[freehorse]

Friendships do involve a lot of time grinding, but is it just time the force that forms a friendship? Or what you see actually comes the other way around, meaning that people who "bond well" tend to spend more time together?

While indeed time is important, it does not mean that merely spending time with somebody creates a friendship between you. It is more the quality of the time than time itself and, sadly, often our lives do not make quality easy to find. Especially regarding "hobbies and interests", personally I have found that relationships formed just through them tend to be more superficial and lasting less than relationships which are formed in a multitude of contexts and circumstances rather than simply spending time on one interest. They are good ways to meet new people, but for me an analogue of watching football together 2 or 10 hours per week and not other common context has never really worked out.

I like the approach of this blog post bellow on this. I think that especially the part of sharing life struggles together to be quite important.

https://billmei.net/blog/friendship

[com2kid]

Quality time is important, for certain.

That blog's point to ask for help to create connections is a classic technique, super effective as well. Neighbors asking to borrow small things from each other is a great example of this bit of psychology in action.