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'The government's played us for fools': your best comments on the Guardian today

Guardian readers
Updated
Theresa May at the European union summit in Brussels
Theresa May at the European union summit in Brussels. Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

Readers have been discussing the latest on the EU27 summit, as well as the benefits of counselling and Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year: youthquake.

To join in you can click on the links in the comments below to expand and add your thoughts. We’ll continue to highlight more comments worth reading as the day goes on.

EU leaders arrive at summit to discuss Brexit progress

EU leaders have ruled that Brexit negotiations can move on to discussions about Britain’s future outside the bloc. Guardian readers have been discussing the progress so far.

‘No matter how you voted in the referendum we’ve all been played for utter fools’

This is the tragedy and the black comedy at the same time, isn’t it - May and her cabinet, after 18 months, have not even discussed a preferred outcome or direction for Brexit.

Logically, there can be no talk of negotiation all this time if there is no clear goal towards which you’re negotiating.

So what have Davis and co been doing all this time?

We, the country, not matter how anyone voted in the referendum, are continually played for utter fools by this sick gang of pantomime public servants.
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A moment that changed me: when deep sadness drove me to counselling

A man sits alone on a park bench
‘I will never forget the afternoon when I lay on a bench in north London looking up at the sky … I felt empty, fed up, devoid of happiness.’ Photograph: Adam Lister/Getty Images

Guardian sports feature writer Sachin Nakrani wrote about how counselling helped him come to terms with sadness. Readers have been sharing their own stories.

‘Companionship needs to be incidental, not just taken like medicine’

That was the first of these articles on loneliness that clicked with me at all, thank you, Sachin. The one thing I know about loneliness, and which this article makes clear, is that companionship needs to be incidental, not just taken like medicine.

And that’s why Men’s Sheds work - you don’t go there to be friends with the others because you haven’t any friends yourself, you go there for the workbench and the tools and to make things. And once there, you become friends with the others, via the work and in a proper social context, not a therapeutic or medical one.

Personally I feel the same about exercise. I want to go for a walk, or dig at my allotment or whatever. I don’t want to go to a gym and get on a treadmill. Too many of the supposed cures for social isolation and loneliness - and depression - are like the treadmill at the gym, imo. What we need are many more routine opportunities for the social equivalent of the walk or gardening.
Tenthred

‘Youthquake’ named 2017 word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries

A student protest in London on access and quality of higher education
A student protest in London on access and quality of higher education. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

Readers have been talking about the word of the year, what it means and how, for many, this is the first time they’ve ever heard it.

‘Surely this reflects the deep divisions in society?’

First time I’ve come across this word.

Don’t understand why they think it sounds an optimistic note. Having been a youth and having since matured, I regard youths as “work in progress”. Their judgement is not really to be relied upon when it is highly likely to change as a result of greater experience. Furthermore, to the extent that it is a phenomenon at all (is it?) it surely reflects the deep divisions in society.
cynicalshrink

‘Give young people today a platform and they will start protesting without think of the ramifications’

I remember being young, not so long ago, almost yesterday as I approach my 70’s.

I thought I knew so much only to realise I only knew so little of life. But in comparison to today’s youth I was savvy, street wise and knew so much general knowledge with the benefit of a balanced education provided by the state.

I see my nieces and nephews at Uni and there knowledge is limited, their ability to think clouded and judgement suspect. Give them a platform and they will start protesting without think of the ramifications or the rights of others to disagree. They need ‘safe corners’ to retreat to when upset. I just despair at where the country is going. Am I alone?
Jambazi

Comments have been edited for length. This article will be updated throughout the day with some of the most interesting ways readers have been participating across the site.