Speaker 1: Pushkin. You know, I looked around at my friends and
Speaker 1: I was like, well, why doesn't this love matter? Why
Speaker 1: have I been told that this love doesn't count. It
Speaker 1: called into question some of the beliefs that I had
Speaker 1: about romantic versus platonic love. I thought that those messages
Speaker 1: were actively harming me, and that they might be harming
Speaker 1: other people too. That's doctor Marissa Franco, a psychologist and
Speaker 1: an expert on friendship. Society often teaches us that friendship
Speaker 1: is secondary to other relationships like family or romantic partners,
Speaker 1: and Marissa wants to change that. In our conversation, she
Speaker 1: shares some helpful strategies to enrich the quality of our friendships,
Speaker 1: including a concept known as mutuality. Mutuality is different from
Speaker 1: a lot of the ways that we think about friendship
Speaker 1: in terms of like we might think of it as reciprocity,
Speaker 1: like I reach out this time, you should reach out
Speaker 1: for the next time. But mutuality is taking a step
Speaker 1: back to look at the broader dynamics that are going
Speaker 1: on for each of us and figuring out whose needs
Speaker 1: make sense to prioritize in this given situation. On today's episode,
Speaker 1: we explore the science of friendship. Why it matters more
Speaker 1: than we might think, and what we can do to
Speaker 1: make new friends and keep the ones we have. I'm
Speaker 1: Maya Shunker, and this is a slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: a show about who we are and who we become
Speaker 1: in the face of a big change. Marissa is the
Speaker 1: author of the book Platonic, How the Science of Attachment
Speaker 1: can help You Make and keep Friends. She realized just
Speaker 1: how important friendship was to her when she was in
Speaker 1: her early twenties and navigating a painful breakup. I think
Speaker 1: I just felt that if I couldn't maintain this romantic relationship,
Speaker 1: then I wasn't lovable. I didn't have any love in
Speaker 1: my life, and I was feeling so miserable. I think
Speaker 1: in part because of those beliefs and to heal, I
Speaker 1: ended up asking my friend Heather, what if we start
Speaker 1: this wellness group. We can meet up, practice wellness, cook
Speaker 1: do yoga, go on walks, have dinner. And I thought
Speaker 1: that would really help me heal my grief. And it did.
Speaker 1: Like meeting up with these friends every week totally healed me.
Speaker 1: It wasn't because we were meditating or doing yoga, it
Speaker 1: was just being in community with people that I loved
Speaker 1: that loved me every week. And I think another reason
Speaker 1: why that group really healed me is that it called
Speaker 1: into question some of the beliefs that I had that
Speaker 1: had caused me to take this breakup so hard, which
Speaker 1: was here I was thinking I didn't have love in
Speaker 1: my life when I had evidence of just how loved
Speaker 1: I was every week, Like I could no longer engage
Speaker 1: in that lie that I didn't have love. You know,
Speaker 1: I felt like, well, I don't think this is just me.
Speaker 1: I think this really reflects something larger in our culture
Speaker 1: that's really harming and hurting us all, and so understanding
Speaker 1: it not just as my own lived experience, but as
Speaker 1: a larger societal cultural problem or issue that we had
Speaker 1: is really what drove me to want to write Platonic. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is one of the reasons I was
Speaker 1: obsessed with having you on a slight Change of Plans
Speaker 1: is because I think your work does speak to this
Speaker 1: larger cultural issue, which is that we deprioritize friendship to
Speaker 1: a third great relationship. And I was thinking back to
Speaker 1: my past and the views that I had, and I
Speaker 1: absolutely grew up thinking that romantic relationships sit at the
Speaker 1: top of the relationship hierarchy, and that if you don't
Speaker 1: have that, it really doesn't matter how many friends you
Speaker 1: have or how high quality those friendships are. Exactly yep.
Speaker 1: I had definitely felt the same way. And you know,
Speaker 1: I guess we even hear things like you need one
Speaker 1: person to complete you, which really made me feel like
Speaker 1: I didn't have a sense of self without having a
Speaker 1: romantic partner. And also like, why do we think that
Speaker 1: one template fits for everybody? I think that when we
Speaker 1: have a cultural narrative that's so crushing, it can get
Speaker 1: hard for people to actually discern, like what do I
Speaker 1: actually want in my life? What's actually best for me?
Speaker 1: Like would I prefer a life where I have a
Speaker 1: large network of friends and am single? But but yeah,
Speaker 1: when your society teaches you that if you make that choice,
Speaker 1: you're less of a person, people aren't as free to
Speaker 1: actually discern what is the life that I actually want
Speaker 1: for myself. You know, the argument you make in your
Speaker 1: book is that we need to reclaim friendship and el
Speaker 1: date it to the status that it deserves. So let's
Speaker 1: start there. I read in your book that there's a
Speaker 1: very interesting connection that exists between friendship and self identity,
Speaker 1: and that's a connection I never really thought about before,
Speaker 1: So can you tell us a bit more about this connection.
Speaker 1: So I think each person that we interact with is
Speaker 1: an advertisement for the kaleidoscope of ways in which we
Speaker 1: can live and the ways that people show up in
Speaker 1: the world, or how we learn to show up in
Speaker 1: the world too, Like that learning happens through being able
Speaker 1: to see a friend engage at a certain hobby your interests,
Speaker 1: and then you're like, maybe I would like that hobby
Speaker 1: your interests. Like it's that exposure that we get through
Speaker 1: each friend. And so in that way, it's like each
Speaker 1: person that we interact with can bring out a new
Speaker 1: and different side of our identity. And so when we're
Speaker 1: only interacting with one person, it's like, well, a spouse,
Speaker 1: which we've been told should be, you know, the only
Speaker 1: relationship we need to feel complete. Sometimes it's like we
Speaker 1: only have one experience of ourself and all of the
Speaker 1: parts of ourselves that maybe aren't aligned with what our
Speaker 1: spouse likes, not because you're incompactable with your spouse, but
Speaker 1: just because you're different people with different hobbies and different interests.
Speaker 1: Those parts of you might not come out when you're
Speaker 1: only interacting with them, and so it requires us to
Speaker 1: be in community with different types of people, to experience
Speaker 1: the different sides of ourselves and to have our identities
Speaker 1: fan out. And I think that this was the sense,
Speaker 1: at least I got to sense in the pandemic when
Speaker 1: I was living with a partner and still feeling like
Speaker 1: unease or still feeling like it's a weird sort of
Speaker 1: malaise when you're just like, I don't know my identities
Speaker 1: kind of scrunching inward, like I would hang out with
Speaker 1: my friends and feel like I'm just filling with life.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just have different emotions that tend
Speaker 1: to come up around different people. And so I was
Speaker 1: experiencing my palette of emotions more greatly. And I think
Speaker 1: that's really important, because I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: feeling gray and feeling bleak or feeling kind of numb,
Speaker 1: and so it almost made me feel more alive to
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, this friend, I'm like laughing and we're
Speaker 1: joking about this thing, and we're excited about this other thing.
Speaker 1: And that might have been part of why they just
Speaker 1: made me feel like more expansive and more alive when
Speaker 1: I interacted with them. Marissa, I'm curious. Is there research
Speaker 1: showing that there's a strong connection between friendship and our
Speaker 1: physical and mental health. Yeah. So there's a study that
Speaker 1: found that people that were exposed to the virus that
Speaker 1: causes the common cold, for example, were less likely to
Speaker 1: actually contract the common cold when they had a diversity
Speaker 1: of support, when they weren't just relying on a spouse,
Speaker 1: but relying on different people for support in their lives.
Speaker 1: And there's other research that just links having a diversity
Speaker 1: of support to your general sense of well being overall.
Speaker 1: I love the research Marissa that shows that healthy, strong
Speaker 1: friendships are associated with more resilience and our other relationships.
Speaker 1: Do you mind sharing a bit more about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love this research too, because I think it's unfortunate
Speaker 1: that we sometimes perceive our romantic relationships and our friendships
Speaker 1: as antagonistic, like, oh, you're hanging out with your friends,
Speaker 1: you're not hanging out with me, instead of well, you're
Speaker 1: hanging out with your friends. That's great. Now we can
Speaker 1: have more quality connection when you come back, definitely, which
Speaker 1: is the truth, because you know, research finds that, for example,
Speaker 1: if I make a friend, not only am I less depressed,
Speaker 1: but my romantic partner is also likely to be less depressed.
Speaker 1: So what can improve one partner's mental health will likely
Speaker 1: improve the other partner's mental health. And that's what we
Speaker 1: see when people make friends. There's research that finds that
Speaker 1: when spouses are in a state of conflict, it negatively
Speaker 1: impacts their release of the stress hormone cortisol, but not
Speaker 1: when they have that quality connection outside of the marriage
Speaker 1: as well. And so it's just like, if you're just
Speaker 1: relying on your spouse, whatever happens in that relationship is
Speaker 1: going to be so deterministic for how you're doing overall.
Speaker 1: But if you have quality connection outside of the marriage,
Speaker 1: it's like you have a buffer, you know, you kind
Speaker 1: of have a shield. Like if things aren't going well,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that you're completely sunk internally because you
Speaker 1: can rely on these outside resources as a pick me up. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Marissa, you've convinced us that friendship is important, right,
Speaker 1: is something that we should all be working to invest in.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if we can get tactical at this stage,
Speaker 1: and if we can learn from you how we can
Speaker 1: do a better job of making friends in adulthood. I
Speaker 1: think an issue that we have is that we think
Speaker 1: friendship will happen in adulthood like it did in childhood,
Speaker 1: which means we won't have to try and be intentional.
Speaker 1: And there's a sociologist, Rebecca Adams, and she says, when
Speaker 1: we have repeated, unplanned interaction and shared vulnerability, that's when
Speaker 1: friendships happen more organically in your adult life. It's like,
Speaker 1: do you see people in a way that's repeated over
Speaker 1: time even though it's not planned, like work, for example,
Speaker 1: and do you have your guard down? And at work,
Speaker 1: I don't know if people have their guard downs, like
Speaker 1: they tend to not be as vulnerable as they might
Speaker 1: be outside of the workplace. So basically what that means
Speaker 1: is like as adults, we don't have that same environment
Speaker 1: we had as kids to just rely on friendship happening.
Speaker 1: We can't assume that it happens organically anymore like we're
Speaker 1: going to have to try. And in fact, one study
Speaker 1: found that people that thought friendship happened without effort, we're
Speaker 1: more lonely over time, whereas those that saught is happening
Speaker 1: based on effort, we're less lonely over time, and they're
Speaker 1: also more likely to actually make that effort. So I think,
Speaker 1: you know, by showing up at a place of worship
Speaker 1: or a hobby or interest group. So you know, when
Speaker 1: we understand it as not happening organically, we understand that. Okay,
Speaker 1: that means I'm going to have to make a choice
Speaker 1: to do something in my life to find friends. Can
Speaker 1: you tell us a bit more about why repeated interactions
Speaker 1: are so important when it comes to facilitating friendship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's because of something called the mere exposure effect,
Speaker 1: which the mere exposure effect describes our tendency to like
Speaker 1: things that are familiar and for people to like us
Speaker 1: the more that we become familiar. If you continue to
Speaker 1: be exposed to someone, they don't harm you, then you
Speaker 1: build trust with them. And so I think when we
Speaker 1: have that repeated interaction, mere exposure increases we like them more,
Speaker 1: they like us more. And if we do want to
Speaker 1: initiate an interaction and say something like hey, I've really
Speaker 1: enjoyed talking to you, would love to connect further, you
Speaker 1: open to exchanging contact information. We're just more likely to
Speaker 1: be successful versus when we've seen someone once, maybe at
Speaker 1: like a lecturer at a bar, and then we asked
Speaker 1: them to hang out. You know, one reason we fear
Speaker 1: initiating friendship is that, of course most of us are
Speaker 1: afraid of rejection. And so what's your advice to us
Speaker 1: to help us overcome this kind of anxiety. Well, the
Speaker 1: research finds that people like you more than you think
Speaker 1: they don specifically right now, I'm just kidding, yeah, you
Speaker 1: specifically the rest of us were it's gonna be rough
Speaker 1: out there that basically, when strangers interact, they then underestimate
Speaker 1: how like they are by the other person. And the
Speaker 1: more self critical you are, the more pronounced this underestimation
Speaker 1: is generally people like us more than we might think.
Speaker 1: Like our brain is kind of programmed with this negativity
Speaker 1: bias where we register negative information more than positive, which
Speaker 1: means our predictions as to how we're coming off are
Speaker 1: often more cynical than the actual truth. So people are
Speaker 1: less likely to reject you than you think. And I
Speaker 1: also tell people to assume people like them, because the
Speaker 1: research finds that when people are told, you know, based
Speaker 1: on your personality profile, you will be liked. And this
Speaker 1: is a lie from the researchers, just deceiving people, But
Speaker 1: they actually go out into a group and they become warmer, open,
Speaker 1: and friendlier, and so it becomes a sort of self
Speaker 1: fulfilling prophecy. Whereas we know that people are who are
Speaker 1: more rejection sensitive, who tend to see rejection when it's
Speaker 1: not there, like, oh, my friend didn't text me back,
Speaker 1: or my friend came to this show and they didn't
Speaker 1: sit right next to me, Does that mean they don't
Speaker 1: like me? They actually tend to reject people. They become
Speaker 1: more cold, they become more withdrawn, and then people reject
Speaker 1: them back after they've been rejected. So in some ways,
Speaker 1: when we always think we're being rejected, it also influences
Speaker 1: our behavior to make that rejection more of a self
Speaker 1: fulfilling prophecy too. So to summarize, there is a This
Speaker 1: is so interesting because I talked with Vanessa Bonds for
Speaker 1: this show as well, and she calls this the liking gap, right,
Speaker 1: And I'm assuming that's what you're referring to, which is
Speaker 1: the liking gap. Yes, So there's a gap between our
Speaker 1: expectations of how much people really like us versus how
Speaker 1: much we think they like us. And the good news
Speaker 1: is that they tend to like us more than we think.
Speaker 1: So that's reassuring, yes, And then the second is just
Speaker 1: remember that it is a self fulfilling prophecy. So play
Speaker 1: the part of someone who believes they are likable and
Speaker 1: lovable and worthy of friendship love. And the more you
Speaker 1: do that, the more your best traits are recruited from you.
Speaker 1: Whereas if you go into a situation believing you'll get rejected,
Speaker 1: that will bring out the worst sides of you, right exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, that is a really great point. Really, when
Speaker 1: I see people act in very harmful ways in their friendship,
Speaker 1: it's because they think people don't care about them, right,
Speaker 1: So I never reach out to my friends because I
Speaker 1: think they're going to see it as a burden. It's
Speaker 1: just when we think someone is going to reject us,
Speaker 1: it licenses us to engage in all types of harmful
Speaker 1: and crappy behaviors because we're like, they're not going to
Speaker 1: care anyway if I ghost them, So I guess I'm
Speaker 1: just going to ghost them because they don't really care
Speaker 1: about me. And so in some ways, I think that's
Speaker 1: why believing people care about you and believing people love
Speaker 1: you causes you to be a lot better of a friend.
Speaker 1: After the break, Marissa tells us how we can be
Speaker 1: better friends to the people who are already in our lives.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with a slight change
Speaker 1: of plans. So we've talked up to this point about
Speaker 1: how it is that we can do a better job
Speaker 1: making new friends. Now I'd love to pivot to how
Speaker 1: we can do a better job of investing in and
Speaker 1: maintaining our current friendships. Yes, what are the factors that
Speaker 1: we should keep in mind? So when it comes to
Speaker 1: keeping friends. That makes me think about this theory called
Speaker 1: risk regulation theory, which was originally created for romantic partners,
Speaker 1: but I think applies for friends too. And it's this
Speaker 1: idea that we decide how much to invest in a
Speaker 1: relationship based on our likelihood of being rejected. And the
Speaker 1: more that we can convey to someone that we won't
Speaker 1: reject them, the more they can invest in the relationship
Speaker 1: with us. And so showing affection towards friends, being generous
Speaker 1: towards friends, anything that shows someone that you love and
Speaker 1: you value them is going to help the friendship. It's
Speaker 1: going to deepen the friendship. Anything that shows care, consideration,
Speaker 1: investment in the other person, because that's assigned to that
Speaker 1: other person, Like, oh, now I can invest in this relationship.
Speaker 1: It's safe for me to invest because of how much
Speaker 1: investment they've shown in me. And so I talk in
Speaker 1: my book about, for example, like generosity, affection, even I
Speaker 1: think vulnerability in some ways, like when people are vulnerable
Speaker 1: with us, that conveys to us that they trust us,
Speaker 1: and it makes us more likely to be vulnerable with them.
Speaker 1: All of these behaviors that show an investment are going
Speaker 1: to better our relationships. But we can also talk about
Speaker 1: misconcept called mutuality, and mutuality is different from a lot
Speaker 1: of the ways that we think about friendship in terms
Speaker 1: of we might think of it as reciprocity. I reach
Speaker 1: out this time, you should reach out the next time.
Speaker 1: But mutuality is like taking a step back to look
Speaker 1: at the broader dynamics that are going on for each
Speaker 1: of us and figuring out whose needs make sense to
Speaker 1: prioritize in this given situation. So what I mean by
Speaker 1: that is that there might be times when my friend
Speaker 1: is in a lot of stress, you know, going through
Speaker 1: mental health issues, just had a newborn baby, where I
Speaker 1: can't expect mutuality because I understand that I have greater
Speaker 1: capacity than they do. And then at other times, you know,
Speaker 1: they might be investing more in me. Like Michelle Obama
Speaker 1: also talked about this in her new book, like a
Speaker 1: relationship is never going to be fifty fifty, And I
Speaker 1: see that in terms of long term friendships too. There's
Speaker 1: going to be a period when you're giving more, there's
Speaker 1: going to be a period when you're getting more. And
Speaker 1: it's like the measure of equality is more so in
Speaker 1: the larger scheme of things. Yeah, it's so funny that
Speaker 1: you mentioned that, because one of my best friends recently
Speaker 1: came over to share that she was pregnant, and she
Speaker 1: and her husband were here, and they joked, we're actually
Speaker 1: here to say our goodbyes, Maya and Jimmy, it's been
Speaker 1: so wonderful being friends with you. And of course she's
Speaker 1: nodding to the fact that you first time parents kind
Speaker 1: of disappear for an extended period in those early years.
Speaker 1: And you know, it was a joke, but it did
Speaker 1: actually lead me to have a candid conversation with her
Speaker 1: a couple weeks later about how, for the first time
Speaker 1: ever since we met in college when we were teenagers,
Speaker 1: our lives are diverging in this really profound way, and
Speaker 1: so I'm wondering if you have advice for me in
Speaker 1: this case, and listeners as well about how to navigate
Speaker 1: friendships when our lives feel like they're entering completely different phases.
Speaker 1: I love the fact that you had a conversation with
Speaker 1: your friend because I think part of the reason why
Speaker 1: friendships tend to tear when we move into these different
Speaker 1: stages is because we rely on a set of assumptions like, oh,
Speaker 1: this person as a kid, they have no time to
Speaker 1: talk to me, they don't want to hear from me,
Speaker 1: or people that have kids, being like my single friend
Speaker 1: just thinks my life is boring and they don't want
Speaker 1: to be around my kids, so I can't hang out
Speaker 1: with them. And it's the set of assumptions that tends
Speaker 1: to pull us apart, Whereas when we can actually have
Speaker 1: the conversation, Okay, like I would love to still hang
Speaker 1: out sometime. What does that look like for you? Does
Speaker 1: it mean I have to come over after the kid
Speaker 1: is put to bed? How comfortable are you hanging out
Speaker 1: with the kid around What are your boundaries around this?
Speaker 1: Instead of I'm just going to assume that you're too
Speaker 1: busy to ever talk to me again, you can affirm
Speaker 1: in identity and a friend even though it's not your own,
Speaker 1: even it's not one that you would choose for yourself,
Speaker 1: but realizing that it's right for them. And that's actually
Speaker 1: related to maintaining best friendships over time, maintaining and deepening
Speaker 1: best friendships over time when you can do that. And
Speaker 1: so that looks like, even if we don't have the
Speaker 1: same life experience, let's still show interest in our differences.
Speaker 1: Let's still show interest in what's it like for you
Speaker 1: to be a mom or what's it like for you
Speaker 1: to live your childless life? What are you doing with that?
Speaker 1: Instead of assuming that because we have this difference, it's
Speaker 1: not something that we can connect on, because we do
Speaker 1: look for friendships for commonality but also for expansion, And
Speaker 1: so now this friendship is going to provide you an
Speaker 1: opportunity to expand and be like, Oh, this is what
Speaker 1: it's like when someone really close to me has a kid,
Speaker 1: and these are what their concerns are, these are the
Speaker 1: things that stress them out, and just maintain curiosity about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it touches back on a point you were making earlier
Speaker 1: in our conversation Marissa about how friendships can be mind expanding.
Speaker 1: In this really powerful way, right, You felt so alive
Speaker 1: when these parts of yourself were tapped into or you
Speaker 1: were learning about new aspects of the world. And I
Speaker 1: really love that reframe, and I think it's one I'll
Speaker 1: carry with me as my friend has this child. And
Speaker 1: another thing that she and I talked about in this
Speaker 1: conversation was the long term nature of our friendships. So
Speaker 1: we kind of acknowledge there might be some speed bunts,
Speaker 1: there might be some harder moments in time in the
Speaker 1: short term, but let's not forget that we are committed
Speaker 1: for life as friends. I love that. Yeah, I found
Speaker 1: the converse pretty therapeutic because I think I was having
Speaker 1: a lot of anxiety around what would have happened to
Speaker 1: this best friendship of mine, and so it felt good
Speaker 1: to confront it head on, even though I was a
Speaker 1: little nervous to have the conversation. I think that's really awesome.
Speaker 1: I think that's really really awesome, And it reminds me
Speaker 1: of the study and long distance friendships that maintaining them
Speaker 1: was kind of looking at the times when you don't
Speaker 1: talk as flexible, not fragile, like friendship can ebb and flow.
Speaker 1: If we have an EBB, let's not assume the friendship
Speaker 1: is over and never reengage, but instead it assumed that
Speaker 1: this is part of the life story of the friendship.
Speaker 1: There's going to be moments where we're spread apart, and
Speaker 1: then there's going to be moments where we come back
Speaker 1: together again. Yeah, and you're reminding me this moment with
Speaker 1: this particular friend. We already share that in our history.
Speaker 1: So we were inseparable. We were attached at the hip
Speaker 1: when we were in college, and then she studied abroad
Speaker 1: for a period of time, and then obviously communication went
Speaker 1: down for a bit, and then a couple of years later,
Speaker 1: the intensity of our communications increased. I mean, there's been
Speaker 1: that waxing and waning already, and yet here we are
Speaker 1: in current day with a very stable, healthy friendship. And
Speaker 1: so it's nice to be able to look back at
Speaker 1: that historical data point as evidence that we can get
Speaker 1: through these periods where things go up and down. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I was on a podcast with someone who is
Speaker 1: I think he was in his sixties then he never
Speaker 1: had kids, and he was like, jes remember, your friendships
Speaker 1: are gonna come back. Their kids are gonna leave the nest,
Speaker 1: and then it's gonna be like you're back in your twenties, like,
Speaker 1: how much time you want to spend with your friends.
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, yeah, she's gonna need me eventually. She's
Speaker 1: an empty nester. I love it. I love it. So
Speaker 1: you know, I mentioned Mersa that I felt a little
Speaker 1: bit of anxiety when it came to raising this topic
Speaker 1: with my friend. And speaking of anxiety, one area that
Speaker 1: can cause us a lot of anxiety is fighting in
Speaker 1: the context of friendship. And in part this is because
Speaker 1: we're led to believe that it's unreasonable for us to
Speaker 1: have big arguments with our friends, because after all, they're
Speaker 1: just our friends, right, But you say in your book
Speaker 1: it's actually quite important to fight in friendships. Empower us
Speaker 1: in this moment, empower us to have those difficult conversations
Speaker 1: with friends where in the moment it feels easier just
Speaker 1: pushing under the rug, but that's not actually in the
Speaker 1: long term best interest of the friendship. Yeah, this was
Speaker 1: like my biggest growth area in friendships that I was like,
Speaker 1: being a good friend means me getting over it, totally
Speaker 1: getting over the problem that I have in this friendship,
Speaker 1: and then realizing, oh, I'm actually like just withdrawing. I'm
Speaker 1: not actually just getting over it, and it's hurting and
Speaker 1: harming my friendships. And so I started to read all
Speaker 1: this research that you know, people who really value friendship
Speaker 1: tend to actually address problems instead of just ignoring them,
Speaker 1: and that open empathic conflict is correlated with deeper intimacy,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, wow, am I actually missing
Speaker 1: out on this opportunity for intimacy by trying to ignore
Speaker 1: the conflict. And there's a psychoanalysts, Virginia Goldner, who talks
Speaker 1: about how you can have flaccid safety, which is basically
Speaker 1: work close because we pretend there's ever any problems or
Speaker 1: dynamic safety where you could actually rupture and repair and
Speaker 1: rupture and repair. And then you have a president that
Speaker 1: whenever a problem comes up, we know that we can
Speaker 1: actually address it and make it better instead of our
Speaker 1: only options being to just injure or walk away. And
Speaker 1: so I just was like, maybe I actually need to
Speaker 1: address problems with my friends. And that was another way
Speaker 1: where I compartmentalize intimacy, right, because I knew in my
Speaker 1: romantic partnerships that I was going to have to address
Speaker 1: problems and work through issues. And you're about marriage is
Speaker 1: hard you're gonna have to, you know, work through all
Speaker 1: these problems together, and not realizing that part of intimacy
Speaker 1: is conflict and so friendship is also going to require
Speaker 1: the same set of skills. And the other thing that
Speaker 1: I realized was that I was conflicating conflict with combat,
Speaker 1: when in fact, conflict could look like reconciliation. And so
Speaker 1: it was me learning to do things like frame the
Speaker 1: conversation as an active love like Hey, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about this because you're so important to me, you know,
Speaker 1: and I know you're having kids, and I'm so I
Speaker 1: died for you, and you know, I have some anxieties
Speaker 1: about whether we must stay close, so I figured I
Speaker 1: would bring it up so we could still find a
Speaker 1: way to stay close through this big life change of ours.
Speaker 1: And then using eye statements like yeah, I've been feeling
Speaker 1: a little nervous about how this could impact our closeness,
Speaker 1: and then perspective taking, which looks like the mutuality of
Speaker 1: as you share your feelings, how do you feel? What
Speaker 1: are you thinking? And then asking for what you need
Speaker 1: in the future, like you know, maybe i'd still like
Speaker 1: to see you like once a month or twice a month.
Speaker 1: How would that work out for you. And so I
Speaker 1: think healthy conflict looks like waiting into the ambivalence. Like
Speaker 1: a part of me is afraid too. We actually feel
Speaker 1: some of the same things as this big change or
Speaker 1: this issue in our friendship has come up. I really
Speaker 1: resonate with the frame the conversation as an affirmation of love.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about one of my closest friends, and you know,
Speaker 1: at times he's like, can't we just let this go?
Speaker 1: Shunks his my nickname run among my friends. He's like,
Speaker 1: can't we just why do we have to discuss these things?
Speaker 1: You know? Okn't we just let it? And I told him,
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, you do realize that I don't
Speaker 1: put in this effort with everyone, right, It's because I
Speaker 1: care so much about you and our communication and our
Speaker 1: lifelong friendship that I do try to conflict resolve and
Speaker 1: problem solve. And obviously there's a happy medium. But it
Speaker 1: was I think that was really affirming for him. I
Speaker 1: feel like it changed the whole spin on why it
Speaker 1: was that I was initiating these kinds of uncomfortable conversations. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I think as a professor, I really tried to
Speaker 1: be intentional about making my students feel safe, and what
Speaker 1: comes out of that is they demand so much more
Speaker 1: of me. And I remember hearing from this psychologist who
Speaker 1: studies narcist She said, the most toxic person is the
Speaker 1: least confronted. And so if your friends are coming up
Speaker 1: to you to address an issue, maybe it's not a
Speaker 1: sign that you're a crappy friend. Maybe it's a sign
Speaker 1: that they feel safe enough to actually bring up a
Speaker 1: problem instead of trying to ignore it. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: really excellent way of seeing it. You wouldn't invest the
Speaker 1: time in someone that you didn't. You wouldn't feel vulnerable
Speaker 1: enough to bring this up with someone that you didn't
Speaker 1: in this deep way trust exactly. And so it's actually
Speaker 1: an ode to the quality of the friendship that you're
Speaker 1: having these conversations. There are some cases, of course, where,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason transitions in life the nature of the relationship,
Speaker 1: you actually feel it's important to break up with a friend,
Speaker 1: and that can be extremely uncomfortable. Yeah, what do you
Speaker 1: recommend that people do in a situation like that where
Speaker 1: they just realize this friendship just it isn't serving me anymore.
Speaker 1: It's not good for either of us, you know, whatever
Speaker 1: the reason is it feels it's such a hard space, Merissa,
Speaker 1: because there's an expectation in society that we break up
Speaker 1: with significant others. I mean, that's just like part of
Speaker 1: the cultural narrative that that happens. But the idea of
Speaker 1: breaking up with a friend just feels almost a bit
Speaker 1: foreign and a little taboo. And yeah, to help me
Speaker 1: make sense of this, Yeah, So I think it depends
Speaker 1: on whether the other person is still invested in you
Speaker 1: or not. If it seems mutual and the other person's
Speaker 1: pulling away, you're pulling away, then I think it's fine
Speaker 1: to just kind of pull away and let it be.
Speaker 1: But if the other person continues to seem invested in
Speaker 1: a friendship with you and you're no longer invested in
Speaker 1: a friendship with them, the kindest thing to do is
Speaker 1: to tell them, because if you don't tell them, you
Speaker 1: trigger something called ambiguous loss, which is when we have
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble processing our grief because we don't
Speaker 1: have any closure, and it's almost like they're going to
Speaker 1: end up grieving twice because you weren't able to muster
Speaker 1: up the courage to have a conversation. So it's quite
Speaker 1: meaning but it doesn't feel mean. That's the thing I
Speaker 1: think with something like ghosting, they're such emotional and incongruence
Speaker 1: between the experience of being the ghoster and receiving the ghosting,
Speaker 1: Like it's like, oh, I just kind of forgot about it,
Speaker 1: but the other person is like it's keeping them up
Speaker 1: at night and they're ruminating on it. So I think
Speaker 1: it's really important to remember that incongruence because if we don't,
Speaker 1: we might be like, well, it's no sweat for me.
Speaker 1: So I think it's fine, right, And then they are
Speaker 1: just going to make up all types of stories because
Speaker 1: our brain has this negativity bias, the stories are probably
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot meaner than what you're going to
Speaker 1: tell them. So yeah, I suggest, you know, having a
Speaker 1: conversation about it. It's not cruel. You're talking about yourself
Speaker 1: and your own experience and how your needs have changed.
Speaker 1: And I hope that this conversation happens after you've tried
Speaker 1: to address the problem with them and given them a
Speaker 1: chance to repair it, and it hasn't necessarily worked unless
Speaker 1: it's a big betrayal. Of course, you know, if the
Speaker 1: big betrayal, then it might be one thing that really
Speaker 1: has broken the friendship, but if it's something like smaller ongoing,
Speaker 1: like sometimes I feel like in our conversations, you don't
Speaker 1: give space to like hear about me, and we're mostly
Speaker 1: focused on you. Like I hope that you have that
Speaker 1: conversation before deciding to end the friendship, but you know,
Speaker 1: if it's coming to a point where it's just like
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes I feel like we have really incompatible
Speaker 1: communication styles and that leaves me leaving our interactions feeling
Speaker 1: like kind of sad. And that's why I'm feeling like
Speaker 1: this friendship isn't necessarily working out for us anymore. Maybe
Speaker 1: you are trying to engage with me in a certain way,
Speaker 1: but I just haven't been reading it that way, and
Speaker 1: so that's why this friendship really hasn't felt like it's
Speaker 1: working for me, you know, adding like I just wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure I was being upfront and transparent with
Speaker 1: you moving forward something like that. It sounds cruel, but
Speaker 1: it's a lot less cruel than not giving someone any closure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one piece of advice I took away from your book
Speaker 1: is that when a friendship ends for whatever reason, we
Speaker 1: really need to give ourselves the space to grief. Because
Speaker 1: you talk about the fact that in our society, pain
Speaker 1: associated with the loss of friendship is devalued. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: this term called disenfranchised grief, which is like, when society
Speaker 1: doesn't legitimize our loss, we can't legitimize it ourselves internally,
Speaker 1: and we might invalidate our own grief process. And there's
Speaker 1: one thing you should know about grief, it's that you
Speaker 1: can't just suppress it and push it away. That you
Speaker 1: actually have to feel the grief for it to be
Speaker 1: released from you. And so that's why I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people that lose really close friends feel very isolated,
Speaker 1: feel very alienated, can feel preoccupied with the loss for
Speaker 1: such a long period of time because they feel like
Speaker 1: their loss isn't valid and their loss is it's significant,
Speaker 1: while their body's telling them the opposite message that this
Speaker 1: is a being loss for you, that you have to
Speaker 1: feel this and that you have to acknowledge it. And
Speaker 1: so that's one of the reasons why some people are like,
Speaker 1: friendship breakups hurt even more than divorce or romantic relationship breakup. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've been reading a lot of writing on this topic recently,
Speaker 1: and there are many many people who have said that
Speaker 1: their friendships ending exactly as you say, we're far more
Speaker 1: painful than any romantic relationship that came to an end.
Speaker 1: So I'm at least grateful that you're giving us strategies
Speaker 1: for trying to end the friendships with a bit more
Speaker 1: closure to the extent that can help us heal or
Speaker 1: help the other person heal. How has working in this
Speaker 1: space changed the way that you think about the friends
Speaker 1: in your life, Like, is there any anecdote that comes
Speaker 1: to mine in which you think, Oh, as a result
Speaker 1: of exploring this research for years, I'm now engage with
Speaker 1: my friends differently. So I aspire to hold friendship at
Speaker 1: the same regard as I do romantic relationships, especially for
Speaker 1: my closest friends in my life. So I had a
Speaker 1: friend she was coming back from Mexico and arriving back
Speaker 1: from the airport at like twelve thirty am, and I
Speaker 1: was contemplating whether I wanted to pick her up, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm so tired, I'm in bed by
Speaker 1: twelve midnight. And I asked myself would I offer to
Speaker 1: pick up my romantic partner? And I was like, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: Like I would stay up to pick up my romantic
Speaker 1: partner and so then I decided that I would go
Speaker 1: offer to pick her up from the airport too, and
Speaker 1: I did, and I realized this is the work. And
Speaker 1: what was your friend's reaction to that? Like, what impact
Speaker 1: do you think that had on your friendship? Oh, my gosh,
Speaker 1: I think it really changed our friendship. I think she
Speaker 1: realized that I was really invested in the friendship. Once
Speaker 1: she realized I was invested, she started to invest. Like,
Speaker 1: all my plants died because it got too cold, and
Speaker 1: she noticed that, and she just came over and bought
Speaker 1: a plant for me. And then since then we've just
Speaker 1: been like hanging out a lot more often, because I
Speaker 1: think there's this freedom that comes from knowing this person
Speaker 1: loves you and is intentionally trying to invest in you
Speaker 1: that allows each of us to engage in a lot
Speaker 1: more of the risky behaviors that promote intimacy. I'd love
Speaker 1: to enter conversation with a piece of research that you
Speaker 1: talk about in your book, and it's about how we
Speaker 1: tend to have the wrong idea about what people value
Speaker 1: in us as friends. Yeah, and understanding this can actually
Speaker 1: be quite empowering. Can you tell us more? Yeah, So
Speaker 1: this is a study where people were asked to rate
Speaker 1: the most important traits and a friend and I think
Speaker 1: before studying friendship, I thought that trait was being charismatic
Speaker 1: or entertaining or funny, that it was about kind of
Speaker 1: like putting on his show to get people to like you.
Speaker 1: But the number one trait people valued was this concept
Speaker 1: ego support, which is someone making you feel like you
Speaker 1: matter and someone making you feel really valued and really loved.
Speaker 1: And I think this message is really hopeful because some
Speaker 1: people think that if I want to make friends, I
Speaker 1: have to change fundamentally who I am, And it's not
Speaker 1: about who you are. Making friends is about being loving
Speaker 1: toward other people. Hey, thanks so much for listening to
Speaker 1: this season of A Slight Change of Plans. I really
Speaker 1: hope you found these conversations helpful. The conversation you just
Speaker 1: heard actually inspired me to reach out to my best
Speaker 1: friend from childhood, Christine. I hadn't talked to her in
Speaker 1: over twenty years. It was a magical reconnection. If something
Speaker 1: you've heard on the show has changed the way you
Speaker 1: approach your life, I'd love to hear from you on
Speaker 1: Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. You can also check this
Speaker 1: account for a sneak peak of our coming season. We'll
Speaker 1: be back in your feeds in no time in late May.
Speaker 1: I'll see you then. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written,
Speaker 1: and executive produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change
Speaker 1: Family includes our showrunner Tyler Greene, our senior editor Kate
Speaker 1: Parkinson Morgan, our sound engineer Andrew Vastola, and our associate
Speaker 1: producer Sarah McCrae. Louis Skara wrote our delightful theme song,
Speaker 1: and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big
Speaker 1: thanks to everyone there, and of course a very special
Speaker 1: thanks to Jimmy Leek. You can follow a Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. Okay, am
Speaker 1: I sounding like I have a little bit of a lag,
Speaker 1: sounding like you have a little bit of a lock
Speaker 1: to me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you have a lag? Okay,
Speaker 1: it worked? Hello, Hi, oh, I think that's a lot better.
Speaker 1: Can you just tell me what you eat for breakfast? Yes,
Speaker 1: I had some fruits, some grapes, some cauliflower toast. Then
Speaker 1: for lunch I had some rice and some fish and
Speaker 1: some salad with olives and pickles. How am I sounding.
Speaker 1: You're sounding like you're an extremely healthy person. Holiflower of bread.
Speaker 1: What is califlower of bread.