Treasure them

Evolutionary anthropologist Anna Machin argues that the Western hierarchy of love — parent-child first, romantic partner second, family third, friends a distant fourth — is out of step with how we actually live. Drawing on Dunbar's 150-person network, Julianne Holt-Lunstad's 2010 meta-analysis showing supportive social networks halve mortality risk (on par with quitting smoking), brain-scan studies showing friends' neural responses match our own, and the rise of 'chosen families,' platonic co-parenting, and queer platonic partnerships, she contends friendships — chosen, conditional, renewed day by day — are now the survival-critical relationships at the heart of our health, happiness, and longevity.