Most people come to this channel looking for advice on love and romantic relationships. But today, we’re talking about something that I think is just as important: friendship.
In this video, I dive into why meaningful friendships are essential not just for happiness, but for your health, confidence, and overall fulfillment in life. From the science behind social connection to the real struggles of making friends as an adult, we unpack what’s really going on, and what you can do about it.
Whether you’re feeling lonely, disconnected, or just want stronger relationships in your life, this video will give you practical tools and a new perspective on how to build real connection.
Matthew Hussey:
So I know a lot of people watch this channel because they want to find love, but there is something that we have to talk about right now and that is friendship. Now, of course, friendship is inextricably linked to love. For one thing, having a strong foundation of friends gives us the kind of confidence and the stability that makes us more attractive when we date, but also because friendship makes it possible to be happy even when we don’t date.
And it’s not just happiness that it affects its health. A huge meta analysis showed that people with strong social relationships had a 50% increased chance of survival, compared with those with weak social ties. In case you didn’t catch that, that means that real friendships increase your odds of survival by 50%. The concept of the loneliness epidemic has had huge attention in recent years, and everyone in particular has especially had something to say about the male loneliness epidemic.
Some people say it’s self-inflicted, and that the loneliness stems from men’s own behaviors and choices, rather than external or systemic factors. Internalized norms, like repressing emotions and neglecting platonic friendships, cause men to become isolated as adults. But a lot of people also highlight that women, too, are lonely, as a growing number of women are now single and navigating life alone for the first time in history, but that their loneliness has not gotten the attention it deserves.
I want to talk about the real struggles we all have in making friends as adults. And along the way, I’ll highlight how some of these struggles are exacerbated by the way that men in general approach them. I’m Matthew Hussey. I’ve written two New York Times bestselling books on confidence and human relationships, and I have coached millions of people around the world for nearly two decades through this channel, my live retreats and my Love Life coaching program.
Subscribe and like this video. And let’s get started. So let’s talk about four things I believe are really important to making friends as an adult. Number one, the become a great friendship closer. We can feel deeply uncomfortable being seen to be looking for friendship. On our first day of school. It felt socially acceptable to be trying to make new friends, but that was a long time ago now.
For most of us, we feel like by this point in our life, we are supposed to have found our people. I think this is why when we go on vacation, it feels way easier to make friends because we’re not in our normal life. We’re in some random hotel that we don’t normally go to. So of course we’ll go and talk to the people next to us at dinner.
Why wouldn’t we? We’ll have a ten minute conversation with them and then be like, did we just become best friends? Oh my God. Well, I guess the most logical thing for us to do is to have breakfast tomorrow morning together. Imagine doing that to someone where you live. It would seem mental, but the truth is we can do a better job of making friends where we live by becoming a great friendship.
Closer. Now, this part isn’t that complicated. It just requires a little bravery. If you’ve had a great conversation with someone, or you’ve had several really nice exchanges with someone that you keep seeing in the same place over days or weeks, get into the habit of saying to that person, we should stay in touch or you know, we should hang out sometime.
He doesn’t really need to get any more specific than that at this stage. All you’re really looking for is to have a way of staying in touch so that the conversation can continue without you needing a fight to bring you back together. If you are someone who thinks that they can’t do this because it just feels really scary, or if you’re a man watching this and you’re like, I couldn’t possibly do that as a man talking to another man.
Stick around for the last point in this video about vulnerability. The second key to adult friendships is the follow up. Whether you just got someone’s number or you just bumped into them for the fifth time, but you already have their number, you just never hung out before. Follow up. It is often pride that stops us from following up.
We prefer to let someone else make the first move or to look aloof and, you know, bump into someone and then text them three weeks from now. But following up cements the connection. You don’t always have to follow up immediately to make a plan. Although there’s nothing wrong with that. But you could just follow up to say it was great running into you, man.
Really appreciate the conversation. Or you could go a step further and be like, I’m going on a hike this week if you want to join. Now, if that doesn’t lead to something, don’t force it. There’s a fine line between being a friendship closer and a friendship stalker trying constantly to make something happen with someone who is resistant.
If someone tells you they’re busy or they can’t this week, just put the ball back in their court. No worries. Let me know when you’ve got some space, or you can text them a few months from now and be like, hey, how have you been? But put the ball in their court to propose something this time. It is crazy how many friendships never happen because neither person follows up.
Most people don’t follow up in life. The beauty of that is that it’s really easy to stand out and build better connections than other people do. If you do that one simple thing I know we are talking about friendship in this video today. I also know many of you are watching this video dating right now, and there’s someone that you’re in a situationship with and it’s not progressing.
I just want to take a moment to tell you about something we have available for all of you who are looking for real commitment. It is called from Situationship to commitment because it is designed to give you a structure, a way of having a conversation with that person that actually graduates it to a committed relationship. If you struggle getting commitment from people in general, or if there’s someone in your life right now you want more from.
This is the perfect guide. Go check it out at Nomorecasual.com. I know you’re going to love this. It’s free. Go try it out, Nomorecasual.com. Back to the video. The third key to making friends as an adult. And this is especially relevant if you’re someone who struggles to be brave or if you’re a guy watching this and you’re like, I just struggle to not let weird or I’m afraid I’m going to look weird.
Is the importance of vulnerability. None of what I have said will work unless we can be vulnerable. And by the way, following up and trying to meet up with someone probably won’t work if you didn’t make a real connection when you were with someone. And for a connection to happen. We have to be prepared to be a little vulnerable with someone.
Vulnerability is a master key, and it happens when someone does something simple like asks us how we’re doing and we respond with something beneath the surface. So someone recently asked me how I’m doing as a new dad, and amidst talking about the things that were amazing about it, I also admitted to the fact that because I haven’t been able to work out as much as I normally do, it’s affected my confidence and my mental health a little bit and that it’s been an adjustment.
Now that’s vulnerable. It’s not me pouring out my soul or my trauma. It’s just being a person. And people love people when they actually get to see them. Now, a big part of vulnerability is accepting that things won’t always go our way. There will be times where we have a friendship crush on somebody who we really believe we should be good friends with, because we have so much in common, and you like the way their mind works, and you admire them and respect them.
And that friendship is unrequited. You try and they shun you, or they don’t give you anything back, or you suggest times to me and they never seem to want to. And while that is painful and hard, we have to remember the same rule applies to friendships as it does romantic relationships that we might have an idea of what this relationship should be, but a friendship has to be with someone who is actually available for one.
I think it’s worth saying that all of this carries additional challenges for certain kinds of men. I’m not saying this isn’t true of women to women can feel awkward making friends. Women can feel weird. Women can feel. Uncool trying to make friends or, you know, embarrassed or call people and feel like they got shunned. But there’s an additional layer for a lot of men that they’re dealing with other men.
And if you’re a guy who wants to be open and vulnerable and make friends, you might not have the right men around you for that right now. There are plenty of men, by the way, who are available for this, and I know this because I’ve spent my adult life cultivating friendships with other men who are open and warm and vulnerable.
But not all men have that right now. And a lot of men are dealing with men who are really stunted when it comes to this. There is a truth to the idea that many female relationships are inherently more enriching and offer more support than a lot of male friendships do. I know that my wife, Audrey, can call up friends at the end of the day after a very long day and just say, hey, I’m tired and this and that.
What are you up to? How are you doing? And they’ll have a conversation. And that conversation will put energy back in the tank for both of them. I have friendships like that with other men, but a lot of guys don’t. A lot of guys do not have a guy that they can call tonight and just talk about their feelings and be like, I just wanted to call just to see how you were or just to chat.
They will feel awkward in doing that. So the activation energy for men to do this is often way higher. I also know that many men get together around an activity, whether it’s a sport or a game or, you know, business. They’ll get together with the pretext of having this reason to get together, and then they’ll spend their whole time focused on whatever that pretext is and don’t actually connect on anything that’s going on, on any of those, in any of those men’s lives.
Most women have had the experience of being with a man who went off to see a friend, and then that man comes back and she says, hey guys. You saw suggest, oh my God, how is he? And he says, yeah, yeah, he’s he’s fine, he’s fine. What? He’s fine. His entire family were eaten by bears last week. They had to airlift Jeff from the top of a tree.
What do you mean, he’s fine? Yeah, it’s just, I don’t know, it didn’t come up. Ironically, I don’t think men will ever feel closer to women than when they are genuinely trying to make friends with other guys and coming away with some of the same complaints that women have about men. Two word replies, a lack of reciprocal vulnerability, trying to hang out and getting very little back.
And all of this makes it easier to understand why men not only experienced higher rates of depression after divorce, but why women end up feeling so much of the emotional labor in relationships with men. It’s because men often end up relying heavily on their spouse as their primary, sometimes only, emotional support, while being unprepared and ill equipped to provide that kind of emotional support to someone else themselves.
Which is what makes many women who date men wish that those men had deeper friendships themselves. Now, we are obviously not going to solve all of this in one video. I have way more to say. This could have been an hour long video with the amount of notes I made. But let’s first hear from you. What is your experience of making friends as an adult?
Are you someone who has prioritized friendships in your life? Or are they something that you feel like you now want to invest in more at this point in your life? Leave me a comment I will be reading. I’m excited to continue. This conversation is an important one. I’ll be in the comments.
*This transcript was whipped up with the help of AI. While it does a pretty impressive job, it may have the occasional typo, mix-up, or moment of creative interpretation. If you spot anything that looks a little . . . adventurous . . . thanks for your patience (and your sense of humor).*
