How do we make sense of our friendships? And our solitude?

NOTE: the pub does not charge for our space on the understanding that we all purchase something from the bar. Please support them.
I'll be there from around 7pm if anyone would like a social chat before we get started.

“Friendship” covers a very broad range of connections – from casual acquaintances through to life partners. Friendships may also include non-human relationships with animals or AIs. Some friendships develop into “love” of one sort or another. Despite being February and near Valentine’s day, in this discussion we’ll take a much broader look at friendships in general. We’ll explore some of the following questions:

• What is a friend?
• What different types of friendship are there?
• What are the natural boundaries that delimit different types of friendship (Eg work colleagues; common interests; sexual relationships; cohabitees; being parents…) How do these boundaries impact our other friendships?
• What do we need from our friends? What do we provide for them?
• To what extent are we dependent on our friends, or them on us? How does a mutually acceptable level of co-dependence evolve? How can we successfully navigate a dependency imbalance or transition?
• How much friendship do we need? (How much of our time? How many different friends?)
• How does “solitude” differ from “loneliness”? Do we have sufficient solitude?
• How do friendship needs and styles evolve as people age from childhood through to old age?
• How do people vary in their friendship styles and needs?
• How do we spot unhealthy friendships? How can we best reset an unhealthy friendship on a better course, or extricate ourselves from it?
• What approaches are most likely to lead to, and maintain, healthy friendships?

Some optional pre-reading/watching:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/hide-and-seek/201204/the-philosophy-of-friendship (a series of 3 short articles)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5SwcrVnyLc on the role of solitude

Hope to see you there.