Dear Readers,

It’s been a long year, and for many of us, a dark and lonely one. As we prepare to usher in another set of 52 weeks, the sense of a joyous new beginning has often been tempered by an even stronger feeling of trepidation for what another year might bring.

That’s why we decided this was the perfect time for an issue on Friendship. It’s true, as C.S. Lewis famously pointed out in The Four Loves, that there is no safe investment in another person. Every time we find a new friend, we acquire a new option on heartbreak and loss, as well. Still, the harder things get, the more we stand in need of friendship and everything that goes along with it, like companionship, guidance, love—all of the things that we simply cannot provide for ourselves. Friendship, in fact, is just as dangerous as stepping into a new year—but we hope this issue will persuade you that it’s more than worth the risks involved.

As you read this issue, you’ll find essays on making friends, hosting friends, losing friends, and much more. Joshua Rio-Ross turns to Fredrick Buechner’s novel Godric to explore the fragility of the bridges we try to build across the gap between one another. M.M. Townsend looks back even farther, to what Aristotle can teach us about the relationship between excellence, loneliness, and finding true love. Back in the present day, Ali Kjergaard reflects on the simple goodness of both giving and receiving hospitality, no matter how imperfect; Jack Franicevich dives into the difficulties of maintaining adult friendships across time and distance; and Drea Jenkins tackles the question of whether our relationships with animals can truly be considered friendships.

We hope these essays and the rest of the issue will remind you that wherever you are, you aren’t in this alone. And from your friends at FF, we wish you a very happy new year.

Fare forward,

Sarah Clark

Editor-in-Chief