Friends of friends — how your social circle grows without hunting strangers

Q: How do I invite an acquaintance without it being awkward?

Use a concrete event invitation, not an open 'we should hang out.' Say what you'll do, where, when. 'Going to play minigolf Saturday — you're welcome if you want' is a hundred times easier to answer than a 'how are you doing.' Concreteness lowers the threshold for both you and him.

Q: Do I need an existing group for the friends-of-friends model to work?

No. If you're 'zero,' start with your peripheral circle — old classmates, former colleagues, neighbors. List 15-20 names, choose 5 and send concrete event invitations. It's enough that one or two respond for a chain to start.

Q: How many peripheral contacts do I need to activate?

To go from 'zero' to 'steady group,' it's usually enough to activate a handful of people, of whom some become recurring. You don't need to activate everyone. You just need to activate enough that three or four become accustomed to being in touch.

The peripheral circle is where your next friends already exist. You just need to activate it.

Published April 2026 · 9 min read

Here's what you need to know:

Adult friendship rarely grows by finding completely new people. It grows by activating people already in your periphery: acquaintances, colleagues, neighbors, friends of friends.
Research from Sandstrom & Dunn (2014) shows that more interactions with weak social ties — acquaintances, not just close friends — is associated with higher subjective well-being and stronger sense of belonging.
A longitudinal study from Roberts & Dunbar (2015) followed personal networks through a major life transition and found that decline in emotional closeness was most effectively prevented by increased shared activities for men, and by increased contact frequency for women.
When the group fades, the solution isn't trying to save only the old relationships. It's gradually activating the peripheral circle — people you already know but rarely see.
Invite friends of friends to things you're already going to do. That's how your acquaintance circle grows in adulthood.
The friends-of-friends model works in both directions: share your own event with your circle, and ask your friends to bring along someone they think is decent.
It doesn't require chemistry perfection. It's enough that the person is decent and can come. The rest sorts itself out through shared activity.

The peripheral circle

All the people in your contact list, your LinkedIn, your phone, your friend's phone — but who you don't actively spend time with. Acquaintances, colleagues, neighbors, friends of friends, old classmates. For most adult men, this circle is significantly larger than the active group of friends. That's where the growth is — if you lower the threshold to activate it.

It's not a group that's collapsed — it's a group that's fading

Think about your group ten years ago.

How many of you were there? Six people? Seven? Eight? How many of you see each other now — on a regular evening, not at a wedding or a 40th birthday party?

For many, the answer is two. Three on a good day. When one of them gets a partner and moves with her, you're one. When the only one left has a new girlfriend who needs time, you're zero.

It's not a group that has collapsed. Nothing has broken. It's gradual erosion — one falls away, no one fills in. A move here. A new relationship there. A partner who needs more time. A child. A job change. And bit by bit it gets quieter.

This is not a personal failure. It's a pattern, and it's documented. The Survey Center on American Life (2021) found that the share of American men who have at least six close friends halved between 1990 and 2021 — from 55% to 27%. The share without any close friends at all increased fivefold, from 3% to 15%. The same Survey Center report found that 85% of married American men turn to their partner as the first person when they have a personal problem, compared to 72% of married American women. That's a sign that men often invest a large share of their adult relational time in their partner — and when that partner is no longer shared with a mutual friend, the space for male friendship shrinks at the same pace.

This is not hypothetical — it's everyday life for many men. Buddies was founded in 2024 by a guy who lived it himself: a group of 6–7 people that slowly shrank to 2.

This text is for you if you recognize yourself in any of the following:

You used to be 6–8 people in a group. Today 2–3 see each other.
You have a friend you still meet regularly — but when he gets a girlfriend or has a kid, you know it'll be zero.
You have 50–100 people in your phone but you actively meet up with a handful.
You think you should "make new friends" but it feels like a huge project with an unclear path forward.

It's not about starting over. It's about activating what's already there.

Why are you looking in the wrong place?

The dominant misconception about adult friendship is that it grows by finding new people. You go to an event, meet a stranger, you click, you exchange numbers, you meet again, a new friend is born.

It works less often than most people think.

Not because the people are wrong — but because the threshold is too high. Two adult men who don't have shared contacts, don't have a shared context, don't have any structural reason to see each other regularly, will probably never hang out a second time after the first evening. No matter how nice it was.

This is what sociological research has shown since the 1970s: adult friendship is rarely built from zero between strangers. It's almost always built through existing social bridges.

Mark Granovetter published his now-classic study The Strength of Weak Ties in American Journal of Sociology in 1973. He showed that most people get new jobs, new information, and new opportunities through weak ties — acquaintances, colleagues, friends of friends — rather than through their closest relationships or complete strangers. The study was about information and job spread, but the logic — that new connections reach us through people we're already loosely connected to — has since been applied broadly in research on social networks and relationship formation.

A modern follow-up from Rajkumar et al. (2022), published in Science, tested Granovetter's thesis with data from LinkedIn on more than 20 million users and 600,000 job placements. The result confirmed and nuanced the thesis: medium-weak ties turned out to be most valuable for mobility measured via shared contacts (the effect varied, however, with how "weakness" was defined). The study was about jobs, not friendship, but the principle is useful: it's often in the zone between "close friend" and "complete stranger" where growth happens.

Translated to your friendship circle: new friends don't primarily come from speed-dating events or apps for finding friends with cold strangers. They come from your periphery.

The peripheral circle — who are they?

Think about who's in your periphery right now. The categories usually include:

Friends of friends — guys you've met at parties or dinners through friends. You thought they were nice. You haven't hung out alone with them, but you've talked. You probably have their number or follow them on Instagram.
Old classmates — people you went to class with in college or high school. You haven't been in touch for 5+ years. But there was a period when you were close.
Former colleagues — especially the ones you actually liked outside the work context. You maybe had after-work drinks together. You've stopped being in touch now.
Neighbors — people you say hi to, maybe a few you've talked a bit longer with on the balcony, by the grill, in the laundry room.
Parents in your kid's class or sports team — you've stood on the sideline together, made small talk. Never met up outside that context.
Your friend's partner or your friend's friend — you've met them through someone you're already friends with. Likable people, but you've never hung out alone.
Former teammates — the football team a few years ago, the hockey team from your student years, the golf club.

Roughly count them. For most adult men, the list is significantly longer than they'd guessed — often several times bigger than the active group they spend time with.

This is the goldmine.

How the peripheral circle becomes active friendship

Research from Sandstrom & Dunn (2014), published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, shows that more interactions with weak social ties is associated with higher subjective well-being. In their studies, students experienced greater happiness and a stronger sense of belonging on days when they interacted with more classmates than usual. This is important: you don't need to turn a peripheral contact into a close friend for it to add something to your life. The peripheral contact is valuable in itself.

Christakis and Fowler documented as early as 2008 that connections in social networks — including happiness — extend up to three degrees of relational distance, that is, via friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends. The causality has been debated since, but the correlation patterns are robust. That means something concrete for you: your close circle affects you, but so do the people you barely know. The peripheral circle is not just potential new friends — it's part of your social field already today, regardless of whether you activate it or not.

And some of them, when activated often enough, will slide from the peripheral circle into the active group. That's how it works.

Roberts and Dunbar published a longitudinal study in Human Nature in 2015 that followed personal networks for 18 months through a major life transition. The result showed a clear gender difference: the decline in emotional closeness was most effectively prevented by increased contact frequency (calls, phone, messages) for women, and by increased shared activities for men.

Translated: when a female friendship is at risk of thinning out, it's often enough to call or write more often. When a male friendship faces the same risk, it works better to do something together.

This is one of the most practically useful insights in this entire text. When a male friendship is at risk of thinning out, it's often better maintained side by side than face to face.

Seven concrete ways to activate the peripheral circle

1. Stop thinking "new friendship" — start thinking "more contacts in what you already do"

The biggest mental block is the expectation that you'll "make yourself a new best friend." That's not a realistic goal — and that's not the point either. The goal is that more people exist in your everyday life in low doses. That more people come to your events. That you have more people to send invitations to.

If an acquaintance becomes a close friend — bonus. But that's not the requirement. It's enough that you have four people who show up at shuffleboard next Thursday. None of them needs to become your soulmate.

This dramatically reduces the threshold — for you and for them.

2. Invite friends of friends to things you're already going to do

The single most effective move in this entire text. You already have a group of 2–3 people. You're planning something. Instead of just sending the invitation to those two — also ask your friends to each bring one person they think is decent.

Concrete phrasing: "Going to X on Thursday. You and Y are welcome. Feel free to bring someone each, if you want — so we'll be more."

The bring-a-plus-one rule

When you're planning something with the friends, ask everyone to bring one person. One each. No pressure. That's how the acquaintance circle grows in adulthood — without anyone having to look for new friends from zero.

Two things happen:

Your friend gets a social mandate to bring someone he's wanted to hang with but hasn't invited to his own planned evenings
You meet someone you wouldn't have met otherwise — in a context where there's already a bridge (your friend)

This is the friends-of-friends model in its purest form. And it works because it eliminates the threshold for everyone. The new guy doesn't have to become a friend right away — he just has to show up at shuffleboard.

3. Ask your friend to introduce a specific person

Often your friend knows he has an acquaintance you'd have got along with. He just hasn't thought about it. Asking directly changes things:

"You have someone from X who seemed nice. Shouldn't there be more of us — do you have someone you think should come along next time?"

It's not weird. It's not contrived. It's how social circles have been built throughout time — through someone introducing someone to someone else.

4. Activate acquaintances through concrete events — not by "meeting up sometime"

Say you have a former colleague you liked — Anders, you haven't hung out for two years since he changed jobs. The default move is to write "we should grab a coffee sometime." That goes nowhere.

Better: "Anders, trying to get a few people together for shuffleboard on Wednesday — you're welcome if you want. No pressure, if there are few of us, there are few of us."

This is the same structure as the event invitation vs the text message from Pillar A on seeing buddies more often. It works for activating the peripheral circle because it:

Doesn't require Anders to commit to a relationship
Provides a concrete place, time, activity
Doesn't activate the guilt component ("why are you reaching out now after two years?")
Allows a simple yes or no

And if Anders comes once and it works — invite him again. After a few shared evenings, an acquaintance tends to slide into "one of the guys" rather than "an acquaintance" — the line isn't exact, but the movement is real.

5. Use neighborhoods and parenthood as structural bridges

Two contexts are gold for adult male friendship but often underused:

Your neighbors. You share geographical proximity, which dramatically lowers the threshold. "Just going home to grab a jacket" is 30 seconds away. Many male friendships in adulthood started at a shared backyard grill night or a beer on the balcony.

Parents in your kid's class or sports team — if you have kids. You already have a structural reason to see each other (matches, practices, class meetings). You already have a shared context (your kids). You've already shown each other you're decent through months on the same sideline. The threshold to ask "should we grill an evening, the kids can play while we talk" is unusually low.

Hobby clubs, gym, sports teams. If you don't have kids, the same principle works in other structural contexts: the running group, the climbing gym, the padel club, a recurring pub quiz. It's about environments where you already see each other regularly without having to negotiate it every week.

All these contexts give you acquaintances with structural bridges already in place. Use them.

6. Be generous with introducing others

This one is subtle but important. If you want others to invite you to their events and introduce you to their contacts, you have to be good at introducing others to each other yourself.

Concretely: when you create an event and invite four friends — consider whether one of them would like another of them to come too. If you invite your friend Erik and your friend Mats, and you think they'd get along — say it to both: "You and Mats should hop on, you'd get along well."

This does three things:

You become the one who introduces others (a valuable social role in any group)
You normalize that the evening is open to several people
Erik and Mats remember that YOU brought them together — which makes them think of you next time they plan something

7. Create public events when the private group isn't enough

This is where Buddies comes in concretely. Say you and your one remaining friend are going to do something — shuffleboard, hike, football match at the pub. Instead of keeping it private, make it public on Buddies. Then a push goes out to other men in the area looking for exactly the same thing.

It's not a last resort. It's a complement. You and your friend do what you planned anyway. But if one or two others also hop on, the evening becomes richer — and you've taken a first step toward meeting new people in a context where there's a structural reason for them to be there.

When the group is gone — how you start

There's a specific situation harder than all others: when you really are zero.

Not two who meet. Not one who meets. But zero — or one you rarely contact.

This happens to more adult men than most want to admit. The Survey Center on American Life (2021) documented that 15% of American men don't have any close friends at all — that's about one in seven American men. You're not alone in this statistic, even if you feel that way.

In this situation, the friends-of-friends model doesn't work directly — because you have no friends to start with.

But you have a peripheral circle.

Old classmates. Former colleagues. A neighbor. A friend from the football team eight years ago. Parents you've seen in your kid's class. People you follow on Instagram you actually liked when you last hung out.

List them. Write down 15–20 names. That's your circle — it's just been dormant.

Then choose five of them. Not the absolute closest — but the most realistic to activate. People you remember warmly. People you think would respond if you sent a concrete event invitation with "no pressure, you're welcome if you want."

And you send.

Not a "how are you doing" text. Not a "we should grab coffee sometime." But a concrete invitation to something you were going to do anyway:

"Hey. Going to play minigolf on Saturday — you're welcome if you want. Nothing weird, just want to start seeing people a bit more often again."

Research from Aknin & Sandstrom (2024), published in Communications Psychology, showed in seven studies (totaling approximately 2,458 participants) that people are surprisingly hesitant to reach out to old friends. In the two intervention studies (3 and 4, 1,057 participants combined), around one third of participants sent a message (28% in Study 3 and 37% in Study 4) — even when they believed the friend would appreciate it and had both contact details and time to write. The hesitation is real, even when the motivation is there.

Out of five invitations, probably one or several will lead to him actually showing up. That's all you need to begin.

And from there, you go back to advice 2: when you have a friend who shows up, ask him to bring someone he thinks is decent. That's how the circle is rebuilt — not big and spectacular, but alive.

Things to keep in mind

Activation of the peripheral circle is not an evening exercise or a monthly exercise. It's a pattern you establish. It's not comfortable either — reaching out to an acquaintance after a year of silence will always feel a bit weird the first time.

But for most men struggling with a fading group, this is the single most effective strategy. Not trying to save the group by convincing old friends to see you more often (that's what Pillar A is about — and that strategy has its limits if the group is really gone).

Not trying to find new friends from zero through strangers either (that's resource-intensive, usually frustrating, and statistically unlikely to work).

But to gradually activate people already in your periphery — acquaintances you've forgotten you have, colleagues who passed by five years ago, friends of friends you thought were nice but never hung out with alone.

Adult friendship isn't spontaneous. It's intentional. And it's usually closer than you think.

Takeaways — seven things you can do this week

Write a list. 15–20 people from your peripheral circle — acquaintances, old classmates, colleagues you've lost touch with, friends of friends you've liked, neighbors.
Mark five of them you think would respond to a concrete event invitation.
Decide on a concrete activity you want to do yourself — pub on Thursday, hike on Sunday, minigolf one evening.
Send the same invitation to all five. "Going to do X on day Y. You're welcome if you want."
When you have an upcoming hangout with your remaining friends — use the bring-a-plus-one rule. Ask everyone to bring one person.
If someone new shows up and it works — invite him again within a couple of weeks. Frequency beats one-time chemistry.
Be generous with introducing people to each other. The one who connects others gets back what they give.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

How do I invite an acquaintance without it being awkward?

Use a concrete event invitation, not an open "we should hang out." Say what you'll do, where, when. "Going to play minigolf Saturday — you're welcome if you want" is a hundred times easier to answer than a "how are you doing." Concreteness lowers the threshold for both you and him.

What if I invite four peripheral contacts and no one comes?

Not unusual — and not a failure. Invite three new ones next time. Out of multiple invitations, some usually lead to actual meetings over time. Frequency works with you, not against you — as long as you keep inviting.

Do I need an existing group for the friends-of-friends model to work?

No. If you're "zero," start with your peripheral circle — old classmates, former colleagues, neighbors. List 15–20 names, choose 5 and send concrete event invitations. It's enough that one or two respond for a chain to start.

Isn't it better to find friends with the "right chemistry" from the start?

Research shows that adult friendship is built from accumulated shared time, not from chemistry perfection. It's enough that the person is decent and shows up. The rest comes through repetition. Looking for perfect chemistry from the start is often why the project stalls.

What if I don't have any peripheral circle at all?

Practically everyone has one. Think: workplace now and previously, student years, sports teams (even distant ones), neighbors, parents in your kid's class or sport, gym, hobby club. Write down names — it's almost always more than you think.

How many peripheral contacts do I need to activate?

To go from "zero" to "steady group," it's usually enough to activate a handful of people, of whom some become recurring. You don't need to activate everyone. You just need to activate enough that three or four become accustomed to being in touch.

What if a person doesn't respond?

Nothing. A non-response is not a no. Wait a few months, try again with a different invitation. People are busy, miss messages, forget. Some will only respond on the third invitation. That's OK.

Isn't it intrusive to introduce people to each other?

On the contrary — it's one of the most appreciated social roles anyone can take. People want to meet more good people but no one wants to work for it. When you connect two friends who seem to get along, it's a gift, not a problem.

How is this different from "making new friends"?

You're not looking for strangers. You're activating people already in your periphery — acquaintances, friends of friends, former colleagues. The threshold is dramatically lower because there's already a social bridge. You're not starting from zero. You're continuing from somewhere.

Why don't friendship-matching apps work as well?

Because they match you with strangers without a structural bridge between you. Granovetter's classic research, and later follow-ups, indicate that the most effective social growth happens via existing weak ties — that is, people you have something with, not nothing. That's why activating the peripheral circle tends to be more fruitful than algorithmic pairing with strangers.

Want to make it easier?

Buddies is built specifically for this. Create an event for what you're going to do — privately with your group, or publicly so other Buddies in the area can join. Send the invitation link in your group chat or directly to an acquaintance. They click and RSVP yes or no. Done.

For you who has a peripheral circle to activate: send the same link to three acquaintances you've lost touch with. Research shows they appreciate it significantly more than you think.

Download Buddies →

Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380. Classic study establishing that weak ties — acquaintances, friends of friends, colleagues — are often more important for access to new jobs and opportunities than the strong ties in one's closest circle.
Rajkumar, K., Saint-Jacques, G., Bojinov, I., Brynjolfsson, E., & Aral, S. (2022). A causal test of the strength of weak ties. Science, 377(6612), 1304–1310. doi:10.1126/science.abl4476 — Large-scale experiment on LinkedIn (20 million users, 600,000 job placements) providing causal support for Granovetter's thesis on job mobility.
Sandstrom, G. M., & Dunn, E. W. (2014). Social Interactions and Well-Being: The Surprising Power of Weak Ties. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(7), 910–922. doi:10.1177/0146167214529799 — Shows that more interactions with weak social ties (acquaintances) is associated with greater happiness and a stronger sense of belonging.
Roberts, S. G. B., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2015). Managing Relationship Decay: Network, Gender, and Contextual Effects. Human Nature, 26(4), 426–450. — Longitudinal study over 18 months through a major life transition. Shows that decline in emotional closeness was most effectively prevented by increased shared activities for men, and by increased contact frequency for women.
Survey Center on American Life / Cox, D. A. (2021). The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss. American Perspectives Survey, May 2021. americansurveycenter.org — Source of the friendship recession statistics.
Aknin, L. B., & Sandstrom, G. M. (2024). People are surprisingly hesitant to reach out to old friends. Communications Psychology, 2, 34. doi:10.1038/s44271-024-00075-8 — In seven studies with a total of approximately 2,458 participants, the researchers found that people are surprisingly hesitant to reach out to old friends. In intervention studies 3 and 4 (N=1,057), 28% and 37% of participants sent a message, respectively.
Christakis, N. A., & Fowler, J. H. (2008). Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study. British Medical Journal, 337, a2338. — Documents correlations between a person's happiness and the happiness of people up to three degrees of relational distance.