12 Science-Backed Ways To Make Friends

Okay, you caught us. We at Cracked are losers who have no friends and decided to research how to get some of those on company time. But can you blame us? After all, friendships are incredibly important for our health and quality of life, but it can be incredibly challenging to make new friends once you're out of school. And let's not forget a certain pandemic made friendship maintenance even more difficult these past few years. 

We previously collected 18 Tips To Make Friends As An Adult but this time we're turning to the experts. No, not Jessica H., the most popular girl in our grade, but nerdy scientists who spent months obsessively researching how to make friends. Researchers have done many studies on how to best form bonds with strangers and, hey, we at Cracked believe in peer-reviewed research, so we thought we'd gather them up, and maybe you, our dear reader, could benefit from them as well.