A fact I’ll never unlearn about self care is where it came from. Not from a marketing meeting, as I’d always assumed, but instead in the wards of a psychiatric hospital. When I discovered this while researching my book Alonement, it transformed how I view – and practise – self care.

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‘Imagine if we all lived in a village together.’ The other day, I was sat with close friends on a sun-drenched rooftop in east London, fantasising about living in easy proximity of each other. The reality couldn’t be more different: said rooftop was around 45 minutes from each of our respective homes, which in turn are in opposite corners of the capital. For those of us living in large cities, this mutually-inconvenient meeting place is a familiar scenario.

Despite many of my friends living at least a Tube journey away, forming connections within walking distance is something I’ve thought about often in recent years - and something I’m still seeking more of. Ever since I went freelance at the beginning of lockdown, having a sense of local community has been more than a nice-to-have. Some days, a spontaneous walk with a neighbour, or a friendly exchange with someone at my yoga studio might be my only social contact. It’s the difference between a flat social battery, and a gently-charged one.

It’s a feeling , author of Substack-featured publication , knows only too well. Rosie, who grew up in California and has lived in various countries, together with Margate and London in the UK. When Rosie moved to a ‘village-y suburb’ in north Leeds last year with her husband, she suddenly felt an acute need to local connections.

So how do you begin to build that people-based infrastructure into your life? How do you meet your neighbours? How do you turn interactions from trivial to meaningful? How do you go about asking near-strangers for favours - and let them know you’d like to do the same for them? These are the sorts of questions that inform Rosie’s most-read pieces on Substack, including ‘How to build a village’.

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I should mention at this point that Rosie is a mother-of-one. And yet, so much of her work, such as her essays on seeking connection; loneliness; the need for local community, resonates with me, someone in an entirely different life stage to Rosie (i.e. single, living alone, childfree vs. married, cohabiting and a mother).

That’s exactly why she made the decision to avoid focusing on the experience of motherhood in her writing, she tells me: ‘I discovered this need [for connection] through motherhood, but it’s not exclusive to parents. In early parenthood, we think our problems belong only to parents – much like people who live alone and feel disconnected or left out think those problems belong exclusively to them.’

The way Rosie sees it, it’s ‘the same problem’. Not only that, but ‘both groups have the same problem, and actually that means they have the solution for each other.’

Back to the question: where do we begin? Later in this issue, I share:

• Rosie’s best advice for connecting with your local community

• A link to the full-length transcript of our conversation

• Bonus advice from other writers I love, plus a list of resources

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Self esteem isn’t everything; it’s just that there’s nothing without it. Those aren’t my words – they’re Gloria Steinem’s, writing in her 1992 book, Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem.

Self-esteem is a term that’s hard to define. Even psychologists don’t have a consensus. It’s often linked to confidence, yet at best it’s a distant cousin. While confidence tends to be about your ability to do something—to get the guy, to ace the job interview, to hit the triple 20 on a darts board—self-esteem is much more subtle. It’s about valuing and respecting yourself.

Confidence and self-esteem are both good things to have – but self-esteem is more fundamental, because it’s the basis upon which you look after your innermost needs. It’s less ‘I’m capable of doing so-and-so’ than it is: ‘I’m enough as I am’. Like confidence, self-esteem fluctuates depending on what’s going on in your life. I can tell when mine is dwindling if I let my flat get untidy, or if I persistently hit the pause button on hair wash day.

Interestingly, it’s a term that’s fallen out of fashion in recent decades – both in scientific literature, and in popular parlance. It came back on my radar, by chance, a couple of months ago, when I received an email from a long-time reader of this newsletter recommending an old school self-help book, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden, published in 1994 – two years after Steinem’s.

Unfashionable as it might be, it occurred to me – reading Branden’s book – that self-esteem is something we need more than ever right now. In a social-media obsessed world where so much is performative, it’s easy to neglect the little, private gestures you perform towards yourself when no one is looking—the ‘pillars’ on which you build yourself, and your self-esteem, up every day. We are also perhaps ‘in our heads’ more than ever, with the rise of therapy-culture, meaning that tangible, practical gestures (making your bed, taking a long, luxurious shower), can fall by the wayside.

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Anyway. For this week’s newsletter, I reached out to a bunch of people in my life (including fellow yogis, writers and journalists!) to find out how they build their self-esteem, combined with tips from figures like Mel Robbins (my latest obsession) and Brene Brown. Below is a list of 31 tried-and-tested practical ways to boost your self-esteem, today or whenever you need it. I loved compiling this list, and I hope you enjoyed reading it!

31 practical tips to boost your self-esteem

1. ‘I like picking a TV character to emulate in my dress and then take parts of their character. My latest was Beth from “Yellowstone”.’ - Victoria, 33

2. ‘For me, it’s a sleep or a good nap, followed by an ice bath – to boost my dopamine!’ - Malva, 37

3. ‘Whenever I’m low in confidence, I blare out a dopamine-heavy song, the more nostalgic, the better (00s house or Robbie Williams is good for that!’ - Michaella Parkes

4. ‘I sign out of Instagram! Then I instantly feel better.’ – Carys, 30

5. 😴 According to a study from the University of Basel, getting enough sleep (7-8 hours) is linked to healthy levels of self-esteem.

6. ‘I write a little list in my Notes app of things I’ve done recently that I’m proud of.’ - Radhika, 34

7. 🙏 Try Mel Robbins’ ‘high-five yourself’ tip: looking at yourself in your mirror first thing and giving your reflection a big high five! She explains why it works in this podcast episode.

8. Another one from science: research shows gardening, such as tending to an allotment, can boost self-esteem and body image in adults.

9. ⚒️ ‘Doing a piece of mega DIY - like tiling or fitting a ceiling light.’ - Ben, 48

   

10. I do an elaborate, 50-step (or thereabouts) skincare routine - Bec, 37

11. Going outside! It reminds me how small I am in the grand scheme of things – and how enduring the world is. That constantly is soothing.’ - Lizzie, 34

12. Gabrielle Bernstein’s Choose Again method: Notice a negative thought, forgive yourself for having it, choose a better one!

13. ‘Tidying my flat helps – a quick hoover works wonders!’ - Radhika, 34

14. ‘I call up my kid niece and nephews – they think I’m the best person in the world, and always give me a boost!’ - Bec, 37

15. ‘I’ve bought a tabletop ironing board that’s easy to whip out and hangs up in my wardrobe – and every Sunday I watch Derry Girls on my iPad and iron my clothes for the week. Knowing I’ve cared for myself enough to produce a wardrobe of crisply-ironed shirts is the perfect self-esteem boost, and the benefits are week-long’ – Me, 33

16. ✔️ Make a promise to yourself. A tip from performance expert Ed Mylett – commit to doing something differently (even waking up five minutes earlier, or not looking at your phone for the first 20 minutes of your day) and following through.

17. 🎵 ‘Listening to a good vibes playlist I made which is half rap, half girly pop… it’s wild how music can totally change how you feel.’ - Phoebe Dodds, 29

18. 💅 ‘Getting my nails done - never used to be big on this but it helps me feel put together.’ - Victoria, 33

19. 👧 ‘I listen to a voice note I saved from the boss of a production company (I work in TV) telling me how good I was on the job. That role was the most imposter syndrome I’ve ever felt, and it all worked out – listening to that message is my reminder of that.’– Bec, 37

20. ‘A lot of my esteem complexes come from “not getting shit done” and sending myself into an imposter shame spiral about being useless, especially when as a freelancer it’s all on you to get things done all the time. So I reframe my To Do list as a To Enjoy list, help remind me actually how lucky I am to do a job I adore. I also write a Done list at the end of the day to remind me of everything I’ve achieved – even if it’s just “Rested” or “Sent an email”.’ – Michaella, 32

21. 🚿 ‘Taking an extra long shower.’ - Deidra, 32

22. ‘Surrounding myself with close friends who know exactly the right words to say is the quickest way to make a low moment better.’ - Laura, 36

23. When you’re feeling low, Brene Brown recommends: ‘Talk to yourself like you would someone you love’. What would you say to your best friend right now?

24. ‘Opening my eyes to the small things in nature – like flowers and birds. The little beauties you always find everywhere, no matter what.’ - Joerg, 6

    

25. ‘My biggest self-esteem boost is just liking my outfit – even if I don’t have any makeup on and my hair is a mess.’ - Victoria, 33

26. ‘For me, power dressing always helps to shift things – especially voluminous tailored trousers that help me to “take up space” in the corporate world of banking, where I work.’ - Maryia, 43

27. ‘As a live-aloner, I’ve long been guilty of leaving a Tracey-Emin-esque unmade bed – but recently I’ve been pushing myself to make my bed every morning as soon as I get up: a small, loving gesture to return home to.’ – Also me, 33.

28. 🧁‘I buy myself an edible treat, like carrot cake from Lola’s Bakery.’ - Radhika, 34

29. ‘Spending time with positive, inspiring people always helps.’ - Cris, 30

30. ‘Dancing to fun music! I especially love listening to this version of “I Feel Love” by Mr Belt and Wezol.’ - Malva, 37

31. ‘Talking to a stranger! It reminds me of the power of connection and my ability to connect with people.’ Gemma, 34

🟡 Now you’ve read through this lot, I’d love to hear from you: what are your favourite ways to boost your self-esteem? Let’s get a conversation going in the comments!

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I spent most of last weekend alone – and I loved it. It was the most nourishing, calm period I’ve had in a long time. I emerged feeling like I’d spent two days with a caring close friend: someone who paid attention to my needs, championed me and felt excited about my future.

But it didn’t happen by magic. I was, to put it lightly, out of practice. After a series of weekends away with friends, together with a busier-than-usual social schedule, facing a weekend with next to no plans felt daunting.

I’m also an extrovert. That’s why I’ve long championed alone time as something best enjoyed in moderation, like a slow Saturday morning, reserving a few weekday evenings to yourself, or a solo(ish) holiday with guaranteed social activities planned along the way. Or else prioritising solitary activities (reading is my personal favourite) which aid reflection and decompression. A little goes a long way. But when the balance is way off kilter? That’s a challenge for me.

I found myself ruminating on questions, such as: Would I – as an extrovert – feel demotivated without my social ‘fix’? How would I structure my time, if I wasn’t rushing off to see someone?

(If you read this headline thinking, ‘A solo weekend without plans sound like heaven, how is this even a question?!’, then i. you are my idol please teach me your ways and ii. maybe this isn’t the guide you need. That said, if any of what I’ve written resonated – please, read on, my friend!)

The spoiler was in the first line: I had the ultimate weekend for one. Seriously. Like, 10/10, no notes. The next time a weekend sans social arrangements rolls around, I’ll be looking to recreate almost everything I did.

Read on for:

• My five best actionable pieces of advice on how to master the art of solo weekend

• A detailed schedule of everything I got up to last Saturday and Sunday

• 16+ pieces of solo-time inspiration

• Behind-the-scenes snaps from my various solo escapades

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Being in your thirties is a ride. In the past week alone, I’ve cradled three babies – most notably, meeting my friend’s newborn for the first time. In other news, one friend has gone back into education, enrolling in an advanced TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course with a view to living in Berlin. Another, having reached the pinnacle of her corporate career and bought the most gorgeous of flats, has announced she’s pressing pause for a few months while she fulfils her dream of working in a surf house in Portugal.

It’s like watching a series of films with female leads, witnessing alternately the cosy happy endings, and/or the montage sequence where the heroine commits to The Thing she was too scared to do at the start of the movie – and seizes her life by the horns. The commonality is that we’re all in our thirties. No one is acting like, to quote Oliver Burkeman in ’s latest newsletter, ‘real life is coming later’. Foundations are being laid – and they’re really, really heavy.

For the past half-decade, witnessing change in the lives of those close to me has felt scary. Threatening, even. I began to feel that way in my late twenties (I’m 33). That’s not so surprising. Aged 27, I thought I had settled down. I had the nice Jewish boyfriend, the circle of couple friends who were all getting married, getting pregnant. Our weekends were spent at weddings; weddings where people would say things like Mirtzeshem bei dir or ‘Please God by you’ – a Yiddish phrase that means, essentially, ‘You’ll be next!’

Reader, we were not next. The relationship ended. While reeling from the big break-up, I watched several close friends settle down and get engaged in quick succession. I was happy for them, apprehensive for me. Had we all made an unspoken agreement to do these things at the same time? If so, I’d unwittingly reneged on that promise.

Somewhere in the depths of my Google Docs, I have several thousand words of a novel I began drafting around that time, with the working title ‘Left Behind’. In retrospect, I should really have saved it for my therapist. Back then, I wasn’t – you might guess – feeling my most proactive. Still, I began to take action eventually. Not in the way I expected myself to (turns out, it would be a long time before I got back on the relationship train). Instead, I pursued my career; travelled; read; learnt; met a lot of people.

I stopped being a self-proclaimed victim of circumstance. I made changes in my own life, and that not only fortified me against the changes happening around me; it enabled me to celebrate them. Meanwhile, I changed, in ways that, although largely internal, feel foundational to who I am today and how I imagine the future.

As I say, your thirties are a ride. Yes, many of my friends’ lives have gone in drastically-different directions from mine – second babies, six-figure salary careers, homes with staircases. I used to ask myself: ‘How will I keep up?’. Now that it’s comically-unfeasible to do so, the pressure is off.

Life has a strange way of making sense, looked at backwards. Now, I know I wasn’t ready to make the same decisions as my friends. I know, in some cases, I never will be.

And maybe that’s just a comforting story I’m telling myself. An empowering narrative. Either way, it’s working.

As it turns out, the options for how to live are so much abundant than I once imagined. In my late twenties, it looked like everyone had ‘settled down’, like a game of Musical Chairs where the music had abruptly stopped. Looking back, that was far from the full picture. I was blinkered; hyper-focused on the friends following the trajectory I’d perceived to have ‘lost’.

I’ve witnessed unexpected plot twists in the years since. Everyone’s lives are moving on, but not all in the same direction. While it’s easy to fall into the narrative of ‘everyone’s smashing it in their career/meeting The One/having kids’, it’s rarely the case. Life was, is, and will continue to be complex, for me and everyone around me. It’s highly unlikely that everyone in your life is doing exactly the same thing, at the same time – and if they are, it’s probably time to widen your circle.

Talking of which, I’ve met a lot of people over the past two years. In stark contrast with the cliche of the shrinking friendship circle of one’s thirties, I’ve broadened mine: through travel, further education and getting to know my local community. These connections have felt deeper than in my teens and twenties. I’ve met people open-heartedly, from a place of greater confidence, and in many cases soberly. Now, when I consider how my life could change, I have a much more diverse range of examples to point to. That’s powerful; you can’t be what you can’t see.

My perspective has broadened. I notice, and admire, different qualities in people. Like being a badass, for instance. In Mexico last month, a 60-something Canadian woman in my Spanish class was telling us about her recent world travels. I asked the teacher for the Spanish word for badass: ‘chingon/chingona’ (m/f). It’s a slang term, generally positive, for someone independent, intelligent and competent, who lives on their own terms. A few days later, during an internal flight, I saw a woman on the plane wearing this hat, emblazoned with the phrase ‘Soy chingona’.

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Let’s hear it for the chingonas among us: the people whose lives veer away from the perceived norm, such as the American van-lifer I befriended on my trip, but also those who are badass-ing in smaller, everyday ways. Making a career change; taking a course; moving home; entering or exiting a relationship; having a baby in a conventional or unconventional way. I’m ready to celebrate any time someone makes a decision, whatever that decision is. You absolute badass.

Change doesn’t feel as scary anymore. In fact, it feels like it could be contagious. If this person is doing X, it means I could do that too! Or at very least, it gives me a vicarious insight to help me decide either way.

Studying fiction has also enhanced my appetite for change. It’s hard to, week-in, week-out, ask questions like ‘What makes a worthy plot point?’ and ‘What makes my protagonist heroic?’ without wanting to turn the lens on your life and the lives of those around you. You start to applaud what the kids call ‘Main Character energy’, while you have reduced patience for stagnancy (mostly your own).

Change is inevitable. If you’re lucky, you get to choose some of those changes, rather than have them thrust upon you. To hold fast to what you want, and to have faith in the direction you’ve chosen. That used to terrify me – and it still does. But now, it excites me, too.

Since returning from Mexico at the beginning of the month, I’ve found February has a lot to redeem it. For me, some everyday highlights include:

• Flowers: rainbow tulips and daffodils… bring on spring!

• Fleeces (I’m obsessed with my sold-out Uniqlo x Marimekko one which is still knocking about on eBay)

• Jacket potatoes: Beans, coleslaw, extra-mature cheddar and/or a mega tuna salad mix like this. The air-fryer comes into its own here, too

• Home-cooking in general. I had missed this while I was away! Last night my friend cooked us Singaporean national dish Hainanese chicken, a recipe so laborious and delicious we have dubbed it ‘love chicken’

• Cosy sofa time (solo, shared)

• ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’: Exceeded expectations. And my expectations were higher than The Shard.

• Movie awards season! I watched the BAFTAs at my cousin’s flat recently, and we loved watching Mikey Madison secure the Best Actress award for ‘Anora’ – the underdog choice, but a deserved one. I also loved this write-up in The Times: ‘Anora: how a $6m film about a sex worker became an Oscar frontrunner’.

Until next week!

Francesca x

Solo travel, I’ve learnt, is something of a misnomer. I often think back to the time I was travelling in Florence. Moments before I tucked into a gigantic plate of pasta, I heard a tapping on the glass beside me.

A woman, seated with her husband, was gesturing for me to join them. On that occasion, I politely (and wordlessly) declined, and resumed inhaling my carbohydrates. However, I do think this story is indicative of how, as a party of one, you might often find yourself a lot less alone than anticipated.

Alone, you notice, and are noticeable, to others, in a way that you aren’t when you’re absorbed in the company of friends. You are quite literally facing outwards, unhindered by someone else’s schedule. You can take the time to linger and chat to someone in a coffee shop, or even (as I did on the same trip to Florence) meet at the entrance to a church, where you’re both rejected for failing the dress code – and subsequently spend the day together.

But you don’t need to rely on these chance encounters – which happen, in my experience, when you least expect them, and, occasionally, when you’re least in need of them. I also recognise that, while talking to strangers is a weird flex of mine (I blame my maternal grandma, who modelled this for me growing up), others might regard this notion with a special type of horror reserved for ritualistic folk dance and vegan cheese.

Which is where solo(ish) travel comes in. That’s what I consider myself to be doing right now, as I’m four days in to a trip to Mexico. I did, in a literal sense, come alone, booking a single seat from Heathrow to Mexico City. But this trip is very much solo(ish) – in a literal and virtual sense, supported by others.

For example, during this current phase in Mexico City, I’m staying in an all-female shared dorm at Casa Pancha, a hostel with a packed activities calendar (everything from Mezcal tasting to run clubs), and I’m doing four hours of Spanish every morning in a group of five, with Spanish in the City school. Three days in, sitting down to write this is the most prolonged period of solo time I’ve had yet.

This first week was always going to be of a more sociable flavour – I had planned it that way, choosing my hostel based on the premise I’d meet like-minded patrons (and I was right). For the next part of this trip, when I’ll travel to Oaxaca, things are a little more solo. Having originally booked another dorm, I thought better of it and went for a private room in Selina Oaxaca (I’ve always loved the Selina franchise, having stayed there in Dublin, Barcelona and Tel Aviv). However, I’m already planning ways I might meet others – so I’m taking advantage of the city’s many walking tours (a tried and tested way to meet people, I’ve found in the past) which means I’ll be in company for a least a couple of hours a day.

Then there’s the virtual connections. The Google Maps lists of recommendations I’ve been checking off as I move around the city, for instance. A few of my friends have either been to Mexico City recently, or are planning to go – and I’ve found that sharing these lists helps me feel connected to them from afar.

I used to leave things more to chance on my solo trips – thinking I would, as I did in Florence, likely meet people along the way. Now I’ve realised that I feel better knowing when my social ‘fix’ will come along – I can plan around it, like mealtimes. Although I go through more introverted phases – most of 2024, for instance – and have some very introvert-adjacent habits (namely a writing career, a fiction addiction and a podcast about alone time), I know I am, fundamentally, an extrovert. This means I get demotivated if I don’t have enough social contact on any given day – and so it’s a need I account for, even on a so-called ‘solo’ trip. And I don’t have to choose one or the other. It’s not like it invalidates the solo travel experience if I have communal experiences alongside it.

That said, I have a fairly robust internal barometer for when I need me-time. But I can generally trust myself to honour that instinct – I don’t need to plan for being alone right now, because alone is my default state (obviously, if I were travelling with a friend, partner and/or children, it would be a very different kettle of fish). The social connection I’ve planned into this trip, and will continue to do as I go alone, is the scaffolding in which the sweetness of solitude exists.

The best solo travel advice I’ve ever received

📍 Save every recommendation to a Google Map: If you’re really organised, you could create specific lists like ‘Mexico food’, ‘Mexico parks’ (there are enough of them)

✨ Take a luxury item, just like on Desert Island Discs: This doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive (in fact, it’s probably better if it’s not) but it’s good to take something that feels like a home comfort, whether that’s a pair of silk pyjamas or your favourite face cream.

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I hate small talk.

I hate its air-kissing insincerity: its ‘SO GOOD TO SEE YOU’, ‘I’m fine!’, ‘You look well’. Its performative nature; empty phrases exchanged while everyone eyes each other up and assesses who’s had Botox. How it acts as a funnel for conversational faux pas, like ‘When are you having another one?’, ‘Have you lost weight?’ ‘Where are you from originally?,’ etc.

I appreciate that loudly declaring one’s aversion to small talk can come across as arrogant or antisocial, at worst misanthropic – especially during festive party season, when ‘tis the season to exchange niceties over house wine.

If I were being generous, I’d say that my personal vendetta is because I love small talk’s antithesis: big talk, those sprawling, meandering conversations you have around the dinner table, on a car journey or across the bed from someone. The latter makes me feel like, despite our essential aloneness inside our own heads, we’re able to connect intimately through conversation, in a way that feels like the point of life itself.

Small talk is the opposite. Sometimes, in the most excruciating of small-talk situations, I feel myself zoning out, like I’m playing The Sims – transcendentally looming over this conversation and innumerable similar ones taking place all over the world. We could be any group of people, performing the same role play of: ‘Hello! Good to see you! Are you well?’/‘I’m good thanks! The weather is awful, isn’t it?’

Then, the ‘How’s work?’ and ‘How old is little Petunia now'? ad infinitum, exchanged routinely – the purgatory of small talk, the people talking without listening in that Simon & Garfunkel song.

Ending the small talk tyranny

Maybe I’m biased, because several of my closest friends share this distaste: one subconsciously starts doing a loud yoga-style dragon breath when the strain of polite small talk gets too much, another physically removes herself from the conversation altogether.

A lot of people, meanwhile, grin and bear it. But I do suspect, beneath this endurance, there’s a received wisdom that small talk is something we have to do, out of basic politeness. That it’s just the way it is; a foregone conclusion that characterises parties (and makes many of us dread them).

But it doesn’t have to be! The best conversationalists I know have a knack for turning small talk into something mutually engaging almost immediately. An exchange where you come away having learnt something unexpected, or shared a joke, or developed empathy in a new direction. That’s the wonderful thing about strangers and/or people you haven’t seen in a while: you never know what’s going to happen. Unless it’s small talk, in which case I’d rather not have that predictability.

This isn’t about going from 0 to 100. I’m not advocating that one moment you’re making chit-chat about the canapés, the next you’re ploughing your unsuspecting victims with The Proust Questionnaire: ‘What is your greatest fear?’, ‘What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?’, ‘Which historical figure do you most identify with?’ and – while you’re at it – ‘HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO DIE?’

There’s a lot of potential in between those two extremes.

As we enter one of the most sociable times of the year, I surveyed friends and readers of the newsletter, foraging for advice on turning small talk into something better, which I’ve combined below with my own preferred methods (as a self-identifying small-talk allergy sufferer).

How to turn small talk into ‘big’ talk

Throw in a self-disclosure bomb

When I’m feeling the need to spice up the conversational soup, I throw in something a bit personal. I think it’s easy to conflate this with i) talking about yourself too much or ii) oversharing. But it’s not so black and white. Obviously, we don’t have to go around declaring our secrets to anyone and everyone. But a little bit of self-disclosure can work wonders in getting others to open up themselves (a psychological phenomenon known as self-disclosure reciprocity).

As much as this sounds Machiavellian, it’s something that I’ve always done naturally without knowing the name of it. However, it’s a quirk I’ve leant into more recently as I’ve come to realise how effectively it deepens a conversation beyond small talk, giving whomever I’m speaking to permission to reveal something a bit personal.

Recent personal examples of self-disclosure include ‘I ate so much delicious Ethiopian food yesterday evening I couldn’t sleep, have you tried it?’ and ‘I have a guilty obsession with Gen Z pop music at the moment – are you on the Chappell Roan bandwagon?’ and ‘I spent the whole afternoon unsuccessfully hunting down apple-green cardigans on Vinted – what’s your go-to knitwear brand?’

OK, maybe you might think these are terrible things to share in a social setting, revealing as they do my gluttony; occasional insomnia; unimaginative music taste; and internet shopping rabbit holes. However, they’re also humanising statements, and steer the conversation towards someone else baring their humanity, too.

Ask follow-up questions

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‘That’s it – I’ve pulled!’ I concluded, reading the latest message in a string of Instagram DMs. I’d been back-and-forthing with a distant acquaintance from university. We’d recently resurrected our friendship over a walk, a decade since we’d last met in person. That morning, I’d upped the ante, suggesting we follow up our walk with ‘Dinner soon?’ When she went so far as to suggest an actual calendar date, I knew I was in there.

This wasn’t a romantic exchange (I don’t, as far as I’m aware, swing that way). But it had a similar atmosphere of vulnerability, uncertainty and – well – hope, that I might feel in a dating context. Had the chemistry I’d felt gone both ways? I didn’t know what her weeks looked like – would she feel pestered by my suggestion to hang out? Was she in the market for a new friend? Did she say only say yes the first time out of guilt? Was it too soon to suggest hanging out again? Was this only ever supposed to be a one-time thing? Would she even reply?

Making friends, as an adult, can be just as complicated as dating. And in some respect, more so because it’s considerably less examined; we lack a rulebook. Once stigmatised, online dating has become so normalised that being ‘on the apps’ is the accepted norm for singles. But I’d venture a guess that many of us would feel less comfortable announcing that we’re ‘looking’ for friendship.

Once you’ve met, there’s uncertainty over how to move forward; how to know when a would-be thing has really become a thing. When your meetings become regular, birthday dinner invitations get exchanged, joint holidays get floated… what are the benchmarks?

Last month, I read Same As It Ever Was, the latest novel from Claire Lombardo. There’s a scene towards the beginning of the book where Julia, the main character, is invited out for ice cream by another woman, Helen. Even though she longs for the company, she’s hesitant over whether to accept. Lombardo summarises beautifully this particular flavour of vulnerability:

The rules of adult friend-making

The Meet-Cute

I’ve written about Meet-Cutes before in this newsletter; for the uninitiated, a Meet-Cute is a filmmaking term describing the means by which a romantic couple meets for the first time, ideally (for dramatic effect) in a memorable way.

But what about how you meet your friends? It’s a question you don’t typically consider in childhood, because it happens naturally through school (rendering any other, out-of-school friendships – through holiday, summer camp, extra-curricular clubs or your local neighbourhood– practically exotic). In general, until you’ve finished school – or university – friendmaking is something that happens incidentally, rather than proactively.

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I have to say, January, the nation’s least favourite month, is certainly living up to to its infamous reputation this year.

It doesn’t help that everyone is ill. Your mum, your best mate, your parents’ friend Howard from across the road, and, in a statistical marvel, every single commuter in your train carriage this morning. It’s either the zeitgeist-y cold ‘going round’, a throat full of invisible daggers, or the Covid strain threatening a comeback as unwelcome as Donald Trump’s to the White House.

Even I (typically blessed with saucily-strong immunity), was among the invalids last weekend. The trouble with being ill isn’t so much the piles of snotty tissues; it’s that it deters you from doing the basic practices that prop up your emotional wellbeing. Suddenly, the carefully-constructed foundations on which your everyday sanity is built come tumbling down like Jenga.

This is how that freefall played out for me. Because I was feeling lousy, I lounged around the house and steadily neglected to do my regular routines. According to my seven-day pill organiser (yes, I got the inspiration from my grandma), I forgot to take my supplements for a couple days, including the magnesium bisglycinate that has halved my anxiety since I started taking it a year ago. Then I forgot to do my morning meditation, which usually takes care of the rest of that anxiety. I then committed gastronomic self-harm, through accidentally on purpose ignoring my lactose intolerance.

The weather made it all worse, of course. Because, even if you’ve somehow escaped the plague, you still have to contend with this week’s sub-zero temperatures, which transforms going outside into a treacherous voyage (side note: has anyone else i. noticed an upsurge in balaclava wears and ii. been slightly tempted to buy one for themselves? I’ve had my eye on the Urban Outfitters number, hoping the cobalt blue shade will negate the burglar connotations…). Anyway, I fell short of my regular step count by a few thousand steps, and skipped my favourite Saturday morning yoga class. Instead, I moped on the sofa and scrolled near-strangers’ life decisions in a zombie-like haze.

The point that I’m getting to is, feeling crappy compounds feeling crappy. The minute you lose your baseline resilience, even putting one step in front of the other feels like a struggle. Your usual conscientiousness gets overridden by your lizard brain, which clears its reptilian throat and then demands, EAT ALL THE CHEDDAR! CANCEL YOUR VINYASA CLASS! PROCRASTINATE THAT DEADLINE! TEXT THAT PERSON SAVED ON YOUR PHONE UNDER ‘DO NOT TEXT’! BITE THE SKIN AROUND YOUR NAILS! ENGAGE WITH CONTENT PRODUCED BY A KARDASHIAN!

The only people celebrating, at this point, are the marketeers who conceived of Blue Monday, aka ‘the most depressing day of the year’, which occurred earlier this week on 13 January. They’re all high-fiving each other in a dingy office: ‘We manifested it, lads! Miserablest Monday ever!’

Staying at emotional base camp

What, amid the Jenga rubble, is the solution? Well! I have a modest proposal, which begins with significantly lowering our expectations for the next month or two. The way I see it, this probably isn’t the time to aspire for that happiness ‘peak’ (we’ll save that for spring/summer). Rather, it’s a time to rein in our ambitions a little and focus on maintaining those gentler platitudes: calmness, resilience, contentedness, a sense of routine.

It’s an approach endorsed by positive psychologists, who generally recommend aiming for contentment, over and above flirting with its flashier cousin, happiness. As Dr Elissa Epel, author of The Seven-Day Stress Prescription, recently told Stylist, ‘Chasing happiness is not the key to happiness: quiet contentment is a much better route to take.’ Personally, I like to think of it as ‘staying at emotional base camp’. But how to do it?

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