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How to Make Friends

2013-01-25 · Hank · watch on YouTube · Everyday life · advice recommendation

Hank argues that real friendship - uncovering and liking each other's brokenness - is rare and undervalued compared with romance; making friends needs repeated, unplanned interactions, initiative, vulnerability and hard questions, and spouses should be best friends.

What is said

00:00:00 — We are all differently broken 'rusted-out love machines'; friendship as removing emotional putty and liking someone because of their brokenness; close friends are few (two to three)

  • ★★ Hank says people's physical insides are roughly the same, but emotionally everyone is different - differently broken - and humans are very good at creating important relationships. — 00:00:00 > «We are differently broken, semi-functional, rusted-out love machines.»
  • ★★★ Hank defines friendship as removing the constructed emotional putty we show the world, uncovering the rusted edges, and liking the person not despite but because of that asymmetry. — 00:00:00 > «actually continuing to like that person not just in spite of all of that asymmetry but because of it.»
  • ★★ Hank says that kind of friendship takes a lot of work and upkeep, so it is not possible with very many people. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Hank says studies of friendship count not Facebook friends but people you can share intimate things about your brokenness with: on average two to three per person. — 00:00:29 · Facebook

00:00:58 — Reply to John: friendship and romance differ, but friendship is undervalued and romance glorified (matchmaking industry, compatibility quizzes); without friends they are hard to find

  • ★★★ Replying to John's last video, Hank would not belittle the difference between the emotional intimacy of friendship and the emotional and physical intimacy of romantic relationships. — 00:00:58 · John Green
  • ★★★ Hank agrees friendships are undervalued: culture glorifies romance, matchmaking is an industry with in-depth compatibility quizzes, and nothing similar exists for friends. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Hank says that without good friends it can be really hard to find them, adding 'I know about that.' — 00:01:27

00:01:56 — How to make friends: repeated, unplanned interactions; take initiative, share yourself, let people help you, think about them complexly

  • ★★★ Hank says psychologists in the 1950s found friendship requires repeated, unplanned interactions, which is why many friends come from school or work. — 00:01:27
  • ★★★ Hank advises people without school or a physical workplace to put themselves where repeated unplanned interactions will happen, and to figure out how themselves. — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ Hank advises taking the initiative: start conversations, share yourself, treat interactions as ends not means, let people help you and ask favors, listen and think about people complexly. — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ Hank says that only makes acquaintances; real friends need important, uncomfortable conversations - what you want to be in five years, what you dislike about yourself, what you love and hate most. — 00:02:26

00:02:55 — Ask uncomfortable questions; it's okay to break up with friends; don't marry someone who isn't your friend; the brothers are married to their best friends; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank says we should be thankful for friends we made organically who accept us, and that it's okay to break up with friends who don't, as with romantic partners. — 00:02:55
  • ★★★ Hank says not to marry a romantic partner if you don't appreciate each other's 'bizarre broken sculpture within': it probably won't work unless you are very good friends. (hedged) — 00:03:24
  • ★★ Hank tells John they are both very lucky to be married to their best friends. — 00:03:24 · John Green, Katherine Green, Sarah Urist Green

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