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[cheering]
[applause]
>> Have you ever moved to a new city as an
adult?
Mhm? Yeah?
It's not as much fun as you think it'd
be.
I mean, yeah, it seems great on the
surface. You're like, "Yay,
new everything."
And then you realize, "Oh,
like new everything."
I got to find a new dentist.
I got to find a new dog sitter.
I got to find new friends.
Now, I moved to Asheville from Oakland,
California during the pandemic. So,
finding all that new stuff was even
harder cuz no one was doing anything new
other than maybe learning to bake bread.
But, eventually, the world went back to
normal and I found a dentist. I found a
really, really great dog sitter.
But, what I didn't find was friends. I
mean, I met a lot of people, but I
didn't have my people.
And you probably know what I mean when I
say my people.
I'm talking about my sit on the front
porch, talk about nothing at all people.
My
"Oh my god, what is this rash?"
people.
"My dog just died and I don't even have
the energy to get out of bed" people.
Like all of those people live 2,500
miles away in California.
And there were times when the loneliness
of that fact
felt like it might kill me.
And if that sounds like hyperbole,
it turns out I wasn't actually that far
off.
When the US Surgeon General published
its report on the epidemic of loneliness
in 2023,
they shared some very serious warnings
about the physical consequences of poor
social connection. I mean,
look at these numbers.
It's staggering.
Loneliness can literally kill us.
But here's what they don't tell you in
any of these reports. They don't tell
you how to survive this epidemic. They
don't tell you how to go out there and
make friends.
Now, when I say make friends, it sounds
so simple. And it was simple when we
were little kids, right? All you had to
do to make friends was go to school and
there's all the other little kids
waiting to play with you at recess.
But how the heck do you actually make
friends
as an adult?
Right? So many of us work from home. The
people that we love probably live all
over the country. We tend to move every
couple of years and we're all addicted
to our phones.
But there's more. Research shows takes
about 100 hours to make a friend and 200
or more hours to make an intimate
friend.
Meanwhile, we tend to lose about 50% of
our friends every 7 years.
People move.
People fall out with one another.
People die.
So you might be sitting here thinking
like, I don't need to make more friends.
I got plenty of friends.
But do the math.
>> [laughter]
>> If you're not pretty consistently making
friends all the time,
you run the risk of eventually feeling
very, very lonely.
Now, I'll be honest. I didn't think that
I personally was going to need to answer
to question of how to make friends as an
adult because before my whole
lonely in Asheville thing
I worked at a company that was basically
a friend factory where all of my
co-workers were super smart, super
interesting, really just wonderful
people.
I got to go to work and hang out with my
best friend Sally every day. It was
almost like we had our own standing
coffee date, but somehow we were getting
paid to drink the coffee.
And if I had a question or I needed
advice, I would just ask my friends Kim
or Karen. They'd be sitting just a few
desks away from me.
So it was like
friendship Shangri-La.
So I thought I had my friendship game
dialed in.
Until of course I didn't. I'd moved to
this new city. I didn't have my cool
co-workers anymore. And after the
pandemic, everyone just went on with
their lives.
So at first I tried solving this the
old-fashioned way.
Where I would go to events that I found
online
and hope for the best.
But how do you walk into a room full of
50, maybe a hundred people and figure
out which ones are your people?
I'd go to each event and just like stand
in the corner with a drink in my hand
hoping that someone would talk to me.
And I'm betting that some of you here
today have done a similar thing in your
life where you walk into a party full of
strangers
and just freeze.
Wondering
is anybody here going to like me?
Maybe even wondering am I going to like
anybody else?
So
I utterly failed at making friends this
way and I kept failing over and over and
over again for a couple of years.
And then it occurred to me,
what if I could prototype friendship?
Remember that friendship Shangri-La I
was talking about a few minutes ago?
That company is the international design
firm IDEO,
which happens to be the birthplace of a
methodology called design thinking.
Now, you could take a semester-long
course on the subject of design
thinking, but I'm going to save you the
time and the money.
Design thinking boils down to two big
ideas. Number one is that you talk to
people about what they want, what they
need, what they care about to gain
insight and empathy before you start
designing something. And two is that you
use that insight, that empathy to create
low-fidelity experiments or prototypes
so you can try your ideas out and learn
from them over time with feedback.
Maybe, I thought, I could use that
methodology, talking to people about
what they want and need, experimenting
my way forward.
Maybe I could use that to make friends.
So, I had recently connected on LinkedIn
with a woman from Asheville named Angie
who graduated from the same college as
me.
And we got together for the very first
time over lunch at All Day Darling. So,
Buddha bowls for both of us.
And normally a get-together like this
would end with one of us saying
something like, "You know, we should
totally hang out sometime."
And
followed by nothing actually happening.
But in this situation, we both started
talking about how we were longing for
more in-person community.
So, I took a chance.
And I asked my
hopefully new friend Angie,
Do you want to try a friendship
experiment with me?
And she looks at me across the table.
And there's the tiniest pause before she
replies. And it's a pause just long
enough for me to think, "Oh god.
>> [cheering]
>> What what have I done?"
>> [laughter]
>> And then she said,
"I'd love that."
So we outlined the first iteration of
our experiment right there at the table.
We would each invite a few people that
we wanted to get to know better to a
group dinner and take it from there. So
it was a super simple thing, right? It
was almost like
friend matchmaking where we each brought
a few potential candidates. But
instead of keeping the goal of the
evening a secret from everyone, we
decided to be really intentional and
open about it. So I brought a friend of
mine named Aaron. Angie brought two
people from the gym named Emily and
Jess. And we sat outside at a brew pub
sharing tater tots and getting to know
one another.
And at first it was a little bit
awkward.
But eventually we got around to talking
about the reason we were getting
together in the first place to try this
friendship experiment.
And I started by asking everyone what
they wanted and needed out of a friend
group.
And almost immediately the conversation
was tender and sweet.
Two of the women who were there are
single.
And they talked about how challenging it
is to do everyday life stuff without a
partner, like, you know, hanging a
picture on the wall or carrying a heavy
box to the car.
We talked about missing that sense of
having a gang like we did in our 20s.
And we talked about wanting to learn
from one another since we all did such
different things out in the world.
So, we listened to each other deeply. We
talked about what we each needed, and
then we openly discussed what we
expected from others, what we could
commit to, what we couldn't. So, set
some ground rules. We set expectations.
We agreed to be on a group chat
together.
We agreed to get together regularly in
the real world. And we agreed to teach
each other things based on what we were
each individually good at. So, just to
hammer this point home, we were
deliberate and intentional with the
creation of this group, which is
something I have never done before in my
life.
And lastly,
we gave ourselves a name.
This sounds ridiculous on the surface,
but it actually served to make things
feel official and real.
We are MASABAG.
Which stands for the Mutual Aid Society
and Bird Appreciation Group.
>> [applause]
>> Marking us very clearly as women of a
certain age.
>> [laughter]
>> But we started hanging out together
almost immediately. There's one member
of the group who is a medical
illustrator at a law firm who also
happens to be a professional forager.
And she took us for a hike to see what
we could eat out in the forest. It was
amazing.
And secretly, I'm walking around the
woods going, "Oh my god, it's
happening."
We have had potlucks and art nights. We
help each other carry those heavy boxes.
We give rides to the airport. I mean,
basically, I have my dream friend group,
and it has been both life-changing and
life-affirming.
Now,
I want to point out that the Massa bag
prototype example,
it's a pretty big prototype.
But you don't have to do something as
big as Massa bag. You could do something
small.
This is one that I actually did. I met a
woman in my neighborhood who is a
librarian, which to me is like finding
out that she has magical powers.
So, I reached out to her,
and this is the actual text. I said,
"Hey, do you want to form the world's
smallest and most exclusive book club,
wherein we choose a book and both read
it and then go eat something and then
talk about it and then talk about other
stuff?"
And she said, "Yes.
>> [cheering and applause]
>> Yes, I do."
>> [applause]
>> It was great.
It was amazing. We got together over a
book. We became friends and then started
dreaming of another idea from there.
We're calling it Books and Bites. It's a
book potluck, where each person brings a
new copy of their favorite book, pitches
it to everyone else about why they love
it, and then everybody gets to choose a
book that they're interested in, go home
with a new book, maybe even a new
friend.
If you are a book lover, steal this
idea.
>> [laughter]
>> I love it so much. It's so good.
So, this whole idea just came out of a
conversation with my new friend, Mary
the librarian, about what we each loved
and hated about book clubs. All right,
so we're listening to each other, coming
up with an idea to try based on what we
heard. In other words, using the basics
of design thinking that empathetic
listening,
quick prototyping,
to make friends.
But what was I really doing with each of
these prototypes?
I was creating
a container
for friendship to grow in. Right? Just a
little bit of structure that gives
people something to hold on to.
And here's the important part.
All framed as an experiment. Right?
There's nothing precious, nothing that
can't be changed. It's just an
invitation to try something, learn from
the experiment, and then change the
container to suit the needs of the
people who are involved.
And all of this turns the scary part
of making friends
into something different.
I'm not going to say that it's easy. I
mean, you still have to be vulnerable,
still have to be brave. You need that
intentionality, but it's just an
experiment. That's it.
And by asking people what they want,
what they need, what they expect from
the experiment, you dramatically
increase the chances of everyone
actually enjoying themselves.
So, if you're sitting here and you're
thinking to yourself, "Yeah, I would
like to make a few friends." Or maybe
even I just want to deepen the
friendships that I already have.
I give you this challenge right now.
Design a friendship prototype.
Make it simple.
Make it goofy. And give it a name.
Make it whatever you want, but give it a
try.
Don't ever underestimate how much other
people will appreciate you
stepping forward and offering up a
container for interesting things to
happen within.
Because if there is one thing that is
going to get us all through
what ahead,
it's friendship.
Thanks.
>> [cheering and applause]
[applause]
[cheering]
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