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Holt-Lunstad and Uchino went on to do more studies in this area. In 2014, Holt-Lunstad wrote that “concurrent positivity and negativity in ambivalent friendships was associated with higher rates of depression and greater cardiovascular reactivity to stress. Uchino found in 2012 that that the more ambivalent ties a person has in their social network, the more likely they are to have shortened telomere lengths

In 2003, several thousand miles away from Ferrance's Naples, two psychologists from Utah called Julianne Holt-Lunstad and Bert Uchino conducted an intriguing experiment. They asked 102 participants to wear blood-pressure monitors for three days and to record every social interaction lasting more than five minutes, noting their feelings and responses.

And besides, it would be hard to leave, wouldn't it? Because he gets so angry, and you spend most of your time together trying not to trigger his rage and - here's the thing - you're normally so good at avoiding it. You're excellent at treading lightly on eggshells so that the thin membranes don't crack or splinter. You know how to do it, somewhere deep in your muscle memory.

had such an impact on your romantic life that you found yourself in an emotionally coercive relationship without realising that's what it was because not even the language existed back then. p215

Let's say you are someone who has grown up around unpredictable moods and atmospheres. Let's say you get so accustomed to the febrile nature of these shifting tensions that you begin to equate love with uncertainty, with the idea that you're never quite sure of what you might get. And let's say, hypothetically speaking, that this conflation- p214

(Frenemy) a friendship that is so confusing you never quite know what you're going to get.
They're the ones guaranteed to tell you a new haircut is interesting' rather than giving a straightforward compliment. They're the ones who are secretly threatened by your success rather than rejoicing in it. p209

you need to stand up for the things you believe are integral to lasting friendship and only admit those who respect the entry requirements and the code of conduct. If friendship is a nightclub and you are the manager, it is up to you to decide what kind of music you want to play, the crowd you want to attract and who you're going to throw out for acting like a drunken prat and ruining it for everyone else. p193

Conventional wisdom has it that thinking in this way is a form of thoughtfulness (look at empathetic little old me! Constantly worrying about everyone else!). It was a way of centring myself in a narrative that didn't, in truth, revolve around me. An unexamined part of me that preferred the idea of a friend being angry with me to the idea of a friend not thinking of me at all? p185

And often, in my imaginings, it wasn't actually how they were feeling anyway - it was a twisted projection of how I believed they might be feeling in my worst thoughts, which were designed with impressive attention to detail by my ever-versatile inner critic to make it seem like the friend in question might actually hate me or be furious for some relatively minor infraction I never even knew I'd committed. p185

On a subconscious level, I think I knew that if I couldn't put a reasonable friendship boundary in place, then I needed the other party to do it for me. Otherwise I would end up imagining I had to take emotional responsibility for how my friend was feeling even if they didn't express it. p185

One of the top issues women bringing to me would be feeling like they've outgrown the friendship and the friendship no longer fits. I like to emphasise that friendship research tells us that we replace half of our friends every seven years. So you almost have to expect that you're going to outgrow some of your friendships. There's almost a natural pruning that takes place that can be a good thing! P181

What I learned from my experience with Maggie was to apply a little more caution and discernment when launching into a new friendship. I shouldn't seek to give all of myself in one air-dropped knowledge dump. Nor should I expect other people to intuit this or have the same friendship belief systems as I do. p179

If we have too little social interaction, it triggers feelings of Loneliness, anxiety or heightened stress, which set off an internal alarm system that encourages us to go and seek out our friends. The cruel irony of this, of course, is that many of us do not feel like making friends at the precise point we really need to. P177

When applied in a social sense, what this means is that humans have an internal trigger point to determine the ideal balance of relational connections.
Our brain, if it's doing what it's supposed to, is wired to adjust itself according to its optimal conditions.p177

The same podcast introduced me to the helpful concept of 'social homeostasis'. Homeostasis is a term coined by a physiologist called Walter Cannon in 1926 to describe the body's need to reach and maintain a certain state of equilibrium (fun fact: he also coined the term 'fight or flight response. P177

"Are we on the same page?", "Do we like each other the same?", "Is this a thing?", "How long are we going to do this?" Then there's
"Are there expectations that it'll just be you and I", "Are you gonna have other friends too?" and "Here's what I need
- I need you to commit to offering this to me." P174

we fall into friendship as quickly as we exhale, unlike a romantic conversation where it's expected that you'll have some kind of defining conversation. Before we know it, we're hanging out a lot, then were not feeling it any more.
p174

we can't make a truly free choice if we are shackled by obligation or feel resentful that the boundaries we forgot to put in place are being ignored. 165

The philosopher Aristotle shared his views on philia - a Greek word that translates broadly as "brotherly love'. For Aristotle, philia could be broken down into three categories. Friendship could be based on mutual advantage (love for what is useful), mutual enjoyment (love for what is pleasant) or mutual admiration (love for each other's character) and moral integrity - virtue.) p163

He was kind enough not to follow up with any version of 'I told you so' or 'Why do you keep getting yourself into these pickles?" but later, he did sit me down at our kitchen table and give me a gentle talking-to about my strengths (making connections) and my weaknesses (setting bounda-ries) and suggested taking some time to work out how I could best protect myself from the same thing happening again.p162

I wanted to be a cordial neigh-bour and strike up a functional, amicable outer-circle relationship. I lacked the skillset to ensure this happened. I only knew one route to friend-ship, which was the full-throttle, absolutely-no-boundaries, tell-me-your-life-story kind. In my urge for connection, I had trampled over the necessary stages of getting to know a stranger, which was to proceed with caution. p161

Although I'd actually only met this woman once, I started to feel guilty about saying no and letting Maggie down. Clearly she wanted a friend, and I had willingly offered myself as one.
I couldn't back out now, could I? It would seem rude.
Worse, it would seem unfriendly. P160

Within days, I was arranging Maggie's son's work experience. I'd never met the boy. I had no idea what he was like. But that didn't stop me from insisting a valued work colleague took him under her wing for a week.
p159

So what, for you, is the purpose of real friendship? I guess it's to feel less alone. Amusement. Gossip. Anecdotes. But mainly it's to give your life experience meaning. You know what I mean? If you just experience things in a vacuum it’s like they didn't happen. p149

I did it with one of my best friends a couple of years ago and it saved the friendship. It hurt him but he recognised some of what I was saying and changed his behaviour. p149

He wasn't even joking. He went on to tell me that he had no issue ending friendships that weren't working for him.
Unlike me, Sathnam is not conflict avoidant so his strategy for ending friendships goes something like this: a period of ignoring their calls. Then, if they ring, stating frankly what the problem is. p149

Activism he said is the best way in the world for finding friends p144

In fact, what Justin does fear is unasked-for reciprocity - the idea that he owes a friend if they have done something nice for him, even if he didn’t want their kindness in the first place. P141-142