Want to be friends . . . it'll take a while

A two-part series:

Part I: The long road to friendship

Part II: When to leave a friendship behind

Want to be friends? It’ll take a while.

The paths in Oak Cliff Nature Preserve are rocky, twisting and sometimes hard to follow. It takes some focus.

I was walking behind a new acquaintance when she shared something that wasn’t going great in her life. Then asked something similar of me.

That was more than twelve years ago. But I can still picture my royal blue tennis sneakers navigating the stark white limestone that shows itself here in modest bits and pieces before morphing into huge rock formations further south in Texas Hill Country.

All I could think was, I want to be friends with this woman.

If you’ve ever had that feeling, you know the hardest part is often what comes next.

It takes time

Research has long connected friendship with well-being. The Mayo Clinic reports adults with strong social connections have lower risks of depression and high blood pressure, and people with close friends tend to live longer.

And yet we invest surprisingly little in cultivating them—Americans spend only about 40 minutes a day socializing according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

University of Kansas communications professor Jeffrey Hall, actually measured how much time it takes adults to make a new friend.

Short answer: a lot.

About ten hours of connection can move someone from stranger to casual acquaintance. Real friendships begin at around 50 hours. Best friends? More like 300.

Three hundred hours.

Fortunately, mundane catching up, checking in and joking around count. Friendship is built not just in big conversations, but in little moments that can seem inconsequential at the time.

So much like dating

Jaimie Krems, an associate professor of psychology and director of the UCLA Center for Friendship Research, uses terms like “friend attraction,” “friend flirting” and “friend dating.”

I totally get that.

You find someone attractive. You ask her out—lunch usually for starters, maybe a walk—and see if there are sparks.

Did she talk incessantly? Was she unwilling to share vulnerably? Was she kind of wimpy or mousy? No sense of humor?

Those are some of my turn-offs. Yours are probably different.

Krems also points to an uglier side of friendship. There can be jealousy and competition, too—not just with a friend, but for friends.

“People compete for friends,” Krems explains. “I want my friend to like me better than they like you.”

Ouch.

So much like dating.

When we moved to Iowa years ago with a two- and five-year-old, I expected it to feel foreign and lonely. Instead, we landed in a wonderfully welcoming neighborhood of stay-at-home moms with young kids.

Shout out to Kelly, Amanda and Carolyn!

But our move to Atlanta just a few years later was tougher.

People were so friendly!

At least they seemed friendly. They smiled a lot. And then never invited you to do anything.

I remember one mom I thought was the bomb but I could never break past that friendly façade.

Another mom I chased down on a class trip. I heard her family attended a Unitarian church we were going to, which catapulted her into the high-interest category for me. When I realized she was chaperoning the same trip, I made a beeline for her.

We did eventually become (and remain) good friends. But I admit she looked at me oddly that day as she struggled to keep tabs on a wild bunch of fifth graders while I pressed myself on her to become besties.

When the context changes

Friendships often seem to take a big step forward when you see someone outside the setting where you first met.

Maybe you enjoy talking with someone at yoga, at work or at church. You see each other every week. You like her. She seems to like you.

But you’re still just yoga friends. Or work friends.

Then one of you says, “Want to grab lunch?”

That changes things.

The friendship builds when you meet outside of yoga. It builds again when she invites you to her home or you meet her partner.

You’re no longer just people who happen to be in the same place at the same time. You’re becoming part of each other’s lives.

The strange business of liking and being liked

Just as we worry whether a potential romantic partner will find us attractive, we worry whether potential friends will like us.

Research suggests people tend to underestimate how much others enjoy talking to them and getting to know them.

I know I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, but I now try to assume someone likes me well enough until the evidence points otherwise.

I try to make it clear when I like her.

Specificity helps

I’m also less likely these days to say, “Let’s get together some time.”

Instead, I might suggest a local event on Thursday evening.

My sister-in-law got even more specific when she decided to form a women’s lunch group. She knew she wanted six people—more than that, she thought, would make it difficult for everyone to participate. Each woman had to come from a different area of Canada, speak English and have had a significant but diverse career.

“These ladies enrich me,” she told me. “I can’t put my finger on what makes it work other than we are comfortable sharing our thoughts.”

When it clicks

Of course, when it clicks, it’s worth it.

I had no idea that the woman whose heels I was closely following through the nature preserve would become one of my closest friends.

She seemed a little too nice.

But then she did something magical: she made it clear she wanted to be friends. And she shared herself candidly.

Turns out she wasn’t all that nice after all.

Thank heaven!

Next time, we’ll talk about the other side of friendship: the challenge of walking away when it no longer aligns with who you are.

And I might share how that same friend sometimes needs me to give her some freaking space!

. . . If you know someone ready to expand her circle, please consider sending this her way. https://www.jeanmcaulay.com/