How to deepen a friendship
How to deepen a friendship. Stop maintaining it and start actually having it.
There are people in your life you would call friends, and among them are a few you wish you were closer to. The potential is there — there is something between you — but the friendship has not gone anywhere in a while. You know how to get together. You do not quite know how to go deeper. Here is what that actually requires.
The questions you ask signal what you are available for.
Most catch-up conversations follow a familiar script: what are you up to, how is work, how is the family. These questions invite surface answers and that is what they get. Deeper questions — what has been hardest lately, what are you thinking about that you have not figured out yet, what is something you have changed your mind about — invite different answers. They signal that you are interested in the actual person, not just the status update.
The other person will often be surprised and slightly uncomfortable. That is normal. They have also been operating in surface mode and a deeper question is a shift. Some people will deflect. Others will lean in — and when they lean in, the conversation goes somewhere new. You have just learned which category this person is in, and either way that is useful information.
Do not ask many deep questions in a row. That feels like an interview. Ask one. Then actually listen to the answer.
Depth is created by reciprocal honesty. You have to offer some first.
If you want a friend to go deeper, show them it is safe by going first. Not confessing your worst fears unprompted — that can be overwhelming — but moving slightly beyond where the conversation normally goes. Tell them something you are genuinely uncertain about. Admit something you are not great at. Let them see you not having it together about something real. Then stop and let them respond.
What you are doing is removing the pretence that this is a relationship where people only show their best selves. That pretence is what keeps friendships shallow. When you drop it, you give the other person permission to drop it too. Some will. The ones who do are the ones the friendship can deepen with.
This is the same principle at work in anonymous voice conversations — the absence of an established image makes it easier to say something real from the start. If you want to practice this before trying it with someone you know, Mindfuse is a good place to start.
Practice going deeper. Start with a stranger.
Mindfuse: anonymous voice calls with real people. One free conversation per month. €4/month after that.