The Highest Impact Thing You Can Do in Your Everyday Life
Making friends is hard; introducing others is easy.
Your phone’s screen lights up. You pick it up and see a notification from a dating app: a new match. Opening the app, you’re greeted by an atypical ask: “hey, do you want to go climb a mountain and ski down it next weekend?”
You’ve never met this person before. You don’t know anything about them beyond a handful of photos and a few answers to superficial questions on their profile. Perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of the request is that IT’S JUNE.
Do you say yes?
Payton did.
Early in the summer of last year, I proposed this audacious activity as our first date after matching with Payton on Hinge. Logistics didn’t work out for the climb to be our first meetup—that’s what she told me at the time, at least. In reality, she didn’t want to be stuck in the car with a potential weirdo for four hours without meeting me first. I’ve gotta say, super reasonable of her.
But on July 3rd we set our sights on a 13,000 foot mountain, Pettingell Peak. After braving high winds, high exposure, and high elevation, we summited and skied a sick line. What’s more, we somehow didn’t hate each other after a few hours in the car, nine miles of hiking with skis on our backs, and nearly 3.5k of vertical gain.
At the same time, I realized I wasn’t feeling ready to date anyone at the time. I recognized the easy affinity between us nonetheless, so after we returned from skiing I asked her if we could be friends. Payton accepted my friendzoning with grace, issuing one strict condition: I had to introduce her to all of the girls I know who rip at skiing.
Humans need social contact. We evolved to exist in small kin groups. People with active social networks live longer. Friendship is an unquestionably good thing and critical part of any full life.
Alienation and loneliness are higher in younger generations. That isn’t surprising; the institutions and social frameworks that historically served as ways for people to meet friends and partners have crumbled over the past decades (Bowling Alone, etc. etc.). Americans report fewer friendships, the friendships they do have are less profound, and they receive less support from the friendships they do have.
And before anyone says anything about more not being better:
If the above is all true, facilitating friendships will have an outsized effect on those around you. In fact, I reckon the highest impact thing you can do in your everyday life to make the world better is to introduce people to each other.
Making friends is hard. You might be a shy person, neurodivergent, or simply not naturally social. Even if you’re an extroverted social butterfly, it’s hard to find people you get along with without having some way to screen them beforehand for compatibility or similar interests. It’s hard to motivate yourself to invest time in new friendships when its easier and more comfortable to spend time with friends you already know—the opportunity cost of your social time is high. The opposite is also true: it’s hard to convince others to invest time in getting to know you for the same reasons.
Perhaps the hardest part of making new friends, though, is that it’s scary. You have to make yourself vulnerable to people you don’t know. There’s always a risk of experiencing social rejection or the sting of an unrequited friendship.
Introducing others, in comparison, is easy. Since you already know the people you’re introducing, your judgement of their friend compatibility should be quite high. The very act of thinking that two people might be friends means you’ve pre-filtered for compatibility already, and by crafting a setting to facilitate and introduction, you’re reducing the social opportunity cost since you’re a mutual friend of both people. It costs essentially nothing to bring groups of people together, but the potential upside is astronomical.
The most inspiring aspect of introductions, though, is that any effort invested in creating new friendships is cascading. Friendships compound. Friends you introduce to each other will keep the chain of introductions going by introducing your friends to their friends. Friendships are like multi-level marketing schemes, but good!
Payton and I continued skiing together. We were each pursuing the classic Colorado tradition of the eternal winter: skiing every month of the year. Every month the hikes got longer and the ski lines got shorter, but we kept at it and achieved our twelfth month in a row in October 2023.
Likewise, I kept to my end of the bargain. Finding other women who ski hard AND are good people was something Payton had wanted to do since moving back to Colorado after college, and I’m lucky to call a lot of talented athletes friends. Introducing these rippers to Payton was simple—all I had to do was bring her along to the climbing gym, propose group ski days, or convince her to come to concerts and the friendships made themselves.
This arrangement was not a one-way street; Payton has introduced me to plenty of awesome new friends too. I’ve gotten to know her brother and tons of new friends in Denver. Plus, it feels like every day I ski with her, I get to meet someone new she befriended through school, in the lift line the previous week, or on another dating app!
(This is not a joke. Payton has a lot of friends from dating apps. She’s compiling a ranking, publication date TBD. She assures me I’m at least in the top half.)
Perhaps most unexpected to me is how the very act of introducing her to people has provided opportunity to enrich my own existing friendships. I’ve invited people in my periphery to go on adventures because I thought they’d get along with Payton, only to realize afterwards that we had deepened our own relationship at the same time. Friendships compound! I’m even more stoked when I hear about second and third-order friendships forming off of these new bonds. Friendships cascade!
Because I was spending all of these high-density days skiing with Payton, we got to know each other surprisingly fast. Our friendship made picking out people to introduce to each other easy.
On this point, Payton brought up something one of our now-mutual friends told her:
“Tessa said one of the greatest compliments is when you can understand someone’s music taste and know them well enough to get it. This made me think about friendships; someone truly listening to you and getting to know you lets them feel out the vibe about the kind of people you need to meet and incorporate into your life.”
Introducing people is like recommending a song, book, or artist. If you know someone’s tastes well, you can turn them onto a new favorite band; if you know someone’s personality well, you can introduce them to a new friend.
Thanks to Anna for providing critical perspective and the hut trip gang—Tessa, Grace, Mitch, and Payton—for the introspection about friendship at the beginning of this year!
Absolutely love this…friendships to last a lifetime are tough to create and find but you two look like you have found the key ingredients…cheers to more mountains to climb and ski slopes to crush together. 🎿🎿🏔️🏔️
I am thankful Payton accepted your crazy offer in June which ultimately gave me the opportunity to meet Grace and Tessa as well and enjoy a quality run ski run with you all a few weeks ago. Yes, those three ladies can RIP! Nice piece Ole Buddy! Look forward to more and new encounters soon with new friends.