“Of all the means which are procured by wisdom to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life,” wrote Epicurus, “by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.” 

2,300 years later, many of us agree (myself included), yet genuine friendship is hard to find and harder still to keep. As Aristotle puts it, “For a wish for friendship arises swiftly, but friendship itself does not.”¹ Why is this the case, if friendship is so important?

There’s no single answer, but I’m convinced that one important reason is that we seem to have this idea that friendship shouldn’t be effortful. We nod our heads when we hear the sentiment “nothing worth having in life is easy,” and then act as though friendship is somehow the exception. We make time for our jobs, side hustles, and dating apps, and then, exhausted, give friendship the dregs left over.

Yes, it’s true we tend to make friends more easily earlier in life. Settings like high school and college foster intense, continual social interactions.  It’s easier to find a kindred spirit when you’ve had fewer life experiences, are less jaded, and love the same music artist. But finding close friends and keeping them are two different things. Changes in lifestyle, location, and culture have made it easier than ever for us to drift from each other and fall out of touch.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that with effort we can make and keep lasting friendships. It doesn’t require serendipity or some magical set of ingredients. It does require, though, that we have the right qualities.

Kindness, supportiveness, and like-mindedness are some of the most obvious examples; it’s impossible to make an exhaustive list. But there are five distinct traits that I’ve learned are common across enduring friendships that most people seem to be unaware of.

They are not obvious, maybe not even intuitive, but I am convinced they are correlated to a life rich in friends.

1. Being a good listener

Why put “being a good listener” on a shortlist of friendship qualities?  Why not simply “unselfishness” or “empathy”?

Specific concepts are more helpful than broad ones. I’ve known unselfish, “kind” people who didn’t necessarily have strong friendships, but I’ve never met a bad listener who wasn’t lonely.

By “good listener” I don’t mean someone who is simply good at nodding their head and mirroring their companion. I mean someone who knows how to give their whole attention to another person, who finds just as much interest in someone else’s mind and feelings as their own.

The philosopher Erich Fromm understood this better than anyone else I know.

In his seminal book, The Art of Loving, he tells us, “With regard to the art of loving, this means that anyone who aspires to become a master in this art must begin by practicing discipline, concentration, and patience throughout every phase of his life.” Then he adds: “To be concentrated in relation to others means primarily to be able to listen.”  ²

Fromm uses the now-antiquated examples of “smoking” and “listening to the radio” as ways that people distract themselves from having to think or concentrate while they’re alone. And being alone, says Fromm, “is precisely a condition for the ability to love.” (“Love” extends here to friendship, not just romance). Swap out “smoking” and “the radio” for “doomscrolling” and “watching Netflix” and you’ll see that Fromm’s observation is even truer today than in his own time.

The discomfort of our thoughts or of being “bored” is the small price we pay upfront to learn how to be still, pay attention, and be a good listener so that we can be a good friend.

2. Being vulnerable

In recent years, health experts have identified a societal crisis of loneliness and isolation. ³Events like the COVID-19 pandemic play a role, but these are external things. The root cause of loneliness, I believe, is a lack of vulnerability. The same walls we build to keep out those who would hurt us also keep out those who make life worth living in the first place.

Vulnerability is a skill. 

It doesn’t simply mean spilling one’s guts out to anyone who will listen to us; it means being willing to share a piece of ourselves in the expectation that the other person will share a piece of them. “Trust is a product of vulnerability that grows over time and requires work, attention, and full engagement,” says researcher and author Brene Brown. “Trust isn’t a grand gesture—it’s a growing marble collection.”  ⁴

No wonder vulnerability is hard; it requires consistent practice, just like training for an Iron Man or learning to write code. There is a positive side to this, though: the things we practice week after week, year after year, shape our neural circuitry and become a part of our nature. If you aren’t vulnerable now, you can become vulnerable with time and effort.

3. Having passions and interests

One reason friendship does not arise “swiftly,” as Aristotle puts it, is that no one wants to be friends with someone who is underdeveloped as an individual. Not friends in the deepest, truest sense.

Do you have values, do you have passions, convictions? Even if it’s a love for DnD or a calling to volunteer at your local botanical garden, we cannot spark a connection with others if there’s no spark in ourselves.

C.S. Lewis, who wrote extensively on friendship, made this searing observation: 

“That is why those pathetic people who simply ‘want friends’ can never make any. The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where the truthful answer to the question Do you see the same truth? would be ‘I see nothing and I don’t care about the truth; I only want a Friend,’ no Friendship can arise…There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travelers.” ⁵

If you are experiencing emptiness, a lack of friends may be a red herring; the problem is that you do not have things worth living for. Find what those passions are, pursue them, and you are in a good position to find and make the most lasting friendships along the way.

4. Being affectionate

The philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft wrote in one of her letters near the end of the 18th century that, “Friendship and domestic happiness are continually praised; yet how little is there of either in the world, because it requires more cultivation of mind to keep awake affection, even in our own hearts, than the common run of people suppose.” ⁶

Then, as now, friendship required effort. However, an additional challenge in our culture today is our aversion to sincere, simple expressions of love and appreciation. Sarcasm and irony decorate everything we write and say, and digital shorthand has replaced handwritten letters and the intentionality they require to express our thoughts and feelings.

Wollstonecraft understood how vital being affectionate is in being close to others. She continues:

Besides, few like to be seen as they really are; and a degree of simplicity, and of undisguised confidence, which, to uninterested observers, would almost border on weakness, is the charm, nay the essence of love or friendship, all the bewitching graces of childhood again appearing.

Notice that her description also mentions vulnerability (“few like to be see as they really are”) – affection and vulnerability both go hand-in-hand because they require a sort of openness and lack of self-consciousness.

This is the strange Catch-22 of giving hugs, saying “I love you,” and other forms of affection: we tend to avoid doing it, yet we actually like it when others do it to us. Or in the words of friendship expert Marisa Franco: “We think our affection will freak people out, but it actually makes them feel closer to us.” ⁷

The next time you’re scared to be touchy-feeling (physically or verbally) with a good friend, ask yourself if you would be bothered if your friend did the same to you. We sabotage ourselves with our lack of insecurity. Start showing more affection to people in your life and see what happens.

5. Being tenacious

It’s a sad observation of mine that many people, once they lose touch with an old friend, seem to think that friendship is lost forever.

I believe the reason people fail to reach out to their old friends is the same reason they fall apart in the first place: a lack of confidence. Why “confidence”? Surely we’re not actually scared of our own friends, are we?  In a sense, I think we are: we think they don’t want or need us as much as we want or need them. We figure they’re “busy,” that it’s up to either them or to providence to find a “good time” to reconnect later.

We can only reap from our relationships what we bring to the table. People are attracted to those who are in motion, living lives of purpose, whatever that looks like.

The antidote to this wishy-washy thinking is tenacity. 

It takes a lot of intentionality in our Digital Age of Distraction to remember our friends, reach out, and put ourselves out there. The bar is low (most friends are glad to hear from us), and the potential rewards are huge. The only thing standing in the way is our own silly egos. 

The people I’ve observed in life who have the most friends are not the ones who are popular and glamorous, but the ones who are the most tenacious. They are the ones who seek, not the ones who are sought. When you take the initiative, you control the quality of the relationships in your life – the idea that you need the other person to make the “first move” is a false one that leads to nothing but missed opportunities.

Many of history’s greatest minds are known for being solitary and even lonely, but there are happy exceptions. One of my favorites is the southern Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Eudora Welty.

Welty never married or had children, and her life was touched by its share of loss and heartache. However, despite this (or maybe because of it) Welty was passionate about friendships, and surrounded by friends her entire life. In a letter she wrote to one of the closest of these friends, Kenneth Millar, she declared, “I love and need and learn from my friends, they are the continuity of my life.” ⁸

You may have noticed these five characteristics are not only those that forge close friendships; they are ingredients that lead to happiness itself. This is no coincidence. We can only reap from our relationships what we bring to the table. People are attracted to those who are in motion, living lives of purpose, whatever that looks like.

There are many things that bring happiness, richness, and saneness to our lives, and many more things that don’t. So many voices today focus on the importance of wealth, productivity, or “success” but I’m on the side of Epicurus and Eudora Welty: friends are the beginning, middle, and end of our existence.

***

Read Next:  How to Make Old Friends →

1. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins. University of Chicago Press, 2012.
2. Fromm, E. (2013). The Art of Loving. Open Road Media. 
3. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2023). Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community. Read here.
4. From Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
5. From The Four Loves
6. From Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark 
7. Franco, M. G. (2022). Platonic: How the science of attachment can help you make–and keep–friends. G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
8. Marrs, S., & Nolan, T. (Eds.). (2015). Meanwhile There Are Letters: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and Ross Macdonald. Arcade.