Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told You from how Supports
Speaker 1: dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
Speaker 1: and I'm Kristen. And in honor of International Friendship Day,
Speaker 1: which is August three, Kristin and I are looking at
Speaker 1: the science of friendship, what benefits friendship has for you,
Speaker 1: What does it mean to have a BFF, what will
Speaker 1: that BFF bring to your life, and how the role
Speaker 1: of friendship has sort of changed and evolved over the centuries.
Speaker 1: Because even the Greeks used to talk quite a bit
Speaker 1: about friendship and their philosophy. Yeah, obviously, friendship is something
Speaker 1: that goes back throughout human history, and Aristotle had a
Speaker 1: well known philosophy on the different types of love, one
Speaker 1: of which is philia, which is affectionate regard or friendly feeling.
Speaker 1: And our deepest and closest friendships probably also intersect with
Speaker 1: the idea of a gop a, which is love for humankind,
Speaker 1: although do you think that it crosses every into arrows?
Speaker 1: Probably could passionate love. Yeah, philia with benefits. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: people often talk about how they marry their best friends,
Speaker 1: so those Venn diagrams can often intersect. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting. I mean, like not to get off
Speaker 1: on a tangent, but it's interesting that, like, even the
Speaker 1: idea of quote unquote marrying your best friend is relatively
Speaker 1: kind of recent development. I mean, marriage for centuries was
Speaker 1: just sort of an economic agreement right there. There wasn't
Speaker 1: this idea that, oh, you marry someone that you would
Speaker 1: like to live with for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: It would be oh, no, someone will be selected for
Speaker 1: you that will benefit Yeah, I mean, because it's fine.
Speaker 1: We're all going to die at thirty two, our children
Speaker 1: will be apprenticed out. It's fine. Nobody has to like
Speaker 1: each other. Yeah, and who cares anyway, because no one
Speaker 1: has Facebook to each other is up to or how
Speaker 1: happy one is or is not. That's right, and Aristotle
Speaker 1: definitely did not have Facebook. And author Massimo Pigliucci, who
Speaker 1: who wrote a book about the philosophy of friendship, talks
Speaker 1: about Aristotle's philosophy and his theories that basically friends, He
Speaker 1: thought that friends sort of had this mirroring role in
Speaker 1: each other's lives. They could sort of hold a mirror
Speaker 1: up to each other to help them improve personally, help
Speaker 1: each other improve, and that they would help each other
Speaker 1: achieve this thing called you deemonia hopefully and pronouncing that right,
Speaker 1: which is often translated now as happiness. Maybe literally in
Speaker 1: the Greek it meant having a good demon. So you
Speaker 1: would help each other achieve that that thing you were chasing,
Speaker 1: that elusive happiness, that that that good demon inside of you.
Speaker 1: I like that. I just thought I was hungry, But
Speaker 1: apparently it's happiness. It's just here, the happy demon inside
Speaker 1: of you, asking for a sandwich. Um. But if we
Speaker 1: move into more contemporary times and look at how the
Speaker 1: nature of friendship has changed, it's interesting that more of
Speaker 1: that aarrows type of passionate love has shifted from the
Speaker 1: person who would have been like our our closest friend
Speaker 1: and confidante to these days more commonly to a spouse
Speaker 1: or a long term partner, because, for instance, if you
Speaker 1: look back in the Victorian era at the closest of
Speaker 1: female friendships, and if you read letters that women wrote
Speaker 1: to each other, and even that men wrote to each
Speaker 1: other during this time, they were so effusive and just
Speaker 1: almost passionate in their love for the other person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that was okay, that was okay. There was no
Speaker 1: there was nothing in society really that was dictating that
Speaker 1: it was weird to be like really like passionately in
Speaker 1: like with your friends, especially like in terms of when
Speaker 1: we think of male friendships background this time and it
Speaker 1: being okay to be physically affectionate. Yeah, if you look,
Speaker 1: for instance, at Abraham Lincoln and his best friend Joshua Speed,
Speaker 1: they shared a tiny bed for four years while they
Speaker 1: were living together, obviously in their bachelor days, and that
Speaker 1: was no big deal. I mean, some people today think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that must mean that Lincoln must have been doing something
Speaker 1: with Joshua Speed. But actually, that kind of physical intimacy
Speaker 1: that you also see reflected in photos of male friends
Speaker 1: at the time, where they might be holding hands or
Speaker 1: touching uh one person's shoulders, or even in sort of
Speaker 1: a side hug, a platonic side hug, it wasn't so
Speaker 1: strange at the time. And some think that the Industrial
Speaker 1: Revolution the rise of organized sports and outdoor activities led
Speaker 1: to that breakdown in articular of male platonic intimacy. And
Speaker 1: for women, the idea of having that closer, more emotional,
Speaker 1: intimate best friendship was a little bit more of a
Speaker 1: normalized idea because there's been that longstanding idea of women
Speaker 1: just being the nurturing, emotive sex. But even still, when
Speaker 1: you get to the nineteen twenties, for both men and women,
Speaker 1: it wasn't so okay to be as passionately in friend
Speaker 1: love with your bff because this was around the time
Speaker 1: when you have the rise of homophobia. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: when you have something to be afraid of, you have
Speaker 1: to actively show that you are not that thing, and
Speaker 1: in this case it was. It was the rise of
Speaker 1: the idea of what is manly and masculine and what
Speaker 1: is female and feminine, and homophobia was really tied up
Speaker 1: in that. And so the idea of having that like physical,
Speaker 1: the affectionate close relationship whether you're a man or a woman,
Speaker 1: was just not hunky dory anymore. Well, and also with
Speaker 1: the industrial revolution, you have with at the rise of
Speaker 1: the companion it in love marriage that we think of today,
Speaker 1: And so that's when you start to see that kind
Speaker 1: of emotion and closeness transposed from the best friendship into
Speaker 1: the marriage. And a lot of parents became concerned at
Speaker 1: this time, particularly for their daughters, that if they seem
Speaker 1: too close to their best friend, then they weren't going
Speaker 1: to make a good wife, you know. They could sort
Speaker 1: of practice, you know, being uh compassionate and kind to
Speaker 1: someone else. But there was definitely uh this line that
Speaker 1: was drawn and was perpetuated by psychoanalysts in the nineteen
Speaker 1: twenties who warned about the quote perversions of the libido
Speaker 1: that were the tendencies of teenage girls to fix their
Speaker 1: affections on members of the same sex. I mean that's silly, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, like as far as being concerned about young
Speaker 1: girls spending a lot of time together, yeah, well, and
Speaker 1: I would assume to the penalties for that, where it
Speaker 1: would be much harsher for men at the time, because
Speaker 1: I feel like now maybe we're just not freaking out
Speaker 1: as much. But for instance, it's so much more common,
Speaker 1: it seems like for groups of girls to get together
Speaker 1: and have slumber parties and play with each other's hair
Speaker 1: and do each other's makeup and that kind of stuff
Speaker 1: that involves lots of physicality, whereas boys friendship physicality is
Speaker 1: often more of the rough and tumble play. There's not
Speaker 1: that same kind of intimacy. Right. They're probably not sharing
Speaker 1: a bed like Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed. Yeah exactly, Well,
Speaker 1: because they have to prove that they're masculine and so
Speaker 1: you can't have that intimacy. But I mean, speaking of
Speaker 1: intimacy and things that are good for you, friendship has
Speaker 1: a ton of health benefits. And these health benefits have
Speaker 1: been asserted over and over again forever, and you're probably
Speaker 1: familiar with a lot of them, including the psychological ones
Speaker 1: that uh Mayo pointed out. They include increasing your sense
Speaker 1: of belonging and purpose, boosting your happiness and reducing stress,
Speaker 1: helping to improve your self confidence and self worth, help
Speaker 1: you cope with traumas, and also encouraging you to change
Speaker 1: or avoid unhealthy lifestyle habits. These are all kind of
Speaker 1: hallmarks psychological benefits of close friendships. Well, and that last
Speaker 1: point to that the Mayo Clinic noted, encouraging you to
Speaker 1: change or avoid your unhealthy lifestyle habits really hearkens back
Speaker 1: to that Greek idea of the good friend helping you
Speaker 1: find your your good demon inside of you. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: a good demon, whether that's just goodness or margarita. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so whatever, But you know, all of that well being.
Speaker 1: Once you've achieved all that well being, that definitely leads
Speaker 1: to a lot of potential physical benefits, things like better
Speaker 1: brain health. Harvard researchers back into thousand and eight found
Speaker 1: that strong social ties could actually promote brain health as
Speaker 1: we age, and so you know, that's why it's even
Speaker 1: critical when we talk about like aging populations and older
Speaker 1: people being alone and how awful that is. The stronger
Speaker 1: your social network, the better you'll be as far as
Speaker 1: emotional health and brain health. And the lower stress levels
Speaker 1: associated with having close and healthy friendships also leads to
Speaker 1: us being less likely to get colds. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is just like one example of how it does improve
Speaker 1: our overall health. Yeah, and studies have also pointed out
Speaker 1: that this kind of social support can lower blood pressure,
Speaker 1: protect against dementia, and reduce the risk of depression. So
Speaker 1: it's apparently pretty important to have friends, you guys, and
Speaker 1: all in all, this adds up to the possibility that
Speaker 1: we might live longer as one byproduct of having friendships.
Speaker 1: There was a two thousand five study published in the
Speaker 1: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health which tracked a group
Speaker 1: of Australians over ten years, and they found that those
Speaker 1: with a large circle of friends were twenty two percent
Speaker 1: less likely to die during the study period than those
Speaker 1: with fewer friends. And I'm sure there are other issues
Speaker 1: in there as well, but I mean that is that's
Speaker 1: that's impressive, is nothing to to sneeze and when you
Speaker 1: look at women in particular, um friendship also has an
Speaker 1: effect on women who are battling breast cancer, as a
Speaker 1: study in two thousand six in the Journal of Clinical
Speaker 1: Oncology showed um. They did a study of nearly three
Speaker 1: thousand nurses who had breast cancer and found that the
Speaker 1: women without close friends were four times as likely to
Speaker 1: die from breast cancer as women with ten or more friends.
Speaker 1: And I think it's worth noting that proximity and the
Speaker 1: amount of contact with the friend or friends was not
Speaker 1: associated with vival It was just the fact that you
Speaker 1: have friends who love you in your life that was
Speaker 1: the protective factor. Having a spouse, however, was not associated
Speaker 1: with survival rates. It's all about the friends well, and
Speaker 1: men can also benefit from friendships as well. This was
Speaker 1: a study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine which looked
Speaker 1: at a group of Swedish men over six years and
Speaker 1: found that those with solid friendships more than an attachment
Speaker 1: to one person, you know, just having the spouse perhaps
Speaker 1: in the home appeared to affect the risk of heart
Speaker 1: attack and fatal coronary disease in a positive way, probably
Speaker 1: lowered the chance of that happening. Now, again, these are
Speaker 1: kinds of correlation versus causation associations to make, but nonetheless,
Speaker 1: the evidence is pretty strong that all in all, healthy
Speaker 1: friendships are healthy for us. However, and this is something
Speaker 1: probably all moms did in tell us many times when
Speaker 1: we were growing up. Not so healthy friendships can negatively
Speaker 1: impact us. Sure, yeah, it totally makes sense. If your
Speaker 1: close friends are boozing it up or smoking or doing whatever,
Speaker 1: then you are also more likely to do that, especially
Speaker 1: if you have a strong desire to fit in. Um.
Speaker 1: There was a study back in in Basic and Applied
Speaker 1: social psychology that found that when you perceive a greater
Speaker 1: alcohol use among your best friends, that predicts in you
Speaker 1: higher levels of willingness to consume alcohol. So basically, if
Speaker 1: it's the norm in your brain, whether it's true or not,
Speaker 1: if the norm in your brain is that your friends
Speaker 1: are drinking and smoking and doing whatever, you are more
Speaker 1: likely to abuse those substances yourself. Yeah, And there was
Speaker 1: a recent study that came out in the British Medical
Speaker 1: Journal which found that friends see your our decisions in
Speaker 1: when we were school age more so than parents, and
Speaker 1: remembering when I was fourteen years old, that is not
Speaker 1: a surprising finding at all because friends are so much
Speaker 1: cooler than parents at that time anyway. But they found
Speaker 1: that specifically, the impact of having a smoker as a
Speaker 1: close friend during adolescents is greater than that of having
Speaker 1: a smoking parent or siblings when it comes to predicting
Speaker 1: whether you shall smoke in adulthood, not just whether you're
Speaker 1: going to be out in the schoolyard smoking some smokes
Speaker 1: that you stole from some cigarette stubs you found on
Speaker 1: the ground, yes, and was some misty stubs that you snagged.
Speaker 1: And another factor that comes into play is also having
Speaker 1: cross sex friendships among adolescents. This was a study in
Speaker 1: two thousand six in the Journal of Psychology looking at
Speaker 1: kids in urban settings in six, seventh and eighth grades.
Speaker 1: So not only did they find that developing cross sex
Speaker 1: friendship is more likely to lead to or be related
Speaker 1: to popularity, but they also found a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: regarding smoking and drinking. Having these cross sex friendships is
Speaker 1: also linked to the perception among seventh graders that the
Speaker 1: best friends attitudes about smoking and drinking are less negative.
Speaker 1: It's also linked to higher levels of cigarette use among
Speaker 1: sixth and eighth graders, in addition to more alcohol use
Speaker 1: among six seventh and eighth graders. Does that mean then
Speaker 1: that our parents were right when you know they warned
Speaker 1: us like, don't hang out with old Johnny who smoking
Speaker 1: those he smoked cigarette but Virginia slims, he will turn
Speaker 1: out like he's a bad apple. I well, I think
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting, and there's probably a lot more
Speaker 1: details that you could look into, or that maybe are
Speaker 1: actually in the full study if we were to read
Speaker 1: the full study. But I think it's interesting to look
Speaker 1: at cross sex friendships in this very impressionable age when
Speaker 1: your hormones are raging, you're really insecure. Everybody's really insecure
Speaker 1: and doesn't know what's going on in life. Um, and
Speaker 1: how that's linked to popularity and then what does it
Speaker 1: mean to be popular? And then you're thinking about the
Speaker 1: norms of like, oh well, if Johnny and Susie are smoking,
Speaker 1: then that's cool and I can do it. And there's
Speaker 1: a lot wrapped up in there that to me just
Speaker 1: sets off alarm bells. If the terror of being a parent,
Speaker 1: because you have to take in all of those different
Speaker 1: variables when talking to little Suz about how to manage
Speaker 1: those kinds of peer pressures. Yeah, but we there's even
Speaker 1: more on cross sex friendships that we'll get into in
Speaker 1: a minute. But let's talk about sort of beyond just
Speaker 1: the physical and emotional and mental effects of friendship. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the science of friendship because there have been
Speaker 1: some really interesting studies in the past couple of years,
Speaker 1: including one that um took my Space into account and
Speaker 1: side note, the study came out in two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: which was seems surprisingly recent considering that they were using
Speaker 1: my Space data. Yeah, I actually double check that date.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's got to be like two thousand one,
Speaker 1: not two thousand eleven. But it was this just a
Speaker 1: study that Tom conducted. Yeah, seriously, everybody's top friend. But
Speaker 1: so the study was talking about this thing called cognitive alliances,
Speaker 1: and they used the my Space Top ten Friends system.
Speaker 1: If any of you were on my Space, you remember
Speaker 1: how froughth that was. You know, I broke up with
Speaker 1: him and so I'm moving him out of my top friends.
Speaker 1: Are like, oh, we met and she's cool, So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put her in my top friends. Yeah, I remember
Speaker 1: when I was setting up my MySpace account so long
Speaker 1: ago now, and how it was just a terrifying experience
Speaker 1: to you know, so carefully select who would be in
Speaker 1: that top ten to make you look as good and
Speaker 1: by you, I mean me look as good as possible.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that went away. I'm yeah, I we don't.
Speaker 1: We don't need extra bad feeling stuff like that. And
Speaker 1: looking at these top ten friends, researchers found support for
Speaker 1: their alliance hypothesis, which basically held that human friendship is
Speaker 1: caused by cognitive systems that function to create alliances for
Speaker 1: potential disputes. So like, I guess your top ten friends
Speaker 1: would function as your you know, your gang of Ruffians
Speaker 1: in case the neighboring gang of Ruffians on my Space
Speaker 1: came up and tried to beat you up. But they
Speaker 1: also found that because an allies support can be undermined
Speaker 1: by a stronger outside relationship, the alliance model predicts that
Speaker 1: people will prefer partners who rank them above other friends.
Speaker 1: So I'll like you more if you like me more. So,
Speaker 1: this whole idea is that we form friendships and strong
Speaker 1: friendships as human humans as sort of a status power
Speaker 1: grab to ensure that if people we don't know with
Speaker 1: threatening status has come along, then we have a leg
Speaker 1: to stand on. Yeah, kind of that. We just have
Speaker 1: these mental and emotional alliances that we formed that becomes
Speaker 1: stronger the more the other person shows that were valued.
Speaker 1: That takes out all of the romance of friendships for me.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. It gets even weirder. I thought it was
Speaker 1: so that you could trade those necklaces that are the
Speaker 1: broken hearts. You get one half and I get the other. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: so there's this. There was this really interesting New York
Speaker 1: Times article a couple of years ago UM talking to
Speaker 1: scientists Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, who along with co
Speaker 1: researcher Jamie Suttle, have done a lot of studying up
Speaker 1: on friendship networks, how and why we form these connections
Speaker 1: and how health related risks and benefits end up being
Speaker 1: kind of transmitted from person to person or even skipping
Speaker 1: a person and going on to somebody else. And they
Speaker 1: use the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and this
Speaker 1: thing called the Framingham Heart Study, which followed people in Framingham,
Speaker 1: Massachusetts for several generations to see how their personal connections
Speaker 1: and interactions affected their health. Yeah, and and Framingham, the
Speaker 1: Framingham and Heart study is a fascinating one because it's
Speaker 1: almost this ideal study population because so many people who
Speaker 1: grew up in Framingham stayed in Framingham, so it gives
Speaker 1: them this they can sort of isolate environmental variables and
Speaker 1: toy around with all of that. And uh, these researchers
Speaker 1: found some really compelling evidence for how good and bad
Speaker 1: behaviors spread through our social networks, from both our best
Speaker 1: friendships all the way to acquaintances or even people we've
Speaker 1: never met before. Yeah, and they kind of treated it
Speaker 1: like a virus. Things like quitting smoking, losing weight, and
Speaker 1: being happy. Those are obviously good attributes, and they watched
Speaker 1: how these things could spread or crop up versus negative
Speaker 1: habits like picking up smoking, gaining weight, and becoming less happy.
Speaker 1: So if if you're looking just at at the weight thing,
Speaker 1: they found that obesity broke out in clusters. And a
Speaker 1: lot of scientists who countered this said, well, it's probably environmental,
Speaker 1: maybe more fast food restaurants opened, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But
Speaker 1: they found out that it didn't really relate at all
Speaker 1: to something like a McDonald's opening in the neighborhood. They
Speaker 1: found that even if a friend in that group moved
Speaker 1: away and gained weight, her social circle back home was
Speaker 1: gaining weight too, and that the risk of obesity increased
Speaker 1: even if a friend of a friend of a friend
Speaker 1: gained weight. What is going on with that? Yeah, that
Speaker 1: kind of pattern was so consistent that these researchers termed
Speaker 1: it the three degrees of influence. That what you were
Speaker 1: doing can have effect, you know, to your friends of
Speaker 1: friends of friends, and vice versa. Yeah. Another theory that
Speaker 1: was discounted was this thing called home a Philly, which
Speaker 1: is basically like associates with like. But again that's kind
Speaker 1: of discounted by the fact that Susie can move away
Speaker 1: to a different state and gain weight and her friends
Speaker 1: back home are still gaining weight. But some of the
Speaker 1: things they looked at among these friend groups are maybe
Speaker 1: there's some subconscious social signaling at work. As our friends
Speaker 1: become heavier, we change our perception of what obese looks like,
Speaker 1: and therefore give ourselves permission to gain a little weight
Speaker 1: because maybe it's not so bad. Or if we don't
Speaker 1: gain weight, maybe we just simply become more accepting of
Speaker 1: other people in our social circles who do so maybe
Speaker 1: they don't feel as bad about watching what they eat well,
Speaker 1: And this jumped out to spouses tend to have less
Speaker 1: of an effect on us, particularly in this area of
Speaker 1: weight gain that they looked at. They have less of
Speaker 1: an effect than close friends do because our ideas about
Speaker 1: weight in particular are more influenced by people of the
Speaker 1: same sex, which makes sense because you know, we're looking to,
Speaker 1: you know, people who are more we're looking at essentially
Speaker 1: like the beauty standards of our group. Absolutely, and they
Speaker 1: found the degree of friendship matters. So this is sort
Speaker 1: of like what we're talking about with these cognitive alliances
Speaker 1: a second ago. If Steve likes Peter more than Peter
Speaker 1: likes Steve, Steve will gain weight when Peter does. He'll
Speaker 1: be influenced by Peter's weight gain, but Peter's weight won't
Speaker 1: be influenced by Steve's because he doesn't whatevery verb you
Speaker 1: want to use value Steve as much, noticed Steve as much,
Speaker 1: care about Steve as much. But if there's a mutual
Speaker 1: degree of friendship, the weight effect is significant. Poor Steve
Speaker 1: what did you do wrong? And that sounds a lot
Speaker 1: like that alliance hypothesis that you just mentioned from that
Speaker 1: MySpace study, right exactly, So how you view your friends
Speaker 1: and how they view you beyond just like the actual
Speaker 1: closeness factor that what really exists, Like how you view
Speaker 1: your friendship matters too, I guess. But if we go
Speaker 1: back to Aristotle talking about mirroring, you know, he said
Speaker 1: that friends hold a mirror up to you to help
Speaker 1: you achieve your happiness, we should bring up mirror neurons
Speaker 1: because Stock is a Fouler and Settle also talked about
Speaker 1: mirror neurons and happiness simply the fact that the more
Speaker 1: happy people you're exposed to on your in your day
Speaker 1: to day life or in your social network, the more
Speaker 1: often your spirits are lifted. And so it's the kind
Speaker 1: of thing like I feel like we've seen marketing campaigns
Speaker 1: and advertising campaigns that are kind of based on this
Speaker 1: idea where if one person does something nice for you,
Speaker 1: and then you do something nice for the next person,
Speaker 1: suddenly the whole network is happier and more polite. Um,
Speaker 1: And so it's sort of that idea of like mirror
Speaker 1: neurons as as you smile at someone, they might smile
Speaker 1: at someone else, and soon like all of our friends
Speaker 1: are smiling at each other and they don't know why. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And anecdotally, all of this kind of the ripple effect
Speaker 1: of friendship rings so true thinking about the patterns of
Speaker 1: my friends and even broader social networks as I have
Speaker 1: moved through my twenties and now I'm approaching my thirties,
Speaker 1: and just how are socializing habits have changed to send
Speaker 1: to more around like domestic activities. We aren't going out
Speaker 1: so much. We're doing more things like going on a
Speaker 1: day hike rather than going on a night bar crawl.
Speaker 1: And it's like as soon as one person or one
Speaker 1: couple started doing that, than someone else took note and
Speaker 1: they started doing it, and then you see their pictures
Speaker 1: on Facebook and you're like, well maybe I needed to
Speaker 1: watch it. And it's like we all have collectively become
Speaker 1: just in general, like less wild. And I think it
Speaker 1: has a lot to do not so much with like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we're running thirty, we must be boring, but I think
Speaker 1: it's probably a lot of this, like the epidemic of
Speaker 1: friendship essentially, Yeah, like what you perceived the norm to
Speaker 1: be Yeah, I want to do what Peter is doing,
Speaker 1: because Peter apparently is a cool guy. Actually want to
Speaker 1: be Peter. But we'll watch out. If Peter has the
Speaker 1: d r D two gene, well then you better watch out.
Speaker 1: Because another thing that Christakis and Fowler found was that
Speaker 1: there is a genetic compon into friendship, and this obviously
Speaker 1: needs a lot more research, but one thing that they
Speaker 1: found their their their preliminary findings are that friendship can
Speaker 1: be influenced by certain genes and the gene d r
Speaker 1: D two, which I kept in my mind saying, are
Speaker 1: two D two influences drinking behavior. People with this gene
Speaker 1: are not only susceptible to certain behaviors, including drinking and alcoholism,
Speaker 1: but are susceptible to making friends with those exact same behaviors.
Speaker 1: So there's an argument for like with like so I
Speaker 1: party all the time, I want to be friends with
Speaker 1: people who party all the time. But now there might
Speaker 1: be a genetic component behind that as well. It's your
Speaker 1: R two D two genes all coming together. This is
Speaker 1: not the droid I'm looking for now we need to see, right, um.
Speaker 1: But they also found a second gene that showed that
Speaker 1: people are attracted to their opposite opposites when it comes
Speaker 1: to other certain behaviors. So there's a lot of I
Speaker 1: think research that still needs to be done there. But
Speaker 1: the fact that you might be attracted to certain people,
Speaker 1: whether romantically or on a friendship level, the because of genetics,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. Well, it's one of the things I
Speaker 1: was reading about, was talking about how and we hear
Speaker 1: about this a lot more in terms of our romantic attractions,
Speaker 1: how we tend to subconsciously seek out partners who are
Speaker 1: more genetically diverse so that it will give our offspring
Speaker 1: a better chance of survival, whereas with friends, we seek
Speaker 1: out people subconsciously who are more like genetically similar because
Speaker 1: we want to tend and befriends. That's right, especially for ladies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and speaking of which, we have some gender differences to
Speaker 1: get into in our friendship patterns. And also talk about
Speaker 1: how making friends changes over our individual life terms, because
Speaker 1: as I'm sure a number of our listeners who are
Speaker 1: maybe heading into their thirties and beyond can attest making
Speaker 1: friends as you get older changes it can be a
Speaker 1: bit more challenging for a number of reasons that we
Speaker 1: will get into you Okay, but if we look at
Speaker 1: gender stuff first. Um, I thought that the search for
Speaker 1: numbers on around this topic was interesting in and of
Speaker 1: itself because there's a lot of studies looking at at
Speaker 1: how many friends the average man has, but not so
Speaker 1: many specific numbers for women. And I'm wondering if that's
Speaker 1: not because people just assume that women have so many
Speaker 1: more friends and that men don't make close relationships, and
Speaker 1: so that's more interesting and they want to study that more.
Speaker 1: But if you look at men's friends in particular, This
Speaker 1: is from Men's Health Survey, so keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: But they found that the average guy has four point
Speaker 1: eight close friends whom he keeps in contact with, primarily
Speaker 1: through text, and of guys said they had a best
Speaker 1: friend of those who had known him since high school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I do think that you're right that there is
Speaker 1: so much of an assumption that women just make friends
Speaker 1: all the time and that we will have a best
Speaker 1: the at all points during our life, although that bestie
Speaker 1: might change. That there's more focused on, well, what of men,
Speaker 1: because there's been a lot more research into the dynamics
Speaker 1: of female friendships. But I think it's more because it's
Speaker 1: a given, so there's not as much attention to tallying up. Well,
Speaker 1: just how many friends does a woman have? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because she's always tending and befriending, so we don't have
Speaker 1: to really worry about her. This is this is something
Speaker 1: that we've talked about before a lot on the podcast.
Speaker 1: We talked about it in our Female Friendships episode a
Speaker 1: while ago. But it's the fact that women tend to
Speaker 1: respond to stress with this huge flood of brain chemicals
Speaker 1: that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other
Speaker 1: women in particular. Yeah, this Landmark study found that when
Speaker 1: we hang out with our lady friends, when we go
Speaker 1: out for sex in the city style brunches every every
Speaker 1: weekend somehow, uh, it actually releases the bonding chemical oxytocin
Speaker 1: in our brain, and so we feel tended and befriended.
Speaker 1: And that is sort of the more female analog to
Speaker 1: the fight or flight response, right, and just that women,
Speaker 1: when women get stressed, our oxytocin makes us go towards
Speaker 1: one another, whereas men's testosterone testosterone makes them go the
Speaker 1: other way. And female brains seem to really like this
Speaker 1: tending and befriending because for the research has found that
Speaker 1: once we reach out to our friends. We get a
Speaker 1: little shot of oxytocin in our brain. The more that
Speaker 1: we do it, the more oxytocin our brain's release. So
Speaker 1: we're just like hugging all the time, Like I can't stop,
Speaker 1: I'm just hugging my friends all the time. Well, it's true,
Speaker 1: there is a certain kind of crisis management that a
Speaker 1: very best friend can offer that no one else can offer,
Speaker 1: even say a spouse or a girlfriend or a boyfriend
Speaker 1: or a family member. Yeah, I mean that that's what's
Speaker 1: really jumped out to me. That's so interesting in all
Speaker 1: of these various studies that it's like, nope, it's friendship.
Speaker 1: It's those close platonic friendships that really save you and
Speaker 1: protect you well. And I wonder if it is that
Speaker 1: oxytocin connection that explains something that's called the Steel Magnolia's effect,
Speaker 1: which is the study finding that women tend to rate
Speaker 1: their female best friends more highly than guys rate their
Speaker 1: guy friendships. Like we we seem to value that even more.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it might also be like a thing of
Speaker 1: self reporting where maybe we simply gush more about our
Speaker 1: girlfriends and guys gush about their guy friends. Because I
Speaker 1: never want to contend that male friendships are are no
Speaker 1: less strong and important. Um, but but it is interesting
Speaker 1: and it's also yes called the steel magnolia's effect. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that ties in with a study, a two
Speaker 1: thousand study that was published in the journal Adolescents where
Speaker 1: they basically put boy friends and girl friends in rooms
Speaker 1: together and let them kind of hang out in chit
Speaker 1: chat and kind of looked at the way that the
Speaker 1: two boys talked to each other versus the two girls
Speaker 1: and what they talked about. And boys ended up rating
Speaker 1: their relationships with best friends higher and conflict than did girls.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting about that is it's not that there's
Speaker 1: not conflict, it's the researchers were saying that, like the
Speaker 1: guys would just like hash it out, like what's your problem,
Speaker 1: here's my problem. More confrontational. Girls are less likely to
Speaker 1: be as confrontational to one another and to maybe talk
Speaker 1: about Betty Sue behind her back. But I know Betty
Speaker 1: Sue and Peter like God. So anyway, but girls rated
Speaker 1: lower in withdrawal and higher in communication skills and support
Speaker 1: validation than boys. So girls are better at talking about things,
Speaker 1: although sometimes that talking happens behind the back. Um, just
Speaker 1: one note on girl code versus guy code. There has
Speaker 1: been some other research which has suggested that girls, especially
Speaker 1: like adolescent girls, tend to hold their besties to higher
Speaker 1: girl code standards than guys do for their guy friendships.
Speaker 1: And I think it's partially because of the fact that
Speaker 1: maybe boys tend to be a little bit more confrontational
Speaker 1: to each other than girls do, because conflict resolution within
Speaker 1: you know, thirteen year old girl friendships can be challenging
Speaker 1: at times. Yeah, well, so I promised you that we
Speaker 1: would talk about cross sex friendships again, and here it is. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're still talking about adolescence and boys and girls here
Speaker 1: and there was a two thousand eight study in the
Speaker 1: Journal of Youth Adolescence that looked at gender age, cross
Speaker 1: sex friendships and what that means regarding antisocial behavior. I
Speaker 1: read the study and I was like, oh God, I
Speaker 1: had a lot of good guy friends in high school. Lord. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So here it is. They found that boys who had
Speaker 1: only same sex best friends and girls who had other
Speaker 1: sex best friends endorsed higher rates of anti social behavior.
Speaker 1: Having other sex best friends predicted anti social behavior from
Speaker 1: six to seventh grade and eight to eleventh grade, especially
Speaker 1: for girls. So what does that mean then, I mean,
Speaker 1: are they basically saying that maybe girls who are getting
Speaker 1: along better with guys just don't get along as well
Speaker 1: with girls, and so they're calling it antisocial behavior. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I wonder if it ties back to
Speaker 1: the other cross sex friendship study, which talked about popularity.
Speaker 1: It talked about choosing bad behaviors and things like smoking
Speaker 1: and drinking, and the fact that girls who had more
Speaker 1: cross sex friendships were more likely to engage in this
Speaker 1: behavior or think it was normal. So that's that's an
Speaker 1: interesting finder. Yeah, I mean I don't think. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It sound the language that it uses sounds almost so
Speaker 1: alarmous because we hear anti social think. Oh no, But
Speaker 1: I think in this case, antisocial means something a little
Speaker 1: gentler than the way it sounds. I think it means,
Speaker 1: like maybe just things that go against the norm. Well.
Speaker 1: As we move out of adolescence and into adulthood. Research
Speaker 1: has also suggested that our patterns of cross sex friendships
Speaker 1: also change, and essentially, women like move away from having
Speaker 1: a best guy friend, usually in heterosexual relationships that would
Speaker 1: be of the husband, and it moves away from them
Speaker 1: to another female as we get older. Yeah, usually the daughter.
Speaker 1: I am a perfect example of this. Like, so this study,
Speaker 1: this study looked at basically phone records who were people calling,
Speaker 1: and for several years the woman was calling a man
Speaker 1: all the time, and then slowly that shift to be
Speaker 1: a woman, typically the daughter. So, my mom calls me
Speaker 1: all the time, you know, like I can't access my
Speaker 1: e books? Well did you buy them? I don't know. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: call Peach mac Um, called Betty Sue or Peter Mom.
Speaker 1: I'm busy. Maybe they can deal with it since Peter
Speaker 1: is so cool. Um. But what they found was that
Speaker 1: men show a more consistent pattern of being linked to
Speaker 1: a female best friend their entire lives, which I think,
Speaker 1: judging by the fact that they qualified the male best
Speaker 1: friend as someone who became the husband typically this just
Speaker 1: sounds like. This just sounds like, whereas the wife starts
Speaker 1: calling the daughter instead of the husband, the husband keeps
Speaker 1: calling the wife, which I think is also a pattern
Speaker 1: that holds true in my family. My my mother calls
Speaker 1: me all the time, My father calls my mother. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think that's all that is well, and that
Speaker 1: brings up then how our pattern of making friends changes
Speaker 1: as we age and if we're sort of bad sacking
Speaker 1: out of the gendered lens and looking just at age. UM.
Speaker 1: There was a two thousand eight study in the Journal
Speaker 1: of Experimental Education looking at school attitudes and friendship and
Speaker 1: as you might expect, adolescents who felt that they were
Speaker 1: valued and respected by their classmates were more likely to
Speaker 1: report adaptive achievement motivation. And what does that mean? That
Speaker 1: just means that you're more likely to foster this long
Speaker 1: term achievement in school. You're more likely to have good
Speaker 1: quality friendships that put a value on academics versus poor
Speaker 1: quality friendships and viewing classmates as resistant to school norms.
Speaker 1: That's related to reports of maladaptive achievement motivation. So basically,
Speaker 1: if you have good friends who value academics, you're going
Speaker 1: to consider it the norm. Again, there's that thing, the norm,
Speaker 1: and you are also going to value academics and do
Speaker 1: well in school. And then though, as you start to
Speaker 1: make the transition from high school to college, it really
Speaker 1: starts to test your friendships. Not so surprised, thinly, um,
Speaker 1: during just the first year in college, high school best
Speaker 1: friendships declined and satisfaction commitment rewards and investments, according to
Speaker 1: a two thousand three study published in the journal Personal Relationships,
Speaker 1: and during this period that the freshman year of college,
Speaker 1: there's also an increase in the costs and alternatives to
Speaker 1: best friend relationships. So it's not so surprising because you
Speaker 1: go to college unless you're maybe bunking with your best
Speaker 1: friend from high school or still see them regularly, you're
Speaker 1: being introduced to a whole, bigger, broader world of potential
Speaker 1: best friendships. Yeah, a bigger, broader world. And also maybe
Speaker 1: it's just harder to keep in touch with friends back
Speaker 1: home and that kind of thing. And so they found
Speaker 1: that what really helped these best friendships continue to thrive
Speaker 1: from high school through into college was maintenance behaviors, also
Speaker 1: things like supportiveness, self disclosure, interaction. Basically, the more you
Speaker 1: continue to come indicate on a really intimate level, like
Speaker 1: constantly and consistently, the better that friendship will be maintained well.
Speaker 1: And that completely jives with a two thousand study called
Speaker 1: Forecasting Friends Forever, which I really enjoyed that study title.
Speaker 1: But these researchers collected data across nineteen years of different friends,
Speaker 1: starting when these friends were in college and after nineteen years. Obviously,
Speaker 1: like a lot of these people had kids. They had
Speaker 1: moved an average of like five point six times, which
Speaker 1: is kind of funny because like, what does moving points
Speaker 1: six mean? It just means math is awkward sometimes. And
Speaker 1: they found that expressions of intimacy at the outset of
Speaker 1: the study, like when you know, these friends were talking
Speaker 1: about each other when they were still in college, was
Speaker 1: not a major predictor of whether they would still be
Speaker 1: friends nineteen years later. So if you were like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, we're just so but friends, She's awesome, I
Speaker 1: love her, will be friends forever doesn't necessarily mean it's
Speaker 1: going to happen. It was more the level of interdependence
Speaker 1: and essentially thinking and perceiving the world in similar kinds
Speaker 1: of ways that most strongly predicted whether they would be
Speaker 1: friends almost two decades later, And so the researchers recommended
Speaker 1: that really learning to communicate and sort of figuring out
Speaker 1: how each person sees the world and what your value
Speaker 1: systems are and all of that matters the most if
Speaker 1: you want to be friends forever. Yeah, Like I have
Speaker 1: two friends, both of whom I've known forever um but
Speaker 1: one she and I are communication styles are very similar,
Speaker 1: and that we don't. You know, we've been friends forever.
Speaker 1: We we love and adore each other, but we can
Speaker 1: go very very long times without seeing or hearing from
Speaker 1: each other, and then when we do see each other,
Speaker 1: we just have a glass of wine and pick right
Speaker 1: back up where we left off, and it's great. Another
Speaker 1: friend that I know, um, that I've had forever, she
Speaker 1: has a slightly different set of needs and expectations, and
Speaker 1: you know that's always dangerous in any type of relationship
Speaker 1: to expectation. But um, you know, she's really hurt if
Speaker 1: we go for too long without speaking to each other.
Speaker 1: And so that relationship requires a different type of effort
Speaker 1: and energy and communication style. Well, and the importance is
Speaker 1: that you know that and you recognize that. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you're not kind of you know, because you clearly can
Speaker 1: communicate with each other. So it's more the frequency of communication.
Speaker 1: And I'm the same way with my closest friends. We
Speaker 1: will go for long periods of time without talking because
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm rulling not a phone talker. I'm more
Speaker 1: of a podcast talker. Caroline, I'm not a phone talker either,
Speaker 1: and that does make a lot of things difficult. Like
Speaker 1: my mother all the time. Oh that's differently. But the
Speaker 1: older you get, though, it can be challenging to make
Speaker 1: new friends because obviously you know those some of those
Speaker 1: friendships from say high school in college do fade away
Speaker 1: because you develop your own life and your own rhythm
Speaker 1: and probably move and maybe meet someone that you settled
Speaker 1: down with. And um, one of us is sort of
Speaker 1: a side note, but one major milestone that some that
Speaker 1: the survey found is a great predictor of making new
Speaker 1: friends is having a baby. Yeah, if you're feeling lonely,
Speaker 1: just have a baby. Oh god, don't don't know. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, this is a survey, so you know, keep
Speaker 1: in mind it's not like an academic study, but a
Speaker 1: survey funded by Nature's Purist, a baby products company, found
Speaker 1: that fifty of new mom said it was easier to
Speaker 1: bond with other women after having a baby, and seventy
Speaker 1: of those said it was because they had so much
Speaker 1: in common. In my brain, I'm just like, you have
Speaker 1: a baby in common. But of course that brings with
Speaker 1: it like an entirely new life, and a lot of
Speaker 1: the moms surveys said not only did they now have
Speaker 1: things in common like um post babies, sex worries or
Speaker 1: you know, body worries or like I haven't slept in
Speaker 1: seven months anymore. Ever, they're also worried about just boring
Speaker 1: their old friends with baby talk. Yeah. I mean that
Speaker 1: that those survey findings make total sense. Um, But when
Speaker 1: it comes to just making friends, if you aren't in
Speaker 1: you know, a baby circle, it can be challenging. This
Speaker 1: was something that Alex Williams wrote about not too long
Speaker 1: ago in the New York Times, and he said that
Speaker 1: you sort of have to resign yourself once you get
Speaker 1: into your thirties of making what he calls kind of
Speaker 1: friends instead of best friends. They're not like the super
Speaker 1: best friends that you would hang out with almost like
Speaker 1: cheer style, like every night you hang out and it's awesome.
Speaker 1: But it's more getting into the situational friend zone. So
Speaker 1: you have your kind of friends that you will do
Speaker 1: outdoors the stuff with, and then you have your kind
Speaker 1: of friends that are like movie bops, so you go
Speaker 1: to like film festivals with them. And then you have
Speaker 1: your I don't know what it's another kind of friend
Speaker 1: computer nerd friends. Yes, can you program computers together? Yes?
Speaker 1: Those friends? Um. Yeah, but he says that you've like,
Speaker 1: once you've crossed the threshold into your thirties, you're now
Speaker 1: in the situational friend zone. Do do do do do
Speaker 1: do do oh. Another big kind of friend, the couple friend.
Speaker 1: You know, the two people to get along really well
Speaker 1: so you can hang out at a fore top. There
Speaker 1: you go. Well, so what's going on around this age?
Speaker 1: Psychology professor Laura Carsonson, who is the director of the
Speaker 1: Stanford Center on Longevity in California, has observed that people
Speaker 1: tend to interact with fewer people as they moved toward midlife,
Speaker 1: but that they end up growing closer to the friends
Speaker 1: they already have. Why she kind of this is depressing.
Speaker 1: She says that once we turn thirty, it reminds us
Speaker 1: that our time horizons are shrinking, so we're less focused
Speaker 1: on exploration and more concentrating on the here and now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just anecdotally speaking, that makes sense because at least in
Speaker 1: my day to day I can't really see much beyond
Speaker 1: the here and now because I have no free time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: there's also the whole issue. According to Marla Paul, who's
Speaker 1: the author of The Friendship Crisis, finding making and keeping
Speaker 1: friends when you're not a kid anymore. She also says
Speaker 1: that the bar is simply higher than than it was
Speaker 1: when we were younger, when we were in college, and
Speaker 1: we're surrounded by like thousands of other humans, and we
Speaker 1: can pick and choose our friends at will. We're not
Speaker 1: just willing to meet in general, We're not just willing
Speaker 1: to meet just anyone for an afterwork Margarita. Well, if
Speaker 1: there's a Margarita is actually quite low, quite low. But
Speaker 1: in yeah, in terms of like forming really close friendships,
Speaker 1: I think it takes a little more now because I
Speaker 1: guess once you're thirty, you know your politics are set,
Speaker 1: your religious views are set, like all of these important things,
Speaker 1: and your view on kids and marriage and whether you're
Speaker 1: going to do that is set. Also, your schedule is
Speaker 1: very set. Um. But what if if you are interested
Speaker 1: in making a new solid friendship. There are three criteria
Speaker 1: that sociologists say are critical for forging those bonds, which
Speaker 1: are proximity, repeated and unplanned interactions, and a setting that
Speaker 1: encourages people to let their guard down i e. Margarita's
Speaker 1: um and also confide in each other. And those might
Speaker 1: seem like a simple set of criteria, but actually finding
Speaker 1: all of those in one. That is a challenge because
Speaker 1: once you're like thirty ish and you're in the working world,
Speaker 1: it is harder. Like, you know, you have work friends,
Speaker 1: but work is an interesting situation because people move on
Speaker 1: and change jobs. They compete with each other for roles
Speaker 1: and tasks and whatever else they're competing for, and different
Speaker 1: people earn less and more than each other. So there's
Speaker 1: that whole money issued too. And if you're in a relationship,
Speaker 1: if you're looking for couple of friends, it's like matchmaking
Speaker 1: for two to all four people like each other. That's
Speaker 1: a whole other thing. So what do we do then?
Speaker 1: Obviously we have more challenges as we get older to
Speaker 1: finding new friends. And if you're in the market for
Speaker 1: a new friend, I think one good piece of advice
Speaker 1: that Tracy Moore at Jezebel offered was that you you
Speaker 1: need to just go lots of places, do lots of
Speaker 1: things that you like to do, essentially set yourself up
Speaker 1: to meet people who are like you, whether that's joining
Speaker 1: an outdoor group or volunteering regularly, or essentially like pursuing
Speaker 1: your passion where other people will be pursuing a similar passion.
Speaker 1: And that right there will give you a foundation to
Speaker 1: start from, right, because we're not sixteen anymore. Hopefully we'll
Speaker 1: beyond the point where we lie about our interests and
Speaker 1: you know what we like and don't like. And so
Speaker 1: the more you put yourself in a situation where you
Speaker 1: were genuinely happy and doing something that you love, the
Speaker 1: more chance you'll meet somebody who also really loves doing
Speaker 1: that thing. Well in one theme that I hear a
Speaker 1: lot when I talk to girlfriends my age about this
Speaker 1: process of meeting new friends is that it feels very
Speaker 1: much like dating. For sure, Yeah, being a grown up
Speaker 1: and finding a new friend. And I, yeah, I not
Speaker 1: too long ago, have this conversation with a mixed group
Speaker 1: men and women, and everybody agreed, it's like dating, and
Speaker 1: then it's hard, and but that it's almost even more
Speaker 1: rewarding than going on several first dates like with a
Speaker 1: possible romantic partner, because at least, like there's no pressure
Speaker 1: in the friendship thing. Yeah, well that's another thing. It's
Speaker 1: like you have to relieve yourself of being terrified that
Speaker 1: it might not work out, because it might not. You
Speaker 1: might not see this person, you might this person might
Speaker 1: not be your BFF. But that's okay because he or
Speaker 1: she is busy, just like you are probably busy, and
Speaker 1: there are plenty of friend fish in the sea, that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean that's another thing that that Tracy Moore said too.
Speaker 1: It is like the stakes are very low. You know,
Speaker 1: meet people who make you happy, and if they don't
Speaker 1: make you happy, or they don't hang around or you
Speaker 1: don't see them again, you'll meet somebody else. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I think it is important. I mean, particularly if you're
Speaker 1: in a situation where you've moved to a new city
Speaker 1: or you are at a new job. You're just sort
Speaker 1: of in like an unknown spot, starting from zero, and
Speaker 1: obviously want some face to face friends. It is. It
Speaker 1: is work in a lot of ways, like like dating,
Speaker 1: if you want to if you want to get out there,
Speaker 1: you gotta put some effort into it. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: think yeah, to develop, I mean, anybody can have a
Speaker 1: circle of acquaintances where you're you're friendly to people, but
Speaker 1: if you really are after like a very close friendship,
Speaker 1: it's so critical to be yourself. And I mean, I
Speaker 1: know we say that in terms of romantic relationships too,
Speaker 1: but like, how are you expected to have a bff
Speaker 1: for a circle of close friends. If you're acting like
Speaker 1: you're not who you say you are or something right,
Speaker 1: because the truth will come out eventually, that's right. But
Speaker 1: there was one article that was in the Daily Email,
Speaker 1: so but bear with me. It was simply um piece
Speaker 1: on friendships among women that had significant age gaps, and
Speaker 1: it was just like anecdotes of how and why they
Speaker 1: got along so well, and it was fascinating to see
Speaker 1: these like much older women befriending much younger women and
Speaker 1: vice versa, and how it's important to also as we
Speaker 1: get older, to stay open to making friends who might
Speaker 1: not be within you know, like two years on either
Speaker 1: side of our age, because older folks are even younger
Speaker 1: folks depending on how old you are, can make fantastic
Speaker 1: friends too. Well. It's that whole diversity of experience thing.
Speaker 1: One thing that relationship coach Karen Smadley pointed out was
Speaker 1: that maybe you're an age where all of your friends
Speaker 1: are having babies but you either can't, don't want to,
Speaker 1: aren't ready, whatever. Having an older friend who you know,
Speaker 1: having an older and or a younger friend who's having
Speaker 1: a different life experience than your age group can be
Speaker 1: very valuable because it kind of takes the pressure off.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, now I can see that there are
Speaker 1: other lifestyles out there. I don't have to have this
Speaker 1: pressure to do X y Z that all my friends
Speaker 1: are doing. Yeah, but now, Caroline, is it time for
Speaker 1: us to ask folks for friendship stories? For sure? Well,
Speaker 1: we want to hear from you about your best friend
Speaker 1: and how friendship has affected your life. Mom Stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com is where you can send
Speaker 1: us your letters. You can also though, tweet us at
Speaker 1: mom Stuff podcast or send us a message on Facebook.
Speaker 1: And one final making friends tip, you know, you can
Speaker 1: always bring up the podcast because you know, if you
Speaker 1: both like the podcast, then hey you got you have
Speaker 1: like over five topics to talk about. What's right? So
Speaker 1: with that, we have a couple of letters to share
Speaker 1: with you our friends right now. Okay, I have a
Speaker 1: letter here from Anna who says that she used to
Speaker 1: get the question no, where are you really from all
Speaker 1: the time. She says, my family is a mix of German, Croatian,
Speaker 1: Swedish and Ukrainian, and I came out looking very Eastern European.
Speaker 1: My professors would pronounce my name with a strong accent
Speaker 1: during roll call and after class seemed very interested in
Speaker 1: asking where I was from. When I would reply, oh,
Speaker 1: about two hours north in Ohio, they would reply with no.
Speaker 1: Before that, I never quite knew how to respond. People
Speaker 1: have even gone so far as to speak to me
Speaker 1: in Russian or in very slow English. I also thought
Speaker 1: it might be interesting to give a perspective on exotic
Speaker 1: beauty from a slightly different perspective. I'm a very light skinned,
Speaker 1: light haired, green eyed girl living in rural Japan. Not
Speaker 1: many foreigners visit this part of Japan, let alone live here.
Speaker 1: So for many people, I am their first white foreigner
Speaker 1: they have seen in person. The initial reaction is lots
Speaker 1: of squealing, with people touching my hair, getting uncomfortably close
Speaker 1: to my eye, and complimenting me on how small my
Speaker 1: face is and how big my nose and eyes are.
Speaker 1: Those are apparently compliments. I've gotten many people asking me
Speaker 1: to take and use my photo for advertising purposes with
Speaker 1: no pay, because I have that quote unquote Russian beauty
Speaker 1: that is sought after here. It all seems very forced, ultrapolite,
Speaker 1: but definitely does make me feel an other. I would
Speaker 1: also like to add that the amount of products here
Speaker 1: to make people women in particular look Western is mind
Speaker 1: boggling whitening creams. I take colored contacts for less than
Speaker 1: the equivalent of ten dollars at a drug store, hair
Speaker 1: lightning kits, and arm and face covers for the beach,
Speaker 1: cars and bikes. I just thought I would share. Man. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: thanks for the very interesting perspective. Anna Well, I've got
Speaker 1: another letter here in response to our exotic beauty episode.
Speaker 1: This is coming from Lillian, who writes, I grew up
Speaker 1: in an inner city neighborhood in northern New Jersey as
Speaker 1: a bi racial woman of Puerto Rican and Chinese ethnicity.
Speaker 1: I've encountered a really uncomfortable amount of fetishizing, not only
Speaker 1: from white men, but also from a Hispanic man who
Speaker 1: generally watched too many Kung Fu movies. If I had
Speaker 1: a dollar for every time I've been told I'm comprised
Speaker 1: of quote the best of both worlds, or told that
Speaker 1: somehow my mix is superior for stupid, stereotypical reasons, I'd
Speaker 1: be a very wealthy woman Puerto Rican curves and a
Speaker 1: docile freak in the bedroom. The sex must be amazing.
Speaker 1: Imagine the food she can cook. The first person to
Speaker 1: call me Exotic was my white male homeroom teacher in
Speaker 1: my freshman year of high school. That was an uncomfortable year. Fortunately, though,
Speaker 1: since then, I've heard the quote unquote compliment so many
Speaker 1: times that I've developed the perfect response to it. Now.
Speaker 1: Whenever someone calls me exotic, I say, oh great, another
Speaker 1: one who wants to put me in a cage A
Speaker 1: parent is exotic. I'm from New Jersey. The resulting flash
Speaker 1: of embarrassment that tends to cross their faces is just priceless.
Speaker 1: So thanks Lilian, and thanks to everybody who's written into us.
Speaker 1: Mom stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
Speaker 1: email address, but you can also reach us on Facebook
Speaker 1: and tweet us at mom stuff Podcasts and for links
Speaker 1: to all of our social media as well as all
Speaker 1: of our podcasts, blogs, and videos. There's one place to go,
Speaker 1: and it's stuff Mom Never Told You dot com. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, does it
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com