Aminatou Sou Sees You, Too

Aminatou Sow’s youngest friend is seven years old. Her oldest is in her seventies. The writer, podcast host, and cultural observer has built a life around relationships that stretch across time, space, and expectation. You might know her as the cohost of the beloved podcast Call Your Girlfriend, coauthor of Big Friendship, or from her incisive Substack, Crème de la Crème, where she offers what she calls “Gentle Suggestions” (but never advice).

Sow writes about death, loneliness, tenderness, and pop culture with sharp clarity and uncommon warmth. Whether she’s unpacking grief or gossip, her voice is attuned to the things we can’t always name but urgently feel. For someone so often described as perceptive, Sow insists on the freedom not to know, not to perform certainty, but to sit in curiosity. Her work reminds us that introspection and connection are not mutually exclusive; they require each other. Maybe in order to see the world more clearly, we need people we see fully, and who see us in return. In friendship, she suggests, clarity is not just possible, it’s shared.

Gutes Guterman: As we work on this issue, I started thinking about people we consider remarkably perceptive, and you were at the top of the list.

Aminatou Sow: That’s so kind. You’re going to make me cry.

GG: Not yet—save it. But really, no one better to talk to about how human relationships are things to see and be seen through. I want to talk generally, then dive into Big Friendship, and also your Substack, Crème de la Crème. For basic biographical info, I’ll pull from the web…unless there’s anything you’d like to correct?

AS: Well, the internet says I’m an “American businesswoman.” My friends told me that. I’m like…what business? I’m a prolific Wikipedia editor, but even I won’t touch my own page. Everything on there is wrong. It’s funny, but it’s also kind of surreal. Like I’m watching a version of myself walk around in a pantsuit I never owned.

GG: What’s it like knowing what’s out there about you isn’t really you?

AS: It’s been one of my biggest lessons: it really doesn’t matter what people think. Nobody knows anything. Not even me. That’s one of my core beliefs. And the internet version of me? A walking, talking reminder. I think a lot of it stems from the way people try to make you legible—to categorize you based on your last job title or your proximity to prestige. It’s like they need a shortcut. But people aren’t shortcuts.

I used to have a job-job—politics, agencies, then Google. I kept climbing because I needed to survive. I graduated during the 2008 recession, and I’m an immigrant. So it wasn’t about fulfillment, it was about paying bills. But if I’m honest, I never cared about those jobs. I mean, I can say that now. I’m forty. I’ve earned the right to say I was just doing what I had to do.

GG: How do you decide what to keep for yourself and what to let the world in on?

AS: For me, nothing goes out into the world unless I’ve already processed it. I think everyone has their own line, but that’s mine. I don’t share anything I haven’t metabolized. I might joke about it or reflect on it, but the raw stuff? That stays close. I learned early that it’s not sustainable for me to bleed on the internet. Not because I’m hiding, but because I don’t want to give people the illusion that access equals intimacy.

Also, the internet’s changed. When I first started, I was talking to my friends. Literally. My friends were the audience. There wasn’t an algorithm feeding me strangers’ opinions or funneling my posts into the void.

GG: Right, the internet used to be a place where you had to seek information. It didn’t all come to you.

AS: Exactly. You had to surf. You had to look for things. Now things are looking for you. And that changes everything. It shifts the whole energy. So for me, my rule of thumb is: If I wouldn’t say it to my closest friends over dinner, I’m not putting it out there. Or if I do, it’s in service of a larger idea. I think that’s what makes it feel meaningful. I’m not just telling people about my life, I’m trying to understand something about all of our lives through it.

GG: I respect that. And I also find myself on the opposite side: sometimes I share to process. The act of putting it out there helps me understand what I’m feeling. How did you learn your way?

AS: I think some of it is cultural. I was raised in a Muslim West African household, and there was a huge emphasis on privacy. You don’t air out your business. But I think it’s also temperament. I’m someone who loves to think, loves to spiral. And boredom as a kid gave me a very active interior world. I genuinely spent a lot of time alone. So when something hard happens, my instinct isn’t to share—it’s to go inward.

Now, of course, I do therapy. That’s where I process aloud. That’s where I say the messy version before I figure out what I want to say more publicly. And the processing still happens with people I trust. But when it comes to the internet? I like to show up with some clarity.

GG: Has your perception of someone or something ever totally flipped?

AS: All the time. That’s kind of my barometer for if I’m paying attention. You’re always getting new information. And aging helps with that. You start seeing your parents differently, seeing your younger self differently. One of the biggest shifts I’ve felt lately is realizing how wrong we were—all of us—about so many women in the 2000s. The way we talked about Britney Spears or Kate Winslet? Unforgivable. And also totally normalized. Now I look back and I’m like, we were in a fever dream.

GG: You wrote in Crème de la Crème about going through old photos and being unexpectedly moved. Like archiving your own joy. Do you think looking back is a necessary part of seeing clearly?

AA: I do. Because, so often, I’m not present in the moment. Not because I’m disassociated, but because I’m moving so fast. Later, I’ll see a photo or read an old text and realize something was meaningful. I’ve learned that the emotional significance of a moment isn’t always obvious right away.

Also, I have kids in my life—nieces, best friends’ kids—and they always want to look through my phone. At first, I thought it was weird. But then I realized: this is their version of a photo album. When I was a kid, you’d go to a family member’s house and flip through actual albums. Now we scroll. But it’s the same impulse: to make sense of ourselves through memory.

GG: Your Substack isn’t technically an advice column, but you are giving advice. What’s that like?

AA: I don’t believe in advice. At least not the kind that pretends to have universal answers. People rarely want direction, they want confirmation. What I try to offer is clarity, or a mirror. Sometimes it’s like: girl, break up with him. Sometimes it’s: you’re not wrong, but maybe you’re not entirely right either. And sometimes it’s just: I hear you.

GG: Where do you feel the most clear-eyed right now?

AS: I know who I am. I know what I like. I don’t need to be liked for the things I like. That’s where I feel grounded. That’s the gift of this era of my life.

GG: And how does one get there? Asking for a friend.

AS: I think, at some point, you have to stop being at war with yourself. That’s what changed everything for me. I had a lot of anxious years. Still do, sometimes. But eventually you hit a point where you ask: Who is actually standing in my way? And the honest answer, for me, was—me. I was the one blocking myself. Once I named that, I could start making different choices. And from those choices came peace.

A strange thing happened during the pandemic that really clarified this for me. At the beginning, I was flooded with fear. Like real, justifiable panic. I thought I’d never meet a new person again. Never sit alone at the corner of a bar doing the crossword, which is my favorite thing. Never travel. I had this crushing feeling that everything I’d hoped for personally, creatively, was over. Dead in the water.

I went to a really dark place. And then one day, I just thought: let’s say it’s true. That all of that’s gone. Then what? What do I do now? And weirdly, it was the most freeing thought. Because when everything I’d built my life around was stripped away, I could finally see what was left. I could stop spiraling and start surviving. And that turned out to be the beginning of something new.

Now I let myself spiral, for a little. But I always try to come back with, OK, so what are we doing here? What’s actually true about me? What can I stand on? That’s how I got to clarity. You just have to be honest with yourself, and then stand on business, as the kids say.

So much of the anxiety of being younger is about perception—how you’re seen. When I finally arrived at the idea that nobody knows anything, it was wildly liberating. That includes me. I don’t know everything. But I know what feels true. And that’s enough.

GG: Yeah. I feel like when I was younger, I thought I had to have more answers than I actually needed. And the older I get, the more I realize it’s OK not to understand everything. To just be in it.

AS: Totally. And honestly, I’m a nosy person. I ask a lot of invasive questions. Like, how much money do you make? What do your parents do? What kind of sex are you having? It’s not because I’m trying to collect data—it’s because I’m wildly curious about how people live. And after surveying enough lives, I can confidently say: no two people are the same. Everyone is figuring it out.

At a certain point, I realized that if I wanted to live a different kind of life, I’d have to take responsibility for creating it. And a lot of that has meant taking care of myself in a real way. I write a lot about depression, and when I’m in it, I know it’s happening. But when I’m not in it? I spend a lot of energy protecting that state. Doing the things that keep me upright. I’m very protective of my mental health. I have to be.

And I can only do that by staying in my own lane. I don’t spend too much time thinking about what other people are doing. Because I don’t know what it’s like to be them. I only know what it’s like to be me.

GG: And how does that internal clarity—the solitude, the honesty—connect to your belief in friendship as something vital? Where do those parts of you meet?

AS: I think they meet in the place where repetition lives. The place where the same questions keep showing up in different costumes. Because if you’re someone who thinks a lot, who spirals a lot, who reflects constantly, you start to see that your core questions are relational. Like, how do I connect? How do I belong?

And for me, that’s often wrapped up in loneliness. Which, if you know me, sounds absurd. I have incredible, deep friendships. I’m loved so thoroughly. And yet, I still feel lonely sometimes. It doesn’t make sense on paper, but emotionally it’s real.

That’s why I inventory. When I feel that sense of lack, I ask: What’s actually true? What am I not seeing? Sometimes the loneliness is romantic. Sometimes it’s existential. And sometimes it’s just Tuesday.

Also, I think about dying all the time. Like, constantly. Crème de la Crème is secretly about death. About how to live a joyful life knowing that any of us could go at any moment. That sounds grim, but it’s actually grounding. If I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, what am I going to prioritize? Not living my best life. Not being productive. Just being honest. Being loving.

And that’s why friendship sits at the center of my life. Because it’s the relationship that consistently saves me from myself. Romantic love is beautiful, but friendship? It’s durable. It’s abundant. You’re only allowed to have one romantic partner at a time, legally. But no one’s limiting your number of best friends.