Frequency, not intensity

People imagine friendship is made by a big honest conversation. Occasionally it is. Mostly it is made by being in the same place as the same person over and over until the two of you stop being strangers, and almost none of those occasions feel significant while they are happening.

That is why the coffee that took four weeks to arrange rarely produces what you hoped, and why the person you nod at every Thursday somehow knows about your job.

Small and repeated beats big and rare. If that sounds unambitious, it is. It is also how it actually happens.