“Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.”
– Aristotle
Making friends as an adult is hard. I have certainly felt this way myself, but I have also heard it many times from other people. A study related to this idea a few years ago really caught my attention. Here’s the basic idea:
In a new report published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Associate Professor of Communication Studies Jeffrey Hall found that it takes roughly 50 hours of time together to move from mere acquaintance to casual friend, 90 hours to go from that stage to simple “friend” status and more than 200 hours before you can consider someone your close friend.
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
When I think about how many hours I spent with my friends as a child, it is hard to imagine spending that much time with friends as an adult. There just aren’t enough hours in a day. So those 50+ hours take so much longer to accumulate. I met one of my very best friends at 2-year-old Sunday school. Our boys were the two kiddos who were very “active participants” (which means things like Aiden wandering up to pull the puppet off the teacher’s hand or dumping the offering basket to count the money instead of passing it to the next kiddo) and it made our connection an easy one. We both only had one child, and we were both blessed with the opportunity to stay home with them, so there were lots of play dates and many hours spent together early on. I will be forever grateful for that time with her. She became the person I could always count on, and usually the only person I felt really understood my unique situation. That time together formed a relationship that endured when seasons changed and she returned to work and I started homeschooling.
Three years ago we moved to Missouri, or rather back to Missouri. I moved here to marry my husband in 2001, and we lived here for 7 years after that. So I have some friends here from that time, yet I am a completely different person than I was 13 years ago when I left. This is especially true when I consider that I became a mama after moving to Nebraska. In many ways, I was starting over here. However now I am also in the thick of homeschooling. This means that I have a lot less time for making friends. Which brings me back to this current project… creating a blog for local homeschool mamas to share their stories.
Here’s the thing… technology is an awesome tool, but not a replacement for in-person time. I totally get that. However, when my in-person time is so limited, it is also a blessing to be able to supplement face time with also reading someone’s thoughts and ideas. I love the idea of being able to get a general introduction to someone through a blog post and then being able to seek them out in person at Friday classes or a local activity. I also love getting to see how each person approaches this common goal of educating our kiddos. There is strength in numbers, and comfort in the sharing of challenges and ideas.
I love that the focus of this semester is making connections. I was already intent on making more local connections, and enjoyed starting to get to know some people last semester through my Community Service project efforts. Then in November I lost that best friend in Nebraska. It was fairly sudden and incredibly hard. I have to say that it was the relationships being formed at co-op that kept me going during that time. There weren’t many who knew what was going on (because I was definitely well below that 50 hour mark of being more than acquaintances) but having a purpose with the group and the interaction with people each week was a lifeline for me.
So here I am at the start of a new year doing brave new things I hadn’t really planned on doing. I am sharing my heart in ways that make me completely squirmy and so very aware of how awkward I can be. I have just decided to own my awkwardness. I am hoping some of you will do the same. It is my prayer that you will feel welcome to share your stories with us. Whether that means writing them here or speaking them over coffee and smoothies with Anna in the café during co-op. I promise that if you are nervous I am even more nervous. I just also know that it will be worth it to step out in faith and watch God do His thing. The enemy wants us divided and isolated… let’s recognize this tactic and instead link shields and defend each other!
I look forward to seeing where this semester leads, and far beyond that how God uses this time of growth to do #BIGTHINGS and build relationships that endure. Thanks for letting me share my heart with you! I look forward to giving you the opportunity to do the same!
-Branson Merrill
***Please note, this article was imported from the previous MAHC website. It was written by Branson Merrill. Articles written on the previous website by users who do not have a profile on this website have been listed as written by the editor. However, the original author is listed in each article.
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