53 pages • 1 hour read
Aminatou Sow, Ann FriedmanBig Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “The Spark”
Chapter 1 describes the beginning of Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman’s friendship. Sow and Friedman met at a Gossip Girl viewing party at their mutual friend Dayo’s apartment. This seemingly serendipitous encounter was underpinned by intention.
Aminatou had met Dayo through work. Even though the two women looked nothing alike, colleagues often mistakenly called them by each other’s names. Aminatou was curious to meet the “mysterious other Black woman” in the office, and their initial hangout was marked by an instant rapport (4). They talked about African diaspora issues over bowls of ramen and found that they had the same taste in movies and music. Dayo thought to herself that Aminatou would really get along with her friend Ann, so Dayo sent Ann a message about organizing a Gossip Girl viewing party so the two would have an excuse to meet.
In recounting the story of the night they met, Sow and Friedman share that it is difficult to remember who they were before they knew each other. They acknowledge that this is because Big Friendships become deeply embedded in one’s life and change each person in the friendship, shaping personal identities, tastes, political beliefs, and even how individuals perceive their bodies.
At the time they met, both Sow and Friedman were experiencing personal and professional transitions and were seeking out meaningful connections. Aminatou had arrived in Washington, DC, two years earlier. She had found an inseparable friend, Cecille, but Cecille was not planning on staying in DC long-term, so Sow was anxiously motivated to meet new friends, bracing herself for the day when Cecille would decide to leave town. Meanwhile, Ann, who had moved to DC four years prior for a job, was also driven to meet new friends. One of her college best friends, Lara, was about to move away. So, when Dayo reached out about the Gossip Girl party, both Ann and Aminatou jumped at the chance to attend.
Sow and Friedman share that they “felt a spark right away” when they met each other (17). The authors reference Emily Langan, a communications professor at Wheaton College, who studies close relationships and suggests that the dynamics of attraction in friendships are akin to those in romantic relationships. Research on romantic attraction, Langan argues, can be applied to friendships as well. At the sparking point of many relationships, Sow and Friedman say, the two individuals may interpret the spark differently, with one interpreting it as romantic and the other interpreting it as platonic. However, when they first met, they were on the same page. Their bond was platonic from the start. Nevertheless, it still felt like falling in love.
Sow and Friedman’s dynamic felt effortless. At the time, they believed that it was easy to make new friends, maintain important friendships, and let friendships slide sometimes to pursue other areas of their lives: “Friends are expected to be forgiving of this kind of neglect,” they say (19). But, looking back on the perspectives they held in their twenties, Sow and Friedman laugh at the idea of friendships as an easy escape from the hard realities of life.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Obsessed”
Chapter 2 captures the burgeoning friendship between Sow and Friedman. The night after the Gossip Girl viewing party, Friedman unexpectedly ran into Sow at a networking dinner. They sat next to each other and immediately fell into conversation. After that encounter, they added each other on Gchat, and their connection deepened rapidly. Spurred by a playful debate over denim skirts during that chance dinner meeting, they sent each other fashion blog posts. The denim skirt became the first private meme in their friendship, something that humorously signaled to one another that they were paying attention to the friendship.
Sow and Friedman assert that the digital age played a crucial role in the early stages of their relationship, but that in-person hangouts were crucial to forging their bond. By adding each other on Gchat, Sow and Friedman made their first significant commitment to maintaining their budding friendship, but this digital connection was complemented by their frequent in-person meetings. The two women instinctively understood that consistent engagement would prevent their newly formed bond from fading.
Sow and Friedman both identify as “social initiators,” people who proactively organize social gatherings and follow through on cementing new connections. They contrast these types of people with “social moochers,” who passively rely on other people to coordinate social events. Sow and Friedman actively sought opportunities to spend time together, creating a dynamic where their efforts felt reciprocated.
Sow and Friedman argue that deliberate, shared experiences elevate friendships beyond mere acquaintances. They cite researcher Jeffrey A. Hall’s research on the time investment required to forge friendship levels. Hall found that people consider each other “casual friends” after 30 hours spent together, “friends” after 50 hours, “good friends” after 140 hours, and “best friends” after 300 hours (26).
The early days of Sow and Friedman’s friendship were filled with quality time spent at each other’s homes, enjoying simple pleasures like reading the Sunday paper side by side. This intimacy demonstrated their contentment with each other’s company, free from the need for external entertainment or socialization.
During this time, Sow and Friedman got to know more about each other’s lives as they told each other about their respective upbringings. Sow, whose family is from Guinea, grew up in Nigeria in the 1990s, a time of political chaos. As a child, Sow witnessed her parents keep in touch with friends across the continent, going to great lengths to maintain these relationships whether in wartime or peace. Despite the effort required to keep up these friendships, Sow says that her parents never made it seem like a burden. Sow went to college at the University of Texas. There, she joined a group called The Spirits, a sorority that “taught her the magic of hanging out with a big group of women” (35).
Meanwhile, Friedman grew up in Iowa, raised by a Catholic family. She went to the University of Missouri for journalism. There, she befriended fellow photojournalism students and later roomed with them, which led to her first experience with the challenges and joys of cohabitation.
Despite their obvious differences, Sow and Friedman say that their stories have a lot of similarities. As they got to know each other, they were writing their “story of sameness,” which is a concept created by linguist Deborah Tannen. Sow and Friedman were emphasizing their shared experiences and feelings in conversation. This narrative strategy was instrumental in reinforcing their bond, though it also masked underlying differences that would later challenge their friendship.
Chapters 1-2 Analysis
In the initial chapters of Big Friendship, Sow and Friedman lay the foundation for their exploration of friendship by sharing the origins of their bond and its deep impact on their lives. The narrative, structured around their meeting and the early development of their friendship, leverages a chronological approach that underscores the growth and challenges they face together. By recounting the seemingly serendipitous moment at a Gossip Girl viewing party and their subsequent deliberate efforts to foster their connection, they highlight The Intentional Work of Maintaining a Friendship, particularly a Big Friendship. This structural choice not only draws readers into their personal journey but also reflects on the universal nature of forming and nurturing significant relationships.
Sow and Friedman enrich their narrative by incorporating references to cultural phenomena and scholarly research, such as Emily Langan’s work on close relationships and Jeffrey A. Hall’s study on the hours it takes to develop different levels of friendship. These citations serve multiple purposes: they provide a theoretical framework for understanding friendship, validate the authors’ experiences with academic insights, and position their story within a broader societal and cultural context. By weaving these references into their personal story, Sow and Friedman lend their narrative a sense of universality, suggesting that the dynamics of their friendship reflect wider truths about human connection.
Sow and Friedman’s narrative examines friendship through the lenses of social psychology, gender studies, and cultural analysis. Their discussion of being “social initiators” versus “social moochers” and the investment of time required to forge strong friendships incorporates sociological insights into their personal experiences. This blend of personal anecdote and social science research offers a nuanced understanding of The Power and Complexity of Friendship, challenging readers to consider their own relationships through a similar analytical lens. The authors’ reflection on their “story of sameness” and how it both cemented their bond and masked their differences further complicates the reader’s understanding of friendship dynamics, encouraging a deeper consideration of how identity and experience shape interpersonal connections. Though the opening chapters focus on the honeymoon period of their friendship, the backstories the authors share foreshadow the way that The Power Dynamics of Interracial Friendship will challenge their relationship later on.
Sow and Friedman employ rhetorical devices such as parallelism and anecdote to emphasize the thematic resonance of their friendship’s evolution. The parallelism in their recounting of individual backgrounds and the decision to meet underscores the serendipitous yet intentional formation of their bond. Anecdotes serve as a powerful tool for illustrating their friendship’s depth, providing tangible examples of the joy, strain, and effort involved in maintaining their connection. These devices not only enhance the narrative’s emotional impact but also reinforce the authors’ thesis that friendship is an active, dynamic process requiring conscious effort and adaptability.
Imagery and metaphor play significant roles in Big Friendship, particularly in the authors’ description of their initial connection as a “spark” and the use of physical activities to illustrate the concept of “stretching” in friendships. These literary elements serve to convey the intangible qualities of friendship, making the abstract concrete and relatable for readers. The metaphor of “stretching” effectively encapsulates the idea that friendships, like muscles, require regular maintenance to remain strong and flexible. This use of literary elements underscores the book’s argument that friendships are complex, living entities that evolve.
