How much is too much when it comes to making an effort to see someone? The contexts vary here, so let's narrow the scope to friends and then to courtship.

Adult friendships in urbanized areas in the US tend to have particular life circumstances in the mix. The 30s and beyond bring career commitments, children, family responsibilities, parental illnesses, personal illnesses, and a whole slew of other life scenarios that take priority over friendships, especially at the acquaintance stage. I may have met a new friend who seems very interesting, with whom I have great conversations and connections, but finding the time to meet them in the midst of a busy life is challenging. The intuitive risk-reward assessment plays out: I met a new friend, and it will require some degree of effort to reach out, plan a hangout that is suitable, find mutually agreeable times, and then spend the 1-4 hours of hangout time. Can I afford to spend all that time with all the other stuff going on?

Here's where convenience and need come out to play. If we're lonely as an adult — which is quite common in cities — there's a need. How bad that need is depends on how lonely we are and our own dispositions and needs for socialization. High need, higher willingness to pay the time price to make a new friend. Convenience is the other factor. Convenience is the negative force that reduces the barrier to entry for a friendship. Does your new friend live nearby? Do you see them regularly at some community event? When time and effort to make a friendship are reduced by convenience, there is a greater chance of the friendship actually catching flight.

I've found that there are few adult friendships that can survive off the occasional phone or coffee catch-ups, even if the friendship had a very deep and powerful emotional bond. I'll emphasize that some friendships are a life bond — something like family where no matter how much time passes, there is a sense of love, familiarity, and loyalty. But these are exceedingly rare. I can think of about 3 friendships in my life that qualify this bar.

So what to do when life gets in the way and coffee catch-ups are not enough? Synchronize your friendship with activities both you and your friend would do regardless. Exercise, hikes, yoga, meditation — those and others are fairly common denominators among the urban masses. These may qualify for a sort of Zone 1 or 2 cardio equivalent of a friendship activity — solid for warming up and maintaining a friendship, but not necessarily pushing depth or assuring longevity. I've found that a powerful catalyst that pushes friendships into the lifelong deeps are serious, committed artistic projects. I found this to be true for at least two of the albums that I've produced. The amount of work, the challenge of the project, the need to clash artistic ideas among collaborators, negotiate them, and come out the other side with a satisfying product creates a shared story, a set of long-form images in each of our minds that we're able to reference as an experience we can cherish. Of course, projects can also go bad and fragile friendships will not survive the stress of an intense project. But a serious artistic project is a force of anti-fragility, one that may stress friendships initially by its challenges but ultimately grow, benefit, and transform the friendship into something deeper.

So what about courtship? I may have bitten off more than I can chew in a single blog post, but here are some initial thoughts. If someone is into you, they'll respond to you. If someone wants to hang out with you, they'll make and reciprocate an effort to do so. However, the laws of need and convenience come into play just as strongly if not stronger. If your sweetie is an hour's drive away, that's a tough sell unless you're really, really into this particular person. And you best hope that sweetie likes your sweetness too. If they live close, the convenience of meeting up can lead to more points of exposure that can grow attraction over time. Familiarity and comfort really do develop over repeated exposure. When someone is far away and you can only see them once a week or once a month, the process of familiarizing through exposure can become overextended and ultimately lost as it thins over time.

Unique experiences are powerful tools to catalyze depth and interest. What comes to mind for me are motorcycle rides in beautiful vistas — I've done a couple's ride across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Marin Headlands for a view of San Francisco. There's something really romantic about the rush — perhaps even the danger and trust required — of zipping across the bridge and then seeing the most beautiful US city. A spontaneous trip to Mexico can fit the bill — "I'm going to Cabo this Friday, want to join me for the weekend?" (this presumes some pre-established intimacy, so your mileage may vary).

Flashy stuff is great — and romantic for initial courtship — but depth of questions and a genuine desire to know someone will go just as far or further. Looking into someone's eyes and asking them about their life, what they've been through, what they think about the world, what they want to do with their life. Being seen is a fundamental human need, and questions to learn about someone is a path to seeing and understanding them deeply.