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How to turn casual friends into close ones

Building platonic intimacy takes intention, creativity, and a little vulnerability.

When I first moved to New York in my mid-20s for a new job, I arrived as a lone wolf. I didn’t have any friends or family members living in the city, just a few phone numbers (my older sister’s friends) to contact in the case of an emergency. So I immediately started to work on addressing this.

I met up with some virtual pals who I knew lived in the city — people I talked to on X, and women from my journalism and reality-TV group chats. I made sure to hang out with my new colleagues outside of work. I even kept in touch with a potential roommate I didn’t end up living with.

Then came a terrifying realization after about a year and a half in. While I had fully mastered the art of putting myself out there, I hadn’t formed that many close bonds. I had no problem initiating hangouts and showing up to whatever gatherings I was invited to. But I realized a lot of these new friends didn’t know me that well — and vice versa. Many of our conversations stayed at a surface level (“How’s work going?” “Did you watch the latest Vanderpump Rules?”). People I hung out with regularly still didn’t know crucial parts of my lore. And I was shy about asking people more about their own history.

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Subconsciously, I was making the same mistake that Jaimie Krems, an associate professor of social psychology at UCLA, says a lot of people make when forging new connections. “We have this error in our heads, this bias in the direction of ‘people don’t like us as much as we want them to,’” Krems tells Vox. “That’s just not true, and it keeps us from being close to people.”

Insecurities aren’t the only thing that can inhibit closeness. In adulthood, we naturally have less time to spend nurturing friendships due to our jobs, families, and other obligations. Relationship psychologist Marisa G. Franco tells Vox that adults are often less vulnerable when making friends compared to when we were children.........

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