How long do you think it takes to ‘really get to know someone?’

Usually less than a month for me.
A week for Mr H.
I get a gut feeling if i`m not going to like someone within a few minutes.
It depends on the person really.

Most people don’t get to know someone until they are living with them.
But I would think that after 6 months you should know them pretty well ( unless they are lying about something and are clever at covering it up) let’s face it some people are con artists and are very clever.
I mean 6 months of meeting them, not 6 months chatting online.
it helps to meet their families, just like we did back in the day.

There aren’t many things about anyone I know that I’d bet the farm on! When pushed to their limits, people can change.

I too am very quick at liking or disliking somebody but I have been wrong on a couple of occasions, but as it was friends of friends it didn’t particularly matter.

If it’s for a personal relationship though it would need to be 6 months to be sure that I wanted to stay around.

The first meeting with the person who is my trusted friend was disastrous, it was in a work situation and I told my DH I would never have anything to do with her again

Two months later we met at another work event (I didn’t want to go) I avoided her, unfortunately our husbands realised they new each other through their charity work. They arranged for us all to go out to dinner, neither of us ladies were pleased.

Over a bottle of champagne and numerous glasses of wine we bonded and have been inseparable for the last 35 years.

Family holidays, their parents got on with my parents, our children are friends…

I don't think you ever really know anyone. It's my husband's favourite saying when someone does something that leaves me gobsmacked.

When a new member of staff started where I worked, she was told that she wouldn’t get on with me….. She has been one of my best friends for 8 years! The person who told her obviously didn’t know me well!
Neither of us work there any more.

You never ever really know someone

I unfortunately make very quick decisions on whether I will get on with someone or not. I am sometimes wrong. My Sil's gran was one. I disliked her intensely when we first met and I wasn't keen for a few years. However I realised that I was being unfair. Although we are very different, she is incredibly kind and generous to family.

It depends on the person, some people, maybe wisely, don't reveal all of themselves and then there are those, as illustrated in another thread, give way too much information and the sort of stuff you don't really want to hear. I remember years ago one mother at the school gates, telling me within a few minutes of an introductory chat, had launched into how her husband had simultaneously fathered a child by another woman when they were expecting theirs. Then she went on to talk about her business, she was an aromatherapist and how her clients simply begged her for lifestyle tips as they so admired her appearance, all this from someone I hardly knew

I've been right and I've been wrong about people I took a dislike to the wife of a friend when I met her over 35 years ago, found her quite loud and dictatorial, when I got to know her better realised that she is in fact a very nice person quite kind and caring and very entertaining, the dictatorial part is still there but I now tend to think of that as positivity!

Hmm... I would not move in to live with someone, as a lover( I should be so lucky) or just as a friend if I had not known them for 6 months to a year .... and been with them in a range of situations. Working with someone for a year but not socialising, or only socialising & not meeting in family settings etc. might give you a limited understanding of someone. But people do change, for various reasons and may react or respond differently in different circumstances. Think e all have a secret / private side!

I think it takes much longer than 6 months; but I suppose it depends on how often you see them. If you live together, obviously you'll get to know them much sooner. It also depends on the person (I'm as open as a book, you'd get to know me pretty fast!).

I'd only known my husband for 6months when we started living together (or living in sin as it was back then!) That was 52 years ago so my instincts must be quite good I suppose

Vote for never

When our life changes , we adapt in sometimes unexpected ways and you may see a brand new side to that person you never knew it existed

I don't think you ever really know anyone.

I agree with Mercedes.

You can't even know yourself properly sometimes, so I wouldn't say you can know someone else.

You can only trust your instincts and hope for the best.

My gut feelings on people are never wrong. I don't get strong feelings about everyone, but when I do I'm right.

Hmmmmm, I am a self-confessed fence sitter
As my friend once told me you must have splinters in your arse, you've been sat there that long

I keep my distance until i feel comfortably in getting off my fence, point being - we are all different, there isnt a black and white answer.....

I had known my first husband for a couple of years before we married in 1970. People didn’t live together in those days. Less than two weeks after our wedding the abuse started. We were still on honeymoon. I had never seen that side of him before we married. I was 19.

I think until you have seen them in a variety of situations you cannot know how people will behave.

I am a terrible judge of character,forming an opinion on someone too quickly.

I had issues with trust when I was younger. Life experience has taught me to ascertain a person's type of personality.
I can meet someone and warm to them straight away. I can meet someone and not warm to them.
Being rather direct I am more comfortable with down to earth people. I have little tolerance with people up their own rear end. There is no in between with me I don't like grey areas and I very rarely misjudge someone.

I’d say never, most people change as they age, for better or worse and some are very good at keeping part(s) of themselves well hidden.

Ha ha, Serendipity, move over and make room on the fence for me! I can always see two sides to a story and cannot make up my mind to judge.

I've been wrong about people before, from training them at work, to making new friends. I has left me a bit cautious about jumping in too completely. So for myself, I would say that it takes ages to get to know someone, and that may be years.