Set up your friends (not like that)

We could all use more friend dates.

This post is part of my limited-run series New Friend Summer. Read more about it here.

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I took a break from New Friend Summer last week to concentrate on Old Friend Summer, aka heading to the beach with my high school BFF and college BFF for (a very unpatriotic) Fourth of July weekend. I introduced them last time I was in town and was delighted to hear I had already planned on a ~set your friends up~ post later this summer, but they reminded me how wonderful it is when your friends hit it off and made me want to bump it up. So here we are!

It probably surprises no one that the “friends of friends” anecdote category had a robust showing in the original survey that spawned this newsletter. It’s a simple enough cheat code: Someone you like likes someone else, ergo you might like them, too. Pre-vetted friend!

But so many success stories happened by luck—hitting it off at a mutual friend’s party, piggybacking off an extrovert’s circle, meeting at weddings. And I’m like, we need to be more intentional about setting up our people on friend dates, right?

Admittedly, I haven’t always been Team Friend Setup, thanks to what I think is a pretty common fear: that once I facilitate a connection, my friends will of course like each other better than they like me and I’ll get cut out as a middle man. Take what Maya R. called their “greatest heist,” aka befriending their friend Z at a mutual bud’s birthday dinner:

“We immediately hit it off by lamenting about our friend being a picky eater. We spent the night trading restaurant recommendations and phone numbers. Eventually, Z and I branched off to do more adventurous things our other friend just wasn’t into. We still occasionally hang as a trio but Z and I have traveled abroad together and became closer than the mutual friendship that brought us together.”

My nightmare!!! If anyone shares this fear of mine, you might be wondering why it’s the theme of the week. But even buried in that example of one of my Friend Anxieties realized, there’s a reminder that, well, if our friends hit it off separately, that’s actually a good thing! Different friends bring different things to our lives—including the opportunity to do things that some of our other friends aren’t interested in—and these new connections don’t have to diminish individual relationships.

As Hope R.—self-described shameless friend-stealer and my own friend-of-a-friend-turned-friend puts it: “Friendship is not a finite resource.”

[crazy ex-girlfriend voice] i have friends i definitely have friends

How to make it happen

Whether you want to be the matchmaker or the matchmade, there are a few ways to go about it. Obviously, you can just…ask (“Hey, your other friend seems cool and I’d love to hang out sometime”) or offer (“I think you and my friend would hit it off! Want to hang out sometime?”), but here are some other nuggets of wisdom from my favorite friend set-up success stories.

1. Kick things off with a group hang. “I’m a bit of a loner, so when my good friend moved out of state, he decided I needed to be friends with his best work girlfriends. He arranged a few hangs with all of us and by the time he moved, I was already arranging friend dates with the ladies.” —Heather T., 44

2. Help them swap numbers. “My go-to move after I bring friends together is to throw them in a group chat so they have each other’s numbers and don’t need me to facilitate the next thing. Just a quick text like, ‘It was so nice seeing you both today!’” —Jade M., 29

3. Team up to support your mutual friend. “We were all at the same comic con and the mutual friend had to go to a panel. We decided since we had no other plans to shop together and realized we had a lot in common. Now our kids are practically siblings.” —Courtney L., 38

4. Be the hype person. “I always give an elevator pitch when introducing my friends so I can low-key share why I think they’d hit it off. For example, highlighting hobbies they have in common—‘oh, you’re both avid hikers, discuss!’—or how they’re similar—‘you two are some of the goofiest people I know, I’m sure you’ll make each other laugh!’ That kind of thing.” —Selena R., 25

5. Put out general feelers. “It’s helpful to explicitly ask your network if there is anyone you might align with that you should reach out to. Similar to dating, it can be a numbers game but I’ve found that, more often than not, if a friend I trust introduced me to someone, it’s likely to end in a meaningful connection.” —Meredith L., 28

See ya next week, new friends!