<p><pre><code>    If there is a key it must be the willingness to be
    persistent, not give up the effort to enrich the
    network of connectedness. Here and there people do
    respond, and a relationship slowly begins to form.
</code></pre>
I think that&#x27;s 100% right. I&#x27;ve lived in NYC for almost 10 years and the sad reality is that people come&#x2F;go <i>frequently</i>. I&#x27;ve found persistence to be the only consistent factor in building all the friendships over those years.<p>Yes you need to click with someone, but we determine that within 5 minutes of talking to a new person. A lot of people make the effort to build a new friendship, but get too discouraged from a lack of reciprocation. 5 no&#x27;s in a row can definitely signal &quot;not interested&quot; (ha) but a lot of people <i>are</i> interested they just need more of a push.<p>It does come down to how badly you want to build that new friendship, but I think a lot of people are just not persistent enough at the beginning tbh.