The time we spend with our close friends has plummeted over the past decade. Here is an expert guide to making new connections and reviving old ones
reported that one in eight Britons, across genders, said they had only one close friend, while 7% had no friends at all, and 51% said they struggled to make new friends.
She says that, when it comes to loneliness, humans are not great at identifying the emotion. “For example, one symptom of loneliness is that you’re in a bad mood for no reason.” This could explain the rise in abusive behaviour towards workers in shops and call centres since the pandemic. “Ironically, loneliness makes us withdraw and perceive other people as threatening. We devalue how important connection is, we choose not to depend on other people, which makes us more lonely.
The observation that friendship is bound up with virtue was first explored by Aristotle. He identified three distinct types of friendship: friendships of utility , friendships of pleasure and lastly, friendships of virtue, soulmate friends, the ones who will sit with you for hours in A&E and still be making you laugh at the end of it.
Above all, Franco advises, avoid going to one-off events hoping to instantly make new connections. “A mistake people make is they will go to one networking event or spend the evening at a new bar. But in order to make new friends, we need to capitalise on what psychologists term ‘mere exposure’ – our tendency to like people the more we see them. Choose a couple of groups and activities and commit to doing them for three months.
. “Also, everyone is there for the same purpose, so you already share something that matters to you.”Holly Tyers decided to volunteer for the Friends of Batley Station, a group founded by the late MP Jo Cox. On the face of it, meeting every Saturday to pick up discarded beer bottles and tidy up the station platform doesn’t sound like an obvious route to transforming your social life.
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