New Friend

One Friend In One Month

Kelly Stout | Esquire | 15th July 2024

“I had a spouse, a child, a dog, a career — and almost nobody else to hang out with.” Covid-19, babies, technology, the lack of dining rooms have all been variously blamed for the difficulty in forming new friendships. Perhaps the two preconditions for a friendship to happen organically — “continuous unplanned interaction and shared vulnerability” — are harder to engineer as we get older (4,600 words)

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The planet might be falling apart but we can make our lives more meaningful by getting out of doomscrolling and playing in the real world while it lasts. How you ask? With this little weekly letter. Highly unoriginal. Except it might just change your life.

The New Pornographers

Roxane Gay | The Bitter Southerner | 9th July 2024

Commentaries on TikTok addictions are aplenty — this essay by Roxane Gay towers above the rest. “It’s striking that TikTok, on the surface, prizes individuality but what truly sustains the platform is the all-too-human desire to be just like everyone else. It becomes something of a Faustian bargain, because our online habits and behaviours are carrion for tech vultures. As we scroll, they feast” (3,100 words)