Why You're Most Popular When You're 29
Getty Images
That's according to a new survey of 1,505 Britons. It found that 29-year-olds have an average of 80 friends, more than the 64 friends that the average person has.
The Independent UK says that being part of multiple networks causes the popularity: You have the buddies you went to school with, as well as friendships that develop in your professional life.
The survey, conducted by a food company called Genius Gluten Free, also found that the at-work friendships are more robust than those that form in school, due to the outsized number of hours people spend at the office and the pressurized professional situations that bring people together.
This is good news for the more awkward among us. Since the 1950s, sociologists have documented that it's hard to make friends as we get older, since we have less contact with the conditions that allow for forming close friendships: "proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other."
The thing about the modern American office, however, is that we have loads of proximity and interactions, but not always the setting that allows for confidences to be exchanged - you're not going to spill the sordid details of your weekend in the middle of your open office, right? That requires a shifting of environments, like, say, to a bar or gym down the street.
And therein lies a cultural difference hidden in this survey. In the U.K., it's common for everybody in the office to head to the pub after work, but less so in the U.S., perhaps limiting the potential of at-work collegiality. So there's a lesson from our friends across the pond: more happy hours.
- Average housing prices up 10% in Jan-Mar across the top eight cities
- Top visa-on-arrival picks for Indian explorers
- 451 million voters! First four phases of Lok Sabha elections witness 66.95% voter turnout so far
- Best hill stations near Delhi to escape May's heatwave
- India to surpass Japan, become world's fourth largest economy worth USD 4 trillion, in FY25: EAC-PM member
- Nothing Phone (2a) blue edition launched
- JNK India IPO allotment date
- JioCinema New Plans
- Realme Narzo 70 Launched
- Apple Let Loose event
- Elon Musk Apology
- RIL cash flows
- Charlie Munger
- Feedbank IPO allotment
- Tata IPO allotment
- Most generous retirement plans
- Broadcom lays off
- Cibil Score vs Cibil Report
- Birla and Bajaj in top Richest
- Nestle Sept 2023 report
- India Equity Market