How LONG Does It Take To Make Friends? (Amount of Hours Revealed + What Type of Interactions Need to Happen) | What It Takes Series

70% of people do not have a single person that they can call in the middle of a crisis. Let's face it, we are relationally broke. And my mission is to make that percentage zero. But how? By building relational wealth, the embodiment of all your relationships with yourself with others and experiences that enrich your life. I promise you this podcast will help you build wealth in every way that money cannot. And it all starts by being accidentally intentional. Let's begin. What's up, guys? Welcome back to another accidentally intentional podcast episode, we are on part three, ending with our three part series of what it takes to build incredible relationships this year. And it's based on three questions that we wanted to answer the first question we wanted to answer, in part one of the series was, How many friends do I actually need? And yes, there is a scientific number based on the Dunbar principle. And then in the second episode, we talked about what types of friends you actually need in your life based upon the at your Harvard happiness study. And so in this episode, we're gonna be answering a very important question that everyone has probably asked themselves at one point, how long will it actually take to make a friend? And you will not believe that there's actually been a scientific study based on this very question. And now we have the answers. And I want to share this quick quote from Aristotle, which says wishing to be friends is quick work. But friendship is a slow ripening fruit. And isn't that the truth, you've probably found that in your own life as well. Or maybe you haven't found it in your life yet, because you think just even the concept and idea of having to start over, make a friendship, wherever you are in life is incredibly daunting. So this episode is going to be really helpful for you. And really insightful, we're going to cover a lot of ground. Now before I give you the numbers from the scientific study for how much time it actually takes to make a friend, we need to talk about some disclaimers, there's plenty of factors that can go into the numbers I'm about to share not being the same for you. And we can name tons of reasons, right. So I'm just going to name a handful to give you an idea of how this can be nuanced and how there can be a ton of different varieties of this. So first off, if you're an extrovert, you have probably noticed, as opposed to some introverts in your life, you feel like and you give the appearance that you can make friends faster. And that is true from the standpoint of you aren't necessarily as afraid to go first, and put yourself out there. So for introverts, it could take a different amount of time. But the concept must remain true. Whether you're an extrovert or an introvert, you have to go first, we have to be willing to go out and build these relationships and make these friendships. And let's say where you live plays a factor in this as well. Because if you live in a city, there are so many options, there are so many people, there are so many opportunities that city living can provide. Whereas if you live in the middle of the country, in the country, and you don't have people miles from you, then this is definitely going to be very nuanced, and not necessarily the same experience for you, because of what you do have at your disposal. The third factor I want to bring up is your availability. And it can depend on what season of your life you're in. Right? Let's say that you are a young parent. And you don't actually have time. You don't have as much time available to you as say someone who's just coming freshly out of college single just out here living their best life would have. So that's something to keep in mind as well. Regardless of that intentionality is going to be key. Have you ever thought to yourself or heard someone say I don't, I just don't even have time for people. I don't even have time for friends right now. That's what we're talking about. But even if you don't have time for friends, that is a leading indicator that you definitely need some friends. And in the previous episodes, we talk all about the science that it does to our minds, our souls and our bodies as a result of being lonely. So there is this Professor Jeffrey Hall from the University of Kansas who studied the amount of time it takes for people to create friendships. And if you listened to part one of the series where we outlined how many friends one actually needs, then you remember this Dunbar principle but if you haven't checked out that one, you can click up here we talked about the Dunbar principle right where it is consent Trick circles based on the amount the the social limits we have for friendship capacity. And so in this study that Geoffrey Hall did at the University of Kansas, the study moved through the progress of someone going from an acquaintance to a casual friend from a casual friend to a friend, and then ultimately from a friend to a close friend. And this parallels with the Dunbar principle. So what it's outlining here is to take someone from an acquaintance, which we know that our social limits are 500 acquaintances in our life. So it's taking someone from this specific concentric circle, and showing the progress in the amount of necessary hours it takes to move from the acquaintance circle up to the next rung, which is a meaningful contact in this case. So you go from where you can have up to 500 to the next rung up where you can have up to 150 meaningful contacts. And the study that Jeffrey Hall did, revealed that it takes on average 55, zero hours of time together in order to move from the acquaintance bucket, to the meaningful contacts bucket, which can also be considered a casual friend. Now, if 50 hours sounds daunting. Just think about it this way, it's just two full days, right. But of course, it does continue to ratchet up from there. So when it comes to friendship status, to move from the concentric circle, then have meaningful contact slash casual friendship up into the friend, this bucket does take many more hours than 50. This one actually takes 90 hours of time, in order to move up those two concentric circles. Okay, on average, right, this is what his study revealed from the meaningful contacts, which is a max social limit of 150 people in that up into the friend bucket or concentric circle, the max, you'd have in this one, your social limit is 50. Friends. So that's some serious progress you've made. Yes, it's almost double the amount of time 50 hours from acquaintance to casual friend, and then 90 hours spent together to go from the casual friend to friend, which then comes the most fascinating result of the study. And it was what it takes in a calculated number of hours to move from friend, which your cognitive limit is 50, according to the Dunbar principle and actually jump up into the second concentric circle, the second most important one, and that tear is considered close friends. How many hours do you think it takes to move just from that circle up to the next one, it takes 200 hours of quality time together in order to jump from friend to close friend. When is the last time you spent 200 hours doing anything other than working or sleeping or eating? You know, and it really is eye opening? When you think about it like that. And so as I was looking through this research, I was first blown away by hearing this 200 hour number. But it absolutely started to make more sense when I thought about how much time it really takes to foster those deep connections. I mean, most people can think of it simply if they're dating someone, you know, it's like, especially when you're in the honeymoon phase, you're like, oh my gosh, we're like obsessed with each other. We want to spend every second together. But it's not just like a honeymoon phase with romantic relationships. The same intentionality to develop these rich relationships in the form of friendship takes a considerable as we see amount of effort and quality time as well. But so as I was looking through this research, it left me asking, but what exactly is the quality time and what does that 200 hours consist of? And so I found some separate research. And so I'm blending both studies together to provide us with some next steps that we can all take to really foster and develop these rich relationships in our lives that have incredible depth, incredible meaning and the connection that we've been looking for. So I found some research that shows that there are three types of interactions that need to happen in order to develop what I consider rich relationships. This means relationships which have some legitimate substance and depth and growth behind them. And you might be surprised to hear what those three categories of interactions Are or you might not be. So here's what they are right? Ketchup conversation has to be one of the interactions, meaningful conversations. Now that's not the surprise needs to happen. And I'm going to define all of these in a second. And then the third type of interaction that must happen in order to develop and build these rich relationships and relational wealth, obviously, which is what I call it, and what this podcast is about. self disclosure is the third one. So I was going to define all of these, and this is based on Dan McAdams research on the three levels of intimacy. So Dan McAdams did this research on the three levels of intimacy, which points to the three types of interactions that need to happen that it just discussed. So he characterizes and phrases things a little bit differently. So he calls them level one, two, and three, but they parallel what we just talked about. So level one is equivalent to the small talk and catch up conversation where you're asking more general generic questions like, What's your age? What do you do, and this zone level one is where so many of us get stuck, and we can't get our brains to go past this level. And maybe that's for certain reason. And maybe that reason could be for you that you have lost trust in people because of one friendship or relationship that went sideways. And now you're just really spooked out, and not sure you want to fight for that next level. If that's you, I just want to pause here and say that, just because one person broke your trust, doesn't mean that we all will break your trust. And I'm saying that to you as someone who has been in that exact position in my life, and I talk more about that whenever I share my story, which I do in the very first episode of this podcast. So I'll link it up here for you to listen to if you're interested in it. But you're worth fighting for those incredible relationships, because there are people out there, and I believe that were created for connection, and the science points of that, too, because of the effects of loneliness, and I don't want that for any of us. That's obviously my heart behind this podcast. Okay, sorry, side tangent. So we get stuck in this area. But level one of intimacy is important. The small talk this ketchup conversation is really important for our brains. Because our brain has to learn the basics before we can move forward and get to know each other more level two of intimacy, or type of interaction that you know needs to happen has to do with personal concerns. This is what I parallel to the concept of meaningful conversations. These are questions like motivations and values. These are questions you would ask like, what's your biggest passion? And you see someone's eyes light up? That's one of my favorite questions to ask people, by the way, or what's the best part about your day where it's not just some random information as much as it's going just a little bit deeper? If we're using Shrek references, then another peel of the onion closer to getting to know someone's heart? Other examples of these questions are, are you working on anything exciting lately, and then level three of intimacy, according to Dan Adams is considered self narrative and self disclosure. These are the pieces of you that you share with someone that you trust or want to trust. Because you can't find out if you trust someone or not until you trust them with something. So this is that third and final piece of in the level of intimacy that's necessary to begin creating these unbelievably close friendships. Questions that are level three, the level of intimacy piece are questions like, what's your biggest fear? What is your deepest fear? What drives you? Who is your hero or role model? Questions like that, where people really have to share something about themselves and oftentimes get a little bit vulnerable? I had a question I asked in college. Often, when I wanted to hear and get to know someone's story, just for the mere fact of being inspired and encouraged by it because I was in a rut and wasn't feeling so hopeful about life. At that time myself a question I loved asking was, was there a moment in your life when you honestly didn't know how you would get through it? But then you did. What happened? How did you do it? That was an incredibly hope filled question and would leave both me and the person I was sitting across from really, honestly rejuvenated by Getting to think about a time that we've overcome. And that whole concept is really inspiring to me. In fact, it's why I have a rise again, tattoo on my arm, I digress. Those are the three levels of intimacy that are necessary to form these deep relationships. And I had an interesting thought about this is there are some occupations, who in their job, they experience a unbalanced amount of this, let me explain a little bit further, let's say that you are someone that has clients like a hairstylist, or a counselor, or sometimes a fitness coach, right, a personal trainer, you have clients coming in, who are going through three levels of intimacy and disclosing it to you, even though you are not doing the same back to them. Now, men, I can't speak to as much but I know that as a woman, we go to get our hair done, and it takes hours. And we consider our hairstylist, our friend, because we go through all three of these, we start by doing catch up conversation, then all of a sudden, we get through that, and we're talking a little bit more. And we're sure, hey, this is what we've been up to. But but but Right. And so you see where I'm going with this, personal trainers, I also see this happen because someone's coming in and you quickly go through level one. But the reason that they're they're working with a personal trainer is because they have somewhere they want to go, they have a deep motivation, a deep goal, and they want to change their life, change their actions, change their habits, change their mindset, and they need someone to help them get there. So they're disclosing a lot. And if you are someone who accepts these types of clients, and you have a job like this, you may often feel very overwhelmed. Because you're thinking, dang, I'm holding a lot, like I'm holding a lot of people's information, right clients may see or treat you as a friend. But you wouldn't necessarily treat them the same way outside of your sphere of work. So I just find that a really interesting, dynamic, and something to be aware of, and something to also give you insight to and clarity on. If that is you, that's why you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed, because people are divulging a lot to you. And you're not necessarily doing the same thing. And that's not good or bad. It just is. And so now you know why you're holding why you feel like you're holding a ton. So I told you, we were going to learn a lot. In this episode, we learned that ultimately, to go from someone being an acquaintance all the way up to a close friend, it's going to take a lot of hours, what we actually said was over 200 hours is what the data is pointing to. And that means that if we truly want deep down these incredibly rich relationships, then we have to be willing to put in the effort, the time and the vulnerability to move forward and make that goal a reality. And yes, it does take just one step at a time to do it. And in the next episode, I'm actually going to outline 10 of the best places, ways experiences in which you can make new friends this year so that we can take that first step. And then of course, in this episode, as well, we learned about what the quality of those relationships needs to include. And it involves the three levels of intimacy, which is level one small talk or ketchup conversation, level two, meaningful conversation slash, personal concerns. And then level three, the deepest level of intimacy, which is self disclosure, where you are getting really vulnerable, and sharing things with people that you ultimately trust or want to trust. And it's also really important to state that we have to go in that order levels one and two in order to get to three. Because I think we all know how uncomfortable it would feel if somebody we didn't know came up to us and said, Hey, tell me about a time when you didn't think you were going to make it but you did. You would just be very confused. You need a little bit more context before you trust a stranger with very personal vulnerable information. So hey, I hope you found this episode helpful. I so much fun learning all of it myself and finding out all this research because it just shows how dynamic, complex and incredible humans are, and how incredible fighting for those rich relationships and rich friendships in our life can be as well. And so if you enjoy this episode, I just have a simple ask for you. Would you please one either Subscribe on YouTube or the podcast player that you're listening to and to leave a review, that actually would be so incredibly helpful. And the way that the algorithm for the podcast player works is oftentimes driven by the amount of reviews because the more info that they learn about the audience, they know who and where to push that podcast into the direction of and obviously, if you've been listening, you know by now the goal of this podcast is to build relational wealth. So, one, I appreciate you so much, my friend, to thank you so much for your support. And I'll see you next time as we talk about top 10 places, ways experiences to make new friends this year, so make sure you subscribe so you can get that next one and I'll see you there