I was particularly struck this week by a pair of pieces in The Atlantic about why you never see your friends anymore, and a related piece about the scheduling woes of adult friendship. This is something I think about a lot! Many people I know often lament how hard it seems to be to get our friends together in adulthood — I have some friends in New York who it feels like I see once a year, even though we live in the same city! I regularly send my friends Google Calendar invites for dinners and drinks, and often use Doodle to plan gatherings that involve upwards of 5 people, since the alternative is sending dozens of emails to establish a date and time when all members of the group are free. And this is just for friends who are local: it’s even harder to see and keep up with long distance friends — and we have more of them these days than perhaps on parents’ generations did, since many millennials went further away for college and then scattered across the country, moving for job opportunities as they came up. (Two small thing I’m trying to do more on this front: spontaneous phone calls — because scheduling “phone dates” basically never happens — and sending more snail mail).

The Atlantic pieces tackled a couple things: the first one discusses the bigger economic factors that have led to all of us seeing our friends less: unpredictable work schedules and longer, more demanding hours that mean we’re rarely free at the same time as our friends, since our schedules are now all subject to the whims of the industries we work in. And the second piece tackles the bit I mentioned above: how scheduling time with your friends now requires Google Calendars, Doodle polls, slack, and all kinds of other tools. I really enjoyed both — and I’m guessing you’ll find something to relate to in each of them, too.

What I’m reading

Why you never see your friends anymore, The Atlantic. (And related: The scheduling woes of adult friendship)

How Emily Weiss’s Glossier went from millennial catnip to billion-dollar juggernaut, Vanity Fair.

Enough Leaning In. Let’s start telling men to Lean Out, New York Times.

Is America’s favorite playwright too much for New York?,. Slate. Lauren Gunderson is the most produced playwright in America, but she’s never had a hit in New York — her success has been in regional theater productions around the country.

The writer as influencer, Study Hall.

Basic bitches, collective delusion, and the long American history of being defensive about pumpkins, Summer Block.

Mindy Kaling didn’t sign up to be a role model, Elle.

In defense of wellness, The Riveter.

How raspberry vinaigrette changed the way we salad, Taste.

What I’m cooking

This section returns! Now that it’s getting a little colder I finally felt excited about cooking again. Last week I made Bon Appetit’s slow roasted gochujang chicken (which also features potatoes roasted under the chicken in the chicken fat, and they are AMAZING) and this new Alison Roman recipe for vinegar chicken with olives (castelvetrano olives: so much better than regular olives!). And because it’s October, you’re legally required to make something with pumpkin in it (I don’t make the rules!), so I made this pumpkin chickpea curry from Melissa Clark.

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