Flex and Rooms Flex and Frooms. This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast.
It is Flex and Rooms on CAT. We talk a lot about friendships because they matter. I have it on good authority that if you want to live a good, healthy life, the friendships and the relationships that you build are fundamental equal to physical health according to some studies. In this instance, you know, I've in particular, spoken a lot about the way that I segment my friends. It's not a science and it's not really a fine line. But I know that I have my best best friends,
my close friends. And this is not a number defined by time, just more like feelings, like who I'm being the most intimate with, who I'm sharing a lot within it. At any given time. I've got acquaintances, I've got peers and colleagues, and I've got strangers. All these people I can be buddy buddy with, chummy with, share a lot with, But the deepness has to come with a close friend
and a best friend. And I was thinking to myself, how many hours would it actually take for someone to become a close friend if we need to really break that down, Because I feel that a lot of people think you know one or two parties, a few deep conversations, we should be on our way, But really it could take one hundred hours, two hundred hours including in your life, talking, texting, facetiming.
You know.
Anyway, there's this TikTok here from Anyway. There's TikTok he from Hannah gets hired and she has some insight for us.
Don't have enough friends as an adult.
So if you feel like you don't have enough friends as an adult, then you're probably just.
Not working hard enough.
At the risk of sounding like a complete asshole, let me explain what I mean. There's this study that was done several years ago about making friendships as an adult that lives rent free in my brain.
You've heard of like the ten thousand hour logic.
Right, Like, to master a skill, you need to spend ten thousand hours doing it. Friendships work in a similar way, but you need actually a lot less time. This study literally quantify the number of hours that it takes to consider somebody a friend of varying degrees. I find this so interesting because making new friends can be such a painful process. It's kind of like dating, and like it's really awkward.
You have to hang out and see if.
You vibe and like put the reps in in.
Order to find your people.
So this study looked at a ton of different factors, like the amount of brain space you actually have to maintain friends, the way you spend time with friends, whether you're at work or you're like actually hanging out together, and the opportunity cost of hanging out.
With some people over others.
And this study found that it only actually takes fifty hours to consider somebody a friend, ninety hours to consider somebody a good friend, and two hundred hours to consider somebody a close friend.
Two hundred hours is not a lot of time. That is about nine days.
Ever since I've learned about this, I always kind of have in the back of my mind whenever I go hang out with friends, especially newer ones, accumulative accumulative clock of how much time we've spent together and what kind of progress we've made according to.
This timeline in our friendship. Call me crazy right now.
And if you're an adult and you feel like you're missing close relationships from your life, like maybe you move to a new city or all your friends moved to a new city, or you switch schools or whatever it is, I hope that this study can give you.
We got the point.
Yes, two hundred hours to become a close friend. She did say that's nine days if we're doing twenty four hour hangs. I'm sure, But I want to debate this a little bit on our podcast Flex and Rooms anywhere you get good podcasts, four point nine stars, heaps of ratings. Do we actually feel that this is true? And for the most part, do we feel like it's worth the investment. I think two hundred hours for a close friend feels
like a fair investment. Yeah, However, the fifty or ninety or one hundred hours it takes you to invest in someone before you even know if there will be a close friend a different story. I find it hard to articulate to a lot of people that I like building relationships. I don't want a lot of friends. Yes, you're my newest friend, major, major, you know, and like that's this is we're pushing two years or something, and this is two years of a lot of talking, not just here
on air. We're facetiming, we're texting constantly, We're sharing into personal stories. We're adding layers, we're giving each other advice, we're feeding in, we're introducing each other, to our other friends. We're creating networks. A lot of time has been put in. It's worth it. I'm not looking for new friends like that.
But I love chit chatting and hanging it out and so and so and so, and I think it comes across to a lot of people as quite noncommittal or a little bit demeaning, right when I try to explain that, like, I want to be social with other people, I don't want new friends. I know the responsibility of being a good friend. I don't have the time to do that. I don't want to do that. Yes, so with the friends I have already struggling, you know, Okay, okay, we've
merged these groups. Now we can hang out all together. And that's sort of. But I live here and you live here. Now you're getting engaged and so on and so forth, and I don't trust a lot of you, bitches. It's the point blank. Too many of you aren't interesting enough. I like the people I have on my sight, but also I think a lot of people do their best work in acquaintanceships when you just go. You meet for that moment, you meet for that birthday party, you meet for that coffee and you.
Let it go, Keven.
As soon as there's an expectation of what this requires, it gets difficult. That's why a lot of people love casually dating, because it's nice to dip in, get that intimacy, and go because what's required. The responsibility gets too difficult, and it's trickier to respect in a romantic situation because the stakes feel kind of high for me. If with friendships the stakes feel higher, true, I don't need new friends like that, because it really does change your life.
You absorb so much at ly as I do, I become quite immeshed with my friends. We're like sharing lives. At a point, I've gotta be careful. It's treacherous waters.
Can't get any little parasites in there. I think you make a really good point, because I'm someone who would say the opposite of you, being like, no, I always want to make new friends. So when I get it when people are like, wait, what do you? What do you? What does FLEX mean by like she already has enough friends? Like that sounds almost antisocial? Dare I say? But when you you have like a very considered understanding of what
friendship is. When I think I always want new friends, I just think like I want another person to hang. I don't actually think of a friendship as what it is, which is a give and take and you actually only do have a finite amount of resources to give and
to take. So you're just being intentional about it. Yeah, So it makes sense when it's when when you like position friendship as something that is like quantifiable as this woman has, as a give and a take and a kind of time thing, then it makes like I don't want you friends to be you know.
It, another job. Yes, I already have one heaps heaps the time in this current job. I don't need another job. So but with that in mind, like I said before, I like this idea of I think that close friends are really worth the investment. But I also respect the time it takes to build close friends. And I'm not a patient person at all in any area of my life really, but friendship is an area where I'm like, I'll see how.
We go with this one. I'll let it build. I'll see how we go.
Because you know, I don't think a lot of us are mindful that proximity gives us the illusion of a closer friendship than we have. And so when the proximity is not long a convenient. We're not living in the same suburb, we're not going to the same place, you don't work in the same place, you don't go to.
The same school.
It gets difficult to build on the friendship. It's still there, but you also know, like it's easier because we have the same friends, our boyfriends are best friends, whatever it might be, and so like you let things take their natural course. But I've had a few situations where people haven't seen the friendship like I've seen it. They haven't seen it be this proximity things, and it's kind like, well, wait, what happened. I'm like, oh, you were just dating a
friend of mine and that's why we were friends. They're not dating anymore. Or you were close friends with someone I'm not close friends with any more, and that was the conduit. Like I only ever hung out with you in the context of being invited by them.
I love how literally you are with it, like, but to me, it.
Kind of is literal.
I just think that before and this is definitely a coping mechanism of some sort, because before I used to be far more free with it, and it caused way more problems than added joy into my life. I think that it's really hard to be to be picky. It's really hard to be super intentional in some part to your air. Sorry, it's really hard to be very intentional in some areas of your life and willing nearly with the others because they contradict in a way that confuses
your behavior and makes you confusing to other people. I like people knowing where they stand with me. It's really important that my friends know like, I've chosen you, I'm dedicated to your responsible, I'm responsible for you and everybody else enjoy the gray area of us just being people
who get to interact. No, but it's it's not that I don't hate people, but I'm also like, let's say there are people that I've probably clocked in a total of one hour of interactions with through like cute high buys and conversations at parties.
We haven't got there yet.
And it's interesting though, because I think I've had a lot of I remember I was a fashion week last year and this girl comes up to me and she was like, I'm gonna crack you. We're gonna be friends, can you imagine? And I was like, I get what you're saying, and this feels enthusiastic, but like the commodity of the way that you're approaching this relationship is like
what is it? The commodity of how they are approaching the relationship is what I think people think I'm doing where I'm like tallying up how many times we've got to see each other before we become friends. I want that. I want to give it time to build. I want you to know what you're really getting into. Like Free me knows I'm a moody bitch. You don't know that.
You don't feel it, but Free knows I'm generous. You won't know that, and you're not gonna know until you've clocked in another two hundred hours back.
When you get in the airporter abury, Yeah, yeah, thank you very much.
When you're on each other's feeding schedules, then you'll know. And I feel like I'm making I want to make friends for life. I'm thinking the people who am like in ten years time, like, my kids know your kids, and my kid might have pulled your kids hair, but it's all love.
Our kids will end up dating, so it's all chill.
Oh, I can't wait your flexing Frooms. You've been listening to the Flex and Frooms Daily podcast.
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