Today's Liberal News

Julie Beck

A Second Chance at Friendship

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with two men who first met while doing national military service in Singapore. They didn’t talk much then. More than a year later, they reconnected online, took a hike together, and found that they clicked really quickly.

How Two Internet Nemeses Became Friends

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with two former online adversaries who became friends. They met arguing in the comment section of a Facebook forum dedicated to promoting science, where each thought the other was misguided.

The Friendship Researchers Who Are Also Friends

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with two friends who also happen to study friendship. They met at a conference back when very few relationship scholars were focusing on the topic, and became both friends and professional collaborators.

The Friend Who Taught Her She Could Make It as a Single Mom

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with two women who forged a friendship in crisis. When Sarah’s husband left her for another woman—while she was pregnant—she turned to her colleague Theresa, who was raising a daughter alone.

How Hobbies Infiltrated American Life

Grocery-store scallions repotted on windowsills. Sourdough starters in the fridge. Cooking, knitting, jigsaw puzzles. Hobbies could not cure the coronavirus, but for a moment it seemed like they could cure the anxious stagnation of pandemic life. Time had become unsettlingly abundant, but we tried our best to avoid falling into idleness and despair.

These Long-Distance Friends Reunite Every New Year’s Like No Time Has Passed

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with three men whose international group of friends has been having an annual New Year’s Eve reunion party for the past 10 years (except for 2020, when the pandemic prevented it).

Comics Made Them Friends. Their Friendship Made Great Comics.

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with three artists and one writer, who all work on titles for DC Comics, about their collaboration on the page and their friendship off of it.

What It’s Like to Truly Be Friends With Your Ex

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with two friends who used to be married. They discuss their amicable—really!—divorce, how they reconnected afterward, what it means to be happy for someone else even if their decision hurts you, and what friendship has given them that marriage did not.

When Friendship Is a Family Matter

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with two mother-daughter pairs whose families have been friends for three generations. It started with the grandfathers, who were best friends growing up in India, and raised their children together.

A Friendship That Fuels a Bigger Notion of Family

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with two couples—Jenny and Marisa (parents to Atlas and Blaise), and Lora and Michelle (parents to Finnley and Tegan)—who had their children using the same sperm donor.

There’s No Time for Small Talk in Middle Age

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she speaks with the actors Jessica St. Clair and June Diane Raphael, who co-host The Deep Dive, a podcast that explores their friendship and adult womanhood.

When the Dream of Growing Old With Your Friends Comes True

Updated at 1:35 p.m. ET on August 6, 2021Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with Kappa Delta sorority sisters who attended the University of Virginia in the ’70 and ’80s.

The Awful Coincidence of 2 Friends Who Got the Same Cancer

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with two friends who were both diagnosed with the same cancer—acute myeloid leukemia—one right after the other.

How 1 Friend Can Change the Course of Your Life

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with two men whose friendship of convenience—Mitchell served as an unofficial guide when Judo moved to his hometown, and vice versa—grew more intimate as they became embedded in each other’s lives.

A Newspaper by Teens, for Teens

Updated at 8:24 p.m. ET on May 28, 2021.Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with the founder, a former editor, and several former student journalists of L.A. Youth, an independent nonprofit newspaper for and by teens in the Los Angeles area that ran from 1988 to 2013.

The First ‘Real Friend’ You Make After College Is Special

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with Alyssa and Emily, who met at their first job out of college and then moved in together during the pandemic.

When Your Best Friend Becomes an ‘Aunt’ to Your Kids

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with Judie, an introvert, and Kristi, an extrovert, about their opposites-attract friendship, and how Judie leaned on it when her daughter was diagnosed with cancer during the pandemic.

We Have to Grieve Our Last Good Days

For me, it’s the last time I swam in the ocean. It was a February evening in Florida, and I didn’t know that the people I was there with would be the last new friends I’d make, on a work trip I didn’t know would be the last I’d take.Everyone else seemed content to sit on the sand and look up nearby restaurants on the internet. But I felt like maybe I’d regret it if I didn’t go in.

Hiking Is an Ideal Structure for Friendship

Each installment of The Friendship Files features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with a group of friends who have been going on monthly hikes for 25 years. They discuss why the hike organizer has absolute authority, how they’ve shown up for one another through tragedies, and why hiking together has bonded them more deeply than other ways of keeping in touch.

Friendship and Stonework Grow More Beautiful With Time

Each installment of The Friendship Files features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with Mary Beth Kelly, who wanted to reclaim her family home after her husband passed away, and Jane DeWitt, the stonemason who helped her do that.

What It’s Like to Carry On a Tradition With a Friend Who Can’t Remember It

Each installment of The Friendship Files features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with Gabe and Andy, two friends who for more than six years have walked 30 minutes once a week to give each other a high five.

A Fantasy-Football League Unafraid to Commit to the Bit

Each installment of The Friendship Files features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with five representatives of a 12-person fantasy-football league called Raccoon Nation. Their commitment to the league has led to an elaborate infrastructure of regulations and statistics, a trophy for the winners, punishments for the losers, and even merch.

A Fantasy-Football League Unafraid to Commit to the Bit

Each installment of The Friendship Files features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with five representatives of a 12-person fantasy-football league called Raccoon Nation. Their commitment to the league has led to an elaborate infrastructure of regulations and statistics, a trophy for the winners, punishments for the losers, and even merch.

When a White Republican Teen Invited a Black Pastor to Preach in His Hometown

Each installment of The Friendship Files features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with two men whose lives were altered by a chance encounter. When he was a teenager, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove heard Reverend William Barber II preach, and invited the Black pastor to speak at his majority-white, strongly Republican high school.

What Teacher Friends Talk About When Students Aren’t Listening

Each installment of The Friendship Files features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with two elementary-school teachers, both in their 16th year of teaching. They have been friends since the beginning of their careers, but they’ve never faced a school year like this one.

As the Military Transformed, Their Friendship Grew

Each installment of The Friendship Files features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with two women who met as roommates during Army officer training. Emily, a queer woman, was wary of her roommate at first because of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. But they grew close and supported each other through their eventful military careers.