A complimentary edition of Medium's member-only newsletter

Unlock every story on Medium, get this newsletter delivered to your inbox weekly, and directly support the writers you read most for less than $1/week when you become a member.
Join Medium.

Dear Medium member,

The big holiday this week was all about love. (Please see our list of Staff Picks for Valentine's Day for some sharp thoughts on romance from Medium writers.) Yet an equally powerful, though far less heralded, force in all our lives is friendship. Simple friendship– a thing we learn early but never really master–can have as much impact on our overall happiness as love.

For instance, see "the midlife happiness dip," a well-documented social phenomenon positing that our happiness declines from age 20 until our mid-40s, where it bottoms out and then starts to pick up again. Fear not, there are ways to help you ride out the dip, chief amongst them spending time strengthening your social relationships, aka friends.

The recent state of the world certainly hasn't helped. Friendships haven't weathered the changes of the pandemic particularly well, and we may be in the midst of a "friendship recession." These relationships take time to build or nurture, and are harder to maintain at a distance over Zoom. The idea of a friendship day, or Galentine's Day, has recently picked up steam. Curious to hear what you think of celebrating non-romantic plus ones in this way, or if you've read anything recently that's improved your relationship to friendship. Reply and let us know.

Also: We have some exciting announcements for you this week from Medium. We've launched a new program inviting published authors to verify their identity by claiming their books and earning a book badge for their profile on the site. And for members, we're excited to announce we've rolled out offline reading for members – you can now download lists directly to your device with the latest version of our Android and iOS apps.

We have a lot planned over the coming months, and are excited to keep sharing updates with you as they roll out.

As always, thank you for reading.

Scott Lamb

VP, Content @ Medium