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