A Black Girl’s Guide To Making Friends

Whether you call it a tribe, squad, crew, clique or posse, building a variety of relationships with like-minded people is one of the most important and fulfilling aspects of life. The world can be quite cruel to black women especially, so it’s fundamental that we surround ourselves with empathetic people who offer total support and acceptance. As we get older, however, it becomes more difficult to create the strong, lasting friendships that are so easily made in elementary school, middle school and high school.

If your social life leaves something to be desired and you’re still looking for your group of ride-or-die besties, you can rest assured that the formula to finding friends is quite simple, although unfortunately, it’s not quite as easy as interacting on social media or liking Facebook posts. True friendship requires a lot of time spent bonding and doing activities that you both enjoy. According to a study by Jeffrey Hall, an associate professor of Communications at the University of Kansas, "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."

Whether you’ve recently moved to a new city, or you’re simply looking to expand your social circle, here are a few tips to help you meet new people and find new besties: