Make friends online, one conversation at a time
Friendship does not come from a profile or a follow button. It comes from talking - and then talking again. TalkLive gives you both halves: a free, one-tap voice or text conversation with someone new, and a simple way to keep the people you click with.
How many hours does a friend take?
In 2018 the communication researcher Jeffrey Hall at the University of Kansas set out to answer a question most of us have never thought to ask: how much time does it actually take to make a friend? He surveyed adults who had recently moved to a new city, and students in their first weeks at university, and tracked how many hours they spent with new acquaintances and how those relationships developed. His results were published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships in 2019.
Two things stand out. The first is that friendship is mostly a matter of time spent, not of instant chemistry. The second is that the time has to be spent together - Hall found that the kind of time mattered too, with hanging out, joking and catching up doing more than time spent side by side on a task. In other words: conversation.
Why you made friends easily at school
In 1950, the psychologists Leon Festinger, Stanley Schachter and Kurt Back studied friendships in Westgate, a housing development for married students at MIT. Who became friends with whom? Not, mostly, the people with the most in common. It was the people who lived closest together - neighbours, and especially the people whose doors were near the stairways and mailboxes everyone passed. Friendship followed repeated, easy, unplanned contact.
School, university and a first job all supply that contact automatically. Adult life mostly does not, which is why so many adults find it hard to make new friends - and why online friendship works best when it recreates the same pattern: easy contact, again and again, with the same person.
From one good conversation to a friend
A random conversation is hour one. On its own it is a pleasant evening; the trick is turning it into hour two. TalkLive is built for that step:
An optional account keeps your friends list between visits and devices. Nothing else changes: you still do not need to share your real name, number or social media to stay in touch.
Being the kind of person people want to call back
Ask questions, and then ask the follow-up. Remember what they told you last time - "how did the interview go?" is the most powerful sentence in friendship. Be a little more open than feels natural; most people are waiting for someone else to go first. And be patient: by Hall's numbers, an hour-long first conversation is about half of one per cent of the way to a close friend.
Not every match will become a friend, and that is fine. Plenty of people are on TalkLive for one good conversation, not a new best friend. If someone is not interested, let them go kindly and tap Next. And keep the usual care: a new friend online should earn your surname, your city and your social accounts over time, not get them in the first hour. If anyone moves quickly towards money, photos or another app, they are not looking for a friend. The Journal's piece on loneliness and our guide to the first five minutes with a stranger are good next reads.
Friendly questions
Can you really make friends on a random chat?
You can meet people you click with, and research suggests friendship comes from time spent together. TalkLive's friends feature lets you keep talking to the people you meet, which is how a good conversation can become a friendship.
Is TalkLive a dating app?
No. TalkLive is for conversation and friendship. There are no dating profiles, photos or swiping.
How do I keep in touch with someone I met?
Both of you add each other as friends. After that you can message each other and call back when you are both online - no phone numbers needed.
Is it free to make friends here?
Yes. Random matching and the friends feature are free. An optional account keeps your friends list between visits.
What if I am shy?
Start with text chat - no microphone needed - and move to voice when you are ready. Most people are as nervous as you are.
Hour one starts now
Someone you have not met yet could be someone you call every week.