Friends Without Benefits

It’s not that we’re not that into each other. It’s more that we’re less likely to go out with each other. The epidemic of loneliness is less about not having any friends and more about seeing them less often than we used to. As Olga Khazan explains in The Atlantic (Gift Article), the loneliness epidemic “conjures a nation of friendless hermits who have no one to invite to their birthday parties. But according to a pair of new surveys, American loneliness is more complex than that. The typical American, it seems, texts a bunch of people ‘we should get together!’ before watching TikTok alone on the couch and then passing out. That is, Americans have friends. We just never really see them.” The Friendship Paradox. One “big hurdle is the time and effort it takes to schedule a gathering. In recent decades, participation in groups that allow friends to meet up easily—such as unions, civic clubs, and religious congregations—has dwindled.” This is part of the reason why I send an email to each of my friends every single day. This one.