Actress Addisalem Getaneh Reveals Her Long Kept Secret-Part I

Anyone who has studied friendship or who has ever had a good friend will tell you that friendship is a necessary component in building a successful life. Our sense of self-worth and belonging are increased when we have friends, and having friends may even help us live longer, healthier lives. Relationships that are truly good offer something that other kinds of relationships cannot. In a good friendship, camaraderie and care are freely provided and infused with the idea that each individual gives love because they honestly want to. They provide areas where acceptance feels unconditional and unrestrained by the more formal commitments of family.

But because there is no official relationship, friendships are also particularly prone to breakdown. And during the past three decades, friendship, a bedrock of life that is too often overlooked, has quietly declined in the United States. According to the American Perspectives Survey from the previous year, 12 percent of Americans, up from 3 percent in 1990, believe they don’t have any close friends. Americans who have more close friends typically report higher levels of relationship satisfaction. Nearly half of Americans say they have three or fewer close friends, and the same amount say they are either fairly content or unsatisfied with that number.

Why are our friendships fading from prominence in our lives?
There are numerous causes.
Americans are working longer hours and dedicating more of our time to their careers.
Parenting has drastically changed, taking more of the time and resources of adults and leading to more secluded families.
Some Americans move more frequently as a result of their employment.
Furthermore, the institutions that once served as key hubs for social interaction—such as houses of worship, neighborhood shops, and leisure facilities—are losing importance in our lives. Our society is becoming more and more fragmented as we work, shop, and socialize online, with our phones serving as our main windows to the outside world.
These antisocial trends were only exacerbated by the epidemic, which also strained our relationships.

However, not all of the modifications prompted by the epidemic were detrimental.
Nearly 50% of Americans said they made a new buddy during the outbreak.
Some people used this time to reflect, identify the relationships that are truly important to them, and let go of the ones that weren’t. You never know where a new friend might come from or what they might bring to your life, which is one of the amazing things about friendship.