WASHINGTON: I’ve been going on a series of dates lately. I exchanged numbers with the person sitting next to me at a Cabernet tasting at my favourite wine bar, and went for a coffee with a neighbour I met walking my dog.
I reached out to people from my past whom I haven’t seen in years to see if they’re newly available. I’m trying to make new friends.
A body of research shows that people with solid friendships live healthier, longer lives. Friendship decreases blood pressure and stress, reduces the risk of depression, and increases longevity, in large part because someone is watching out for us.
A study published in February in the British Journal of Psychology looked at 15 000 respondents and found that people who had more social interactions with close friends reported being happier, unless they were highly intelligent.
People with higher IQs were less content when they spent more time with friends. Psychologists theorise that these people keep themselves intellectually stimulated without a lot of social interaction.
Starting in early adulthood, our number of friends starts to decrease steadily. Changes in friendships typically happen around life transitions: graduation, parenthood, job switches, divorce or death of a spouse. One study, published last year in Evolutionary Behavioural Sciences, looked at 540 men and women, and showed we lose an average of two friends when we gain a romantic partner.
“We are constantly shedding our friends,” says Irene Levine, a clinical professor of psychiatry at New York University, and author of Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend.
“We grow in one direction, our friends grow in another, and there isn’t much in common any more.”
But it gets harder to make friends as we get older. We become more inhibited. Levine says the first step is to get over the stigma that something is wrong with you if you don’t have enough friends or are looking to make more. “We think everyone has friends, and we are the only ones seeking them. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Women especially feel judged if they don’t have friends, she says, since they’re supposed to be good at friendship.
It may be harder for men to make friends. Women feel more comfortable reaching out to others, says Geoffrey Greif, author and professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Social Work.
He says men often worry that reaching out to another man might be misconstrued as a sexual advance. And, in general, “they are less willing to be vulnerable".
If you want new friends, you need to look with intention. And, just as you would when looking for a mate, you need to look for someone who has something in common with you, and who is emotionally available. Start by making acquaintances. “It’s like a dance,” says Levine. “You share some, then give the other person a chance to share.”
One also needs to be a friend when someone needs one. Offer to drop off soup when a neighbour is sick or ask a stressed-out co-worker to grab coffee.