# @science on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DXF-nRFE4A5
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/63606165-science-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/017f002253.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-04-14T01:20:20.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Science 🧬 (@science) — https://gondola.cc/science

## Caption

If I tried to scroll back even a week in the WhatsApp window on my laptop, I would get RSI, but I don’t need to do that to know how much complaining it contains. It’s at least 88% complaints by volume. In chats with my best friend alone, a search revealed 27 uses of “I hate” last month, 12 of “tired” (surprisingly low), plus various rants, whines, expletives and nonsense utterances representing general malaise.⁠
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It’s me more than her: I tallied up everything I said out loud to myself for a week earlier in the year and it was like Brian Cox in Succession fighting with Eeyore. I’d love to be a Labrador puppy, spreading joy, but I fear I’m a morose little squid, squirting murky negativity ink over everyone. My friends complain a decent amount, too – we wouldn’t be friends if they didn’t – and I’ve been wondering for a while whether all the moaning serves us well, or makes us feel worse.⁠
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This came to a head recently when I discovered the concept of “negativity friendships”: bonds formed around a shared dislike of something or someone. In the Atlantic article where I read about it, the writer had joined an online group for dog haters, united by a shared loathing of slobber, hair and owner idiocy, but gradually became concerned that the group was making her even more disgusted by – and scared of – dogs.⁠
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Apparently, we are wired to see a shared dislike as an opportunity to bond. Research in 2006 found that people see greater friendship potential in others who shared their negative, rather than positive, opinions. “It’s not that we enjoy disliking people,” said Jennifer Bosson, one of the research team. “It’s that we enjoy meeting people who dislike the same people.” There is something very special in meeting the exasperated, just-rolled eyes of a stranger across a crowded room where some blowhard is talking utter nonsense; it can be as heady as romantic love at first sight.⁠
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#friendship #friends #bff #psychological #sciencefacts #biologyfacts

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## Tags

sciencefacts, friendship, bff, biologyfacts, psychological, friends

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