Timely, as I am vacationing this week and last night one of the friends I am visiting and I calculated that this is our eighteenth anniversary (ish) since it was Fat Tuesday and we met at Mardi Gras.
But generally, the thing that keeps me from feeling like friendship can be at the center of my life is reciprocity. As a long term single person with no children, I get that it is comparatively easy for me to center friendship, but at times it feels like people are happy to have me around when they need something but then retreat to their nuclear family or partner-centered walled-gardens. I have friends I hear from when tragedy strikes, or when their husbands are out of town, or when they’re feeling pent up in their day to day life and need some sort of “girls night” but who can’t or won’t make time otherwise. It all feels very transactional, and leaves me feeling like I need to make finding a partner a priority, even if it’s not my natural inclination.
I can't wait to read this book! In a total coincidence, I'm also teaching today about late nineteenth-century relationships between women, walking that tightrope of "what did they mean?" What a joy to see this today of all days.
I emigrated to the United States when I was 22 years old. I knew absolutely no one in this country. New friendships were vital to me; without them I had no one to talk to, no one to debrief my new experiences with, and no one to help me navigate the perplexing culture shift in my life (which was all the more perplexing because I emigrated from England, and so didn't anticipate any culture shock at all. Um, duh.) Friendships were everything; they were my support, my sustenance, and opened up new possibilities for me.
I love my friends deeply. Last year my friend Megan and I went on a trip together to celebrate our twentieth friend-versary, because why wouldn't you celebrate this as anniversary as much as any other? (Shout out to Whidbey Island!) This year I'll celebrate thirty years of being friends with my friend Laura, whom I met a week after getting off the plane in the US. Next year it'll be thirty years since I met my friend Ann Marie, whom I literally found through a mailing list about the TV show Friends in 1995. None of us live in the same town, but we make a point of having time together, online and off. And my friends and I absolutely plan to retire together in community.
I don't have family in this country to fall back on . . . except I do. I have a network of friends all over the place, and they have supported me through grad school, moves between cities, in my career, in my heartbreak, in some unspeakably tough times. They truly are the light of my life.
I had a best friend in college who was probably my first real love. She was a writer, I was a writer. College was a really hard time for me and her friendship and steadiness was a first in my life. She taught me about feminist frameworks and how to recognize power struggles between men and women and people, in general, if they have a different skin color. This was all radically transformative for me. I was raised highly isolated (emotionally, mentally, physically) from the world (we never took vacations and could barely eek away for a weekend to see my grandparents without racing back for Sunday morning service).
And I’ve never known why I proposed to her (now almost 20 years ago) that after college we live together, move to New York to be writers and if we really wanted a man, we could have him outside the house… kind of like a dog on a leash. 😂 I’m still shocked when I think about my idea because I was exposed to NOTHING like this growing up. Hell, I was still a virgin when I was proposing this and I didn’t even have in my mind the idea that we’d be lesbian partners. I didn’t feel for her that way. But I did long to be close to her. It was her company and friendship I enjoyed and I wanted to keep staying with her wherever I went in life. She was still pretty set on christianity and her response to my idea was “WHAT THAT’S CRAZY WE CANT DO THAT.”
A year or two later before she got married, she called me sobbing from a bathroom stall at work, asking “What am I doing with my life?!” She went on to get married anyways and as the old tune goes, we drifted apart but I’ve never forgotten that impulse to just live with my best friend forever, being happy, writing, reading and exploring the world without all the trappings that come with traditional relationships. I wish everyone could live with their first best friend love forever. 🧡
For the last year and a half I've been living with one of my best friends, and honestly, if it were entirely up to me I would live with her for the rest of my life. We effortlessly back each other up emotionally and practically. There's never any sense of tit-for-tat; it's just, "I love you so why wouldn't I do this thing for you that you clearly need?" She adores my kids (who live with us) and I love hers (though they're both grown and out in the world). Recently she started a new romantic relationship and we had to talk about it. Specifically about my fear that I would lose her to it, which prompted both of us to talk explicitly about what we mean to each other and how we want to prioritize our relationship. This is also timely because she's never actually had a chance to live alone as an adult, so she's moving out this summer. I am SAD, but also understand her drive towards that experience. And I trust we'll live together again in the future if we can.
Optimally, I would prefer to live with a dear friend and then have a romantic partner that lives next door. I don't lose myself in friendship the way I do in romantic partnership historically, so I don't feel like my closest friendships require that bit of physical remove to remind me to be mindful of my autonomy. But my romantic partnerships definitely do, perhaps because we've constructed heterosexual romantic partnerships particularly as this all-consuming thing. I find them weirdly vortex-like, personally. They suck me in in a way I find doesn't benefit me or suit me temperamentally. But my great friendships never feel like that for me. I feel like they help me be more myself, not less.
I loved this interview and all of Rhaina's thinking. I'm also disappointed not to see any reference or homage to the fact that queer communities -- defined broadly throughout history -- have always been at the forefront of centering friendship and creating "chosen family". I've been in queer communities in different places for twenty years now and have seen these practices everywhere. I would guess they are only so novel and new to hetero folks. I hope this is in the book.
I think those of us who are widowed eventually learn to reshape our lives around friendship. A bit surprisingly to me, several of those “new“ friendships are actually revivals of young adult friendships. They include a godmother from my adult baptism, the maid of honor from my wedding, a post-college roommate who sang in my wedding, and for whose wedding I baked the cake. Also someone from middle school whose art I collect. Another set are intentionally cultivated neighborhood relationships. I have a potluck with several other unmarried women monthly. I do a lot of work on the neighborhood landscaping, so my face is familiar to almost everyone here. Church is also an important set of connections for me, some of which are growing into friendships.
I've deleted and re-written a comment about 6 times because it keeps coming out so mopey, but here goes:
Articles like this about the power of female friendships or the strength in sisterhood (acknowledging that most of the above is not gender specific) always make me a little sad. My brain just doesn't do social relationships this way -- they're not easy, they're not relaxing or recharging, and often the enjoyment I get out of spending time with friends is less than or mental and emotional cost. But I need friendships and social interaction, so I do it anyway -- it's good for me in the long term, even if the short term is difficult.
I've made my peace with this (mostly), and given myself permission to stop aiming for this kind of friendship as a goal, because doing that always made me feel worse ("what the fuck is wrong with you? why aren't you relaxing in the cozy glow of your friend group right now? why is this so HARD?"). My friendships don't look like that, and that's ok! But every now and then I get bummed out about it because having a network of friends you love & can rely on just sounds really nice.
These type of conversations are always so interesting to me as someone who has never been a friend person. It sounds kind of nice but I'm just not built to be a good friend. Even as a kid the pleasure I got from friendship was always overmatched by overwhelming pressure to act like the kind of person who deserved friends and the guilt of knowing I was just faking it and if they knew who I really was they'd run and the knowledge that people most likely saw through me anyway and were being nice to me out of pity or duty. I could maintain friendships for a couple of years but then felt obligated to fade out of them so my friends could move on. In fact, one of the nice things about adulthood is that there is less pressure to have friends. I have a spouse that is the closest thing to a friend and siblings who I truly adore and who include me in their relationship even though I'm sure they would rather not and everyone else is an arms-length acquaintance - -most of them friendly acquaintances which is preferable to the alternative but not friends. Actually I know one person who keeps acting like she's trying to be my friend - we're going to coffee together today - and I'm so nervous, I just hope I can be who she needs me to be until she can make actual friends. She's new to town and is so nice and I know she'll end up finding her people, but this is a hard place to be a newcomer in and I think she's really lonely.
My partner has two best friends from childhood he talks to on the phone every day. As I hear their conversations it ranges from serious talking about relationships and health and jobs but it's mostly shared interests, the football game that was on last night or music or comedy they love. It's one of my favorite parts about him. I have always prioritized friendships and sometimes feel guilty that my imagined end game is to live near my best friend and don't always imagine my partner who I love very much as part of the
picture. But my partner is so encouraging about my maintaining friendships that he has grown to live these people as well. I also live in close proximity to my closest in town friends and while I dream of selling my run down money pit house I also factor in the coast of moving somewhere else where we would have to drive to see one another. I also serve on my city's zoning board and see first hand how vilified multi family housing is. Meanwhile living in a building full of neighbors to call on in times of need sounds like a dream.
My mother’s closest friend was our godmother Maxine (I’ve written about her on CulinaryWoman). They met in 1947 when Maxine was a lab technician under my mother’s supervision. Maxine was my mother’s maid of honor. She was there when both my brother and I were born. She and my mum took us on outings so my papa could rest on Sundays. When he died young, my mother invited her to move in. They were a perfect combination: Maxine did things like mow the lawn, grocery shop, and drive (my mother did not drive regularly until after my papa died). My mother was much more social and could get Maxine to dress up and go places. When my mum was in hospice, Maxine slept in her suite every night - I offered to do it, but Maxine wanted to. After my mother died, I told Maxine she could stay in my mum’s house as long as she was able. I eventually became her caregiver, and was there when she died two years ago. Several people asked me if they were an LGBT couple. No, the closest of friends. I’m so glad she was in our lives.
I have been sharing and listening and reading all the Other Significant Other content I can find. I have always valued or at least known I needed friendship in my life but it has taken time to really understand how to "operationalize" to use corpspeak, that in my life. I have an open marriage which is definitely something that gets the eye roll of "I mean, sounds fun, but i can't because of x, y,z". With an open relationship, I realized I needed to put the exact same energy I was putting into dating into dating my existing friends. Dinner dates, concerts we are excited to see, breakfast plans, walks, bike rides, all scheduled and planned and made with a specific person because of our shared interest or thing we wanted to do. All the pre-date stuff too, texting to say you are excited to see them, making reservations, texting about the day and what we both want and how much time we have, and then post-date follow up to say (sincerely) how much fun it was and how I can't wait to do it again.
For a lot of years, I have thought my marriage was less than others because I am married to someone who values independence and time and space. I didn't have the "best friends"/only want each other/do everything together thing. We love specific activities, live really well together, really raise kids well together and are affectionate and loving, love traveling together and as a family and ALSO vacation with friends without each other, take trips with our kids without the other, and go on dates with friends and lovers. I took a lot of time to get over not feeling "chosen" enough or valued because there wasn't what I was seeing out in culture in my life. But I also realized how suffocated I would feel if I felt like I couldn't make independent friends and had some sort of "spouse first" mentality.
I really really love my friends, I feel so much more comfortable talking about being in love with them and for understanding that the mix of romantic, sexual, and friendship love in one relationship is cool if you want it but is also deep, fulfilling and incredible from a number of different people. You just have to spend some time blocking out some of the dominant voices telling you, you are doing it wrong.
Very thought provoking. Having been in a long term relationship with a man that does not value friendships, can be if you let it, become stifling. I have a visceral need to see my friends and extended family regularly whereas my husband could go months without seeing a soul. To be honest we already live seperate social lives because of this disparity. However, I envisage a time where we live somewhat seperate lives, with my husband living mostly at our holiday home (100s of miles from friends or family, where he is happiest) whilst I stay at home in the city enjoying life with my friends and adult kids. Strangely that thought does not bother me too much at all.
Excited to read this book!! I really enjoyed the article & it clarified a lot of feelings I have. In my late 30s and single, and overall feel pretty ambivalent about marriage and the state of modern romance. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't, but I feel pretty committed to building a community in my life regardless. I am extremely lucky to have a life long best friend, but she sadly lives across the country.
My friends are very important to me, but the last few years have been kind of hard friendship wise. In 2022 all of my closest friends moved away within a matter of a few months. I have definitely found some new friendships, but these things take time. My biggest complaint for the last few years is that I'm continually ditched by friends when they get into a romantic relationship. My friend that I used to ski and hike with during the week? Started only doing those things with her boyfriend. This winter multiple friends cancelled plans with me, only for me to later find out they did things with their significant other instead. I understand that we all want different things, but it's starting to feel lonely to deprioritize romance for friendship, and then have people not show up.
THANK YOU for addressing the Boston Marriages question! This is the third interview with Rhaina Cohen I've seen this week (congrats Rhaina! you're everywhere and your book sounds amazing!), and I had been wondering where this question was.
I'm also queer, and many queer people I know take great joy in claiming famous people from history for our team based on their romantic/extremely close friendships -- Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens, Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, etc. There's a large part of me that really wants to look at these people and see people like me existing across time. But another part of me knows the evidence is ambiguous at best, and sees the danger of imposing modern identity categories on people from the past. (Although Rachel Carson wasn't that long ago; maybe I'll hold on to her.) Thank you so much for addressing that tension.
I love this. My best friend and her family are coming this weekend and I am so excited to see them. We have always been close but when we each got married and again when we started having children we talked about how important our friendship is and how that can extend to our families. I love being an aunt to her two girls and I love that she and her husband are aunt and uncle to my son.
Once, a couple of years ago, I mentioned to a co-worker that my friend and her family were coming up for the weekend (from two states away) and the co-worker, said, "how nice, does she have family in this area?" (she does not). My friend and I laughed afterwards, saying I should have responded, "Yes, she has family here, ME!"
As an aside - I found "We All Want Impossible Things" incredibly moving.
“These conditions, or three “magic ingredients,” as Lisa Diamond, who’s a psychology professor at the University of Utah, calls it, are: time, togetherness, and touch.”
I have been thinking about this a lot lately in the context of platonic coworker friends. As an adult, the easiest way to get time and togetherness checked off is in the workplace. Yet those are the relationships where touch is the most fraught. When I think of my cis straight male friends, almost all of them are the spouses of my female friends. I have no problem or hesitation in greeting any of them with a hug and a kiss. My friends at work, to whom I am arguably closer, only get a fist bump. That lack of touch leaves me a bit unsettled because it feels like there is no good solution.
Timely, as I am vacationing this week and last night one of the friends I am visiting and I calculated that this is our eighteenth anniversary (ish) since it was Fat Tuesday and we met at Mardi Gras.
But generally, the thing that keeps me from feeling like friendship can be at the center of my life is reciprocity. As a long term single person with no children, I get that it is comparatively easy for me to center friendship, but at times it feels like people are happy to have me around when they need something but then retreat to their nuclear family or partner-centered walled-gardens. I have friends I hear from when tragedy strikes, or when their husbands are out of town, or when they’re feeling pent up in their day to day life and need some sort of “girls night” but who can’t or won’t make time otherwise. It all feels very transactional, and leaves me feeling like I need to make finding a partner a priority, even if it’s not my natural inclination.
I can't wait to read this book! In a total coincidence, I'm also teaching today about late nineteenth-century relationships between women, walking that tightrope of "what did they mean?" What a joy to see this today of all days.
I emigrated to the United States when I was 22 years old. I knew absolutely no one in this country. New friendships were vital to me; without them I had no one to talk to, no one to debrief my new experiences with, and no one to help me navigate the perplexing culture shift in my life (which was all the more perplexing because I emigrated from England, and so didn't anticipate any culture shock at all. Um, duh.) Friendships were everything; they were my support, my sustenance, and opened up new possibilities for me.
I love my friends deeply. Last year my friend Megan and I went on a trip together to celebrate our twentieth friend-versary, because why wouldn't you celebrate this as anniversary as much as any other? (Shout out to Whidbey Island!) This year I'll celebrate thirty years of being friends with my friend Laura, whom I met a week after getting off the plane in the US. Next year it'll be thirty years since I met my friend Ann Marie, whom I literally found through a mailing list about the TV show Friends in 1995. None of us live in the same town, but we make a point of having time together, online and off. And my friends and I absolutely plan to retire together in community.
I don't have family in this country to fall back on . . . except I do. I have a network of friends all over the place, and they have supported me through grad school, moves between cities, in my career, in my heartbreak, in some unspeakably tough times. They truly are the light of my life.
I had a best friend in college who was probably my first real love. She was a writer, I was a writer. College was a really hard time for me and her friendship and steadiness was a first in my life. She taught me about feminist frameworks and how to recognize power struggles between men and women and people, in general, if they have a different skin color. This was all radically transformative for me. I was raised highly isolated (emotionally, mentally, physically) from the world (we never took vacations and could barely eek away for a weekend to see my grandparents without racing back for Sunday morning service).
And I’ve never known why I proposed to her (now almost 20 years ago) that after college we live together, move to New York to be writers and if we really wanted a man, we could have him outside the house… kind of like a dog on a leash. 😂 I’m still shocked when I think about my idea because I was exposed to NOTHING like this growing up. Hell, I was still a virgin when I was proposing this and I didn’t even have in my mind the idea that we’d be lesbian partners. I didn’t feel for her that way. But I did long to be close to her. It was her company and friendship I enjoyed and I wanted to keep staying with her wherever I went in life. She was still pretty set on christianity and her response to my idea was “WHAT THAT’S CRAZY WE CANT DO THAT.”
A year or two later before she got married, she called me sobbing from a bathroom stall at work, asking “What am I doing with my life?!” She went on to get married anyways and as the old tune goes, we drifted apart but I’ve never forgotten that impulse to just live with my best friend forever, being happy, writing, reading and exploring the world without all the trappings that come with traditional relationships. I wish everyone could live with their first best friend love forever. 🧡
For the last year and a half I've been living with one of my best friends, and honestly, if it were entirely up to me I would live with her for the rest of my life. We effortlessly back each other up emotionally and practically. There's never any sense of tit-for-tat; it's just, "I love you so why wouldn't I do this thing for you that you clearly need?" She adores my kids (who live with us) and I love hers (though they're both grown and out in the world). Recently she started a new romantic relationship and we had to talk about it. Specifically about my fear that I would lose her to it, which prompted both of us to talk explicitly about what we mean to each other and how we want to prioritize our relationship. This is also timely because she's never actually had a chance to live alone as an adult, so she's moving out this summer. I am SAD, but also understand her drive towards that experience. And I trust we'll live together again in the future if we can.
Optimally, I would prefer to live with a dear friend and then have a romantic partner that lives next door. I don't lose myself in friendship the way I do in romantic partnership historically, so I don't feel like my closest friendships require that bit of physical remove to remind me to be mindful of my autonomy. But my romantic partnerships definitely do, perhaps because we've constructed heterosexual romantic partnerships particularly as this all-consuming thing. I find them weirdly vortex-like, personally. They suck me in in a way I find doesn't benefit me or suit me temperamentally. But my great friendships never feel like that for me. I feel like they help me be more myself, not less.
I loved this interview and all of Rhaina's thinking. I'm also disappointed not to see any reference or homage to the fact that queer communities -- defined broadly throughout history -- have always been at the forefront of centering friendship and creating "chosen family". I've been in queer communities in different places for twenty years now and have seen these practices everywhere. I would guess they are only so novel and new to hetero folks. I hope this is in the book.
I think those of us who are widowed eventually learn to reshape our lives around friendship. A bit surprisingly to me, several of those “new“ friendships are actually revivals of young adult friendships. They include a godmother from my adult baptism, the maid of honor from my wedding, a post-college roommate who sang in my wedding, and for whose wedding I baked the cake. Also someone from middle school whose art I collect. Another set are intentionally cultivated neighborhood relationships. I have a potluck with several other unmarried women monthly. I do a lot of work on the neighborhood landscaping, so my face is familiar to almost everyone here. Church is also an important set of connections for me, some of which are growing into friendships.
I've deleted and re-written a comment about 6 times because it keeps coming out so mopey, but here goes:
Articles like this about the power of female friendships or the strength in sisterhood (acknowledging that most of the above is not gender specific) always make me a little sad. My brain just doesn't do social relationships this way -- they're not easy, they're not relaxing or recharging, and often the enjoyment I get out of spending time with friends is less than or mental and emotional cost. But I need friendships and social interaction, so I do it anyway -- it's good for me in the long term, even if the short term is difficult.
I've made my peace with this (mostly), and given myself permission to stop aiming for this kind of friendship as a goal, because doing that always made me feel worse ("what the fuck is wrong with you? why aren't you relaxing in the cozy glow of your friend group right now? why is this so HARD?"). My friendships don't look like that, and that's ok! But every now and then I get bummed out about it because having a network of friends you love & can rely on just sounds really nice.
These type of conversations are always so interesting to me as someone who has never been a friend person. It sounds kind of nice but I'm just not built to be a good friend. Even as a kid the pleasure I got from friendship was always overmatched by overwhelming pressure to act like the kind of person who deserved friends and the guilt of knowing I was just faking it and if they knew who I really was they'd run and the knowledge that people most likely saw through me anyway and were being nice to me out of pity or duty. I could maintain friendships for a couple of years but then felt obligated to fade out of them so my friends could move on. In fact, one of the nice things about adulthood is that there is less pressure to have friends. I have a spouse that is the closest thing to a friend and siblings who I truly adore and who include me in their relationship even though I'm sure they would rather not and everyone else is an arms-length acquaintance - -most of them friendly acquaintances which is preferable to the alternative but not friends. Actually I know one person who keeps acting like she's trying to be my friend - we're going to coffee together today - and I'm so nervous, I just hope I can be who she needs me to be until she can make actual friends. She's new to town and is so nice and I know she'll end up finding her people, but this is a hard place to be a newcomer in and I think she's really lonely.
My partner has two best friends from childhood he talks to on the phone every day. As I hear their conversations it ranges from serious talking about relationships and health and jobs but it's mostly shared interests, the football game that was on last night or music or comedy they love. It's one of my favorite parts about him. I have always prioritized friendships and sometimes feel guilty that my imagined end game is to live near my best friend and don't always imagine my partner who I love very much as part of the
picture. But my partner is so encouraging about my maintaining friendships that he has grown to live these people as well. I also live in close proximity to my closest in town friends and while I dream of selling my run down money pit house I also factor in the coast of moving somewhere else where we would have to drive to see one another. I also serve on my city's zoning board and see first hand how vilified multi family housing is. Meanwhile living in a building full of neighbors to call on in times of need sounds like a dream.
My mother’s closest friend was our godmother Maxine (I’ve written about her on CulinaryWoman). They met in 1947 when Maxine was a lab technician under my mother’s supervision. Maxine was my mother’s maid of honor. She was there when both my brother and I were born. She and my mum took us on outings so my papa could rest on Sundays. When he died young, my mother invited her to move in. They were a perfect combination: Maxine did things like mow the lawn, grocery shop, and drive (my mother did not drive regularly until after my papa died). My mother was much more social and could get Maxine to dress up and go places. When my mum was in hospice, Maxine slept in her suite every night - I offered to do it, but Maxine wanted to. After my mother died, I told Maxine she could stay in my mum’s house as long as she was able. I eventually became her caregiver, and was there when she died two years ago. Several people asked me if they were an LGBT couple. No, the closest of friends. I’m so glad she was in our lives.
I have been sharing and listening and reading all the Other Significant Other content I can find. I have always valued or at least known I needed friendship in my life but it has taken time to really understand how to "operationalize" to use corpspeak, that in my life. I have an open marriage which is definitely something that gets the eye roll of "I mean, sounds fun, but i can't because of x, y,z". With an open relationship, I realized I needed to put the exact same energy I was putting into dating into dating my existing friends. Dinner dates, concerts we are excited to see, breakfast plans, walks, bike rides, all scheduled and planned and made with a specific person because of our shared interest or thing we wanted to do. All the pre-date stuff too, texting to say you are excited to see them, making reservations, texting about the day and what we both want and how much time we have, and then post-date follow up to say (sincerely) how much fun it was and how I can't wait to do it again.
For a lot of years, I have thought my marriage was less than others because I am married to someone who values independence and time and space. I didn't have the "best friends"/only want each other/do everything together thing. We love specific activities, live really well together, really raise kids well together and are affectionate and loving, love traveling together and as a family and ALSO vacation with friends without each other, take trips with our kids without the other, and go on dates with friends and lovers. I took a lot of time to get over not feeling "chosen" enough or valued because there wasn't what I was seeing out in culture in my life. But I also realized how suffocated I would feel if I felt like I couldn't make independent friends and had some sort of "spouse first" mentality.
I really really love my friends, I feel so much more comfortable talking about being in love with them and for understanding that the mix of romantic, sexual, and friendship love in one relationship is cool if you want it but is also deep, fulfilling and incredible from a number of different people. You just have to spend some time blocking out some of the dominant voices telling you, you are doing it wrong.
Very thought provoking. Having been in a long term relationship with a man that does not value friendships, can be if you let it, become stifling. I have a visceral need to see my friends and extended family regularly whereas my husband could go months without seeing a soul. To be honest we already live seperate social lives because of this disparity. However, I envisage a time where we live somewhat seperate lives, with my husband living mostly at our holiday home (100s of miles from friends or family, where he is happiest) whilst I stay at home in the city enjoying life with my friends and adult kids. Strangely that thought does not bother me too much at all.
Excited to read this book!! I really enjoyed the article & it clarified a lot of feelings I have. In my late 30s and single, and overall feel pretty ambivalent about marriage and the state of modern romance. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't, but I feel pretty committed to building a community in my life regardless. I am extremely lucky to have a life long best friend, but she sadly lives across the country.
My friends are very important to me, but the last few years have been kind of hard friendship wise. In 2022 all of my closest friends moved away within a matter of a few months. I have definitely found some new friendships, but these things take time. My biggest complaint for the last few years is that I'm continually ditched by friends when they get into a romantic relationship. My friend that I used to ski and hike with during the week? Started only doing those things with her boyfriend. This winter multiple friends cancelled plans with me, only for me to later find out they did things with their significant other instead. I understand that we all want different things, but it's starting to feel lonely to deprioritize romance for friendship, and then have people not show up.
THANK YOU for addressing the Boston Marriages question! This is the third interview with Rhaina Cohen I've seen this week (congrats Rhaina! you're everywhere and your book sounds amazing!), and I had been wondering where this question was.
I'm also queer, and many queer people I know take great joy in claiming famous people from history for our team based on their romantic/extremely close friendships -- Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens, Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, etc. There's a large part of me that really wants to look at these people and see people like me existing across time. But another part of me knows the evidence is ambiguous at best, and sees the danger of imposing modern identity categories on people from the past. (Although Rachel Carson wasn't that long ago; maybe I'll hold on to her.) Thank you so much for addressing that tension.
I love this. My best friend and her family are coming this weekend and I am so excited to see them. We have always been close but when we each got married and again when we started having children we talked about how important our friendship is and how that can extend to our families. I love being an aunt to her two girls and I love that she and her husband are aunt and uncle to my son.
Once, a couple of years ago, I mentioned to a co-worker that my friend and her family were coming up for the weekend (from two states away) and the co-worker, said, "how nice, does she have family in this area?" (she does not). My friend and I laughed afterwards, saying I should have responded, "Yes, she has family here, ME!"
As an aside - I found "We All Want Impossible Things" incredibly moving.
“These conditions, or three “magic ingredients,” as Lisa Diamond, who’s a psychology professor at the University of Utah, calls it, are: time, togetherness, and touch.”
I have been thinking about this a lot lately in the context of platonic coworker friends. As an adult, the easiest way to get time and togetherness checked off is in the workplace. Yet those are the relationships where touch is the most fraught. When I think of my cis straight male friends, almost all of them are the spouses of my female friends. I have no problem or hesitation in greeting any of them with a hug and a kiss. My friends at work, to whom I am arguably closer, only get a fist bump. That lack of touch leaves me a bit unsettled because it feels like there is no good solution.