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Why Friendships Feel So Much Harder in Your 30s, According to Experts

Experts say adult loneliness often has less to do with how many friends you have and more to do with whether those friendships feel close, consistent, and honest.

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At some point in your 30s, you look up and realize the friend situation has gotten…complicated. Not bad, necessarily, just different. The group chats are active, the Instagram followers are plentiful, and yet something feels “emptier” than it used to.

That disconnect has a name and supporting data to help explain it. About 1 in 3 U.S. adults report feeling lonely, according to the CDC, and a separate Newsweek survey found nearly 1 in 3 readers identified friendships as the hardest relationship to navigate right now. A Bumble survey found that while 60% of adults want to find new friends, 52% hadn’t made a single new one in the past year. The numbers suggest a collective problem, not a personal failing.

Psychiatrist and relationship expert Dr. Laura Dabney told Newsweek that........

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