The Evolutionary Benefit of Friendship (Farnam Street). Healthy friendships offer far more than a reliable person to share a beer with. Research shows they can make us healthier, wealthier, happier and overall more successful. Here’s how.
The Power of Positive People (NY Times). Researchers have found that certain health behaviors appear to be contagious and that our social networks — in person and online — can influence obesity, anxiety and overall happiness. A recent report found that a person’s exercise routine was strongly influenced by his or her social network.
Why Is It Hard to Make Friends Over 30? (NY Times). Our story is not unusual. In your 30s and 40s, plenty of new people enter your life, through work, children’s play dates and, of course, Facebook. But actual close friends — the kind you make in college, the kind you call in a crisis — those are in shorter supply.
The High Price We Pay for Our Fear of Being Alone (theschooloflife.com). The fear, or more often simply the phobia, of being alone is perhaps responsible for more unhappy relationships, more throttling of psychological development, more claustrophobia and more pent up misery than almost any other: it is – by any reckoning – one of the single greatest contributors to human misery and the driver of some of our weightiest and most unfortunate decisions.
Science says the difference between a friend and a best friend comes down to two things (businessinsider.in). Hall found that spending a lot of time together at work or at school predicted less friendship closeness. On the other hand, “hanging out” together, watching TV or playing games, outside these realms predicted greater friendship closeness. The content of people’s conversations turned out to matter a lot, too. People who engaged in a lot of small talk wound up getting less close over time. By contrast, people who spoke more substantively: “catching up, checking in, joking around, and meaningful conversation.”
The Friend That Got Away (longreads.com). I was grateful that the longing for those college days and my old friend had passed, at least for the moment. Katherine and I had had our beginning, middle, and end. Our time now felt complete. Even if we never spoke again, we got to have the last word.
Should You Feel Guilty When You Outgrow Friends? by Darius Foroux. Sometimes friendships start to fade and they turn into an obligation. You no longer have things in common. The reason is not important: maybe you changed, maybe they changed.
Why 30 is the decade friends disappear — and what to do about it (Vox). In the final years of my 20s, I learned how easy, and how lonely, it can be to keep to yourself. As I turn 30, no more self-sabotage. I’ve resolved to say shut up to the insecure inner voice, and hello to strangers.
This Is How To Make Friends As An Adult: 5 Secrets Backed By Research by Eric Barker. You really may be alone. But you’re not alone in being alone. These days we’re all alone together. In 1985 most people said they had 3 close friends. In 2004 the most common number was zero.