The friendship advice experts swear by | Feelings News
When it comes to friendship in the United States, the outlook is pretty darn bleak. Around 1 in 6 Americans say they feel lonely or isolated from those around them all or most of the time. In 1990, just 3% of Americans said they had no close friends. Three decades later, 12% said the same. It’s understandable. Making new friends in adulthood is hard. “Third places” where people go to hang out and connect are disappearing. The pandemic caused a lot of friends to fall out of touch. Still, people who study and facilitate friendships for a living believe that with effort — and a bit of strategy — it’s possible to foster the kind of strong, invigorating platonic bonds that so many of us crave. We asked several of them for the go-to friendship boosters they lean on in their own lives. Here’s what they recommended. Practice ‘aggressive’ friendship. The hardest part of adult friendship is, arguably, simply finding time to hang out. So it is often the case that one person needs to …