Nobody tells you that the absence of close friends in midlife is often the residue of a small private decision you made somewhere in your thirties — not to end the friendships, just to stop pretending they were the kind of friendships you actually needed — and the slow drift that followed was the natural endpoint of that quiet honesty.

Posted 21 May 2026, by

Daniel Moran

Nobody tells you that the absence of close friends in midlife is often the residue of a small private decision you made somewhere in your thirties. The decision was not, in most cases, the decision to end the friendships. The decision was something quieter and more structurally consequential. ...Read More

Psychology suggests the reason some people genuinely don’t care about their birthday isn’t low self-worth — it’s a level of emotional security that most people never reach because they’re still measuring their value through external validation

Posted 21 May 2026, by

Expert Editor Editorial Team

There's a particular kind of person you've probably encountered. It's their birthday, and they have to be reminded. They don't make a deal of it. They don't post anything. If a colleague brings cake, they're polite, but they didn't ask for it and they don't seem to need it. ...Read More

The strange (imagined) comfort of a 1970s Sunday afternoon

Posted 16 May 2026, by

Mal James

I was not born in the 1970s. I missed the decade entirely. The closest I have come to a 1970s Sunday afternoon is a few faded photographs of my parents in clothes they would now disown, and the way certain Irish houses still smell on a winter weekend ...Read More