Friendship: the Craft of Interpersonal Beauty

Nibras hosts a salon to challenge the adage “making friends as an adult is hard”. A salon for sharing stories and approaches to cultivating the most beautiful and nourishing craft of all: friendship. Let’s explore the skills for building friendships into adulthood and beyond.

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We’ve been inundated with the message that friendship and connection become harder as we get older. Every month, the internet’s main discussion seems to be adults struggling with friendship and loneliness. Does it have to be that way?

In my experience, the opposite is true. My ability to make friends increased with age, as did the quality of the friendships. Even as I move cities several times a year and find myself regularly building social circles.

What if, instead of a circumstantial unfolding, friendship is a skill that can be strengthened and refined with age, like any good craft?

In this intimate, micro-salon (size will be limited to allow for deeper conversations) we’ll exchange stories of our favourite friendships, how they started, and begin to uncover the subtle skills underlying friendship: vulnerability, courage, and contentment. Stories are, after all, still the best tools for learning.

An if-you-want-to-read list:

• Familiarity and belonging by Simon Sarris
• ‘Friendship’ by David Whyte
• Poet and Philosopher David Whyte on the Deeper Meanings of Friendship by Brainpickings
• You should probably be more extroverted by Sasha Chapin
• ‘How to make friends on Twitter’ notes with Visakanv via Podcast Notes

“Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn. A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them. An undercurrent of real friendship is a blessing exactly because its elemental form is rediscovered again and again through understanding and mercy. All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness.” -David Whyte

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