Speaker 1: Hey fam, Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Today on the bright Side, we're joined by author and
Speaker 2: journalist Anna Goldfarb. She's been called the New York Times
Speaker 2: friendship correspondent. We'll dig into what we're getting wrong about friendship,
Speaker 2: what we're getting right, and why now is actually the
Speaker 2: best time ever to be a friend. It's Tuesday, July second.
Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3: And I'm Simone Boyce and this is the bright Side
Speaker 3: from Hello Sunshine, Samon. We're talking friendship today. I'm excited. Yes,
Speaker 3: I'm so excited too. This is our favorite topic.
Speaker 1: It really is.
Speaker 2: And there's a reason we call you our bright Side besties.
Speaker 2: We love friendship and so we are here with an
Speaker 2: expert today.
Speaker 1: Our guest is Anna Goldfarb.
Speaker 2: She's written extensively about friendships and relationships for The New
Speaker 2: York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, the list goes on.
Speaker 2: But she's also the author of Modern Friendship, How to
Speaker 2: Nurture Our Most Valued Connections. And it's a book that
Speaker 2: she actually started working on right after experiencing some friendship
Speaker 2: breakups in her thirties, some unexpected friendship breakups.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: My friend says that every woman's Roman Empire is a
Speaker 3: friendship breakup, Like that's the thing that we play in
Speaker 3: our head all the time. Like men maybe think about
Speaker 3: the actual Roman Empire. Well, women think about that friendship
Speaker 3: that just soured and you had this really painful severing
Speaker 3: process and you're still not over it.
Speaker 1: I think there's so much truth to that.
Speaker 2: I had a friendship breakup the day before I started
Speaker 2: high school, so going into ninth grade, and I was
Speaker 2: wrecked over it.
Speaker 1: I still think about it today.
Speaker 3: Does it seem worthy the cause when you look back
Speaker 3: on it now, does it still seem like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: we should have broken up over that.
Speaker 2: I don't even remember what the cause was. I don't
Speaker 2: know that I got the real answer from her. I
Speaker 2: don't think we were mature enough to like have that moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's still her.
Speaker 2: We're in each other's lives now today, like wext you know,
Speaker 2: once or twice a year, just checking in.
Speaker 1: But do you think about any of those those breakups?
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 3: There's one friendship breakup that happened to me when I
Speaker 3: was a new mom, and it was a new mom
Speaker 3: friend that meant a lot to me, and it was
Speaker 3: really hard at the time. It's stung for a while,
Speaker 3: but I think time heals all wounds, and I think
Speaker 3: that I think about it a lot less today, and
Speaker 3: when I do think about it, I'm like, huh, maybe
Speaker 3: that was for the better, you know, maybe it wasn't
Speaker 3: supposed to work out. But I'm always down to talk
Speaker 3: about this because it's so relatable. It's something that we
Speaker 3: all experience, and honestly, it's something that never goes away,
Speaker 3: even as you get older. I hear my mom talking
Speaker 3: about friendships that she I think needs to break up with.
Speaker 3: So it is a universal conundrum. And Danielle she covers
Speaker 3: so much ground in her work, which I think is
Speaker 3: really refreshing. Not just the breakups, but how do you
Speaker 3: revive friendships? Like what does reconciliation look like? How do
Speaker 3: we continue to connect with people as we get older
Speaker 3: and we move through these different life stages. And as
Speaker 3: a journalist, some of her most popular articles have been
Speaker 3: about maintaining friendships, connecting with coworkers, and even dealing with
Speaker 3: a friendship quiet season.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of that? I actually feel like
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 3: Quiet seasons with friendships probably every three months.
Speaker 2: What do you mean by that? Like you go in
Speaker 2: and out of being an active friend.
Speaker 3: This is a great question, and I think we need
Speaker 3: to ask her what does a quiet season actually mean?
Speaker 3: But if I were to take a guess, it means
Speaker 3: you're going through a period where you're not as socially active.
Speaker 3: Maybe you're not able to make as much time for
Speaker 3: your friends as you would like. And I definitely go
Speaker 3: through periods like that, Like I either respond to your
Speaker 3: text in three minutes or three weeks, and sometimes it's
Speaker 3: going to be three weeks, depending on what life looks
Speaker 3: like at that time.
Speaker 1: How about you, for sure?
Speaker 2: I think it depends on what's going on in your life.
Speaker 2: And I feel with all relationships, like there's moments where
Speaker 2: I'm being such an active sister or daughter, and there's
Speaker 2: moments where I'm like, Wow, I really suck right now.
Speaker 2: But I've read a lot of Anna's pieces and she
Speaker 2: said that we actually have to get rid of that guilt.
Speaker 2: So I'm excited to ask her about that today because
Speaker 2: I would love to release some of my guilt.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you brought that up, Danielle, because getting
Speaker 3: rid of guilt is something that I am working on
Speaker 3: right now. Well, Anna's touching on so much of this
Speaker 3: in her writing and her book. But there's actually another
Speaker 3: really touching reason that she wrote her book. She wanted
Speaker 3: to help honor her dad after he passed away because
Speaker 3: her dad had this longtime friend that he wanted to
Speaker 3: reconnect with, but she said he was always too anxious.
Speaker 1: To actually do it.
Speaker 2: And after his passing, Anna learned that that friend felt
Speaker 2: the same way. And so she called that experience a
Speaker 2: turning point for her and part of the inspiration for
Speaker 2: her book. And we have to dig into that because, like,
Speaker 2: what a beautiful inspiration story for all of us.
Speaker 3: That is so heartbreaking to hear. It honestly makes me
Speaker 3: want to cry. I want to avoid that at all costs.
Speaker 3: I want to figure out, like how do I live
Speaker 3: a life that I can be proud of when it
Speaker 3: comes to my relationships and friendships.
Speaker 1: What a beautiful story.
Speaker 2: Well that's why we're here today. We're gonna dig into friendships.
Speaker 2: We're getting into all things friendship with Anna Goldfarb. That's
Speaker 2: right after the break, stay with.
Speaker 4: Us, Anna, Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
Speaker 1: Well, we're so excited to talk friendship with you.
Speaker 2: And you know, my great grandmother lived until she was
Speaker 2: one hundred and one years old, and in her late nineties,
Speaker 2: I would call her and ask how she was, and.
Speaker 1: Without a doubt, she would talk.
Speaker 2: To me about the drama at her lunch table or
Speaker 2: her friends at her bridge game.
Speaker 1: And I realize that whether we are.
Speaker 2: In our twenties or in our late nineties, we are
Speaker 2: all trying to navigate friendship. And you have been dubbed
Speaker 2: the New York Times friendship corresponding. I can't imagine that
Speaker 2: you grow into a title like that without struggling and
Speaker 2: navigating connection yourself. Why did you start writing about friendship?
Speaker 5: I started reporting on friendships in like twenty seventeen, and
Speaker 5: I had no idea friendship experts were even a thing
Speaker 5: like that. That blew my mind that it was someone's
Speaker 5: job to analyze friendships and translate friendship trends, and that.
Speaker 1: Just was like what.
Speaker 5: I had no idea. And the more I learned about
Speaker 5: friendships and how they work, the more questions I had.
Speaker 5: And with the pandemic, it was this incredible opportunity where
Speaker 5: everyone was re imagining their friendships at once, which is
Speaker 5: historically wild. I mean, normally, we have our own dramas,
Speaker 5: our own hiccups and we're trying to feel around in
Speaker 5: the dark for how to move through them. But to
Speaker 5: have this opportunity where everyone was like, well, how does
Speaker 5: this work? How do we live in a world where
Speaker 5: seeing a friend could be literally life or death? So
Speaker 5: I just dove in, and a lot of the advice
Speaker 5: around the lockdown, if you remember, was reach out to
Speaker 5: that friend, like send that message, send that email. And
Speaker 5: I wrote an article for The Times saying should you
Speaker 5: reach out to that friend right now? Because part of
Speaker 5: my thinking was, well, why haven't you been in touch,
Speaker 5: Like why has there been this lapse in your friendship?
Speaker 5: Let's take a look at what's going on here? And
Speaker 5: those kinds of articles got me the most excited because
Speaker 5: I just felt like there was a real hunger for
Speaker 5: this knowledge. This was like questions that people had but
Speaker 5: didn't think to articulate so or maybe they did fight
Speaker 5: and hear it. So I hope to illuminate what these
Speaker 5: issues are.
Speaker 3: Anna, what's the article that you've written that you get
Speaker 3: the most engagement from.
Speaker 5: Let me think, Well, one of the ones I love
Speaker 5: the most was how to handle a quiet season in
Speaker 5: a friendship? And I thought it was such a poetic
Speaker 5: way to talk about the rolls that we have in
Speaker 5: our friendship and you know, we it's so easy to
Speaker 5: generate a narrative with very little information, so I wanted
Speaker 5: to dive into that, like why do we fill in
Speaker 5: the gaps with our silences from our friends? And how
Speaker 5: do we handle it? Do you confront them? Do you
Speaker 5: ask them? Do you just hide in a hole and
Speaker 5: like hope things change? I mean, how do you handle
Speaker 5: the quiet season? And part of that was, you know,
Speaker 5: people always say friendship's last a reason or a season
Speaker 5: or a lifetime, and I hate that. I honestly hate
Speaker 5: it because I'm like, well, why why is it a season?
Speaker 1: Why is it?
Speaker 5: Why is one friend whip lifetime and one a season?
Speaker 5: Like tell me more old adage, Like I feel like
Speaker 5: you're missing some steps here. So that was part of
Speaker 5: the reason I wanted to write this book, was to
Speaker 5: really unravel, like what's going on here?
Speaker 3: We do hear that often that friendships are made for
Speaker 3: a certain season of life, and you've actually written a
Speaker 3: lot about friendship breakups.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's part of why I'm obsessed with friendship,
Speaker 5: because I have a busted, tattered trail of friendships where
Speaker 5: I didn't know if it was my issue, was I
Speaker 5: flubbing the brief? Was it their issue? Is it just
Speaker 5: living in America in twenty twenty four? Like, is it
Speaker 5: that our culture friendships are so precarious nowadays? I mean,
Speaker 5: it's so easy to break up with friends. That's because
Speaker 5: our friendships are mostly based on interests. They're based on passions,
Speaker 5: and our passions change, our priorities change, so our friendships
Speaker 5: are like part of that, and they're part of that mix. Actually,
Speaker 5: studies show that we lose half of our friendships every
Speaker 5: seven years. And that's such a staggering stat It's like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, are we just monsters and ogres moving
Speaker 5: through life like cutting down our friendships left and right.
Speaker 5: But when I learned more about it, it's actually, I
Speaker 5: thought something beautiful. Because we change, we grow, we evolve,
Speaker 5: and we seek out people who meet us where our
Speaker 5: changing interests lie.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting. You're taking the guilt out of it all.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm like, please don't be guilty. It's really really hard,
Speaker 5: you know. I spent a lot of time in my
Speaker 5: book going over our culture and talking about how we
Speaker 5: live in a hyper fluid society now and this is
Speaker 5: historically new. It's very different than our grandparents and great grandparents,
Speaker 5: whose social lives were more like an oak tree, where
Speaker 5: they had deep roots and they basically stayed in the
Speaker 5: same town. They didn't have to try very hard to
Speaker 5: keep their friendships gone. They had these other institutions that
Speaker 5: helped keep these give a framework for these friendships to
Speaker 5: practice in. But we live in a society that's more
Speaker 5: like a bicycle wheel where we're in the middle, and
Speaker 5: we have these groups of friends from childhood, from high school,
Speaker 5: from college if you went to college, from your first job,
Speaker 5: your second job, and they only share common history with us,
Speaker 5: not with each other. So the burden has shifted onto
Speaker 5: us to come up with reasons to keep a friendship active.
Speaker 5: So there has been this big shift in personal responsibility
Speaker 5: to keep these friendships going. And we don't have any help.
Speaker 5: We don't have an institution. That's like we're throwing an
Speaker 5: ice cream social on Sunday. You just literally show up.
Speaker 5: You have to spend no energy of But when are
Speaker 5: we going to get together again? It is not in
Speaker 5: our imagination. It is much much harder to keep friendships
Speaker 5: these days.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting.
Speaker 2: I read this book book by Robert Putnam called Bowling Alone,
Speaker 2: and it's about like the individualization about American society. And
Speaker 2: that's what you're talking about, Like there used to be
Speaker 2: bowling clubs on Wednesday nights where people would gather, so
Speaker 2: I've never thought about that. But it is harder to gather.
Speaker 2: There is more work that goes into it. I guess
Speaker 2: I understand the title of your book now more, which
Speaker 2: is Modern Friendship, and you say it's a guide to
Speaker 2: creating wholehearted relationships. What makes a wholehearted friendship?
Speaker 5: You know? I wanted a word to describe the kind
Speaker 5: of friend I wanted to be, and I really couldn't
Speaker 5: think of anything. I'm like, a good friend, a great friend,
Speaker 5: like it wasn't descriptive enough for me. And wholehearted means dedicated, committed,
Speaker 5: and enthusiastic, and I'm like, that's it. That's the kind
Speaker 5: of friend I want to be to my favorite friends.
Speaker 5: I want them to think of me like that. So
Speaker 5: I developed a paradigm called wholehearted friendship because I was
Speaker 5: noticing a disconnect. If I wanted to love my friends,
Speaker 5: I wanted to support my friends, but they didn't feel
Speaker 5: loved or supported and I based this paradigm around the
Speaker 5: study by doctor Jeffrey A.
Speaker 1: Hall.
Speaker 5: He's a professor of communication in Kansas, and he found
Speaker 5: that it takes two hundred hours of shared time to
Speaker 5: go from stranger to close friend. That's a lot of time.
Speaker 5: Two hundred ho that's a lot of time. But we
Speaker 5: have that time when we're younger, when we aren't as
Speaker 5: many things do as many people. You know, what are
Speaker 5: our roles? We're like a child, a student, a grandkid maybe,
Speaker 5: like there's not much pulling on our time. But once
Speaker 5: we reach thirty, our friendships fall off a cliff. But
Speaker 5: that's because we become more things to more people. Then
Speaker 5: you become a spouse maybe, or you're a significant other,
Speaker 5: you become an employee, you become maybe a daughter in law,
Speaker 5: an auntie, Like, there's all these other roles that take
Speaker 5: a lot of time. So who do we spend time with?
Speaker 5: That's that's what wholehearted friendship's about. It's three d's desire,
Speaker 5: diligence and delight. And desire is who am I yearning
Speaker 5: to spend time with? Diligence is who do I prioritize
Speaker 5: spending time with? And delight is who do I actually
Speaker 5: enjoy this time I'm spending with and those three things.
Speaker 5: It's all based on time, because friendships are time. They're
Speaker 5: a story of time.
Speaker 3: The delight part is so huge for me. I decided
Speaker 3: a few years ago that I'm not doing pity hangs anymore.
Speaker 3: I know that might sound harsh, but if you don't
Speaker 3: delight me while we're hanging out and vice versa, if
Speaker 3: I'm not delighting you, what are we doing this for?
Speaker 3: You know, like, let's not waste anyone's time here. We
Speaker 3: should be making the most of the time that we
Speaker 3: spend with each other, because you're right, we become so
Speaker 3: many things to so many different people in that time
Speaker 3: diminishes as we get older.
Speaker 2: So you have this analogy about fitting friends into groups,
Speaker 2: and I love that they're aquatic theme. Do you say
Speaker 2: friendships are supposed to fit into a bathtobe, a jacuzzi,
Speaker 2: or a swimming pool? Can you break each of those
Speaker 2: down for us?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Absolutely. These numbers are based on Robin Dunbar's finding. He's
Speaker 5: a British anthropologist. He is wonderful. He's done a lot
Speaker 5: of work in social groups and I rebranded these groups
Speaker 5: to highlight how fluid they are. Our friendships are very fluid.
Speaker 5: They can go from really intense to less intense all
Speaker 5: the time for any reason. So the innermost here is
Speaker 5: what I call the bathtub because it's really small, not
Speaker 5: too many people fit in it. For men, it's usually
Speaker 5: one other person in their bathtub. It's usually their significant other.
Speaker 5: For women, it's usually two people. It's their significant other
Speaker 5: and a best friend. So right there is showing like
Speaker 5: the gender differences between how we practice friendships. The next
Speaker 5: tier is your jacuzzi, and that's because there's three to
Speaker 5: five people and perfect size for a jacuzzi. And these
Speaker 5: are the people you'd think in an Academy award speech.
Speaker 5: These are the people you'd call, you know, if you
Speaker 5: had great news, if you had scary news. This is
Speaker 5: your closest support group. And then the outer tier from
Speaker 5: there is your swimming pool, and that's ten to fifteen people.
Speaker 5: Those are the people you'd house it for, maybe coworker,
Speaker 5: favorite coworkers, maybe people you'd double date with. And this
Speaker 5: is what a social life should look like ideally. And
Speaker 5: I want to give a caveat that when you are
Speaker 5: going through a huge milestone change, you may not have
Speaker 5: the bandwidth to nurture three to five close friendships, like
Speaker 5: if you're you just had a baby, you just lost
Speaker 5: a job, you're going through a depression, Like it's okay
Speaker 5: if you don't have them at the moment, but hopefully
Speaker 5: you don't stay there. That this is the ideal, This
Speaker 5: is something to work towards.
Speaker 3: I love those analogies. It's so easy to visualize them.
Speaker 3: I love thinking about it that way. So thank you
Speaker 3: for that framework.
Speaker 2: We need to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 2: right back talking about friendship with Anna Goldfarb.
Speaker 1: And we're back.
Speaker 3: Okay, Anna, let's talk about the Golden age of friendship?
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? Are we in it
Speaker 1: right now?
Speaker 5: I wrote an op ed for the Washington Post about this,
Speaker 5: that we should be in the Golden age of friendship,
Speaker 5: but we're not. It's so easy to reach out to people,
Speaker 5: you know, time and distance are no longer a factor.
Speaker 5: We can just reach out to anyone at any time.
Speaker 1: But we don't.
Speaker 5: We know, my phone is full of people that I love,
Speaker 5: but I don't reach out to them very often. So like,
Speaker 5: what's going on here? And here's what I learned. Our
Speaker 5: social life nowadays is like a supermarket. And you know,
Speaker 5: when you're starving and you try to go shopping and
Speaker 5: you add the most random stuff to your cart, like,
Speaker 5: you know, mazzarella sticks from the hot bar, you know,
Speaker 5: maybe like a random sandwich from the deli. Like you
Speaker 5: just put whatever your cravings are screaming for in your cart,
Speaker 5: and then you check out and you're like, how am
Speaker 5: I going to make a meal out of any of
Speaker 5: these random things I've just put in this cart. Now,
Speaker 5: imagine grocery shopping when you're full and you have a
Speaker 5: list and you know exactly what belongs in your cart,
Speaker 5: and going food shopping isn't so overwhelming, and you make
Speaker 5: better choices. And that's what our lives are like today.
Speaker 5: Our friendships are a supermarket. And here's what I mean.
Speaker 5: When you go on social media and you see a
Speaker 5: feed of all of these people that you know that
Speaker 5: only have common history with you, not with each other,
Speaker 5: it's really overwhelming. It's like, Oh, that's my old coworker.
Speaker 5: Oh she just moved. Oh I guess I missed. I
Speaker 5: wonder how she's doing. And you get distracted by all
Speaker 5: these all these thoughts, and it's really hard to feel
Speaker 5: full and feel craving, you feel longing, you feel comparison,
Speaker 5: like it's just it's a bad time. But if you
Speaker 5: go and you know who belongs in your cart, if
Speaker 5: you map out these are the three to five friends
Speaker 5: that I'm committing to being a wonderful, wholehearted friend to,
Speaker 5: you don't have that hunger. You're not scrambling to figure
Speaker 5: out like how do I keep these friendships spinning? How
Speaker 5: do I keep it afloat? And that's what we need.
Speaker 5: We need to be more intentional with who we commit to,
Speaker 5: with who we extend interest to. So that's the conversation
Speaker 5: I want to have is we can have the golden
Speaker 5: age of friendship. We just have to have a strategy.
Speaker 2: How about when somebody is not reciprocal, when they're not
Speaker 2: a great teammate for you, how long do you let
Speaker 2: that slide? People are you know, have seasons throughout their lives,
Speaker 2: say they're not a great teammate for three months, six months,
Speaker 2: one year. At what point are they not a great
Speaker 2: teammate in general?
Speaker 5: Well, I would say to understand what the clear and
Speaker 5: compelling about is of the friendship, Like why are we
Speaker 5: why do I want to fight for this friendship or
Speaker 5: not is the about really compelling to us? And I also,
Speaker 5: as I've learned more about friendships, I've raised my standards
Speaker 5: for someone to be in my jacuzzi as someone I've
Speaker 5: known a long time years. I see them with their
Speaker 5: other other friendships. I see what kind of person they are,
Speaker 5: so I feel more confident that this is someone I
Speaker 5: want to keep close and I want to keep around.
Speaker 5: But if friendships need to be well, it's actually okay.
Speaker 5: If they're not always reciprocal, that's not a bad thing.
Speaker 5: It's only bad if someone feels negatively about it, someone's
Speaker 5: not feeling great. Because sometimes we're busy at work and
Speaker 5: it's great that a friend reaches out more. And sometimes
Speaker 5: you know, we're the ones who have a little more
Speaker 5: bandwidth and can reach out more and initiate more and
Speaker 5: our friends can't. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But
Speaker 5: if the friendship isn't feeling aligned, then you definitely can
Speaker 5: shuffle them to the outer edges and just move your
Speaker 5: energy elsewhere. I'm not really a fan of like a
Speaker 5: huge speech unless something happened, like a betrayal or something catastrophic.
Speaker 5: I'm happy to just let friendships like put them on
Speaker 5: pause rather than just end them, and that can help
Speaker 5: me feel less intense about it, Like, you know, I'm
Speaker 5: just gonna pause this friendship. Let's see if we can
Speaker 5: pick up later. Because I've always been surprised about my friendships.
Speaker 5: I don't know if this happens with you guys, but
Speaker 5: sometimes I think our friendship is like dead and gone
Speaker 5: and buried, and then I hear from them in a
Speaker 5: few years and we actually pick up and we've evolved,
Speaker 5: and it's been really surprising and a delight of Oh.
Speaker 5: I didn't think the friendship was going anywhere. I'm not
Speaker 5: all knowing. I'm open to being wrong, I'm open to change.
Speaker 5: But that's what I would encourage, is like, maybe your
Speaker 5: friendship needs a pause, but it doesn't mean that you
Speaker 5: need to have like a dramatic ending. It's just like, Okay,
Speaker 5: I recognize that this isn't feeling great, So let's go
Speaker 5: back to the basics. What's our about? Like, is the
Speaker 5: about clear and compelling and go from there.
Speaker 2: I love that you mentioned the passage of time because
Speaker 2: I was so moved by the story of friendship that
Speaker 2: you shared about your late dad. Will you share it
Speaker 2: with everybody?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Thank you?
Speaker 5: For giving me the opportunity to share the story I
Speaker 5: talked about in the beginning, how I've been reporting on friendship.
Speaker 5: And in June twenty twenty, I had just written a
Speaker 5: story should you reach out to that friend? Which we
Speaker 5: talked about, and I went to visit my parents. You know,
Speaker 5: the COVID was raging, So we're outside in their back
Speaker 5: porch and my dad said that reading my article opened
Speaker 5: up an old wound in him and it made him
Speaker 5: think of his childhood friend Marty. And he didn't know
Speaker 5: why he stopped talking to Marty. It had been like
Speaker 5: ten or fifteen years and he really missed him, but
Speaker 5: he didn't know. He was scared of reaching out. He
Speaker 5: was scared of rejection. He was anxious of like what
Speaker 5: if he ignores me? And of course I'm a journalist.
Speaker 5: I'm like, Dad, let me help, Like, look, here's his
Speaker 5: information right here, Like I'll write the message for you,
Speaker 5: just say, hey, Marty, you've been on my mind. Do
Speaker 5: you want to get a call on Monday? Which isn't
Speaker 5: like the most amazing message ever. But they hadn't spoken
Speaker 5: in ten years, so I figured it'd be like a start,
Speaker 5: and I wanted to I wanted to heal this from
Speaker 5: my dad. I wanted to show off, honestly that I
Speaker 5: have been writing about friendship, like I can solve this
Speaker 5: for you. And I kept pestering him for updates, like
Speaker 5: did you reach out? What's up? Did you reach out?
Speaker 5: And he never did. He never did. And six months
Speaker 5: after we had that conversation, my dad had a serious
Speaker 5: infection in his hip and he went to the hospital
Speaker 5: for treatment. And while he was in the hospital, he
Speaker 5: was exposed to COVID and he contracted COVID and he
Speaker 5: deteriorated rapidly since his body was exhausted from fighting the infection,
Speaker 5: and three weeks into January twenty twenty one, he passed away.
Speaker 5: None of his friends knew that he was sick. My
Speaker 5: dad was a scientist, he was a surfer, he volunteered
Speaker 5: at the Special Olympics, like he was a great guy.
Speaker 5: And he only had four people at his funeral. You know,
Speaker 5: my sister couldn't even attend. She lives in Boston and
Speaker 5: it wasn't safe for her to come. None of his
Speaker 5: grandkids could attend his funeral. And it was just horrific.
Speaker 5: I mean it was horrible, and I couldn't I stopped
Speaker 5: thinking about Marty, like my mind kept turning to Marty.
Speaker 5: And two days after my dad passed away, I reached
Speaker 5: out to Marty's son on LinkedIn and said, Hey, I
Speaker 5: need to speak with your dad. Could you please put
Speaker 5: me in touch. Forty five minutes later I was on
Speaker 5: the phone with Marty and he was so happy to
Speaker 5: hear from me. He was like, Anna, yeah, Like it's like,
Speaker 5: it's like, how are you? What's going on? And you know,
Speaker 5: I said, are you are you sitting down? Like are
Speaker 5: you somewhere quiet? And he said, yeah, yeah, what's going on?
Speaker 5: And I said, you know, my father died two days ago.
Speaker 5: And we had a whole conversation about how we wanted
Speaker 5: to connect with you and reach out to you. And
Speaker 5: he interrupted me and said, I bear responsibility here too.
Speaker 5: I could have reached out to him just as easily
Speaker 5: as he could have reached out to me. And we
Speaker 5: talked for a little bit. He shared stories about growing
Speaker 5: up in Queen's with my dad, how they went to
Speaker 5: football games and tracked mud into my grandma's house with
Speaker 5: her sneakers, which annoyed her, and through tears, he thanked me.
Speaker 5: He thanked me for letting him know and just for
Speaker 5: the conversation, and I gave Marty the gift of knowing
Speaker 5: with certainty that his friendship mattered to my dad. And
Speaker 5: I started this because I wanted to be a hero
Speaker 5: to my dad. I wanted to solve this for him,
Speaker 5: but I ended up healing his friend and letting him
Speaker 5: know that their friendship was special and meaningful. And I
Speaker 5: wrote this story in the book. This is the introduction.
Speaker 5: And once after I talked with Marty, that's when I
Speaker 5: knew I wanted to write this book. I wanted to
Speaker 5: do something that explained why we talk ourselves out of
Speaker 5: connection even though we crave it. And I know that
Speaker 5: we all are thinking of that one person that we
Speaker 5: miss and wish that we could reach out to and
Speaker 5: connect and have a conversation with. And I just want
Speaker 5: I want people to have the tools to understand, like,
Speaker 5: here's why you haven't been in touch.
Speaker 1: But it's not hopeless. And that story is so beautiful.
Speaker 3: It makes me emotional to think about this idea of
Speaker 3: talking ourselves out of connection and how that can limit
Speaker 3: us for our entire lives. And we can miss out
Speaker 3: on a connection as special as the one that your
Speaker 3: father had with Marty. And as you were talking, I
Speaker 3: also am thinking about my relationships with some of my
Speaker 3: family members and how intentional we must be not only
Speaker 3: in our friendships, but in our friendships with family members.
Speaker 3: Like I have this really unique situation with my brother.
Speaker 3: He's my half brother. We didn't grow up together. I
Speaker 3: found out that I had a brother when I was
Speaker 3: twenty one years old, so you can imagine it blew
Speaker 3: my mind.
Speaker 1: I was an only child.
Speaker 3: And there were a lot of complicated situations that led
Speaker 3: to that or complicated circumstances, and my brother and I
Speaker 3: we had a falling out out early on into our relationship,
Speaker 3: like soon after I first met him. We had a
Speaker 3: falling out and didn't speak for like four years, and eventually,
Speaker 3: thankfully I talked myself into connection with him and we
Speaker 3: have a relationship now and it has this really beautiful
Speaker 3: redemptive arc that has taught me a lot. And I
Speaker 3: know that you've written extensively about your personal relationship, specifically
Speaker 3: with your sister, and how that was a big motivation
Speaker 3: for your reporting. So how did the work that you
Speaker 3: have done on this topic empower you to improve that relationship.
Speaker 5: I love that you asked me about this because when
Speaker 5: I started reporting on friendships in twenty seventeen, I was
Speaker 5: basically estranged from my younger sister. We were really having
Speaker 5: a difficult time even getting through a meal, like even
Speaker 5: getting through a meal without really bruised feelings and hurt
Speaker 5: and just just it was just felt like her it
Speaker 5: was pain. And as I learned more about friendship, and
Speaker 5: I credit Shasta Nelson, She's like the OG friendship expert,
Speaker 5: Shasta taught me that friendships need three things consistency, positivity,
Speaker 5: and vulnerability. And I started applying that to my sister.
Speaker 5: My sister had just had a kid, and I was
Speaker 5: coming to terms with being child free and understanding that,
Speaker 5: like I'm it doesn't look like I'm having kids and
Speaker 5: I'm adjusting to that, and we just weren't on the
Speaker 5: same page. So for consistency, I said, why don't I
Speaker 5: come and help you watch your kid every Saturday?
Speaker 1: Let's all?
Speaker 5: And then I start coming every Saturday, and like, positivity,
Speaker 5: what can I do? So I started bringing her little gifts,
Speaker 5: Like I saw this lip gloss, I thought you'd like,
Speaker 5: or here, I know this is your favorite tea, So
Speaker 5: I got you a little box Then the last one
Speaker 5: was vulnerability because once I started helping and it was
Speaker 5: consistent and I was positive, then she started being and
Speaker 5: like curious about my life and what are my challenges?
Speaker 5: And it was those three things that set us on
Speaker 5: the right path and created new habits for us. And
Speaker 5: I realized that I was messing up because I had
Speaker 5: the volume up on thoughts like why isn't my sister
Speaker 5: doing more for me? Why isn't she care or why
Speaker 5: isn't she happier for me? And I turned the volume
Speaker 5: down on those thoughts, and I turned the volume up
Speaker 5: on thoughts like what can I do to help her today?
Speaker 5: What can I do to help her? And that was
Speaker 5: a game changer. It changed our entire relationship and I
Speaker 5: started seeing her for her needs like a person who
Speaker 5: just has a kid, as you guys know, is drowning.
Speaker 5: You know, one person's not drowning and one person is drowning.
Speaker 5: So that's the difference. And my sister. I love her
Speaker 5: and she was important to me, and I was at
Speaker 5: this moment where I started asking what can I do
Speaker 5: to help? What do you need? And honestly she needed
Speaker 5: a nap, So I'm like, great, let me come over.
Speaker 5: You can take a nap. Every Saturday, I will watch
Speaker 5: your kid and go take a nap and just it
Speaker 5: doesn't have to be complicated. It was that simple. But
Speaker 5: I was meeting her needs. And that's what we can
Speaker 5: do for our friends is say, what do you need?
Speaker 5: I want to help instead of well, what about me?
Speaker 5: What you're not reaching out to me? What about being
Speaker 5: happy for me? That thinking didn't get me very far.
Speaker 5: She made everyone annoyed at me, and I annoyed myself, honestly,
Speaker 5: But now I approach my friendships in the same way
Speaker 5: of what can I do to make my friends' lives easier?
Speaker 5: What do they need? How can I help? And honestly,
Speaker 5: they love being my friend.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: The idea of selfless giving is like the cure to everything,
Speaker 2: and so that's so cool that you're giving that gift
Speaker 2: to your friends. You know, you've interviewed probably hundreds, if
Speaker 2: not thousands of people at this point on friendship, written
Speaker 2: thousands of words on it.
Speaker 1: What's the biggest change that you've made to your friendships?
Speaker 5: The biggest changes I've started telling them that I love them.
Speaker 5: I didn't grow up in a very affectionate like a
Speaker 5: verbal affectionate household my grandma did. My grandma'd be like,
Speaker 5: I love you. But you know, my parents like weren't
Speaker 5: as free with it. And it still feels a little
Speaker 5: risky to start telling my friends I love them. But
Speaker 5: I learned actually I wrote an article for the New
Speaker 5: York Times about sibling relationships, and one study said that
Speaker 5: the number one thing that siblings want to hear is
Speaker 5: that I love you more. That we always take our
Speaker 5: siblings for granted. And I'm like, I noticed the same
Speaker 5: thing with my friendships, Like I don't tell them I
Speaker 5: love them enough. And for the friends in my jacuzzi,
Speaker 5: like they have a special position, they are in an
Speaker 5: elite tier, and I tell them I love them all
Speaker 5: the time. Now, I just texted my best friend like
Speaker 5: thinking of you, love you, and she's like, love you too,
Speaker 5: And there's just no anxiety. Anxiety occurs when there's uncertainty,
Speaker 5: and I don't want any uncertainty in my friendships. I
Speaker 5: don't want my friends to second guess. You know, is
Speaker 5: this friendship important?
Speaker 1: Is?
Speaker 5: Does it? An't even care? I'm like, fuck that, I
Speaker 5: care a lot. I'm just gonna let you know I'm
Speaker 5: in it with you and I love you, and I
Speaker 5: appreciate you, and I love our friendships for the following reasons.
Speaker 5: And I've just been more effusive because I know our
Speaker 5: friends want to hear it. I know it means the
Speaker 5: world to them, and they'll be more likely to invest
Speaker 5: in my life because they see that I'm you know,
Speaker 5: I'm committed. I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 3: Anna, you are such a good friend. Anybody who's friends
Speaker 3: with you would be so lucky.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 3: That is abundantly clear from our conversation today.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I wasn't always like this. I was a
Speaker 5: bit of a cheap skate. I'm not gonna lie. I'm
Speaker 5: not like some scene. Are you laughing that I like
Speaker 5: just called myself a cheapskate.
Speaker 1: I love the self awareness.
Speaker 2: It's amazing because, like we all have evolutions. I don't
Speaker 2: think I used to be a good friend. My mom
Speaker 2: taught me how to be a good friend later in
Speaker 2: life just by watching her.
Speaker 5: I really think our best friendships are ahead of us,
Speaker 5: Like we can do this, We can do this.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Anna, Thank you for I love.
Speaker 5: Talking with you.
Speaker 4: Both.
Speaker 5: Obviously a geek about friendship, but I really enjoyed our
Speaker 5: conversation thank you for having me on.
Speaker 3: Well, you're in such good company because we are geeks
Speaker 3: about friendship too here on the bright side.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming on.
Speaker 5: Cheers.
Speaker 3: Annah Goldfarb is an author and journalist. Her book Modern Friendship,
Speaker 3: How to Deepen our most valued connections, can be found
Speaker 3: wherever you get your books.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's show.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow, we're talking with Jamie kern Lima, the founder of
Speaker 2: IT Cosmetics and host of the new podcast, The Jamie
Speaker 2: Kern Lima Show. Listen and follow the bright Side on
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm Simone Voice.
Speaker 3: You can find me at simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1: That's r O b A. Y See you tomorrow, folks.
Speaker 3: Keep looking on the bright side.