\n
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Your support makes all the difference.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nRead more<\/span><\/svg><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nC<\/span>ast your millennial minds back to the year 2006. Social media is in its infancy, and you might even still be using a dial-up modem to access it on your PC. Mercifully, only a few people outside of Silicon Valley have heard of Mark Zuckerberg \u2013 but you and all your teenage peers know exactly what MySpace founder Tom Anderson looks like. That\u2019s because, as soon as you sign up to his website, a photo of Anderson posing in front of a whiteboard covered in scribbles appears in your \u201cTop Eight\u201d friends list by default. <\/p>\nIf you came of age some time in the mid-Noughties, then the words \u201cTop Eight\u201d probably alternately fill you with warm nostalgia and chilly horror. Each profile on the rudimentary social media platform\u2019s website featured a showcase of that user\u2019s eight best friends, in a list ranked by how much they liked them. And if you were really good at rudimentary HTML, like one of my inner circle? You could code your page in such a way that no one else could see your ranking, allowing you to be even more honest (read: brutal) about your roster. We felt revolutionary, like trailblazing women in STEM, but we were actually just devious and a bit petty. <\/p>\n
It was performative popularity at its most blatant; it was also addictive, anxiety-inducing (why has Becky P bumped me down two places since last week?) and probably laid waste to thousands of friendships along the way. I think I\u2019m still carrying residual guilt from the time I demoted a once-close pal because I was spending more time with an older, cooler crowd, prompting us to drift apart entirely (was I ever so cruel?) <\/p>\n
The idea of rating and categorising my mates hasn\u2019t crossed my mind since MySpace was superseded by Facebook, eventually becoming a sort of Y2K digital curio. But earlier this week, a joke from Lily Allen (who, appropriately enough, was once a trainers-and-ballgown-wearing MySpace sensation herself) on her BBC podcast Miss Me?<\/em> brought it all rushing back. <\/p>\nWhen answering a listener\u2019s question about how to manage long-distance friendship, Allen offered up a novel \u201csolution\u201d. \u201cI create lists of people who I like in order of how much I like them,\u201d she said, with her trademark acerbity. \u201cAnd I send that list to my assistant and just ask her to schedule the time for me to have a FaceTime with them.\u201d Her co-host and close friend Miquita Oliver\u2019s immediate response was, understandably, to ask: \u201cWhere am I on that bloody list?\u201d <\/p>\n
Of course, not all of us have an assistant on hand to manage our social calendars. But that wasn\u2019t the reason Allen\u2019s gag initially seemed so outlandish to me. Instead, it just felt like an anathema to everything that we\u2019re taught about friendship; it seemed like an overly clinical approach to a bond that often fluctuates and changes, one that can be difficult to sum up, let alone place in an objectively ranked chart. <\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>Lily Allen recently joked that she makes ranked lists of her friends (Getty)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nAllen may have been exaggerating for comic effect (as she is wont to do on her show), but I was judging her slightly. But then, a colleague admitted that she\u2019s put time into thinking about her top five friends, too. A brief and extremely unscientific survey of my friends also revealed that, even if they hadn\u2019t written it down or set it in stone, many of them actually operated a sort of unofficial league table in their minds, too. <\/p>\n
One pal is so popular that we\u2019ve long joked that he employs a \u201cseasonal reshuffle\u201d approach to his social life, recalibrating his inner circle like a prime minister rearranging his cabinet every spring and autumn. Perhaps he\u2019s actually had the right idea all along. And wellbeing coach Rachael Carter tells me that she\u2019s started categorising her friendships under three headings: acquaintances, friends and inner circle. \u201cThese three categories are helping me decide who gets my full attention, time, energy and support,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n
\nOur brains are wired to categorise relationships as a survival mechanism<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
Cally Stewart, friendship coach<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
What\u2019s behind the impulse to rank our friendships? Female friendship coach Cally Stewart tells me that this is \u201cactually a natural cognitive process\u201d, as \u201cour brains are wired to categorise relationships as a survival mechanism\u201d, to allow us to \u201cquickly identify who we can rely on in different situations\u201d. Many of us, she adds, will already be doing it without realising. \u201cWe can see this in decisions like who to call with good news versus bad news, whose invitations take priority and how much emotional energy to invest in different relationships, all without explicitly acknowledging we\u2019re ranking.\u201d<\/p>\n
As we get older, and our responsibilities \u2013 whether they\u2019re familial or professional \u2013 stack up, many of us just don\u2019t have as many hours to devote to our friendships as we would like. It makes sense, then, to get clear about the relationships that we really value, so that we can better pour our effort into cultivating them, and also ensure that we\u2019re getting out what we\u2019re putting in. \u201cI would have never done this in my twenties, when you\u2019re still in the experimental stage of life, but I think in my thirties, it has done me good to be more intentional,\u201d my colleague tells me, \u201cespecially when everyone else\u2019s priorities change. People start moving away or having kids, and you have to think, \u2018OK, where do I actually want to put my energy?\u2019 It needs to be reciprocal\u201d. <\/p>\n
Perhaps the top five or even top 10 friends could be a way of side-stepping any lingering anxiety, too, about whether or not we have a \u201cbest friend\u201d (and whether that person places us on the same pedestal). Once we leave school, it\u2019s much rarer than pop culture would have us believe to actually preserve that one much-vaunted bond that exceeds all others. Surely it\u2019s more realistic (and less stressful) to have a selection of people that you\u2019re close to, and that you can call upon in different scenarios, rather than expecting that one person might be able to fulfil all of our friendship needs. <\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>In adulthood, many of us simply don\u2019t have as much time to devote to friendship as we\u2019d like (Getty\/iStock)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nThis might also help you identify \u201crelationship gaps\u201d, Stewart suggests. \u201cYou might start to realise you have seven \u2018fun friends\u2019 but no one you\u2019d call at 2am when you\u2019re having a moment, or you might discover you\u2019re investing heavily in relationships that aren\u2019t reciprocal while neglecting those that consistently support you.\u201d <\/p>\n
There is a risk, of course, that following this approach to the letter might end up \u201creducing something as rich, complex and deeply human as friendship into a hierarchy that feels more like corporate performance management than meaningful connection\u201d, as Tina Chummun, a UK Council for Psychotherapy-accredited psychotherapist, puts it. She fears that Allen\u2019s comments \u201cseem to reflect a hyper-individualistic, time-poor culture where efficiency has begun to infect even our closest relationships\u201d \u2013 and that following the star\u2019s lead might make our friends \u201cstart believing they need to earn their place, fearing they\u2019re not \u2018high ranking\u2019 enough in someone\u2019s life\u201d. <\/p>\n\n
\nYou might start to realise you have seven \u2018fun friends\u2019 but no one you\u2019d call at 2am<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
Cally Stewart<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
Are we all in danger of turning into the platonic equivalent of the man from the High Performance Podcast<\/em>, who took his wife out for dinner to discuss their shared goals and relationship KPIs? Perhaps if we take it too far, and start giving all our mates ratings based on various niche factors (and moving them down the rankings every couple of days if they\u2019re slow to reply to our texts). <\/p>\nBut just keeping a loose mental list of your priority friendships, to ensure that you\u2019re giving them enough care (and acknowledging that even those priorities might shift over time)? That feels healthier. Stewart suggests reframing this as \u201crelationship intentionality\u201d rather than a hierarchy, or thinking of it as \u201ccreating a friendship ecosystem where different relationships serve different purposes, rather than a competitive ladder where some friendships are \u2018better\u2019 than others\u201d. <\/p>\n
I won\u2019t be compiling an in-depth friendship spreadsheet any time soon. Frankly, I don\u2019t have the Excel knowhow, and my Top Eight remorse runs deep. What I might start doing, though, is thinking carefully about the handful or so of people that really make me happy, and vice versa, and ensuring that I prioritise the plans we make. Although I do have a quick PSA for any friends who might be reading: please don\u2019t tell me where I stand in your own ranking. I can do without the teenage angst.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. Your support makes all the difference. Read more Cast your millennial minds back to the year 2006. Social media is in its infancy, and you might even still be using a dial-up modem to access it on your PC. Mercifully, only a few people outside of Silicon Valley have heard of Mark Zuckerberg \u2013 but you and all your teenage peers know exactly what MySpace founder Tom Anderson looks like. That\u2019s because, as soon as you sign up to his website, a photo of Anderson posing in front of a whiteboard covered in scribbles appears in your \u201cTop Eight\u201d friends list by default. If you came of age some time in the mid-Noughties, then the words \u201cTop Eight\u201d probably alternately fill you with warm nostalgia and chilly horror. Each profile on the rudimentary social media platform\u2019s website featured a showcase of that user\u2019s eight best friends, in a list ranked by how much they liked them. And if you were really good at rudimentary HTML, like one of my inner circle? You could code your page in such a way that no one else could see your ranking, allowing you to be even more honest (read:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}