How do you make friends through mutual friends?

Making friends through mutual friends is less about meeting as many people as possible and more about seeing the people you click with again.

Spend time in plans where you'll meet each other's friends. If you get on with someone, include them the next time you're doing something. That's how someone goes from your friend's friend to someone you have a friendship with yourself.

Loopt is designed to make that easier. Friends can add friends to plans, so different social circles can naturally overlap. And if you meet someone through a plan, you can add them to a future plan yourself, even if you never exchanged numbers.

A mutual friend can make the introduction. Another plan can turn that introduction into a friendship.

Let friends bring friends

You don't need to organise a formal introduction to everyone your friends know.

Sometimes it's as simple as getting a few people together and letting them bring people they think will enjoy it.

On Loopt, Open access means people can add people they know, and those people can add people too. So a plan can start with a few existing friends and grow naturally through them.

That could mean your friend brings their housemate to the pub. Someone adds a friend from work to Sunday lunch. A few different friendship groups end up at the same birthday drinks.

You spend time with people you already know while naturally meeting some people you don't.

See the people you click with again

Meeting someone once doesn't automatically make you friends.

The important bit is creating another opportunity to spend time together.

That doesn't have to mean immediately asking someone you've just met to hang out one-to-one. Include them in drinks you're already organising. Add them to something a few of you are doing. Make another plan with some of the same people.

On Loopt, plans create shared social context between people. If you met someone through a plan, you can add them to another plan later.

So you don't need to have exchanged numbers, or rely on the original mutual friend to bring everyone together again.

Let your new connections introduce you to theirs

This is where friendship groups can start growing in a really natural way.

Your friend brings someone you haven't met.

You get on and start including them in things.

They bring someone they know to another plan.

Now you meet them too.

It doesn't need to be a deliberate exercise in “expanding your network”. You're just spending time with people, meeting more of each other's friends and seeing the people you like again.

Over time, separate friendship groups can start to overlap.

You don't need to meet loads of new people

Making friends through mutual friends isn't about turning every plan into a networking event.

Spend time with your existing friends. Be open to the people they bring. Bring some of your own friends when it makes sense.

Then notice who you naturally want to see again.

One new person you really get on with is more meaningful than meeting a room full of people once and never seeing them again.

Let friendships grow through plans

The nice thing about mutual friends is that new friendships don't have to start completely from scratch.

Someone you trust brings someone they know. You spend time together. If you get on, you see each other again.

Then that new person might introduce you to more of their friends too.

That's one of the ideas behind Loopt: plans can grow through people, and so can your social circle.

You don't need to deliberately build a network. Keep making plans, open some of them up when it feels right, and make it easy to spend time again with the people you meet along the way.