Borrowing Someone Else's Hobby

My friends Sarah and Rodrigo are always introducing me to new people. They hosted a World Cup watch party at their apartment the other day and somehow packed five different groups of friends into their 1,000-square-foot place.

There were the rock climbers, the Magic: The Gathering crew, the naturalists Sarah met on one of her walks, the D&D group, and then us, who they met through the FFA.

Sarah and Rod are hobby people, always exploring and seemingly never bored. They approach hobbies the way most of us approach the sample stations at Costco.

"Why not?"

As I talked with their friends that night, I noticed a pattern. I asked the card game group how they met Rod.

"We invited him to play one night," they said. "The rest is history."

The naturalists told me Sarah simply asked if she could tag along on one of their walks. The rock climbers said they became close during a 72-hour climbing event called Horseshoe Hell.

As I listened to their stories, I thought back to a Memorial Day when Rod agreed to come to my CrossFit gym and do the Murph workout with me. He'd invited me rock climbing dozens of times, and I'd only gone once. I invited him to CrossFit one time, and he immediately said yes.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized Sarah and Rod don't just have a lot of hobbies. They have a habit of borrowing other people's hobbies. Every invitation is met with curiosity.

"Sure, I'll come."

"Show me how."

"I've never tried that before."

The result isn't that they become expert climbers, birders, or card players. The result is that they've built meaningful friendships by stepping into other people's worlds.

When we borrow someone's hobby, we step into their world for a day. We experience something they love through their eyes. In doing so, we tell them, without ever saying the words, "Something that matters to you matters to me." At best, we leave with a deeper friendship, a new perspective, or maybe even a hobby of our own.

Borrowing someone's hobby isn't really about becoming interested in their hobby. It's about becoming interested in them.

The next time someone invites you into one of their hobbies, resist the urge to politely decline because "it's not really your thing."

For an afternoon, make it your thing. You may discover that one of the clearest ways to tell someone they matter is to care about something they care about.

Fact

According to research on the shared reality effect, people tend to feel closer to one another after sharing an experience, especially when they're actively engaged in it together.

Action

Pre-decide that the next time someone invites you to share one of their hobbies, your answer will be "yes."

Question

Which relationship in your life would benefit most if you borrowed their hobby?

Quote

"When you are curious, you find lots of interesting things to do." - Walt Disney