After the age of 25， the number of friendships we maintain begins to fall. 【小题1】

Learn to identify opportunities.

“We let chances to make friends pass us by every day，” says Kate Leaver in her book The Friendship Cure.  【小题2】“Instead of forcing a little small talk with your kind neighbours，” she says， “ask them in for a cuppa and get to know them. ” 

 【小题3】

Joining a group， club or class is an effective way to meet people. “Teaming up for a shared activity，project or goal is an experience that can promote bonding and closer connections，” says therapist Miriam Kirmayer. Pursue a challenge or skill you are interested in， because then you will have a good time and feel more at ease in starting a conversation.

Allow yourself to be vulnerable（脆弱的）.

 【小题4】 What if your offers are rejected? Leaver and Kirmayer say that a degree of vulnerability is needed in trying to start friendships. Keeping to yourself isn’t going to help you. Sharing recommendations or letting others in on plans， says Kirmayer， is a simple way to share， which will help build closeness and trust.

Don't put too much pressure on it.

As we age， our friendships change. According to a 2016 study， we hit our peak number of friendships at the age of 25. 【小题5】 clinical psychologist Linda Blair advises not putting too much pressure on any new connections and not expecting too much from one person.

   Once again, Myra sat alone on the bus. Even after two weeks at her _______ school, Myra had not made any friends. A t the break time between classes, she played alone. In her _______ class, she drew alone. In the lunchroom, she ate _______.And on the bus ride home, she sat alone.

Myra could not _______why no one wanted to be her friend. Other kids joked and laughed with each other._______. none of them joked and laughed with her. Just thinking about it made her _______ hurt.

One day, _______Myra sat alone on the way to school, she looked at the seat _______her. She saw a girl sitting all by herself. The girl looked _______, too.

Myra wondered if she should say ________. But what if the girl didn't want to be her friend？Maybe she already had a lot of friends. What if the girl ________her？What if she laughed at her？Myra stared at the floor of the bus. Finally, she took a deep ________and smiled at the girl. The girl smiled ________.Myra said, "Hi, I'm Myra. Do you want to sit next to me？"

The girl's smile ________ "I'm Nadia. Yes, 'd like to sit next to you." At the next stop, Nadia ________ into the seat next to Myra. They joked and laughed the whole way to school. At ________Myra and Nadia played together. In the lunchroom, they ate together.

And on the ________ride home, they sat together.

When it was time for Myra to get off the bus, she ________ to her new friend, "Bye, Nadia！I'll see you tomorrow！"Nadia smiled, "Goodbye, Myra. I'll ________ a seat for you."

A big smile spread across Myra's face. She had made a friend. A friend who was going to save her a seat tomorrow. She could ________wait.

When I was at school, I have a nice classmate named Jenny , which was the first foreigner I had ever met. She was friendly and very pretty. She was good at three language ,although she was very young. It was interested that her father was a French while her mother came from England. All of them were teaching at a university at that time. She was crazy about collect stamps ,listening to pop music, as well as playing the football. Her dream was to be an engineer, so she usually studied hard achieve it. She often told fun stories with English to make us laugh. And it was clear that we all liked her short after that.

   I am a social worker. I wanted to tell everyone about my very dear friend who passed away a few months ago. I met him many years ago while doing my internship（实习期的工作）in the county prison. He was _____ a program he had designed to help prisoners with drug and alcohol problems. He was always _____ new ways to bring hope and help to these men and their _____. One of his favorite _____ was the Toy Drive he would run every Christmas for the children of the prisoners. He did this for twenty years _____ his sudden death. As the Christmas _____ ，I decided that this tradition had to be _____，for the children as well as in _____ of my friend.

But the file where he kept the names of the people who had helped him over the years had gone _____. I had to start anew（重新）and with very little ______ ！I started making phone calls，explaining the project and my ____ . I prayed every night that the event would，______，be worthy of my friend. To my great ______，individuals，organizations and businesses began to come on board and，______，I had enough toys to give to all the children of the prisoners with some left over for the local community ______！

When Christmas Eve finally arrived，I felt very happy，thinking I had done all I could do and reflecting（认真思考）on what a（n）______ it had been for me. I was bagging up the remaining toys ______ if there was anyone left who might like them. Then my phone rang.

It was my daughter. She ______ to explain about a woman she knew in Kentucky who had five children，one seriously ill，no husband，no heating in the home，no toys！Ohh—how could we not help her？

My daughter and I drove all night，from New York to Kentucky，and those children woke up in a nice warm house with plenty of ______！My friend's ______ of kindness lived on that year，reaching all the way to Kentucky！

   Old friends They finish your sentences, and they tell you the truth when you've had a bad haircut. ____ mostly, they are always there for you-whether it's in person or late-night phone calls-in good times and _____. But as the years pass, it becomes increasingly _____ to see each other, to make new memories. ___, my high school friends and I promised to have reunions.

A few months ago, we met up for a two-day _____ in the American Southwest. We grew up together in Maine and have said for years that we should have a（n）_____ event, yet it was often put off or _____ due to schedule conflicts（冲突）. Not this year.

The weekend _____ long talks by the pool, wonderful meals, and a hike that brought the entire group to _____. Not tears of sadness or anger, but a close tie with such physical ______ between us. It's heartbreaking that we can't spend our days together in the same neighborhood. But that's ______. Grown-up life.

The most ______ is the group's adaptability to one another. The time we ______ apart is non-existent. No need to get reacquainted, we jump back in the saddle（车座）and it's as comfortable as ever. Old friends—friends with an ever-present ______ of support and sisterhood, friends that know each other-are hard to come by and yet we ______ today as we were years ago, laughing in the back row of Mr. McKechnie's 9th grade math class.

Life today,______, has no math class. Our world is full of ______, full of fear. Yet it ______ me— now, more than ever—how important it is that we stay ______. We may have questions about our future, but we have true faith in our past, and though this reunion of friends has come to a close, we are already ______ our plans for the next one.