Why you're most popular at age 29

If you're 29, savour this orbit around the sun - because it's the most popular you'll ever be. That's according to a new survey of 1,505 Britons. It found that 29-year-olds have an average of 80 friends, more than the 64 friends that the average person has.

The Independent UK says that being part of multiple networks results in popularity: You have the buddies you went to school with, as well as friendships that develop in your professional life.

The survey also found that the at-work friendships are more robust than those that form in school, due to the outsized number of hours people spend at the office. This is good news for the more awkward among us.

Since the 1950s, sociologists have documented that it's hard to make friends as we get older, since we have less contact with the conditions that allow for forming close friendships: "proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down."

The thing about the modern office, however, is that we have loads of proximity and interactions, but you're not going to spill the sordid details of your weekend in your open office, right? That requires a shifting of environments, like, say, to a bar or gym down the street. And therein lies a cultural difference.

In the UK, it's common for everybody to head to the pub after work, but less so in other countries, perhaps limiting the potential of at-work collegiality. So there's a lesson here: more happy hours.