One of the reasons why we tend not to make friends as often as we might comes down to a powerful background idea whose full destructive force we may not even be aware of: the belief that any decent person already has all the friends they need.
Somewhere in our minds, the notion has been lodged that only very sad and inept people would – at this stage in their lives – still have a space in their social agenda for a new entrant. Almost everyone else – anyone worth knowing, talented, interesting or good – would long ago have acquired the gang to which they are now continually and irredeemably wedded.