts comes from those hours in that short period of time. In fact, I'll claim that anyone I go on regular long runs with will be someone I end up having a far deeper relationship with overall.

[tomc1985]

If you're into music, festivals are fantastic for this. I was just at such a festival, in an MDMA-fueled reminiscence of just how lucky my friends and I are to have found each other. Through years of simply showing up, gifting my art, and being open to new people, I now have a tight party crew which has supported each other through some of the darkest shit I have ever experienced in my life. Deaths, overdoses, bad trips, poverty, angry neighbors/property owners, whatever... these guys have my back and I have theirs.

I may be a thirty-something loner and introvert, but these guys are my bass music battle buddies. Highly recommended.

[danenania]

That's awesome. How long did it take/how many festivals before you started to feel they were real friends you can count on in day-to-day life rather than just being 'festival friends'?

[tomc1985]

The relationships are generally cultivated over time. I have been active in the local dance music underground for all of my adult life, but in this case familiarity was established after showing up at a couple of desert events and hanging out. Later on, I was invited to a house party with some of the same folks where I was accepted into the "family". During all this I would show up at events with my camera, take really good photos, and then give them away, and that got me noticed and made me the unofficial-official photographer of the group. This was several years ago, and the story has advanced considerably since then.

edit- To answer your question directly, it took a few years to really feel that these guys were more than just party friends. I think the catalyst here was us, as a group, navigating through shared tragedy. The 'family' was already formed when I joined, and it definitely took a while to feel like I was someone more than just a guy in the periphery. Gifting is big in my scene, and if you want to speed up the process that is probably the best way to start -- art, food, whatever you can provide that other people might want or need.

edit2- It just occurred to me that gifting is a great lifehack in general for ingratiating yourself into a new group. The key is that it has to be something they genuinely want. For example, I went to visit a friend of mine in Chile and filled up about half of my luggage with candy, alcohol, and some other things that I knew my friend would appreciate. She was so happy and told all her friends, and in an instant I had a whole group of people to hang out with -- who very specifically told me that they appreciated the gifts -- while I was visiting.

[gumby]

> A hack that takes advantage of this is to look for activities/events where you spend a lot of sustained time with others.

This is a good one. I really like camping, so being out in the backcountry for a week or ly helps you understand if you really get along with someone. Planning a trip, dividing up who brings what etc let’s you see how the other person approaches things.

[andrewljohnson]

Backpacking was how I spent a lot of time with who turned into my wife and cofounder. It’s fun but can also be slightly stressful at times and you see many aspects of a person. 15 years into our relationship and I felt like we’ve known each other very deeply since the beginning.

[ajmurmann]

I think stressful situations are good for building relationships. Even if the stress is conflict with each other, of you break the relationship it will frequently be stronger after. I think psychology refers to this as Rupture and Repair.

[em-bee]

it's how you handle those stressful times and seeing those many aspects which make the difference

[BeFlatXIII]

Pokémon Go was good for this before the pandemic. I had a Wednesday evening raiding group. Before then, I had a Friday night all-night gym takeover caravan.