Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict

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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. I loved the exploration of not just what friendship is and means to people but that it's okay to end friendships, just as it is to end other relationships. And that it's not all about how many friends you have but the value you bring to your life. The essential difference between male and female same-sex friendships, is that female friendships are "face to face" whereas male friendships are "side by side". These phrases capture the frequently replicated finding that female friends like to "just talk" and view this activity as central to their friendship. Females compared to males also describe their talk as more intimate and more self-disclosing. Male friends, on the other hand, prefer to do things together other than "just talking." They share activities, such as sports, where their attention is focused on the same goals but not on one another. It seems like a sad indictment of society that we even need to try and analyse friendships but the author sums it up herself….”We don’t have the terminology and until we sneak it into existence, it is difficult to express what we mean with any precision” This is a very personal and relatable account of cultivating and maintaining friendships throughout challenging times and phases of life - not always a smooth or rewarding process, which will resonate with many readers, as with myself.

Friendaholic by Elizabeth Day | Waterstones

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. Why was this? Could she rebalance it? Was there such thing as…too many friends? And was she really the friend she thought she was? A book about Elizabeth’s infertility (trigger warning!!!) thinly veiled as a book about friendship. 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." Elizabeth Day tells us stories from her own personal life. This will be a very relatable book for many readers. She explores friendships and relationships. This is a thought provoking read. We don't need a massive circle of friends to support us. You just need the right people in your life. 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.I found the topic interesting but I was not a fan of the writer. I couldn't relate to her upper middle class select group of well connected "bright young things" type friends. I was most interested in the chapters dealing with Friendship and Fertility. Personally, I have also dealt with fertility issues and am childless. I felt I lost friends when they became parents. Other friends avoid all discussions of pregnancy or children around me. Assumable as they do not know what to say around me. So, in the book, I loved reading about another woman's experiences in a similar situation. Suddenly, I felt seen! I realised that I wasn't paranoid and that my fertility issues affected my friendships. 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.

Friendaholic | Elizabeth Day | 9780008374914 | NetGalley Friendaholic | Elizabeth Day | 9780008374914 | NetGalley

But the above is completely symptomatic of this book. The data is interesting if interpreted the right way but it's not useful if you just throw it out there without examining it properly. Why not explore why people from other cultures report having more best friends? And this is the weakness of the confessional, everything is limited to the experience of the author. There are some neat observations- I particularly liked the references to the solar system - but these are buried beneath a marshmallow of slightly self-indulgent waffle. 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 - I spent a lot of my time reading this book and thinking "Yes that happened to me" or "OMG that's me" or "I do/did that", so I feel it's a sign of a good book when so much of it relates or I feel seen.Best: Superlative of good. Better than all others. my best friend. : good or useful in the highest degree : most excellent. I was really excited to read this as I thought it would help me be a better friend and strengthen friendships. I couldn’t take much from it as most of the case studies seem to be about the author feeling overwhelmed by keeping up with friends (which isn’t the case with me!) In other words, we can't choose our family but we can choose our friends. One of Day's close friends grew up in very difficult family circumstances and stated that friendships were vital for her because they provided a way to '...understand that you can be loved in a different way outside of your family.'

Elizabeth Day in Conversation with Phoebe Waller-Bridge - FANE

It surveyed over 10,000 people across the world and found that the average age for meeting a best friend was twenty-one. The cultural perception of what a best friend was, and how many one should have, varied across countries. In India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, people reported having three times the number of best friends as those in Australia, Europe and the US. Saudi Arabians had the highest average number of best friends at 6.6, while Britons had the lowest at 2.6. Americans are most likely to report having only one best friend. Fourteen percent had no best friend at all." 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. scientists have routinely overlooked the study of friendship because it has no reproductive value... But if friendship has no survival value, it certainly adds value to survival. We choose friendship - and this, in Aristotle's view, makes it a higher-level love because of the freedom of intention that lies behind it. 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".

Friendship, particularly from a woman's perspective, is a fascinating relationship dynamic and as many of us have, I've been through a journey as I get older on how I value or measure friendship. This book definitely made me think a lot about the people in my life - the past and current friends that I’ve had and the roles they’ve played. It’s helped me to rationalise and reflect on my own experiences while reading about the authors. I feel a little less alone and a lot more equipped to handle certain situations with friends.

Friendaholic by Elizabeth Day review – friends with benefits

Elizabeth explores so much about what constitutes real friendship and why so much of it can be just as deep and rewarding, as well as challenging, as romantic relationships. There are explorations of modern day issues like social media friendships and ghosting, as well as deeper elements like friendships ending due to a bereavement. There are sprinklings of unconnected “Friendship Tapes” from individuals about what friendship means to them that break up each chapter beautifully. 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).There wasn't any language I could reach for to describe precisely what they meant to me. Most of the vocabulary around love had been co-opted for romantic relationships. I told my friends I loved them all the time. But of course I wasn't in love with them. It was more nuanced than that. I was passionate about them. 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. Relationships/friendships are so complex and it is reassuring to read something, in an easy way, that means your experiences aren’t that unusual after all! Friendships are important and can be life-altering!