The Six Forces That Fuel Friendship
“The Friendship Files,” my series of interviews with friends about their friendships, began with an idle thought. Having written a lot about both friendship and dating apps, I was curious about Bumble BFF. Did it work? Did it feel like dating? What do you do on a friend date anyway? So I interviewed two young women who became best friends after using the app. It was intended as a onetime article, but the conversation was so fun, genuine, and sometimes vulnerable that I wanted to do it again.
[Read: How friendships change in adulthood]
That was more than three years ago. Since then, I have done 100 interviews. The 100th—which features a French woman and an American woman whose families were connected by an act of courage during World War II—published today. It will be the final installment.
Saying goodbye to this series is bittersweet. These conversations have felt different from any other interviews I’ve done. In them, I’ve not only heard about friendships, but witnessed them in real time—how the friends talk and joke together, how they remind each other of their shared history. I never did a single interview that I didn’t publish; every friendship has a story. I’m so grateful to the hundreds of
