Hanging out: Americans report fewer friends. Could the cure be simple?

We’re suffering from a “quiet catastrophe.” What if the fix is something we used to do all the time?

The author Sheila Liming, center, flanked by her husband, Dave Haeselin, and a friend. Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Dan Kois. Copy Link Share Share Comment It was time to consider calling it a night. Sheila Liming and I had talked all day—at a taco joint for lunch, and walking around Burlington, Vermont, running errands, and at dinner at a restaurant in a former warehouse. I had no shortage of good quotes for the story I planned to write about Liming and her interesting new book. Now, at 9 p.m., as I hopped my way around frigid puddles in the parking lot, laughing with Liming and her

saved by

• Emily Hu
• Will O'Brien
• Ryan Washburne

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