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Most women who say they want new friends already know plenty of people. There's the colleague you get lunch with, the neighbour you chat to on the stairs, the woman from yoga you always mean to grab a coffee with. What's missing isn't contact. It's the step from friendly to close: the friend you'd call first with good news, or at 11pm when something goes wrong.
That step doesn’t happen by luck. Research on adult friendship points to a handful of specific habits that turn acquaintances into meaningful friendships, and the setting you practise them in matters as much as the habits themselves. That’s the idea behind Les Amis, a members-only women’s club where the same vetted women keep meeting in small groups, so these habits get the repeated time they need to work. This guide covers the habits, with the evidence behind each.
Meaningful friendships need repeated time together, and in adult life that time rarely appears on its own. Research by Jeffrey Hall at the University of Kansas found it takes more than 200 hours together for someone to become a close friend (we cover his work in detail in our guide to how long it takes to make a real friend).
That’s why it helps to put yourself somewhere that creates repetition for you, and it’s the idea Les Amis is built on. It’s a members-only women’s social club where every member is vetted by application, matched 1:1 with another member every two weeks, and invited to curated events capped at 8 to 12 women, in 13 cities across Europe and the US. The result is the thing adult life rarely gives you: the same kind of women, in rooms small enough to really talk, again and again, with someone else doing the planning. A weekly class, a club or a standing dinner can do the same job. What matters is that you see the same women again, without having to organize every meeting from scratch.
The habits below are what turn that repeated contact into something meaningful.
Many women wait to be invited, worried about seeming too keen. The research says the worry is misplaced. In 13 experiments with nearly 6,000 participants, Peggy Liu and colleagues found that people consistently underestimate how much others appreciate being reached out to, and the gap is largest when the message is a surprise or the relationship isn't yet close.
In practice: Send the message. "Saw this and thought of you" or "That exhibition we talked about opens Friday, want to go?" is enough. Early in a friendship, the person who initiates is usually the one who makes it happen.
After meeting someone new, most of us replay what we said and conclude it went worse than it did. Researchers call this the "liking gap": in studies by Erica Boothby and colleagues, people consistently underestimated how much their conversation partners liked them and enjoyed the conversation.
In practice: Treat a good first meeting as a good first meeting. Follow up within a day or two, rather than waiting for proof that she wants to see you again.
Closeness grows through self-disclosure, but not all at once. In Arthur Aron's well-known 1997 study, pairs of strangers who spent 45 minutes on questions that became gradually more personal felt closer afterwards than pairs who made small talk. The study found no difference between women-women and men-men pairs.
Two things made it work: the questions escalated slowly, and both people answered each one.
In practice: Share something slightly more personal than small talk, then let her match it. Ask about plans and hopes, not only jobs and neighbourhoods. If she shares something real, respond to it before changing the subject. Oversharing too early tends to feel uncomfortable; sharing nothing keeps the friendship at the surface.
Not all hours count equally. Hall's research found that catching up, joking around and meaningful conversation move a friendship forward, while time spent working side by side does much less. In a 2023 study of more than 900 people, Hall and colleagues found that a single quality conversation with a friend, such as catching up or showing care, was linked to better well-being and less stress by the end of the day.
In practice: Choose plans that leave room to talk. A walk, a long lunch or a small dinner does more for a friendship than a loud bar or a film. When you meet, ask what's been going on in her life since you last spoke.
One great evening rarely becomes a close friendship. What does is a pattern: the Sunday walk, the monthly dinner, the class you take together. A ritual removes the work of planning and guarantees the hours add up.
In practice: At the end of a good meeting, suggest the next one, and make it repeatable: "Same time next month?" or "Want to make this our Thursday thing?"
Fun builds a friendship; support deepens it. Turning up when she moves flat, remembering the job interview and asking how it went, sending a message on a hard anniversary: these are the moments people remember.
In practice: Keep a small note of what's going on in your new friends' lives, and follow up on it. It turns "nice to see you" into "you thought of me".
Every friendship that lasts goes through a misunderstanding or a missed plan. Meaningful friendships survive it because someone says something rather than quietly drifting away.
In practice: If something felt off, mention it lightly and early, and assume good intent. A short, honest message ("I felt a bit left out last week, was that just me?") usually repairs more than silence.
Research by Robin Dunbar suggests most people have room for about five very close relationships, and that this inner circle matters most for support. You don't need dozens of close friends. You need a few, and those few need most of your time.
In practice: Notice which new friendships feel easiest and most mutual, and put more time there.
A: Put yourself somewhere you'll see the same women repeatedly, reach out first, open up gradually and let the other person match you, spend time in conversation rather than only activities, and turn good meetings into a recurring plan. Close friendships take time, often more than 200 hours together.
A: Adult life rarely gives you the repeated, unstructured time that school or university did, and many people wait to be invited. Research shows we underestimate how much others like us and how much they appreciate being contacted, so many potential friendships stall before they start.
A: Jeffrey Hall's research found about 50 hours together to become casual friends and more than 200 hours to become close friends. The kind of time matters too: catching up, joking and meaningful conversation count most.
A: Yes, and the research is reassuring: in a large set of experiments, people consistently underestimated how much their message would be appreciated, especially when it was unexpected.
Every habit in this guide gets easier when the setting does some of the work. Reaching out first is simpler when a 1:1 introduction arrives every two weeks. Opening up step by step is easier in a room of 8 to 12 women than in a crowd. A ritual is built in when the next event is already on the calendar, and showing up when it matters means something when you’ve been seeing the same women for months. That’s what Les Amis does well: it takes the planning off your plate, vets the women in the room, and gives friendship the repeated time it needs, in 13 cities and on one membership that moves with you. If you want your habits to have somewhere to land, it’s the place we’d point you to.
We believe that a strong female circle is one of the key components of a successful and fulfilled life for every woman
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