Aminatou Sow

A. Friedman

'Deeply compelling' ROXANE GAY 'An inspiration' ARIEL LEVY 'Wonderful' HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON From the hosts of hit podcast Call Your Girlfriend comes the bible on how to keep each other close. Close friendships are the key to happiness - but we don't talk enough about what it takes to nurture them for the long haul. Telling the story of their own ten-year, complex, loving friendship, Aminatou and Ann share hard-won wisdom with honesty, hilarity and compassion. They've weathered life-threatening health scares, long-distance living, and one unfortunate Thanksgiving dinner eaten in a parking lot. And they know: the most important part of a Big Friendship is investing in each other again and again. This is a testament to the power of society's most underappreciated relationship and a compelling story of how it can survive, thrive and become a life-affirming bond.

Big Friendship

… except for the fact that she really didn’t want to live in a swamp full of status-obsessed former debate champions

sofia mae

But it has been much harder for us to find a language for the difficult parts: The frustration of giving more to a friend than they’re giving back. The unbridgeable gaps in even the closest of interracial friendships. The dynamic of pushing each other away even as we’re trying to reconnect. The struggle to find true peace with a long-term friendship that is changing. 

At a cultural level, there is a lot of lip service about friendship being wonderful and important, but not a lot of social support for protecting what’s precious about it. 

And in our experience, periods of transition—at any age—have been opportunities to make friends. 

Our shared love language is making and keeping plans. We have both had our moments of feeling sad while sitting alone at home, but we also know how to channel that energy into reaching out to a friend. We are nothing if not proactive women.

Most families don’t just have beautiful rituals; they also have destructive patterns.

What’s so maddening about friendship is that you don’t always figure out simultaneously that a stretch is necessary. Sometimes one of you is stretched to the point of strain while the other friend doesn’t even realize it. When you’re not the one who’s feeling stretched, it can be hard to notice all the effort your friend is putting in to sustain the friendship.

We don’t have a squad. We have an ever-changing, interconnected web of friends. It’s not something that’s easily captured in a photo, but the friendweb is a helpful visual representation of the complex ways that the people we love connect and relate to each other. 

Big Friendship quotes

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