The Friendship Wheel

Welcome to the Friendship Wheel, a brilliant diagnostic tool based on the laws of color theory.

Friendships are vital to who we are, how we spend our time, and often start before and endure beyond our romantic partnerships, but we have only limited ways to talk about them. What if we had a language that took friendship seriously and could explore these relationships in all their wonderful complexity?

This vibrant handbook to our emotional lives establishes the language for friendship we’ve been missing, to show, for example, how dynamics in Yellow (the barista who makes us smile each morning) and feelings of Blue (our most trusted confidantes who feel like family), can help make sense of Green (the fleeting intensity of the camp friend). The Wheel identifies each kind of friendship as a distinct, important, and interconnected piece of our social worlds. 

The Friendship Wheel is a book to be read, but it’s also a book to be used. Find out how to:

• Chart your friendships: what kind do you have and what kind do you want?
• Bring new energy into old friendships
• Identify friends’ various expectations: Do I mean to you what you mean to me?
• Navigate the confusion of a friendship break-up with empathy 

Based on interviews with psychologists, data scientists, ethnologists, and lots and lots of friends, The Friendship Wheel’s playful (yet practical) framework will give you the keys to generate real change in your life and community.Rachel Benoît researches human motivation at an applied ethnography consulting firm. Her love of personality tests, PhD in literature, and American-Franco-Haitian heritage inform her takes on friendship. She has a soft spot for Yellow friends, should work on Purple, and desperately avoids Reds.