Bad Friend: A Century of Revolutionary Friendships

by Tiffany Watt Smith

'A hymn to friendship . . . will leave you moved, hopeful and inspired in equal measure.' DAISY HAY
'I absolutely loved this book.' KATHERINE ANGEL
'I urge you to read it.' SUZANNAH LIPSCOMB
'I'm grateful for Bad Friend.' AMY KEY

A rebellious new history of female friendship and timely reclamation of the 'bad friend'.

Move over idealised BFFs, glossy gal pals and indestructible work wives. Meet the bad friends. The dangerously romantic school girls of the 1900s. The office gossips of the 1930s. The mum cliques of the 1950s. The angry activists of the 1970s. The coven - women who choose to live together in old age - of the present day. These 'bad' friends broke the rules about femininity they didn't write. Their relationships were controlled, patrolled and judged too intimate, too consuming and in some cases, too powerful.

In this history of women's friendship, celebrated cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith reckons with the ways we understand this complex and vital connection. She takes us from Japan to the Ivory Coast, The Mindy Project to Zadie Smith's Swing Time, from prisons to film sets to hospital wards and elder communities, untangling the assumptions about good and bad friends we live by. Weaving together history, interviews and memoir, Bad Friend offers what's long a more expansive, more rebellious vision of friendship fit for twenty-first-century life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, History, Friendship

305 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 22, 2025

About the author

Dr. Tiffany Watt Smith is a cultural historian and author of The Book of Human Emotions. In 2014, she was named a BBC New Generation Thinker, and her TED talk The History of Emotions has over 1.5 million views. She is currently a Wellcome Trust research fellow at the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary University of London. In her previous career, she was a theater director.

Reviews

[Georgia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

My desire to go and live in a commune has been intensified.

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wenige Beziehungen sind popkulturell und gesellschaftlich so aufgeladen und wurden/werden zugleich historisch und gegenwärtig so unterschätzt und kritisiert wie Freundinnenschaft(en).

In diesem fantastischen Buch begleiten wir Tiffany Watt Smith auf ihrer Spurensuche durch Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, zwischen eigenen (gescheiterten?) Freundinnenschaften und den Ideen und Erfahrungen anderer Frauen* bzw. Freundinnen*.

keine einfache Aufgabe, angesichts der Tatsache, dass Freundinnenschaften stets als weniger wichtige Beziehungen galten: „women’s friendships were not memorialised in stone or glorified in reams of soaring poetry“ und „Intense and intimate friendships between women are so often either over-determined as sexual relationships or downgraded as childish infatuations.“

Darüber hinaus wurden sie nicht nur unterschätzt, sondern sogar aktiv unterbunden: „Men knew the power of these alliances. Friendships gave women independence and autonomy. They were a way for women to protect one another, and gain agency in a world not designed for them, so no wonder they were readily derided and dismissed.“

Und trotzdem: „But they were there. I find them in scraps and shards. I find them in whispers, and stories of love and devotion so beautiful some bring me to tears.“

Zugleich beobachtet Watt Smith aber auch eine fast mystischen Überhöhung von weiblicher Freundschaft, die diesen Beziehungen auf ihre eigenen Art Schaden zufügen kann:

„Girls grow up learning that to know what others want, caring for them and being attached to them is right and must be the way they organise their lives. They must create a selfhood dependent on this kind of connecting to others. Acting on one’s own initiative and seeking a separate identity is wrong unless it comes second.’ This instinct to merge could take women to extraordinary heights of intimacy and empathy, and to places of astonishing mutual self-creation and discovery. But it could also take them past that point, and into a crisis where they had to separate and individuate. The point Audre Lorde called ‘that place where work begins’.“

„We are so used to talking of friendship as a relationship we fall into and out of; we do not shape it so much as its ethereal, mysterious forces shape us. And sometimes friendships do feel like this, forming when we are looking the other way. But as bell hooks wrote in All About Love, though we continue to invest in the ‘fantasy of effortless union … continue to believe we are swept away, caught up in the rapture, that we lack choice and will’, romantic love is more intentional than this, an ‘act of will’, an action, effort and commitment. I have come to understand friendship in this way too.“

Wie mit diesen zwiespältigen Erfahrungen, Erwartungen und Wünschen umgehen? Eine 100% klare Antwort hat die Autorin nicht, dafür aber viele, viele anregende Gedanken, historische Kontinuitäten und eindrückliche Lebensgeschichten im Gepäck, die dieses Buch zu so einem wichtigen und unterhaltsamen Text machen.

Die die Leser*innen dazu auffordern, den Status Quo zu hinterfragen und sich nicht vor unbequemen Aushandlungsprozessen und Beziehungsarbeit in ihren Freundinnenschaften zu verstecken.

„Our friendships begin in moments of affinity and tiny gestures of trust, through secrets and help, by witnessing one another and allowing ourselves to be witnessed too. In each friend we meet, a whole world emerges. But this is just the beginning of the story.
What happens next is where it gets interesting.“

„Friendship is not a permanent state one arrives at. It is something we do. It is a process of negotiating our endlessly changing selves, a process of uncertainty and of learning.“

Und die gleichzeitig auch einfach ein bisschen Druck wegnehmen und Hoffnung geben.

„Sometimes you will speak reverentially of the ecstasies and wonders of friendship. And sometimes you will speak of your frustrations and petty irritations. Mostly you will keep wondering how you can help each other. And that is more than good enough.“

„This is something I have learnt: that the real commitment we make to our friends does not come in the triumph of the times we got it right, but in those small acts that show our willingness to keep on trying.“

Es gäbe noch so viel mehr zu sagen, aber ich schreibe diesen Review um 1 Uhr Nachts und bekomme keine vernünftigen Gedanken mehr zustande. Also nur noch eins: LEST DIESES BUCH! Und mehr Emotionsgeschichte für uns alle, because that shit slaps!

[Gemma Seltzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read so many books on female friendship, my favourite subject, from poetry collections, essays, novels and short stories. This history of women’s friendship is deep and thoughtful and personal and beautifully written. I learned and felt so much. Highly recommend!

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have lost, or maybe disengaged from, three friends over the last couple of years, and I still think about them a lot. I genuinely hope they are doing well, but I can’t bring myself to start a conversation again. Friend #1 is a leech. Friend #2 ghosted me. And with Friend #3, I eventually realized that maybe she had always been quietly hating me, and I was just too blind to see it early on.

I picked up this book because I wanted to understand whether I was the “bad friend.” Am I the common denominator in all these friendship breakups? But strangely, the book made me feel validated. Sometimes friendships simply reach their natural end. They serve a purpose in your life, teaching you whatever you needed to learn during that specific moment. Other times, you begin to recognize your own self-worth and realize you have to walk away from people who slowly drain all the beautiful things you carry within you, your energy, your kindness, your sunshine.

Female friendships are very important to me. I only have a few close ones, but I think of them as sisters, as real family. That’s probably why this book hit me emotionally. It treats women’s friendships with so much seriousness and depth instead of dismissing them as something trivial or overly dramatic.

The book is also incredibly detailed, and I really commend the amount of research that went into it. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to dig through archives and histories of female friendships, especially from periods where women’s emotional lives and relationships were rarely documented with importance.

[Eline · Rating 3 out of 5]

af en toe heel erg interessant, af en toe wel erg gedetailleerd en lang van stuk

hoewel ik op theoretisch kritisch vlak best veel gelezen heb over vriendschap, had dit een historische kant waar ik nog nauwelijks kennis over had en dit was wat dat betreft een goed startpunt voor verdere verdieping!!

de meeste negatieve reviews hierop gaan over de opbouw van dit boek, en ik moet zeggen dat ik daar ook wel last van had. de opbouw van het boek vond ik goed, maar de hoofdstukken vond ik te breed qua onderwerpen, wat de (opzich goed gestructureerde) opbouw van het boek in de weg zat. denk dat de auteur net wat te veel heeft willen doen, op een gegeven moment duizelt het een beetje van de voorbeelden en referenties.

al met al had ik dit voor mijn scriptie willen lezen!

[CAMILLA FERRARIO · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saggi non sono il mio, ma questo è carino e facile da leggere. Il tema è molto particolare, ho trovato alcuni spunti interessanti. Non si può parlare di amicizie tra donne senza che questa si intrecci con la storia del femminismo. Carino dai.

[The Bookish Elf · Rating 4 out of 5]

In her groundbreaking new book Bad Friend, cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith delivers a deeply personal and intellectually rigorous examination of female friendship across the centuries. Drawing on historical archives, interviews, and her own experiences, Smith dismantles the glossy, Instagram-ready image of female friendship that has dominated our cultural conversation, revealing something far more complex, messy, and ultimately liberating beneath.

Unlike her previous works on human emotions (The Book of Human Emotions) and schadenfreude, Smith's latest offering feels more urgent and intimate. She has written what she describes as "an unusual sort of love letter to friendship," one that rejects the idealized narratives of "grand gestures" in favor of "puny failures... attempts rather than successes... tender openings rather than glossily packaged and indestructible images of perfection."

The Personal as Historical

What makes Bad Friend so compelling is Smith's willingness to interrogate her own friendships alongside her historical research. The book opens with a haunting account of a friendship that "burned very bright and then, like a dying star, exploded." This relationship with a woman she calls Sofia serves as a touchstone throughout the book, allowing Smith to explore the shame and confusion that accompany friendship breakdowns.

Smith writes with unflinching honesty about her own moments as a "bad friend" - from her intense infatuation with a flatmate named Liza that ended in betrayal when she slept with Liza's best friend, to her gradual ghosting of Sofia years later when their lives diverged in ways that made their once-close connection increasingly painful. These personal revelations never feel gratuitous; rather, they illuminate the paradoxes and complexities that define friendships between women.

A History of Control and Rebellion

Smith organizes her book into three chronological sections - "Entanglements" (1900-1940), "Separations" (1940-1980), and "Pacts" (1980-2020) - tracing the evolution of female friendship from the passionate schoolgirl "crushes" of the early twentieth century to contemporary elder co-housing communities.

Throughout, she reveals how women's friendships have been persistently policed and pathologized. In one of the book's most fascinating chapters, Smith examines how the intense romantic friendships between schoolgirls that were celebrated in the Victorian era became objects of suspicion in the 1910s and 20s, as psychological theories about "sexual inversion" gained traction. As Smith notes, "The more freedoms women won, the more urgent became the sense that their friendships needed containing and controlling."

Beyond the BFF Myth

Smith's most valuable contribution may be her deconstruction of the "perfect friend" ideal that has left so many women feeling inadequate. Through interviews with women living in co-housing communities, she discovers that even these supposedly evolved relationships involve "disappointments - the friendships that had once been close and then had suddenly cooled off without explanation... stories about jealousy and the shame it causes... stories that captured the myths we hold about each other, and the pleasure we take in destroying them."

Rather than viewing these difficulties as failures, Smith suggests they are inherent to friendship itself. As one ninety-two-year-old woman with a lifelong best friend tells her, the secret to lasting friendship is simply: "you just keep asking yourself 'what can I do for her?' And then you try to do it."

Strengths and Insights

Bad Friend excels in several key areas:

1. Historical depth: Smith uncovers fascinating histories of female friendship, from medieval Beguines living in religious communities to the chaotic friendships of 1970s New York artists like Nan Goldin and Cookie Mueller.

2. Cross-cultural perspective: Though primarily focused on Western examples, Smith incorporates perspectives from Japan, India, Central Africa, and beyond, showing how friendship norms vary dramatically across cultures.

3. Interdisciplinary approach: Drawing on psychology, sociology, history, and literary analysis, Smith creates a richly textured understanding of friendship's complexities.

4. Challenging dominant narratives: The book powerfully critiques how friendship has been commodified and flattened in contemporary culture, arguing for a more capacious, realistic vision.

Limitations and Missed Opportunities

Despite its many strengths, Bad Friend occasionally falls short:

- While Smith acknowledges the importance of cross-racial friendships and features Black feminist thinkers like Audre Lorde, the book could have more deeply explored how racism shapes friendship dynamics.

- The section on digital friendships feels somewhat underdeveloped compared to the nuanced historical analysis elsewhere.

- Smith sometimes presents her personal experiences as more universal than they perhaps are, particularly regarding class privilege and educational background.

- At times, the book's organization feels slightly disjointed as it moves between historical analysis, memoir, and interview material.

A New Paradigm for Friendship

What emerges from Bad Friend is a paradigm of friendship that rejects perfectionism in favor of effort and intention. Smith writes: "Friendship is not a permanent state one arrives at. It is something we do. It is a process of negotiating our endlessly changing selves, a process of uncertainty and of learning."

This vision is both challenging and liberating. It invites us to let go of the false idea that friendship should be effortless and unchanging, and instead embrace what Smith calls "a messier, more capacious, more flexible notion of what friendship can be, and where we find it."

Final Assessment: A Necessary Complication

In an era of simplified self-help and Instagram captions about "toxic people," Bad Friend offers something far more valuable: permission to be human within our friendships. Smith writes, "I am not trying to be a perfect friend. There really is no such thing. But sometimes I think I have become a better one as a result of this long process of detangling."

This "detangling" is what Smith offers readers - a chance to untie the knots of expectation, guilt, and idealization that have made friendship itself into something of a burden. By reclaiming the "bad friend" - the rebel, the intensely devoted, the one who sometimes fails despite best intentions - Smith creates space for a more authentic, sustainable practice of friendship.

Bad Friend is ultimately a hopeful book, suggesting that by accepting the limitations and complexities of friendship, we might paradoxically experience deeper, more enduring connections. As Smith concludes: "There will be times in a friendship where you struggle to make sense of how the other has changed. Or wonder if you have misjudged, and expected too much or given too little... Mostly you will keep wondering how you can help each other. And that is more than good enough."

For anyone who has ever felt inadequate as a friend or puzzled by the shifting dynamics of female relationships, this book offers not just solace but liberation - a chance to reimagine friendship beyond the impossible standards that have made it so difficult to practice and sustain.

[Marina Fabiano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Più saggio che racconto, anche se di racconti sull’amicizia femminile ne è colmo. L’autrice, delusa dalle sue storie d’amicizia, ne cerca le tracce nel passato, informandoci prima di tutto che anticamente gli uomini non ritenevano possibile o affidabile l’amicizia tra donne. Solo i maschi, secondo loro, erano capaci di un sentimento così importante e duraturo. Le storie iniziano equiparando la vera amicizia all’innamoramento, all’infatuazione, al desiderio di essere come lei, l’amica agognata. Ogni tanto mi sono incagliata su nomi, persone, eventi sconosciuti, ma nel complesso ho trovato questo libro parecchio interessante.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Showstopping! Genau die Art von Geschlechtergeschichte, die ich mag; lauter kluge Überlegungen zu den Erwartungen an und Normen um Freund*innenschaften, die mich auch meine eigenen Beziehungen überdenken lassen; spannende historische Einblicke; tolle Beispiele von freundschaftlichen Beziehungen, die situativ oder geplant der Fixpunkt in den Leben der Protagonist*innen waren!! Hier werden Freund*innen auf die selbe Art ernst genommen, wie es oft nur romantische oder familiäre Beziehungen werden.

[Sam (she_who_reads_) · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s not bad, but it doesn’t deliver on the title at all

[libellumartinae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Allora... mi aspettavo qualcosa di più. Penso che l'autrice si sia concentrata maggiormente sulla sua esperienza che in una anche rappresentazione dell'amicizia nei media, infatti secondo me c'era molto di più che poteva essere rappresentato, benché abbia dato tanti e diversi spunti di riflessione e le sono grata per tanto, soprattutto per avere cercato di normalizzare l'essere 'una pessima amica'. Allo stesso tempo però penso che nella scrittura sia stata molto rindondante insistendo inutilmente e senza scorpo su diverse tematiche già affrontate e perciò non necessarie.

[Sylvie19 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Il tema era molto bello ma ho trovato la struttura del libro troppo caotica e un po' ripetitiva.

[Michela · Rating 4 out of 5]

chissà se avessi letto questo libro prima avrei vissuto con meno ansia le mie amicizie

[abi slade · Rating 3 out of 5]

3⭐️

pros ✅
- moments throughout the book that were particularly pertinent for me: boarding school, importance of work friendships, falling in & out of friendships and not knowing why, feminism, etc. a lot hit home for me
- it is extremely comforting to know that friendships come and go and deteriorate for everyone and that it’s not just me
- extremely comprehensive
- good balance of research, primary sources and her own anecdotes and experiences

cons ❌
- i can’t ‘relax’ when reading non-fiction. like i can’t read this before bed because im trying to balance the fact that i want to absorb what im reading whilst also fighting to stay awake
- i wasn’t itching to go and read this on my breaks
- i don’t think ill have retained much of this in the long run, despite it being a pleasant enough read in the moment

[Spacey Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

When faber sent me this book I was really excited to get to it because the premise was something that I had never really heard about before.

The concept of female friendships and complexities that lie within it is a topic that many people have not explored in great detail. The book is a blend of genres it touches on history of friendships, psychology of them and has personal anecdotes.

The structure does sometimes feel a bit jumpy and sometimes the personal anecdotes didn’t feel completly in felt a bit muddled. I often found myself wishing the personal experiences were elaborated on a bit more.

Overall, it is an interesting read that explores a topic a lot of women can relate to. I particularly enjoyed the authors commentary of difficult female friendships and how society sometimes makes us turn our back on each other to fulfil a patriarchal need.

[Silvia Bolzan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siamo o siamo state o saremo la pessima amica di qualcuno. L’autrice in questo saggio indaga la storia dell’amicizia femminile (ma non solo) nel corso dei secoli. Un’indagine che parte da lontano e che esplora come e quanto si è evoluto il concetto di “amica” tra le cerchie femminili: come è stato edulcorato, come è stato esaltato il concetto di “best friend” e come è stato anche maltrattato.
Un saggio interessante - a volte forse troppo introspettivo sull’esperienza dell’autrice - ma utile anche a far riflettere cosa vuol dire e quanto sia centrale l’amicizia nelle vite di tutti. E perché in fondo basta chiedere “cosa posso fare per lei?”

[Lisa Anicetti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro di cui sentivo il bisogno. Una riflessione storica sull'amicizia femminile, da dove nascono i modelli e le aspettative che ci siamo create e sulle ricadute che hanno sulle nostre amicizie reali. Tante volte ho provato gli stessi sentimenti dell'autrice - il senso di colpa, la frustrazione e l'insoddisfazione per dirne alcuni -, tante volte mi sono chiesta se non fossi una pessima amica. Alla fine del libro sono stata in grado di darmi una risposta. Non sono stata una pessima amica, né tantomeno un'amica perfetta. Sono stata l'amica che potevo essere nei vari momenti della mia vita e nei vari momenti delle vite delle mie amiche.

[Ayca Tekin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t usually read nonfiction. Liked this one, helped me identify some of the complex feelings that I was feeling.

I don’t agree with some of the arguments and I think not only female friendships but all kinds of relationships require effort and willingness to solve conflicts.

Human relationships are complex and we should not be afraid of them just because they are. We can still put in an effort even though we know that the connection will be imperfect. As these imperfect connections are all we have.

[Rosy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mio parere il tema è molto interessante ma è sviluppato in maniera confusionaria e deludente. Bello il prologo e alcuni passaggi come la breve sezione sulle comunità di co-linving e co-housing tra donne anziane. Ho trovato di ispirazione gli spunti sull'amicizia intesa come qualcosa che richiede un'abilità che va esercitata ma parliamo di un paio di pagine i cui concetti si rifanno agli scritti di bell hooks sull'amore romantico ( inteso come atto di volontà e di impegno e non come frutto di un impulso travolgente).

[DearPastMe · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a beautifully written book. I love the exploration of friendships through history and the interwoven honesty of TWS's own experiences.

the honesty, the unpacking,
the shining a light on even the ugly parts of the self and saying "this too is me and that's ok" appealed to me

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lowkey this was super hard to get through and I found it a bit boring at times. I wanted more like the last chapter, like a critique on friendship in this day and age, but maybe I also had my expectations for the content mixed up.

[Asha Stark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very dry writing, not sure if I'm just not in the mood or what, but I couldn't be bothered.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

[Sian]

This is what I mean when I tell my husband we (he and I) are not friends. Female Friendship™ is complex and messy and magical and the best thing ever, I'm obsessed with it.

[Alis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un saggio da tenere cartaceo e sottolineare

[Margarida Rodrigues · Rating 4 out of 5]

last three chapters were my favourite. really insightful prespectives into what makes a friendship, one of my favourite themes to read about

[Marozzi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Un saggio molto banale e scritto in modo confusionario. Davvero una fatica arrivare in fondo.