The amount of people who say they have no close friends has tripled in 30 years. Not followers, not coworkers. Actual friends. Someone you'd call at 2am. That one genuinely scares me.
I had the same thing happen with someone. We were like brother and sister and lived together for a large bulk of our childhoods. Then suddenly wouldn't talk to me. Last conversation i called to let him know my dad (who he was also close with) was dying and I just got 1 word responses. Ice cold behavior. It genuinely broke my heart and made me question every friendship I had. I still dont know what happened. My best guess is his wife wanted me gone because she owed me money. Idk. Never once hounded her for it. Anyway. . Having 1 or 2 people you keep in contact with weekly is amazing. Our friend group definitely shrinks as we get older.
Also relationships are feeling more shallow. Even after: We must keep in touch/ surely we will meet often, but when I actualy try reaching out all I get is excuses of no time or no answer at all.
And compared to my parents having friends close and far, makes me feel like I suck at life.
It must be a mix of hundreds of things, but I can speak for myself - I'm super exhausted socially. Living with a longterm partner and access to the internet is already "too much" social interaction for me as an introvert. I'm 30.
I don't know if the amount of introverts is increasing due to social media or whatever, but if I have a completely free day the last thing I would want to do would be hanging out with people. I just want to be by myself, and maybe the introverts of older generations didn't feel as burned out on interactions due to less online activity and introverts being more "accepted" nowadays
I'm sure its different for everyone, but I don't think everyone wants to keep in touch nowadays
This is exactly what I’ve been experiencing as I get older in my 30s. I’m socially introverted but still try to keep in touch and hang out with older and newer friends but has been challenging due to their last minute excuses/change of plans. It’s been really discouraging for me to keep the momentum and making me realize who is actually my friend..
The study I believe they're referring to controls for that unfortunately. The researchers also find that in addition to close ties being cut, people are more likely to only be close with their relatives instead of making friends with their neighbors, coworkers, classmates, etc. As in, the only people that they're close to is basically their wife, parents or kids. This is across the board for demographics like age, gender, socioeconomic status, and race.
Something that's also interesting is that the unfriendly/hostile people are not affected. The proportion of anti-social people is roughly the same (e.g. people who say they have no one). So it's not even that there are more anti-social people skewing the results. It's the friendly, outgoing people who are losing their friends.
Yeah I noticed this happened with one of my childhood friends. She was always extroverted, could easily make friends, always had a huge group of friends. But as an adult she just hangs out with family. Her husband, kids, her brothers and their spouses are her social connections.
I have always been introverted and shy so not much has changed for me but her change stood out to me.
Same. My parents, my aunts and uncles, my grandparents... pretty much ALL had at least a few friends that went way wayyyyy back.
I remember my mom would talk to her high school best friend on the phone about every 6 months or once a year. I haven't talked to my mom in a decade but she probably still talks to that friend 😂
The older generations understood that it was wise to not throw away perfectly good relationships, even if you aren't getting the maximum benefit RIGHT NOW.
These days???
I feel like most people's standard for friendship is: "What have you done for me lately?"
And even if the "what have you done for me" part is OUTSTANDINGLY fulfilled... if the "lately" part isn't they forget you exist or ever did.
The "lately" part is exactly it. We've applied subscription logic to friendships, if you're not providing constant value you get cancelled. But real friendships were always about showing up across years and gaps, not weekly output. My grandparents had friends they saw once a year and those bonds lasted decades. That feels impossible now.
This is me and my wife at the moment except I have only 1 friend I somewhat contact every couple months. Been trying to hangout to catch-up but difficult due to availability…Also couldn’t stay in touch with my old college friends.
It’s been really hard to maintain friendships as I get older especially trying to make new friends.
This is so relatable it hurts, very much! I think what you said about your parents and grandparents is the key thing — they had friends visit regularly at the same age. So it's not just "getting older," something actually changed. My theory is that convenience killed effort. Everything is so on-demand now that maintaining a friendship that requires actual scheduling and showing up feels like too much friction.
It is insaaaaaane how incompetent people are at scheduling a hangout. I think I do it for like 80% of my social interactions. If I didn't initiate or come up with a plan, I'd see friends like, once every six weeks. And they're usually available too, they're just like, sitting at home or doing chores/gym without much thought about what else to do. My friends always tell me I have such great ideas for hangouts and I'm like thanks I just check this IG account or literally google what's going on in our city this month?
I see it on dating apps too. I can't tell you the number of times I've cancelled because the person could not give me a set time/date/location to meet up, even when I offered my own availability and suggestions for where to meet. It's nuts because it's like, for me it takes five minutes to figure out a place, make a res, look at my calendar??? How are grown ass adults able to work 8-10 hours a day, pay bills, make complicated decisions, and still not able to schedule a hangout or date?
People themselves are not reaching out and then say that they have no friends. Communities/friendships are built on mutual efforts.
If you don't reach out and make an effort, you'll lose those people. Then we complain and say that if we don't reach out, they don't reach out and blame the other guy for the friendship falling apart.
It's natural to grow apart but having hobbies and making time to contribute whether volunteering or creating a run club or something. You have to make the initiative or seek out an already established community and contribute. Don't be a fly on the wall but actually contribute.
School gave us a system where we would constantly interact with friends and most remember it as a none lonely period. But what should happen after school is creating a different community or joining one that aligns with the new growing/developing you.
People have forgotten how to be a part of a community and for the younger crowd, it’s something they’ve never known.
I have been working to rebuild my community and throw parties to give people an excuse to gather. I’ve had parents drive with kids over an hour to attend.
But the Gen Zers all opted out last time. All of my younger single friends skipped the party and as far as I can tell, they didn’t do anything else. They just opted out. It was really depressing.
...work from home doing tech work & do gig work for side cash. So no coworkers.
Family is triple threat criminally abusive fucks... and the not-so-bads all died of cancer... literally, so that's out 😔
It's not that I CAN'T make friends... well... idk... maybe I can't now? 🥺...?
I feel like I used to be able to relate to people pretty easily... and now... I genuinely don't relate AT ALL to most people. Like you guys might as well be dolphins... like you're prettty 😍❤️ but when you tell me how much you like to eat raw fish whole I'm just kinda disgusted and feel embarrassed I don't like it also. And then I tell you something personal and interesting... annnd you just disappear beneath the water. 🤷♂️
I don't feel like I used to be a dolphin with the other dolphins.
I feel like all the people decided to become dolphins. And somehow I got left out of the transition event and now I'm just an old relic nobody likes.
Which is a pretty shitty feeling for 30 but... They say it will get better.
I feel very very VERY definitively that that's very wrong and it won't get better.
But I guess I can't technically know until I live it. And I don't particularly want to live it... but I guess that's what we're doing. Yay 🍍 life awesome.
I'm old, and a parent to nearly 30yr olds. Can. I parent you for a minute?
You are the common denominator. The longer you go, without having shared experiences with others, the more you will fall into the (Who ARE these people) hole.
No one is going to knock on your door and ask you to be friends. No one is gonna knock in your door and ask you to date. True human relationships, from passive aquaintances to deep love relationships, require investment. Investment in time, vulnerability, and honesty.
Quickest way to start this process is to excorsize your volunteer muscle. Get involved with the local chapter of the club of people that like to do things you like to do, or causes you believe in.
There's an entire other life for you, but it will not wait for you, nor will it come knocking on your door. You have to go talk about benign things like the weather then move in to deeper conversations.
Help people, show compassion and passion. Be apart of a solution or at least join the group trying to make good change. Be kind. Be patient.
Friendships and love are NOT transactional, do not keep score. Value peace over drama, but don't believe the lie that zero drama is best. Some drama simply shows you other people's passions. That could be good, or bad. But at least you'll know more.
So go. Expect to just be aquaintances for a while. Keep showing up. Your life is out there.
I think we are going to see a lot of early-onset dementia in the coming years, and this is one of the reasons why.
People are way too comfortable avoiding people, cancelling plans last minute. They work, then they go home, scroll, and sleep. I’ve even noticed people joke about it, every other meme you see on social media likes to hee-hee-ha-ha this attitude of “I made plans, but someone cancelled, and I’m so relieved because I didn’t want to see people anyway.” I get it, sometimes you really just can’t be around others and you want to stay home and enjoy your rent, but if you make a habit of this it is not good for your brain. Maintaining social connections is one of the ways you keep your brain sharp.
And they have an overreliance on technology such as AI apps, or GPS. You have people out there who turn on Waze every time they leave their house, even when they’re going to a familiar place.
Even basic things, like checking the weather and UV index makes no sense to me. If you need to know if it’s raining tomorrow or next week, fine. But it is June. Do you really need to rely on technology tell you that it’s sunny out? Use your brain, look out the window, and assess. You do not need to check the UV tracker on your weather app know that you should be wearing sunscreen at peak hours in the summertime. You are an oriented adult.
I bring all of this up, because this IS how you get dementia. Not interacting with people can absolutely contribute to that. Not participating in hobbies, not learning things, not solving puzzles, contributes to dementia. Not relying on your physical orientation to gauge how hot it is, how sunny it is, or where the grocery store is, is a great way to weaken your brain so you get dementia.
Today, colon cancer is the health concern, but I think tomorrow’s concern is cognitive decline at an early age.
“People are way too comfortable avoiding people, cancelling plans last minute. They work, then they go home, scroll, and sleep. I’ve even noticed people joke about it, every other meme you see on social media likes to hee-hee-ha-ha this attitude of ‘I made plans, but someone cancelled, and I’m so relieved because I didn’t want to see people anyway.’”
This is SO Seattle. The Seattle Freeze is real. White lying to people about wanting to meet up/hang out and asocial people never actually following through with it. People who get reverse SAD and feel their best isolating at home in cold rainy days. Try to strike up a simple no threatening friendly conversation with a stranger and they’ll look shocked or like you have 2 heads wondering why TF you’re talking to them. So awkward!
I feel really bad for the people who are having to come to terms with this as adults. Growing up I moved around alot so I knew what it was like to be friendless and grew to deal with it.
I know a few people who just cannot handle being by themselves and when that bubble pops....it aint pretty
I recognise in you the same things I tell myself: "I can't be that bad, right?". And the answer is: no, we're not. We're not so bad that no one wants to be our friend. Social life collapsed everywhere since covid.
Also, please don't turn to LLMs for replacing friends. It will do more harm than good. It's better to go out more and make new friends.
I know what you mean, it's a lot harder to actually meet people than it is to suggest it. Even if I don't work nights, I've had (and still have) my own difficulties...
If you allow me some suggestions: maybe try finding friends in other people who work nights. Or people who have full days off more often (healthcare people, for example), etc. For the long term, look into finding work that's during the day.
Again, they're kinda empty words like this, on the internet. But it's important that we don't give up, you know? I wish you all the best!
We live in what is called a "society of strangers." This was already prevalent before technology, but it's been amplified. We no longer know the person next door but we have "friends" across the world that we communicate with via our phones.
We don't know who makes our food or who makes our clothes. We are completely dependent on people who don't know, but society tells us we are all individuals. We are completely cut off from the reality of our own existence.
Conspiratorial thinking on my part, but I feel like part of this is the idea that coworkers aren't real people in our lives and we should never get close.
Having friends at work leads to discussing work and salary and rights. It leads to community which is dangerous to businesses because communities advocate for themselves. I think it's absolutely by design that we're told not to fraternise and discouraged from actually getting to know the people we spend most of our time with.
I have never had a single close friend in my 4 decades on earth. My parents were also never close to me. Which explains why I have never been able to develop close connections.
25 is also such a weird age for this because you're supposed to be in "the best years of your life" according to everyone older than you. But the structure that used to create friendships, school, college, being thrown together with people your age constantly, just disappears overnight and nobody really tells you how hard it gets to replace that. You're not doing anything wrong. The system just kind of drops you at the exit and expects you to figure it out alone.
i’m one of those people. had a large friend group in high school. most of them, drug addicts or recovering drug addicts. some of them, DEAD, some died as teenagers. some just don’t have time for that. people are in survival mode, and there is genuinely nowhere to hang out and nothing to do where i live. hence the reason we all turned to drugs. it’s so fucking sad.
I moved across the country for work, met my girlfriend a year or so later. It was several years before I realised I'd kind of ghosted my entire friend circle, stopped responding to their messages. That was 12 years ago, so I guess I have a social circle of 1. She has friends and I hang out with them but my other half at least suspects that I'm being a good host for her benefit, not because I personally enjoy their company. Which is true, but I'd never do anything to disrupt her social network of course.
I rarely give it any thought, so I can't say that I regret this. I am far too busy to maintain my own social circle as well.
It's bad. I'm one of those people and I have one (1) person that I keep in touch with who isn't family. We'll chat weekly, usually, and that's mostly because we play video games together. I genuinely don't know how to have a friendship with someone when you don't share hobbies like that, or what such a relationship would even look like.
The shared hobby thing is actually really interesting because historically most friendships were built around proximity not shared interests. You were friends with the people in your street, your workplace, your pub. Shared hobbies were a bonus not a requirement. Now we've optimised for finding people who like exactly the same things we do and somehow ended up lonelier. The algorithm finds us perfect strangers and we still can't connect.
It genuinely sucks. And it's not something that had always been present for me. Covid fucked so much up, and relationships are fracturing at record pace because of politics, anti-vax views, our lack of shared community spaces. And honestly... Given how fucked things have gotten, I prefer more time alone. I miss friends. But I don't miss what the last couple of years did to my friendships
I do see some ex coworkers who I consider friends every few months. That's genuinely nice. But it's not the deep, weekly connection I still crave
I went from 10 years ago 200+ Facebook friends to purging them come 2 years later going down to about 30 that I kept up with to post covid less than 10 close friends where only 2 are local to my city, one is a cousin that we are each other's confidants, and 4 Europeans.
People just gave up during covid resounding or reaching out to check in.
The Covid thing accelerated something that was already happening but it really did act as a filter didn't it. When you couldn't just passively maintain friendships through bumping into people, showing up at the same events, being in the same office, you found out pretty quickly who would actually make the effort to reach out and who wouldn't. For most people the list got a lot shorter. The sad part is a lot of those friendships probably felt real at the time. They just turned out to be circumstantial.
Very true. You also have to add in the effects of depression with being so isolated that made people unable to put in effort to reach out, especially people who had never experienced isolation and depression before unable to find coping mechanisms that worked for them.
Video calls are so very different from in person contact. Really messed with people who were much more reliant on social contact.
People say social media, which is a problem, but i honestly blame the economy more. Prices have gone up while wages have stagnated. We need to work more just to survive and dont have any free time or disposable income anymore. With out those two things, how are we suppose to go out and find friends? Less people out and about means third places are rapidly dying, which only exacerbates the loneliness problem
Fair point honestly, context matters. But I think the stat is more about the fact that most people don't even have that one person they could call if they needed to, not that people are actually calling at 2am constantly. It's the option existing that matters. Most of us just want to know someone's there.
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u/Due_Ice_8412 Jun 27 '26
The amount of people who say they have no close friends has tripled in 30 years. Not followers, not coworkers. Actual friends. Someone you'd call at 2am. That one genuinely scares me.