(light playful music)
- Hey there.
I'm Aria and I love making new friends,
and apparently,
one of LinkedIn's slogans is Relationships Matter.
So I figured why not look into the validity of that claim
by trying to build a genuine connection
with someone within seven days,
and hopefully make a new friend along the way.
Because that'd be swell.
To gain some insight,
I chat with LinkedIn expert, Viveka von Rosen.
- Like a real friend.
- [Aria] A real friend.
- I do believe you can find a friend in seven days or less.
Everything we do on LinkedIn
is so that we could have those age-to-age,
those human-to-human relationships.
- [Aria] To start, Viveka helps me remodel my profile.
- We want it so that after reading your profile,
that they almost feel like they know you.
Photos, video, you have the opportunity to upload media.
- [Aria] Taking Viveka's advice,
I take a set of new photos for my page.
- You wanna create your LinkedIn profile
and you wanna create your engagement on LinkedIn,
and you wanna create your content on LinkedIn
to reflect your very, very best self.
The best part of who you are.
And then the other thing is recommendations.
- [Aria] Seeking recommendations,
I reach out to people I feel know me best.
- [Aria] And finally,
to add extra certifications to my profile,
I hire someone off of Craigslist
to teach me a course I developed myself.
When the slideshow rolls, just roll with it.
- Oh, now I'll explain a little bit about...
Should I say that or should I roll with something else?
- [Viveka] Certainly, if you've gone to school
or you've gotten certifications
that are necessary in your industry.
By all means, add them.
♪ You've got a friend in me ♪
♪ Yeah, you've got a friend in me ♪
- Okay, so it's been a few days.
I've rebuilt my profile.
My network has grown a bit,
so I think we're ready to get started.
So I'm gonna reach out to a few people
that seem interesting to me,
and I'm gonna give myself five days
to build some sort of a friendship with them
before asking them to hang out with me on the fifth day.
And we'll see what happens.
I start sending out requests to people
with mutual connections who share similar interests with me.
This guy works in sushi.
I love sushi.
Fantastic.
I receive a steady stream
of accepted requests throughout the day,
although many of them don't respond to my first message.
However, I do receive replies from Kenny, a retired athlete.
And Nico, a former co-worker of a mutual friend.
Tuesday brings more of the same
with accepted requests that leave me on read.
We have a food truck in here today,
but all I could think about
is why haven't these people responded to me.
On the plus side, Kenny and Nico continue to reply
and I also receive a response from James,
an actor who, like me, went to high school in Thailand.
So far, Kenny is definitely top of the class.
He always responds to me.
The poor guy probably thinks I'm crazy.
I keep asking him questions.
He keeps responding.
He never asks me a question.
Hopefully, eventually, he'll ask me a question.
I think it will be a victory
when Kenny finally asks me a question.
But then, on Wednesday, tragedy strikes.
Kenny has left me on read.
It's not a good thing.
This is the first time that Kenny has left me on read.
- I have gone crazy.
However, soon after, another twist develops.
Nico has actually asked me to hang out.
Nico wrote back to me, he wants to hang out.
- What did he say?
- He said, you know, we should grab a drink and chat.
Yeah.
- Wow. - Yeah!
- Look at you - I know, I know.
- You should be like,
yeah I'm totally down, when are you free?
Okay, I'm walking home right now.
I'm hoping that when I get home,
I'm gonna open up my LinkedIn
and I'll have a message waiting for me from Nico.
I won't lie, I'm a little nervous.
("You're My Best Friend" by Queen)
Nico didn't respond.
Nico is online right now, and he hasn't responded.
Kenny chose to ignore me,
so I will not go crawling back to Kenny.
- Screw Kenny?
Yeah, I agree.
The one response is from James though.
And so, maybe James is the one.
But on the penultimate day of my challenge,
things take a further turn for the worst.
This is the first time I've opened up LinkedIn
since I started this without getting a single notification.
Not good.
- I would go with Nico.
- Nico's the second one?
- Nico's the one that asked me to hang out,
but he hasn't responded since I asked him when.
- He probably just got busy. - Yeah.
James, you have a personal connection with.
- James is cool.
- Forget the first one. Kenny?
- Kenny? Forget Kenny?
- Yeah. He ghosted you. - Yeah, and was selfish.
- Yeah.
- Kenny, shame on you.
- But later that day, James replies to me once again.
So going into my final day,
I decide that with our unique Thailand connection,
I'll see if James wants to hang out.
It's my last day.
And so today, I'm gonna ask James to hang out with me.
- Aw, that would be fun.
- Yet, how do you think I should write the message though?
What should I write?
- I think you should just be yourself.
- So I send James a message asking him to hang out,
and then, it becomes a waiting game.
It's 11:26 a.m.
(Aria sighs)
No response.
- The time is 3:53 p.m.
No response.
- What did you ask him?
- We should hang out sometime.
Are you free this weekend?
Is that not good?
- It's very forward, Aria.
- I think he's gonna leave you at read.
- I think this is gonna end with you
making a picnic basket and getting stood up
and eating the whole baguette yourself
on the end of Echo Park Lake.
- [Aria] I don't know.
- Hey, you're a great guy.
You don't need more friends.
- As I arrive home defeated,
I open up my LinkedIn to one unread message.
- Here goes nothing.
- Okay, so what did we learn?
Can you use LinkedIn to find a friend?
Honestly, I don't think so.
For the most part.
- What's up?
- It's James.
- What made you decide just to hang out
with a guy you met on LinkedIn less than a week ago?
- It was definitely mainly the Thailand similarity.
I grew up in Thailand
and he also has some time spent in Thailand,
and so I feel like that was already a unique connection.
And you also didn't seem like a catfisher.
- Regardless of LinkedIn or not,
I think what I learned
is that you can't really force a friendship.
It has to come about organically.
- And then, they go see you?
- Yeah!
- Damn.
- We just lucked out that James and I had a lot in common.
And we got even luckier that when we met in person,
he was just as cool.
I mean, for all we know,
he could've turned out to be deraged.
You never know.
(light cello music)
- Oh my God, this is gonna take forever.
(logo whooshing)
(logo squeaking)
- Kenny, fuck off and die.