The Art of Closeness. Friends The One Word That Can Kill a Friendship This one word—that you use every day—pushes friends away more than any other. Posted October 14, 2015 | ...

Four years ago, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, friends Annette Venebrügge in Hamburg, Germany, and Tina Oehmsen-Clark in Toronto dreamed up a project: to each share a word a day.

There’s this word that you probably use all the time. It’s a seemingly harmless word—close to meaningless, really—but it’s slowly, subversively tainting your relationships.