Show Me The Way To Value My Female Friendships and Identify Toxic Ones with BFF Author Claire Cohen

Show Me The Way

What was the most painful breakup of your life? Was it a romantic relationship or was it a friendship? Certainly for me both rank pretty highly in terms of sucker punches in my history. On today's show, Claire Cohen, author of BFF? The Truth About Female Friendship suggests that from infancy we are fed a diet of 'Best Friends Forever' - the idea that you should have a female soulmate to whom you tell all your secrets and who always has your back. A myth she tells me that she wants to bust. She's coined a new term: BBFN - best friends for now.

Rather than spending years striving for a vision of female friendship that isn't realistic, she has spoken to dozens of experts and suggests we look for what suits us best and appreciating what we've already got.

Claire also explores toxic friendships and how to figure out if you're in one; competition within a friendship being the last taboo and how to pay it forward if your friendship plate is full. Finally she encourages us to celebrate and show some love to those longlasting friendships that have stood the test of time.

For Emmeline's bookshelf she recommends: Bess Kalb's Nobody Will Tell You This But Me.A brilliantly original memoir of a grandmother speaking to her granddaughter from beyond the grave, telling the story of her life with hilarious candor and love.