Jim laughed. "Not as long as you might think," he said. "Three, four years? But things are different, out here. You'll know what I mean in a bit--you're not entirely isolated, and there are a lot of people on the ship, but relationships... There's an accelerated timeline, a sense of intensity, from being thrown together and depending on one another. Like old war stories, though maybe not quite that intense. Maybe that's why I'm so quick to form them. But Spock... I can't imagine being without him, or Bones, now."

There was more to it than that, of course. More to Jim's propensity to reach out and accept people, that had been well formed before assuming command. But it was likely a factor.