Friendship at work is not what it used to be: "Instead of spending our careers at one organization, we expect to jump ship every few years. Since we don’t plan to stick around, we don’t invest in the same way. We view co-workers as transitory ties, greeting them with arms-length civility while reserving real camaraderie for outside work."

Work is a place for work, not friendship. 

ONCE, work was a major source of friendships. We took our families to company picnics and invited our colleagues over for dinner. Now, work is a more transactional place. We go to the office to be efficient, not to form bonds. We have plenty of productive conversations but fewer meaningful relationships.

In 1985, about half of Americans said they had a close friend at work; by 2004, this was true for only 30 percent. And in nationally representative surveys of American high school seniors, the proportion who said it was very important to find a job where they could make friends dropped from 54 percent in 1976, to 48 percent in 1991, to 41 percent in 2006