Friendship
Adult friendship is mostly a logistics problem, and saying so helps
Two people can like each other enormously and go a year without meeting. The obstacle is usually a calendar rather than a feeling…
Poulomi Sen
Contributing writer, Grab My Heart
Poulomi writes about families and the conversations people postpone for years.
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16 articles
Friendship
The big night out is a poor substitute for the ordinary Tuesday
Intensity and frequency do different jobs, and only one of them builds a friendship. Why the rare spectacular evening can leave…
Friendship
Side by side beats face to face for the conversations that matter
Walks, drives and kitchens produce disclosures that a restaurant table does not. The reason is mechanical rather than mystical, and…
Friendship
Everyone keeps a friendship ledger and nobody admits to it
Reciprocity in friendship is real, uneven and almost never discussed. What it looks like when two people have genuinely different…
Friendship
The friend you met through a friend, and what happens when they leave
Some friendships have a load-bearing third person holding them up. Whether they survive that person's departure depends on things…
Family Ties
The role you were given at nine and still play at forty
Families assign jobs early: the responsible one, the difficult one, the funny one. Why those labels persist decades after they…
Family Ties
Adult children and parents renegotiate without ever announcing it
The terms of the relationship change several times after childhood ends, and nobody schedules the conversation. What the…
Family Ties
Family gatherings run on rules nobody has ever said out loud
Who sits where, who carves, who is asked about their job and who is not. Understanding the unwritten protocol explains most of what…
Family Ties
Telling your parents something they do not want to hear
A career change, a relationship, a religion, a diagnosis, a decision not to have children. How to deliver news that will land badly…
Family Ties
Chosen family is not a metaphor, it is a set of obligations
The phrase gets used loosely for close friends. What distinguishes a genuine chosen family is the presence of duties nobody can…
Friendship
Remembering the details is most of what being a good friend means
People rarely describe a friend as thoughtful because of a grand gesture. They describe it because that friend remembered the name…
Friendship
Introducing two friends and what you are actually responsible for
Most people avoid it, worrying they will be blamed if it goes badly or left out if it goes well. Both fears are manageable, and the…
Family Ties
A family secret usually protects the teller more than the subject
Families keep things quiet for reasons that sound protective and are often about embarrassment. The cost lands on whoever is being…
Family Ties
Cousins are the family relationship with the least obligation attached
Nobody expects anything specific from a cousin, which is exactly why the relationship can be warm. It also means it disappears the…
Family Ties
Step-relatives acquired in adulthood start with no shared history
A parent's new household arrives complete with people you are supposed to be related to. Nobody involved has any childhood in…
Family Ties
When a relative's drinking becomes the family's organising problem
Long before anybody says the word, a household starts arranging itself around one person's behaviour. That rearrangement is often…