It seems to me that this article is predicated on his friends not reaching out to him, leaving him to have to beg them to do things. Whilst it's true that some

It seems to me that this article is predicated on his friends not reaching out to him, leaving him to have to beg them to do things. Whilst it's true that some people might be less keen to hang out with their friends if all they ever do is moan about something, however I suspect with people who were previously good friends there's probably something else at play. A less cynical view is that his friends probably don't know what they can do. If e.g. his mother is dying, they know he's going to be busy. I suspect a lot of people will deliberately be not trying to invite people out to do something all the time because they don't want to be a nuisance, all the more if they know there's a lot of stuff going on in their lives already. Additionally, most people are just really busy worrying about their own lives, and while they would probably give up time to support you if you asked, if you're not asking, they're probably going to look after their wife / kids / job / whatever else it is that they don't have enough time for. It's very easy to forget about what your friends are going through for days, week or even months at a time, if you're busy all the time and your friends aren't initiating conversations with you either. A final observation is that friendship is rarely reciprocated the same way between individuals, rather you might be the person one friend goes to for relationship advice, but you might always ask someone else. There'll be a different person who asks you about work advice, and who you ask, etc... Things will generally balance out over all your friends over your lifetime, but for any given friendship, it's unlikely to be equal at any point, let alone at the point you're most in need. At that time, you'll find out "who your friends are", but in most cases you probably won't be the rock those friends need in a different situation, and they'll rely on someone else.