Do you have a friend group?

In the fall of 2023, Romana did a low, a woman calling herself the Queen of Canada, drove into Richmount Saskatchewan with a fleet of RVs and set up her kingdom in an abandoned school. So the town banded together to get the cult out by any means necessary. My name is Rachel Brown, and in this season of Uncover, I explore what happens when a conspiracy theory lands in your backyard. The cult Queen of Canada, available now on CBC Listen and Everywhere you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Sarah McNaughton moved from Calgary to Fanny Bay, a small town on Vancouver Island about a year and a half ago, and she's been trying to make new friends ever since, but daily life gets in the way. We're all craving connection and community so so badly, but we're also all pretty burnt out, pretty overworked, making that effort to actually connect with someone. There's this barrier there. As it turns out, we're all spending less time with our friends. According to Statscan, 30 years ago, about half of Canadians saw friends on an average day. Now it's about 20%. Sarah misses having a friend group that she can turn to. As I get into, like I'm 33 now, as I get into a bit of my older, not older years, but grow up a little bit. I do want people that I can be really tight with and fall into a conversation really easily. I want to have those people for those special moments. I do see some people who have those friendships on Instagram and I am jealous of those connections. It is hard to curate that despite how much you might try. So yeah, when I see it, I'm like, I want that. You spend any time on social media and you will see that it's filled with posts of girls, trips, friends, nights out. Friend groups are a reliable staple of sitcoms and movies as well. And it all has some people on Instagram feeling left out. And I'll see posts of like all these amazing girls, trips and friends that have grown up and just gotten to do all these incredible things together and that are just there for each other no matter what. And I'm like, why did I have that? I don't get invited to the parties. I'm not part of group chats. I have a very small social circle. Yeah, there's a big difference between knowing a lot of people and being friends with a lot of people. I know everybody. I've got a ton of acquaintances, but they're not my friends. They're not inviting me to their Christmas parties and it does suck sometimes. Do you have a friend group? And what does it mean if you don't have a friend group? Philip Hallett is a friendship researcher and lecturer at the University of Bath. He is in Bath in the United Kingdom. Philip, hello. Hello. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. This is a personal question for the friendship researcher. Do I have a friend group? I would say no. I have lots of close individual friends, but not a group as it were. Like some of the clips that you like played just then. I do not relate to having these big, like I said, boy, trips. Do you feel like you're missing out? No, I don't. I actually think it's quite normal, especially for adults to have more one-on-one friendships, I think, partly because they're easier to maintain because you only need to keep in contact with one person to keep that relationship going. I find a lot of value in those close friendships. I personally don't feel that I am missing out. Do we know how many people actually have one of those friend groups? There are different estimates around the world. A lot of it will depend on culture. But for example, in places like the US or the Netherlands, which I guess would be some of the cultures closest to Canada, for example, about 40% of people are actually not in a group. Most of their interactions are like one-on-one with their friends. And then the other 60%. They are in groups, but it depends on the activity they're doing. So for example, people going off a dinner, that is normally more one-on-one. I think it goes up to about 60-70% of people when they go out with dinner with friends will be just one friend. Doing things like bowling or sports, like those tend to be more groups of various sizes. How do we define what a friend group is? To your point, like I was yesterday with some friends for lunch. These are old friends. We go out for lunch on a regular basis. Is that a friend group or how are we defining this? Well, I think actually one of the clips highlighted this, I know a lot of people that I wouldn't call them my friends. And I think the thing with friendship is it's such an individual definition. I mean, normally we judge it based on, for example, closeness and companionship. So companionship is just if someone is available and you're able to do fun things with them or they're there when you need them, whereas closeness is more like having someone to talk to and you know, be able to share like your private moments. So if you have a group that you're able to do both of those things with, then I guess you could say about as a friendship group. I ask in part because you have researched, what, the correlation between the size of your friend group and your well-being, right? Yes. So that's what I have been doing now. Because a lot of previous sort of research obviously is really difficult to get out of like a group of adults into like a lab here at Bath or anywhere around the world. So most of our studies like on that comfort friendship are on children where we do know that among children and adolescents having a group of friends in school is very important for your well-being. People tend to feel a higher sense of belonging less lonely and more satisfied with their life. But it's sort of unclear how adults are with this. In my research, we're finding that the size doesn't necessarily matter itself. It's sort of more how you approach it. So like your personality, if you think of like for example, extroverts, extroverts are more likely to feel confident approaching groups. So they're more likely to have high well-being, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they have to be in a group physically. They just have to sort of have the skills to be able to have a group if they wanted one. Do we know how many friends you actually need? Like is there a magic number for how many friends you need to be happy? That's a great question and there's sort of a lot of inconsistency in research about like the quantity of friends. It doesn't seem to predict our well-being as much as quality does. You'll often hear a Dumbass number of like how many social connections humans can actually maintain, which would include equated answers. So that's like up to 150, but very, very close friends. For most people that's only going to be around six, but it doesn't matter whether that's six people in a group or six individuals. And that can also include families. So it's not just your friends that is important. But you could have, you said upwards of a hundred and some acquaintances too, right? How do you determine whether those people are your friends or not? This is a very individual basis of what you ask. I mean, I always ask this question to my friends, like what's the difference between an extremely close friend or close friend and just a friend. And honestly, I would ask everyone out there, just ask your friends that you do have what how you would define those and you'll get very different answers. But definitely most people will say something about having someone that's stable who's always there for them. Like if they were in trouble and needed to bring someone, those are going to be like the really, really close ones. Whereas McQuaintons would be, you know, if you were in their city, but you didn't see them because they were busy, you wouldn't be super disappointed. Whereas a friend, you might be disappointed if you didn't have the time to see them. I mean, that in part speaks to that idea of what the fringe friend, right? Somebody who's maybe not in your immediate circle, but you see them every once in a while and they're, you know them, they're a pal, but they may not be considered to be a close friend or a friend at all. Yes, exactly. That idea of a fringe friend is definitely what I would say that sort of friend is. But that doesn't mean they don't have their purposes. Like sometimes it's nice to catch up with people that you maybe don't see. I mean, I can think of people who I don't see for years on end, but then when I do see them, you know, it's nice. And actually most researchers, just any social connection, whether it's just talking to a stranger or I always use, I think Canadians are the same as Brits, where we say thank you to the bus driver. Like just that interaction itself is actually very good for our wellbeing. Those are the like the loose ties that people talk about to make up something larger than ourselves. Yes, exactly. And I think a lot of, I think just social connections being social connected to the greater humanity. Obviously, people who are very close like friends and family make it really easy to feel that, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't ignore the value of these tiny little interactions that we have every day. You know that feeling when you reach the end of a really good true crime series, you want to know more more about the people involved, where the case is now, and what it's like behind the scenes. I get that. I'm Kathleen Goldhar and on my podcast Crime Story, I speak with the leading storytellers of true crime to dig deeper into the cases we all just can't stop thinking about. Find Crime Story wherever you get your podcasts. You said something interesting earlier though, which is that really when it comes to the numbers of friendships, we can actually maintain in a meaningful way that that caps out in some ways at six. Why is that the case? Why is it difficult to have more friends than that that would be close friends, that would be tight friends, but that you can actually maintain a close relationship with? Is it just about time? Time and maintenance, I would say. I think you see this a lot especially if you move a lot or you change jobs for example these are when we're most at risk like friends sort of drifting and that's because that's sort of how adult life is for a lot of us and when you have these shifts you need to really like up your game and sort of change the way your relationship is you might have to like call more often because if you went from seeing someone at work every day they would also consider a friend to not seeing them at all that's a big issue but obviously as you said time we don't have time to do that for like 50 people like to call every single person so I think just having a small number and a few it's just more manageable for all of us. Sarah McNaughton who we heard from from Fannie Bay in British Columbia was talking about that have a listen to what she said about how she has found navigating friendships as she's gotten older. And I think that's the thing that we crave and miss from school sports teams clubs you're forced to be with that person for a certain amount of hours each week it nurtures that relationship very naturally but in these situations we all have responsibilities we all have to leave so maybe it's like an hour coffee and you maybe just started to get into the good stuff and then you have to leave and then you have to schedule it again. So what have you learned about the work that it takes to maintain those relationships and whether we're interested in putting that work in? There's research by I believe Jeremy Hall in the US where I think it takes 200 hours according to their research to make a best friend. Some people are like 200 hours that's nothing but then when you think about that trying to schedule that across your days even within a year that's a lot of time I think it's not that people aren't necessarily it's not they're not willing to put in the time it's more that there's sort of I think people have possibly too many expectations of what that means. What do you mean? So for example there's research that shows that actually if you ask people which of these would you be more comfortable doing just talking to a stranger or talking to someone that you haven't spoken to in two years more people say they're comfortable talking to a stranger and when we follow up with why is this the case why you're more comfortable approaching a stranger people like I'm just you know I like this person that I used to speak to but like I'm worried that like done suddenly expect that I'll be available all the time that will have to meet up every week and it's like well actually most people are thinking that and most people do require you to suddenly go from like not having spoken to two years to meeting up and having coffee every single day so I think lowering our expectations like of what we think people will expect for us I think that's one way it was sort of producing this barrier to having these connections. What do we know about how men and women approach friendship differently? So men and women can approach friendship very differently I think that's one of the more consistent things that we find women tend to actually have this more one-on-one friendships so even though the concept of girls trips is a thing that's actually not what we find has been the norm it tends to be just sort of one-on-one friendship that's very intimate sharing a lot of detail the coffee dates as it were whereas men their friendship can often just be based on having a shared activity they doesn't have to be as much sort of disclosing information about yourselves and what issues you're having traditionally it would have been sport but now it's sort of more video games has become like a quite male oriented friendship place to have and I have lots of friends who would say that that's actually where most of their friends come from so it's more about the activity they're doing than necessarily getting to know each other but it's interesting as you get older and I say this just personally the way that you think about your friends and what you need from them but also how important it is to yeah to schedule that out to make sure that we're actually going to hang out and be together that seems to change as we get older do you know why that is? I think there's just a lot of shift in what our priorities have come I mean the clip you played earlier obviously when we're in school yes you are that's what an environment that you're forced to be in and so it's easy to see these people but also young people have the most time for their friends then you start to work then a lot of people get family so you actually see like from about early 20s until 30s is the biggest decrease in friends that we'll have in our life then it's sort of platters between like 30s and 40s and then it goes up again like around the 50s if you think about it this is not that surprising because most people are having kids towards the end of their 20s early 30s and most kids are moving out from their family home when they're like 18 to 22 which is when most parents would be in their 50s so it's difficult I mean I experience this as well I mean I don't have a family but just even trying to balance work and social life it's you're constantly being told from different sides just finally we heard in some of those clips people feeling like they're missing out they're not being invited to the dinner party the birthday party or what have you and they feel like because they're not part of a friend group that their life is is lesser in some ways what advice would you give somebody who feels like they're missing out I often say when I'm asked about like how to make more friends and not being invited to things I like to remind people that for example in the workplace we would acknowledge that some of our colleagues have work skills that we don't have but that's not an issue and it's the same with our social lives we all have different social skills some people are the organizers some people are more likely to remember you we actually have a lot of studies that show that if I ask people to list all of their friends a day and a year later a lot of people actually forget to even list their best friend at time one it doesn't mean they're bad people you know so sometimes just reach out to people that you already have in your life try to have that leniency that maybe this person didn't invite you to the Christmas party but maybe they just didn't even think about it or have your own Christmas party and invite them you know I like that have your own party and invite them this is fascinating Phil thank you very much for this no thanks thanks to have a video it was a really good conversation Phil at how it is a friendship researcher and lecture at the University of Bath in the UK how often do you see your friends is it enough and what is the work that you put in to make sure that your friends stay close you can email us the current at cbc.ca for more cbc podcasts go to cbc.ca/podcasts