The 7 friend groups I have at 42
And everything I’ve learned about friendship from them
I just hosted consecutive birthday parties on the last two weekends - the first, my son’s third birthday barbecue, which I mentioned in last week’s newsletter. Then on Sunday we had an elegant lunch in the garden for my husband’s birthday and this time I even managed to make a cake that didn’t come out flat (Mina Stone’s olive oil cake ftw). We had different guests at both events and I saw an incredible number of my friends, who all showed up for me and my family, bringing gifts, wine, stories and, honestly, just themselves.
This time of year always gets me a little emotional. Yes there’s an element of time passing marked by two close birthdays and a sort of anticipatory nostalgia. But just seeing all my friends come together to celebrate gets me a bit weepy. I vibrate the day after these events, they make me so happy. I always think how incredibly lucky I am to have these people in my life.
There is no right number of friends to have, although it is suggested that between three and six close friends is the sweet spot and the most well-known theory about how many friends one can have was made by psychologist and anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who argues that humans are only cognitively able to maintain about 150 connections at any one time.
Friendships come in all sorts of wonderful and tricky forms, from colleagues to mum friends, even exes. In no particular order, here are all my friendship groups and the different things I get out of them (and hopefully they do too).
School friends