How to make friends (and keep them) | Sheridan Voysey

Sheridan Voysey (0:00)

Look around your workplace, your neighborhood, your train carriage. Every fourth person you see is regularly lonely.

Elise Hu (0:11)

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Here's a question for you. Who could you call at 2 a.m. when everything has gone wrong? If a name doesn't come to mind right away, you're not alone.

Author and broadcaster, Sheridan Voysey, says a lot of us would struggle to answer that.

Sheridan Voysey (0:33)

Loneliness doesn't just hurt us emotionally.

It increases anxiety and depression. It drains us of meaning and happiness. It weakens our heart. It even shortens our lifespan. But here's the good news. Friendship reverses all of this. People with close friends are happier, healthier, and they live longer. Friendship is a superpower and the most overlooked relationship of our time.

Elise Hu (0:56)

It's a superpower, but friendship is also an act. And you can call it a loneliness crisis or a friendship recession. But in an age of endless scrolling and shrinking social circles, many of us have forgotten how to make friends, especially as an adult.

Sheridan's been there.

Sheridan Voysey (1:12)

Did you know that it takes 50 hours of meaningful contact to move a relationship from an acquaintance to a casual friend alone, let alone a good friend or a 2 AM friend? 50 hours. Simply put, I wasn't putting the hours in.

Elise Hu (1:24)

In this talk, Sheridan, who leads an organization called Friendship Labs, shares three simple commitments he believes could spark a friendship revolution. Through personal stories, humor, and cutting edge research, Sheridan shows how friendship can boost our well-being, restore our sense of belonging, and shape a more connected future. That's coming up right after a short break.

And now, our TED Talk of the day.

Sheridan Voysey (1:58)

Who could you call at 2 a.m. when everything has gone wrong? Not 2 p.m. when everything is fine, 2 a.m. when you're at your most vulnerable and they're at their most inconvenienced?

In 2008, my wife and I found ourselves sitting in a drab seminar room. We were 8 years into what would become a 10-year journey trying to start a family. And on this day, we gathered with others to find out about adoption. And seeing the hope in all of our eyes that an adopted child would fulfill the deepest longings of our soul to be parents, which of course until this point in time had not happened, our facilitator got serious. She said, yes, being an adoptive parent is going to be great. There's going to be great joy involved, but also it could be difficult. You're going to need a support group around you. And then she asked a question that burrowed under my skin and never left. She said, who could you call at 2 a.m. when everything has gone wrong? And I found myself sitting there with my pen hovering over the workbook because I couldn't think of who's name to write down.

What about you? Who's your 2 a.m. friend?

You've seen the headlines. Call it a loneliness crisis or a friendship recession. Something is drastically wrong. Look around your workplace, your neighborhood, your train carriage. Every fourth person you see is regularly lonely. Now, if that is you and there will be some of us here in the room, do not worry. You're not alone for a start. The problem comes when we stay there. Decades of research now confirm what we intuitively know to be true, that loneliness doesn't just hurt us emotionally. It increases anxiety and depression. It drains us of meaning and happiness. It weakens our heart. It even shortens our lifespan. But here's the good news. Friendship reverses all of this. People with close friends are happier, healthier, and they live longer. Friendship is a superpower. And the most overlooked relationship of our time.

Decades of research to tell us what we now know to be true. But here's the thing. When I was sitting in that seminar room that day, I didn't really take on the picture of somebody needing friends. I've spent years as a presenter. I don't have any trouble talking to strangers. In general, I've got fairly high social confidence. I wasn't your typical picture of somebody who needs friends. But as I sat in the seminar room that day, I was facing three of the biggest barriers that adults face in their friendships today. First barrier, mobility. Hands up, how many of you are living in a town or city different to where you were born? Keep your hands up if you've moved two times since then. Three times, four times, five times. We could keep on going on. That was me. I'd recently moved cities, I had friends in other places, but I wasn't keeping in touch with them. Second barrier, busyness. Be honest with me. How many of you have had times in your life where you've been too busy to keep in touch with your friends? Thank you for your honesty. That too was me. But did you know that it takes 50 hours of meaningful contact to move a relationship from an acquaintance to a casual friend alone, let alone a good friend or a 2am friend? 50 hours. Simply put, I wasn't putting the hours in. And thirdly, there's neglect. Because for decades now, our culture has pushed friendship off into the shadows while we've shone the spotlight on its prettiest sibling, romance.