Interesting to me because of how *wildly* different from my experience of friendship it is. The pictured line was most revealing, as I had no idea what it was referring to so I guess this is a very different culture from mine. It all sounds exhausting!

https://www.thecut.com/amp/2020/07/book-excerpt-big-friendship-by-aminatou-sow-ann-friedman.html?__twitter_impression=true

I think the phenomenal difference relates to very different strategies towards racial or ethnic differences. As a boy in London the strategy was for everyone to banter with everyone else all the time, it fostered easy goingness but they risk is you go too far and it’s hurtful...

... moving to the US it was very apparent to me that in general it’s a much more uptight or puritanical culture. I think this article illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of that cultural style. It fosters earnest mutual concern, but makes everyday interractions a tightrope.

After having lived both I think I can appreciate both, but perhaps inevitably prefer the cultural style of my youth in south London.

Ps the puritanicalness was not just around this. Americans also struck me as more uptight about drinking, swearing, and many interpersonal matters. In general us culture always seemed more intense to me.