For Sow, a digital strategist–turned-influencer, and Friedman, a journalist, the novel vocabulary of their friendship is also a business product: a sunny, accessible framework for thinking about contemporary women’s friendships, as showcased in their popular weekly podcast, Call Your Girlfriend, its monthly e-newsletter, the Bleed, and multiple national live tours. In other relationships, this kind of self-referential terminology shows up as inside jokes or silly secret languages. Send me updates about Slate special offers. Their intersecting friend groups make up a “friendweb” their aversion to catty gossip and in-group fighting makes them “low-drama mamas.” When they took a California vacation that would become a large annual gathering of friends, they gave it a title (“Desert Ladies”) and an ethos with a proper name (“Body’s Choice,” or doing whatever your body tells you to do). When the longtime friends and podcast co-hosts came up with the idea of “Shine Theory,” (a philosophy of friendship premised on the words “I don’t shine if you don’t shine,” which is to say: mutual encouragement rather than competition), they spent thousands of dollars trademarking the phrase and sending cease-and-desists to protect it. They are probably struggling and going through the same tough stuff that you are and would love for someone to hear them out.Slate has relationships with various online retailers.īut note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.Īll prices were up to date at the time of publication.Īminatou Sow and Ann Friedman have a knack for coining lingo. I think a better question to go back to your friends with is, 'Hey, can we make some meaningful time to catch up?' Or 'Can you tell me about what's keeping you busy these days?' I think people underestimate how much impact a direct question can have. When people do not have time to get back to you or you feel that they're being terse or short, the question really is, 'What's up with them?' And a lot of times it just means that they're incredibly busy and it usually doesn't have anything to do with you at all. Your 'What's wrong with me?' question is so telling. It is hard, and it takes work for everyone. And so something embedded in this question tells me that you think it should be easy or that it's easy for other people, and I just want to start with that. What's wrong with me? - Fading friendshipsįirst, I want to say that it's really hard to make and keep friends even if they are people you've known for decades. I still reach out, but their responses come slower and slower. Life Kit Accept The Awkwardness: How To Make Friends (And Keep Them)Įveryone I know has friends from decades ago.

Big friendship aminatou sow