Consistency-Based Friend Making
Show up to the same activity weekly to manufacture new friendships
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 78%
Consistency-Based Friend Making exploits the three known determinants of friendship: similarity, proximity, and reciprocity. You choose a recurring activity you enjoy, such as a cycling class or rock climbing, and attend the same place at the same time week after week. The mechanism is that a shared hobby hands you similarity for free (everyone there already likes the thing) and repeated attendance manufactures proximity (the same faces recur), so you already have two of the three ingredients before you speak. Over weeks you become familiar faces to each other, conversation starts naturally, and you escalate to grabbing a coffee, at which point reciprocity completes the bond. Sbeghen contrasts this with Abdaal's half-hearted kickboxing, where irregular attendance produced no friendships at all; the method only works if you actually keep showing up.
Origin
Described by Jemma Sbeghen on Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal, drawing on how she rebuilt a social circle after moving to a new city by consistently attending cycling classes and rock climbing.
Core principles
- 01Similarity, proximity and reciprocity drive friendship
- 02A shared activity supplies similarity automatically
- 03Repeated attendance supplies proximity over time
- 04Half-hearted, irregular attendance produces no friends
How to run it
- 1
Choose a recurring activity
Pick a hobby or class you genuinely enjoy and that meets regularly, such as a sports team, cycling class, or climbing gym.
Pro tip Choosing something you actually like guarantees baseline similarity with everyone there.
- 2
Fix the time and place
Commit to the same location and same slot each week so you keep meeting the same people.
- 3
Attend consistently
Keep showing up so you and the regulars become familiar faces to each other.
Watch out Half-assing it, like dropping in and out of group classes, produces zero friendships.
- 4
Start conversations
Once familiar, strike up small talk built on the shared interest you already know you have in common.
- 5
Escalate outside the activity
Suggest a coffee before or after, or joining others at the pub afterward, to move from acquaintance to friend.
Pro tip 'Are you coming next week? We should get a coffee beforehand' is a low-stakes escalation.
In the wild
After moving to a new city and leaving her whole community behind, Sbeghen felt she was starting from scratch. She invested in consistently attending the same cycling classes and rock climbing sessions week in, week out. Because the same people kept showing up and already shared her interests, she became familiar with them, struck up conversations, and made many new friends purely through repeated proximity.
→ Consistent attendance at two activities rebuilt an entire social circle in a new city.
Common mistakes
Attending irregularly
Skipping weeks resets the proximity clock, so familiar faces never form and no friendships develop.
Waiting to be approached
Never initiating conversation, even after becoming a familiar face, leaves the reciprocity step incomplete.
Is it for you?
Best for
Someone in a new city or post-university phase struggling to build a social circle from scratch.
Not ideal for
People unwilling to commit to attending the same activity repeatedly over several weeks.
From the transcript
“similarity we know is the biggest biggest determinant of friendship similarity and proximity and then reciprocity”
“invest time in consistently going to the same activities and the same Hobbies week in week out”
From the episode
Navigating Quarter-Life Crisis: Unpacking the Psychology of Your 20s - Jemma Sbeghen
Jemma Sbeghen