Friendship Forever

Photos of men with their wives, an often functional arrangement not rendered from romantic love, are often much less affectionate or loving. Women, too, thought of their best friends as more than what a husband could ever offer: loyal, supportive, sympathetic, clever, and funny. Same sex friendships were often considered the best relationships one

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Contrast this to:

From the Civil War through the 1920′s, it was very common for male friends to visit a photographer's studio together to have a portrait done as a memento of their love and loyalty. Sometimes the men would act out scenes; sometimes they'd simply sit side-by-side; sometimes they'd sit on each other's laps or hold hands. The men's ve

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But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long, close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self: the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the e

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The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life. A diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armoured personalities run into the inevitable natural disaste

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For all of the undeniable benefits of not having to schlep to the office every day, we are less likely to make friends when working remotely. This isn't to say that remote work is bad for platonic companionship in general—some of the time and energy we save while working from home is devoted to maintaining existing friendships or developing new on

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