When it comes to friendship in the United States, the outlook is pretty darn bleak. Around one in six Americans say they feel lonely or isolated from those around them all or most of the time. In 1990, just 3 percent of Americans said they had no close friends. Three decades later, 12 percent said the same.
It’s understandable. Making new friends in adulthood is hard. “Third places” where people go to hang out and connect are disappearing. The pandemic caused a lot of friends to fall out of touch.
Still, people who study and facilitate friendships for a living believe that with effort — and a bit of strategy — it’s possible to foster the kind of strong, invigorating platonic bonds that so many of us crave.
We asked several of them for the go-to friendship boosters they lean on in their own lives. Here’s what they recommended.
Practice ‘aggressive’ friendship.
The hardest part of adult friendship is, arguably, simply finding time to hang out. So it is often the case that one person needs to take the initiative — consistently, and without apology or embarrassment, said Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, a think tank, and author of “Of Boys and Men.”
He has one good friend who practices what that friend has called “aggressive friendship.” He calls, texts and arranges plans — and he doesn’t worry about being a bit of a nag, Dr. Reeves said.
Liv Schreiber, founder of Camp Social, an adult summer camp for women, echoed this idea. “My mantra is, ‘Don’t wait, initiate,’” she said. She typically wraps up friend dates by asking them to take out their calendars and get another plan on the books.
Another simple way to practice aggressive friendship? Whenever you find yourself thinking of a friend, call them, said Jaimie Krems, director of the UCLA Center for Friendship Research. She does this even if she only has five minutes, and even if it feels totally out of the blue.
“Instead of thinking, ‘Oh, I should call them’ and putting it on my to-do list, I just do it,” Dr. Krems said.
Tailor your plans.
Most of us are more likely to prioritize friendship — and actually follow through on plans to connect — when spending time together feels fun or restorative, the experts said. And that looks different for everyone. So Danielle Bayard Jackson, a friendship coach, periodically sends an email survey to around a dozen friends asking them about how they would prefer to interact.
Some of the questions are open-ended and practical, like: When are you typically available to spend time together? Others are deeper, like: What are you celebrating in your life right now?
She also asks what they’d prefer to do together: Grab a glass of wine? Do something adventurous? Spend time with kids in tow?
The exercise might not work for everyone — and it’s not advice she usually gives her clients — but she has found data gathering helps keep her friendships humming along.
Whether you choose to survey your friends or not, thinking carefully about how you spend time with them is a good idea. Dr. Reeves noted that men, in particular, can really benefit from doing activities “shoulder-to-shoulder” with friends, as opposed to face-to-face.
Activities and institutions can offer structure and scaffolding for male friendship, he said. Dr. Reeves noted, for instance, that he has several male friends who volunteer to coach their children’s sports teams — it’s a way to give back, but also a means of maintaining connection with other parents who are helping out.
“We’re not really going fishing. We’re not really doing a road trip. We’re not really playing golf,” he said. “What we’re really doing is investing and engaging in our friendships. But we need the wrapper.”
Be a little bit needy.
It may feel uncomfortable sometimes, but asking for help can be a real boon to connection, Dr. Krems said.
“We think that asking our friends for help will burden them. That is completely untrue,” she said. “Think about how joyous we’d feel if our friend asked us for help and we were able to do it.”
It could be anything from personal recommendations (a doctor? A favorite book?) to practical support.
Kim Evensen, founder of Brothers, a nonprofit focused on male friendship, admitted that the boys and men he works with sometimes balk at the advice to be more vulnerable with their buddies. But he encourages them to ask: Are any of my friends carrying burdens — or navigating life experiences — they haven’t felt comfortable telling me about?
“I realized that if I want to have friendships that make me healthier and stronger as a man,” he said, “I need to set a different standard than what the culture around me sets as the standard.”
Fit friendship into your existing routines.
A big advantage that children have over adults is that their friends are deeply integrated into their daily lives through school and extracurriculars, said Eileen Kennedy-Moore, a psychologist in Princeton, N.J., and author of “Kid Confidence: Help Your Child Make Friends, Build Resilience, and Develop Real Self-Esteem.”
That consistent contact is a crucial ingredient for friendship, she said.
So instead of waiting for “the magical moment” to connect with friends, Dr. Kennedy-Moore looks for ways to weave friendship into her established plans. That might involve asking a friend to tag along for school pickup or a class at the gym.
“A friend once called me at, like, 8 at night and said, ‘I’m going to Target, how about I pick you up in 10 minutes?’” she said. “And it was lovely.”
Ms. Schreiber is also creative about how she prioritizes her platonic bonds, cautioning that “one of the fastest ways friendships die in adulthood is waiting for a full-on production.” So she regularly walks one of her best friends to work. It is often a highlight of her week, she said.
Join up — the right way.
“We often hear the advice, ‘Just join a club!’” said Janice M. McCabe, an associate professor of sociology at Dartmouth College and the author of the book “Making, Keeping, and Losing Friends.”
Sometimes that works, she said, and sometimes it doesn’t.
Dr. McCabe’s research has found people are much more likely to make friends if they join a club that is related to an identity shift.
That’s why a group for new moms is a particularly powerful one, because the other people in that setting also are undergoing that transition, she said. “It’s finding the right timing and place in those settings.”
Maria Avgitidis, a New York-based matchmaker and the author of “Ask a Matchmaker,” has found that looking around your own community is a great starting point. She noted that her local Jewish Community Center has weekly cooking classes she encourages clients to attend, because then they are seeing the same 10 or so people regularly — “and one of them is going to become a friend who invites you to the barbecue.”
Prepare to be an engaged friend.
Many people have the idea that friends should just fall into easy, fluid conversation with each other — and, of course, that is sometimes the case, Dr. McCabe said. But she believes spending a bit of time planning what she might talk about with friends has improved the quality of her hangouts, and ultimately strengthened her connections.
Before you see or speak to a friend, Dr. McCabe said, consider: Is there something in particular you want to discuss? Is there something your friend said in your last conversation that you want to be sure to follow up on this time?
Ms. Jackson said she has an index card taped up in her office with a list of friends with whom she wants to spend time or check in. It is a simple but effective reminder to be a committed friend, she said.
When she sees the name of someone on the list and finds herself thinking: “Oh yeah, she’s a good friend. I really like her,” she asks herself: “What am I doing about it?”
Catherine Pearson is a Times reporter who writes about families and relationships.
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