By Joni BoydFriday 19 Apr 2024Hope Book ClubBooksReading Time: 6 minutes
Gyan Yankovich is fascinated by friendships – and the struggles we all face, when it comes to figuring out what it means to be, to make and sometimes to lose a friend.
Key points
- “Oftentimes, it is actually those smaller, more casual friendships that are what make us feel less lonely day to day.”
- If we meet someone who we’d like to be friends with, eventually we need to take a proactive step, to move beyond acquaintances to friendship, Gyan encourages.
- We’re more likely to take an active step towards resolution to conflict in a romantic relationship, than in a friendship.
- Listen to the full episode in the player above, on the Hope 103.2 app, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to join the Hope Book Club Facebook community.
Gyan’s debut book ‘Just Friends’ explores modern friendship in all its glory.
“How to make friends is the million-dollar question that I think every single adult, no matter how many friends they have, still really struggles with,” she told Hope Book Club’s Georgia Free.
“I haven’t in all of my research and work on friendship met anyone who’s said, ‘Yeah that comes really easy to me, I’m making a new friend every day.’ That’s just not how things happen in this world.”
Gyan Yankovich is a writer and editor based in Sydney and is currently the lifestyle editor at the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age. Her debut book ‘Just Friends’ is a celebration of friendship, shining a light on the many different forms they can take and the comfort they provide, whether they exist within the workplace, emerge in motherhood, are uncovered inside our neighbourhoods or become our chosen family.
“I have always been really lucky in that ever since I was a kid I’ve had some really special, close friendships,” Gyan said and explains that while friendships have always been important to her, she didn’t realise quite how much they meant, until she started working on ‘Just Friends’, digging into why friendships have impacted her life so deeply.
Friends for now and the future
Gyan believes friendships are not only important now, but also in the future.
“One of the things that really stood out to me was the benefits of considering our friendships when we look to the future,” she said.
“So often friendship is tied up in memories when we look back at certain periods of our life and we think how lucky it was to have someone by our side on a holiday or a particularly hard job.
“But what I’ve realised that we don’t do so much… is when you think of the future, whether it’s five years, ten years, twenty years ahead, where are you seeing your friends in that time?
“Who do you hope is still there?
“What are you hoping those relationships are like?
“Once you’ve figured that out, what are those things that you can do now to make sure that’s the case in the future?”
The importance of casual friendships
Based in New York for several years, including when the pandemic hit, Gyan didn’t see anyone apart from her partner for months.
“We all had that experience where we were all in lockdown, isolated and trying our best to fill those gaps,” she said.
“Oftentimes, it is actually those smaller, more casual friendships that are what make us feel less lonely day to day.”
“For me during that time, the big realisation I had about friendships that I do write about in the book, was how much I missed my more casual friends.
“I really longed for those friends that I’d run into at a friend’s birthday or my friends in the office who I wouldn’t necessarily have hung out with on the weekend but I would maybe get lunch with a few times a week.
“Oftentimes, it is actually those smaller, more casual friendships that are what make us feel less lonely day to day.”
Making friends as an adult
Gyan noticed a difference when she moved to Sydney having grown up in regional NSW – compared to moving to New York which she says was generally more accommodating and welcoming.
“A lot of people who live [in NYC] didn’t grow up there, so I think that people are really familiar with that experience of coming and not really knowing anyone and hoping you’ll get invited to something and meet some people,” she said.
Life in NYC made Gyan realise the importance of putting yourself out there, irrespective of how difficult that may be.
If we meet someone who we’d like to be friends with, eventually we need to take a proactive step, to move beyond acquaintances to friendship, Gyan encourages.
“If you meet someone and you like them, for them to eventually ever become your friend, at some point you’re going to have to tell them that you want to hang out or ask for their number… make it known that you think that they’re interesting and cool and someone that you’d want in your life.”
Easier said than done!
“There has to be that intention there, that confidence or that ability to move past that point of, ‘This is going to be awkward but if I want to see this person again or I want relationship outside this very circumstantial place that we find ourselves in, I’m going to have to put myself out there,'” she said.
Navigating conflict
We’ve all experienced them – friend fights. They can be among the most uncomfortable things we experience.
Gyan says that among all of her research, one of the most interesting finds was that we’re much more likely to take an active step towards resolution when there is conflict in a romantic relationship, rather than a friendship – whether it be a positive or negative active response.
“With friendships, we’re so much more likely to approach things with a passive response,” she said.
We’re more likely to take an active step towards resolution to conflict in a romantic relationship, than in a friendship.
“In a good way that can be waiting for things to blow over, not bringing it up, or a negative response is basically, ‘I’m not going to talk to this person again… I’m going to end the friendship… I’m not bringing it up… I’m going to ghost them and drift away.'”
Perhaps it’s here that we’re making our mistakes with our friendships… We all know the power of healthy conflict and resolution in a relationship. Perhaps this is something we can bring to our friendships, to create a more healthy, stable foundation. What are we missing out on, by not discussing issues within our friendships? Can we be a little more honest with our friends?
‘Just Friends’ is an ode to the people that shape us. It is a book to devour on the beach or with a book club, a book to return to again and again, and, most importantly, a book to press into the hands of the friends you love the most.
Gyan brings wisdom and insight into the challenges friendships face, and the value of knowing you’re not the only one who has struggled to be, to make and sometimes to lose a friend.
Listen to the full episode in the player above, on the Hope 103.2 app, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to join the Hope Book Club Facebook community.
All photos supplied.