Connecting not creeping, age-gap friends, and being together until the end
Things to read, watch, and send to your besties this month.
In case it’s not obvious, we think about friendship a lot. This also (blessedly) means that our feeds are full of friendship-related content. To share some of these treasures with you, we publish this monthly collection! Think of it as part news update about friendships, part recommendations corner, with a sprinkling of lovely little things to send to your dearest friends to remind them how much they matter.
We’re thinking about: Moving from creeping to connecting
We loved
’s recent reminder that “surveillance is not friendship.” As she explains:even when big tech has produced dopamine-rich ways of keeping our eyes glued to each other’s lives with rarely any effort, i know that friendship is beyond being a witness. it requires hard work. it requires discomfort. it requires putting yourself out there without necessarily knowing what lies on the other side.
and can i be honest? i don’t even care to know about half the things i scroll past. i care to know what people want to tell me. because it’s important to them. because they thought of me. because our relationship is ours.
We all probably know at this point that social media isn’t really making us more social and just keeping tabs on people online does not a relationship make, but changing that habit is easier said than done.
One way to think about it is deepening our scrolling slightly. Instead of just liking a post from a friend you want to be more connected with, actually DM them with a question or compliment. Instead of just seeing a friend online and thinking that you miss them, reach out and say that you miss them. If you’re ready to get a little more advanced, you could try replacing some of your scrolling with one of our ideas for deepening friendships in 10 minutes or less.
Forevers of the month: Intergenerational friends
We loved this story from
highlighting close friends with decades between them (with gorgeous photographs of each of the friend pairs that make us want to get some professional photos taken of us!1). It turns out, this type of age-gap friendship isn’t uncommon: a survey found that four in 10 American adults have a friend that’s 15 years older or younger.
We’re curious, do you have any close intergenerational friends? How did you meet? What do you love about your friendship? Tell us in the comments!
Currently consuming: A dramedy about being friends until the end
I inhaled the entirety of Dying for Sex (streaming on Hulu/Disney+) in less than a day. Watch the trailer and you’d think this is just a show about Molly, a woman with terminal cancer, trying to check some things off her kinky bucket list before she passes. But I think the bigger and more important story is the one of the dedication two friends can have for each other.
After getting her terminal diagnosis, Molly leaves her husband and asks her best friend, Nikki, to be the one by her side until the end. There are so many touching scenes of these friends expressing and demonstrating their love for each other, grappling with how their relationship fits among family and romantic partners, and showing off the kind of silliness that can only happen between friends.2 (Including one scene that I loved so much that I tried and failed to memeify it
-style myself.)
And it’s not just the stuff of fiction — it’s based off a true story! I have not listened to the real-life podcast, but now I’m adding it to my list to learn more about the relationship between these forevers.
It’s a wonderful show with a representation of friendship that I don’t think we get to see often enough, but it’s also (obviously) somewhat heavy. Content warnings for terminal illness, childhood sexual trauma, and death.
ICYMI: A Forevers recap!
We’re hosting another free friendship love poem writing party, this time as a FieldTrip for CreativeMornings! Please come join us on May 7, or register to get the recording!3
We shared little ways you can deepen friendships without a lot of time (including a fun bingo activity)!
We wrote a hot take on the “blonde blob” friendship in The White Lotus!
We discussed the power of snail mail in friendships and gave a bunch of ideas for easy, mood-boosting mail you can send your friends!
We’re still new here and want to build a huge community of forever friends. If you have a few in your life who you think would enjoy our musings on friendship, we’d love it if you’d share it with them!
Things we sent each other
Have you ever done BFF couples costumes? We did one with me, Sam, and her husband, but never just the two of us…we want ideas!
From
…we’re discussing having our Squishmallows, Ximena the Mango and Louise the Corn, be our interns.
Another option for interns? The pillows of Sam’s cat Annabel that I just received as a very delayed part of my Christmas present (just in time for my birthday!).
Did we miss some great friendship content this month? Leave a comment sharing your treasures!
Sam note: Any photographers here that want to collaborate on a forevers photoshoot? 👀
Sam note: I’m still feeling a bit too raw after losing my Dad to watch anything about death but BOY am I glad I watched that clip hahaha. I would absolutely act out the full script of any play for Erin, even if she wasn’t bed-bound.
Sam note: YOU SIMPLY MUST COME! It will be fun and chill, I promise.
thank you so much for sharing my piece!! obsessed with the phrase "Moving from creeping to connecting". also furiously writing down dying for sex as another show to park my butt on the couch and consume <3
Every Substack needs an plushy intern (or two!) for sure.