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Why Men and Women Stop Being Friends in Adulthood, According to a Psychologist

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20.07.2026

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Why Men and Women Stop Being Friends in Adulthood, According to a Psychologist

Experts say cross-gender friendships often fade as relationships, attraction, and adult life make them harder to maintain.

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Men are losing friends at a rate that should alarm everyone, and one of the least discussed reasons is that they stopped being friends with women.

The numbers on male friendship have been bad for a while and keep getting worse. A 2024 Pew Research Center survey found one in five American adults has no close friends, double the rate from the early 1990s — among men under 30, it’s one in four. The American Perspectives Survey found the share of men with six or more close friends fell from 55% to 27% over roughly the same window. Women’s numbers dropped too, but by........

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