The time spent together in the top 6 is particularly important.
Having friends contributes to the psychological balance of a human being, their happiness and daily satisfaction. Conversely, someone who has few or no friends is more likely to suffer from loneliness, anxiety and depression. Friendship status is reported based on hours spent together, shared activities, and daily conversations. While it seems relatively easy to form friendships during childhood, especially through school and extracurricular activities, it seems more complicated as an adult and even more so when you arrive in a new place. But how to make friends? And above all, how long does it take?
In a study published in The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, researchers attempted to answer this question by following 355 people who had recently moved more than 80 km from their previous home (49% of women with an average age of 33). Participants had to answer a series of questions such as the number of hours they spent last week with a newly met person, the type of activity (talking, shopping, playing sports, etc.). ) or emotional closeness (“I feel emotionally close to this person”, “I find this person unique”…).
According to researchers, it is mainly the number of hours spent together in the first 6 months after meeting and “leisure” activities (such as going out, partying, watching television, going to the cinema or playing games ) which bring two people together:
► Less than 10 hours spent together: the relationship is described as an “acquaintance” or “a friend of a friend”
► After 94 hours spent together: acquaintance becomes “an occasional friend”
► After 164 hours spent together: the occasional boyfriend becomes “a regular friend”
► After 219 hours spent together: the regular boyfriend becomes “a good friend”
► The best friendships would only emerge after 300 hours spent together.
Obviously, these are only estimates and this study has certain limitations (estimates of hours are sometimes inaccurate, relationships that did not last were not studied, etc.).
Participants indicated that the person they were describing was a woman (51%), whom they had met in the neighborhood (35.8%), at work (25.1%), through friends ( 8.2%), in a club/association/group (7.9%), through family (6.8%), at school (5.6%) or online (5.1 %). Finally, according to this study, the fact of devoting time to deep conversations and less to “chatter” on mundane subjects, as well as the fact of revealing sufficient aspects of one’s personality, were the main vectors of friendship.