Few things in life satisfy me as much as canceling social plans.
As a reporter who regularly covers friendship, I am well-versed in the benefits of platonic connection. I know, for instance, that studies show that people with strong social ties live longer and are better protected against stress. And I am familiar with the evidence showing that a truly robust social circle encompasses different types of friendship, including work pals (who can help you feel more engaged and productive throughout the day) and “weak ties” (casual acquaintances who can help you learn new things and improve your daily sense of well being).
But I am who I am: an introvert who delights in alone time. I admit I seldom feel motivated to make new friends, or even to see the small-but-cherished group I already have. For me, the tension between craving camaraderie, connection and all of the wonderful benefits of friendship, and wanting to be left alone is real. And the advice that’s so often given about making friends in adulthood (including that in my own articles) tends to make me shudder: Put yourself out there? No, thank you.
“Every single person has the fundamental need for connection,” said Kasley Killam, a social scientist and the founder and executive director of Social Health Labs, a nonprofit that works to create solutions for isolation and loneliness. “It’s not like introverts don’t need meaningful relationships. But what varies is how much and what kind of connection.”
It was early days, but Flo was feeling positive about Jack – a man she’d been seeing for three months. The pair met on Hinge, Flo swiping right after Jack’s pithy one-liners made her smile.
Their first date – a couple of drinks after work – had been the most fun she’d had in a while. The pair went on to meet twice a week afterwards: more drinks, dinners, movie nights – Jack even took Flo to a warehouse rave with his best friends.
They never put a label on it – there didn’t seem to be a need to – but a flush would warm Flo’s cheeks whenever his name lit up her phone. That was until one day, Jack stopped texting. No explanation, no response: Flo had been blocked, with her WhatsApp messages to Jack now punctuated with a lonely grey tick.
“I was upset,” publicist Flo, 24, reflects, a year later. Like every dater in this piece, she’s speaking anonymously to protect her privacy. “But this sort of stuff happens all the time. I’ve been ghosted before and I’ll get ghosted again. But part of me thinks what’s the fucking point? It makes me just not want to bother with dating.”
«I ain’t got no heart to go and see the sufferings of my people played on the stage. I’ve heard ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ read, and I tell you Mrs. Stowe’s pen hasn’t begun to paint what slavery is as I have seen it at the far South. I’ve seen the real thing, and I don’t […]
Sometime during the pandemic lockdowns, I began to nurture a fantasy: What if I were neighbors with all of my friends? Every day, as I took long walks through North Vancouver that were still nowhere near long enough to land me at a single pal’s doorstep, I would reflect on the potential joys of a physically closer network. Wouldn’t it be great to have someone who could join me on a stroll at a moment’s notice? Or to be able to drop by to cook dinner for a friend and her baby? How good would it be to have more spontaneous hangs instead of ones that had to be planned, scheduled, and most likely rescheduled weeks in advance?
This doesn’t have to be just a dream. Friends who already live in the same city could decide to move within walking distance of one another—the same neighborhood, block, or even apartment building—and campaign for others to do the same. Doing so would likely involve a lot of effort on the front end,
Many people come to therapy confused about how to form new friendships in adulthood. They say things like:
“I was really good at making friends when I was young. Does everybody lose this ability with age?”
“I feel like everyone around me already has a solid group of friends. How do I find a group to fit in with? Or is it too late?”
“I’m either working at my office or taking care of my family. How do I find time for making new friends?
Making friends as an adult can be more complicated than when you were young. The logistical and emotional challenges involved in creating new bonds as an adult sometimes push us to isolate ourselves. Or, they may lead us to believe the false notion that our time to make new friends has passed.
If you struggle to make new friends as an adult, research says you’re not alone. The challenges you’re facing are real, but they can be managed. Here are two practices you can incorporate into your life that can help you create lasting friendships at any life stage.
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Adult friendships may not come easy, but they pay dividends for a long time. Getty
As White men routinely raped Black women and girls, White women generally said nothing. They were well aware that their husbands fathered children by these rape victims. These so-called mulatto children were in many cases treated very harshly by the wives of the men who forced themselves on Black females. The women saw the resemblance […]
An escaped enslaved woman who became a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, leading enslaved people to freedom before the Civil War, all while carrying a bounty on her head. But she was also a nurse, a Union spy and a women’s suffrage supporter. Tubman is one of the most recognized icons in American history and […]
Creed III is a sports drama directed by Michael B. Jordan (in his directorial debut) from a screenplay by Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin. It is the sequel to Creed II (2018), the third in the Creed series, and the ninth overall in the Rocky film series. Creed III is about a thriving boxer who faces off against a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy. Creed I and Creed II were outstanding films, so I expected Creed III to follow suit. I wasn’t disappointed.
In 2002 Los Angeles, a young Adonis “Donnie” Creed (Thaddeus J. Mixon) sneaks out with his best friend, Golden Gloves champion Damian “Diamond Dame” Anderson (Spence Moore II), to watch him compete in an underground boxing match. After Dame’s victory, the two friends drive to the liquor store where Donnie runs into an older man named Leon who had assaulted them repeatedly when they were even younger. Donnie…
To transform reality into the mental landscape that occupies out minds, our brain performs a multitude of operations. Some are short-cuts; assumptions that become obvious the moment we attempt to make sense of the conflict presented in an optical illusion.
For individuals with autism, those shortcuts and mental operations could work a little differently, subtly influencing how the brain constructs a picture of everyday life.
With this in mind, scientists have turned to optical illusions to better understand neurodivergence.
A study on the brain activity of 60 children, including 29 diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder ( ASD), suggests differences in the way individuals process illusory shapes could reveal ways autism affects specific processing pathways in the brain.
The research made use of a classic style of illusion popularized by the Italian psychologist, Gaetano Kanizsa, which typically involves simple lines or shapes, such as circles, with sections removed. Arranged in a certain way, the empty spaces align to describe a second shape in their negative space.
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The way our brains perceive shapes could tell us a thing or two about autism.(Evgeny Gromov/Getty Images)
In many ways, it’s easier to make friends when you’re a child, as kids meet in the classroom, on the playground, or through a recreational sports team—the opportunities seem endless.
Fast-forward to adulthood, when forging platonic relationships becomes trickier than finding a like-minded pal to play tag with at recess. Sure, there might be your post-grad roommates or close colleagues, but at some point, maintaining friendships takes a backseat.
Many middle-aged adults are essentially swimming against the tide trying to keep up with caregiving and job responsibilities and find one day that they haven’t prioritized new friendships or nourished old ones.
“As we approach middle age, we have found ourselves busy,” says Dr. Marc Schulz, coauthor of The Good Life and associate director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. “Some people wake up and realize that they really need to rebuild their friendship connections…a lot of their social connections may revolve just around work, or just around other sorts of activities that their kids do.”
Older adults may also grieve the loss of past friendships, making them fearful and closed off to new opportunities, says Dr. Nina Vasan, a psychiatrist and the chief medical officer at Real, a mental health support app.
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Feeling lonely can harm people’s physical and mental health as they age. Flashpop—Getty Images
In the world, human beings are facing various problems. People who are full of greed, anger, and ignorance are seen to be fighting with each other in words and deeds. As the fighting continues, various problems such as civil wars, wars of aggression, and wars of aggression are occurring. As world peace is being destroyed, humans are facing unbearable problems. Innocent children and women are not getting the rights they deserve and deserve. I can't think of one thing every time. What is it? The United Nations. If we look at the responsibilities and duties of the United Nations, I think it is not suitable for solving the problems that are happening in the world today. In fact, the United Nations and the World Security Council, such an organization must rule the world, must be able to give orders, and must have various ways to obey orders. There must be no organization that can influence more than that organization. There should be experts from each country. They can even dominate the superpowers like the US, China, and Britain. Only then will global peace be achieved quickly. Now, if a country with power develops more militarily, economically, or socially than its own country, then powerful countries will jealously seek out enemies and wage war. Or they will attack with fighter jets. In this, innocent people are losing their lives. No one understands the value of a life. You should think about how to achieve global peace by controlling these. If the US continues to be the permanent president of the UN, world peace will never be achieved. If you think carefully, no one sees that they are working for the common good, but for their own benefit, for the benefit of their own country. The permanent president of the UN and the Security Council has rejected this, As a young Rohingya, I have come to realize that only by electing the president and secretary from among the countries in the world through a secret ballot system and governing the world fairly can we achieve global peace. The United Nations and the Security Council are organizations in which any country must govern, give orders, and make them obey their orders. For example, only when a defendant is tried in court can we hold the leaders of the countries in check and control them, can we achieve global peace smoothly. Otherwise, it will not be easy for powerful countries to use various excuses to end this war every year, every year, for the benefit of themselves and their countries. No country's leaders pay any attention to the words of the United Nations and the Security Council. If we look at it in practice, look at the Rohingya issue. Myanmar is a small country. Even that country has been under siege for 8 years. What action can be taken? Why is the UN and the Security Council Powerless? Without such Power, how can the organization bring about global peace? Everyone should think about it. Whether there is a veto or a strong one, all countries in the world can only achieve global peace if they are subject to the UN and the Security Council. Seek peace in the quiet embrace of nature. Peace is an indispensable need of the human race. It is not as if one person can kill another person, and it is as if one country can attack another country, but instead of trying to build peace, we must try to destroy the peace now, and the world is getting hotter and is on the verge of collapse. I especially appeal to all the world experts to urgently try to bring about peace in all parts of the world. Mr, Noor Muhamed Arkhan Rohingya Youth Myanmar
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Photo: Uwe Krejci / Getty Images
Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty.
Creed III is a sports drama directed by Michael B. Jordan (in his directorial debut) from a screenplay by Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin. It is the sequel to Creed II (2018), the third in the Creed series, and the ninth overall in the Rocky film series. Creed III is about a thriving boxer who faces off against a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy. Creed I and Creed II were outstanding films, so I expected Creed III to follow suit. I wasn’t disappointed.
