As an introvert that’s been consciously working to make new friends, I’ve noticed a couple phenomena:

- I’d love to be friends with other introverts to enjoy quiet times together. but… int-to-int pairs will rarely form in nature, however extroverts are great for mediating the connections. Make friends with the talkative outgoing types, because through them you can meet the other quiet people they’ve befriended but you’d never meet in the wild.

- however, there seem to be some common pitfalls to introvert-extrovert friendships. From my (introvert) side, you can often find yourself getting insecure or jealous of all the other social connections that your extrovert friends have. There’s an asymmetry there that can feed lots of insecurities. I’m sure that there’s something equivalent from the other direction, but I dont know what it is

I have a childhood friend that I went to school with for all of my school days. Ever since school days, we find the same obscure things funny and always end up in splits whenever we talk. To this day, I don't have this with any other friend.

We had a few years' gap of not really being in touch during undergrad but that changed as we had a few months' overlap at post-grad university. It was easier to meet after that and we did keep in touch, but I felt that he was holding back somewhat and not really being free with his thoughts, letting the conversation flag at times.

So at a friend's wedding a couple of years ago, I opened up to him and plainly told him that it's a shame we don't talk as we used to as we both are clearly on the same wavelength when it comes to shared interests and sense of humour. And this worked - our degree of friendship has increased an order of magnitude since before that time. I would have lost a great friend to the vagaries of life had I not taken that step to become vulnerable for an instant then.

Mutual sacrifice is the glue that takes time to set.

Mutual interest propels activity, but reliable sacrifice is the basis of trust and reliance.

But if you are perceived as welching on this, you will induce real and lasting anger, justifiably in my mind because you’ve just made it harder for people to trust for the rest of their lives.

And this is not limited to close friends.

A girlfriend’s mom’s advice: trust your man only after he’s crawled over a mile of broken glass, and your boss when he’s done it underwater.

I’ve been trying to make friends, it’s hard as an introvert. Tried a few times online to meet a wider group of people but as per other comments here people often “ghost” or don’t return the effort I’ve tried to put in.

I absolutely feel moving around as a child a dozen times meant I never formed any lasting friendships from schools, which then had knock on effects in college, and then university.

Related (Nov 2022 - 307 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33774353

I used to wait for people to talk to me. But now I try first, and it works!

Similar journey in book form: Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come. Introvert Jessica Pan spends a year being an extrovert.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/sorry-i-m-late-i-didn-t-want-to...

I wonder if engineering close connections through structured vulnerability truly leads to meaningful relationships. The best friendships emerge organically through shared struggles and mutual support, rather than scripted conversations.

The idea of forcing deep conversations might neglect the natural dynamics that make friendships work.

Strong friendships aren’t just about emotional sharing—they also require shared responsibility, common interests, and personal development.

Friendship isn’t just a checklist of deep questions—it’s cultivated through shared experiences.

True friendships form through shared hardships, common pursuits, and a natural alignment of values. There’s something profoundly meaningful about forging relationships through mutual struggle, rather than intellectual exercises in vulnerability. If someone wants deeper friendships, they might be better served by pursuing meaningful challenges alongside others, rather than structuring conversations.

>> up until about 4 years ago, I didn’t have any close friends in my life. I had friends, but struggled to form real emotional connections. Moreover, it didn’t even occur to me that I could try to do this. It wasn’t that I knew how to form close friends but was too anxious to try, rather, ‘try to form close friendships’ was a non-standard action, something that never even crossed my mind

It's the same thing with enemies. If you're an introvert like me, it's really hard to make true enemies, as opposed to people that just vaguely dislike you. You might have to go pretty far out of your comfort zone to do it. For many people, similar to what the author says, it will never even cross their minds. But it can be oddly rewarding.

I have a small handful of people I would call my friend. Most of them since grade school. Yet, in my life, I have had three people I have really truly opened up to. One of them died suddenly, I miss you Meka. One of them stopped talking to me for reasons I don't understand. One of them cheated on me repeatedly.

I'm just frankly not sure I'll ever truly fully open up to someone again. I have been seeing a therapist for a couple of years now and I still go in with a pretty thick shell I have trouble piercing. I'm so slow to warm up to people, I just really doubt there will be another person in my life I'll ever be around enough to get to that point with. Work from home for the last five years has not helped that at all.

Being an adult just kinda sucks.

I wonder how much of it is just social upbringing I see a lot of people who are from Asia or outside of America make a lot more closer friends than Americans

Insofar as the "intention" is to expose yourself to multiple varied communities where you might find commonalities, sure. Other approaches carry a heavy whiff of manipulative behavior and should be treated with the appropriate amount of skepticism.

I will second using “the 36 questions that lead to love” to create close connections quickly.

Combine this with MDMA to supercharge the intensity and speed of connection. This can also be done with a group of 3 to create a tight group that instantly has each other’s backs.

the way this is stated is troubling in that it proposes an aysimetric idea of "close friend" which is just one more version of hiarchical structure in human society, rather than something based on seeing things from the same perspective and the trust and understanding that comes.....after that discovery ie: "intentionlly making", vs finding I would suggest that the quality of the people that inhabit the mutual appreciation societys that pass as friendships amongst the "popular" extroverts is the impetus behind this sort of blind quest, the unrecorded and hard to imagine blank realisation of the inevitable "stalemates" in there social jockeing, no one there, vulnerable, to anything at all....how dry and tedious, that must be

'Friends' are overrated, i.e in the sense that most people use the term i.e conversation/beer buddies.

I subscribe to the minority view as put forth by this saying: 'A friend in need is a friend indeed.'

I got into open source software back in 2023, and by far the best part of it has been the community around the code. From irl to irc, some of my closest friends I've made since then I've met through programming.

being open, honest and as a consequence sometimes vulnerable in conversations -1 to 1 or not- without overly filtering myself to stay appropriate or to protect my ego or image has brought me to having a number of close friendship that I would not have thought possible.

Those people that I now consider my family made me a better person and I would even argue made me into an adult.

I would simplify this in 1 don't be afraid to ask random questions 2 be sincerely interested in knowing about the other person's answer

I find this easier to do when the people are evidently interesting, but more often than not people are interesting after I exercise some curiosity about them.

Suffering together for the same cause or with the same goal goes a long way to make close friends. It is actually how soldiers become close friends in the army.

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What can you offer to the other person? Both financially or emotionally.

Before trying to make friends, answer this questions. Most likely nothing interesting going on in your life, otherwise other people would try to hang out with you.