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#relationships #mental-health #identity #communication #social-dynamics #aging #loneliness #social-connections
London politics
fromwww.theguardian.com
10 hours agoMy partner was cheating. I wouldn't have told anybody else': people who found the right friend at the right time
Two single mothers formed an instinctive, emotionally safe friendship through shared resilience, practical support, and nonjudgmental care for each other’s children.
fromBig Think
3 days agoThe Dali trick: The strange psychology of becoming who you want to be
“Hey mate, what's your name? What are you here to study? Cool, cool. Fancy a drink?” Ben was an archetype. He was an artsy, romantic sort who wore loose knitwear and an Alibaba scarf he'd bought from a souk in Morocco. Authentically Bedouin, handmad e.
Writing
Books
fromIndependent
1 week ago'We knew we wanted to write a book that involved a lot of bad men and experiences we'd had' - Aisling authors Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen
Working together on a first post-series novel brings pressure, friendship endurance, and mental health considerations into the writing process.
Writing
fromSilicon Canals
2 weeks agoI asked 5 of my friends what they'd say at my funeral and then I sat quietly in my kitchen reading the answers and understood for the first time what I actually meant to the people around me - and what I had been getting wrong - Silicon Canals
Asking close friends what they would say at your funeral reveals the gap between your self-perception and how others actually experience you.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
2 weeks agoI stopped initiating with my closest friends for ninety days, no calls, no texts, no checking in, and the silence I got back wasn't cruelty, it was the simple confirmation that I had been the entire weather system in every one of those friendships - Silicon Canals
Generosity can mask self-protection, and stepping back from initiating contact reveals the true nature of friendships.
#identity
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoPeople don't stay in friendships they've outgrown because they're weak - they stay because identity is bound up in being the kind of person who doesn't abandon people - Silicon Canals
People stay in outgrown friendships due to their identity being tied to the idea of not leaving, not out of cowardice or weakness.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
3 weeks agoNobody talks about the specific kind of invisibility childless people feel in their sixties, and it's not about missing grandkids, it's that the social world reorganizes itself around family milestones, and people without that timeline slowly stop being included in the calendar - Silicon Canals
Social invitations decline for those without kids as friends focus on family events, leading to feelings of exclusion.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
3 weeks agoPsychology says people who have no close friends outside of their spouse haven't done anything wrong - they've simply built an arrangement where their partner is the friend, the confidant, the witness, the everything - and the burden on the spouse is invisible until something happens, and then everyone in the marriage discovers at once that one person cannot meet every emotional need of another no matter how good the love is - Silicon Canals
Having a spouse as your only friend can create emotional burdens and limit social support.
#aging
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
3 weeks agoNobody warns you about the part of aging past 70 that actually lands hardest, and it isn't the body or the slowing down, it's the quiet Friday afternoon you realize the people who knew the younger version of you are gone, and the ones still here only ever met the careful, edited version you became - Silicon Canals
Contact lists reflect a life story, often filled with memories of those who have passed and the edited versions of ourselves.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
4 weeks agoIf someone over 65 has stopped initiating contact with people they used to be close to, psychology says something far more complex than losing interest is happening - Silicon Canals
Friendships after 65 require significant effort, and many men struggle to maintain them due to societal expectations and personal challenges.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoPsychology says people who reach their 60s without a large circle of friends aren't lonely - they've just stopped pretending to enjoy the kind of company that drained them for most of their lives - Silicon Canals
Popularity does not equate to happiness; meaningful connections often outweigh the number of friends.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
3 weeks agoThe people who plan every gathering, send every invite, and check in on everyone first aren't controlling, they figured out early that being the one who initiates is the only reliable defense against being forgotten - Silicon Canals
Organizing social gatherings can be a strategy to manage social anxiety rather than a personality trait.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
3 weeks agoI thought having only a few close friends meant something was wrong with me - then I realized I'd spent years being everyone else's emotional support - Silicon Canals
Real friends are few, and being an emotional support for others can lead to exhaustion and a lack of genuine connection.
#retirement
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
4 weeks agoNobody talks about what actually happens to your friendships in the first years of retirement, and it isn't drama or fallouts, it's the quiet Tuesday afternoon you realise some people only knew the working version of you, and there's nothing left to talk about now that the building between you is gone - Silicon Canals
Retirement often leads to the fading of work friendships, revealing that many connections were based solely on the work context.
Retirement
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoI'm 66 and the loneliest I have ever felt in my life wasn't when I lost my parents or when my kids moved away - it was the first winter of retirement when I realized my entire social world had been held together by a building I no longer had a reason to enter - Silicon Canals
Retirement can lead to unexpected loneliness as social connections tied to work diminish.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
4 weeks agoThe people who never ask follow-up questions about their friends' lives aren't disinterested. They're often so used to managing their own internal noise that taking on someone else's details feels like adding weight to a system already running at capacity - Silicon Canals
Conversations often avoid deeper topics due to cognitive load and emotional capacity, leading to surface-level exchanges.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
4 weeks agoThe friends who remember every detail about your life while sharing almost nothing about their own aren't private. They figured out early that the person asking the questions controls the conversation, and being known felt more dangerous than being interesting. - Silicon Canals
Friendships fail when self-disclosure is asymmetrical; reciprocity is essential for intimacy.
fromwww.bbc.com
1 month agoFrom blank sheet to double promotion - the best pals reviving Nuneaton
"I was the shy one, he was the talkative one," Acton told BBC Sport. "We just connected," Dodd added. "We finished junior school and then went to the same senior school, so we literally spent the whole five years [and] school holidays in each other's pockets."
Manchester United
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoThere's a specific kind of person who always asks how you're doing but somehow never gets asked back, and it isn't because they hide it well. It's that they've become so associated with being the checker-inner that unprompted care has started to feel like something that happens to other people - Silicon Canals
Friendships often rely on one person to check in, creating an imbalance in emotional responsibility.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoThere's a certain type of friendship you only appreciate in your 50s and 60s - the one where you can sit in the same room for an hour without talking and not feel like anything needs to be filled, and the fact that you can be completely unproductive in each other's company is the exact thing that makes it valuable, because most relationships require performance and this one doesn't - Silicon Canals
Friendships that truly support you in later life often form in adulthood, not childhood, and thrive in shared silence and presence.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoPsychology says the adult who has acquaintances but no close friends isn't failing socially - they're often someone who learned early that real closeness came with conditions, and a polite distance has always felt safer than the bill - Silicon Canals
Emotional distance in friendships often stems from conditioned avoidance learned in childhood, not a failure of social skills.
#vulnerability
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoI'm 37 and I just realized that the reason I have no close friends isn't because I'm hard to love - it's because I learned young that needing people was dangerous - Silicon Canals
Recognizing patterns in friendships reveals a fear of vulnerability and a tendency to withdraw as relationships deepen.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoSocial psychologists say the friendships we lose in adulthood aren't lost to conflict or distance - they're lost to the moment one person stops initiating and the other interprets the silence as confirmation they were never that important - Silicon Canals
Friendships often end not through conflict but through unreciprocated effort and silent interpretations of communication gaps.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoMost people don't realize that the sharpest loneliness in midlife isn't having no friends - it's having friends who knew an earlier version of you and have no interest in meeting who you've become - Silicon Canals
Loneliness in midlife often stems from friends not updating their understanding of each other, rather than a lack of social connections.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoPsychology says people who are liked by everyone but have no close friends have perfected the art of being liked without ever being known - and the distance between those two things is where their loneliness actually lives, invisible to everyone who enjoys their company and unbearable to the person providing it - Silicon Canals
Mastering likability can lead to isolation, as it prevents genuine connections and vulnerability with others.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoPsychology says people who are very selective with friends aren't lacking in social skills - they're often carrying a level of social awareness so sharp that casual conversation feels hollow the moment it starts, and the energy it takes to pretend otherwise is a cost they've simply stopped being willing to pay - Silicon Canals
Selectivity in friendships reflects a deeper social awareness and the need for genuine connections rather than superficial interactions.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoPsychology says people who reach their 60s without close friends aren't the ones who lost everyone along the way - many of them made a series of quiet, deliberate choices over decades to stop investing in relationships that required them to perform, accommodate, or shrink, and what looks like loneliness from the outside is often the result of finally choosing themselves - Silicon Canals
Many older adults choose solitude over draining relationships, prioritizing deeper connections over maintaining superficial friendships.
fromArchitectural Digest
1 month agoThis Designer Renovated His Best Friend's Upper East Side Apartment-Relationship Still Intact
The redesign began with targeted tweaks to the floor plan to streamline circulation. Ruttenberg added a new central hallway to access the other spaces efficiently.
Renovation
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoI'm in my thirties and I finally understand that the friendships I lost weren't lost because I changed. They were lost because I stopped performing the version of me that made the relationship possible, and nobody told me that was what had been holding it together - Silicon Canals
Friendships often end not due to change, but when one person stops the emotional labor that sustains them.
Music
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month agoHe'd gaze at the stars and go: I'm gonna be up there one day': Prince by those who knew him best, 10 years after his death
George Clinton reflects on his deep friendship and musical connection with Prince, highlighting their shared experiences and Prince's unique talent.
fromIndieWire
1 month ago'The Pitt' Season 2 Finale Is Open to Interpretation - So Long as You Watch Through the Credits
Santos and Mel's duet of Alanis Morissette's 'You Oughta Know' strikes the right chord, imploring they let their hair down and vent their ineffable frustrations into the mics.
Medicine
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