Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict

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Friendship is unique in not having anything - no birthdays, no anniversaries, no ceremonies to mark it. This means it's also uniquely difficult to manage the development of a friendship in a careful and caring fashion. There are a small collection of instances where the text's autobiographical spine means that the premise of a more journalistic examination of friendship as a concept falls away in place of slightly self-congratulatory exposition. I say this with the HUGE caveat that the text clearly reveals Day to be an extremely generous and loving friend. The portraits she paints of the most important people in her life are truly charming, and hold mirrors up to many of my own relationships. I had a bit of a weird moment a couple of years ago that turned out to be quite significant because I've thought about it often since. I walking with my friend Sam around Burnley Gardens. We came across this plaque on a bench overlooking a quiet corner of the gardens -

Friendaholic by Elizabeth Day: Weaning herself off a need for

Her only other source on male-to-male friendships is her male friend who doesn't have any. Seen as he doesn't have any or think they're any good they must therefore not exist right? That's just stupid. This male friend of hers who is the chosen expert on male friendship despite not having any says he's the type of guy who hates a stag do. Hmmmmm. I wonder if we should maybe look around for someone who likes the quintessential western male-to-male bonding experience before we just openly dismiss male friendship as a fiction. I turn to psychologist and professor Paul Wright to sum up the main difference between male and female friendships. Amidst birthday joy, thesis submission anxiety, and bittersweet farewells, this book was placed in my hands by my beloved friends. I felt it as a symbolic gesture that marked the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, that is now forever imprinted in my memory, heart and soul. This book embodies a chapter of life we shared, some that proceeded it and the unwritten ones yet to come. I really enjoyed this exploration into the value of friendships. As a bit of a friendaholic in my past too, there was a lot here I could relate too - anxious attachment style, need to feel loved and valued and fear of rejection. I, like Elizabeth, felt that quantity somehow reflected on my own self worth, and more friends would stave off the residual fear that adolescent bullying left me with. One way of taking a stand against the spread of this mechanical language would be to stop lining the caps of confessional beggars like Elizabeth Day. For, as Auden says, though such writers are contemptible, they’re “not so contemptible as the public who buys their books”. I loved how Day approach this concept, from her early years through to today, and how her friendships (and many of the readers - well certainly me!) have evolved. But it's also sprinkled with a lot of research studies and historical references on this type of relationship in comparison to romantic ones.Then, when a global pandemic hit in 2020, she was one of thousands of people forced to reassess what friendship really meant to them.

Elizabeth Day in Conversation with Phoebe Waller-Bridge - FANE

It’s semi autobiographical which always gets me reading ( maybe I’m just nosey !) but is mixed in with real life case studies and covers all elements of friendship . From the impact of social media and huge world events ( Covid) to things like ghosting and toxic friendships. It definitely gets you to think about your own friends and how they benefit ( or drain) your life , also makes you think about how you can be a better friend . Likely, the book exists to provoke this sort of concern – to draw attention to an aspect of life that has gone unexamined because “we’ve spent so much time heroising romantic love”. Whether it’s wise to scrutinise friendship in the way we’ve scrutinised romantic love is debatable but Day does a good job of convincing us the topic is interesting and worthy of at least some analysis. Blue Badge holders and those with access requirements can be dropped off on the Queen Elizabeth Hall Slip Road off Belvedere Road (the road between the Royal Festival Hall and the Hayward Gallery). Elizabeth Day is a former journalist, now author and podcaster. She is also a self-confessed Friendaholic. In this book, she examines her friendship and her addiction. It is a reflection of her connection to her friends, a compilation of studies of relationships throughout history. (The studies mentioned include Nietzche and Aristotle). Intertwined within the book are the "Friendship Tapes," various interviews with other people about their feelings in friendships.I enjoyed her writing style and personal stories; she's realised that she has over-relied on friendships in the past and used them to prop herself up, rather than acting as an equal partner. There was a lot in the book to think about and reflect on in my own life, and some of the insights were certainly more challenging than others. There was nothing in this book that was new to me but I enjoyed the opportunity to reflect on my own friendships. Day notes that most of her lasting friendships were '...sparked not by a shared hobby but by an initial frisson of kindred feeling.' It's the same for me and I always think of the Anne's (of Green Gables) definition of a 'kindred spirit' when I think of my very closest friends.