The magic of a soul click

Why some friendships hit different

Hello, hello! I'm in a fabulous mood. The sky is blue, I've just been for a five-mile run, rustled up lunch, put some whites in the wash, and am now sitting on the sofa, in a pool of sunshine, mini hot water bottle between my knees, laptop on my thighs, writing this to you.

The new job is one of the reasons for my cheer. As I explained in my last Substack , I've started working for a magazine (something I've never done before, the extent of my experience had been at press agencies and newspapers) and I'm loving it. It's a whole new world. A world where there's time to edit, to look at copy, to finesse, to come up with ideas.

My past employer was a newspaper - one that was known to be a tough employer. It did sometimes seem that it was a policy at this paper to make life as unpleasant as possible for the people who worked there. For instance, there were no windows in the newsroom. There are windows in my new office! (Intriguingly another newspaper also doesn't have windows in its newsroom... it's almost as though a decree has been made that windows are verboten in newsrooms).

A friend who made a similar switch to me - used to work at a newspaper, has just taken a journalistic job, not at a newspaper - describes the transition so well: 'one feels a bit like a beaten dog in an apparently safe new home.' He also tells me that every second of working somewhere other than newspapers will strengthen my belief that newspapers are terrible. We shall see!

Anyhow, that's all rather inside baseball¹ - let's get into what I really want to talk about: my theory of soul clicks (a term I have, ahem, coined).

Celluloid soul clicks.. honestly Romy And Michelle’s High School Reunion is surely one of the best films ever made?!

A soul click occurs when you meet someone and experience a connection that makes you feel: a) that you can truly be yourself with this person, b) that this person brings out the best in you (this doesn't have to be in a moral sense (though can be), it could also be that they heighten your humour or your storytelling, for instance), and c) that being in the presence of this person makes you feel more alive. In short, something in your soul clicks with something in their soul.

A soul click is one of the true joys of life and yet - and yet! - you have no power over who is your soul click - and therefore no way of engineering an encounter with one (surely, part of the reason dating is tough).

When I think of my soul clicks - I've had a few - I really have no idea why they were soul clicks. One is an Austrian girl who grew up in England and is a beauty journalist. Another is a boy, ten years younger than me, from Los Angeles who currently works for one of the big accountancy firms. Yet another is a mother-of-three , ten years older than me, who works in television. I have something in common with all these soul clicks - the same sense of humour, a curiosity about the world around me, a love of stories - but, in other ways (children, age, background) we have very little in common. Yet when I see them, all those usual differentiators fall away and it's just, well, two souls clicking. (Is this vomit-inducing? Tell me in the comments.)

Here are some activities I've found I indulge in with a soul click. Long rambling phone calls where nothing of any import is said, it's just the joy of squawking, laughing and ranting with a pal. Spending very little money when hanging out - a stomp in the park with a soul click is more enjoyable than dinner in the finest Michelin-starred restaurant with an acquaintance. Messaging as though we are in the middle of a conversation - there's no need for a 'hello' or a 'how are you?' with a soul click, messages start 'in media res' - for example, as I sent to a soul click yesterday:

But also, with a soul click, although one does talk about one's feelings and things you are going through etc, there's none of that therapy talk - none of that 'how are you really doing?' grim, at times invasive, chatter that I find quite irritating. Even when things are shit, with a soul click I can laugh about how crappy the outlook is, and, importantly, never feel alone. Instead, I have that cheering sense that I am with a sister-(brother?)-in-arms, a companion for the road.

Sadly - but understandably - not all pals can be soul clicks. I have plenty of very close friendships with people I deeply care about where I don't feel that core-to-core connection. And I do think one has friends for different things - the reliable, show-up-no-matter-what pal, the flakey-but-fun friend, the great-for-advice one, the common-interest buddy... a healthy social circle is surely made up of all different kinds.

But, I gotta admit, a soul click is my favourite type. I think because a connection like that makes the inevitable drudgery of life (the paying of council tax, the waiting for the bus, the handwashing of bras) just a little easier to bear. To borrow the parlance of one Meghan Markle², soul clicks elevate the grinding everyday ordinary (wink wink).

Some things brightening my week…

Caledonian Road

When I realised with horror that I had not read a single male author last year, I resolved to step out of my literary comfort zone (stories about messy middle class women) and read a dude. That's that's how I picked up Caledonian Road, by Andrew O'Hagan.

It is brilliant. It's a 'state of the nation' novel - an epithet I usually roll my eyes at - but I do think he manages to capture a snapshot of the United Kingdom, just after the pandemic. I'll write more about it when I've finished it - it’s a beast, at 650 pages - but I can report that it is a very gripping, compelling, and, that awful word, 'readable'.

Dense Bean Salad

I hardly have to introduce the concept of the DBS, pioneered by the fabulous

Violet Witchel

, to the TikTok-literate but, for the rest of us, the idea is that you make a substantial salad with beans in it and lot of other ingredients - cucumbers maybe, radishes, chargrilled peppers, some form of cheese, perhaps some meat, combined with a delicious olive-oily-vingerary dressing - that you can then portion out throughout the week to make your life a little easier.

I love it - especially as a lot of meal prep puts me off (I don't want to eat three-day-old sweet potato, or worse, dry chicken) but this just gets better throughout the week. I made her miso-edamame bean salad on Sunday and it was, predictably, fabulous - and all gone now.

My famous kale

Based on Deliciously Ella's famous kale, I have made this so much - I always get compliments on it - that it's second nature. Seriously make it - so easy, so delicious, so healthy - plus kale is such a hardy vegetable, it can keep for about two weeks in the fridge (always helpful).

You tear your kale and get rid of any tough stalks (if you are MM you then chop up the stalks and fry them but I have not yet ascended to this level of domestic deity) - you can do this with any kale but my fave is posh cavolo nero - then you put on salt, a little olive oil and some sort of acid (lime or lemon juice is best, but a splash of vinegar will work just fine) and massage it in (yes, you need to massage it) to break down the toughness of the leaf. Then pour on a bit of tahini, some soy sauce, a little rice wine vinegar, toss it all up - sprinkle on sesame seeds if you are feeling fancy - and honestly, it tastes restaurant-level perfection.

The following are more queries..

Pink for the bedroom???

I don't want to jinx it but it looks like maybe my leaky roof will be fixed next week which means I can soon paint my bedroom. I kind of want to go pink. The issue is that I have already painted my living room pink (Middleton Pink by F&B, I adore it - a light, airy pink - brings me joy every time I look at the walls). I'm going to be painting walls plus the ceiling as I am in the eaves and painting just the walls makes the room look stumpy. I am aware the room might look a bit too girly if it's pink but then, I also think you have to decorate your home according to your tastes and the truth is I love pink and I am girly.

If I’d had my way, the sofa woulda been pink too

So the question is: do I go Setting Plaster (a more toned-down, neutral-ish, dusty pink that resembles freshly plastered walls and is v popular colour) or do I go full-on pure pink with the fabulously named Nancy's Blushes? (Both are Farrow and Ball, I'm afraid I'm a cliche, a true advocate for F&B paints while also wincing at the price tag). If you are aware of some other pink (pretty, pale, not overwhelming) that might be good, please put it in the comments.

SETTING PLASTER image from @makelifeanart

NANCY’S BLUSHES image from @thehouseupstairs

Should I get rid of my plastic tupperware?

I read this piece in The Times (which, by the way, is free to read this weekend so fill your boots while you can) where they tested the microplastics in their reporters' blood and all of them had some level of microplastics present in their body. (Yay!). The article posits that eating or drinking out of plastic (so water bottles or tupperware) is a culprit, and we should have glass or stainless steel containers. What do people think? When I read it, I immediately searched out a set of glass containers on Amazon but haven't yet clicked 'buy'. Partly, because I wonder: is this really something I should worry about? My yoghurt is still going to come in a plastic container, isn't it? What do you think? Those in the know, should we be replacing our tupperware with glass versions?

That's it from me for this week! I hope you are well wherever you are and I'm sending you a whole lotta love. See you next time xxx

1. Ok, so obnoxious to explain expression in the footnote but I think I picked this up in the US and we need to make it common parlance in the UK because it is so good - it means: refers to the minutiae and detailed inner workings of a system that are only interesting to, or appreciated by, experts, insiders, and aficionados. Is there a British equivalent that's slipping my mind? If so, please put in comments!

2. Also, guys, I really can't see that her show was that bad - I enjoyed it! She also taught me that I should cut flowers on the diagonal (and no, I didn't know that before!). I do think it's a bit bonkers when people fulminate about her (there's a v embarrassing video of a middleaged man ranting away about her on the Spectator's Instagram) like she is Putin when she's just a dippy Californian who likes sprinkling flowers on her food.