the secret to friendship

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gm friend,

grab your coffee, we’re chatting besties this am.

friends dramatically improve our happiness, mental health, & even longevity. studies show that the math is pretty simple:

higher friendship satisfaction = higher life satisfaction

you’ve likely felt this feeling firsthand. i’m willing to bet most of your favorite life moments include friends and loved ones.

last week’s newsletter quantified how real the struggle is for friendship. only 6 in 10 americans have a bestie & half of americans are not satisfied with their number of friends.

this week we’re diving into the secret sauce of friendship.

a secret thing that we all have.

that sadly is finite.

and that is seldom used wisely.

the secret is TIME.

metrics

one study of how we spend our time proved that we make time for friends, but we make significantly more time for TV.

an average american spends 44 minutes a day seeing friends, that is only 3% of a day (1,440 minutes).

americans average 292 minutes, ~5 hours, of leisure time per day.

50% of leisure time is watching tv, to be exact 148 minutes, ~2.5 hours.

and only 15% of leisure time is seeing friends.

tv gets 3X more time than friends.

rachel, ross, monica, joey, chandler, & phoebe are great but real friends are way better.

time is of truly of the essence in friendship.

so much so that a professor at kansas university quantified this. he determined the amount of time required to move up the hierarchy of friendship.

0 hours together = acquaintance / contact

50 hours together = casual friend

• hours to watch 136 episodes of friends, about 5 seasons.

90 hours together = friends

• hours to watch the entire series of friends, mad men, seinfield, or the sopranos.

• so every series you watch to the end, means one less friend.

200 hours together = bestie

• hours to watch the office TWICE

for my visual learners, think of a speedometer.

this doesn't mean we should treat friendship like a time card, logging hours to reach the next level. instead, this shows that friendships need conscious & consistent investment. there's no gas pedal for this. no speeding up the clock.

not all time together is equal. sitting next to someone in an office for 200 hours doesn’t count nearly as much as a 3 hour deep conversation.

a friendship’s length does not equal depth.

you may know someone for years without a friendship.

or you may become besties with someone you’ve only known a few weeks.

please do remember, true friendship is joint journey, not a solo endeavor. both parties should be equally investing time & energy.

so the secret to making friends isn't really a secret at all because we’ve experienced this process.

but we must consciously choose to spend our time connecting.

mindset

to support this intention, adopt that golden mindset of being a ride-or-die friend. you know, the kind that would be there for you, just like the iconic friends theme song.

those nyc besties really set the bar high for adult friendship goals.

their friendship taught us that friendship is not about being perfect.friendship is about being present, being real, & being there, come rain or shine.

so remind yourself by singing this adapted theme song:

message

i know sometimes we can’t make time for friends.

so instead take a minute right now to thank someone for being there & to show that you’re there for them too.

you never know when your random out-of-the-blue message may help a friend feel not so blue.

makings

over the past few months, i’ve had a blast (merry)making my friends paper dreams come true and i want do more of these projects.

so please reach out if i can help you with anything paper related:

• personalized greeting cards

• personalized stationery

• personalized envelopes

• wedding invitations

• wedding anything

• announcements

• business cards

• holiday cards

• invitations

• letterhead

• calendars

• journals

• menus

• flyers

• and more.....

moments

friends forever,

MacK

P.P.S. if you’re really want to help me as a friend, please forward this newsletter to a friend 💛 the more the merrier here, always.