I write about the friendship recession, the collapse of social connection that is reshaping our society. Inspired by Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone and the documentary Join or Die, I explore how we went from bowling leagues to bowling alone, how card playing has become practically extinct, and how active involvement in community organizations fell by 45 percent between 1985 and 1994. The numbers are hard to ignore: joining just one group cuts your risk of dying over the next year in half, and social isolation is as lethal as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The prescription is deceptively simple: join a club, any club. If there is nothing to join, create one. These posts are my attempt to understand, and reverse, the quiet unraveling of American civic life.