Friends: they celebrate our birthdays, pop a cork over our new jobs, become bridesmaids and best men at our weddings. But fewer of us have them. In the UK, around 20% of Britons have no close friends, including as many as 10% who have no friends at all. In the US, 35 percent of Americans over the age of 45 are chronically lonely. In Australia, a 2018 report found 1-in-3 Australians don’t belong to a friendship group.What is causing this ‘friendship poverty’ and how can we fix it?<h2 style="text-align: center" id="00015d5b-d6c2-41f8-929c-cbb0d284afce" data-toc-id="00015d5b-d6c2-41f8-929c-cbb0d284afce">Romance’s Overlooked Sibling</h2>“What is to blame for this devaluing of friendship?” Friendship Lab Founder Sheridan Voysey wrote in a column for The Times.&nbsp;“Romance. Or more precisely, our obsession with it. Captivating and provocative, romance’s presence in the room draws all eyes away from its less glamorous sibling.” We need to rectify this, I add, because to be a friend is a “holy calling as valid as parenthood or a career.”<img src="https://www.friendshiplab.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Times-Friendship-article-banner-1024x655.jpg" alt="" style="width: 768px; height: auto; cursor: pointer;" srcset="https://www.friendshiplab.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Times-Friendship-article-banner-1024x655.jpg 1024w, https://www.friendshiplab.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Times-Friendship-article-banner-300x192.jpg 300w, https://www.friendshiplab.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Times-Friendship-article-banner-768x491.jpg 768w, https://www.friendshiplab.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Times-Friendship-article-banner-600x384.jpg 600w, https://www.friendshiplab.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Times-Friendship-article-banner-141x90.jpg 141w, https://www.friendshiplab.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Times-Friendship-article-banner-78x50.jpg 78w, https://www.friendshiplab.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Times-Friendship-article-banner.jpg 1081w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" width="768" height="491" decoding="async" class="wp-image-1322" draggable="true">Here are some other quotes from the article:“If friendship is rarely written about, it is sung about even less. A scroll through our playlists proves it.”“Yet friendship may be our most fundamental bond. When a business fails, family bonds break or romance flitters away, it is to our friends that we turn.”“To be a close friend is a high and holy calling. Just ask the two in ten of us who long to have one.”<a target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" class="wp-block-button__link has-background has-text-align-center wp-element-button" href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dont-take-the-treasure-of-friendship-for-granted-c9jn907c6">READ AT THE TIMES</a>

Friends: they celebrate our birthdays, pop a cork over our new jobs, become bridesmaids and best men at our weddings. But fewer of us have them. In the UK, around 20% of Britons have no close friends,

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Don’t Take the Treasure of Friendship for Granted

Don’t Take the Treasure of Friendship for Granted

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