to bite the head off of the next person who says or types 'Friendship Group'...

[ChippingInIsEggceptional]

OK - I'll admit I'm tired, bone shatteringly tired and clearly grumpy but for the love of fuck, when did we start having 'Friendship groups' and stop just having 'friends'?

Gahhhhhhhhhhh

Playdates, friendship groups....

and while I'm at it, please stop with the text speak!!

They used to be called "sets" in Dublin is an embarrassing attempt to sound upper class. I don't find friendship group annoying though, it's better than "gang".

I am so with you on this Chipping.

It's a ridiculous phrase, and sounds sort of cultish. If that makes sense.

This phrase always makes me smile because it's how DD (11) refers to herself and three other girls that have been friends since Reception age. They don't really play as a foursome anymore, but anytime they do anything together in school she refers to them as 'The Friendship Group'. In my mind 'Friendship Group' refers to a bunch of primary-aged girls...

Sounds like a selfhelp group to me.

What is a friendship group?

I'd not heard it before, but I would have thought it was being used by a teacher to describe a child's group of friends at school to parents at parents evening.

I wouldn't use it to describe me and my friends, although to be fair I only have two and they don't know each other, so it would be weird to call either of them a group.

Set would annoy me. It's like that Chipping Norton Set that people kept talking about with Rebekah Brooks and David Cameron and Jeremy Clarkson.

My understanding is that "friendship group" describes a small network of friendships in which people are connected by a common interest/activity/routine and therefore spend time socialising together, but not all of the group members are friends (or necessarily even particularly familiar with each other). Thus, friendship groups can be fraught with petty politics, rivalries and misunderstandings to a much greater extent than friendships - there's more of a hierarchy involved, and more emphasis on popularity/familiarity. It's quite a useful distinction to make, IMO, when the term is used properly.

Hearing people talk about 'friendship groups', 'playdates', 'mummy friends' or their 'relationship with food'...sets my teeth on edge for some reason.

Does sound culty

Like an odd religion. Where you get weak squash and rich tea biscuits and hug a lot.

Mind you I am so grumpy I find having friends a chore sometimes. I couldn't handle a friendship group

Mummy friends??

Who would say such a thing?

Ill bet they are the sort of group you can never leave.

Like Hotel California.

Or Mumsnet.

'Relationship with food' borders on pornographic to me...

Perhaps it means their diet is fucked?

Salmotrutta I've read it on here a fair bit and it just makes me want to release the contents of my stomach...

Salmo

Quite worried about the Hotel California/Mumsnet analogy!

Be very afraid Worried.

Totally agree with you OP. I find it so wierd and embarrassingly teenagey how normal grown up people I know now talk really self consciously about who they are friends with and how many people that is and who is in their main 'friendship group' and who not. Though unfortunately they are not self-conscious enough to realise what playground idiots it makes them sound like. I find it all depressingly like being 11 again and I wholeheartedly blame Facebook for giving people friend anxiety. Needless to say I have found the time-consuming activities of being pregnant and now having a small baby a delightful excuse to cull a few of said people from my er 'friendship group'...

I just saw someone use this on another thread. About adults. I nearly wept.

Theaub

Worra - Me too.

WorriedMummy - I still find that term annoying, but could accept it in that specific use, it's the general 'any group of friends' becoming a 'Friendship Group'

Bridget - it may or may not have been the straw that broke the camels back

Salmotrutta & Catgirl - I'm not sure about 'cultish', just american and fucking annoying One of my very lovely friends talks about her 'Mummy Friends'... one of these days!!

Wankerchief - people who use the term need a fecking 'self help group'!

FakePlasticLobsters - Friendship Trio?

please nooooooooooooooooo

NDO - it would suit me if people would stick to that, then I wouldn't have to see it/hear it all the time

It's worse than nails down a chalk board!

I also think it sounds quite exclusive and that outsiders can't 'join'.

Glad you mentioned playdates. Where on earth did that gem come from? Bloody awful phrase....

Ah now although I would never USE the term 'friendship group', I am aware of having some.
The group of friends I met just after uni and go to pubs with. The group I've picked up over years of working and go to restaurants with. The group I got to know through a baby group and have stayed in touch with. There is no overlap between any of the 'groups' other than through me, and I would never have cause to socialise with friends from different groups at the same time.
So as a phenomenon, I think they exist, but can't see a reason for me to need to say the term out loud!