Navigating Adult Friendships

How do friendships change as we get older? Should you join a bowling league? And also: how does a cook become a chef?

RESOURCES:

• “Social Support From Weak Ties: Insight From the Literature on Minimal Social Interactions,” by Joshua Moreton, Caitlin S. Kelly, and Gillian Sandstrom (Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2023).
• Join or Die, documentary (2023).
• “I Tried Bumble BFF for 30 Days — Here’s What Happened,” by Beth Gillette (The Everygirl, 2022).
• Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make — and Keep — Friends, by Marisa Franco (2022).
• “Grocery Store Opens ‘Chat Registers’ for Lonely Customers,” by Gabriel Geiger (Vice, 2021).
• “The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss,” by Daniel A. Cox (Survey Center on American Life, 2021).
• “Number of Close Friends Had by Adults in the United States in 1990 and 2021,” by Michele Majidi (Survey Center on American Life, 2021).
• “You’re Not Uncool. Making Friends as an Adult Is Just Hard,” by Peter O’Dowd and Kalyani Saxena (WBUR, 2021).
• "My Restaurant Was My Life for 20 Years. Does the World Need It Anymore?" by Gabrielle Hamilton (The New York Times Magazine, 2020).
• “Why You Miss Those Casual Friends So Much,” by Gillian Sandstrom and Ashley Whillans (Harvard Business Review, 2020).
• “The Bros Who Met Their BFFs on Bumble,” by Rebecca Nelson (GQ, 2016).
• “Sex Differences in Social Focus Across the Life Cycle in Humans,” by Kunal Bhattacharya, Asim Ghosh, Daniel Monsivais, Robin I. M. Dunbar, and Kimmo Kaski (Royal Society Open Science, 2016).
• Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton (2011).
• “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review,” by Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Timothy B. Smith, and J. Bradley Layton (PLoS Medicine, 2010).
• Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, by Robert Putnam (2000).
• The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community, by Ray Oldenburg (1999).
• Character Lab.

EXTRAS:

• “How Much Are the Right Friends Worth?” by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022).
• “Is It Weird for Adults to Have Imaginary Friends?” by No Stupid Questions (2022).
• “How Much Do Your Friends Affect Your Future?” by No Stupid Questions (2020).
• “Is There Really a ‘Loneliness Epidemic’?” by Freakonomics Radio (2020).
• Tell Me Something I Don’t Know (2017).

SOURCES:

• Daniel Boulud, chef and restaurateur.
• Pete Davis, co-founder of the Democracy Policy Network.
• Wylie Dufresne, chef and restaurateur.
• Marisa Franco, assistant clinical professor at The University of Maryland.
• Beth Gillette, beauty editor at Cosmopolitan.
• Gabrielle Hamilton, chef, restauranteur, and writer.
• Daniel Humm, chef and restaurateur.
• Ray Oldenburg, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of West Florida.
• Robert Putnam, author and professor of public policy at Harvard University.
• René Redzepi, chef and restaurateur.
• Gillian Sandstrom, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Sussex.
• Dieter Uchtdorf, Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and former Senior Vice President Flight Operations at Lufthansa Airlines.
• Lyle Ungar, professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania.