David McRaney spoke with Kate Leaver her about her book, The Friendship Cure. It appears that loneliness is very bad for our health, and not just due to suicide rate. For example, those with a support network were 50% more likely to survive cancer.

Kate spoke about shoulder-to-shoulder male friendships and face-to-face female friendships, as well as the merging of both in platonic relationships between the two. Males need to become better at opening up in male relationships and as a society we need to better embrace community.

My mind was opened up to the fact that sexual attraction needn’t be an inhibitor to strong relationships between heterosexual men and women. As Kate describes it, “our flaws belong somewhere”, and the beauty of a friendship is that, while the other person may not be suitable as a partner, they can put on show all of their flaws and be accepted for who they are.

In Sardinia, a small city in Italy, there are more centenarians than anywhere else and the current theory is that this is because they live with one another and have a strong sense of community.