A few years ago, I had just moved into a house.

As relatively recent graduates, my husband and I had struggled with the banks to secure a mortgage – and worse still, I had a humanities background that didn’t exactly guarantee employment.

But after approaching several banks, we managed to persuade a kind loan officer to say yes. Suddenly, we found ourselves settled in the suburbs, with 190 square meters, two children and a garden trampoline.

One summer evening, while the children were asleep, we sat out on the terrace in the sunshine. We had eaten well, lit candles and were drinking wine. It sounds like the perfect evening, doesn’t it?

On paper, we had realised our dream. The problem was, it didn’t feel that way. I had a strange sense that something was missing, even though I adore my family.

What was missing were friends.

And although I felt lonely, I wasn’t alone. Studies show that many of us have experienced loneliness.

This essay was published as part of a collaboration between Insights, The Conversation’s longform series, and Videnskab.dk.

I research friendship and, over the past few years, I’ve immersed myself in everything from scientific studies to literary texts on the subject.

It is especially literature that has given me a new perspective – both professionally and personally – on what friends are, and what friendship can be.

Hungry for friendship

In other words, I have what romantic movies and popular culture tell us is important: a partner, children, a job and a mortgage.

But it isn’t quite enough.

And it made me wonder whether the life path many of us – myself included – are following might, in fact, contain some built-in flaws.

Does this path leave too little room for the relationships defined by choice and equality? The relationships that aren’t about starting a family, but about friends?

We are raised to follow a particular social script in life. One in which career, marriage and children take centre stage and where friendship is assigned a less important role.

Many of us leave behind youth – when friendship often plays a central part – in favour of the so-called serious romantic relationship of adulthood. More broadly, some people tend to treat friendship as a kind of optional icing on the cake rather than the dough that holds it all together.

But what if this script doesn’t make us happy? What if we are depriving ourselves of something essential? Renowned feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan wrote about the widespread unhappiness of women in the 1960s in her groundbreaking book The Feminine Mystique.

Among its core arguments is this: women who stay at home and care for children are bound to be unhappy due to wider social structures that hold them down. A challenge she labelled “the problem with no name”.

Certainly, an element of being tired of caring for others and not being at the centre of one’s own life played an important role in my own feelings of sadness and yearning. But it couldn’t account for everything: I had a job, and things to do outside the home – contrary to many women in the 1960s. I had things I wanted to do. Friedan’s analysis didn’t entirely capture the problem.

A midlife phenomenon

And so, you may recognise the feeling of being hungry for friendship, even if you don’t live in the suburbs, play house day to day, or identify as female.

Perhaps you’ve structured your life very differently from mine, and yet still found yourself wondering where your friends went.

Indeed, when do our friends slip out of our lives?

It is particularly in midlife that finding time for friends can become difficult.

American psychologists Willard Hartup and Nan Stevens have found that we spend less than 10% of our waking time with friends during the years when work and family take up most of our time and energy.

Another study, also from the US points in the same direction: more than 40% of adult participants said they wished they were emotionally closer to their friends and would like to spend more time in their company.

In concrete terms, we now spend less than three hours a week with friends, compared with six hours a decade ago. A halving, plain and simple.

This trend goes hand in hand with a broader societal shift: fewer people are members of political parties, affiliation with religious institutions is declining, and fewer engage in unions or local sports clubs. Developments the US political scientist Robert D. Putnam described in his 1995 book Bowling Alone.

And it is happening across the western world.

Even in Denmark where I live, with its strong traditions of clubs and associations, we are seeing the same pattern: we simply meet up with other people less often, and increasingly spend time alone and feel lonely. While being alone doesn’t necessarily entail feeling lonely – the latter being a subjective state – being alone does indeed raise the risk of subjective loneliness.

In my own case, there was plenty of time for friendship in my early twenties. I lived in student halls, and the best thing about those years was that I didn’t have to make plans to have a social life.

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There were always people in the kitchen to talk to. Always someone to have coffee with. It was a life with built-in friendships.

So why leave that kind of collective life?

Why have children at all and, in my case, move to the suburbs?

It’s a fair question, and one I’ve asked myself. The simple answer is that I became pregnant and children weren’t allowed in student accommodation. In addition, housing in larger cities – such as Copenhagen – is almost impossible to afford for young people and young families. We are driven out of cities, to put it bluntly.

However, I was also somewhat tired of other people’s parties and other people’s mess. And sometimes, you simply want to drink your coffee alone.

If it had been possible to stay in some form of shared living that could accommodate children and still have a private kitchen, I would have done so. No question about it. But that option is rare.

And so we return to the social script I mentioned earlier.

What we might call both the social structure and the physical architecture leave little room for ways of living outside the standard couple, the nuclear family, or single life (more people than ever now live alone).

Cue a longing for new norms around friendship and community.

Literature and company

There are those who argue that the family is an oppressive institution that should be abolished altogether.

This stance builds on the radical feminism of the 1970s, where voices such as Shulamith Firestone argued that reproduction should be handed over to technology, freeing women from the burden altogether.

More recently, Sophie Lewis has made a similar case. In her book Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation, she calls for dismantling the social structure of the family in favour of a more collective culture of care.

I understand the motivations behind arguments like these. But if people want to fall in love and have children together as a couple, then by all means they should. Regardless of what any intellectual might think about the matter.

Are there problems with families? Can they make us lonely by taking time away from friendships? Yes and yes.

Can they also be a source of joy and meaning? Just as much so.

The reason I bring up this critique of the family is that it reflects a broader trend in books, films and culture more generally: a growing willingness to question how we live and what place friendship should have in our lives.

I’ve written about this development elsewhere, describing how friendship is gaining prominence and offering three possible explanations for why that is.

One is the rise in loneliness , which makes friendship more valuable simply because it has become more scarce.

Another is that friendship can confer status and prestige in a world shaped by social media and visual culture.

Finally, I would argue that there is a growing cultural curiosity about whether friendships can serve as a framework for life in the same way romantic relationships historically have.

The French literary star Édouard Louis is one of the most prominent figures on the literary scene grappling with friendship.

In Change: A Method (2021), he describes his life as a movement away from his family. Instead, he seeks out different friendships that help him escape a homophobic working-class environment in northern France and move towards the literary scene in Paris.

He describes how his friendship with Elena, a middle-class girl, completely overturns his worldview, and how he later becomes close friends with notable French intellectuals Didier Eribon and Geoffroy de Lagasnerie.

The latter has described their friendship of three as a “way of life” and a “radical form of life” that breaks with the status quo.

One might object that cultural portrayals of the importance of friendship like these are the culmination of contemporary individualism.

For Louis, it is about living exactly as he wants to live – entirely free from conventions and expectations. And that does indeed invoke a particularly modern form of individualism.

At the same time, they contain a longing for other people and for community.

He seems to be asking if it’s possible to burn down existing social conventions and develop our own norms for friendship and togetherness. Both Louis and de Lagasnerie conclude that yes, that is indeed possible.

Breaking with convention

The Danish author Thomas Korsgaard’s stories about Tue offer a parallel to the French Louis: Tue comes from a poor, non-academic provincial background and, like Louis, Tue moves to the city to create a new life for himself.

In his book, You Probably Should Have Been There (2021), Korsgaard writes about Tue’s turbulent early days in Copenhagen, where he spends a long time living as a destitute homeless man, until he meets Victoria (the Danish version of Elena, if you like) and, through her, learns the social codes of the upper middle class. Slowly but surely, he begins the same kind of transformation that Louis describes.

Cultural and literary history also offers many examples of female friendships that have allowed people to live outside the norms and be themselves.

The Swedish writer, Selma Lagerlöf, did not marry and instead had close relationships with other women, and Virginia Woolf’s life and work were also shaped by deep female friendships.

For many years, it was not seen as suspicious or improper for women to have romantic and borderline erotic relationships with one another – they were in many cases regarded as intimate friendships.

Male homosexuality, by contrast, has in many cases and historical contexts been met with hatred and resistance, with the important exception of ancient Greek and classical societies.

The accounts of Louis, Korsgaard, Lagasnerie, and many others, all testify to a powerful urge to break with the structures that dictate that we must live our lives in a certain way and remind us of the importance of asking ourselves if we are living according to our own standards – or the standards of someone else.

An adult friend

The feeling of missing friends, the one that hit me that evening on the terrace, may be about something deeper than simply missing having lots of people to invite to one’s birthday party or many people one can call on on a rainy day. And that, above all, is what literature made me realise.

My hunger for friendship was not so much about a need for having people around. It was more about a need to broaden my horizon and listen to other perspectives.

I didn’t just miss friends; I missed different viewpoints, fresh input and new ways of thinking.

Friendships can help us see and explore the odd and unconventional sides of life – and in doing so challenge the status quo, much like the portrayals we find in literature.

Put simply, they can make us see the world differently.

When I went to elementary school, one of my closest friends was a woman in her seventies who had looked after me as a child.

After she was no longer being paid to spend time with me, I kept seeking her out. Her name was Lise, born in 1928. With her dark humour, curls and a wardrobe full of high-heels, her apartment was my number one refuge.

Lise had a Jewish background and, at 15, had fled the Nazis in Denmark on a Swedish fishing boat.

I loved her stories from the past and everything else about her. She cooked terrible food, always gave me presents and was impeccably elegant.

Our friendship cut across all the usual boundaries. It was unusual, even odd. But it was exactly what we both needed.

What can you do?

Inspired by literature’s many examples, can we live a life in which friends take up more space, where friendships are allowed to challenge our assumptions about life?

Even if we are not ready, or willing, to throw family and all other social conventions onto the scrapheap?

I am convinced that it is possible. But it requires us to push back, at least a little, against today’s emphasis on choice and individualism, and to do something slightly unfashionable: send a message instead of scrolling. Commit. Invite someone over. Perhaps someone who you never thought of as a friend before. But who nonetheless may turn out to be valuable to have in your life.

It also requires us to view strangers as potential friends. After all, this is what friendship boils down to: strangers that you come to know, like, and trust – a definition I describe in more detail in my book Friendship from Aristotle to Snapchat (in Danish).

Say hello to your neighbour. Smile and speak to people in shops or on the bus, because so-called “weak ties” are actually really good for us and give us a sense of belonging. Sometimes it’s as simple as this: Be friendly!

It is also helpful to reach out to those who are not like us on paper.

And in so doing, move beyond the idea that like attracts like, and instead connect with those who are different from us, just as Louis, Korsgaard’s Tue and de Lagasnerie did.

To recognise that friendships can take many forms and do not have to resemble the perfect parties and baby showers that dominate social media. For some, reading a book or being out in nature may facilitate a feeling of friendship – even if these things are done in solitude.

So, as strange as it may sound, friendships may not even require other people. I recently heard German sociologist and renowned thinker Hartmut Rosa give a lecture in Copenhagen, and his reflections on resonance were highly conducive for thinking about friendship. We resonate with other beings, says Rosa, and with the world broadly speaking – not just with other people.

As for me, I’ve started bringing friends together, including people I haven’t seen in a long time, for various gatherings.

It’s not exactly trendy or reminiscent of student life; people often bring their children, and time is spent building Lego or settling disputes. But that hardly matters. What matters to me is that we can make space for one another across different stages of life.

I’ve also broadened my understanding of friendship to include everyday interactions, everything from smalltalk with other parents at nursery to lunches with colleagues and friendly online messages.

Because you don’t need a large circle of friends.

As I see it, friendship is a practice.

It’s a way of being in the world – something you do, rather than something you have.

That shift has genuinely eased my hunger for friendship, and I now see my suburban life in a different light. I’ve learned that I’m not missing anything – it’s simply a matter of doing something.

Punctuating the notion that friendship necessarily looks a certain way has also really helped me. Because friendships come in all shapes and forms: from micro-interactions to life-long bonds. Perhaps with a tree or a dog?

This article was commissioned as part of a partnership between Videnskab.dk and The Conversation. You can read the Danish version of this article here.

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Vyshyvanka Day is held on the third Thursday of May each year but was marked during an event at the Merchant Taylors Hall, in Aldwark, on Thursday (May 14).

The annual event is dedicated to a traditional embroidered shirt known as the vyshyvanka – which is often handmade and passed down through the generations.

The day encourages Ukrainians to wear the garment as a means of expressing national identity, unity, and pride – highlighting the country’s history and resilience through hardship.

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It was organised by the York Ukrainian community, with help from York City of Sanctuary and the Company of Merchant Taylors.

The day celebrates the country’s national dress and its rich cultural heritage (Image: Abby Backhouse)

Speaking about this, John Vincent of the Company of Merchant Taylors, said: “This is the fourth celebration of Vyshyvanka Day that we’ve held in York, and despite the event being a joyful celebration, it is tinged with sadness.

“We open up our doors to the Ukrainian community – many of whom have faced so deep hardship and loss since the beginning of the war.

“It’s an event I know they long to host in their country, at peace and without the looming threat of ongoing conflict.”

Iryna Martynyuk wearing the vyshyvanka her grandmother made (Image: Abby Backhouse)

One attendee Iryna Martynyuk, who helps organise the choir which sang on the day, said she had found comfort in the city of York, as its historic walls are reminiscent of her home city of Lviv – renowned for its own deep history.

Iryna brought a picture of her grandma who had handcrafted the vyshyvanka she wore to the event.

She explained: “A vyshyvanka like the one I wear today is often passed from mother to daughter.

“I cut mine, which was originally made as a dress, into a top when I was 16.

“It has been preserved so well and I wear it with pride today.”

A choir sang traditional Ukrainian folk songs (Image: Abby Backhouse)

Iryna and her choir sang a variety of traditional folk songs and more modern music to those in attendance before all were able to enjoy a Ukrainian pork dish.

Speaking about this, Lena Henderson said: “It’s been wonderful to see everyone today.

“The Ukrainian community in York has really evolved since they arrived here as refugees. Many families have now found secure employment, friends and have integrated into their communities.”

The city celebrated the fourth annual Vyshyvanka Day (Image: Abby Backhouse)

Lena helped run Sunflowers Kids Club in York – a group set up for Ukrainian children and their families after the war began in 2022.

She said: “We had originally supported over 300 children and adults with weekly wellbeing sessions – ensuring everyone had both the practical and emotional support they needed after coming to York.

“When these families came to the area, many were lost, not knowing the language and in need of a support system, aside from their wonderful host families.

“Over the years, I have seen how well they have integrated into their community and managed uncertainties.”

Songs, national dishes and traditional dress were celebrated at the event (Image: Abby Backhouse)

The club was a temporary project, funded in part by grants from City of York Council, the Joseph Rowntree Trust and kind-hearted sponsors, and has recently ended.

Ukraine’s rich history and the future of the 34,000 child refugees living in the UK today will soon be discussed in a talk on June 6.

For more information, please visit here.

The phased transition is due to begin in summer 2026

A global defence contractor based in Cambridge has announced plans to relocate to South Wales, impacting 158 employees. Marshall Land Systems has confirmed a proposal to relocate its UK production facility to Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales.

The phased transition will begin in summer 2026 with the closure of production in Cambridge expected by March 31, 2027. Operations at the Cambridge facility will continue until December 2026.

The move to South Wales will “significantly reduce operating costs including rent and business rates, which in turn will strengthen our competitiveness and support a more sustainable future for the business”, a spokesperson for Marshall Land Systems said.

The proposals will impact 158 employees and 59 fixed term agency contractors. Proposed plans were shared with the impacted employees and fixed term agency contractors earlier this month and a formal consultation period has begun.

The company was sold by the Marshall Group, which was founded in Cambridge in 1909, to Flowing River Capital Partners in November 2025.

A spokesperson for Marshall Land Systems said: “We can confirm that Marshall Land Systems has announced a proposal to relocate its UK production facility to Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales, with a phased transition beginning in summer 2026. Operations at our Cambridge facility will continue in parallel until December 2026, with the closure of production in Cambridge expected by 31 March 2027.”

“Alongside our temporary relocation to enable the development of Marleigh Park, we have actively sought suitable, cost-effective premises within the local area. Despite these efforts, we have been unable to secure premises locally on terms that would allow the business to continue operating in an efficient and financially sustainable way.”

Marshall Land Systems said they “recognise this will be a difficult time for those affected” and are “committed to supporting our people throughout the consultation process and beyond”. Impact on customers or service levels are not expected during this period.

Saffron Cole-Nottage fell headfirst into sea defence rocks as the tide was coming in

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An inquest heard ‘guidance was not followed’ after a mother tragically drowned. It was claimed that if ambulance service had alerted the fire service more quickly, it’s “possible” she might have survived.

Saffron Cole-Nottage, 32, was walking her dog with her daughter along The Esplanade in Lowestoft, Suffolk, on February 2 last year. The Mirror reports how she fell into sea defence rocks and became stuck headfirst as the tide came in.

A girl called 999 at 7.52pm and, within the first 30 seconds of the call, told an ambulance service call handler that Ms Cole-Nottage was “caught head down in the rock” by the “seafront”. At 7.57pm and 7.58pm, the caller referred to Ms Cole-Nottage “screaming”, before saying at 7.59pm that she was “in the water now”.

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service was the last of the four emergency services to be alerted, with the first contact to the fire service made at 8.04pm. Firefighters arrived at 8.22pm and freed Ms Cole-Nottage in “less than half a minute” after first hands were placed on her at 8.29pm, Suffolk area coroner Darren Stewart said.

She was declared dead at 8.44pm.

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Recording a narrative conclusion on Friday, the coroner said Ms Cole-Nottage “died from drowning which has come about due to accidental circumstances”. He said the East of England Ambulance Service “didn’t immediately contact the fire service”.

He continued: “Had the Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service been immediately alerted to the incident … it’s possible that Saffron would have been extricated from the rocks sooner and survived. However, it’s not probable she would have done so.”

He described Ms Cole-Nottage, who worked as a cleaner, as a “loving mother completely devoted to her children”. The coroner noted that Ms Cole-Nottage “had been drinking” on the day of the accident.

The inquest previously heard that rescue efforts to try to save Ms Cole-Nottage did not follow guidance. Professor Richard Lyon, a consultant in emergency medicine, told the inquest on Tuesday that a “clock” should start on 30 minutes of rescue efforts once a responder arrives at the scene and confirms a person is submerged.

Prof Lyon, who holds roles with NHS Scotland and the University of Surrey, said: “I do not think the guidance was followed in this case.”

He said: “The guidance is quite clear that the clock starts when the responder arrives on scene … and submersion is confirmed.” He questioned “how sure the responders could be that Saffron was actually confirmed submerged when that decision [at 8.13pm] seemed to have been made from above the railings when she [Ms Cole-Nottage] was down in a difficult situation”.

Prof Lyon said it was “important to have an absolute time that everyone is working to and that time is sure and that’s definite”. “That’s why the guidance is very clear that the time should be from the arrival of the first rescuer – there’s no ambiguity about that time,” he said. “The whole purpose of the guideline is to maximise the chance of a lifesaving rescue.”

The inquest also heard that two men had tried to pull Ms Cole-Nottage out by her legs, which were the only part of her body visible. Ian Jones described her as “screaming and panicking”, while Alex Singleton-Dent said it had “felt like ages” before emergency services arrived.

Prof Lyon estimated Ms Cole-Nottage’s window for “probable survival” was around five minutes after submersion began. He added that being upside down would have made breathing “harder”.

The inquest was earlier told that a level of 271 milligrammes of alcohol per 100ml of blood was recorded for Ms Cole-Nottage. The legal limit for driving in England is 80 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. Ms Cole-Nottage’s partner, Michael Wheeler, said in a statement read to the court that she had gone for a meal earlier in the day. He did not believe she was drunk and said she was not slurring her words when she set off on the walk.

Prof Lyon said the effect of the alcohol is “most relevant in terms of it would make her more likely to stumble, more likely to trip”. He said Ms Cole-Nottage’s “protective reflex would have been diminished”, meaning she may not have put an arm out as she fell. “When she was between the rocks her ability to move … and try to push herself out would have been impaired as well,” he said.

Prof Lyon said: “For Saffron to have had a probable survival, she would have needed to be rescued within five minutes of submersion and, if required, for CPR to start within that time.”

He said that “survival was possible up until about the 15-minute mark”, but she may have sustained a brain injury. “In my opinion, beyond 25 minutes, survival would not have been possible,” he said. “I should stress, all of these numbers are a best possible expert opinion,” he added.

The competing countries in the grand final will be Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Sweden, Ukraine and the UK.

With northerly winds across the UK, the temperature has been around 4-7C below average this week.

Showers, thunderstorms and hail have also featured widely with some questioning what has happened to spring.

Thunderstorms and hail are actually quite common features of the weather this time of year as the extra daylight and warmth helps grow bigger showers that bring hail.

With the wind switching to more of a westerly direction over the weekend, it will start to feel warmer although the weather will continue to be quite mixed.

After a bright start on Saturday, cloud increases from the west with some rain in Northern Ireland and western areas of England and Wales.

By Sunday, temperatures will have risen to around 12-16C. This will be close to the average for the time of year. With lighter winds it should actually start to feel warmer than it has done this week.

Showers will be mostly confined to northern and western areas of the UK with sunny spells elsewhere.

While the Victorian railway cathedral remains from the days of steam and smuts, the £160m extension has the clean lines, sweeping shapes and the swish escalators that are more often associated with an international airport than a provincial station.

Like all good railway adventures, it has been a long journey with plenty of delays to reach the point where the station is now ready for public use. Britain is pretty poor at major infrastructure projects, but it shows that when we stick with it – rather than getting cold feet halfway through and pulling out, as happened with HS2 – we can achieve impressive results.

We live in a bitterly divided country at the moment, but this seems to be a great example of national government working with the regional mayor and the local council to achieve these results, and it was good to see yesterday the credit being shared between the Conservative Tees Valley mayor and Darlington’s Labour council leader, MP and transport minister, Lord Peter Hendy. The public always says it wants its politicians to put their party divides to one side and work together, and here we see collaboration – along with the railway company LNER – paying off. Congratulations to them all.

As the Stockton & Darlington Railway showed, if you build it, all manner of commercial enterprises will spring up alongside it, and we look forward to economic growth rippling out from the station.

But one blot on the landscape presents itself immediately the passenger steps out of the multi-million pound rotunda: St John’s Church, “the railwaymen’s church”, closed in 2023 and now looking empty and forlorn. How can it be brought back into the fold?

Truly, a regenerator’s work is never done.

The move comes amid a slowdown in the construction industry.

The company, which has 500 branches nationally, also closed a branch today in Oban, Scotland.

A spokesperson for Travis Perkins said: “We can confirm we will be exiting our Ripon branch based on Charter Road with effect from Friday.

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Travis Perkins says construction recovery ‘uncertain’ as sales slide

 “This difficult decision has been made following a recent review of branch performance and operational priorities.

 “We are working hard to support colleagues affected and are seeking, where possible, to redeploy and retain them within the business.

 “We’d like to thank all our customers for their support at the branch. We have a number of other branches across Yorkshire which will continue to provide the outstanding service Travis Perkins is renowned for.”

Travis Perkins opened in 12,000-square feet premises on Charter Road, at Ripon Business Park, in 2005.

In a trading update last month, the company said it “continued to experience challenging trading conditions” and declining revenue.

The first quarter update for the period to 31 March 2026 said group revenues are down 1.7 per cent on a like-for-like basis. 

In the Merchanting segment revenue was down 2.3 per cent as construction activity levels “remain subdued”. 

Zain Alabdeen Osman, 32, of no fixed address is wanted after breaching his prison licence by failing the notification requirements of the sex offenders register.

He is believed to be in the Leeds area but has connections to Scarborough, North Yorkshire Police has confirmed.

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A force spokesperson said: “If you have any information about his whereabouts, please call North Yorkshire Police on 101.”

“If you have an immediate sighting of him or know where he is now, please call 999.

“If you prefer to remain anonymous, you can pass information to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or online via their website.

“Please quote reference 12260088052 when passing on information.”

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