We’d like to hear from people who are childfree about their experiences of friendships with those who have children

While medical issues can mean some people who want children are unable to have them, others choose to be childfree.

In recent weeks the Guardian has explored how friendships can be affected when one party has offspring and the other does not. With this in mind we are keen to hear from people without children who have had to navigate this scenario in their own friendships. Have some friends been lost? Or did you find ways to stay close? What advice would you give others?

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Brandon, 28, and Christine, 27, became close friends when they worked together at a Covid testing lab. Now they live in different countries, but make time to continue their friendship

When Brandon and his boyfriend moved to London from Wales in April 2021, there wasn’t much going on. With the city under lockdown, he took a job in a Covid lab at Gatwick Airport. “I was processing PCR tests for people who were travelling,” he says. “I didn’t know anyone in London except my boyfriend, but luckily the team I was working with were great.”

In June, they were joined by Christine, a biology graduate who lived in London and had transferred from the PCR testing lab at Heathrow. “When I arrived, they seemed like a tightknit team, so I was a bit anxious about fitting in,” she says. “But Brandon was super friendly and that drew me to him straight away. I really wanted to be his friend.”

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Think you always know what your mate is thinking? Forever making elaborate plans together? You might be doing your friendships more harm than you realise, say these experts

“It’s very British to joke and tease to show affection, but it can tip over into being unhealthy,” says the friendship coach Hannah Carmichael. Her online community, Friendshift , coaches adults to build authentic friendships and navigate social situations. “At the heart of every healthy relationship is the ability to show up fully as ourselves,” she says.

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Loosening the grip of a conspiracy theory is a complex task, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith . Aim at changing the relationship with your friend, not their mind

• Read more Leading questions

My friend has started sending me lots of links and articles on UAPs [unidentified anomalous phenomena, also known as UFOs]. I’ve tried to gently assert that I don’t find the sources reliable or credible and that I do not believe respectable news outlets are conspiring to conceal the truth, but they still persist. Should I ask them to stop? I think these conspiracy theories are really harmful.

Eleanor says: One question is: can you stop your friend believing these conspiracy theories? Regrettably, almost certainly not, at least not without a huge investment of time and patience. People are free to think whatever they want and some of us put that freedom to the weirdest uses. At least we can be thankful the conspiracies your friend has latched on to are about objects in the sky and not, say, which reptilian species is secretly controlling things.

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I’ll never stop trying, but parents and childfree people both have to work hard to maintain a community

We’d been riding our mountain bikes and chatting for a solid half-hour when my friend casually said: “Oh yeah, I’m pregnant.”

She said it the same way one might say: “I stopped by the grocery store” – although this was, in fact, a conversational hand grenade. My stomach dropped. No , I thought.

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Jimmy Carter and Gerald R. Ford faced off in 1976 in a bitter campaign but later bonded as few presidents have — and made a pact to speak at each other’s funerals.

Guardian advice columnist Annalisa Barbieri on strengthening bonds with the people who matter to us

We’ve all left a social occasion with someone feeling buoyed, or utterly deflated and angry. You can either blame yourself or the other person, but it’s often a combination of the two - or something you each bring out in the other. You can only take responsibility for your own behaviour, so look at your own responses; are you snippy? Do you answer back? Should you? It’s not that you shouldn’t retaliate, but you do need to see your place in things. If a relationship makes you feel better about yourself, cherish it and do the same for them. If not, think about why you’re still there.

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Resolutions are undeniably terrible when we make them for ourselves. But what about if we began making them for each other?

What’s the right age to realise new year’s resolutions are trash that won’t last until February? By about 12 years old, the data should be in: nothing is in any better order than it was this time last year and you’re a damn fool to think this year will be any different. Now give yourself a couple of decades’ leeway while you work other things out, such as who you are, and then you’ll realise that January is a time to relax and concentrate on keeping warm rather than making lists. This is something I should have learned many moons ago.

But January’s pull is irresistible. David Bowie is my earworm, crooning “ch-ch-ch-changes”, quietly, but not quietly enough. One tiny yet significant improvement must be manageable, surely? Yes, is 2025’s answer, but with a difference: I have decided that this is the year you should make resolutions for your friends.

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TREASURE!

Welcome to 2025, everyone <3