Let's Be Friends

How to make lasting connections that lift you up

- Caitlin Walsh Miller

If you feel that making friends as an adult isn't as easy as it used to be, you're right.

"As kids, we have recess and gym class. We can let our guard down," says Marisa G. Franco, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Maryland and author of Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make and Keep-Friends.

According to sociologists, repeated, unplanned interactions and opportunities to let ourselves be vulnerable are necessary for creating bonds that turn into friendship. For many of us, today's work-from-home reality makes those options fewer than ever. A 2021 survey by the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank, found that the percentage of Americans who say they have no close friends has quadrupled since 1990, to 12%.

"We've never been more disconnected," says Jody Carrington, a psychologist and author of Feeling Seen: Reconnecting in a Disconnected World. "And the greatest predictor for overall well-being isn't how much you drink or smoke, or what you eat. It's social engagement."

Research by Brigham Young University psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad has shown that loneliness is a major threat to longevity, on par with smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic. People who are lonely or socially isolated have a higher risk of impaired immune function, depression, dementia and cardiac death.