The power of male friendships (by Miranda Larbi)
I’m really excited to share this week’s newsletter because the column today is written by one of my best friends. Miranda Larbi is a talented journalist who I met at a university interview day when we were both hoping to embark on a masters course in journalism. Fast forward a few months, and she comes bounding up to me on the first day of the course beaming because we had both got in. We were pretty inseparable after that!
I asked Miranda to write for the Supp because she has been one of my biggest cheerleaders, always Whatsapping me her thoughts and berating me for not getting it out earlier on a Sunday so she can read it before her long morning run. I have also watched her go through a really hard break up and then embark on a real journey of discovery over the last year or so. I’m a bit older than Miranda, as she regularly likes to point out, and have felt so proud of her.
She actually wrote a version of this just before lockdown, but it didn’t feel right to share at the time because of everything going on. Now I have finally got round to publishing it, she is actually dating someone so she has written a new version but I think it’s really beautiful and from the survey I did, I know some of you are in the same kind of place Miranda was last year so I hope you’ll enjoy reading her words.
Have a good week,
Nicola
Twitter: @TheSingleSupp | Instagram: @TheSingleSupplement
The power of male friendships by Miranda Larbi
A school friend once told me: ‘men and women can never just be friends’.
I remember sitting on top of the 179 bus, hurtling through Gants Hill, think how sad that was. Sure, it was true that the guys I knew had either been family friends or boys I’d held a light to at one time or other, but the prospect of never being able to have a simple friendship seemed to me to be quite the life sentence.
Fast forward 15 years and it’s only now that I’m discovering that you really can be ‘just’ friends with members of the opposite sex – even if those friendships have grown from an initial lust. And those friendships can be truly beautiful.
Since last summer and the traumatic breakdown of an all-encompassing relationship, I’ve spent the past year accepting and embracing singledom. At 30, it was the first time in my adult life that I had no small fires burning anywhere and no dating app subscriptions. Instead, I focussed on getting to know the men in my life afresh.
At the start of the year, I joined a community gardening project with a brilliant friend from university and when we’re not weeding and drinking freshly harvested herbal tea, we’re trying new vegan grub together in Hackney. An incredible runner I met a few years ago at a race slid into my DMs over Instagram to give me some amazing advice a few months back and since then, we’ve been to early morning ballet classes, gone on runs and cycles, watched interpretative theatre productions, had delicious, vegan dinners together.
My last housemate was one of the most talented and sensitive people I’ve ever met and when we were both at home, we’d spend hours talking about our feelings and philosophies while he strummed a little Smokey Robinson in the background. Over lockdown, I talked to one of my male best friends on the phone more than I’d done in years.
In an odd twist of fate, lockdown saw me talking more regularly to an old friend from my freshers days. The odd FaceTime from our respective sheds eventually became socially distanced coffees in Victoria Park and now that the clouds seem to have made way for the sun, our relaxed, interesting friendship has blossomed into an actual relationship. While that might suggest that my high school friend was right, there’s something quite beautiful about the idea that solid, stable friendships can randomly spark embers after ten years of platonic respect. Would I have been in the market for that spontaneous combustion had I not devoted the past year to being single and bolstering the non-romantic relationships in my life? Probably not.
Spending the past 12 months with such extraordinary men has really given me intense joy and hope during a period in which I could have easily gotten lost. When you’ve spent the past decade bouncing from one codependent relationship to another, it can be terrifying and isolating trying to rediscover who you are. And it can be even more worrying when you start on a new emotional adventure to think that you might fall back into old habits.
Much as I adore my female friends, spending more time in male company has been refreshing. It’s nice to talk about football, running, veganism - things that my female friends aren’t really interested in. In some roundabout way, I also think it’s helped me to confront that codependency head-on, despite the fact that we rarely talk about relationships or love. I used to defer a lot to partners, blaming them when things didn’t pan out because I gave them all the deciding power. That mostly came from a place of lack in myself rather than a patriarchal evil emanating from my boyfriends.
Now that I am dating again, my girlfriends naturally get the daily updates. But I’ll make a concerted effort to maintain my squad of men. A boyfriend really can’t - and shouldn’t take the place of boy friends.
Miranda Larbi is a freelance fitness and wellness journalist, and qualified personal trainer. When she's not finding new vegan places to eat, she can be found training for the next marathon or cycling across London on an old Dutchie. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
Huge thanks to Miranda for writing that for me. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did. Although I didn’t go such wholesome things as volunteer in a community garden as we were more likely to be found drinking pints in a pub, a couple of years ago I unexpectedly made good friends with a group of blokes and it was brilliantly refreshing to hang out in so much male company when all too often my life is a total vag fest (hat tip to my friend Becky for that phrase). So I really related and also believe in the power of male friendships.
What caught my attention
Shani Silver: Angering the Relationship Gods (Alonement podcast)
Of course, I had to share this podcast episode! I know I regularly share things by both Francesca Specter and Shani Silver, but this is such a great discussion that I really think you will enjoy. I was particularly interested in their conversation about why it’s OK to be happy and be single and want to find a partner. I know some readers, who have been single long term and want to stay that way, sometimes get frustrated by that because they think it means you’re not actually happy to be single but I, like Shani, really disagree. Have a listen!
Why solo mums like me should be eligible for free IVF on the NHS
I had to share this by Genevieve Roberts because I wrote about how outraged I was that couples are being asked to share their joint bank account details as one of the ways to prove they are in a stable relationship and therefore deserving of IVF on the NHS. This obviously completely discounts single women who want to be mothers by choice. As Genevieve says: “When are we all going to realise that it’s not what a family looks like on the outside that counts, but love and security?”
Kuba Shand-Baptiste: Why I Am Trying To Be Better When It Comes To Asking For Help
This isn’t about being single but is a lovely piece of writing and really chimes with what I said a few newsletters ago about realising that it’s OK to ask and receive help. This is actually a Black Ballad newsletter and did look much better when it came through on email but it’s definitely worth a read. “As much as being self-reliant can be a virtue, too much may restrict you from sharing valuable support, skills and information with others. Not one of us is so knowledgeable that we don’t need to check in with anyone else. Not knowing what you’re doing, or at the very least, accepting that you need guidance, is going to be much more of a help to you than stoically pushing on while everything crumbles around you.”
The lowdown
This week’s newsletter would not have been possible if it wasn’t for those who have chosen to financially support this newsletter. I really hope to be able to commission other writers as well as illustrators and you can help by subscribing for just £1 a week. From August, subscribers will get an extra email during the mid-week to enjoy so make sure you sign up now so you don’t miss out on the extra content.
My article about women, money and why opening up the conversation on social media or elsewhere about personal finance can only be a good thing has gone online. I am still reading Clare Seal’s Real Life Money and it has made me think more about being single and managing money so watch out for some thoughts.
I don’t have much else to report this week but just wanted to say thanks so much to all the new subscribers. My heart still leaps everytime I get an email to say someone has signed up so HUGE thanks for putting a smile on my face. I hope you enjoy it!
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please click the heart button and share your thoughts on social media! It really helps me reach other awesome single people when my current readers do that. Thanks in advance!
About me
For those who don’t know, I’m Nicola Slawson, a freelance journalist who lives in Shropshire, UK. If you would like to support what I do, please consider subscribing to be a paid supporter of The Single Supplement. If you would prefer to make a one-off contribution, you can also buy me a coffee, here’s the link to my Ko-Fi page. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter.
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