Make Friendships
Did you know the average American reports having only one true friend? Alia McKee and Tim Walker want to change that. They’re a couple of Gen-Xers who recognized the sweeping implications of the mid-life friend slump. They decided to launch a lifeboat.
Lifeboat is not a social network or an app. (Thank God.) It’s a movement backed by research into the art and science of friendships. They have a snazzy website, friend blog and a cool infographic to help charge you up in your quest for deeper, closer friendships. In addition to academic research, the path they’re building also includes philosophy and expert advice.
Generation X Friend Crisis
According to Lifeboat’s State of Friendship in America Report, Gen-Xers are more dissatisfied with the state of their friendships than any other generation. Only 18 percent of Gen-Xers report being “extremely satisfied.” On Tuesday, HuffPo Live will feature a live segment about Lifeboat, Got Friends? The 2013 Friendship Crisis.
Not A Site for Friendship
I think this is one of the best program launches I’ve seen in recent years. This website is so fantastic, even the single sentence in their footer is awesome. I’m not going to tell you what it says. You need to visit the site to find out for yourself.
Also, when you sign up to become an insider as I have done, you’ll get links to some cool stuff: a get-started guide, a manifesto, and a friend song. Yes, a friend song.
In the past, something like this might have attracted the snark and ire of Gen-Xers, but somehow, Lifeboat motors past all that. We don’t have to be cynical about a site or a project that encourages us to examine such an embarrassing truth about our lives: Most of us have no real friends, and if we do, we only have one.
Proverb: A man of too many friends comes to ruin,
But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
As someone who has one (in-person) girlfriend, I totally relate! What a marvelous movement! Heading to check it out now!
Thanks, Jen, for sharing Lifeboat with your readers. “Where have all the friends gone?” is a great way to summarize the report and the work we’re doing trying to call attention to these crazy relationships we call friends.