People are at their most generous, funniest, and most fascinating when talking to and about their friends.There are six forces that help form friendships and maintain them through the years: accumulation, attention, intention, ritual, imagination, and grace.

The Art Of Friendship

<ul><li>The simplest and most obvious force that forms and sustains a friendship is time spent together.</li><li>One study estimates that it takes 40 to 60 hours together within the first six weeks of meeting to turn an acquaintance into a casual friend.</li><li>So friendships unsurprisingly tend to form in places where people spend a lot of their time anyway: work, school, church, extracurricular activities.</li><li>In other circumstances, those hours get put in really quickly.</li></ul>

Force 1: Time Spent Together(Accumulation)

Paying attention goes a long way when forging unexpected friendships-noticing when you click with someone, being open to chance encounters, stepping out of our habits and into the moment.It’s never too late to meet someone who will be important to you for the rest of your life.

Force 2: Paying Attention

<ul><li>Attention only gets you so far without action.</li><li>When the opportunity arises, you have to put yourself out there.</li><li>It takes energy and thought, and our mental and physical resources are often spread thin.</li><li>Showing up for our friends takes effort, yes, but it shouldn't be drudgery. It should be a joy.</li></ul>

Force 3: The Intention

<ul><li>Rituals make keeping up with friends easier.</li><li>The effort of coordinating hangs or phone calls is the biggest barrier to seeing friends.</li><li>It's much easier when something is baked into your schedule, and all you have to do is show up.</li><li>In addition to keeping groups close, these traditions can fuel a friendship and give it a shared culture.</li></ul>

Force 4: The Ritual

<ul><li>Society has a place for friendships, and it's on the sidelines.</li><li>It takes imagination not to default to this norm.</li><li>To design your life so that friendship plays the role you really want it to.</li><li>Quieter ways of showing your friends love can still be radical.</li><li>The beauty and challenge of friendship is its diversity.</li></ul>

Force 5: Imagination

<ul><li>Friendship is flexible, and bends to fit the shape our lives need it to.</li><li>Grace is a gift so profound that it could never be earned or deserved.</li><li>Grace is the forgiveness that we offer each other when we fall short.</li><li>It creates space that creates for connections-and reconnections-that feel nothing short of miraculous.</li></ul>

Force 6: Grace

I’ve spent more than three years interviewing friends for “The Friendship Files.” Here’s what I’ve learned.