Ask HN: Is the hard part of adult friendship the second hangout?

[thehgz]

I have been thinking about a product design problem in adult friendship and keep coming back to one thesis:

Most products are decent at creating first contact. Events, meetups, dating apps, friend apps, group chats, alumni networks, Slack communities, etc.

The part that fails is usually after the first meeting.

Someone has to follow up. Someone has to risk seeming too eager. Someone has to pick a plan. Someone has to coordinate calendars. If nobody does that within a week or two, the connection fades and everyone starts over.

I have been calling this "the second hangout problem."

The product idea is an AI go-between that helps people in one city turn one-off encounters into repeat plans and small groups. It would ask who you would actually want to see again after a meetup or small gathering, check for mutual interest, suggest low-pressure next plans, and help coordinate until the group has enough momentum to organize itself.

I am starting with the Bay Area because density matters. The product is not useful if people cannot realistically meet again.

Questions I am trying to think through:

- Is follow-through actually the bottleneck, or am I underrating discovery? - Would you trust an AI mediator for this if it stayed in a logistical/support role? - Should a product like this limit introductions on purpose to avoid swipe-style disposability? - What would make this feel useful instead of creepy?

Curious how people here have seen adult friendships actually form after the first meeting.

[jr_isidore]

In a town like SF, there's only so much hanging out dudes can do before it starts getting gay.

[sshine]

> Someone has to follow up. Someone has to risk seeming too eager. Someone has to pick a plan. Someone has to coordinate calendars. If nobody does that within a week or two, the connection fades and everyone starts over.

I sense that people think like this. But it’s absurd. I treat friendship maintenance like real work in staying interested, and finding people with your cadence so this kind of “exposing yourself as more interested” dating shenanigans doesn’t run your life.

I understand why we become victims of it when we meet the loves of our life because of hormones and what’s at stake.

But if you can’t know that your friends like you even though you haven’t spoken for a year, even if one always has to initiate the call. Then you have a level of honesty and no-nonsense to aspire to:

Just admit to them and yourself that you like them, and that availability is not perfectly symmetric, respect their ability and interest to reply, and rejoice when it matches for whatever brief periods. There is no loss if it doesn’t work out.

[thehgz → sshine]

I think perhaps I should position my idea a bit neutrally.

I completely agree with you that this is an absurd way of thinking, and people do think like that. Especially, this sort of thinking is more prevalent during the earlier stages of a relationship; and it leads to things fizzling out.

I should be clear about the niche I'm targeting. I'm targeting people who have just moved into a new city and who don't know anyone. This is quite common in big cities like New York or San Francisco, where you have a large number of transplants.

Also, the goal is not to have an AI forever. It's only there for the initial phases of a relationship. The AI just acts like a facilitator.

And this AI won't magically solve all your problems. You still have to go out there and do the work. It's just a platform that intelligently books events for you so that you meet you liked again.

[opengrass]

If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was.

[ChiperSoft]

Stop trying to use technology to solve social problems

[comrade1234]

This sounds terrible. I'm sure you'll get loads of funding.

[blinkbat]

yeah, surely the reason why adult friendships have declined since before technology is that they had AI before and now they... wait.

> Curious how people here have seen adult friendships actually form after the first meeting.

you know, by... asking to hang out.

this is the craziest "using a computer to `solve` something that has nothing to do with computers" problem I've seen on here in a minute.