How Many Hours it Takes to Make a ‘Best Friend’

It might take longer than you think!

They say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something…but, how long does it take to make a lifelong friend? Recent research found it takes an average of 219 hours to become best friends with someone. The study looked at how long people had to hang out over the course of several months to go from being acquaintances to casual friends, then casual friends to true friends and true friends to best friends. It took an average of 94 hours for most people to become casual, 164 hours for a true friendship to form and 219 hours before people considered the other person to be a good friend or best friend. Obviously, everyone’s different though. For example, around 5% of people felt like they were close friends after just five hours together. But, some people never felt close no matter how long they hung out.