Rebecca Rose’s life mission is to help people’s friendships grow.
“There’s such a need for guidance [for] making friends nowadays,” she said.
When she moved to Kelowna, B.C., from Red Deer, Alta., six years ago, Rose struggled to make friends. So, she formed a Facebook chat with a few women that ultimately grew into a Facebook group with thousands of members.
That experience inspired her to start her own friendship coaching business, Blooming Friendships, that helps women form lasting friendships.
In addition to coaching individuals on how to make friends, the company hosts large events and runs “best friend group matches,” which bring women together based on shared interests.
Her business is still new, but interest is strong.
“I foresee this to be something that grows and impacts a lot of lives,” she said.
Recent data from Statistics Canada confirms her instincts: Canadians are starved for time with friends — and more stressed for time in general. Researchers say broader social forces are shaping these trends, and that friendship is part of the solution.
‘Greatest satisfaction’
According to Statistics Canada’s data, only 20 per cent of Canadians reported seeing friends during an average day in 2022.
This number has decreased steadily over the years. In 2015, 27 per cent of Canadians said they saw friends on a typical day. In 1986, nearly half did.
At the same time, more Canadians report feeling pressed for time. In 2022, 24 per cent of Canadians reported feeling pressed for time, up from 15 per cent in 1992.
Bryan Smale, director of the Canadian Index of Wellbeing, has seen these same trends in his own research.
People often think the environment, health and high standards of living are the biggest indicators of well-being, says Smale, who is a professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo. But his research has shown this is not completely true.
Individual well-being is most impacted by how connected people feel to those around them, how they spend their spare time and their work-life balance, he says.
“We get our greatest satisfaction from our interactions with others, whether it be within our family, with our friends, or just our interactions with others in the community,” said Smale.
Good-paying jobs and living in good neighbourhoods are also important, he acknowledges.
“But if we can move the needle on things like time use, leisure, culture, community vitality, it has a greater impact on people’s well-being than increasing their income.”
Precarious jobs
For many people, moving that needle is a challenge.
Family responsibilities can make it hard for people to have time for friends, says Smale.
Many Canadians are working full time while caring for sick relatives or friends. Some research says almost half of unpaid caregivers also have jobs.
At the same time, parents are reporting high levels of stress, in part because societal expectations of what parents should do for their children have increased.
It makes sense that people who feel crunched for time would see their friends less, says Laura Eramian, a social anthropologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax who studies friendship.
Friendship is voluntary, she notes, typically requiring fewer obligations than most other relationships.
“It’s the very qualities that make friendship appealing to people that also make it easiest to drop,” said Eramian.
Women consistently report feeling more pressed for time than men, Statistics Canada data show. They are also more likely to give up work to care for children, and to reduce their leisure time, says Smale.
‘More precarious’
Work hours and workplace responsibilities can also limit people’s ability to carve out leisure time.
The 2008 financial crisis “really changed the circumstances of people’s work,” said Smale, whose research on well-being regularly includes questions about the flexibility of individuals’ work schedules.
Part-time jobs with fewer benefits and less regular hours became more common after 2008, he says. “Jobs became more precarious.”
Nearly 30 per cent of Canadians are now involved in some form of gig work, according to 2024 research by tax filing firm H&R Block.
This increase of people “cobbling together” multiple jobs leads to an increase in time pressure, Smale says.
If people do not have regular or predictable work hours, it can be difficult for them to schedule time with friends, says Eramian.
“It’s not really a helpful question to ask individuals to try to figure out: ‘How am I going to make more time for friends?’,” she said. “We have to think about the way our world is set up.”
‘Hermits’
Rose, of Blooming Friendships, says the pandemic made it easier for people to “hermit” and binge TV shows alone.
“We’re not used to socializing as much,” she said. “We just kind of got out of the habit.”
While video calls took off as a way of connecting during the pandemic, these online interactions are “wholly unsatisfying” to meet people’s social needs, Smale says.
In his view, people need to prioritize meeting with others in-person for leisure activities. Relationships are stronger when people meet in-person, he says.
“If we lose spending time with others [whom] we feel [are] particularly important, it has a detrimental effect on our well-being,” Smale said.
“Feeling that there’s help available in case of need or belonging to the community are some of the most powerful indicators of our well-being,” he added.
Many leisure activities, like book clubs or sports teams, take place in groups. Those group interactions are key to developing strong relationships, says Smale. “[Group activities] reinforce social interactions in a myriad of different ways, and that’s why people’s leisure time is so critically important,” he said.
But Eramian notes that people also need spaces where they can easily socialize. Not everyone can invite someone to their home, or afford to meet at restaurants.
People cannot just increase time with their friends by changing their habits, she says. “These are questions about what makes time spent with friends accessible or inaccessible to people,” she said.
But Smale notes that leisure activities can often occur in places designated purposefully for leisure activities, like parks or sports facilities.
“Those leisure places are critically important to building and fostering those kinds of social connections with people that matter.”
In Kelowna, Rose sees results from her friendship coaching. Her first “best friend group match” — a group of six women — continues to meet in-person and has made a list of summer activities to do together.
“At the end of the day, [friendships need] mutual interest and mutual effort,” she said. “It can’t be a one-sided friendship.”
Her goal, she says, is for women to have meaningful friendships — not necessarily many friendships.
“Often what we really need is just a few deep friendships in our life to really add value to our world.”
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