The women, from what she can tell, are like her: in their 20s, one grew up in a town near San Jose where Sarah is from, they all work in tech, and well, They just look, I dont know, like people I could be friends with, she says.

Shes got a plan to befriend them: sit next to them, be friendly, chill, engage in some small talk, maybe grab a drink afterward at the bar nearby.

Im such a weirdo but you definitely plan it.

Sarahs in the market for new friends, which can be a daunting and stressful endeavor. Shes got going out friends and some work friends shes close with, but those are all situational. There are barriers in those relationships that keep her from getting too close or intimate in the way shes looking for.

It wasnt like this for Sarah before the pandemic. She was close friends with her roommates, but theyve since moved away. Sarah now lives alone and struggles to find people who are willing to simply hang out. It seems like anything has to be scheduled weeks in advance. 

Before COVID I feel like the depth of friendships more so matched my expectations, she says. People were just so much more open to getting drinks after work, or like doing something really informal, but now I feel like things have to be so planned.

That could be a factor of getting older and people having more responsibilities and working more, but I didnt really ever feel like that before the pandemic.

Sarahs started talking openly about these struggles on TikTokshe used to be too embarrassedwith thousands commenting and virtually nodding along in agreement.

Shes not aloneour relationships with our friends, acquaintances, and the people we work with feel different now. For somewhere between two years and a lifetime, we donned masks and were encouraged to stay at least six feet apart. Crowds meant risk, and they often came with a spelunk up the nose. And while we all were willing to connect via Zoom, it long ago lost its novelty. 

Its not all that surprising that a notification from nascent French social media app BeReal just reveals most everyone at home on their couch or in front of a screen. FOMO? Never heard of her. No one goes anywhere anymore, and were prone to spend less time with people. How did we think our friendships would survive? 

Roughly half of Americans lost touch with a friend during the pandemic, according to the Survey Center on American Life. And young women, who tend to form deeper connections with friends and rely on those relationships more, suffered more acutely: Nearly 60% reported having lost touch with at least a few friends, and 16% said theyre no longer in regular contact with most of their friends.

As people take stock of whats changed in their lives following a years-long pandemic that kept people apart and fundamentally changed how we socialize, the friendships we have left simply dont seem to be cutting it anymore.

Work used to be our playground

Theres not really a blueprint for making friends. When youre a kid, if you throw a basketball at the face of another kid you dont really know and give him a bloody nose, you can still become best friends (true story). Your earliest friendships are typically the result of proximity and convenience: the kid who lives down the street, the kid in your class, the kid whose parents are friends with your parents.

But making friends as an adult has always been more difficultthe internet is littered with advice columns and articles musing on why its so hard.

That only intensified during the pandemic.

Historically, many people have made their closest friends early in their careers (This was true of my parents, who met and married in the office). Work, for many, is just an evolution of the social network: from the playground to the high school cafeteria to college quads and on to office cubicles. We make friends in the spaces where we spend the most time.

The average person spends more than 81,000 hours at work in their lifetimenearly a decadeaccording to Gallup CEO John Clifton, and were more likely to make friends at work than any other way. 

Of course, for better or worse, work hasnt been the same since March 2020. You may have heard, but people arent really in the office like they used to be. Office occupancy only recently inched above 50%, according to Kastle Systems. And even when youre in-person, so many of our interactions are still virtual. In his research, behavioral scientist and University of Michigan professor Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks has been asking why people leave Zoom meetings and interactions feeling empty.

Technology gives us the illusion that we were face-to-face, but were really not, he tells Fortune. Im a huge proponent of treating people in the workplace like full complex humans and not little worker bees, but we may have forgotten that at work there are actually genuine human interactions that take place.

These people dont have to become your friends, but we need that interaction, he says.

The friendship epidemic

The evolution of how we work is only one factor negatively impacting our friendships. The pandemic is another. But, as with so many things, the stress of the last few years only highlighted the cracks in institutional and social systems that were already there. 

There was a hope that youd come out of the pandemic, and wed be able to simply connect again, then it was just kind of a let down, Sanchez-Burks says. There are people who are ever changed by the pandemic and that might not be consistent with the connections they had before.

The degradation of the quality of peoples friendships and connections, however, has been happening for decades, according to the Survey Center on American Life. Mens social circles, specifically, have been on the decline for some 30 years.

We have fewer close friends than ever, are talking to fewer friends than ever, and we rely less on our friends than ever for support. As a result, were on the verge of another very real public health crisis: loneliness.

Many of us innately have a deep understanding of what were missing out on when we only have surface friends. Scroll through TikTok and youll stumble through a litter of bereft young women who wonder why their friendships arent living up to the Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, Charlotte ideal.

In August 2022, Haly (pronounced Halle, as in Berry) posted a TikTok speaking directly to camera while sitting in her car in Cambridge, Ottawa. In the video, which has been viewed 1.7 million times, she talks about not having a solid group of friends, despite having three disparate best friends, and the loneliness she feels since theyve moved away or started to move on with their lives.

I think that no one really talks much about how difficult it can be to be in your 20s as a woman and to not have a group of female friends, Haly says in the nearly three-minute TikTok that ends with her in tears. I just feel incredibly alone and for a while its been really hard not to have quick access to friends to lean on it just feels very isolating.

She acknowledges she could likely call her friends at any time and they would listen and support her, but its just not the same, Haly says. I would love to find some new girlfriends.

Shes since come to terms with the connections and friendships she has, Haly tells Fortune. As someone who had never been used to being alone, and had just gotten out of a serious relationship, she says she forced herself to be comfortable being by herself.

The friend request

Many of us are longing for friendships of a seemingly bygone era. Why, if we have people in our lives we consider friends, do we feel like were lacking in meaningful connections? Why is there an overwhelming sense of loneliness?

I think [Mark] Zuckerberg ruined the word friend,' Sanchez-Burks says. Its just a button you click on a screen. What does it even mean anymore? Really its about what kind of interactions do we have and are they immensely human? Peoples assessments of their lives is that theyre lacking these higher quality interactions.

Our friendships, how we interact, and the quality of our connections has been chipped away at since the permeation of social media and our increasingly virtual world. The way these apps make people feel more connected while also putting up pixelated barriers to real connections, is well documentedand debatedat this point.

It may be no coincidence that the general decline of connectedness mirrors the rise of the internet and social media. In a 1990 Gallup poll, 75% of respondents reported having a best friend. Fast forward to 2021, and 59% of people surveyed by the Survey Center on American Life said they have a best friend.

I used to feel kind of embarrassed I didnt like talking about this stuff, Sarah from San Francisco says. But as Ive posted more videos on TikTok and been fed videos about this, its definitely more universal than I thought, which weirdly makes you feel better because it doesnt feel like youre the only one experiencing it.

I read this quote that was about how intimacy forms when you have unfiltered or untimed time with a person, she continues. It doesnt happen just over a 7 p.m. dinner or like going to happy hour. Its really like when you spend an unset amount of time with somebody and then those moments happen Im looking for those deeper connections more.

She did chat up one of the young women in her class, by the way. The drinks didnt happen, but they know some of the same people already, she says, So I think were bridging the gap. Its a process, shell try again next week, and in the pottery class she recently signed up for, too.

Dan Buettner, a National Geographic fellow, founder of Blue Zones LLC, and author of The Blue Zones American Kitchen: 100 Recipes to Live to 100, has studied the daily habits of those who live in blue zones where people live about a decade longer than the average (think, Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; and Ikaria, Greece). 

After collecting his research and distilling some of the lessons of the blue zones to his book, Buettner says the advice can be applied to your weekly grocery runand its easier than you may think. 

Bottom line: put your whole-food plant based glasses on and walk through your grocery store, Buettner tells Fortune. 

With this basic principle in mind, focus on ingredients you find tasty. 

Find the ingredients you love, and if you can learn how to combine them to make something delicious, youre on your way to eating to 100, he says. 

Here are the five foods Buettner says represent the blue zone way of life: 

Beans 

Beans uniquely offer a mix of protein and fiber, beneficial for muscle building and maintaining a steady blood sugar. They also contain folate and magnesium, crucial for cell growth and muscle growth respectively. The majority of Americans do not get enough fiber in their diet, and Buettner points to the microbiomes dependence on fiber to function properly. A cup of beans provides about half of your daily fiber recommendation.

You can find beans for less than $2 a pound, he says, making them an accessible addition to any diet. 

In his book, Buettner recommends eating beans every day, writing they reign supreme in the blue zones and are the cornerstone of every longevity diet in the world. 

Nuts

Eat a handful of nuts a day, Buettner says, whether they are almonds, pistachios, walnuts or cashews, to name a few. They contain protein and fiber and can reduce the risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, and inflammation. 

Whole fruits and leafy greens

One key to eating like you live in a blue zone is eating a variety of whole fruits and vegetables every day, specifically adding in leafy greens, which are filled with vitamins.

People in the blue zones eat an impressive variety of garden vegetables and leafy greens (especially spinach, kale, beet and turnip tops, chard, and collards) when they are in season; they pickle or dry the surplus to enjoy during the off-season, Buettner writes in his book.

Maintaining lasting changes to diet only works if people stick with their habits. And youre more likely to maintain a habit if you enjoy it. Regularly seeking out your favorite vegetable and fruit during your grocery run can take the stress out of purchasing things you arent excited about. 

Sweet potatoes 

Sweet potatoes contain complex carbohydrates and protein, not to mention they are cheap and accessible, Buettner says. They are packed with vitamins crucial for strengthening the gut microbiome, which helps with digestion and strengthens the immune system. 

Turmeric 

Turmeric, a common ingredient found in curries, is a major anti-inflammatory spice, and has been used to treat digestive issues, liver problems, and wounds. 

And turmeric impacts the hippocampus, which is a part of the brain that helps regulate stress hormones, Dr. Uma Naidoo, a Harvard-trained nutritional psychiatrist and author of This Is Your Brain on Food, previously told Fortune. It can help prevent chronic stress which can lead to heart problems.

Consider adding the spice to your next cup of tea. 

Buttner hopes people see that eating in a way that promotes health and longevity is not out of reach. 

People tend to think [of] the expensive super foods, or even expensive fresh produce, which is out of reach for a lot of Americans, he says. In a blue zone, people are eating peasant food, so theyre eating the beans and the greens that are growing in vacant lots and whole grains, which are cheap. You can buy those in bulk.

Learn how to navigate and strengthen trust in your business with The Trust Factor, a weekly newsletter examining what leaders need to succeed. Sign up here.

The unions said that 13,650 out of 14,263 members who voted on the contract on Friday rejected the proposal from Disney, sending negotiators back to the bargaining table for another round of talks that have been ongoing since August. The contract covers around 45,000 service workers at the Disney theme park resort outside Orlando.

Disney World service workers who are in the six unions that make up the Service Trades Council Union coalition had been demanding a starting minimum wage jump to at least $18 an hour in the first year of the contract, up from the starting minimum wage of $15 an hour won in the previous contract.

The proposal rejected on Friday would have raised the starting minimum wage to $20 an hour for all service workers by the last year of the five-year contract, an increase of $1 each year for a majority of the workers it covered. Certain positions, like housekeepers, bus drivers and culinary jobs, would start immediately at a minimum of $20 under the proposal.

Housekeepers work extremely hard to bring the magic to Disney, but we cant pay our bills with magic, said Vilane Raphael, who works as a housekeeper at the Disney Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa.

The company said that the proposal had offered a quarter of those covered by the contract an hourly wage of $20 in its first year, eight weeks of paid time off for a new child, maintenance of a pension and the introduction of a 401K plan.

Our strong offer provides more than 30,000 Cast Members a nearly 10% on average raise immediately, as well as retroactive increased pay in their paychecks, and we are disappointed that those increases are now delayed, Disney spokesperson Andrea Finger said in a statement.

The contract stalemate comes as the Florida Legislature is prepared to convene next week to complete a state takeover of Disney Worlds self-governing district. With the support of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the GOP-controlled Statehouse last April approved legislation to dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District by June 2023, beginning a closely watched process that would determine the structure of government that controls Disney Worlds sprawling property.

The contract with the service workers covers the costumed character performers who perform as Mickey Mouse, bus drivers, culinary workers, lifeguards, theatrical workers and hotel housekeepers, representing more than half of the 70,000-plus workforce at Disney World. The contract approved five years ago made Disney the first major employer in central Florida to agree to a minimum hourly wage of $15, setting the trend for other workers in the hospitality industry-heavy region.

A report commissioned last year by one of the unions in the coalition, Unite Here Local 737, said that an adult worker with no dependents would need to earn $18.19 an hour to make a living wage in central Florida, while a family with two children would need both parents earning $23.91 an hour for a living wage.

While a wage of $15 an hour was enough for the last contract, with skyrocketing rent, food, and gas prices in the last three years, its no longer possible to survive with those wages, the report said.

Before the pandemic, workers with families in the $15 to $16.50 an hour wage bracket could pay their bills. But with inflation causing the price of food and gas to shoot up, an employee earning $15 an hour full time currently makes $530 less than the worker would need to pay for rent, food and gas each month, the report said.

Last month, food service and concessions workers at the Orange County Convention Center voted to approve a contract that will increase all nontipped workers wages to $18 an hour by August, making them the first hospitality workers in Orlando to reach that pay rate.

Learn how to navigate and strengthen trust in your business with The Trust Factor, a weekly newsletter examining what leaders need to succeed. Sign up here.