Friends of Friends (A Memo)
Think about all the friends you have now that you’ve met through another friend. Our lives are richer and more fun because of these connections.
The desire to meet friends of friends — also called triadic closure in the academic world, was first introduced as a theory by the German sociologist Georg Simmel in 1908. If connections A-B and A-C exist (for instance, between people), there is a tendency for a new connection B-C to form. Thus, the closing of the triad.
The power of friends of friends extends beyond our social lives. We use friends of friends in professional contexts to evaluate investments, form partnerships, assess talent, and help mentees.
But today, these connections happen by chance. People are busy. We’re so consumed with building our own networks that we rarely connect dots between our friends who would hit it off. There are so many potential triads that are incomplete.
Some people naturally solve this. We all know a “super connector” — always making introductions, creating group chats, and suggesting meetups. They’re the reason why so many people know each other.
However, technology is at a point now where everyone should have this superpower. We should easily see who our friends of friends are, understand what we have in common with them, and facilitate intros. This would give us opportunities to make new friends, network for our careers, find compatible dating partners, and just meet straight-up interesting people.
You might be thinking that we already have existing solutions, such as LinkedIn, where you can see second degree connections. However, LinkedIn has become so saturated with random connections that when you ask for an introduction, there’s a 95% chance that your first degree connection has never spoken to that person.
Finding new connections should be as simple as typing in a search box: “Former college tennis players in venture capital” or “College students with UI/UX internships”, and seeing instant results of people that you can ask for intros to.
This approach allows us to proactive about meeting friends of friends. In professional contexts, it helps us become better mentees — knowing exactly who we want to meet and why. Instead of burdening connectors to find the right person, we take the initiative.
Let’s meet more Friends of Friends.
