  A fundamental question of any new relationship is, will it last? Transient
relationships, recently defined by the authors, are an ideal type of social tie
to explore this question: these relationships are characterized by
distinguishable starting and ending temporal points, linking the question of
tie longevity to relationship finite lifetime. In this study, we use mobile
phone data sets from the UK and Italy to analyze the weekly allocation of time
invested in maintaining transient relationships. We find that more
relationships are created during weekdays, with a greater proportion of them
receiving more contact during these days of the week in the long term. The
smaller group of relationships that receive more phone calls during the weekend
tend to remain active for more time. We uncover a sorting process by which some
ties are moved from weekdays to weekends and vice versa, mostly in the first
half of the relationship. This process also carries more information about the
ultimate lifetime of a tie than the part of the week when the relationship
started, which suggests an early evaluation period that leads to a decision on
how to allocate time to different types of transient ties.
