You are right to feel uncomfortable, rather than flattered, by such extreme imitation. Short of cutting her off completely, there are ways to gradually disentangle yourself

I met X about 10 years ago, at the gym. She’s not a very close friend, although I think she would like to be. For the first few years I thought we had so much in common – places we’d been on holidays as kids, our attitudes and our taste in music and clothes.

It has taken me a while to realise that I can’t believe anything she says . She copies everything I say or do . Every time I wear something new, she says: “I’ve been looking for a coat/dress/boots like that. Where did you get it?” She turns up a week later with almost exactly what I have. I simply don’t answer any more.

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Being in the late evening of life we learn to reflect, to meditate on things lost and gained, to contemplate a society alien to the one we once knew. But ageing does not mean retreating from the world

A young male writer turned 60 recently and complained about getting old. Please, I thought , I’ve unwound nine-tenths of my mortal coil, don’t tell me about getting old, young whippersnapper.

One glaring difference in the two decades that stand between us is underlined by the fact a 60-year-old male probably hasn’t experienced ageism yet. A fit man at that age is not far off his social and cultural peak; dress him in a suit and he could be a minister of the crown or a hot-shot CEO. A woman – and in most cases, a man nearing his 80s – is more than likely just the furniture of the street; only her peer group really sees her as an equal.

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John, 78, and Anna, 48, became friends on a travel website in 2008. When war broke out in Ukraine, John welcomed Anna to his home in Finland – and they’re still flatmates
• Tell us your story of how you met someone special

When John joined a website for travel tips back in 2008, he never imagined he would meet his future flatmate. “I was living in Finland and working as a translator,” he says. “I originally moved from the UK to be with my partner 50 years ago, but after we broke up I decided to stay.” He joined a site called VirtualTourist, which was an early social media network for people who were passionate about travel. “I was planning a trip to Egypt at the time and getting some really great advice from people who were there.”

John soon got chatting to Anna, who was from Kyiv and worked in recruitment. “We were in the same time zone and we were both insomniacs, so we would end up chatting late at night,” he recalls. Anna, too, remembers these exchanges fondly. “I really liked his travel pictures and whenever he posted a new one I’d ask about his experiences,” she says. When Facebook became popular, they exchanged details and began chatting over Messenger, but it wasn’t until 2017 that they finally arranged to meet up in person.

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What would the world look like if we put our mates above all other relationships? Much better, says Rhaina Cohen

Rhaina Cohen was at a party one night when, on the other side of the room, she saw another woman she found magnetic. “In her pastel sleeveless blouse and snug pencil skirt, she had the posture of a dancer, if that dancer was also running a boardroom meeting,” she writes in her book, The Other Significant Others.

Soon after they parted that night, she and the woman she refers to only as M began exchanging messages. “Between us was a blizzard of ideas toggling easily between the interpersonal, emotional and intellectual. It took us little time to introduce each other to the people and spaces that mattered to us. We dropped by each other’s homes with the effortless frequency that before then had only seemed possible on sitcoms.”

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When Eugenia Kuyda created Replika, the AI companion app, she had no idea it would be downloaded millions of times all around the world. The results were more powerful than she could ever have predicted. But so was the backlash

Thanks to Kate Devlin at King’s College London for sharing her expertise for this episode. Her book is called Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots .

This episode contains a reference to suicide. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie . In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org , or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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Pet hangouts are blissfully free from social awkwardness, aggravation and anxiety. Your pet will not text ‘nearly there’ when it is actually still faffing around looking for its keys ...

‘The average woman with a pet now spends more time ‘actively engaged’ with her pet than she spends hanging out face-to-face with fellow humans on any given day,” I read in the Atlantic . It was a dissection of the “crisis in social fitness”, alternatively known as “why we’re all destined to die alone, our faces eaten by the very pet whose company we have chosen above our own kind”. Am I, a pet owner, or my pet-owning friends (of all genders) surprised? Of course not.

Humans are great for certain things. Opening jars. Forensic textual analysis of single-word WhatsApps from potential romantic entanglements. Separating dark and light washing. Remembering why you hate your boss. But despite all that, pets make better low-key hangout companions.

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Conversation card games can be entertaining at parties – and help us foster deep connections and intimacy, which can otherwise be elusive

Last summer I was at a friend’s barbecue when he pulled out a game called We’re Not Really Strangers. The small box contained cards featuring questions like “Do you think plants thrive or die in my care?” and “Do you think I’ve ever been fired from a job? What for?”

Prompted to share about ourselves or speculate about each other, we revealed funny, personal truths. During one round, everyone weighed in on whether or not they thought I was “a romantic”, which led me to process my love of love and simultaneous aversion to weddings out loud. Progressively, the cards became more probing: “What do you think my weakness is?” “What privileges do you think I have? Explain.”

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It sounds as if there might be something else at play here. Either way, I’d think seriously about whether you actually want the friendship to continue

I’m having a problem with my closest friend, who is refusing to speak to me.

We disagree on how acceptable it is to talk about sex : I think it’s something we should be able to talk about freely, but she doesn’t. After she recently told a mutual friend that she was “oversharing ” when sex was mentioned, I requested some clarity on her boundaries. She responded with anger, saying that my requests for clarity were exhausting, that it should be clear from past conversations.

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As platonic relationships receive more attention, both good and bad, we may be erring by trying to ‘optimise’ our friendships

My friend is having trouble with her friend – let’s call her Kelsey.

A few months ago, Kelsey made a thoughtless remark that hurt my friend’s feelings, and left her questioning their bond. After talking it over with her therapist, my friend came up with a plan to bring it up with Kelsey. But when they next met up, the timing wasn’t right.

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