How Do You Make Friends? Put in the Time and Skip the Small Talk.

          Having a good social network is extremely important for happiness, health, and life satisfaction. Unfortunately, people do not always prioritize face-to-face communication with friends and often spend their free time on social media or television. For example, Americans only spend about 41 minutes a day socializing and they spend triple that time commuting or watching television. Given the constraints on free time and the importance of friendship, researcher Jeffrey Hall decided to investigate how much time it takes to make a new friend. Hall was interested in the hours of time together that it takes to move between the various levels of friendship. He wanted to find out when an acquaintance becomes a casual friend, when a casual friend becomes a friend, and when a friend becomes a good/best friend.

Hall completed two studies with interesting and useful results. If you are moving to a new city for school, a job, or a partner (as most of us will in our lifetime) and you are nervous about making new friends, keep reading. Hall found that friendship closeness is based on the amount of time together and the type of activity. You know that guy at your work that chews with his mouth open and thinks he knows everything? Just because you spend 30 hours a week with him does not make him your friend. Time spent together if not enough, what you do in that time matters. 

  In his first study, Hall asked participants to identify someone new they had met that was not a family member or romantic interest. He asked them to specify where they met this person and how much time they’d spent together the previous week, and how much time they spent together in a typical week. He also asked them to categorize the person somewhere on the scale from acquaintance to best friend. Hall’s first study revealed that as the proportion of time spent working or in class together went up, the closeness of the friendship decreased. In contrast, higher proportions of time spend hanging out, watching television, or gaming indicated closer friendships. So what is that magic number? It seems that casual friendships emerge around 30 hours, followed by friendships around 50 hours, and good/best friendships happen after 140 hours. 

  Hall’s second study was focused on how you talk to your potential friend. Communication with this person is divided into “striving episodes” and small talk. Striving episodes can be thought of more intimate talk that you would not have with a stranger. For example, a striving episode could include talking about an event that have occurred since you last saw each other, engaging in playful talk to have fun or release tension, or talking in ways that express love and give attention and affection. The results of Hall’s second study suggest that these “striving episodes” are linked with increases in friendship closeness and small talk is linked with decreases in friendship closeness. Hall was able to answer the primary question of his research: how many hours does it take to make a friend? He found the chance of identifying someone as a casual friend rather than an acquaintance is greater than 50% when people spend about 43 hours together in the first three week after meeting.

Tips for Making Friends Fast

• Spend time together outside of school or work. Invite them for coffee or to an activity you both enjoy. 
• Ask them about what happened to them that day. (striving episode)
• Spend a lot of time together in the first few weeks of meeting.
• Attend a workshop, camping trip, or vacation with them so you can maximize the hours spent together.
• Avoid small talk!

Hall, J. A. (2018). How many hours does it take to make a friend? Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 26540751876122. doi:10.1177/0265407518761225