Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and welcome to Stuff. I've never
Speaker 1: told your production of I Heart Radios how stuff works,
Speaker 1: and yes I am still solo. If you've ever wondered
Speaker 1: this peak behind the podcast curtains how we do these.
Speaker 1: We usually record them in batches, so this is just
Speaker 1: me today. But that is appropriate because the episode I
Speaker 1: want to bring back for this classic is can You
Speaker 1: Be Friends with an ex? Um? So this is something
Speaker 1: that's been on my mind a lot because, as you know,
Speaker 1: because I bring it up all the time, I am
Speaker 1: getting ready to go to Dragon Connor possibly have already
Speaker 1: gone at this point by the time you hear it,
Speaker 1: and I know that I will see my X there.
Speaker 1: He's staying in the same hotel as I him, and
Speaker 1: it's just the law you have to run into your ex.
Speaker 1: So I he's somebody. When we broke up, and I've
Speaker 1: talked about this before on the show, it was the
Speaker 1: most mature breakup, and I feel like there's no ill will.
Speaker 1: There's there's some kind of like sadness at what could
Speaker 1: have been, maybe, but it's still hard. We still meet
Speaker 1: up because we work in the same building too, so
Speaker 1: there's that um. We still meet up occasionally. And talk
Speaker 1: about what's going on in our lives. And we still
Speaker 1: text each other and check in on each other, but
Speaker 1: it's we haven't made the jump to friendship yet, and
Speaker 1: it's a jump that I would like to make because um,
Speaker 1: he's so fun. He was a lovely human being, is
Speaker 1: a lovely human being. Hopefully it didn't stop right when
Speaker 1: we started. We stopped dating, so I've just been curious
Speaker 1: about it and wondering if there is there is a
Speaker 1: way to make this work. So enter this classic episode
Speaker 1: for anyone else who's in my situation. Hopefully here are
Speaker 1: some answers for us. I hope you enjoy. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never told you from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline.
Speaker 1: And Caroline. I feel like today's question can you be
Speaker 1: friends with an ex? Really takes us full circle because
Speaker 1: there's a there's a nice little trajectory in our podcast
Speaker 1: library where we've asked questions like can men and women
Speaker 1: be friends? What happens in your brain during a breakup?
Speaker 1: Are rebound relationships healthy? And now we're coming full circle
Speaker 1: background can you be friends with an X? And we're
Speaker 1: just leading our listeners through life by the hand and
Speaker 1: maybe through our own romantic trials and tribulations. Um. And
Speaker 1: since we have such a brilliant audience out there, I
Speaker 1: decided that before we came in to do this podcast,
Speaker 1: we should take a listener poll and see what folks thought.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's a little split, Okay. On Facebook, we've
Speaker 1: got folks saying, yes, you can definitely be friends, it
Speaker 1: just takes a little time. Uh. For instance, Wren says,
Speaker 1: I'm really good friends with more than one x. It
Speaker 1: helps more when both parties move on and they are
Speaker 1: supportive of the other's new relationship. I'm a photographer and
Speaker 1: a photographed more than one ex boyfriend's weddings, So not
Speaker 1: only can you be friends, you can also get a
Speaker 1: little cash off of those exes. But then again, we
Speaker 1: also have Amanda Ruth who says, I don't know, I've
Speaker 1: tried it before and it didn't work out, but maybe
Speaker 1: it works for other people. I don't know. Um. And
Speaker 1: then Joel who just succinctly says nope. Yeah. Paul agrees
Speaker 1: with him and just says no. Annie says no, can't
Speaker 1: be done. Other people say that it's like a zombie relationship.
Speaker 1: Lorena says that you can manage to be friends, probably
Speaker 1: if you were friends before the romantic relationship. However, it's
Speaker 1: never the same, never the same total zombie relationship. And
Speaker 1: you can have all the factors of how long did
Speaker 1: it last, how did it end? Was there cheating? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: lots of factors. Yeah, but let's let's take a step back,
Speaker 1: um and think about why we even consider this issue
Speaker 1: of being friends with an X to begin with. And
Speaker 1: it might have to do with just how enormous a
Speaker 1: role that love plays in our lives. Basically, we're all SAPs,
Speaker 1: nostalgic SAPs. A lot of us are incredibly nostalgic. Because
Speaker 1: Neil Rose conducted a study at Northwestern University. He's a
Speaker 1: marketing for Esser. The study came out in March two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, and he found that romance is the most
Speaker 1: common source of regret for American adults. Yeah, and of
Speaker 1: course there's some other ones trailing behind, like oh, I
Speaker 1: don't know, family, education, career, money, parenting, but romance is
Speaker 1: the big one. And he said that basically it boils
Speaker 1: down demographics. Interesting women of them reported romance regrets versus
Speaker 1: only of men. Yeah, it seems like women kind of
Speaker 1: skewed the curve with this. Yeah, men, men tended to
Speaker 1: have more work oriented regrets and more education regrets. Now,
Speaker 1: the single people he talked to, UM in this phone survey,
Speaker 1: we're the most likely to have romance regrets because I'm
Speaker 1: sure if you're sitting there, you know, not dating anybody
Speaker 1: at the moment, you might be thinking back, like, oh,
Speaker 1: the one that got away, or I shouldn't have let
Speaker 1: that relationship dissolved. Yeah, it can be much easier to
Speaker 1: have romantic regrets when you're not romantic with someone else.
Speaker 1: That's a little bit of a no brainer. UM. And
Speaker 1: people who regretted events that they didn't act on held
Speaker 1: onto that regret over a longer period compared to people
Speaker 1: who went ahead and took the leap but it didn't
Speaker 1: work out. Now. I also thought this was interesting though.
Speaker 1: From a two thousand to Public Opinion Strategies National survey,
Speaker 1: UMT of adults said that there was run relationship in
Speaker 1: their past they wish they could continue the one that
Speaker 1: got away. And even though you know that Northwestern University survey,
Speaker 1: women were the one. Uh, the women were the ones
Speaker 1: who were all romantically regretting everything. But in this survey,
Speaker 1: more than half of single men versus just a quarter
Speaker 1: of single women were the ones who were sad about
Speaker 1: the one that got away. So maybe these are just
Speaker 1: different types of regrets. Maybe you're like, oh, I shouldn't
Speaker 1: have done X y Z, and this is more like, oh,
Speaker 1: but Jimmy, Jimmy got away, Jimmy or in this case
Speaker 1: it would be Susie Susie got away, or or Jimmy
Speaker 1: or Jimmy. I don't know, Jeez, I don't know. Uh.
Speaker 1: But the point is, for all the Jimmy's and Susie's
Speaker 1: out there, everybody, you know, a lot of us have
Speaker 1: romantic regrets. So perhaps, you know, friendship with an X
Speaker 1: is a way to sort of temper those regrets maintain
Speaker 1: some kind of relationship. But the question is is that
Speaker 1: friendship possible? And there is not a ton of research
Speaker 1: on it, and a lot of it is dated, but uh, overall, yes,
Speaker 1: the answer is yes. Studies find that a lot of
Speaker 1: us at least attempt to stay friends. Yeah, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot of conditions on this. Oh yeah, you kind
Speaker 1: of have to be getting something out of it. It
Speaker 1: has to be worth it and you can't. Well, we'll
Speaker 1: get into the whole like the rules and regulations of
Speaker 1: being friends with your ex. But you know you you
Speaker 1: can't be basically hoping that you will get back together,
Speaker 1: otherwise I won't be successful. Uh. An overview in the
Speaker 1: Social Psychology I Newsletter sites study that found that romantic
Speaker 1: relationships that no longer fulfill the romantic needs of the
Speaker 1: partners may transform into friendship, but the resources exchanged must
Speaker 1: maintain value, So you have to be getting something out
Speaker 1: of it, whether it's free movie tickets or just a
Speaker 1: good friendship or whatever. Yeah, and that makes sense because
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps you need some kind of resource to
Speaker 1: motivate you to get over the slight of breaking up. Um.
Speaker 1: There's also this is dated, but nevertheless in nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: six study which found that friendship was more likely when
Speaker 1: the breakup was mutual or male initiated, So maybe women
Speaker 1: have an easier time perhaps bridging that friendship gap, um,
Speaker 1: if they've been rejected. In nine, study found that being
Speaker 1: friends prior to romantic relationship was a significant predictor of
Speaker 1: post breakup friendship. Makes sense, you liked each other before
Speaker 1: as platonic friends, or maybe not so platonic and you
Speaker 1: were just harboring secret plans to tell them that you
Speaker 1: were in love with them at some point. But either way,
Speaker 1: you know that that Well, the two thousand to studies
Speaker 1: sort of echoes the one from this was in the
Speaker 1: general personal relationships, the idea of social exchange was covered. Uh.
Speaker 1: They surveyed college students and found the participants who received
Speaker 1: more resources reported higher levels of friendship quality with their
Speaker 1: ex Now, the barriers to friendship quality they found were
Speaker 1: lack of support from your friends or family. So if
Speaker 1: your friends were like, stop it, don't be friends with
Speaker 1: this person anymore. Um, involvement in new relationships. So obviously
Speaker 1: you know you don't want to like trip up the
Speaker 1: progress that you're making with this new great person by
Speaker 1: holding on to feelings for the old person. And the
Speaker 1: use of neglect as a disengagement strategy, i e. The
Speaker 1: slow fade. Oh yeah, if you get slow faded on you,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, you keep on fading out. Just just man
Speaker 1: up or woman up or whatever. Don't. Um. Now, there
Speaker 1: was a study published February two thousand twelve which I
Speaker 1: would call the most questionable piece of It's not advice,
Speaker 1: you can't call study finding an advice, but of course
Speaker 1: it's spun as advice, as the media is wont to
Speaker 1: do with any kind of scientific abstract that it's ever published.
Speaker 1: Um and full disclosure, I could not find the full
Speaker 1: text of this study, so I'm going on the abstract. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: so little slap on my wrist if I'm misinterpreting anything,
Speaker 1: but from what I can gather. Study conducted by Ashley
Speaker 1: Mason out of the University of Arizona found that when
Speaker 1: it comes to people who have gone through a divorce, UH,
Speaker 1: those who had accepted the breakup aired better than those
Speaker 1: who didn't. Alright, makes total sense. For those who didn't
Speaker 1: accept it, making a clean break didn't make them any
Speaker 1: happier than trying to maintain a friendship. Also makes sense.
Speaker 1: Sometimes friendship feels worse in a way because it's just
Speaker 1: like getting you know, it's like getting runner up of um.
Speaker 1: But here we go. Are you ready for this? Hit me?
Speaker 1: If they stayed in touch with their ex as they
Speaker 1: were found to be fearing much better if they kept
Speaker 1: having sex with the X. So if you're feeling really
Speaker 1: glum about getting divorced, this is not just a breakup.
Speaker 1: We're talking about getting divorced. If you keep having sex
Speaker 1: with your ex spouse and keep getting those shots of
Speaker 1: oxytocin in your brain because that's what happens in a
Speaker 1: brain during an orgasm, and it promotes feelings of bonding
Speaker 1: and happiness. Guess what you'll feel better. Don't do that.
Speaker 1: People don't do don't do that. I know. This is
Speaker 1: like that Meryl Street movie that my mom watches over
Speaker 1: and over again. Um, and researchers are like, why why
Speaker 1: does this happen? Because your actions match your feelings, but
Speaker 1: they give a warning of like, but watch out, having
Speaker 1: sex with your ex could prevent you from moving on. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Half of the pain of breakups, as we've talked about
Speaker 1: in the podcast so many times, has to do with
Speaker 1: chemicals in your brain and going through withdrawals from those
Speaker 1: chemicals when that other person is not around. If you
Speaker 1: continue consistently having sex with your eggs, you are simply
Speaker 1: delaying the inevitable most likely. I'm not trying to be
Speaker 1: old deb downer over here, but let's be honest. You
Speaker 1: should just probably just move on. And this ties into
Speaker 1: these narratives that we often tell ourselves about why you
Speaker 1: know what you need to be friends with you. You
Speaker 1: need to preserve this relationship, how you justify it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and one of those things is just you know, waiting,
Speaker 1: waiting it out as a friend because if you can
Speaker 1: just hold back in the friend zone, he or she
Speaker 1: will start to see you again as the amazing cupcake
Speaker 1: that you are and we'll want you back and it's
Speaker 1: gonna feel so much better because you will be wanted
Speaker 1: back into their arms. But that could be forever. You
Speaker 1: could end up waiting forever. And if this, if this happens,
Speaker 1: if you kind of hang out on the friend zone
Speaker 1: waiting for your ex to you know, notice you again romantically,
Speaker 1: you might just end up being the hook up, you know,
Speaker 1: the insurance policy, like, oh well my ex is always
Speaker 1: going to be hanging around, so I might as well
Speaker 1: just like keep my mind off things, etcetera, etcetera. But
Speaker 1: on the flip side, don't keep a person in the
Speaker 1: in the friend zone just in case this is post breakup.
Speaker 1: Put him in the post breakup friend zone just in
Speaker 1: case you know this whole breakup thing in your brain,
Speaker 1: like maybe you were just going through something. They're an
Speaker 1: awesome person, you know, why not be friends? You might
Speaker 1: see it might be better down the road. Don't string
Speaker 1: somebody along. Not fair to another person. Um, you know
Speaker 1: you don't want to hurt him or her. That's a
Speaker 1: good reason to be friends, right, you know you feel
Speaker 1: kind of sorry for the old guy or gal again,
Speaker 1: stringing someone along breakup suck. We can't get around at people.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one thing if you genuinely want to
Speaker 1: be friends with your ex, but to just be like,
Speaker 1: oh well, we'll just treat this as a transition period,
Speaker 1: just a status change, if you will. Yeah, it's complicated.
Speaker 1: It is complicated. Um. And then, and this is a
Speaker 1: tricky one right here. And I I have experienced this myself.
Speaker 1: I've had other friends offer the same line. Why should
Speaker 1: a breakup change that we're best friends? We're best friends.
Speaker 1: He's my best friend, she's my best friend. We gotta
Speaker 1: keep his friendship going. We're besties. Come on, now, we
Speaker 1: have so much in common. We were like made for
Speaker 1: each other in some way. Maybe it's just not romantic. Nope, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you can't go back to being best friends once
Speaker 1: there's been physical intimacy or attraction. I mean, once you've
Speaker 1: seen each other naked. I don't know. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you can overcome that depending. Okay, well, so
Speaker 1: you've decided that you're going to ignore everything that we
Speaker 1: just told you and everything that common sense dictates, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna go ahead and be friends with your ex.
Speaker 1: And I got to say that I totally agree with
Speaker 1: this advice as someone who has broken like almost all
Speaker 1: of these rules. Please do this. Yeah, so number one,
Speaker 1: give yourself a morning period. Give your ex and morning period.
Speaker 1: You have to give yourselves time to get over it,
Speaker 1: you know, get over the hurt, the anger, whatever. And
Speaker 1: the longer you were together, the longer it will take. Yeah,
Speaker 1: common sense, if you've been together for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: it might take a couple of years. Yeah, exactly. They
Speaker 1: say to keep it platonic, no monkey business, my friends,
Speaker 1: keep it platonic. Don't think that you can just fall
Speaker 1: into that Meryl Streep trap and hook up with your ex,
Speaker 1: because then you're going to be in that weird, like
Speaker 1: limbo gray area and you might start asking yourself like,
Speaker 1: what did it mean? It felt so good? Stop it,
Speaker 1: don't do it. So, Yeah, jumping off of what she
Speaker 1: just said, you definitely have to set those clear emotional boundaries.
Speaker 1: Don't go to your ex for help with your emotional
Speaker 1: issues and needs. And this is the same thing. You know,
Speaker 1: people who were like best friends with their with their partner,
Speaker 1: You can't go to that person anymore, you know. You
Speaker 1: you might think, oh my gosh, this funny thing happened.
Speaker 1: This is exactly what I would tell him if he
Speaker 1: were here. Nope, nope or and it's and it's horrible
Speaker 1: because a lot of times you do feel like, well,
Speaker 1: this is the person who knows me better than any
Speaker 1: other person in the entire world. Guess what you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to get to know someone else really well, to
Speaker 1: rely on other friends, rely on your family. Um, and
Speaker 1: I really feel like we're just we're being like the
Speaker 1: tough coaches today. Um. Also seek out a love life.
Speaker 1: We've talked about it before. Rebounding. A little bit of
Speaker 1: rebound goes a long way to getting you over things
Speaker 1: now in a healthy way. You know. Be safe out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely try to date other people. A friend of mine, uh,
Speaker 1: he and his significant other broke up, and he immediately
Speaker 1: launched back into the dating pool. I mean not that
Speaker 1: he you know, not that he necessarily felt it, but
Speaker 1: it's the whole fake it til you make it thing,
Speaker 1: you know, distract yourself, meet new people, have new experiences
Speaker 1: that can maybe lessen lessen the pain. And um, if
Speaker 1: you do end up building this friendship with an X,
Speaker 1: you know, steer, keep keep the focus on friendship. Don't
Speaker 1: sit there and try to have analytical conversations about your relationship.
Speaker 1: Y'all have friends now, keep it in the friend zone.
Speaker 1: And then if you start to feel those feelings develop,
Speaker 1: I've been there. It happens, and it happens so quickly,
Speaker 1: there's a sparkle in the eye, you know what you
Speaker 1: need to back away? Yeah, just just take a step back,
Speaker 1: evaluate and if you decide you know what these feelings
Speaker 1: are there for both of us, you better both be
Speaker 1: sure because you broke up for a reason. So these
Speaker 1: take you know, take my advice. It's very possible that
Speaker 1: those feelings could just be like residue, right relationship residue.
Speaker 1: And again, I know people who have broken up on
Speaker 1: more than one occasion and gotten back together there now
Speaker 1: happy and stable and whatnot. But this is just these
Speaker 1: are consider these best practices, um. And I also wanted
Speaker 1: to know what Dan Savage, Relationship Guru, host of Savage
Speaker 1: Love and also the genius behind the Stranger Sex column. Um.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know what he recommends doing post breakup,
Speaker 1: and he says, stay away. I was not too surprised
Speaker 1: by this. He said, uh, yeah, you know, you can
Speaker 1: be really good friends in like three years, two and
Speaker 1: a half years, but you need that distance from it,
Speaker 1: especially if you're on the receiving end of a breakup.
Speaker 1: That person needs to be nowhere in sight for a
Speaker 1: little while to cauterize that wound. As he would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: and he does touch on the fact that, you know,
Speaker 1: there are all these social pressures to feel like if
Speaker 1: you're the dumpy to be all mature like, oh well,
Speaker 1: it didn't get to me. I mean, you're still a
Speaker 1: cool person even though you broke my freaking heart. We
Speaker 1: can be friends, we can totally hang out. But no, no, don't,
Speaker 1: don't try to pretend that you're not hurt. Just like,
Speaker 1: go away for a while, it away from that person
Speaker 1: and their Facebook posts, you know, leave it alone for
Speaker 1: a while so that you can give yourself a chance
Speaker 1: to recover. Because in a lot of ways, that is
Speaker 1: the more mature tac to take than pretending that some
Speaker 1: kind of loss does not exist. Um and Facebook you
Speaker 1: just brought up? Oh man, like brickups have gotten so
Speaker 1: much more complicated thanks to Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. Um, listen,
Speaker 1: I do. This is a personal piece of advice that
Speaker 1: I have for people during this waiting period. Okay, block them,
Speaker 1: block the person. You don't need to see that only
Speaker 1: because you know what. A new study out of the
Speaker 1: University of Western Ontario has found that Facebook makes stalkers
Speaker 1: of us. All yeah, and it has to do with
Speaker 1: your distressed level. And but it's an interesting chicken in
Speaker 1: the egg kind of question, chicken or the egg. Chicken
Speaker 1: or the egg. Uh. They said that regardless of how
Speaker 1: much you're actually on Facebook, your distress level changes based
Speaker 1: on the surveillance you're doing on your ex And then
Speaker 1: they ask, but are you distressed because you're creeping on
Speaker 1: them or you're creeping on them because you're distressed probably
Speaker 1: a bit of both. Um. Yeah. They found that eighty
Speaker 1: percent of people's survey checked out their excess pages, and
Speaker 1: the worst thing to see on the excess pages the
Speaker 1: status update, the relationship status update, because eighty percent of
Speaker 1: us will click on that link and look up the
Speaker 1: new X is the excess new partner. Yeah, I've done it.
Speaker 1: I've been there, I've done it. Do you want to
Speaker 1: see it? I don't want to see it, but I
Speaker 1: do because it's so easy, which is why I recommend
Speaker 1: you just make the block. You don't have to befriend,
Speaker 1: but you just block them. You can unblock at some point,
Speaker 1: but just take that take that away from yourself. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I I've hidden excess, but I've also done the thing
Speaker 1: where I've like hidden the whole network because I'll hide
Speaker 1: my ex and then I'll hide all of our mutual
Speaker 1: friends because I don't really want to. I don't want
Speaker 1: to see his stuff. I don't want to see, you know,
Speaker 1: if he's dating somebody new, and then I don't want
Speaker 1: to see all the people like posting stuff to his wall.
Speaker 1: So it's better just to like out of sight, out
Speaker 1: of mind. Yeah. L magazine Highly Scientific source Um talked
Speaker 1: to some mental health professionals about this whole thing of
Speaker 1: getting back in touch with x is um and psychologist
Speaker 1: Christina Zampatella said getting back in touch with an ex
Speaker 1: can prolong the grieving process unless you want to open
Speaker 1: yourself up to the possibility of remaining stuck. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a great idea to spy on an X
Speaker 1: because it doesn't you know, you start, you look at
Speaker 1: a picture, then you look at and you feel bad
Speaker 1: about yourself and what if what if she's cuter, what
Speaker 1: if he's cuter, and all that stuff. Yeah, therapist James
Speaker 1: Hambrook said that by thinking about something over and over,
Speaker 1: you know, licking your wounds, you're legitimately feeling a little
Speaker 1: bit of relief. It may cause anxiety, but for some
Speaker 1: that ang xiety is preferable to feeling angry, sad, loss
Speaker 1: and all those things they'd feel if that person was
Speaker 1: out of their life. So you're you're not with the
Speaker 1: person anymore, you're not even talking to the person anymore,
Speaker 1: but you're looking at their Facebook page every day. So
Speaker 1: in a way they're still kind of connected to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're keeping something open and in order to I think
Speaker 1: so far, what we've found is in order to be
Speaker 1: friends with an X, yeah, it depends on the conditions
Speaker 1: of the breakup, but it also requires this separation period.
Speaker 1: You gotta get back to yourself and that means not
Speaker 1: getting stuck in the Facebook vortex, which were so many
Speaker 1: of us are guilty of. I'm totally guilty of it. Um.
Speaker 1: And the thing is too uh, you know, Caroline, you
Speaker 1: and I some heterosexual ladies and we might just be
Speaker 1: like making a total mountain out of a mole hill
Speaker 1: because uh, studies have found that gay and lesbian men
Speaker 1: and women are a lot more like to remain friends
Speaker 1: with former sexual partners. Dan Savage again brings this up
Speaker 1: on this podcast, like, I don't get the big deal
Speaker 1: at the straight people, no one. It's like you have
Speaker 1: a breakup and that person has to be dead to you. Um.
Speaker 1: In the Annual Review of Psychology in two thousand seven US,
Speaker 1: it's I say U c l a study focusing on
Speaker 1: gay and lesbian relationships, and like I said, it found
Speaker 1: that they are more likely to remain friends. Um. Also,
Speaker 1: another study found that gay and lesbian men and women
Speaker 1: were more likely to agree that when a relationship is ending,
Speaker 1: one of my biggest fears is that I will lose
Speaker 1: the friendship and that it's important to remain friends with
Speaker 1: someone with whom I've had a serious relationship. And they're
Speaker 1: also more likely to report continued phone calls and social contact,
Speaker 1: So there's not really the same cutting off period. There's
Speaker 1: not the same like three years, don't even look at
Speaker 1: the person, don't think about the person. We have so
Speaker 1: much to learn. Right, Well, the theory the theory in
Speaker 1: this this study is that about the refer to the
Speaker 1: small size of some gay and lesbian social networks, the
Speaker 1: norms of particular gay and lesbian communities, and the benefits
Speaker 1: that can accrue from transforming ties. And this goes for
Speaker 1: everybody transforming ties with X lovers into friendships. And that
Speaker 1: goes back to our first point about um being able
Speaker 1: to gain things from a friendship with someone. Right, if
Speaker 1: it was a toxic relationship, you don't want to continue
Speaker 1: that toxicity within a friendship. But if there were a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, mutual benefits in that person really
Speaker 1: was an incredible support in your life, you can't continue
Speaker 1: those to benefit from those resources in a friendship. But
Speaker 1: you just have to tread lightly. Yeah, you just you
Speaker 1: really have to be honest with yourself. You know, if
Speaker 1: if you're like, no, no, things are fine, I totally
Speaker 1: don't want to get back together with this person, be honest,
Speaker 1: he just knows me like no one else knows me.
Speaker 1: And once you find yourself being sentimental like that, I
Speaker 1: mean there there's just a lot of red flags, and
Speaker 1: it's scary. I mean, gosh, you go through a breakup
Speaker 1: after you've been with somebody for a long time and
Speaker 1: the idea of going back out there and doing it
Speaker 1: all over again with somebody new. It's off putting. It's scary,
Speaker 1: and it's like, how do I even want to try this?
Speaker 1: And so you do. You start to think back and like, wow,
Speaker 1: that was really comfortable. Yeah, that was the old couch
Speaker 1: equivalent of a relationship. I want to go back to that.
Speaker 1: But you know what, um, the fact about breakups I
Speaker 1: think that we've learned is that they hurt our brain.
Speaker 1: Our brains go through withdrawal. We have it as all
Speaker 1: these emotional repercussions, and there is really no shortcut to
Speaker 1: getting over it. I recommend replacing it with a life skill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my last really big breakup, I learned to play the
Speaker 1: piano and I started taking improv classes. Here you go, see,
Speaker 1: we improved ourselves. I don't really play so much anymore,
Speaker 1: but I guess I'm busy, which is good to be busy,
Speaker 1: but also give yourself to time to heal. Don't don't
Speaker 1: pretend like nothing's wrong. So can you be friends with
Speaker 1: an next eventually, Yeah, eventually, that's a good answer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and tread with caution. Um oh man, I can't wait
Speaker 1: for the stories we're going to get. Now it's time
Speaker 1: for us to ask you for all of your stories
Speaker 1: about can you be friends with the next guys? Is easier?
Speaker 1: You know if a girl breaks up with you. That
Speaker 1: one study says that, you know, if guys initiate their
Speaker 1: relationship the breakup, then you're more likely to have a friendship.
Speaker 1: So does it? Is there somehow a bigger burn if
Speaker 1: you get dumped? Uh? What are your conditions for friendship?
Speaker 1: Have you made this friendship work? Have you been gone
Speaker 1: through the whole cycles of being friends and then the
Speaker 1: twinkle came back and now you're married with a million
Speaker 1: babies and really happy? Have you defied the odds? Let
Speaker 1: us know? Mom. Stuff at Discovery dot com is where
Speaker 1: you can send your letters, and we have a couple
Speaker 1: here for you. Starting out with AND's story about summer
Speaker 1: camp and she mentions, Uh, the campfire girls camp which
Speaker 1: we mentioned in the podcast. Just said mentioned like four
Speaker 1: times and I'll say it again. She writes, you mentioned
Speaker 1: that in Luther Goolic founded a camp fire girls camp
Speaker 1: but that it actually was just the end of a
Speaker 1: very interesting history of progressive ideas about youth play and
Speaker 1: physical fitness. Ghoulik is actually most famous for his involvement
Speaker 1: in the invention of basketball and for spreading the idea
Speaker 1: of gym class through his involvement in the New York
Speaker 1: City public schools in the late eighteen hundreds, and he
Speaker 1: was also involved in the movement for spreading public parks.
Speaker 1: Luther Gulick sounds like an awesome dude anyway. He founded
Speaker 1: Camp tim Annouse Camp tim Annouse in eighteen eighties seven
Speaker 1: in Connecticut, where it was later moved to Maine as
Speaker 1: a place for boys to be out of doors and
Speaker 1: to adventure. Obviously, there is an emphasis on physical fitness
Speaker 1: as well. These ideas carried over to a sister camp, Wahelo,
Speaker 1: which he founded in nineteen o seven and expanded in
Speaker 1: nineteen ten. Wahelo maidens, as they were called, were to
Speaker 1: be found living intense, drawing, hiking, and canoeing, not practicing housekeeping.
Speaker 1: Girls were expected to be out of doors all day
Speaker 1: and to learn campcraft, and often went on week long
Speaker 1: hiking trips. In fact, one of the traditions that still
Speaker 1: continues there from the very beginning is teaching older girls
Speaker 1: how to make fires without matches. I learned to do
Speaker 1: it there when I was fourteen. Well that's really cool.
Speaker 1: I wish I could do that on the whole. It
Speaker 1: was the sort of place that was regarded as dangerously progressive.
Speaker 1: The camp is still in existence and run by the
Speaker 1: same family, and you can check it out at wahilo
Speaker 1: dot com. So thanks Anne for she hearing that story.
Speaker 1: And also, since we spoke about life skills, you could
Speaker 1: make starting a fire without a match your new life skills,
Speaker 1: as long as it is used the fire is not
Speaker 1: used to burn down someone's house or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Good advice. Thank you. This email is from Jennifer about
Speaker 1: our Timber Tantrums episode, and I have to say thank
Speaker 1: you Jennifer for your subject line, which is temper tantrum
Speaker 1: a k a ah hop smash okay. She writes, as
Speaker 1: the parent of boys ages eleven and five, I've had
Speaker 1: two rounds of tantrums, the youngest being the worst of
Speaker 1: the two. I don't necessarily think it is the parents
Speaker 1: who don't want to deal with the tantrum. If you
Speaker 1: follow the ignor a method that is recommended. When your
Speaker 1: kid is freaking in the middle of target, you get
Speaker 1: the nastiest looks on the face of the planet because
Speaker 1: you are failing to quote unquote control your child. With
Speaker 1: the advent of superstores, large grocery chains, shopping malls, etcetera,
Speaker 1: the quote children should be seen and not heard adage
Speaker 1: it's no longer applicable. Kids will pitch fits in the store,
Speaker 1: especially when there are toys and candy on every in
Speaker 1: cap and at every register. Companies take advantage, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: of parents wanting to not feel shame or embarrassment when
Speaker 1: their child does have am tantrum by making items readily
Speaker 1: available to play kate children just to keep them quiet.
Speaker 1: I can say that people need to understand, but I
Speaker 1: think that is asking a lot, perhaps maybe a more
Speaker 1: realistic goal as individually as by standards. Just offer the
Speaker 1: parent a sympathetic smile, not a full on discourse about
Speaker 1: how your kid used to do the same thing, and
Speaker 1: don't attract any more attention to the ongoing tantrum. You'd
Speaker 1: be amazed at how much better that can make an
Speaker 1: already stressed parent feel. So thank you for the perspective, Jennifer,
Speaker 1: and thanks of course, to everyone who has written in
Speaker 1: moms Stuff. At Discovery dot com is where you can
Speaker 1: send your letters about being friends or not friends with
Speaker 1: an X, and you can also leave us a comment
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Like us while you're there, and follow us
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Mom's Stuff Podcasts, and you can read
Speaker 1: all of out what romance does to the brain and
Speaker 1: the body, and how to not be a crazy stoker
Speaker 1: on Facebook after you go through a breakup at our
Speaker 1: website It's how Stuff Works dot com for more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com