How to be smarter and happier? Broaden your friendship group | Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff

Many of us gravitate towards people who are similar to us. But as I recently discovered, there is delight to be found in our differences

In the UK, it's quite rare to have a truly diverse group of friends. In 2018, a YouGov study found that one-third of white Britons didn't have any friends from an ethnic minority background, while other research has suggested that people, including children, tend to gravitate towards those who have the same class background.

I've always prided myself on having a diverse array of friends, but recently I too realised that my circle was overdue a shake-up. As the number of people I talk to continually shrinks - as most people's friendship circles do as they age - I've recognised some repeated patterns. My friends in the UK are mostly middle class (although plenty of us had working-class upbringings), earning a decent wage, and a mixture of ethnicities, but few are first-generation immigrants. Many of our experiences are shared and enough are delightfully different- but we are all coddled by having grown up in one of the world's richest countries.