Romantic love, widely elevated as a subject worth interrogating, tends to get a lot of attention while platonic friendship is woefully neglected in the public discourse. Enter, self-described “friendaholic” Elizabeth Day who is attempting to redress the balance. The author and woman behind the hit How to Fail podcast spoke to Roisin Ingle about why the complex bonds of friendship need more attention and how during the pandemic she was forced to reassess her own friendship circle.

Her new book Friendaholic: Confessions of a friendship addict prompted her to look back at her experience of being bullied at school while growing up in Belfast where she struggled to fit in and make friends. Day spent many years using friendship - the more friends the better - as a form of self-validation.

For Day, having lots of friends meant you were loved, popular and safe. But this quantity over quality approach was often to the detriment of her own boundaries and mental health. Day talked to Ingle about the great friendships of her life, what it feels like to be ghosted, dealing with frenemies, how friendships were affected by her fertility journey and the lessons she learned while writing the book. Friendaholic: Confessions of a friendship addict is out now.

This episode was originally published in May 2023.

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