When it comes to developing friendships, scientists have found that small talk (e.g. talking about the weather or the big game last night, unless that's one of your favored joint activities) was far less effective than what they call "striving behaviors." Those aren't necessarily the big emotional bonding moments where you bare your soul and wonder aloud if your childhood attraction to Kermit the Frog is the reason you can't find a good man. It can be as simple as talking about your respective days, what's happened since you last saw each other, and even just joking around. What's important is that it feeds your need for belonging, which is really all a friendship is: the comfort of someone who can ramp a school bus thinking you're cool.
Those big talks will come, though. Remember those hostage victims? At around the 160-hour mark -- that is, right around the point where a "friend" becomes a "close friend," or day six or seven for them -- they started exhibiting "patterns of self-disclosure approximating best friendship," meaning the point where you and the other person trapped in a well with you start wondering if anyone is ever going to find you and admitting your darkest secrets to each other. That's best friendship: being trapped in the well of life with someone who can hopefully ride a motorcycle. The bad news is ...