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How Do Adults Make Friends?

2018-08-03 · Q&A · Hank · 3:59 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Everyday life (also: Nerdfighteria) · mode: Personal essay · tags: calendar ritual

On Esther Day, Hank tells John he loves him, answers viewers' Twitter questions about family and friends, and argues that adults find friendship harder not because it is harder but because we forget how hard we worked to value others and be valued; friendship and love take time, energy and work.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Esther Day: a day for non-romantic love; Hank tells John he loves him

  • ★★ Hank marks Esther Day, a day in the community, and ideally the world, to celebrate non-romantic love by telling the people you love that you love them, even if awkward. — 00:00:00 · Esther Day, Esther Earl
  • ★★ Hank tells John he loves and appreciates him, that John will always be a big deal to him, and that he wants to work to keep John in his life. — 00:00:10 · John Green

00:00:21 — Twitter questions: John's weirdest habit, an Orin story, when to have a baby, staying in touch with family

  • ★ Hank asked on Twitter this week (week of 30 July 2018) for questions about family and friends, to get at something he has been thinking about. — 00:00:21 · Twitter
  • ★ Asked the weirdest thing he has caught John doing, Hank says nothing, besides sponsoring a third-tier English soccer team. (playful) — 00:00:34 · John Green, AFC Wimbledon
  • ★★ Hank's cute Orin story: in the morning Orin says 'Papa Da Nana', meaning pick me up, take me downstairs and feed me a banana. — 00:00:41 · Orin Green
  • ★ Asked when to have a baby, Hank notes he made a whole video on it but answers because the asker's mom replied 'ask your mom if she's ready to be a grandma': no, bad mom. (playful) — 00:00:55
  • ★★ Hank says you stay in touch with distant family by sharing the same free time and desire to talk (unlikely), by being nagged into calling, or best, by scheduling it on the calendar. — 00:01:05
  • ★ Hank says all through college he let the person who wanted to talk more guilt or nag him into calling, which creates resentment. — 00:01:18
  • ★★★ Hank says relationships are work, and tells viewers to do the work. — 00:01:33

00:01:36 — How adults make friends: valuing others and being valued; love takes work; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank says common answers on making adult friends (volunteer, take a class, go to a protest, bring neighbors cookies, go to kid things) are fine advice but miss the root of the problem. (hedged) — 00:01:45
  • ★★★ Hank says the young make friends easily because valuing others comes easily: the kid next door is implicitly a big deal whose opinion matters, and feels the same way back. — 00:02:01
  • ★★★ Hank defines friendship: two people who agree on each other's intrinsic importance and work together to maintain a relationship of respect and appreciation. (hedged) — 00:02:15
  • ★★★ Hank guesses that as we age, meeting more people not worth befriending and valuing romance, money, power or Instagram likes, we less readily value others or are valued by them. (speculative) — 00:02:29 · Instagram
  • ★★★ Hank says asking why adult friendship is harder really asks why valuing and being valued is harder, but he doesn't think it is harder: we forgot how hard we used to work for it. (hedged) — 00:02:47
  • ★★★ Hank says to make friends as an adult you must figure out how to really value other people and get them to believe that how much you value them matters. — 00:03:08
  • ★★ Hank says you may put energy in and get none back, which hurts confidence, but so many non-social and quasi-social things take up our cognitive resources that it makes sense people don't give back. — 00:03:16
  • ★★ Hank says we sometimes lack the time and energy to value the individuals in our lives, which is a little bit of a disaster. (hedged) — 00:03:30
  • ★★★ Hank says valuing others is what friendship and love are, and the one thing he knows: love is not free; it takes a devotion of time and energy; it takes work. — 00:03:41
  • ★★ Hank thanks all his friends and family for helping make that labor joyful. — 00:03:47

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description recalls that Esther Earl, asked by her family how she wanted to be remembered on her birthday, chose a celebration of love among family and friends. — video description · Esther Earl, Esther Day
  • ★★ The description says it gets harder with age to believe strangers are worth investing time in; that belief is not true, but it is a belief. — video description
  • ★★ Hank writes that community organizations such as churches, clubs and volunteer groups are valuable because they help us see strangers as having more value and offer shortcuts to people we will mesh with; school and work can do the same. — video description
  • ★★★ Hank writes that seeing so many seemingly exceptional people on social media makes us forget that people are big deals simply because they are people; remembering that would make adult friendships easier to make and keep. (hedged) — video description · social media

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Esther Day · friendship

Also: AFC Wimbledon · Instagram · Orin Green · romantic love · Twitter

Only in the description or credits: Esther Earl · social media

Also centred on friendship: How to Make Friends · How I Made Friends · So, I've got cancer · Views · My 2025 Bingo Card · I Was a Teenage Dirtbag

Later videos replying to this one

  • 2018-08-07 · How I Made Friends (John) — continues — “I really liked your video on Friday about how to make friends in adulthood” (00:00:00)