The time we spend with our close friends has plummeted over the past decade. Here is an expert guide to making new connections and reviving old ones
When Jeni Matthewman, 44, recently moved back to rural Devon, she imagined she would have plenty of old friends to reconnect with. However, with a busy schedule as a breath and body therapist, and a husband whose own job took him elsewhere during the week, something slowly began to dawn on her: she no longer had a social life.
“During the week, apart from my work, I wouldn’t see anyone,” she says. “Most of the friends I used to know had moved away or they had kids so we couldn’t meet up the way we used to.” And Matthewman was not a person to make friends casually: she had suffered from social anxiety for most of her life.
