🧭 Cultural Compass #13
A round-up of culture influencing my navigation of life: On Friendship
Received an email about a new chat this morning, and slightly confused? I've set up a new subscriber-only chat to celebrate one year of The Navigation, and to invite readers into a new space. You can access the chat in the Substack app or on the web version. Hope to see you there! 🧭🎂
For this issue of Cultural Compass, I’ve opted to focus on the theme of friendship, both because it's a topic I've personally been thinking about quite a lot recently - how we show up for friends, the kind of friendships we value - and because there have been a couple of highly share-worthy pieces sparking my attention on Substack.
Speaking of Substack, a quick reminder that for the month of February, to celebrate the first birthday/anniversary of
, there’s 50% off paid subscriptions, should you wish to financially support this venture from which you hopefully take some insight and enjoyment. But if you’d rather remain a free subscriber or passive browser, then worry not - we can still be friends!Now, let’s get to it.
📑 Problematic Pals?
First up, a piece from
which I think has gone a little bit Substack viral after being featured in a newsletter*, and when you read it, you'll see why.Spinks' nuanced take on the "problem" of friendship has resonated with many, because it touches on different issues we face, as millennials in particular, regardless of where we live or our life circumstances. The WhatsApp volleys, the needing to schedule friend dates literally months in advance, the cravings to be able to just "pop over for an hour" are all highly familiar to me - and I don't even have children.
I'm not looking to make new friends, I just want to maintain good relationships with the friends I have. But, as Spinks identifies, with friendship sometimes starting to feel "strikingly similar to admin", I too am looking for the kind of friend nourishment that messaging apps do not provide. With references to hyper connectivity, burnout, capitalism, and a hefty dose of Esther Perel, Spinks explores why we may be struggling with friendship, how expectations have altered over the years, and reminds us we are not machines - we have limited capacity for interaction, and it should be spent wisely.
The comments also offer some interesting takes, should you fancy a bit of a scroll after reading.
*Fun fact: less viral, but I also appeared in
last year with a piece for .
📑 The Age of Ambition
Next up, a piece I’ve kept saved in my phone notes app, waiting for a good time to share. In this article for Elle, Rainesford Stauffer explores why we should be ambitious about our friendships. When I first read this last year, I remember nodding along to Stauffer's words (and was reminded why her first book An Ordinary Age should come off my TBR pile and get added to the read list - maybe this year!).
Exploring what ambition means in our work lives, and what it could, and perhaps should, mean for our relationships with friends, Stauffer draws on experts as well as sharing insights from her own experiences. She talks of not wanting to lean too much on people - something I am also guilty of but trying to get better at - and reflects on the effort it takes to successfully sustain a friendship, even if this isn't celebrated with a card of congratulations in the same way it might be when we work hard to pass exams, a driving test, or get a new job.
The article considers what we might gain from prioritising our friendships with the same sense of ambition we might direct towards getting a promotion, and what we can learn from those who have historically been much more adept at prioritising friendships, such as members of LGBTQ+ communities.
As mentioned, I've recently thinking about how I want to show up for friends, and how different friends may want, or need, us to show up for them in different ways - and you may recognise yourself that you look for different things from different pals. But whether it's about more IRL face time, building friends into daily routines, or focusing on the quality of connections, bringing more ambition into how we approach friendships I think can only be a good thing.
Do you agree?
📑 Childhood Connections
The third recommendation for this issue is one I read on a plane last week (more on that soon, in an upcoming meanderings post) and saved to send to a few select friends when I landed.
Kamila Shamsie's Best of Friends is another on my TBR list (ever-growing, never-ending) and though I haven't read any of her books (but did hear great things about Home Fire) her words in this interview with
were so relatable I almost felt like we knew each other.The way she talks about the evolution of friendships when you've known each other since essentially birth, and continue to enjoy a close bond through teen years, adulthood, motherhood, and beyond, so beautifully hits the nail on the head. People change, and as we grow older, hopefully wiser, we gather up more life experience. This doesn't always make it easy to maintain the same friendship we had at 12, caught between braiding friendship bracelets and trying to sneak alcohol from parents’ cabinets. But I don't think the point is to have the same friendship. It's about letting the friendship grow and develop as we as individuals grow and develop.
The friendships with my childhood confidants do look different now, as we come to terms with turning 30, generally living quite different day-to-day lives and dealing with a list of competing priorities. But there's so much richness that couldn't have existed 20 years ago; the pride felt for their achievements, the happiness of celebrating big moments in their lives, enjoying grown-up culture together, and the maturity to support each other in ways we could never have known we'd need to.
All that to say, thank you Kamila Shamsie and
📺 BONUS - while we're on the topic of friendships, in case you missed it back in November, I thought I'd point towards my shout out for The Bold Type; a BBC iPlayer series based on the lives of three twenty-somethings working at a magazine in NYC, trying to figure out love, life and the pursuit of happiness. I'm still thoroughly enjoying the show on the evenings where I can indulge in an episode alone, often accompanied by a glass of red and a bowl of pasta on the sofa. Terrible as I am at binging any TV shows, it does mean I've had well drawn-out months worth of enjoyment from these pals.
If you've already completed The Bold Type and are looking for another delicious, friendship-focused watch, move up state slightly and over to Amazon Prime for Harlem (which I don't think has yet featured on The Navigation, but last year did have a prominent place in recommendations shared in group chats!).
Feel free to share any of your own friendship recc’s in the comments!
If you liked this piece and would like to show some support without a paid subscription, a Ko-fi coffee is always welcome ☕
This post is so relatable. Although I will highlight you are not an “admin” friend 😝