How to make – and keep – friends as a grownup, according to science

One day in 2008, when she was in her early 20s, Jaimie Krems stumbled across Gchat messages between one of her closest friends and her housemate. They’d been written on her own computer, which her housemate had borrowed, and it turned out the two had been talking all about her.

“I was just really devastated,” Krems recalled. “And since then, I wanted to understand.”

What could cause two friends to act in such a painful way to a third? The experience spurred Krems to pursue a career studying adult friendship, a field she laments as hugely neglected in terms of both attention and funding, passed over in favor of a focus on romance or, conversely, dynamics that lead to stereotyping and discrimination.

“Understandable,” Krems said of the latter, “because it’s horrible and affects a lot of people.” But, she added, “I would argue that friendship affects even more people.”

Krems cited an analysis from researcher Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad that found that lacking social connection affects health similarly to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.

And we’re increasingly feeling bad at it, she pointed out, citing Google search trends: The query “how to make friends” reached an all-time high last spring and vastly outpaces searches for how to find a date or fall in love. An epidemic of loneliness, a feeling experienced by more than half of US adults, prompted a US Surgeon General’s Advisory in 2023.

But there are things we can do about it, research from Krems and others has found.

“Even though friendship feels like magic, it does involve these teachable competencies,” said Krems, who’s now director of the UCLA Center for Friendship Research . “If we were able to teach that, I think that we’d solve this epidemic of loneliness, which is a health problem, a public health problem, a civic problem. It’s an economic problem, and everybody’s unhappy.”

There are two main “ingredients for friendships to form,” Krems said, citing research from Dr. Daniel Hruschka at Arizona State University, among others: “frequent interaction and mutual attraction.”

Being in the same place with the same people repeatedly, even if it’s as simple as writing in a journal in a coffee shop at the same time each week, is enough of a start. And it’s the part of the equation that’s easier for us to control, Krems pointed out.

“If you could do frequent interaction, maybe there will be somebody with some mutual attraction,” Krems said. “You need both of these things to create a friendship.”

One way to maximize your chances of success on both those fronts is to identify what Dartmouth researcher Dr. Janice McCabe calls “friendship markets” – essentially, “places where many people are open to making friends,” she told CNN.

It’s particularly helpful to think about aspects of your own identity in considering friendship markets, including ones you might not expect, said McCabe, a professor of sociology who studies how and why people connect.

“So if there is a new identity that you’re looking to explore, look for places where people are meeting regularly and have a chance to get to know each other,” McCabe said, particularly ones with built-in times to interact, such as a running club where you can chat along the way, or improv or art classes.

Expat communities, she added, are an example of “great friendship markets.” Often, people living in another country might hope to make friends with locals, but they can also find strong ties among others living the same experience as “foreigners,” even with different countries of origin.

“To me, the lesson here is to notice when you’ve moved into a new identity, even if it wasn’t intended, and seek out others who share that new identity as they may also be open to connecting on that identity that they also find themselves in,” McCabe said.

In turning acquaintances into friends, asking for favors can actually deepen relationships, research shows. It’s become less common for us to ask for help as “we have all these apps on our phones that do what friends used to do,” Krems said: “They’ll take you to the airport. They’ll pick up your groceries when you’re sick. They’ll probably babysit your kids and install your TV, or help you carry a couch.”

But asking someone for a favor, if that person helps you, turns out to actually make them like you better, Krems said.

“We don’t want to feel like a burden,” she acknowledged. But a way to avoid that is to “put yourself in the other person’s shoes. If I can do a favor for one of my friends, I feel like a god. I feel so good. I’m on a high for a day. Imagine if you could give that feeling to somebody.”

Along those same lines, opening yourself up to show a little vulnerability in a conversation has a similar effect of increasing trust, said Dr. Alison Nagel, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia who directs the Connection Project , which aims to combat loneliness and social disconnection among adolescents and young adults.

“There’s a lot of research that shows that self-disclosure begets self-disclosure,” Nagel told CNN. “That folks who are somewhat self-disclosing are more liked and are perceived as more trustworthy by others.”

As a guideline for assessing whether you’re self-disclosing or just making conversation, Nagel recommends considering whether you’d share the same thing with a stranger on a bus.

“If not, then maybe you’re broaching into a little bit of vulnerability,” she said.

Of course, Nagel added, boundaries are important as well: “You can be authentic without asking for more than the relationship can give you in that moment,” she said. “Going slow and steady feels like a pretty safe approach.”

This one’s about friendship maintenance. Don’t wait for the perfect two hours to call a friend to catch up, Krems said. “Just call them.”

“Those five minutes of genuine connection are so much more valuable than the call you keep meaning to have,” Krems said in a TedX talk at UCLA in August.

And do take opportunities to stay connected when they arise.

“Say you want to bake a special meal that you remember your aunt making you when you were a kid,” Nagel said. “Are you going to call your aunt and get the recipe from her and maybe chat for a minute? Or are you going to Google it and see what comes up and try it?

“These kind of little shifts” – to a Google search instead of a phone call – “can prevent really kind of casual, but important, strengthening of loose ties.”

And the benefits of connection return multifold.

“It’s related to handling stress better, better immune functioning , so you get sick less ,” Krems said. She cited studies suggesting that friends and social connections among older adults reduce the risk of dementia by a third and the risk of stroke by half.

“If friendship were a drug,” Krems said, “it would be the most prescribed medication in history.”

2008年的一天，当时20岁出头的杰米·克雷姆斯偶然发现了她最好的朋友之一和她的室友之间的Gchat聊天记录。这些聊天记录是用她自己的电脑写的，而她的室友借用了那台电脑。结果发现，这两个人一直在谈论她。

“我当时真的非常难过，”克雷姆斯回忆道。“从那时起，我就一直想弄明白。”

是什么原因导致两个朋友对第三个朋友做出如此伤人的事？这段经历促使克雷姆斯投身于成人友谊的研究，她遗憾地表示，这个领域在关注度和资金方面都严重不足，人们更倾向于关注爱情，或者相反，关注那些会导致刻板印象和歧视的人际关系。

克雷姆斯谈到后者时说：“这可以理解，因为这很可怕，而且影响到很多人。”但她补充道：“我认为友谊影响的人更多。”

克雷姆斯引用了研究员朱莉安·霍尔特-伦斯塔德博士的一项分析，该分析发现，缺乏社交联系对健康的影响与每天吸15支烟类似。

她指出，我们越来越不擅长交朋友，并援引谷歌搜索趋势举例说：“如何交朋友”的搜索量在去年春天达到了历史新高，远远超过了“如何约会”或“如何坠入爱河”的搜索量。孤独感已成为一种流行病，超过一半的美国成年人都经历过这种感觉，这促使美国卫生局局长在2023年发布了相关建议。

但克雷姆斯和其他研究人员发现，我们可以采取一些措施来解决这个问题。

“虽然友谊感觉像魔法一样，但它确实包含一些可以教授的能力，”克雷姆斯说道，他现在是加州大学洛杉矶分校友谊研究中心的主任。“如果我们能够教授这些能力，我认为我们就能解决孤独这种流行病，孤独既是一个健康问题，也是一个公共卫生问题，更是一个社会问题。它也是一个经济问题，而且每个人都感到不快乐。”

克雷姆斯引用亚利桑那州立大学丹尼尔·赫鲁什卡博士等人的研究指出，友谊的形成有两个主要“要素”：“频繁的互动和相互吸引”。

反复和同一群人待在同一个地方，哪怕只是每周在同一时间在咖啡馆写日记这样简单的事情，也足以成为一个好的开始。克雷姆斯指出，这也是我们更容易掌控的部分。

克雷姆斯说：“如果你们能经常互动，或许会遇到互相吸引的人。建立友谊需要这两点。”

要想在这两方面最大限度地提高成功几率，一个方法是找到达特茅斯研究员 Janice McCabe 博士所说的“友谊市场”——她告诉 CNN，这本质上就是“许多人愿意结交朋友的地方”。

研究人们如何以及为什么建立联系的社会学教授麦凯布表示，在考虑友谊市场时，思考自身身份的各个方面尤其有帮助，包括一些你可能意想不到的方面。

“所以，如果你想探索一种新的身份，那就去找那些人们定期聚会、有机会互相了解的地方，”麦凯布说，特别是那些有固定互动时间的地方，比如跑步俱乐部，你可以在跑步途中聊天，或者即兴表演课或艺术课。

她补充说，外籍人士社区是“绝佳的友谊市场”。通常，居住在其他国家的人们可能希望结交当地人，但他们也能与其他有着相同“外国人”经历的人建立牢固的联系，即使他们来自不同的国家。

“对我来说，这里的教训是，即使并非有意为之，也要留意自己何时转变为新的身份，并寻找与自己拥有相同新身份的人，因为他们可能也愿意与你建立联系，因为他们也发现自己处于这种身份之中，”麦凯布说。

研究表明，在将熟人发展成朋友的过程中，请求帮忙实际上可以加深彼此的关系。克雷姆斯说，如今我们很少主动寻求帮助，因为“我们手机上有很多应用程序可以做以前朋友会做的事情”：“它们会送你去机场，在你生病时帮你买菜，它们可能还会帮你照看孩子、安装电视，或者帮你搬沙发。”

克雷姆斯说，但如果你请求别人帮忙，而对方也帮助你，结果反而会让他们更喜欢你。

“我们都不想成为别人的负担，”她坦言。但避免这种情况的一个方法是“设身处地为他人着想。如果我能帮朋友一个忙，我会觉得自己像个英雄。感觉棒极了，一整天都心情愉悦。想象一下，如果你能把这种感觉传递给别人，那该多好啊。”

弗吉尼亚大学助理教授艾莉森·纳格尔博士表示，从这个角度来看，在谈话中敞开心扉，表现出一点脆弱，也能起到类似的增进信任的效果。纳格尔博士负责“连接项目”，该项目旨在对抗青少年和年轻人的孤独感和社会疏离感。

纳格尔告诉CNN：“大量研究表明，自我表露会引发更多的自我表露。那些愿意进行一定程度自我表露的人更受欢迎，也更容易被他人视为值得信赖。”

作为判断你是在自我披露还是只是在闲聊的指导原则，纳格尔建议考虑一下，你会不会在公交车上跟陌生人分享同样的事情。

“如果不是这样，那或许你就有点暴露自己的脆弱之处了，”她说。

当然，纳格尔补充说，界限也很重要：“你可以保持真我，而无需索取超出这段关系当下所能给予你的，”她说。“循序渐进地发展是一种相当安全的方式。”

这条建议是关于如何维系友谊的。克雷姆斯说，不要等到“完美”的两个小时才给朋友打电话叙旧，“直接打电话就好。”

“那五分钟的真诚交流远比你一直想打却没打的电话更有价值，”克雷姆斯在八月份于加州大学洛杉矶分校举行的 TedX 演讲中说道。

并且要抓住机会保持联系。

“假设你想烤一道你小时候姑姑给你做过的特别的菜，”纳格尔说。“你会打电话给姑姑，问她要食谱，然后聊一会儿吗？还是你会上网搜索，看看有什么结果，然后自己动手试试？”

“这种小小的转变”——比如用谷歌搜索代替打电话——“可以​​防止原本松散的关系变得随意但却非常重要地得到加强。”

连接带来的好处是成倍的。

克雷姆斯说：“这与更好地应对压力、增强免疫功能有关，所以生病的几率也会降低。”她引用研究表明，老年人拥有朋友和社交关系可以将患痴呆症的风险降低三分之一，中风的风险降低一半。

克雷姆斯说：“如果友谊是一种毒品，它将是历史上处方量最大的药物。”