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I have many friends and many who hold different opinions than me on fundamental topics like war, love, education, and money. For better or for worse, I’m usually not one to get into contentious conversations on such subjects, not due to indifference but rather because I feel that everyone is entitled to their views as long as they are not harmful.

Can I be friends with someone who has different views than me? Personally, it depends on the closeness of the friendship. I would want to feel accepted by a close friend for thinking a certain way and have the opportunity to express my thoughts. However, I typically feel a greater sense of security when the people closest to me support my line of thinking.

This is what Steve Joordens Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto has to say.

It depends on what it is. If your friend says Rihanna is the best singer in the world and you disagree then no big deal. But on some of the sociopolitical issues that we run into like whether vaccines are a good idea or not, there is often a lot of emotionality invested in positions. 

I’ve run into this in a couple of places—within my family and with a police officer who is a friend and we had very different positions on vaccine mandates. So, we asked ourselves, “How important is our friendship? Is it more important than the issues? Are we going to fight about this every time or are we going to find a way around it?” 

What I recommend is finding common ground but also to explicitly tell the person, “Hey, we know we’re on different sides of this issue and we know that if we go down that road, it’s just going to lead to a whole bunch of angst and anxiety. I value our friendship a lot, could we try something like sticking to common ground because there are many things that we agree on? Let’s stay on that ground when we’re with each other and if either one of us feels the other one leaving that common ground, we can say, ‘ah, ah, ah.’”

Get away from those issues. It works but it needs to be explicit. You need to have that discussion ahead of time and communicate to that person that you don’t want to lose them as a friend. Say, “This issue is not important enough to me to lose you as a friend.” 

One other thing I’ll add is that when you’re family is gathering and you know there are family members who have different views, what I suggest to people is before that gathering acknowledge that they have different views on certain topics but they have one thing in common, they all love their mom. The last thing their mom wants to see is her children fighting or bickering over something. 

Once we establish a common ground, it helps heal some of the wounds that are there.

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• The Art of Friendship: How to Navigate Your Differences

• How to Avoid Losing Friends Over Politics

• Why It Makes Sense to Make Friends with People Who Are Different from You

Hey friend, 

Even though I write about friendship, I can’t say that there is a formula I could write for how to make friends. What I can do is share what has worked for me.

First, I should acknowledge that the question, “How do I make friends?” is multi-faceted. There are the initial encounters with this potential friend, then we familiarize ourselves with this person, and after, the friendship must be maintained. For this post, I will focus on how to meet someone who could become a good friend and I’ll cover the rest in the coming weeks.

I have a second acknowledgement, I have not always been friendly. What I mean is that like many of us, I’m sure, up until my early 20s, I stuck to the friends that I had and if I met someone new I made little effort to follow up with them. Perhaps due to my insecurities, I felt like any new person would not want to be my friend as they likely already had a full social calendar.

My mindset changed when at 24 I moved to Miami in the fall of 2021. A friend of mine had connected me with his friend named Moshe who was a native of the city and who had just moved back from New York. Moshe and I met for lunch during my first week in Miami and after our hour-and-a-half-long chat, I thought we would never see each other again. Thankfully, he is incredibly friendly and kind and just a few days later Moshe messaged me to meet more of his friends and quickly my circle grew.

It was my grandest lesson. Making friends is for the most part about mindset.

It is to our benefit to assume that people want to be our friends and that there are plenty of opportunities to make new friends.

In Miami, for instance, I went to events, I downloaded a friend app and like Moshe, I began following up with people, leading me to develop great friendships.

When I returned to Toronto in January 2023, I thought it would be impossible to make new friends in the city I had grown up in. It felt strange downloading a friend app and I assumed that there would be no one new to meet at events. To prove myself wrong, I started treating Toronto like a place I had just moved to.

1. I reached out to friends of friends and acquaintances like Luigi (friend #10) who was a former classmate I had never spoken to and Manisha (friend #22) who is my former roommate’s good friend. 

2. I messaged friends that I had lost touch with but with whom I had previously had a positive relationship like my high school friends Kirsten (friend #22) and Parisa (friend #31). 

3. I attended events and groups that met more than once because that meant I would have the natural opportunity to see the people I liked speaking to several times. That is how I met Lilian (friend #5).

What I know for sure is that friendships bloom in all places. One of my friends in Miami is Severine (friend #9) whom I originally met after booking an appointment with her at a nail salon. As she worked on my cuticles, we both slowly learned about one another and when I came to visit in December 2023, she was the first friend I went to see (with Canadian maple syrup as a gift, of course).

So the idea that we have already met everyone or that no one wants to be our friend is not true, it’s simply a question of repositioning our line of thinking. I’ll share the bluntest of anecdotes.

In September 2020, a few weeks after my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, she took me to see a Russian hypnotherapist. I shared with the therapist that at the ripe age of 23, I was scared that I would never find love.

She replied, “I’m 76 and I’m married to a nice Italian man. If tomorrow he dies and I choose to, I can find someone else. There is always someone.”

Though her wording was a bit cynical, she was trying to say never to view relationships or friendships from a scarcity mindset. We can’t expect to go to one event and meet a best friend right away but if we put ourselves in the position to meet people whether we’re 26 or 86, it’s never too late to make a new friend.

Talk soon.

Love,

Miriam

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Hi friend,

I write with a heavy heart this week. The news from Israel has kept me up. In my midnight internet scrolling two nights ago I found an article that Hilary Clinton wrote this summer for The Atlantic. She called it, “The Weaponization of Loneliness.”

My favourite passage is one on social media and the threat it imposes on our capacity for empathy. It goes, “The more we live in social media echo chambers, the less we trust one another, and the more we struggle to find common ground with or feel empathy for people who have different perspectives and experiences.”

I’ll share a secret. I don’t have a best friend right now. I have no one whom I text or call daily. The only people I know I will speak to are my parents and my brother—my remote coworkers if they count. It’s a new norm I’ve adjusted to but I can’t say that I always like it. I have memories of feeling part of a close group of girlfriends. Women whom I still admire but whose lives are now as equally as complicated as my own.

Last week, over a Zoom call, I chatted with Steve Joordens on the topic of memory. He’s a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and also Friend #18.

“We often talk about memory like it’s singular when we can have multiple memory systems working at the same time,” he says.

Implicit memory, Steve explains, is like a basketball player who knows how to make all the right moves because they have put in hours of practice. “That’s unconscious use of memory,” he says.

“If we grew up with friends and went through stress and have the memory of friends being there, part of us understands how important those friendships were to help get through that,” Steve says.

“If you used to have close friends and now don’t your deep memory can identify that the support system you used to rely on is not there. You may then find stress in general more difficult,” says Steve while also adding that we can rebuild support structures.

These new friendships may not be the same because the deep bond we had with childhood friends is hard to recreate but at the same time, not every friend needs to be a best friend forever.

“Imagine going through pictures and you find one of you on the beach with a friend and then messaging them and saying, ‘Hey, I came across this picture. Remember the fun times we had,’” says Steve. “It’s a great way to reconnect.”

“I know that I can ignore best friends for decades but if I need to talk they will be there. Keeping in touch is important for them and for you as little reminders that someone is thinking of you can make you feel better,” says Steve.

As we work toward our monthly prompt of reaching out to an old friend, think about the meaningful experiences you may have had with this friend in the past, the conversations you shared or even the hardships you went through. Rejoice that you were lucky enough to have a great friend and look for love where it lies.

Sending love,

Miriam

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• Best Friends Build Shared Memory Networks

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It’s been a while since I’ve written outside of my weekly friend posts. I’m leaving for Europe in a little over a week for a 10-day trip around Germany, Switzerland, and France. During university, I went on an exchange to Strasbourg in Alsace, France so I’m excited to be visiting the region again. You’ll be able to follow along on Instagram —52.Friends.

I’ve been working on my final essay for my 52nd friend and recently finished it. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever written—an emotional piece.

I recently spoke to clinical psychologist Ami Rokach who I’ve featured on the blog a number of times. He has written a new academic book called Sex and Sexuality: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. A Sex Therapist’s Perspective.

I had some questions about romantic relationships that I wanted to ask him, particularly in regard to ending a relationship. Ami always makes it clear to me that we don’t simply leave a relationship that is facing issues—we reflect and try to correct the situation if we still feel loved by the other person.

I’ll admit that my investigation into human nature began almost five years ago when I got into a car accident on the way to a fifth date. The boy I was meeting coldly asked if I was okay over text and I took his response as a sign of disinterest and disrespect. We didn’t speak after that.

“It’s a question of support,” Ami makes clear. “I would say to you if the guy hears that you have been in a car accident and doesn’t jump to support you and doesn’t ask if you want him to take you to the collision center or doesn’t offer to take you to a doctor if you need. Then he wouldn’t be for me.”

“Do you think that in dating people treat you how they feel about you?” I ask.

“If he doesn’t like you, that’s determined by the first or second date. But if it’s the 10th time, then he must like you and if he behaves that way then it’s his character. 

Even if you meet one or two times, he’s not in love with you but just as a human being it would be expected that he react in a warm and supportive way. 

The problem is people your age like somebody and don’t ask themselves does this person really have what I need? Not what I want but what I need. And if you need love and support and warmth and openness and this guy who may look like Brad Pitt cannot provide it then maybe it’s not going to work.”

“Do you think that it’s easier to open up to some people than others?” I say.

Ami explains, “There are always differences between people in how ready they are to open up and that has to do with our history and how vulnerable we are ready to feel. The most important thing is that people feel secure. If you feel confident that nobody is going to come down on you or attact you, there is a better chance that you will open up.”

“How do we end relationships?” I ask.

“It’s a complicated question and there are several stages,” Ami says. “First you must really reflect on the relationship. Next, try to fix the relationship if it’s worth investing in. If you need to end it, just sending a text or walking away is immoral. The person that you dated deserves that you sit down with them so that they can understand why you don’t want to stay with them.”

Finally, I ask, “Do you think that people who are mean to us will be nice to the next person?”

“No. If you say, ‘I had a guy who didn’t know how to express his love but I felt that he is loving.’ Then I would say, ‘That can be worked on.’ If you’re talking about personality that doesn’t change overnight and very little over a lifetime,” says Ami.

Hey Friend, 

I was invited to a dinner party on Monday evening. A couple who both work in tech host monthly gatherings in their apartment with cool people that they meet. Aside from me, there were five others at the table and everyone took interest in this project—52 Friends. 

This is also the first week that I’m feeling a bit tired. I’ve been working heavily on all things friendship since the beginning of January and sometimes I wish I could spend a month solely deepening connections with my closest friends. Then I remember the impact that my work is having and I’m motivated to keep going. 

In our lives, we’ll ultimately meet a lot of people. Not all of them will be close friends or even friends but they may be what is called weak ties. Weak ties are casual acquaintances—the local barista, your doorman, people who you see in the swimming pool change room. 

In 1973 a paper by a sociology professor at Stanford University titled The Strength of Weak Ties was published. The professor, Mark Granovetter, showed that the outer circles of acquaintances that you don’t see often matter. These weak ties could actually be more important than strong ones. 

Granvotter conducted a survey in Boston and found that 282 of the city-based workers had landed their job through someone they knew, more precisely 84% found their job through a weak-tie relationship. We rely on people outside our immediate circle to bring us news of opportunities and useful information and so the more of these casual connections we have, the better.  

I recently connected with Shira Smith Bloomfield, a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) based out of Toronto. We spoke about the benefits of weak ties and she shared that they create feelings of belonging and community. We should look for weak ties in places like online/in-real-life crossovers like nextdoor.com, meetup.com, and Facebook local groups. Even the public library, volunteer jobs, and local sidewalks, streets, and parks act as great places to widen our circles. 

At dinner earlier this week, someone brought forward the concept of the 15-minute city. It’s the idea that everyone should have access to essential urban services within a 15-minute walk or bike. Paris, most notably, has been trying to apply the model by adding bike lanes, and walking paths—cutting commutes in half for some.

Outside of Toronto, where I live, the idea of the 15-minute city seems almost impossible. Still, I make an effort to walk for coffee instead of driving, and if I’m lucky I make small talk with a neighbor along the way. 

~ Miriam

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If you’re looking to connect with Shira Smith Bloomfield (she/her), her contact information can be found here: shira@bloomfieldpsychotherapy.ca

Non-deliberately, I have always had a small circle of friends. When I met my husband and married at thirty, I was fortunate to have a good group of female friends. But almost immediately, priorities changed as they do for everyone—you get caught up in the cycle of routines, establishing a home, building a career and, in my case, trying to be there and care for older parents with health issues. On my husband's side, he was suddenly dealing with a terminally ill parent. While still navigating our newly married life together, we both had to experience our first foray into grief and the unbearable loss of our parents far too soon.  

The years which I devoted more time and focus to family may have inadvertently contributed to my sheer lassitude and why I neglected some of my female friendships. Truthfully, I did not care. I felt, at that time, abandoned by my friends; they did not fully grasp what my husband and I were both going through, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. It was a slow decay of my friendships; appreciatively, there were never any acts of drama or "Real Housewives" incidents of betrayal, histrionics, no feuds or explosive confrontations, just a gradual dissolve and a growing realization of my dwindling friendships. 

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What it means to have good friends and to be one, along with our connection to people, and the meaning of community, is something I have come to understand more intimately since starting my early retirement just as the pandemic first emerged. I became familiar with the feeling of loneliness and all it encompasses. It can strike anyone at any time, even someone who, by all accounts, is a successful, happily married woman who is in her early 60s—like myself. 

Since retiring and starting my second chapter, I have had to leave my comfort zone and try new activities. The problem is that making new friends can be challenging once you get older and friends either move away or become scarcer. Adding to the complexity is that connections should develop organically. For a friendship to ignite, there must be some commonality and spark.  

I have attempted fitness classes and a book club and continue volunteering at the local cancer and wellness center. I have even tried reaching out to strangers I have linked with via LinkedIn—the only social media application I prescribe. But attracting new friends has become a bit like forging for clusters of forest truffles— you must first know where to find them, and a little bit of luck sure does not hurt either!  

There are ample opportunities for being proactive, broadening your social networks, and meeting new people who align with your interests, hobbies, or experiences. However, what I find difficult at this stage in my life, is developing new friendships that are not just superficial social connections. I want to be surrounded by friends who genuinely root for you, hear you, see you and share your highs and lows. 

In the touching and humorous novel Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray, she effortlessly depicts a woman of a certain age as she wakes up one morning and no longer sees her reflection in the mirror and discovers she has become invisible. Worse yet, her husband, grown son, family doctor and others do not notice anything unusual. The book wittingly covers women's friendships and empowerment, invisibility, and loneliness while making you laugh out loud.  

I am not interested in acquiring and attracting numerous acquaintances like positive reactions on one's Instagram page. I need something tangible. Our need for "likes" and constant positive reinforcement on social media does not equate to having friendships. It would leave me feeling emotionally vacant and very much unconnected, making my battle with loneliness even worse.  

A New York Times article from June 2022, "An Overlooked Cure for Loneliness" by Christina Caron, explains, "Loneliness often stems from unwanted solitude. But it is also driven by a discrepancy between how you perceive your relationships versus what you want (or expect) from them. That disconnect is why you can be surrounded by family at Christmas and still feel like an outsider." 

In summary, having friends is essential for our overall health and well-being, especially as we age. Though I might not be able to boast of having many friends by Facebook standards, I am so grateful for the quality of my friendships and the friends who inherently know me with all my foibles and quirks and continue to stick by me. I am also hopeful for those new friendships that have crossed my path and continue to blossom and take root.  

We are social creatures; social connections give us visibility, belonging, and companionship. Cultivating and maintaining strong social bonds that we define as "friendships" takes time and effort and should be a priority throughout our lives. But ensuring that these relationships are honest, sincere, and meaningful is more important and what makes them like the elusive rare truffle mushroom so much harder to find. 

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Wendy Reichental, B.A.,Dip. in Human Relations and Family Life Education, McGill University. Certified in Foot Reflexology, RCRT® Registered Canadian Reflexology Therapist. 

Wendy enjoys capturing life’s passages in short essays and opinion pieces. Her writings have appeared in The Montreal Gazette, Ottawa’s Globe and Mail, and various online magazines. Wendy's unique take on those first days of the Pandemic lockdown is now part of the just-out anthology Chronicling the Days by Marianne Ackerman (Editor) and Linda M. Morra (Editor). Guernica Editions, Spring 2021 

It’s exciting to have so many new readers here. Many of you must have read the article in the Toronto Star that was published this past Sunday.

I’ve been getting a lot of similar questions and I’d like to clarify a few things. I started 52 Friends after a period of loneliness in my life but the objective is not to make tens of friends. The goal of the project is to raise awareness on the stigma surrounding loneliness and to encourage us all to prioritize friendship. That could mean reaching out to a friend we’ve lost touch with, deepening an existing connection or making a new friend.

Each week I meet a new friend or reconnect with someone and I engage in meaningful conversation that usually touches on the topic of friendship in that person’s life.

Research shows that we only really need five close friends and one to two very close friends. The latter which not everyone has. From the 52, I expect that a handful will be close friends, others I’ll get coffee with from time to time and maybe a dozen will dance at my wedding. There are countless situations or relationships that can make us feel lonely but admitting to ourselves that we are lonely and talking about it is an important first step.

There is another question I’ve been getting—how do you get people to be your friend for this project? I reach out to friends of friends, people I admire, friends from my past, etc. If someone doesn’t want to be my friend, for this project and in life, I don’t dwell on it. That energy can be better spent on someone who wants to be my friend.

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I recently sat down with Ami Rokach. A clinical psychologist who has been researching and teaching about loneliness, human sexuality, and psychotherapy for the past 40 years. He’s been instrumental in my understanding of loneliness and friendship and I think his insight could help many of us.

Miriam: What is the stigma surrounding loneliness? 

Ami: There is a stigma related to loneliness because it is seen as a weakness. The rationale behind it goes something like this: “If I’m lonely that means no one wants to be with me. If no one wants to be with me, that means I’m a loser and I’m not worthy of being loved. Our society adores successful people and high achievers. So not only am I ashamed of my loneliness but I don’t want to advertise it for fear that other people might not want to come close to me because they may be concerned that they will be seen as losers as well.” 

One of the things that hopefully you will do and that I’m trying to do is bring loneliness out of the closet so that we all understand that loneliness is just like hunger and fear and joy and sadness. It’s part of being human. It has an evolutionary benefit in that both animals and people but especially people cannot survive without a community. Loneliness is just like physical pain which is really an alarm that says, “Something is missing, pay attention to it.” 

Miriam: You’ve been researching and speaking about loneliness for over 35 years. Did you ever encounter people who didn’t believe that loneliness is a real issue? 

Ami: In 1980-something, I was invited to give a Sunday morning speech at a brunch in a synagogue in Toronto. I presume that most of the people were prepared to be entertained. 

One of the things that I highlighted was that there are no hard and fast solutions to loneliness which is what people usually ask. I said that the main thing that you need to do is be aware and admit to yourself that you are lonely and experience it before you attempt to deal with it. 

Well I got major pushback from the participants. At the end, one woman came to me and she said, “You made me depressed.” And I said, after regaining consciousness, “How did I make you depressed?” And she replied, “Well you told us to stay with the loneliness for a while and you didn’t tell us what to do about it.” 

So I guess it was the first time after a long time that somebody said, “Let’s look at what’s happening with you rather than run away and think that you can avoid feeling it.” It’s the same thing with hunger. You cannot avoid feeling hunger. When you feel hunger there is an alarm that reminds you that your body needs to eat. Your body needs food. 

Miriam: Is it important then that we befriend ourselves? 

Ami: Yes. You need to really reflect on what’s happening with you rather than to look for a quick and easy solution which in this day and age, that’s what most of us are doing. It was found in research that babies and toddlers who are used to playing by themselves did much better when they grew up as far as loneliness is concerned. 

There are people who are so concerned about being by themselves that anytime they are alone they get a big sign in their head that says, “that means I’m lonely.” Then they start to develop anxiety and stress reactions to being lonely. 

Actually, being by ourselves could be interpreted as solitude. As being by ourselves because we want joy and need to be by ourselves. I mean reality is so full of stimuli that sometimes we need to rest and that rest could be wonderful and amazing unless we interpret anytime that we’re alone as loneliness. 

Miriam: Because the loneliness experience is very individual, do we need to stay in a state where we reflect so that we can understand what we need specifically? 

Ami: It’s a complex question. It’s like happiness or hunger. We all talk about them but really they are somewhat individual. When we are lonely, we need to stop running and we need to stay with how we feel. First, because eventually it will subside but more importantly because we need to understand what is missing. 

Loneliness is just an alarm system. So I need to understand, why do I feel this way? Do I feel like this because I was taught since age zero that being by myself is bad and frightening and lonely. During the pandemic, people complained a lot about loneliness but actually the pandemic helped get loneliness out of the closet. 

The only problem is that now that the pandemic is over, loneliness got right back into the closet. The difference between then and now is that then we could blame the pandemic. So we could rationalize loneliness by saying, “It’s none of my doing. It’s not that I’m not good enough for people to not want to be with me, it’s the pandemic.”

I remember that I spoke to a lot of people—with newspapers and TV stations about the pandemic and they asked me, “Are you lonely?” and I said, “No, I’m not. I go through the same thing that other people go through but I structure it differently.” It’s the same thing as craving something sweet—that doesn’t mean you’re hungry. It just means you miss something. People are too quick to put the label of loneliness. 

During the pandemic, I spoke to a lot of people on the street. I would go for walks in my neighborhood and I spoke to people and it was nice because in Toronto the social network is not very cohesive. People were suddenly speaking to each other. 

Miriam: How do I gauge the closeness of a friendship? Should I close the gap if I feel a friendship lacks depth or leave the friendship? 

Ami: My first response would not be to leave the friendship. I pride myself on really doing whatever I can to correct the situation before I give up. 

If the relationship is not satisfactory, I need to first of all, again, reflect. I need to ask myself what I’m missing and then try to bridge the gap. In human relations, usually people respond to each other. If I feel a relationship is not deep enough, I can start to deepen it by opening up, by consulting, by sharing, by asking for advice. And if I continue to do that and the other person remains aloof, it’s quite possible that he or she is not appropriate for me. 

However, that doesn’t mean I need to leave the relationship. To my classes, I describe the social network. I am in the center and there are three areas around me. The most outside area is habituated by people that I know: students, neighbors, etc. They will be there to have coffee with me, they will loan me $10 if I need it, but that’s it. 

Then closer to me, there is an area with close friends. These are people that I can reach out to in times of necessity or emergency. They will give me their car in the middle of the night if I need to go to the hospital or something like that. 

Then there are those closest to me. Maybe one or two very close friends. These are friends that not everyone has. If this very good friendship is not working, I can say I tried and then move the person to a more distant area where good friends are and try to have a good friendship. If that doesn’t work, I can move them into the area of acquaintances. So it doesn’t mean that I need to lose them. The idea is that I tried to change the situation. Do you remember the wise prayer, “God help me change what I can. Help me accept what I cannot and give me the wisdom to know the difference.” 

I try to change the situation and if I cannot change it, I must accept it. And then if I don’t want to give up on that person, I simply don’t make him a very good friend. 

People ask, how do I find close friends? It’s not that difficult. You simply go to those who are good friends and acquaintances. You look at them and think with this good friend I would love to be really close and be able to open up and be a very good friend. Once you identify that person, you can work on deepening the relationship.

Miriam: Are the friends who only want to be our friends when we are on top and successful really our friends? 

Ami: Of course not. There is a saying, “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” I’ve read many accounts of successful and sometimes famous people who say that only when they lost what they had did they see who their real friends were. I also once read, in a half joking manner, a description of real friendship. Real friendship is someone who knows everything about you and still likes you. In other words, somebody that you feel comfortable opening up with and letting see the scars and the blemishes and the imperfections. 

A few months back, I came across a viral post by Sahil Bloom breaking down the amount of time we spend in different relationships at various times of our life. There was plenty to glean from these graphs, but I personally honed in on the disappointing trend of Time Spent With Friends.

SOURCE

Our friendship era peaks during college, then falls off a cliff. By the time we’re 30, we spend less than half that time with friends. But this doesn’t fully drive home the point. I did my research—45% of adults admit they find it hard to make new friends. The average adult hasn’t even made a new friend in the past five years.

We’ve come up with plenty of creative solutions. There was a time when social media promised to beckon in a friendship utopia. Our gyms have member happy hours. Dating apps have expanded into the friend-finding business. The appetite for something greater is there, but I don’t think it’s working. After college we invest time in our careers, our partners, and our children. Suddenly board game night with the squad takes a back burner. Our friendships seem trivial compared to other relationships.

I’ll offer leniency to parents of young children. This is a time of utter chaos, and y’all are thriving. But for others, I don’t think this argument holds water. First and foremost, this implies friendships are a lesser relationship than others. The Greeks have many different words for love. Along with eros, which is romantic love, there is philia, or friendly love. Its inherent value is self-evident for the Greeks’. In American culture, philia isn’t a priority. If anything, friendships are placeholders until we find our life partner.

My favorite movie about friendship is Frances Ha (sorry Lord of the Rings!). It tells the story of a woman in her mid-20s coming to terms with her best friend Sophie’s new boyfriend. This one is unfortunately here to stay. She feels sad and alienated, and this just makes her angry at herself for not accepting Sophie’s happiness. At first she tries to find flaws in him, but if she’s being honest, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the guy. At one point of vulnerability, she breaks down crying and confesses to Sophie, “If something funny happens on the way to the deli, you’ll only tell one person about it and that’ll be Patch. I’ll never hear about it.”

What a line. Seriously, what a line! If anyone has felt inexplicably sad at the tail end of a best friend’s wedding, you get it. Sometimes we grieve the inevitable future distance between ourselves and a person who meant everything to us at one point in our lives.

So I don’t buy the argument that friendship is a lesser form of love. The value it adds to our lives during pivotal moments is undeniable. Fast forward into our golden years, many of us may no longer have a spouse around to ground ourselves. Friendships will begin to matter a whole lot more again. It’s never too late to rekindle an old friendship, but nurturing one over the years is a better alternative.

The psychotherapist Esther Perel has some great thoughts about our very specific obsession—soulmates, “You’re asking one person to give you what an entire village used to provide.” Perel seems to believe that this is a contemporary and cultural phenomenon. That means it was learned over time by Western societies and can be unlearned if we want. I’m not saying we should forgo romantic love. But we can be better stewards of philia, and perhaps friendly love can make a resurgence long after our college years. 

We don’t have a magical friend-finding intuition in our teens. It’s circumstantial. The environment makes it easier, and when we’re older the same outcome requires a more concerted effort. I don’t claim to be an expert on the topic, but I do put an enormous weight on philia. While gym happy hours and BumbleBFF provide opportunities for new friendships, the ability to solidify them starts within. As someone who has been through plenty of friendship peaks and valleys, I’ve come up with five behaviors that can make our adult friendships outliers.

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Invest In Less

Have you ever had a chore list so intimidatingly long that you’ve wound up doing none of it? Or a diet so disciplined that you threw your hands up and ordered a pizza instead? We’re programmed to seek goals that are obtainable. If a friendship isn’t enriching your life, it’s taking away from other investments. Being intentional about who you call or grab drinks with matters. With friends, we should seek quality over quantity.

Give Yourself and Others a Little Slack

Life is busy. Sometimes work or kids or our own mental health prevents us from investing in friendships. We blink and six months (or five years) have passed. My best friend in high school and I drifted apart in college. Somehow in our 20s, despite living on opposite ends of the country our friendship evolved and we were once again incredibly close to one another. There is no expiration date for picking up the phone and calling an old friend. We all have spare bedrooms or couches for a reason. A lifelong friendship will ebb and flow. What’s important is that each person is open to the relationship growing after periods of dormancy.

Acknowledge That It’s Different

The Greeks believed that philia was a wholly different form of love than eros. We need to understand that our partners gain something from friendships that we ourselves cannot give them. With this understanding comes a belief that it will help make them happier, more fully-realized people. This doesn’t happen naturally. Couples need to set the standard ahead of time. The beautiful thing about different forms of love is they can enrich one another if given proper attention.

Be Vulnerable

I’ve played “The Update Game” with friends before. First, I’d spend a few minutes telling them everything that has happened in my life. I’d brag about my job growth, my travel, and my accomplishments. My friend would nod in return as if impressed before retorting similar updates on their end. Neither of us walked away from this encounter feeling very emotionally fulfilled. Sometimes, we’re lucky and the conversation turns a corner into vulnerability. When we’re vulnerable, we foster empathy and a sense of trust with others. It’s the same reason social media alienates rather than draws us closer. Social media shows the best version of us, not the real version.

Best friends lean on each other. They confess their body image issues. They confide that their work lacks meaning. They share what they’ve learned about themselves in therapy. It’s not that a friend can magically solve these problems. It’s that they’re willing to listen. That is what draws us closer to each other.

Put In The Time

None of this is possible without the proper investment. We need to sometimes go against our impulses to foster meaningful friendships. This means calling a friend when we’d rather watch Netflix. It means going out after work when we didn’t sleep well the night before. It means playing Pickleball when secretly we hate the sport. Every relationship requires investment when we don’t feel like it. Friendship is the only one that gets a free pass.

If I had to pinpoint a common theme amongst these five behaviors, it would be a toss-up between trust and effort. We trust that others are doing their best and that they will receive us when we open ourselves up to them. We put in effort because sometimes we do not feel like nurturing a friendship. Like a fitness plan or diet, this doesn’t yield results overnight. But after weeks, months, and years of discipline, the flywheels of friendship gain momentum that doesn’t easily slow down.

Frances Ha eventually offered her approval towards Sophie’s romantic relationship. She felt sad that her best friend would never share quite the same closeness with her again. But both of them acknowledged that the love between them was here to stay. I’ve been in similar situations myself. During these pivotal moments, friendships evolve. Over time, the feeling of vague melancholy is replaced with a sense of clarity. There’s an old saying about friendships that last: “I don’t need you, I simply love you.”

Hey Friend,

Last week I met Jessica Jessica Zhang. A Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) based out of Toronto. She specializes in supporting adults in finding their identity within their cultural dynamics. 

Before we met, she writes, “your project made me reflect on my own personal experiences of feeling a sense of loneliness culturally in my childhood.” 

Jessica explains that different social groups may experience loneliness differently. Her clients are primarily first-generation immigrants from China or the children of first-generation immigrants. She shares that emotions are not typically discussed in East Asian upbringing and in certain experiences, individuals may feel as though they are overreacting even when their emotions are valid. This may lead someone to question the validity of their own feelings and may impact how they relate in their friendships and to others around them. 

She goes on to say that perhaps the awareness of feeling lonely would not have been as noticed if someone were to be born and raised in the culture of their parents’ origin, but in migrating to a culturally different country such as North America, it’s something that one becomes aware of. 

 “How I communicate with my parents is much different than how they did with theirs. For many of my clients, it's about finding their own paths as adults in their 20s while trying to both please and respect their parents, and maintain healthy communication,” Jessica says.

“We end up feeling lonely if someone can’t validate our feelings. It can happen more often in romantic relationships that we feel like we’re going crazy if someone doesn’t understand us or can’t validate our emotions,” she says.

I then ask her why people go to therapy. One of the main reasons Jessica explains is that people want to talk about their experiences, emotions, and thoughts without bias. The session is also 100% on the client versus talking to friends who may share their own experiences and may have biases in their opinions or solutions. 

I’ve linked to Jessica Zhang’s website here to learn more about her work.  

~ Miriam

Hey Friend,

In 1825 Brillat-Savarin wrote, “Tell me what you eat, and I shall tell you what you are.” His novel The Physiology of Taste was written during the last 25 years of his life, while his former years were spent as a lawyer and then a judge. Brillat-Savarin philosophizes how to eat, when to eat, with what purpose, and gossips along the way. 

He reminds us that we should ask friends over for dinner and writes, “to invite anyone implies that we charge ourselves with his happiness all the time that he is under our roof.” 

I love entertaining and menu planning, but more notable is a ritual I call “French morning.” Every so often, I go for a walk in the morning, buy a croissant and an espresso and sit and enjoy it. Maybe I say “hi” to a neighbor along the way, I don’t check my phone, and if the weather permits it, I wear something nice. For me, this is joie de vivre—the exuberant enjoyment of living. Still, our greatest joys are found in groups. 

I’ve included a snippet from a New York Times article titled “There’s a Specific Kind of Joy We’ve Been Missing” by Adam Grant, who is an organizational psychologist. 

Research has found that people laugh five times as often when they’re with others as when they’re alone. Even exchanging pleasantries with a stranger on a train is enough to spark joy. That’s not to say you can’t find delight in watching a show on Netflix. The problem is that binging is an individual pastime. Peak happiness lies mostly in collective activity. 

We find our greatest bliss in moments of collective effervescence. It’s a concept coined in the early 20th century by the pioneering sociologist Émile Durkheim to describe the sense of energy and harmony people feel when they come together in a group around a shared purpose. Collective effervescence is the synchrony you feel when you slide into rhythm with strangers on a dance floor, colleagues in a brainstorming session, cousins at a religious service or teammates on a soccer field.

In keeping with the French theme of this article, there is a saying in France that translates to subway, work, sleep—métro, boulot, dodo. Perhaps the only way out of boring routines and a lack of social connection is joie de vivre, and the first step to greater connection could be embracing solitude. Befriending ourselves.

Clinical psychologist Ami Rokach explains in the book Together, “The fog of loneliness also blurs our internal mirrors. It obscures our inner strengths, as well as the value that we have to offer, the meaning of our own lives, and the courses of joy and wonder that would normally make us feel connected to the universe around us.” 

My friend #16, Marisa, spoke of her year in France as a formative one filled with self-discovery. “We’d go sit in the park for hours and there was a part of me that thought, ‘is this how we’re going to spend our entire day?’’’ she jokes.  

Here are some pastimes that can cultivate more joie de vivre, whether that be alone or with friends. These are all a bit cliché but perhaps our joy lies in simplicity. 

1. Enjoy your meal 

2. Go for a walk 

3. Wander an area or interesting store 

4. Watch a movie or read a book

5. Have a picnic

~ Miriam

Welcome to Work. Love. Illness. Locale. A newsletter from 52 Friends where I’ll cover loneliness and advocate for the prioritization of friendship. I’ll interview experts like psychologists and professors, feature the latest in related news, and share insights from friends. 

Why is this called Work. Love. Illness. Locale? 

Loneliness can feel really abstract and although it is highly complex, many of the situations or relationships that make us feel lonely fall into the pillars of work, love, illness, or location. 

💼 At work, for example, a sense of belonging is extremely important—it’s actually tied to better performance as actively disengaged workers undermine the companies they work for. Recently, Gallup data showed that having a best friend 👭 at work is essential to emotional and social support and is also tied to key business outcomes. 

🥰 In love, clinical psychologist, Ami Rokach who I will be interviewing next week, says that loneliness is when we feel uncared for and that it is possible to feel lonely in a romantic relationship. More recently, the idea of friendship breakups has become a topic of conversation and I came across this book, Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend. 

👨‍⚕️ A few weeks ago, I found out that one of my closest university friends has had Crohn’s disease since the age of 14. “I glamorized loneliness and independence,” she says, but chronic illness is one of the greatest risk factors for loneliness. To add insult to injury, loneliness can have profound consequences on our health and can be more harmful than obesity, smoking, and high blood pressure. 

🌎 Finally, locale. Moving to a new place or living far away from friends can lead to a lack of social connectivity. I’m also interested in the correlation between climate change, natural disasters, and loneliness. 

What’s new with me? 

I hosted a Mediterranean-themed dinner potluck this past Saturday with some new and old friends. You may recognize Friend #5 - Lilian, Friend #10 - Luigi, and Friends #14 & 15 - Maria and Sergiy. 

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This newsletter will be sent out every Wednesday. The newsletter where I meet one friend a week called 52 Friends is sent out on Sunday. Subscribe to be sent both 🎉

On Monday, February 6, an earthquake of 7.8 magnitude struck southern Türkiye and northern Syria. Thousands of people have died, and many more are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. Donate here.

~ Miriam