This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s summer editorial intern Connor Hanrahan. Find him on Instagram at @hannerhansmh. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
A high quality friendship is like a block of gold: it’s hard to come by but it’ll change your life forever once you find it. Some friendships are even so good that they’re worth sharing with your other friends and even the people you love, but this isn’t always as easy as it sounds. In fact, introducing people you love to other loved ones can be stressful because you care so much about both parties that you feel like you have everything to lose if they don’t immediately click. Today we’re going to discuss how to introduce friends to other friends and family, and the best ways to do so.
Introducing friends and mixing friend groups used to be difficult for me, and I actually avoided it at all costs for a while, because I’m friends with such a wide array of folks. Some of my friends are sensitive while others are a bit abrasive, some are witty while others may not understand that humor, and some are into sports while others are into RuPaul’s Drag Race. These stark dichotomies seemed almost insurmountable, but it turns out that I only felt that way because I was focused on their differences, not their similarities. To successfully introduce my friends, I had to pay much more attention to what they had in common.
Environment and a Venn Diagram
It’s important to analyze the similarities and differences between two friends before introducing them so that you can introduce them in a situation that best suits them both. One example would be introducing friends who have a large disparity between their political alignments but maybe they both like shopping and hiking. If you were to take them both hiking, the main focus while walking would typically be conversing which may increase the likelihood of politics coming up. This might not be the best idea for a first impression. Instead, meet at the mall so that the topic of conversation is directly influenced by the topic immediately at hand: shopping.
Eventually, their differences in political beliefs may come up, but this type of disagreement is much easier overlooked when a fundamental relationship built on other agreements has already been established.
Every relationship has fluidity and compromises. Some personality traits are appreciated by both parties while others may recede a bit around certain people. This is not being “fake,” this is simply ensuring the comfortability of all parties involved because any mature adult will naturally censor themselves to accommodate the environment they’re in. For example, if one friend is seriously profane in their vocabulary and another friend avoids swearing at all costs, the profane friend will typically tone it down a bit around that friend because they care about their comfortability. This applies to the introduction of friends as well.
If one friend’s personality is a bit conservative, and the other is rambunctious, it’s key that the rambunctious friend behave a bit more mildly during the first impression so that the conservative friend isn’t intimidated by the other’s behavior.
Subtle vs Direct Introductions
Personalities don’t simply click without a level of cooperation from both parties…
…and sometimes your friends will be VERY, fundamentally different.
A solid, yet uncommon, example here is if one friend is devoutly religious and the other takes pride in their atheism. Typically, one won’t have friends of such a dichotomy, yet if one does, these are probably friends best introduced subtly the first few times. The key with a subtle introduction is to have not just one, but a few subtle introductions before diving into hanging out with them together.
The first introduction for ANY friends should be from you mentioning one friend to the other in a positive light. Just mentioning a friend in a flattering way is enough to get the friend you want to introduce them to open to the idea of being their friend. This is easier if they belong to separate friend groups, both of which you’re a part of.
For example: Religious Friend is going to the fair on Saturday with their buddies and they invite you, but you’re already going with Atheist Friend. Attend with Atheist Friend, but make sure that the two friends meet in passing so that the Atheist Friend’s primary point of attention is still you and Religious Friend still has their group. After this initial interaction, go about your merry ways and maybe talk Religious Friend up a bit to Atheist friend and leave that relationship alone for a while. This will provide a nice gestation period between the first interaction and the second.
The key with a subtle introduction is to have not just one, but a few subtle introductions before diving into hanging out with them together.
Energy and The General Vibe
This is a highly subjective way of analyzing a friendship, but every friend has a different vibe that can’t possibly be described with words. There’s just this unquantifiable energy that each person has and some will mesh better than others. It really comes down to intuition and your unique understanding of each friend and their energy and values.
Despite every piece of advice I’ve given, this is the truest eye test of whether or not two of your friends will get along or not. This is also the best way to analyze how well two friend groups will get along because now you aren’t just comparing and contrasting two people, you are comparing and contrasting several sets of relationships and the dynamics of each.
Friend Groups
Mixing friend groups is far more difficult to break down mentally, but is way easier to do in real life. There are so many different possible outcomes that one could not possibly accurately predict who will connect with who and how that will affect the dynamics of the initial friend groups.
Mixing friend groups can be super fruitful for you because all of a sudden, if sparks fly and connections are made, you’ll have all sorts of new dynamics to explore and friend pairings to hang out with. This could yield new activities, new connections with friends of these new friends, and even the integration of friends outside these groups because new vibes means new opportunities for relationships.
Despite the dandiness of this social hubbub, the integration of friend groups can also yield romantic relationships and even rifts in existing friendships.
Romantic relationships are a tough one because when friend groups date, things get messy FAST. If the relationship ends, everybody in the circle has to, to some extent, pick a side and this usually leads to the division of the group in favor of the oldest and strongest relationships. I’ve seen instances where a group has been divided into boys and girls, oldest friends and newest friends, and even “simps and chads”. To clarify this last one, I mean girls and the guys who want to smash took the side of the girl while the single males all took the guy’s side.
Every genre of fracture listed is a possible outcome of a single romantic relationship with a friend circle and the circle can fracture even further if the dating pool within the friend group becomes incestuous. Odds are, if one set of friends starts dating, others will too. These secondary relationships will almost certainly yield jealousy from the exes and could cause even further rift in the friend group. But relationships aren’t the only thing that can cause jealousy.
If we look back at the initial integration of the friend groups, even just the kindling of new friendships is enough to put pre-existing friendships at bay. All of a sudden, one party in the friendship feels isolated because their primary friend in the group is in the honeymoon phase of another friendship and spending all of their time with that person, omitting their previous friend. Of course there are iterations of this where both friends are involved, but strong three person connections are much harder to come by because it is easier to form one strong relationship than a triangle.
All of these concerns are valid, but we must not let the potential for negative deter us in our pursuit of happiness, the same way we have to dive head first into love with no regard for our previous heartbreaks. Insecurity taints relationships and this is amplified within friend groups. Just the potential for a insecurity driven game of telephone is enough to shatter beautiful friendships that would’ve otherwise been prosperous. As I mentioned previously, friendships require compromise and the integration of friend groups emphasizes this even moreso.
A Personal Anecdote
Shortly after high school, I was a part of a friend group integration. I have always disc golfed and during senior year, the boys I knew from youth baseball began disc golfing. I was invited and quickly became a staple in disc golfing plans just because I had been playing for so much longer than everyone else. Eventually, I formed some personal bonds with some of the guys, and rekindled some old ones, and we began hanging out off the course as well.
One of these friends in particular, who would eventually become family to me, made a conscious effort to invite me out to plans with his friend group. This friend group also happened to involve one of my oldest friends, so the integration was easy. We all hung out multiple nights per week and there were even some romantic feelings within the group; particularly between my childhood friend and his crush, and myself and one of the friends.
Eventually, there became a disparity within the group: some of us wanted to have a more frisky type of fun (drinking, partying, risque activities, etc…), and others wanted to remain a bit more conservative. The friend group softly split into two sub-groups and even though there was virtually no conflict between any of us, the two groups grew further and further apart. My childhood friend, despite our tight relationship, stayed nearer to the conservative half of the group because that’s where his crush, now girlfriend of three years, was. We are still best friends to this day, but we just saw each other less frequently then.
These two groups never had conflict, but still grew further and further apart as interests diverged, and shortly after we all went to college, they split entirely. The three of us that wanted to indulge in adult types of fun remained tight knit. The conservative half all but ex-communicated us after they decided that we weren’t exactly “their type of people” and it definitely didn’t help that the girl with whom my romantic tension with had faded (who was in the conservative half) became discontent because I began dating my ex shortly after going to college.
After entering this relationship, I didn’t hear from the other side of the friend group again, except for my childhood bestie… Well, not until four years later when I had broken up with my ex and my childhood friend and I began hanging out again because I was home from college. Then, because the only rift that had ever existed between our groups was a matter of interests, we were all able to reconverge and it was almost like nothing had changed.
However, during this time apart from the rest of the group, I maintained particularly close contact with the two boys that were on my side of the group divide and we’ve become staples in each other’s lives. Two of us were groomsmen at the other’s wedding and us two groomsmen have been housemates for a year now. I was even blessed with the opportunity to merge into a different friend group of the groom where I was introduced to my, now, girlfriend. I believe she’s the love of my life and that someday, we will feature these friends at our wedding.
To this day, it’s still almost like nothing has changed. One of us is married, another will be within the next few years, and most others are in relationships that were created outside the initial group.
Lessons To Take From This
My point in this tale is that no matter what happens with the initial friend groups, whether they fade or become tighter knit, everything will pan out as it should. If nothing else, the social entropy created by the merge will exacerbate the pre-existing goods and bads within the group and speed up what was already bound to happen. It will also open up new doors and paths for everyone involved, which, sure, may lead to difficult decisions, but will ultimately put everyone on the course on which they belong and that’s the beauty of social networking and life in general.
Introducing friends can be a challenge at times, but it can prove bountiful beyond your wildest dreams. It can influence love, it can influence hate, but more than anything, it can influence people to make the decisions that best suit them and open up doorways they may have never seen possible. Connecting the people you love will never do you wrong because when it comes to interpersonal bonds, there is no right or wrong, there simply is and there is not. I will always advocate for connecting friends and even family because the potential for a perfectly symbiotic relationship between the people you love is more valuable than anything else you could possibly sacrifice along the way. I hope this article gave you some things to consider when introducing your friends and more importantly, I wish you good luck in doing so!
What do you think? Did I gloss over any issues you could see arising? Let me know in the comments below because I’d love to read your experiences or advice!
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