What is Friends of Friends?

A Simple Idea

The need to grow personal networks of trust and is something that will be obvious to some, and not to others. If you know, you know. This zine is for those who know. We have seen betrayal and failure from the existing institutions, and we lack deep connections with others to take the place of those institutions. We cannot place (all of) our trust in faceless organizations, or only in the tiny groups of people we know.  So we look to grow the webs of connection between each other, for resilience but also for the joy and meaning which we lost when we gave up our heritage as human primates who thrive in small closely-knit bands.  

“There are two types of friends: Friends who help you move, and acquaintances.” A lot of people in this culture don’t have many friends of the first kind. LGBT+ people especially have this problem, if they lost friends and family after coming out and have other backgrounds (trauma, etc.) which make it hard to form close connections. We’ll talk about making those connections on later pages.

If you do currently have friends you can trust, maybe you can trust their trusted friends as well? You have your circle of friends, and that circle touches other circles. Friends of Friends is the name we gave to the idea that we can lean into these linked circles for mutual support.

Think of some of these friends who have proven that they are there for you. What friends do they have that they also trust? If your friend’s friend is in need of something (a listening ear, an emergency ride, help with lifting furniture), and your friend can’t help, maybe your friend can reach out to you on their behalf. Or, if you are in need, and your friend can’t help, maybe they can reach out to their trusted friends on your behalf. And if your friend is in need, and you can’t help at that time, maybe one of your other friends can help them.  

For example:

Samantha needs a ride to the grocery store. She contacts her circle of friends, but none of them can help that day. She asks her friends to ask their friends if any of them can help. Steve reaches out to his circle, and Kieran responds saying that they can give Samantha a ride. Steve puts Kieran and Samantha in contact. Steve knows that both Samantha and Kieran prefer texting, and that Samantha is okay with Steve giving her number to trusted friends, so he gives Kieran her number to text her to set up a time.

In the above example, Steve and Kieran had already discussed the Friends of Friends idea, and Steve felt enough trust with both Samantha and Kieran to put them in contact. If Samantha had a person need to text Kieran instead of vice-versa, Steve would have found out if Kieran was okay with this first. Steve knew Kieran and Samantha well enough to trust that they could work together for this, and Steve knew that Kieran had a car and might be willing to drive others.

This is where your personal boundaries come in. You can’t be there at all times, in all ways, and neither can anyone else. You need to know yourself. Some of your friends are going to be closer than others, and you will stretch farther for them and their circle, most likely. This is okay. As time goes on, maybe you will be able to extend a little more trust to others as well, if things go well with your most trusted friends. We don’t want to “set” boundaries so much as to get to know our own boundaries and play with them. Someone we have to “set a boundary” with is likely someone who won’t be part of our Friends of Friends circle.

Things will also go wrong, and that is okay as well. Like, a friend might ask for a lot and never be willing to help – maybe they can still be someone you help out personally, but you can also take them out of your Friends of Friends circle for now. This kind of thing requires honest and sometimes difficult conversation. We need to know who is really there to help and is committed to this kind of network. This isn’t just about people’s feelings, it’s about getting help where it is needed.

You also might need to have smaller conversations sometimes, when people have new needs or things they can share.  Not all communication is “big deal” stuff, and a lot of it is just remembering to pass relevant information to others.

How this can work: Talk this idea over with your trusted friends. See if they’re interested, even if their ability or desire to help is more limited. Get to know them – their needs, boundaries, skills, resources, etc. Know how they like to be contacted – text, social media, in person, etc. Give a little thought to which of your other friends they might team up well with.

At first, we suggest only going this far – one circle of trust beyond the people you know personally. Maybe in time you can extend this further with your friends of friends of friends of friends… But get used to extending trust, and giving and receiving.

(We note that this network could also be used to share information about upcoming events or other resources, etc., and this could extend as far as people want. Each person could share to whoever in their circle they felt like sharing to, and ask them to pass it on if they want. We want people to have their individual autonomy as well as being part of the web, making their own choices based in their embodied integrity and their sense of connection.)