50 Times Total Strangers Made Each Other's Day

To find out more about how the pandemic affected our interactions with others, as well as some more things we always wanted to know about finding friends and maintaining the friendships we have, we spoke with Shasta Nelson. Nelson is a friendship expert, speaker, and author of three books including “Frientimacy: How to Deepen Friendships for Lifelong Health and Happiness,” so she had a lot of useful insights to share about it.

“The pandemic has obviously reduced a lot of our opportunities for face-to-face connections and the social interaction that often happens spontaneously due to close proximity. A lot of people are feeling lonelier and are reporting higher emotional stress,” Nelson explained.

On the other hand, a lot of people are also reporting more meaningful interactions than ever. This is because they started “focusing time and energy on going deeper with fewer people. We have felt more comfortable being vulnerable, have reconnected with long-distance relationships, and have learned new things about each other as we base more of our shared time together on conversations more than on activities,” the friendship expert explained.

For anyone who feels like finding new friends is getting harder as we are getting older, Nelson said that it can definitely feel so. However, “it has less to do with age and more to do with the fact that the Consistency— repetitive time together—required for friendship felt more automatic when we were in school. The only equivalent we have now where we see the same people on an ongoing basis is the workplace, but we haven’t always been as encouraged to socialize there as we did when we were kids in school.”

As a result, “now, in order to build that ongoing, regular interaction that allows us to bond, we often have to initiate it, schedule it, and plan it,” Nelson added.

Nelson also shared in what circumstances it’s possible for two complete strangers to become friends. “As I look at all the social science that researches relationships, I have found that there are three factors that are always present: 1) Consistency—repetitive time and shared experiences, 2) Positivity—positive feelings that leave us feeling accepted as we enjoy each other, and 3) Vulnerability—sharing and learning about each other.”

“So, yes,” she confirmed, “we can take strangers and create friendships as long as those two people spend time together in ways that leave them both feeling more known and more appreciated.”

Is there such a thing as an instant bond? To this, Nelson explained that we might instantly feel an interest in someone—something that makes us more curious and excited to get to know them. However, “to actually be bonded to someone requires a lot of time together so we can get to know each other.”

“Our closest relationships are those where we feel known and loved, and we can’t get there without logging hours together to incrementally learn those things about each other. In fact, some studies suggest it takes us 200 hours together before we really feel like we are best friends and can truly rely on each other,” Nelson concluded.