How To Develop Valuable Friendships

We all long for friends, and not just for friends but for deep meaningful connections that make us feel seen. It’s part of being human and something that we all desperately need. Chances are, if you’re reading this blog article you want to improve your social life and find those valuable friendships. It’s perfectly within your reach, but don’t be deluded by the Instagram ‘friendship goals’ aesthetics. Nobody just becomes instant BFFs – it takes time and commitment to develop a friendship. But what are the stages in that process? I find structured frameworks helpful, so I thought I would share the friendship stages that I’ve identified. Being able to assess a relationship can help you to know how to grow it to the next level. As a general guide, women and girls tend to bond primarily by talking together, whereas men and boys tend to bond primarily by doing things together. Friendships need an approximate ratio of five positive experiences for every more demanding experience, so make sure you’re giving as well as taking.

1 Stranger

Strangers form most of the population. They are all the people you don’t know and many of us run across them on a daily basis. You may know the names of some strangers, for example celebrities or politicians, but there is no reciprocal relationship. Most strangers will stay strangers – there’s 7.7 billion people in the world after all! – but some of them are potential friends just waiting to be met.

2 Acquaintance

Acquaintances make up most of the people we interact with. They are those that we recognise and know by name but don’t know well enough to have any emotional relationship with. The anthropologist Robin Dunbar has proposed what is known as ‘Dunbar’s number’ – that the human brain can comfortably maintain about 150 stable relationships at any one time. The actual number can range between 100 and 250, with 150 being an average for most people. Historically this was the number of people that was typically found in a village or community. The idea is that there is a limitation to the number of people that humans can maintain social contact with.

3 Friendly Acquaintance

Friendly acquaintances aren’t quite friends but are more than neutral acquaintances. These are the people you would say hello to and perhaps have small talk with if you met them. If all of your friendships at higher levels are fully developed, Dunbar’s number suggests that about 80 people out of the 150 would remain at this level. As a general guide, you usually need meet up with someone six to eight times before you begin to feel like friends – which is what a friendly acquaintance is. You feel friendly towards each other but aren’t fully friends yet.

4 Casual Friend

Casual friends are those you enjoy hanging out with and perhaps are in a shared group with. You enjoy each other’s company and have fun together, but you don’t tend to share your deepest vulnerabilities and probably wouldn’t go to them in a time of need. Casual friendships are usually based on common interests or shared circumstances. If the 150 people of Dunbar’s Number are your ‘tribe’, then the up to 50 people who form your casual friends are the equivalent of your ‘clan’. It takes around 50 hours of bonding time to develop a friendship to this level.

5 Good Friend

Good friends are people you know well. You can have fun together but have also developed a significant amount of trust. This is your second closest circle of friends and is made up of not more than 15 people. Good friends usually take up about a quarter of your total social time, which is about 1.7% of your social time per person. On average it can be expected to take 100 hours of bonding time to develop a friendship to this level.

6 Close Friend

Close friends form your inner circle and are your go-to friends for most difficult situations. These are people whom you really love, trust, and know very well. Most people can only maintain up to five close friends, or four if they’re in a romantic relationship. This inner circle of close friends takes up about half of your total social time, meaning you spend 10% of your social time with each, or 20% for a romantic partner. Because these people are so close and you spend a lot of time with them, they are highly influential and will shape who you become. It’s not for nothing that there’s a saying that you’re the sum of the five people closest to you. Be friendly to everyone, but don’t let just anyone into this inner circle. As a guide, it takes approximately 200 hours of bonding time to develop a friendship to this level.

7 Best Friend

Best friends are included within the four or five people of your inner circle, but are the one or perhaps two of them that you feel closest to of all. For example, if you were to get married, your close friends would be those who you’d probably choose as bridesmaids whereas your best friend would be the one you’d single out to be your maid of honour. If you’re in a healthy, committed, long-term romantic relationship then your partner would most likely be equivalent to the best friend level as well.

8 Old Friend

Old friends are almost in a category of their own, which can make them difficult to place. We all change and our friendships change throughout life. Some people we stay close with or in contact to, whilst other people fade out of our lives or drift into its fringes. Old friends perhaps used to be a close friend or even best friend but are no longer. They may now be more on the friendly acquaintance level or not even in your life at all, but they still hold the remnant and memory of what used to be. Perhaps you feel nostalgic about their friendship sometimes, or maybe sad. Either way they hold the sense of something past rather than something with unknown promise, which separates them from other people at the same friendship level as them. Old friends once knew you well and may know things about you that no one else does, but they no longer have that closeness or intimacy that they once did. Sometimes old friendships can be revived; other times you just have to learn to let them go and seek new friends elsewhere.