When you're younger, it feels like making friends was so easy.

But when you grow up, forming new friendships can be a bit of a challenge - especially when things like work and family may take priority. A recent study has found the answer behind how to make those elusive BFFs as an adult, though. It turns out that it will take at least 200 hours to move from the 'getting to know each other' small talk to being close friends. That's eight-and-one-third days of getting to know each other, "joking around, having meaningful conversations and catching up with one another." To get to this number, the study, which was recently published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, looked at two groups of people. The first had 355 people who had recently moved to a new town,  while the second had more than 100 university freshmen/first year college students. The first group were asked to think of someone they had met since moving, and how their friendship had developed. They were asked to include information like how close they were, how many hours they spent together and what they would categorise the relationship as: acquaintance, casual friend, friend or close friend. This let the researchers estimate the number of hours where people would be able to move up a level to a different stage of friendship. The second group were asked about the people they had met since they started school two weeks earlier. From there, the researchers asked again four and seven weeks afterwards to see how the friendship had changed. The results ended up showing that it takes between 40 to 60 hours to form a casual friendship, 80 to 100 to be considered a friend and around 200 hours to be "good friends". On the findings in the study, lead researcher Jeffrey Hall said:

"We have to put that time in. "You can't snap your fingers and make a friend. Maintaining close relationships is the most important work we do in our lives – most people on their deathbeds agree. "When people transition between stages, they'll double or triple the amount of time they spend with that other person in three weeks' time. "I found freshmen who spent one-third of all waking hours in a month with one good friend. "Make it a priority to spend time with potential friends. "If you are interested in a friendship, switch up the context. If you work together, go to lunch or out for a drink. These things signal to people that you are interested in being friends with them."