Making friends in Brussels

In the last 12 years, Selma Franssen has bounced between the Netherlands, Denmark, Scotland and Belgium, and with every expatriate experience she’s had to build a new friend circle from scratch.Friends made her feel at home in all those places, and they outlasted all her romantic partners. But Franssen, a Dutch journalist and Brussels-based expat, often felt that her friendships weren’t seen as the deep, legitimate relationships that they were by people around her. Franssen’s new book, “Vriendschap in tijden van eenzaamheid” (Friendship in Time of Loneliness), is a six-chapter, carefully constructed argument to start taking friendships as seriously as we do romantic relationships.