Making friends as an adult

Friendships come from repeated time with the same people. Pick one regular thing, keep showing up, and be the one who suggests the next step.

• Evidence: Some
• Takes: a few hours a week, for a few months
• Social

Right now

1. Pick one regular thing that meets weekly or every other week: a class, a club, a team, a volunteering shift, a running group. Same place, same people, for at least a few months.
2. Sign up for the next session before you talk yourself out of it.
3. Think of one person you already half-know (a colleague, a neighbor, a friend of a friend) and send them a message with a specific plan.

Before

• Choose repetition over variety. In one study, first-year students were given random seat numbers at their first class meeting. A year later, people who happened to sit next to each other were more likely to be friends [3]. In lab experiments, strangers who talked for longer liked each other more, partly because they felt more comfortable and better understood [4]. One earlier set of studies found the opposite, so the effect isn’t universal. But a weekly class gives you far more chances than ten one-off events.
• Expect it to take time. A study of 355 adults who had recently moved, and 112 first-year students, found that more hours together went with closer friendships [1]. The university’s summary gives rough figures: 40 to 60 hours to become casual friends, 80 to 100 hours to become friends, and over 200 hours for a close friend [2]. That’s a lot of evenings, so start now and don’t judge it after three weeks.
• Know that people want to hear from you. In a series of experiments, people who sent a short message or small gift underestimated how much the other person appreciated it. The gap was bigger when the two weren’t close [5].

During

• Turn up and talk to the same few people. Arrive five minutes early or stay five minutes after. That’s when conversations happen.
• Ask follow-up questions about what they told you last time. Remembering details shows interest.
• Change the setting once you know someone a little. The study’s author noted that hours spent working together count for less than hanging out, and that moving from a shared place to a lunch or a drink signals you want to be friends [2].
• Be the one who invites. Most people are waiting for someone else to suggest it.

After

• Follow up within a week if you enjoyed it. Suggest something specific, with a day.
• Don’t read silence as rejection. People are busy. One more friendly message a couple of weeks later is fine.
• Remember the liking gap. After a conversation, people consistently underestimate how much the other person liked them, including new roommates over several months [6]. If you’re unsure how it went, it probably went better than you think.
• Keep a short list of three or four people you’re getting to know, and check you’ve seen or messaged each of them in the past two weeks. The friendship check-in can help.

Why this works

Two findings carry most of the weight. First, closeness tracks time together: randomly sitting near someone predicted friendship a year later [3], more interaction led to more liking in the lab [4], and hours together went with closer friendships [1]. Second, people are too pessimistic about reaching out. They underestimate how much a message is appreciated [5] and how much they’re liked after talking [6].

Rated Some. The reaching-out findings come from several preregistered experiments. The hours research is based on people’s own estimates, mostly from online survey takers and students in one US university, and the specific hour figures come from the university’s news release rather than the paper’s abstract [2]. No study has tested a “join a club and keep going” plan directly.

Topics: Social, Friendship, Loneliness, Connection

Sources checked 4 October 2026. Spot a mistake? Tell us.