Will & Way #149: How long does it take to make a new friend?
She loves a formula!
Someone recently told me that it takes “X” years to make a friend as an adult, with “X” being the first digit of your age. So if you’re 18, it takes one year; if you’re 22, it takes two years; and so on.
I’m 40, which I’m gonna go ahead and say puts me right on the cusp between 3-4 years to make a friend. I honestly think it’s pretty accurate! I’ve been in Houston exactly four years and I’ve just recently started to feel like I have a few different friend groups.
I think it’s important to note that this time range is so long because it reflects how many acquaintances you have to meet before you connect with someone on a deeper level. It doesn’t take four years to connect with one person, but it takes that long to make time to enough new people as a 40-something that you find a few quality connections to then invest in.
Once you meet someone that could be a friend, you have to put the time in. Take my Bumble BFF success story with my friend Shannon. We met about seven months after I moved to Houston and discovered that we had a few similar interests, including rock climbing, biking, and going to see shows.
Then we started doing some of those things together. We went rock climbing and grabbed food afterward. She invited me to a show. We went for bike rides. Our friendship kept growing, and we’re still friends now, despite her moving to the East Coast. She even came on my 40th birthday trip to Big Bend National Park.
(Note: This is one of two Bumble BFF success stories in my life. The other happened in San Diego. I find that app to be similar to dating in that you have to sort through a lot of non-compatible people, but it can be worth it.)
Now that I’m writing this out, I’m actually wondering if that formula I opened with would radically change post-retirement age, in keeping with the happiness bell curve. Here’s some similar data on that:
Look how happy we are in our late teens! Can you believe we’ll be happier than that at age 61?! SIGN ME UP.
Anyway, it would make sense that after you retire, you’d actually have much more time to devote to being social and building community and you’d make friends a lot faster. So perhaps this formula only works for a certain period of time.
Let’s look at another study on how long it takes to make a new friend. Here we find that friendship is a function of hours spent together, shared activities (the more leisure- and less work-oriented, the better), and talking.
I found the report a bit meandering, so I asked Claude to sum it up for me. Here’s how long it takes to deepen a friendship:
Time Investment for Different Friendship Levels
Acquaintance to Casual Friend: 40-60 hours
Study 2 (college students): 43 hours over 3 weeks
Study 1 (adults): 94 hours over 3+ months
The researchers suggest 40-60 hours is the realistic range for this transition
Casual Friend to Friend: 80-100 hours
Friend to Good/Best Friend: 200+ hours
It makes so much sense that we’re able to quickly amass best friendships in our younger years, when we’re around people all of the time at school. The study points out that college students spent 1/3 of their time with their best friend! What a dream.
As we enter the workforce, have families, and accumulate other commitments, it becomes pretty challenging to find 200+ hours to spend with someone. This is why I’m much more selective about who I invest in now; I always look for some sort of shared activity we can do together because my time is more limited than it was in college.
The study found that these are the best/worst activities to grow a friendship:
Positive activities: Hanging out, leisure activities, catching up, joking around
Negative activities: Work/school obligations, small talk
I’m thinking about how when I lived in New Orleans, I joined a dance troupe and it took a full year — and going through the physically grueling Mardi Gras season together — before I felt marginally connected to anyone in the group. It was well into my second year of doing it that I felt “close” to anyone. And this was with multiple practices a week plus social events, fundraising events, etc. It probably took about that long to hit 100-200 hours of time together.
I think we can take this info and apply it to our community-building efforts. It’s frustrating when we want to make friends and nothing seems to be panning out, but stay consistent. It may not be as easy as it was in college until we’re retired and have much more free time, but it’s still worth pursuing as friendships are critical for our health and well-being.
Here are some actions I’m taking lately to keep growing my relationships:
Organizing regular Bingo nights and monthly Book Clubs
Attending weekly trivia nights with the same group of people
We go to church every week (more at some point on my return to organized religion) and are pretty involved with volunteer and social opportunities there
Telling people what I want to do more of — I’ve been wanting to do more social bike rides, for example, so I’ve started asking people to invite me if they’re going on one
Saying yes when I’m invited to things unless it’s something I’m 1000% uninterested in. I want to get back into doing things for the novelty and adventure of it all. (Everything is copy, after all.)
Scheduling regular phone check-ins and in-person visits with long-distance friends.
Here’s one I’m not doing but would love to try if my neighbors weren’t VERY visibly actively opposed to mingling lol
Final note: I’m an introvert who often gets told I must be extroverted because I’m constantly organizing meetups or making plans. However, it’s because I’m introverted that I think about this all of the time. I have to be intentional with how I spend my time and who I spend it with. Meaningful connections help sustain me — and I’m willing to put in the time it requires to find them.
Money Talks
We donate 5-10% of net income each month, and here’s what we supported in May:
American Immigration Council: because justice should be for ALL
Grace Place: supporting vulnerable homeless youth in the HTX area
St Luke’s United Methodist: where we attend church; I’m a big fan of their multi-pronged community outreach
And just a little reminder that growth isn’t linear when it comes to freelancing:
This my income over the last year. It’s all over the place more so than usual, and I’m trying to stay level-headed about it. That said, if you or someone you know is in the market for a writer/editor, please hit me up!
ROUNDUP:
I finally watched Sinners. It was one of those movies where I wasn’t sure how I felt right afterward, and then I couldn’t stop thinking about it the next couple of days. I want to rewatch!
I went to the theaters for Materialists and do not recommend! Thin plot and Dakota Johnson applies the same exact affect she used in 50 Shades, which is confusing.
I really loved Four Seasons on Netflix
How to write while deeply distracted (related: here’s a podcast episode on why you can’t pay attention)
Laura Ingalls Wilder was not a tradwife!
This pod on how people think AI is God blew my mind
Have a good week!
Nikki
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Really loved these insights. I knew after I started freelancing that friends were going to be in short supply unless I actually *did something about it*.
Also, Four Seasons was so great!