A 2010 study found that when the average person couples off, she drops two friends. A pair of researchers who studied U.S. national data from 1994 to 2004 found that married couples had fewer familial ties and were less likely than single folk to socialize with neighbors or friends. “Once people get married, they seem to feel relieved of social obligations toward family and friends,” write Jacqueline Olds and Richard Schwartz in The Lonely American. “Cocooning is the couples version of social isolation. It does increase closeness in marriages. It also increases the fragility of marriage, the
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