Office besties?

How many real friends do you work with?

According to a new study of 3,000 people across 21 industries, most workplace friendships stay at the office.

Are work friends really friends? According to a new study, most workplace friendships stay at the office.

Researchers at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois, recently surveyed 3,000 people across 21 industries and found Americans on average define 41 percent of their coworkers as just that — coworkers.

They consider 22 percent to be strangers; 20 percent to be at-work friends; 15 percent as “real friends,” and 2 percent as enemies. Just 29 percent of respondents said at least one of their co-workers is a “bestie,” and only 18 percent have stayed in close contact with people with whom they no longer work.

Though 68 percent talk to work friends about how much money they make, fewer feel comfortable discussing their love lives or health issues — 58 percent and 53 percent, respectively.

However, a good many of us have hung with our co-workers outside of work, according to the study. Sixty-two percent of respondents have spent free time with colleagues; 53 percent have mixed their work and nonwork friends; and 69 percent said co-workers have met their significant other.

The employees who befriend co-workers quickest work in the insurance, marketing, restaurant, retail and real estate industries, according to the survey.

For full results, visit graduate.olivet.edu/ news-events/news/ research-friends-work.

Most of my friends, as I do, count their coworkers among their real friends, though some keep their distance.

Said Sunshine Ponder Cowan, who teaches at the University of Central Oklahoma, “I am in a department of 23 people who are wonderful colleagues that I enjoy being around. I am incredibly close friends with many of those individuals, spending time together with them outside of work and helping one another as friends do.”

Charlie Brockman, an aircraft mechanic at Tinker Air Force Base, is a self-professed “country boy” and, as such, has always considered co-workers friends.

“I still have a hard time distinguishing between acquaintances and friends,“Brockman said. “I’m too trusting and find myself getting hurt in relationships, because I consider acquaintances closer than they really are.”

Vicky Ford, customer service manager at Carter’s/OshKosh, said she and co-workers share their personal lives and interests. “I work best that way,” she said.

Recent retiree John Cooper said he was energized throughout his career by “quality relationships that provided motivation and greater job satisfaction. I found you must first be a good friend to have good friends.” Cooper said he has remained good friends with several former colleagues.

Conversely, retired Tennessee teacher Pam Wattenbarger said she considered her former colleagues “work friends. We talked about work issues and trivial information about our family happenings. While we shared major news, we didn’t divulge personal information.”

Maria Cornwell said she keeps it somewhat superficial at the big box retailer where she works.

“There’s lots of turnover and an active grapevine, so I’m careful what I say and to whom,“Cornwell said. “I’ve only had ‘outside’ contact with a few people in four years of working here.”