The Science Of Friendship

It’s said you choose your friends, but that may not be entirely true. As new research reveals we’re genetically predisposed to form bonds with particular people, Corinne Redfern dissects her social circle…

- Corinne Redfern

It happened in a spa on my 30th birthday. As I sat there with my motley crew of mates, limbs entwined and skin wrinkling beneath the water, I realised that most of them had seen me naked – and I mean full-on, nowhere-to-hide starkers. There’s Lottie, who I’ve known since childhood, and Hannah, who shared my beds and bathing costumes when we backpacked around Southeast Asia, flashing our not-so-private parts as we avoided tan lines. And of course, there’s Dan*, who I met during my first week of university and ended up in bed with four years later (that’s a tale for another time). Sitting under the stars that night, sharing beers and battle stories, I experienced one of those rare, beautiful moments when you know for sure that you’ve found a group of people who really see you (in my case, every little bit of you) and love you for who you are. Maybe you had your moment while watching your best mate get married, or perhaps while holding her hair back as she puked her guts up into a toilet. Maybe there was ice-cream, or gin, or heartbreak involved. But before you congratulate yourself too much on your excellent taste in pals, according to recent research, you might not have had a lot of say in it. In January, a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences revealed that pairs of friends were more genetically alike than random duos. A 2014 paper in the same journal reported a similar finding when scientists examined the DNA of nearly 2000 pairs of close mates. They discovered a prevalence of genetic similarities, intertwined and carbon copied, by up to 1 per cent – a modest-sounding but scientifically significant ratio that’s equal to that of fourth cousins. Meanwhile, parallel research into the same number of pairs of strangers showed little resemblance at all.