Romantic friendship: deep and lasting connection comes in many forms

It is so much easier to be vulnerable around someone who has already seen you at your lowest or most embarrassing and that you know doesn't respond with ridicule. It is no coincidence that 3 of my closest friendships were formed during my most embarrassing freshman year of university. We certainly laughed with each other when things went south, but we rarely laughed at each other and that meant so much. After that, it is all about quality time. The more quality time you spend with them the deeper the bonds form. It's kinda like, if they know your trauma, they know you.

So, how do you make close friends as a working adult?

1. "Trauma Dog Whistling".

Ok, hear me out. No one wants to be the crybaby with no filter, but smart allusions or comic punchlines with regards to common forms of trauma helps peel the first few layers of the emotional onion that they've become by the time they are in the workforce. You can similarly do some "niche interest dog whistling" to find one of your community, but I personally find that having similar interests has very little to do with forming close friendships.

2. "Signal non-transactional nature"

Help them when you don't need to. This one is straight forward. A fundamental facet of a close friendship is that it stops being objectively transactional. (just like any other close sibling, romantic, parent relationship). Explicitly showing it is like showing your trust in an investment by not asking for any voting rights.

3. The long, silent activity :

This is very men focused, but nothing makes men want to open up like silence and a distracting primary activity. Whether that be gaming on a couch or a long hike. Many of my close friendships have solidified through such "long-silent-talking is secondary" activities.

4. Throw rocks at the footsteps of their glass house :

This is the final step of building trust. Everyone wants their friends to know their boundaries well. Overstep it and trust is breached. Stay too far away and you come across as distant. A great friend will routinely walk the line. Their jokes, comments & intimacy will reach right up to your border and then they will retreat. You may not explicitly realize this, but it strongly conveys to your subconscious, that this person 'knows' me.

5. Give them a role :

So now you have a good friend, how do you keep them ? It sounds robotic, but give them a role. The person you go to for X, or talk to about X, or the one who does X that's really cool and I like hearing about it every 3 months. It gives you an excuse to call after they inevitably move away. It gives you an excuse to turn up with the excuse of the 'role'. You really want to meet them, but men are too uncomfortable saying that outright. The role is a nice excuse to skirt around the discomfort.

Ofc, your friend will be hopefully reciprocating by indulging in some of these steps. Eventually, you will have a long lasting friendship that both of you will feel fortunate for. :)

I cannot relate to that even a little and it is wildly incompatible with my lived experiences. Maybe back in the 90's there was some of that going on. But I know plenty of men I could call right now and tell them I love them without either of us grasping for some "I'm straight" life preserver. The entire concept sounds tragically outdated.