One Good Friend Is All You Need
It’s time for the platonic define-the-relationship talk
When the sound of my kids’ screaming starts to push me over the edge, I grab my phone to text my friend Rachel. “Shitshow here, how about there?” I inquire, usually followed by a series of GIFs that reflect my current emotional crisis. Instead of texting back, she usually FaceTimes. With our preschoolers losing it in perfect harmony, we air our pandemic anxiety and banter about how glad we are we didn’t marry the guys we dated in 2009.
It’s always a relief. It’s cathartic. These days, it’s one of the few things keeping me tethered to any sense of normalcy.
Social connection is vital to our health and well-being. In a recent study, psychologists found that the most important lifestyle factor in preventing depression wasn’t exercise, sleep, or nutrition, but relationships — with people who make you feel understood.
Which is great advice for normal times, but it feels more difficult to achieve right now, when distance, anxiety, exhaustion, and the logistical difficulties of socially distant interactions are pushing connection further out of reach. As we round the corner from a hard spring and summer into a harder fall and winter, that will be truer still.
