聽is an Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology,聽听补苍诲听聽is an Associate Professor, Sociology,聽.
All participant names in this story are pseudonyms.
What does it mean to have few or no friends in a time when social connection is seen as key to a healthy and fulfilling life? This is the question at the centre of on modern friendship in an Atlantic Canadian city.
Friendship is having a cultural moment. From to , a wide range of experts have pointed to friendship and social connection as being vital for people to live good and healthy lives and as a way to combat a growing 鈥�.鈥�
But not everyone experiences friendship in the same way. Andrew, a student in his mid-20s who took part in our study, identified as having no friends. He told us:
鈥淚 do feel sad and lonely a lot. But I also feel kind of at peace, because I鈥檓 pretty introverted. I do want my alone time. So I kind of struggle going back and forth between liking not having friends and then also hating it. It鈥檚 just those two are always in conflict.鈥�
Andrew鈥檚 experience reflects the broader tensions many people feel about modern friendship. While friendship is widely valued, and sees virtues in introversion.
These ideals can affirm a desire for solitude, but they don鈥檛 stop people from worrying about the negative effects of living friendless lives. These conflicting messages can leave people unsure of how to feel about living without friends.
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Exploring friendlessness in adulthood
In our study, we interviewed 21 men and women to understand experiences of friendlessness. Over half were in the 鈥渜uarter life鈥� phase, meaning they were in their 20s or 30s. They ranged from young professionals, to students, to minimum wage workers.
Some participants had rich family lives, professional lives or spousal relationships. Others were almost entirely socially isolated. Still, all participants saw lacking friends as something they struggled with, thought about or needed to justify to others.
Research has shown that and that .
Since we recruited 鈥渇riendless鈥� rather than 鈥渓onely鈥� people for our study, we didn鈥檛 assume that people without friends were lonely. Instead, we aimed to understand how they experienced life without friends.
Why people struggle to make friends
Participants in our study reported a range of challenges to making friends, as well as insights into what it鈥檚 like not to have them.
Challenges included lacking regular encounters with others due to the structures of school or work or having quit social media and lost touch with friends. Some were disappointed by friendships in the past, or reported other priorities over making friends.
For example, Tim, a lawyer in his 30s, explained there are many 鈥渕etrics鈥� of a good life, and that he had no friends because he had chosen to put his time into his career and family.
Melissa, an administrative assistant in her 20s, felt she always ended up in 鈥渓opsided鈥� friendships where she gave more than she received.
Andrew explained that he no longer had friends at university after moving out of residence, a problem compounded by the public health restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the pandemic didn鈥檛 necessarily cause new friendship challenges. Most of our participants said they already had no friends, so lockdown orders didn鈥檛 change anything.
Friendless but not always lonely
Our study revealed two key narratives people told about the relation of friendlessness to loneliness. On the one hand, they reported intense loneliness and said they suffered without friends. On the other hand, people said having no friends afforded opportunities for self-sufficiency and independence.
Crucially, there was no clear distinction between participants who claimed to be lonely or not lonely. Rather, participants often told conflicting stories of feeling lonely without friends or feeling good about being alone or self-reliant.
Melissa, for example, talked about her profound loneliness, yet also spoke with pride about how she has learned to get herself out of any situation because she had no one to rely on.
Regardless of the degree of loneliness they reported, our quarter-life participants often felt shame or stigma for being friendless. Some of our participants imagined others thought there was something wrong with them.
If you have experienced these feelings, you aren鈥檛 alone. While people may blame themselves or feel shame, as social scientists, we believe the causes of friendlessness or loneliness are bigger than individuals and their choices.
Making friends isn鈥檛 just a personal challenge
To formulate solutions to social disconnection, it鈥檚 not enough to simply ask, 鈥渨hy don鈥檛 people just go and make friends?鈥� While friendship often appears to be a matter of personal choice and mutual liking, like all social relationships, it can be enabled or .
If there is a loneliness epidemic, it can鈥檛 be understood solely as a matter of individual choice or the pitfalls of social media or other technology. It also needs to be seen as a born of that require collective solutions to address.
A better question might be: is friendship accessible to people? Are there enough free, inclusive public spaces where people can gather to meet or make friends? How do the rigid, often unpredictable work schedules faced by many young adults ?
You may recognize these barriers in your own life and feel disconnected not because you aren鈥檛 trying, but because the conditions for connection are so often missing.
If our society values friendship as much as it claims in the quest to combat loneliness, then collectively we could be doing much more to create social spaces and policies that enable social connection.
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