>A brief word here about the scholarship devoted to friendship: I know I’ve been citing it quite a bit, but the truth is, there’s surprisingly little of it, and

>A brief word here about the scholarship devoted to friendship: I know I’ve been citing it quite a bit, but the truth is, there’s surprisingly little of it, and even less that’s particularly good. A great deal is dime-store wisdom crowned in the laurels of peer review, dispatches from the Empire of the Obvious. After wondering about the unusual amount of references and citations of "experts" I finally reach that paragraph, and think to myself: Oh, good, that was really a bit too much. Nevertheless, the writer quietly continues. I'm baffled as though in the absence of any higher meaning there at least has to be some sort of justification albeit in the unstable and ever changing form of 'social sciences'. In this deeply buried nihilistic outlook for me as a reader it is indeed a very insightful piece. To be abstract, knowledgeable and articulate about the phenomena of social bonding (here: friendship) is one thing but to be actually good at the art of communication itself (forming, maintaining and parting away) requires an entirely different skillset and dedication. That's why in a sense these essays and its intertexts literally got stuck only revolving around itself.