You can trace a lot, and perhaps most, of what is happening in a culture through the words people choose to cloak their most terrifying and terrible instincts. And there are, right now, few self-chosen labels with worse connotations than "involuntarily celibate" or "incel".

Video: We’re social creatures by nature who rely on one another, so we automatically seek out people to create substantial relationships. But how many friends do you need in your life? And how many can you actually have?

So, you need some help. It's okay, we all need a hand sometimes. Problem is, a lot of us don't know how to go about asking - so we don't. Well, according to a social psychologist, here's the simplest, most effective way to ask for a favour.

This week we have a woman who gets along with men well in a platonic way, but recently introduced a flirty gal pal to the mix. Can she get them to stop flirting with each other? Or does she need to get over it?

Cancelling social plans is the ultimate in self-gratification -- first you got high off the plans, then you got high off the freedom. But sometimes you leave the other person annoyed and betrayed. So whenever you cancel on someone, make sure to immediately make new plans with them, says redditor DevotedlyHopeless in a post on /r/LifeProTips. Here are some more tactics for cancelling without being a flake.

Life throws a lot of unpleasant experiences our way - such as deaths in the family, nasty breakups, or agonising injuries - but a good friend can always help us pull through. This trick will remind you to be a good friend long after the initial shock of a traumatic event has faded away.

If you're not careful, your well-meaning condolences can make you sound like a total arse. The trick to offering your sincere sympathy to the bereaved is knowing what to avoid while you show your support. These are the seven big no-no's.

This week we have a man with a female best friend, but his girlfriend is getting jealous.

You probably know that adding people to your inner circle takes time, but how much time it actually takes to go from strangers to buddies has been somewhat of a mystery -- until now. A new study suggests you need to spend at least 90 hours with someone before they consider you a real friend.

Meeting new people and making good friends gets harder as you get older. You get less adventurous, fall into comfortable routines with significant others, and you don't have school to force you to interact with different groups of people any more. But if you have at least one friend, you do have an easy option for finding some fresh faces to spend time with.

Some people have problems that require delicate advice from a qualified professional. Others just need a random a guy on the internet to kick 'em in the teeth with their blunt honesty. I'm the latter. Welcome back to Tough Love.

Friends make you happy and healthy, and they will be there for you when the rain starts to pour. But how many of them do you need? Turns out the show Friends had the science all figured out.

When you're in high school and university, you make a few friends pretty much every day. However, once you graduate, cultivating new friendships, or even meeting people you might want to potentially be friends with, gets a little more difficult. Now there's an app for that called Patook.

The first important decision a married couple makes is ... how to get married. Black tie at the Ritz? Clambake at the shore? Backyard potluck? Research shows you might be better off with a cheap - but well-attended - wedding. Scott Stanley and Galena K. Rhoades, professors and researchers for the Institute of Family Studies, report that while the cost of weddings has been rising, the number of guests has been falling.

You have problems, I have advice. This advice isn't sugar-coated - in fact, it's sugar-free, and may even be a little bitter. Welcome to Tough Love.

A few years ago an ex-boyfriend of mine got married. Our breakup was amicable and we both stayed friends with a lot of the same people. That meant when it came time for his wedding weekend, my Facebook feed was flooded with pictures of his rehearsal dinner, wedding and reception. Yes, I was happy for him, but not happy enough I wanted to see (literally) a thousand pictures of the festive event I wasn't a part of.

One of the most entertaining aspects of a game console is the ability to play with friends. Unfortunately, some major game companies make it difficult to find and add friends to your list of potential multiplayer buddies. If you're using Nintendo's Switch to interact with your gaming brethren, here's how to get your pals onto your friends list, and deal with Nintendo's dreaded "Friend Code" system.

Have you ever had a moment of connection with a stranger? I'm not talking about a romantic or sexual connection (though those are nice too), but more of a quick smile as you pass on the street, or a one-off joke shared while waiting in the grocery-store line, or some other brief, shared experience that made you feel that stranger was actually special and could have, in other circumstances, been a friend? I love those moments, which are few and far between, because they make me feel like the universe of potential friends is bigger than I'd thought. I've always wondered why those moments happen - why they happen with one person and not another, or at one time and not another.

You talked about your plans with your friends face to face, you made a Facebook event page and invited them - but people still seem to flake out on you. What gives? Well, you're still not making it easy enough for them.