Picking up those threads of friendship right through life
A small group of old school friends gathered recently for a lovely night out. The first indication that we were now more than 35 years past the Leaving Cert was that food replaced pints at the top of the priority list.
But what was wonderful – and what has never changed no matter how long it is between gatherings – was the easy way we picked up from where we last left off.
Five years boarding in St Mary’s give you a lifetime of shared touchstones that could never change. Circumstances do and, in some cases, oceans separate us – but friends are friends for life even when you don’t see them every day.
Equally, you tend to believe that there is a point in life when the friends you will have into the future are the ones you have already – you may make new acquaintances but the friends are the ones you grew up with, went to college with, partied with, invited to your wedding.
And yet an American professor of communication studies sees that as utter rubbish; Jeffrey Hall spent some time researching friendship and discovered that it’s never too late to make a new one.
In fact, he’s prepared to put a time frame to that – and he believes it takes just 90 hours of time spent together for people to become firmly-established ‘casual friends’.
Spend a further 110 hours together and you have a new close friend for life.
Obviously, the University of Kansas professor doesn’t just mean sitting beside someone on a never-ending cruise – or Friday evening traffic on the Headford Road – but actual time talking and sharing experiences.
He downplayed what he called ‘obligatory relationships’ – people you worked with, people who lived in the same apartment block, people you had to be courteous to just to avoid becoming the black sheep of your street.
And he pointed out that there are people you’ve spent a multiple of 200 hours sitting beside at work, whom you would not alone not define as close friends but with whom you’ve rarely ever even been to lunch with.
Nonetheless, his claim would mean that, if you met someone on a Friday, you’d be good friends four days later – presuming you didn’t do anything else. And five days later, you’re best buddies forever.
Read the full column in this week’s Connacht Tribune.