Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict

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I gave the book 4 stars because it was fun to read and it did help me reflect on the topic. But dang, so much about this book annoyed me! I also couldn't help but to think that while the author was presenting her own ideas, she kind of felt like a mouthpiece for liberal culture. Don't get me wrong, I'm also a liberal, and I support therapy and activism. But it felt like she had taken in everything someone on the left is supposed to believe and just shot it out of her writing without ever critically asking herself what is true. I had the sense that she had never done the work to transcend her culture, and so. her views didn't ultimately feel original. For any reader yet to encounter Katherine Heiny, this sparky new story collection provides a joyous introduction. Its title encompasses her protagonists’ antics in pursuit of – or flight from – love. They’re a somewhat jaded bunch with awkward pasts they never seem able to break free of. Nor can they stop yearning. And so a driving examiner only partially succeeds in remaining realistic about her workplace crush; a receptionist wears a taffeta bridesmaid dress to the office; a New York journalist, stranded by snow in her loathed Michigan hometown, finds sozzled closure in an airport bar. The deadpan delivery, the bittersweet wisdom, the sublime farce – it’s all here.

I loved the structure of the book, with chapters about societal change e.g. "double tap to like" and "ghosting" interspersed with interviews with friends about friendship e.g. "Clemmie: Can friendships withstand big life shifts". As a society, there is a tendency to elevate romantic love. But what about friendships? Aren't they just as - if not more - important? So why is it hard to find the right words to express what these uniquely complex bonds mean to us? In Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict, Elizabeth Day embarks on a journey to answer these questions. Sam asked me what words would be on my plaque (which wasn't weird - she knows me well). Without hesitation, I said "Friend, swimmer, reader." Sam replied, "Not mother?" And no, 'mother' was not what immediately came to mind. Analyse that whatever way you want... actually, it has come up a few times in my own therapy and I'm no closer to understanding my response, short of saying that my friends always have been, and always will be extremely important to me. I think much of it relates to what I witnessed with my grandmother. In summary, you’ll end up wanting to be Elizabeth’s friend, but also being okay with the fact that that’s not going to happen. Rarely have I felt so much goodwill towards someone I’m unlikely to ever meet. With the crisis came a dawning realisation: her truest friends were not the ones she had been spending most time with.Day describes herself as 'addicted' to friendship, and determined to be a 'good friend' because '...having lots of friends meant you were loved, popular and safe.' But the result of this was that she was exhausted (because she said 'yes' to everyone), and her personal boundaries were constantly tested. This lead her to consider the difference between quality and quantity. She goes on to explain how she rebalanced her friendships, alongside an exploration of the evolution of friendships, and the types of friendships we might have (the fun-night-out friend, the frenemy, and so on). A generous, companionable guide to a part of life every bit as crucial - and as fraught - as romance or family.’THE OBSERVER - Day's reflections on friendship were definitely valuable, but she didn't mention community once! She did say her friends tend to be from disparate groups. But in my own contemplations of connection and relationship, community is a HUGE part of the picture

From ghosting and frenemies to social media and seismic life events, Elizabeth leaves no stone unturned. Friendaholic is the book you buy for the people you love but it's also the book you read to become a better friend to yourself. Like most people I’ve had good and bad friendships. Over the years I’ve dropped friends, lost friends, made new friends, and held onto old friends. It can be quite a minefield at times especially as you get older, but also I know what I want from friendships these days, so I suppose it’s a bit easier in some ways. Then, when a global pandemic hit in 2020, she was one of many who were forced to reassess what friendship really meant to them – with the crisis came a dawning realisation: her truest friends were not always the ones she had been spending most time with. Alternative parking is available nearby at the APCOA Cornwall Road Car Park (490 metres), subject to charges. Blue Badge parking at APCOA Cornwall Road Over the course of the book, she examines topics such as the effect that the pandemic had on our friendships, why we make friends, friendships between people of very different ages, ghosting, platonic friendships between people of different genders, ‘friendship CVs’, the importance of clarity, frenemies, fertility (this chapter is a truly important piece of work in itself), the effect of big life changes and serious illness, friendship and social media, defining ‘best’ friendships and, perhaps the most unspoken subject, the grief at losing a friend.

I'm careful not to criticise books for not being what I wanted them to be. It states very clearly on the cover that it is the Confessions Of A Friendship Addict and this is very much a confessional. As such, everything is couched in the author's own experience and most topics are presented as the author trying to sort out a problem in her life. 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. Well, Day sets about redressing this imbalance with a vengeance, interspersing powerful and insightful chapters on various aspects of friendship—personified by her relationships with particular individuals—with short passages written by a variety of interesting, and often marginalised, people.