The wonders of friendship: experiencing affective intimacies beyond sequential temporalities

The notion of close friends being able to endure prolonged spatial and temporal separation and still feel as if no time has passed is a well-known trope. In this article, we explore such ‘wonders’ of friendship that escape linear and sequential expectations. Weaving together critical friendship studies and affect theory, we extend recent work on friendship temporalities, which has often adopted representational modes of analysis. Focusing on moments of friendship that unsettle sequential time and the presumption of synchronous co-presence, this article foregrounds wondrousness as it emerges and circulates through diverse affective encounters and moments. These movements do not settle into stable form; they oscillate, suspending temporal chronology and intensifying a sense of being with friends across distance. Using wonder as both object of analysis and analytical tool, we suggest seeking the wonder in friendship studies and employing it as a conceptual lens and mode of enquiry for exploring the affective and temporal textures of friendship.