How to Make Friends as an Adult: Where to Start and How Long It Takes
How-to · by Simone Rainieri · 12 min read · Published · Updated
Making friends as an adult takes repeated, low-pressure time with the same people, and nobody schedules it for you any more. The routes that supply that time are a recurring activity, ties you already have, and one-to-one introductions. Jeffrey Hall's research at the University of Kansas gives the scale: about 50 hours together to become casual friends, about 90 to count as friends, and over 200 for a close friend. The sections below cover where those hours come from, and what changes with anxiety, introversion, autism, gender and age.
How many hours does it take to make a friend?
Hall published two studies in 2018. One followed 355 adults who had recently moved; the other followed 112 first-year students over several weeks. The thresholds came out at roughly 40 to 60 hours for a casual friend, 80 to 100 for a friend, and more than 200 for a close friend. The kind of time mattered too. Hanging out, joking around and playing games counted. Hours spent working together counted for much less, which may be why some colleagues stay colleagues for years.
A little arithmetic makes the numbers easier to plan around. A two-hour weekly class adds up to roughly 100 hours in a year. A two-hour dinner once a month adds up to about 24. Neither figure is exact, since people arrive late and skip weeks, but the gap explains why one recurring slot beats a run of one-off events.
Where the hours come from
Most adults with close friends met them somewhere that produced regular contact. In the Survey Center on American Life's May 2021 survey of 2,019 US adults, 54% of those with close friends said they had met one at their own or a spouse's workplace. Other places where people reported making a close friend were school (47%), an existing network of friends (40%), their neighbourhood (35%), a place of worship (21%), a club or organisation (19%) and online (8%). Work and school both put the same faces in front of you every week.
Once you leave those settings, the weekly rhythm has to be rebuilt on purpose. This table compares the main ways to do it.
| Route | Effort | How fast friendships form | Best for | Drawback |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recurring class, club or league | Medium: a fixed weekly slot | Steady, because the hours add up without extra planning | People who like doing something alongside others | Takes a month or two before it pays off |
| Existing ties (colleagues, friends of friends, neighbours) | Low: one invitation | Fastest to start, since some trust already exists | A wide but shallow circle | Needs a day and a time; "we should catch up" rarely becomes a plan |
| One-to-one introductions (friendship apps, mutual friends) | Low to medium | Depends on how often the pair talk after the first message | Anxious or introverted people, and new arrivals | Many chats fade unless someone suggests a next step |
| Large events and meetups | High: strangers and unscripted conversation | Slow, unless you keep going to the same one | People who enjoy variety and crowds | One evening rarely gets anywhere near the hours needed |
| Volunteering | Medium | Steady, and the shared task gives you something to talk about | People who struggle with open small talk | Fixed shifts limit how much choice you have |
| Online communities | Low | Slow, until contact moves to voice or video | People without a good local option | Stays thin if conversations never become regular |
If you can only manage one thing, choose the recurring activity and give it a month before judging it. Existing ties are the cheapest starting point, though someone has to turn the idea of meeting into a date. Introductions and online communities are good for first contact and then need the same follow-through as everything else. Our guides to where to meet new friends as an adult and how to make friends online go into the detail.
Why it gets harder as you get older
What changes with age is how much repeated contact your life supplies. A 2015 study by Brian Gillespie and colleagues, using 25,185 responses from an online news site, found that the number of friendships varied substantially with marital status, age and parental status. The same study found that satisfaction with friends predicted life satisfaction better than the number of friends did, so a small circle you like can beat a large one you don't.
The wider trend points the same way. In the Survey Center's comparison with 1990, the share of Americans reporting three or fewer close friends rose from 27% to 49%, and the share reporting none rose from 3% to 12%.
Why it feels awkward, and what helps
The awkwardness has a structural cause. In The Great Good Place (1989), the sociologist Ray Oldenburg described third places: regular, voluntary, informal gathering spots that sit outside home and work. School and early jobs hand you something like them for free. After that, seeing the same person twice takes a plan. Vague invitations make it worse, because they give the other person nothing to answer. "We should hang out sometime" gets a warm reply and no date. "Coffee on Thursday after work?" gets a yes or a counter-offer, and either keeps things moving.
How to make friends as an adult with social anxiety
The NHS describes social anxiety disorder as a long-term and overwhelming fear of social situations, more than shyness, that affects daily activities, relationships and work. In figures from a US survey run in 2001 to 2003, the National Institute of Mental Health reports that 7.1% of adults had social anxiety disorder in the past year and 12.1% at some point in their lives. Of those with the disorder in the past year, 29.9% had serious impairment. Rates were highest among adults aged 18 to 29 (9.1%) and 30 to 44 (8.7%).
For friendship, the practical problem is avoidance. NHS inform says avoidance can keep social anxiety going because it stops you having positive social experiences, and its self-help guide suggests ranking feared situations and repeating the least frightening one until the anxiety drops. Applied to friendship, that could mean a five-minute chat with the same person every week before anything bigger. Settings with a built-in task help, because a class, a game night or a walking group gives you something to do and a reason to speak. One-to-one contact also cuts the number of unscripted moments.
This guide is not medical advice. The NHS calls cognitive behavioural therapy generally the best treatment and says you can self-refer to an NHS talking therapies service or see a GP. If anxiety keeps you away from things you want to do, that is the right next step, and it does not have to wait until you have made friends.
How to make friends as an introvert
For an introvert, socialising costs more energy per hour, and that shapes which formats work. Thomas Pollet, Sam Roberts and Robin Dunbar found in 2011 that extraverts had larger social networks at every layer of closeness, yet did not feel emotionally closer to the people in them, even after controlling for network size. Size and depth vary separately, so an introvert who wants three good friends is on a normal path.
Aim for small units. One coffee with one person costs less energy than a party, and the same walking partner every Tuesday adds up to real hours. Leave a gap after a big social plan instead of stacking three into one weekend. If you are wondering whether this is you, read am I too introverted to make friends. If you would rather start with an app, best friendship apps for introverts compares the options.
How to make friends as an autistic adult
The National Autistic Society's guide for autistic adults points to local support groups for autistic people, adult education courses, social activities at work and online communities, including its own forums. It also suggests telling people what you need from a friendship, and lists adjustments you can ask for, such as attending a first session as an observer, bringing a family member or carer, or building up the time you stay. The logic from earlier still applies: a specific plan is easier to answer than a vague one.
Loneliness is common enough to plan around. Micah Mazurek's 2014 study of 108 adults with autism spectrum disorders found that more friends, and better-quality friendships, went with less loneliness, and that loneliness went with more depression and anxiety and lower life satisfaction. An association like that cannot show which way the effect runs, but it is a reason to treat friendship as worth the effort.
How to make friends as a man
The clearest data here is American. The Survey Center on American Life found that the share of men with no close friends rose from 3% in 1990 to 15% in 2021, and the share with six or more halved, from 55% to 27%. In the 2021 survey, 30% of men said they had shared personal feelings with a friend in a private conversation in the past week, against 48% of women, and 21% of men had received emotional support from a friend, against 41% of women.
The survey does not say why. One reading is that many friendships between men run on a shared activity and never reach a point where talking is the point. If that sounds familiar, keep the activity and add a second step on purpose: a message about something they mentioned last week, or a call on the way home.
How to make friends as a woman
Gillespie's data showed no substantial gender differences in how many friends people could count on to celebrate a birthday or help in a late-night crisis (effect sizes between .04 and .20). The Survey Center data above shows women exchanging more emotional support with friends. Life stage shows up in the numbers too: friend counts in Gillespie's study varied with marital and parental status. If time is the constraint, fold friendship into something already in the diary, such as a standing walk. Our guide to making female friends in a new city covers the version that follows a move.
Making friends in your 40s and beyond
Friendship after 40 often means rebuilding around a life with less spare time. In the Vairi sample above, 12% of members (23 of 196) were 45 or older when they joined. In the 179-member sample that answered our question about what brings people to Vairi, more than half of the under-40s picked meeting people in a new city, against a quarter of members aged 40 and over, who more often picked 'Unexpected encounters'. Only 24 people in that sample were 40 or older, so treat the gap as a hint. The figures are in why adults look for new friends. If you have moved, how to make friends after 40 in a new city covers the extra steps.
Making friends without drinking
A drink is the default first meeting, and fewer people are having one. Gallup's July 2026 poll of 1,200 US adults found that 54% drink, down from 62% in 2023, with drinking among under-35s falling over the same period. Any place that gives two people a reason to sit near each other for an hour does the bar's job: an evening coffee shop, a board game café, a bowling alley. Say "I don't drink, but I'm in for the food" once, plainly, and most people will move on. Plans built around an activity also keep working on weeks when conversation feels like effort.
After a career change, or if you work from home
Work is the most common place to meet a close friend, and a career change or a remote job takes it away. Gallup's June 2022 survey of 16,586 US adults found that just two in ten employees report having a best friend at work. Hall's finding that working together counts for less than hanging out points the same way. Replace the lost channel with one that is not work: a weekly class, a volunteering shift, or a standing call with one former colleague. Making friends as a remote worker has more on the home-office version.
After an argument with a friend
A friendship a few months old has little shared history to absorb a row, so repair matters more early on. A 2021 experiment in Scientific Reports, led by Daniel Forster, found that apologies help forgiveness by signalling how much the apologiser values the relationship, and that they mattered less when the relationship was already seen as valuable. In practice, name the specific thing that hurt, do it within a day or two, and suggest a call or a coffee instead of a long message, since tone is easy to misread in text. If the same conflict returns after a real attempt to fix it, stepping back is a reasonable outcome.
Habits that work in every situation
- Pick one recurring activity and give it a month before deciding whether it works.
- Suggest the second meeting yourself, with a day and a place.
- Turn vague plans into specific ones: "Thursday, 6 pm, the café by the station."
- Count hours. A flat first meeting is not a verdict.
- Keep one weekly contact going with the person you like best, even if it is a ten-minute call.
A quieter first step
If the first contact is the hardest part, some apps are built around it. Vairi, which introduces members in the UK, starts with a short AI-led interview and then introduces you to people who fit in an anonymous chat, where names and photos stay hidden until both of you choose to reveal them. It handles the introduction. The hours still have to come from you: replying, suggesting something to do together in the chat, and keeping the conversation going after the first good evening.
Key takeaways
Hall's research puts friendship at roughly 50 hours for a casual friend and over 200 for a close one, so a two-hour weekly class, at about 100 hours a year, does more than a dozen one-off events. The same recurring-contact logic holds with social anxiety, introversion, autism, and in your 40s: choose small, repeated, specific plans. In a sample of 196 Vairi members, 19% were 40 or older when they joined. The NHS treats persistent social anxiety as treatable, so seek help for that separately from making friends.
Related reading: making friends in your 30s, how long it takes to make a close friend as an adult, and the wider guide to how to make friends in a new city.
How long does it take to make a friend as an adult?
Jeffrey Hall's 2018 research found about 50 hours together for a casual friend, about 90 for a friend and more than 200 for a close friend. Time spent hanging out counted for much more than time spent working together.
Where can adults meet new friends?
The places that work are the ones that repeat: a weekly class or club, colleagues and neighbours you already know, volunteering, and one-to-one introductions. In a 2021 US survey, work, school and existing networks were the most common places people had made a close friend.
Is it normal to have no close friends as an adult?
It is more common than most people assume. In the Survey Center on American Life's 2021 survey, 12% of US adults reported having no close friends, up from 3% in 1990.
How do I make friends as an adult with social anxiety?
Choose settings with a task, favour one-to-one contact, and start with the least frightening step, repeating it until it feels easier, as NHS inform suggests. If anxiety is stopping you doing things you want to do, the NHS recommends speaking to a GP or self-referring to a talking therapies service.
Do introverts need a different approach?
The goal is the same, but the format can change. Smaller settings, one person at a time and recovery time between plans cost less energy. Research by Pollet, Roberts and Dunbar found that larger networks did not bring extraverts emotionally closer to the people in them.
How can autistic adults make friends?
The National Autistic Society suggests local support groups, adult education courses, social activities at work and online communities. It also suggests saying what you need from a friendship and asking for adjustments, such as attending a first session as an observer.
Do men have fewer close friends than women?
In the Survey Center on American Life's 2021 survey, 15% of men had no close friends, up from 3% in 1990. Women were also more likely to have received emotional support from a friend in the past week (41% against 21% of men).
Is it too late to make friends in your 40s?
No. The hours needed are the same at any age, and people do keep joining friendship apps later in life: in a sample of 196 Vairi members, 19% were 40 or older when they joined. The difference is usually less spare time, so recurring plans matter even more.
How do I make friends if I do not drink?
Pick venues built around an activity instead of alcohol, such as a coffee shop, a board game café or a class, and say plainly that you don't drink. Gallup found that 54% of US adults drank in July 2026, down from 62% in 2023, so you are in growing company.
How do I turn an acquaintance into a friend?
Suggest a specific second meeting, with a day, a place and an activity, and keep the contact regular. Hall's research suggests the time has to be spent hanging out for it to count much, so choose something relaxed instead of a work-style meeting.
Sources, all checked on 24 September 2026: University of Kansas, Study reveals number of hours it takes to make a friend (2018); Survey Center on American Life, The State of American Friendship (2021) and American Men Suffer a Friendship Recession (2021); Gillespie, Lever, Frederick and Royce, Close adult friendships, gender, and the life cycle (2015); NHS, Social anxiety (social phobia); NHS inform, Social anxiety self-help guide; National Institute of Mental Health, Social Anxiety Disorder statistics; Pollet, Roberts and Dunbar (2011); National Autistic Society, Making friends: a guide for autistic adults; Mazurek (2014); Gallup, Americans' Drinking Remains at Record Low (2026); Gallup, The Increasing Importance of a Best Friend at Work (2022); Forster and colleagues (2021); Oldenburg, The Great Good Place (1989).
Read next: Best Local Friend Apps That Filter by Location
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