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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and welcome to stuff I've never

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Speaker 1: told to your production of I Heart Radios how stuff works.

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Speaker 1: For today's classic, I wanted to bring one back that's

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Speaker 1: been really on my mind lately, and that is the

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Speaker 1: science of having a BFF. Where I was I used

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Speaker 1: to call m Biffle's best friends for life because I

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Speaker 1: have a group of I have a group of cooer

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Speaker 1: friends that we've been friends, some of us since we

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Speaker 1: were four years old, um, but like high school, middle school,

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Speaker 1: and we see each other a couple of times a year,

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Speaker 1: and it's always so easy. It's like putting on a

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Speaker 1: comforting sweater or something. And as I've been going through

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Speaker 1: the death of my father, I've realized how much friendship

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Speaker 1: has meant to me, and how much the support of

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Speaker 1: my friends has meant to me, and them just being

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Speaker 1: there and knowing who I am and kind of being

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Speaker 1: willing to sit with me or have me tell them

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Speaker 1: just the most ridiculous stories about about my family. Um

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Speaker 1: it's it's meant the world. And I'm every day like,

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Speaker 1: how did I look out in this friendship lottery? UM?

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Speaker 1: So I wanted to share this classic episode with you

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Speaker 1: about the science of best Friends. Please enjoy. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff Mob Never Told You from how stupp works dot com. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristin,

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Speaker 1: and in honor of International Friendship Day, which is August three,

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Speaker 1: Kristin and I are looking at the science of friendship,

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Speaker 1: what benefits friendship has for you, what does it mean

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Speaker 1: to have a BFF, what will that BFF bring to

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Speaker 1: your life, and how the role of friendship has sort

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Speaker 1: of changed and evolved over the centuries, because even the

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Speaker 1: Greeks used to talk quite a bit about friendship and

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Speaker 1: their philosophy. Yeah, obviously, friendship is something that goes back

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Speaker 1: throughout human history, and Aristotle had a well known philosophy

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Speaker 1: on the different types of love, one of which is philia,

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Speaker 1: which is affectionate regard or friendly feeling and our deepest

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Speaker 1: and closest friendships probably also intersect with the idea of

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Speaker 1: a goopa, which is love for humankind, although do you

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Speaker 1: think that it crosses ever into arrows? Probably could the

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Speaker 1: passionate love, Yeah, philia with benefits. Yeah, Well, people often

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Speaker 1: talk about how they marry their best friends, so those

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Speaker 1: Venn diagrams can often intersect. Yeah, that's right. And it's interesting,

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Speaker 1: I mean, like not to get off on a tangent,

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Speaker 1: but it's interesting that, like, even the idea of quote

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Speaker 1: unquote marrying your best friend is relative kind of recent development.

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Speaker 1: I mean, marriage for centuries was just sort of an

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Speaker 1: economic agreement right there. There wasn't this idea that, oh,

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Speaker 1: you marry someone that you would like to live with

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Speaker 1: for the rest of your life. It would be oh, no,

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Speaker 1: someone will be selected for you that will benefit Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, because it's fine, We're all going to die

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Speaker 1: at thirty two, our children will be apprenticed out. It's fine.

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Speaker 1: Nobody has to like each other. Yeah, and who cares anyway,

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Speaker 1: because no one has Facebook to know what each other

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Speaker 1: is up to or how happy everyone is or is not.

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Speaker 1: That's right, and Aristotle did definitely did not have Facebook.

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Speaker 1: And author Massimo Pigliucci, who who wrote a book about

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Speaker 1: the philosophy of friendship, talks about Aristotle's philosophy and his

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Speaker 1: theories that basically friends, He thought that friends sort of

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Speaker 1: had this mirroring role in each other's lives. They could

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Speaker 1: sort of hold a mirror up to each other to

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Speaker 1: help them improve personally, help each other improve and that

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Speaker 1: they would help each other achieve this thing called you

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Speaker 1: deemonia hopefully I'm pronouncing that right, which is often translated

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Speaker 1: now as happiness, maybe literally in the Greek it meant

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Speaker 1: having a good demon, so you would help each other

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Speaker 1: achieve that that thing you were chasing, that elusive happiness,

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Speaker 1: that had that that good demon inside of you. I

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Speaker 1: like that. I just thought I was hungry, But apparently

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Speaker 1: it's happiness. It's just your happy demon inside of you

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Speaker 1: asking for a sandwich. Um. But if we move into

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Speaker 1: more contemporary times and look at how the nature of

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Speaker 1: friendship has changed, it's interesting that more of that aerros

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Speaker 1: type of passionate love has shifted from the person who

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Speaker 1: would have been like our our closest friend and confidante

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Speaker 1: to these days, more commonly to a spouse or a

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Speaker 1: long term partner, because, for instance, if you look back

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Speaker 1: in the Victorian era at the closest of female friendships,

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Speaker 1: and if you read letters that women wrote to each other,

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Speaker 1: and even that men wrote to each other during this time,

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Speaker 1: they were so effusive and just almost passionate in their

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Speaker 1: love for the other person. Yeah, because that was okay,

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Speaker 1: that was okay. There was no there was nothing in

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Speaker 1: society really that was dictating that it was weird to

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Speaker 1: be like really like passionately in like with your friends,

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Speaker 1: especially like in terms of when we think of male

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Speaker 1: friendships background this time and it being okay to be

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Speaker 1: physically affectionate. Yeah, if you look, for instance, at Abraham

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Speaker 1: Lincoln and his best friend Joshua Speed, they shared a

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Speaker 1: tiny bed for four years while they were living together,

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Speaker 1: obviously in their bachelor days, and that was no big deal.

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Speaker 1: I mean, some people today think, oh, well, that must

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Speaker 1: mean that Lincoln must have been doing something with Joshua Speed.

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Speaker 1: But actually, that kind of physical intimacy that you also

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Speaker 1: see reflected in photos of male friends at the time,

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Speaker 1: where they might be holding hands or touching uh one

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Speaker 1: person's shoulders, or even in sort of a side hug,

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Speaker 1: a platonic side hug, it wasn't so strange at the time.

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Speaker 1: And some think that the Industrial Revolution the rise of

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Speaker 1: organized sports and outdoor activities led to that breakdown in

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Speaker 1: particular of male platonic intimacy, and for women, the idea

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Speaker 1: of having that closer, more emotional, intimate best friendship was

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Speaker 1: a little bit more of a normalized idea because there's

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Speaker 1: been that longstanding idea of women just being the nurturing,

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Speaker 1: emotive sex. But even still, when you get to the

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, for both men and women, it wasn't so

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Speaker 1: okay to be as passionately in friend love with your

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Speaker 1: BFF because this was around the time when you have

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Speaker 1: the rise of homophobia. Yeah, and so when you have

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Speaker 1: something to be afraid of, you have to actively show

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Speaker 1: that you are not that thing, and in this case

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Speaker 1: it was it was the rise of the idea of

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Speaker 1: what is manly and masculine and what is female and feminine,

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Speaker 1: and homophobia was really tied up in that, and so

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Speaker 1: the idea of having that like physically affectionate close relationship

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Speaker 1: whether you're a man or a woman, was just not

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Speaker 1: hunky dory anymore. Well, and also with the industrial revolution,

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Speaker 1: you have with that the rise of the companion it

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Speaker 1: in love marriage that we think of today, And so

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Speaker 1: that's when you start to see that kind of emotion

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Speaker 1: and closeness transposed from the best friendship into the marriage.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of parents became concerned at this time,

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Speaker 1: particularly for their daughters, that if they seem too close

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Speaker 1: to their best friend, than they weren't going to make

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Speaker 1: a good wife. You know, they could sort of practice,

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Speaker 1: you know, being uh compassionate and kind to someone else.

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Speaker 1: But there was definitely uh, this line that was drawn

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Speaker 1: and was perpetuated by psychoanalysts in the nineteen twenties who

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Speaker 1: warned about the quote perversions of the libido that were

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Speaker 1: the tendencies of teenage girls to fix their affections on

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Speaker 1: members of the same sex. I mean, that's silly, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, like as far as being concerned about young

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Speaker 1: girls spending a lot of time together, yeah, well, and

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Speaker 1: I would assume to the penalties for that were it

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Speaker 1: would be much harsher for men at the time, because

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Speaker 1: I feel like now maybe we're just not freaking out

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Speaker 1: as much. But for instance, it's so much more common,

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Speaker 1: it seems like for groups of girls to get together

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Speaker 1: and have slumber parties and play with each other's hair

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Speaker 1: and do each other's makeup and that kind of stuff

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Speaker 1: that involves lots of physicality, whereas boys friendship physicality is

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Speaker 1: often more of the rough and tumble play. There's not

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Speaker 1: that same kind of intimacy, right, They're probably not sharing

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Speaker 1: a bed like Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed. Yeah, exactly. Well,

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Speaker 1: because they have to prove that they're masculine, and so

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Speaker 1: you can't have that intimacy. But I mean, speaking of

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Speaker 1: intimacy and things that are good for you, friendship has

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Speaker 1: a ton of health benefits. And these health benefits have

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Speaker 1: been asserted over and over again forever, and you're probably

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Speaker 1: familiar with a lot of them, including the psychological ones

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Speaker 1: that uh Mayo pointed out. They include increasing your sense

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Speaker 1: of belonging in purpose, boosting your happiness and reducing stress,

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Speaker 1: helping to improve your self confidence and self worth, help

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Speaker 1: you cope with traumas, and also encouraging you to change

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Speaker 1: or avoid unhealthy lifestyle habits. These are all kind of

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Speaker 1: hallmarks psychological benefits of close friendships. Well, and that last

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Speaker 1: point to that the Mayo Clinic noted, encouraging you to

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Speaker 1: change or avoid your unhealthy lifestyle happens. Really hearkens back

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Speaker 1: to that Greek idea of the good friend helping you

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Speaker 1: find your your good demon inside of you. Yeah, you're

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Speaker 1: a good demon, whether that's just goodness or margarita. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so whatever, But you know, all of that well being,

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Speaker 1: once you've achieved all that well being, that definitely leads

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Speaker 1: to a lot of potential physical benefits, things like better

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Speaker 1: brain health. Harvard researchers back in two thousand and eight

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Speaker 1: found that strong social ties could actually promote brain health

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Speaker 1: as we age, and so you know, that's why it's

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Speaker 1: even critical when we talk about like aging populations and

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Speaker 1: older people being alone and how awful that is. The

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Speaker 1: stronger your social network, the better you'll be as far

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Speaker 1: as emotional health and brain health. And the lower stress

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Speaker 1: levels associated with having close and healthy friendships also leads

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Speaker 1: to us being less likely to get colds. I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is just like one example of how it does

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Speaker 1: improve our overall health. Yeah, and studies have also pointed

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Speaker 1: out that this kind of social support can lower blood pressure,

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Speaker 1: protect against dementia, and reduce the risk of depression. So

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Speaker 1: it's apparently pretty important to have friends, you guys, and

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Speaker 1: all in all, this adds up to the possibility that

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Speaker 1: we might live longer as one byproduct of having friendships.

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Speaker 1: There was a two thousand five study published in the

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Speaker 1: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health which tracked a group

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Speaker 1: of Australians over ten years, and they found that those

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Speaker 1: with a large circle of friends were twenty two percent

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Speaker 1: less likely to die during the study period than those

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Speaker 1: with fewer friends. And I'm sure there are other issues

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Speaker 1: in there as well, yes, but I mean that is

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Speaker 1: that's that's impressive. Is nothing to to sneeze and when

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Speaker 1: you look at women in particular, um friendship also has

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Speaker 1: in a fact on women who are battling breast cancer,

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Speaker 1: as a study in two thousand six in the Journal

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Speaker 1: of Clinical Oncology showed um. They did a study of

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Speaker 1: nearly three thousand nurses who had breast cancer and found

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Speaker 1: that the women without close friends were four times as

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Speaker 1: likely to die from breast cancer as women with ten

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Speaker 1: or more friends. And I think it's worth noting that

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Speaker 1: proximity and the amount of contact with the friend or

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Speaker 1: friends was not associated with survival. It was just the

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Speaker 1: fact that you have friends who love you in your

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Speaker 1: life that was the protective factor. Having a spouse, however,

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Speaker 1: was not associated with survival rates. It's all about the

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Speaker 1: friends well, and men can also benefit from friendships as well.

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Speaker 1: This was a study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine

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Speaker 1: which looked at a group of Swedish men over six

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Speaker 1: years and found that those with solid friendships more than

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Speaker 1: an attachment to one person you know, just having the

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Speaker 1: spouse perhaps in the hall, appeared to affect the risk

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Speaker 1: of heart attack and fatal coronary disease in a positive way,

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Speaker 1: probably lowered the chance of that happening. Now, again, these

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Speaker 1: are kinds of correlation versus causation associations to make, but nonetheless,

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Speaker 1: the evidence is pretty strong that all in all, healthy

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Speaker 1: friendships are healthy for us. However, and this is something

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Speaker 1: probably all moms did, in fact tell us many times

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Speaker 1: when we were growing up. Not so healthy friendships can

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Speaker 1: negatively impact us. Sure, yeah, it totally makes sense. If

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Speaker 1: your close friends are boozing it up or smoking or

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Speaker 1: doing whatever, then you are also more likely to do that,

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Speaker 1: especially if you have a strong desire to fit in. Um.

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Speaker 1: There was a study back in in basic and applied

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Speaker 1: social psychology that found that when you perceive a greater

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Speaker 1: acohol use among your best friends, that predicts in you

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Speaker 1: higher levels of willingness to consume alcohol. So basically, if

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Speaker 1: it's the norm in your brain, whether it's true or not,

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Speaker 1: if the norm in your brain is that your friends

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Speaker 1: are drinking and smoking and doing whatever, you were more

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Speaker 1: likely to abuse those substances yourself. Yeah, and there was

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Speaker 1: a recent study that came out in the British Medical

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Speaker 1: Journal which found that friends steer our decisions in when

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Speaker 1: we were school age more so than parents, and remembering

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Speaker 1: when I was fourteen years old, that is not a

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Speaker 1: surprising finding at all because friends are so much cooler

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Speaker 1: than parents at that time anyway. But they found that specifically,

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Speaker 1: the impact of having a smoker as a close friend

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Speaker 1: during adolescence is greater than that of having a smoking

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Speaker 1: parent or siblings when it comes to predicting whether you

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Speaker 1: shall smoke in adulthood, not just whether you're going to

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Speaker 1: be out in the school yard smoking some smokes that

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Speaker 1: you stole from some cigarette stubs you found on the ground,

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Speaker 1: some misty stubs that you snagged. And another factor that

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Speaker 1: comes into play is also having cross sex friendships among adolescents.

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Speaker 1: This was a study in two thousand six in the

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Speaker 1: Journal of Psychology looking at kids in urban settings in six,

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Speaker 1: seventh and eighth grades. So not only did they find

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Speaker 1: that developing cross sex friendships is more likely to lead

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Speaker 1: to or be related to popularity, but they also found

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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff regarding smoking and drinking. Having these

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Speaker 1: cross sex friendships is also linked to the perception among

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Speaker 1: seventh graders that the best friends attitudes about smoking and

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Speaker 1: drinking are less negative. It's also linked to higher levels

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Speaker 1: of cigarette use among sixth and eighth graders, in addition

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Speaker 1: to more alcohol use among six seventh and eighth graders.

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Speaker 1: So does that mean then that our parents were right

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Speaker 1: when you know they warned us like, don't hang out

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Speaker 1: with old Johnny who smoking those he smoked cigarette butts

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Speaker 1: from Virginia slims. He will turn out like he's a

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Speaker 1: bad apple. I well, I think I think it's interesting,

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Speaker 1: and there's probably a lot more details that you could

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Speaker 1: look into, or that maybe are actually in the full

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Speaker 1: study if we were to read the full study. But

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Speaker 1: I think it's interesting to look at cross sex friendships

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Speaker 1: in this very impressionable age when your hormones are raging

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Speaker 1: and you're really insecure. Everybody's really insecure and doesn't know

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Speaker 1: what's going on in life, um, and how that's linked

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Speaker 1: to popularity and then what does it mean to be popular?

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Speaker 1: And then you're thinking about the norms of like, oh well,

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Speaker 1: if Johnny and Susie are smoking, then that's cool and

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Speaker 1: I can do it. And there's a lot wrapped up

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Speaker 1: in there that to me, just sets off alarm bells

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Speaker 1: of the terror of being a parent because you have

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Speaker 1: to take in all of those different variables when talking

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Speaker 1: to little Suz about how to manage those kinds of

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Speaker 1: peer pressures. Yeah, but we there's even more on cross

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Speaker 1: sex friendships that we'll get into in a minute. But

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Speaker 1: let's talk about sort of beyond just the physical and

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Speaker 1: emotional and mental effects of friendship. Let's talk about the

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Speaker 1: science of friendship because there have been some really interesting

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Speaker 1: studies in the past couple of years, including one that

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Speaker 1: um took my Space into account and side note, the

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Speaker 1: study came out in two thousand eleven, which was seemed

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Speaker 1: surprisingly recent considering that they were using my Space data. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I actually double check that date. I was like, that's

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Speaker 1: got to be like two thousand one, not two thousand eleven.

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Speaker 1: But it was this just a study that Tom conducted. Yeah, seriously,

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Speaker 1: everybody's top friend. But so the study was talking about

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Speaker 1: this thing called cognitive alliances, and they used the my

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Speaker 1: Space Top ten Friends system. If any of you were

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Speaker 1: on my Space, you remember how fraughth that was, Like,

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Speaker 1: you know, I broke up with him and so I'm

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Speaker 1: moving him out of my top friends are like, oh,

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Speaker 1: we met and she's cool, so I'm gonna put her

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Speaker 1: in my top friends. Yeah. I remember when I was

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Speaker 1: setting up my MySpace account so long ago now, and

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Speaker 1: how it was just a terrifying experience to you know,

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Speaker 1: so carefully select who would be in that top ten

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Speaker 1: to make you look as good, and by you, I

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Speaker 1: mean me look as good as possible. I'm so glad

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Speaker 1: that went away. I'm yeah, I we don't. We don't

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Speaker 1: need extra bad feeling stuff like that. And looking at

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Speaker 1: these top ten friends, researchers found support for their alliance hypothesis,

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Speaker 1: which basically held that human friendship is caused by cognitive

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Speaker 1: systems that function to create alliances for potential disputes. So like,

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Speaker 1: I guess your top ten friends would function as your

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Speaker 1: you know, your gang of Ruffians in case the neighboring

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Speaker 1: gang of Ruffians on my Space came up and tried

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Speaker 1: to beat you up. But they also found that because

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Speaker 1: an allies support can be undermined by a stronger outside relationship,

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Speaker 1: the alliance model predicts that people will prefer partners who

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Speaker 1: ranked them above other friends. So I'll like you more

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Speaker 1: if you like me more. So this whole idea is

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Speaker 1: that we form friendships and strong friendships as human humans

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Speaker 1: as sort of a status power grab to ensure that

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Speaker 1: if people we don't know with threatening status has come along,

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Speaker 1: then we have a leg to stand on. Yeah, kind

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Speaker 1: of that. We just have these mental and emotional alliances

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Speaker 1: that we form that becomes stronger the more the other

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Speaker 1: person shows that were valued. That takes out all of

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Speaker 1: the romance of friendships for me. Don't worry. It gets

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Speaker 1: even weirder. I thought it was so that you could

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Speaker 1: trade those necklaces that are the broken hearts. You get

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Speaker 1: one half and I get the other. Yeah. Well, so

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Speaker 1: there's this there's this really interesting New York Times article

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Speaker 1: a couple of years ago UM talking to scientists Nicholas

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Speaker 1: Kristakis and James Fowler, who, along with coree searcher Jamie Suttle,

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Speaker 1: have done a lot of studying up on friendship networks,

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Speaker 1: how and why we form these connections, and how health

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Speaker 1: related risks and benefits end up being kind of transmitted

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Speaker 1: from person to person or even skipping a person and

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Speaker 1: going on to somebody else. And they use the National

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Speaker 1: Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and this thing called the

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Speaker 1: Framingham Heart Study, which followed people in Framingham, Massachusetts for

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Speaker 1: several generations to see how their personal connections and interactions

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Speaker 1: affected their health. Yeah, and and Framingham. The Framingham Heart

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Speaker 1: Study is a fascinating one because it's almost this ideal

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Speaker 1: study population because so many people who grew up in

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Speaker 1: Framingham stayed in Framingham, so it gives them this they

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Speaker 1: can sort of isolate environmental variables and toy around with

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Speaker 1: all of that. And uh, these researchers found some really

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Speaker 1: compelling evidence for how good and bad behaviors spread through

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Speaker 1: our social networks, from both our best friendships all the

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Speaker 1: way to acquaintances or even people we've never met before. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and they kind of treated it like a virus. Things

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Speaker 1: like quitting smoking, losing weight, and being happy. Those are

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Speaker 1: obviously good attributes, and they watched how these things could

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Speaker 1: spread or crop up versus negative habits like picking up smoking,

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Speaker 1: gaining weight, and becoming less happy. So if if you're

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Speaker 1: looking just at the weight thing, they found that obesity

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Speaker 1: broke out in clusters, and a lot of scientists who

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Speaker 1: countered this said, well, it's probably environmental. Maybe more fast

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Speaker 1: food restaurants opened, etcetera. Etcetera, etcetera. But they found out

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Speaker 1: that it didn't really relate at all to something like

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Speaker 1: a McDonald's opening in the neighborhood. They found that even

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Speaker 1: if a friend in that group moved away and gained weight,

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Speaker 1: her social circle back home was gaining weight too, and

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Speaker 1: that the risk of obesity increased even if a friend

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Speaker 1: of a friend of a friend gain weight. What is

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Speaker 1: going on with that? Yeah, that kind of pattern was

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Speaker 1: so consistent that these researchers termed it the three degrees

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Speaker 1: of influence that what you were doing can have affect,

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Speaker 1: you know, to your friends of friends of friends, and

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Speaker 1: vice versa. Yeah. Another theory that was discounted was this

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Speaker 1: thing called home a Philly, which is basically like associates

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Speaker 1: with like. But again, that's kind of discounted by the

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Speaker 1: fact that Susie can move away to a different state

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Speaker 1: and gain weight and her friends back home are still

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Speaker 1: gaining weight. But some of the things they looked at

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Speaker 1: among these friend groups are maybe there's some subconscious social

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Speaker 1: signaling at work. As our friends become heavier, we change

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Speaker 1: our perception of what obese looks like, and therefore give

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Speaker 1: ourselves permission to gain a little weight. Because maybe it's

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Speaker 1: not so bad, or if we don't gain weight, maybe

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Speaker 1: we just simply become more accepting of other people in

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Speaker 1: our social circles who do so maybe they don't feel

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Speaker 1: as bad about watching what they eat well, And this

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Speaker 1: jumped out to spouses tend to have less of an

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Speaker 1: effect on us, particularly in this area of weight gain

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Speaker 1: that they looked at. They have less of an effect

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Speaker 1: than close friends do because our ideas about weight in

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Speaker 1: particular are more influenced by people of the same sex,

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Speaker 1: which makes sense because you know, we're looking to, you know,

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Speaker 1: people who are more We're looking at essentially like the

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Speaker 1: beauty standards of our group. Absolutely, and they found the

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Speaker 1: degree of friendship matters. So this is sort of like

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about with these cognitive alliances. A second ago.

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Speaker 1: If Steve likes Peter more than Peter likes Steve, Steve

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Speaker 1: will gain weight when Peter does. He'll be influenced by

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Speaker 1: Peter's weight gain, But Peter's weight won't be influenced by

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Speaker 1: Steve's because he doesn't whatevery verb you want to use

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Speaker 1: value Steve much noticed Steve as much care about Steve

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Speaker 1: as much. But if there's a mutual degree of friendship,

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Speaker 1: the weight effect is significant. Poor Steve, what did he

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Speaker 1: do wrong? And that sounds a lot like that alliance

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Speaker 1: hypothesis that you just mentioned from that MySpace study, right exactly,

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Speaker 1: So how you view your friends and how they view

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Speaker 1: you beyond just like the actual closeness factor, what really exists,

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Speaker 1: like how you view your friendship matters too, I guess.

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Speaker 1: But if we go back to Aristotle talking about mirroring,

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Speaker 1: you know, he said that friends hold a mirror up

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Speaker 1: to you to help you achieve your happiness, we should

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Speaker 1: bring up mirror neurons because Christakis, Fowler, and Settle also

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Speaker 1: talked about mirror neurons and happiness simply the fact that

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Speaker 1: the more happy people you're exposed to on your in

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Speaker 1: your day to day life or in your social network,

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Speaker 1: the more often your spirits are lifted. And so it's

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Speaker 1: the kind of thing like I feel like we've seen

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Speaker 1: marketing campaigns and advertising campaigns that are kind of based

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Speaker 1: on the side you a where if one person does

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Speaker 1: something nice for you and then you do something nice

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Speaker 1: for the next person, suddenly the whole network is happier

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Speaker 1: and more polite. Um, And so it's sort of that

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Speaker 1: idea of like mirror neurons, as as you smile at someone,

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Speaker 1: they might smile at someone else. And soon like all

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Speaker 1: of our friends are smiling at each other and they

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Speaker 1: don't know why. Yeah, And anecdotally, all of this kind

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Speaker 1: of the ripple effect of friendship ring so true. Thinking

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Speaker 1: about the patterns of my friends and even broader social

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Speaker 1: networks as I have moved through my twenties and now

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Speaker 1: I'm approaching my thirties, and just how our socializing habits

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Speaker 1: have changed to center more around like domestic activities. We

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Speaker 1: aren't going out so much. We're doing more things like

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Speaker 1: going on a day hike rather than going on a

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Speaker 1: night bar crawl. And it's like as soon as one

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Speaker 1: person or one couple started doing that, than someone else

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Speaker 1: took note and they started doing it. And then you

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Speaker 1: see their picture is on Facebook and you're like, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe I needed And it's like we all have collectively

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Speaker 1: become just in general, like less wild. And I think

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Speaker 1: it has a lot to do not so much with like,

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Speaker 1: oh we're learning thirty, we must be boring, But I

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Speaker 1: think it's probably a lot of this, like the epidemic

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Speaker 1: of friendship essentially, Yeah, like what you perceived the norm

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Speaker 1: to be. Yeah, I want to do what Peter is

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Speaker 1: doing because Peter apparently is the cool guy. Actually want

432
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:31,000
Speaker 1: to be Peter. But we'll watch out. If Peter has

433
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:35,120
Speaker 1: the d r D two gene, well, then you better

434
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 1: watch out because another thing that Christakis and Fowler found

435
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:41,639
Speaker 1: was that there is a genetic component to friendship, and

436
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:43,679
Speaker 1: this obviously needs a lot more research, but one thing

437
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 1: that they found their their their preliminary findings are that

438
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: friendship can be influenced by certain genes, and the gene

439
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 1: d r D two, which I kept in my mind saying,

440
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: are two D two influences drinking behavior. People with this

441
00:26:56,600 --> 00:27:00,080
Speaker 1: gene are not only susceptible to certain behaviors, including drinking

442
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:04,480
Speaker 1: and alcoholism, but are susceptible to making friends with those

443
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:07,959
Speaker 1: exact same behaviors. So there's an argument for like with

444
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 1: like so I party all the time. I want to

445
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: be friends with people who party all the time. But

446
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:14,359
Speaker 1: now there might be a genetic component behind that as well.

447
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 1: It's your R two D two jeans all coming together.

448
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 1: This is not the droid I'm looking for. You need

449
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:25,440
Speaker 1: to see three. That's right, um. But they also found

450
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 1: a second gene that showed that people are attracted to

451
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 1: their opposite opposites when it comes to other certain behaviors.

452
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of I think research that still

453
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 1: needs to be done there, But the fact that you

454
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 1: might be attracted to certain people, whether romantically or on

455
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:42,920
Speaker 1: a friendship level, because of genetics, that's really interesting. Well,

456
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 1: it's one of the things I was reading about was

457
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:48,120
Speaker 1: talking about how and we hear about this a lot

458
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 1: more in terms of our romantic attractions, how we tend

459
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 1: to subconsciously seek out partners who are more genetically diverse

460
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 1: so that it will give our offspring a better chance

461
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 1: of survival, whereas with friends, we seek out people subconsciously

462
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:09,679
Speaker 1: who are more like genetically similar because we want to

463
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:13,400
Speaker 1: tend and befriends. That's right, especially for ladies. Yeah, and

464
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 1: speaking of which, we have some gender differences to get

465
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: into in our friendship patterns. And also talk about how

466
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: making friends changes over our individual life terms, because as

467
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: I'm sure a number of our listeners who are maybe

468
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:34,680
Speaker 1: heading into their thirties and beyond can attest making friends

469
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 1: as you get older changes it can be a bit

470
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 1: more challenging for a number of reasons that we will

471
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: get into okay, but if we look at gender stuff first. Um.

472
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 1: I thought that the search for numbers on around this

473
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 1: topic was interesting in and of itself because there's a

474
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: lot of studies looking at at how many friends the

475
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 1: average man has, but not so many specific numbers for women.

476
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering if that's not because people just assume

477
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: that women have so many more friends and that men

478
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: don't make close relationships, and so that's more interesting and

479
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: they want to study that more. But if you look

480
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 1: at men's friends in particular. This is from Men's Health Survey,

481
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 1: so keep that in mind. But they found that the

482
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 1: average guy has four point eight close friends whom he

483
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: keeps in contact with, primarily through text, and guys said

484
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:30,280
Speaker 1: they had a best friend of those who had known

485
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: him since high school. Yeah, and I do think that

486
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 1: you're right that there is so much of an assumption

487
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 1: that women just make friends all the time and that

488
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 1: we will have a bestie at all points during our life,

489
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: although that bestie might change. That there's more focus on, well,

490
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: what of men, because there's been a lot more research

491
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: into the dynamics of female friendships. But I think it's

492
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:58,000
Speaker 1: more because it's a given, so there's not as much

493
00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 1: attention to tallying up. We'll just how many friends does

494
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 1: a woman have? Well, yeah, because she's always tending and befriending,

495
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: so we don't have to really worry about her. This

496
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 1: is this is something that we've talked about before a

497
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:11,960
Speaker 1: lot on the podcast. We talked about it in our

498
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 1: female Friendships episode a while ago. But it's the fact

499
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:19,080
Speaker 1: that women tend to respond to stress with this huge

500
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 1: flood of brain chemicals that cause us to make and

501
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 1: maintain friendships with other women in particular. Yeah, this Landmark

502
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 1: study found that when we hang out with our lady friends,

503
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 1: when we go out for sex in the city style

504
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: brunches every every weekend somehow, uh, it actually releases the

505
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 1: bonding chemical oxytocin in our brain, and so we feel

506
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: tended and befriended. And that is sort of the more

507
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:54,600
Speaker 1: female analog to the fight or flight response, right, and

508
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 1: just that women, when women get stressed, our oxytocin makes

509
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 1: us go towards one another, whereas men's testosterone testosterone makes

510
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 1: them go the other way. And female brains seem to

511
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 1: really like this tending and befriending because for the research

512
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 1: has found that once we reach out to our friends,

513
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:15,800
Speaker 1: we get a little shot of oxytocin in our brain.

514
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:19,720
Speaker 1: The more that we do it, the more oxytocin our

515
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: brain's release. So we're just like hugging all the time,

516
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:26,640
Speaker 1: Like I can't stop, I'm just hugging my friends all

517
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 1: the time. Well, it's true, there is a certain kind

518
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: of crisis management that a very best friend can offer

519
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 1: that no one else can offer, even say a spouse

520
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 1: or a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a family member. Yeah,

521
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: I mean that that's what's really jumped out to me.

522
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 1: That's so interesting in all of these various studies that

523
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: it's like, Nope, it's friendship. It's those close platonic friendships

524
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: that really save you and protect you. Well, And I

525
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: wonder if it is that oxytocin connection that explains something

526
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 1: that's called the Steel Magnolia's effect, which is this study

527
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 1: finding that women tend to rate their female best friends

528
00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 1: more highly than guys rate their guy friendships. Like we

529
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 1: we seem to value that even more. Or maybe it

530
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: might also be like a thing of self reporting where

531
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 1: maybe we simply gush more about our girlfriends and guys

532
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:26,680
Speaker 1: gush about their guy friends, because I never want to

533
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 1: contend that male friendships are are no less strong and important. Um,

534
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 1: but but it is interesting and it's also yes called

535
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:38,479
Speaker 1: the steel magnolia's effect. Well, I think that ties in

536
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: with a study, a two thousand study that was published

537
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 1: in the journal Adolescents where they basically put boy friends

538
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 1: and girl friends in rooms together and let them kind

539
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: of hang out in chit chat and kind of looked

540
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: at the way that the two boys talked to each

541
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: other versus the two girls and what they talked about.

542
00:32:56,680 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 1: And boys ended up rating their relationships with best friends

543
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: are in conflict than did girls. But what's interesting about

544
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 1: that is it's not that there's not conflict, it's they

545
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 1: the researchers were saying that, like the guys would just

546
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 1: like hash it out, like what's your problem, here's my problem.

547
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 1: More confrontational. Girls are less likely to be as confrontational

548
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 1: to one another and to maybe talk about Betty Sue

549
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:22,280
Speaker 1: behind her back Betty Sue, but I know Betty Sue

550
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 1: and Peter like God. So anyway, but girls rated lower

551
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 1: in withdrawal and higher in communication skills and support validation

552
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: than boys. So girls are better at talking about things,

553
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: although sometimes that talking happens behind the back. Um. Just

554
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 1: one side note on girl code versus guy code. There

555
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 1: has been some other research which has suggested that girls,

556
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 1: especially like adolescent girls, tend to hold their besties to

557
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 1: hire girl code standards than guys do for their guy friendships.

558
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: And I think it's partially because of the fact that

559
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 1: maybe boys tend to be a little bit more confrontational

560
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 1: to each other than girls do, because conflict resolution within

561
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 1: you know, thirteen year old girl friendships can be challenging

562
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 1: at times. Yeah, well, so I promised you that we

563
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:24,920
Speaker 1: would talk about cross sex friendships again, and here it is. Uh,

564
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:27,799
Speaker 1: we're still talking about adolescence, some boys and girls here

565
00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 1: and there was a two thousand eight study in the

566
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:35,480
Speaker 1: Journal of Youth Adolescence that looked at gender age, cross

567
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 1: sex friendships and what that means regarding antisocial behavior. I

568
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 1: read the study and I was like, oh God, I

569
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:44,800
Speaker 1: had a lot of good guy friends in high school. Lord. Anyway,

570
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 1: So here it is. They found that boys who had

571
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 1: only same sex best friends and girls who had other

572
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 1: sex best friends endorsed higher rates of anti social behavior.

573
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 1: Having they're sex best friends predicted anti social behavior from

574
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: six to seventh grade and eight to eleventh grade, especially

575
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:11,359
Speaker 1: for girls. So what does that mean then, I mean,

576
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:15,320
Speaker 1: are they basically saying that maybe girls who are getting

577
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: along better with guys just don't get along as well

578
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:20,960
Speaker 1: with girls, and so they're calling it anti social behavior.

579
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:23,279
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I wonder if it ties back

580
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: to the other cross sex friendship study, which talked about popularity.

581
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:30,360
Speaker 1: It talked about choosing bad behaviors and things like smoking

582
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 1: and drinking, and the fact that girls who had more

583
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 1: cross sex friendships were more likely to engage in this

584
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:39,799
Speaker 1: behavior or think it was normal. So that's that's an

585
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 1: interesting finder. Yeah, I mean I don't think. I don't know.

586
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:46,800
Speaker 1: It sounds the the language that it uses sounds almost

587
00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 1: so alarmous because we hear anti social like oh no.

588
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 1: But I think in this case, antisocial means something a

589
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:56,200
Speaker 1: little gentler than the way it sounds. I think it

590
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 1: means like maybe just things that go against the norm. Well,

591
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:03,040
Speaker 1: as we move out of adolescence and into adulthood. Research

592
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:10,600
Speaker 1: has also suggested that our patterns of cross sex friendships

593
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 1: also change, and essentially, women like move away from having

594
00:36:16,680 --> 00:36:21,319
Speaker 1: a best guy friend, usually in heterosexual relationships, that would

595
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:24,759
Speaker 1: be the husband, and it moves away from them to

596
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:28,280
Speaker 1: another female as we get older. Yeah, usually the daughter.

597
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:30,960
Speaker 1: I am a perfect example of this. Like, So, this

598
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:34,280
Speaker 1: study study looked at basically phone records who were people

599
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 1: calling and for several years the woman was calling a

600
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:41,080
Speaker 1: man all the time, and then slowly that shifted to

601
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 1: be a woman, typically the daughter. So, my mom calls

602
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 1: me all the time, you know, like I can't access

603
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:51,360
Speaker 1: my e books? Well did you buy them? I don't know. Well, okay,

604
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:55,360
Speaker 1: call Peach mac Um, called Betty, Sue or Peter Mom.

605
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:57,959
Speaker 1: I'm busy. Maybe they can deal with it, since Peter

606
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:01,520
Speaker 1: is so cool. Um. But what they found was that

607
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: men show a more consistent pattern of being linked to

608
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:08,719
Speaker 1: a female best friend their entire lives, which I think,

609
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 1: judging by the fact that they qualified the male best

610
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: friend as someone who became the husband typically, this just

611
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:19,120
Speaker 1: sounds like. This just sounds like whereas the wife starts

612
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:21,399
Speaker 1: calling the daughter instead of the husband, the husband keeps

613
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,200
Speaker 1: calling the wife, which I think is also a pattern

614
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:26,399
Speaker 1: that holds true in my family. My my mother calls

615
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:29,000
Speaker 1: me all the time. My father calls my mother. Yeah,

616
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 1: so I think that's all that is well, and that

617
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: brings up then how our pattern of making friends changes

618
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:41,359
Speaker 1: as we age and if we're sort of backing out

619
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: of the gendered lens and looking just at age. Um.

620
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:46,760
Speaker 1: There was a two thousand eight study in the Journal

621
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 1: of Experimental Education looking at school attitudes and friendship and

622
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: as you might expect, adolescents who felt that they were

623
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 1: valued and respected by their classmates were more likely to

624
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 1: report adaptive achievement motivation. And what does that mean? That

625
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 1: just means that you're more likely to foster this long

626
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 1: term achievement in school. You're more likely to have good

627
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:15,839
Speaker 1: quality friendships that put a value on academics versus poor

628
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 1: quality friendships and viewing classmates as resistant to school norms.

629
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 1: That's related to reports of maladaptive achievement motivation. So basically,

630
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 1: if you have good friends who value academics, you're going

631
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:29,720
Speaker 1: to consider it the norm. Again, there's that thing, the norm,

632
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:31,759
Speaker 1: and you are also going to value academics and do

633
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 1: well in school. And then though, as you start to

634
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:37,760
Speaker 1: make the transition from high school to college, it really

635
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:42,320
Speaker 1: starts to test your friendships. Not so surprisingly, um, during

636
00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 1: just the first year in college, high school, best friendships

637
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:51,759
Speaker 1: declined and satisfaction, commitment, rewards, and investments, according to a

638
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 1: two thousand three study published in the journal Personal Relationships.

639
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:59,959
Speaker 1: And during this period that the freshman year of college,

640
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 1: there's also an increase in the cost and alternatives to

641
00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 1: best friend relationships. So it's not so surprising because you

642
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:10,880
Speaker 1: go to college unless you're maybe bunking with your best

643
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:14,120
Speaker 1: friend from high school or still see them regularly, you're

644
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:18,319
Speaker 1: being introduced to a whole, bigger, broader world of potential

645
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:22,200
Speaker 1: best friendships. Yeah, a bigger, broader world. And also maybe

646
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:24,359
Speaker 1: it's just harder to keep in touch with friends back

647
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: home and that kind of thing. And so they found

648
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 1: that what really helped these best friendships continue to thrive

649
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:35,320
Speaker 1: from high school through into college was maintenance behaviors, also

650
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 1: things like supportiveness, self disclosure, interaction. Basically, the more you

651
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:43,879
Speaker 1: continue to communicate on a really intimate level, like constantly

652
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: and consistently, the better that friendship will be maintained well.

653
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: And that completely jives with a two thousand study called

654
00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: Forecasting Friends Forever, which I really enjoyed that study title.

655
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:03,839
Speaker 1: But these research or collected data across nineteen years of

656
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:09,400
Speaker 1: different friends, starting when these friends were in college and

657
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 1: after nineteen years, obviously, like a lot of these people

658
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:14,839
Speaker 1: had had kids, they had moved an average of like

659
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:18,319
Speaker 1: five point six times, which is kind of funny because like,

660
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:21,919
Speaker 1: what does moving point six mean? It just means math

661
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:28,239
Speaker 1: is awkward sometimes. And they found that expressions of intimacy

662
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:30,719
Speaker 1: at the outset of the study, like when you know,

663
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 1: these friends were talking about each other when they were

664
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:36,120
Speaker 1: still in college, was not a major predictor of whether

665
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 1: they would still be friends nineteen years later. So if

666
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:41,800
Speaker 1: you were like, oh my god, we're just so but friends.

667
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:45,760
Speaker 1: She's awesome, I love her, We'll be friends forever doesn't

668
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:49,799
Speaker 1: necessarily mean it's going to happen. It was more the

669
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:54,640
Speaker 1: level of interdependence and essentially thinking and perceiving the world

670
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 1: in similar kinds of ways that most strongly predicted whether

671
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 1: they would be friends almost two decades later, And so

672
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:07,479
Speaker 1: the researchers recommended that really learning to communicate and sort

673
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 1: of figuring out how each person sees the world and

674
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:15,280
Speaker 1: what your value systems are and all of that matters

675
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:19,560
Speaker 1: the most if you want to be friends forever. Yeah,

676
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:21,719
Speaker 1: Like I have two friends, both of whom I've known

677
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:26,760
Speaker 1: forever um but one she and I are communication styles

678
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:29,759
Speaker 1: are very similar, and that we don't you know, we've

679
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:31,919
Speaker 1: been friends forever. We we love and adore each other,

680
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:36,360
Speaker 1: but we can go very very long times without seeing

681
00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 1: or hearing from each other, and then when we do

682
00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 1: see each other, we just have a glass of wine

683
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 1: and pick right back up where we left off, and

684
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: it's great. Another friend that I know, um, that I've

685
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:47,240
Speaker 1: had forever. She has a slightly different set of needs

686
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:49,960
Speaker 1: and expectations, and you know that's always dangerous in any

687
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:54,280
Speaker 1: type of relationship to expectation. But um, you know, she's

688
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:56,440
Speaker 1: really hurt if we go for too long without speaking

689
00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 1: to each other. And so that relationship requires a different

690
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:03,200
Speaker 1: type of effort and energy and communication style. Well, and

691
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:06,120
Speaker 1: the importance is that you know that and you recognize that,

692
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:09,520
Speaker 1: so you're not kind of you know, because you clearly

693
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:12,920
Speaker 1: can communicate with each other. So it's more than the

694
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 1: frequency of communication. And I'm the same way with my

695
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:18,680
Speaker 1: closest friends. We will go for long periods of time

696
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 1: without talking because I'm just I'm rolling on a phone talker.

697
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:25,759
Speaker 1: I'm more of a podcast talker, Caroline, But I'm not

698
00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:27,480
Speaker 1: a phone talker either, and that does make a lot

699
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 1: of things difficult, like my mother all the time. Oh

700
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:36,759
Speaker 1: that's different. But the older you get, though, it can

701
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 1: be challenging to make new friends because obviously you know

702
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 1: those some of those friendships from say high school in

703
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 1: college do fade away because you develop your own life

704
00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:51,919
Speaker 1: and your own rhythm and probably move and maybe meet

705
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 1: someone that you settled down with. And um, one of

706
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:58,600
Speaker 1: us is sort of a side note. But one major

707
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 1: milestone at some that the survey found is a great

708
00:43:04,040 --> 00:43:08,320
Speaker 1: predictor of making new friends is having a baby. Yeah,

709
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 1: so if you're feeling lonely, just have a baby. Oh god, don't, don't. Um.

710
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:15,319
Speaker 1: But yeah, so this is a survey, so you know,

711
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:17,400
Speaker 1: keep in mind it's not like an academic study, but

712
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:22,360
Speaker 1: survey funded by Nature's Purist, a baby products company, found

713
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:25,280
Speaker 1: that fifty three of new moms said it was easier

714
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 1: to bond with other women after having a baby, and

715
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 1: sevent those said it was because they had so much

716
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 1: in common. In my brain, I'm just like, you have

717
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:37,920
Speaker 1: a baby in common. But of course that brings with

718
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:40,759
Speaker 1: it like an entirely new life. And a lot of

719
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: these moms, surveys said, not only did they now have

720
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:47,760
Speaker 1: things in common like um, post baby sex worries or

721
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: you know, body worries, or like I haven't slept in

722
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:54,320
Speaker 1: seven months anymore. Ever, they're also worried about just boring

723
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 1: their old friends with baby talk. Yeah. I mean that

724
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 1: that those survey findings make total sense. Um, But when

725
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:05,600
Speaker 1: it comes to just making friends, if you aren't in

726
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 1: you know, a baby circle, it can be challenging. This

727
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:13,480
Speaker 1: was something that Alex Williams wrote about not too long

728
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:16,640
Speaker 1: ago in the New York Times, and he said that

729
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 1: you sort of have to resign yourself once you get

730
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:21,880
Speaker 1: into your thirties of making what he calls kind of

731
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:26,760
Speaker 1: friends instead of best friends. They're not like the super

732
00:44:26,800 --> 00:44:28,759
Speaker 1: best friends that you would hang out with almost like

733
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:32,040
Speaker 1: cheer style, like every night you hang out and it's awesome.

734
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:35,759
Speaker 1: But it's more getting into the situational friend zone. So

735
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:38,160
Speaker 1: you have your kind of friends that you will do

736
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:40,279
Speaker 1: outdoors and stuff with, and then you have your kind

737
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:42,560
Speaker 1: of friends that are like movie buffs, so you go

738
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: to like film festivals with them. And then you have

739
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 1: your I don't know what it's another kind of friend.

740
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:55,080
Speaker 1: Computer nerd friends. Yes, can you program computers together? Yes?

741
00:44:55,520 --> 00:45:00,239
Speaker 1: Those friends? Um. Yeah, but He says that you've like,

742
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 1: once you've crossed the threshold into your thirties, you're now

743
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:06,799
Speaker 1: in the situational friend zone. Do do do Do Do

744
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:10,240
Speaker 1: do Oh. Another big kind of friend, the couple friend.

745
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:12,799
Speaker 1: You know, the two people that get along really well

746
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:15,040
Speaker 1: so you can hang out at a fore top there

747
00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 1: you go. Well, so what's going on around this age?

748
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:21,799
Speaker 1: Psychology professor Laura Carsonson, who is the director of the

749
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:26,320
Speaker 1: Stanford Center on Longevity in California, has observed that people

750
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:30,719
Speaker 1: tend to interact with fewer people as they move toward midlife,

751
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: but that they end up growing closer to the friends

752
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:37,880
Speaker 1: they already have. Why she kind of this is depressing.

753
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 1: She says that once we turn thirty, it reminds us

754
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 1: that our time horizons are shrinking, so we're less focused

755
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 1: on exploration and more concentrating on the here and now. Yeah,

756
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:51,160
Speaker 1: just anecdotally speaking, that makes sense because at least in

757
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:54,240
Speaker 1: my day to day I can't really see much beyond

758
00:45:54,280 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 1: the here and now because I have no free time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um,

759
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:03,719
Speaker 1: there's also the whole issue. According to Marla Paul, who's

760
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: the author of the Friendship Crisis, Finding, Making and keeping

761
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:09,399
Speaker 1: friends when you're not a kid anymore. She also says

762
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:11,719
Speaker 1: that the bar is simply higher than it was when

763
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 1: we were younger, when we were in college, and we're

764
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: surrounded by like thousands of other humans, and we can

765
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 1: pick and choose our friends at will. We're not just

766
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 1: willing to meet in general, We're not just willing to

767
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:26,560
Speaker 1: meet just anyone for an afterwork Margarita. Well, if there

768
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:29,479
Speaker 1: is a Margarita involved, my bar is actually quite low,

769
00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 1: quite low. But in terms yeah, in terms of like

770
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:34,719
Speaker 1: forming really close friendships, I think it takes a little

771
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 1: more now because I guess once you're thirty, you know

772
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:40,359
Speaker 1: your politics are set, your religious views are set, like

773
00:46:40,400 --> 00:46:42,800
Speaker 1: all of these important things, and your view on kids

774
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 1: in marriage and whether you're going to do that is set. Also,

775
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 1: your schedule is very set. Um. But what if if

776
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 1: you are interested in making a new solid friendship. There

777
00:46:55,120 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: are three criteria that sociologists say are critical for forging

778
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 1: the bonds, which are proximity, repeated and unplanned interactions, and

779
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:08,200
Speaker 1: a setting that encourages people to let their guard down

780
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:12,960
Speaker 1: i e. Margarita's um and also confide in each other.

781
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:16,920
Speaker 1: And those might seem like a simple set of criteria,

782
00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 1: but actually finding all of those in one that is

783
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 1: a challenge because once you're like thirty ish and you're

784
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:25,319
Speaker 1: in the working world, it is harder. Like, you know,

785
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 1: you have work friends, but work is an interesting situation

786
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:31,960
Speaker 1: because people move on and change jobs. They compete with

787
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:35,439
Speaker 1: each other for roles and tasks and whatever else they're

788
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 1: competing for, and different people earn less and more than

789
00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 1: each other. So there's that whole money issue too. And

790
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:45,400
Speaker 1: if you're in a relationship, if you're looking for couple friends,

791
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 1: it's like matchmaking for two to all four people like

792
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:50,680
Speaker 1: each other. That's a whole other thing. So what do

793
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:53,480
Speaker 1: we do then? Obviously we have more challenges as we

794
00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 1: get older to finding new friends. And if you're in

795
00:47:57,080 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 1: the market for a new friend, I think one good

796
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 1: piece of advice that Tracy Moore at Jezebel offered was

797
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 1: that you you need to just go lots of places,

798
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 1: do lots of things that you like to do, essentially

799
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:15,200
Speaker 1: set yourself up to meet people who are like you,

800
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:19,839
Speaker 1: whether that's joining an outdoor group or volunteering regularly, or

801
00:48:20,160 --> 00:48:23,279
Speaker 1: essentially like pursuing your passion where other people will be

802
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 1: pursuing a similar passion, and that right there will give

803
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:28,960
Speaker 1: you a foundation to start from. Right, because we're not

804
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:32,279
Speaker 1: sixty anymore, hopefully we'll beyond the point where we lie

805
00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:35,239
Speaker 1: about our interests and you know what we like and

806
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:38,319
Speaker 1: don't like. And so the more you put yourself in

807
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 1: a situation where you were genuinely happy and doing something

808
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:43,200
Speaker 1: that you love, the more chance you'll meet somebody who

809
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:46,360
Speaker 1: also really loves doing that thing well. And one theme

810
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 1: that I hear a lot when I talk to girl

811
00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 1: friends my age about this process of meeting new friends

812
00:48:53,520 --> 00:48:57,759
Speaker 1: is that it feels very much like dating, for sure. Yeah,

813
00:48:58,000 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 1: being a grown up and finding a new friend. And

814
00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:02,160
Speaker 1: I've I not too long ago, have this conversation with

815
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:05,480
Speaker 1: a mixed group men and women, and everybody agreed it's

816
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:07,960
Speaker 1: like dating, and that it's hard, and but that it's

817
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:10,960
Speaker 1: almost even more rewarding than going on several first dates

818
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:14,080
Speaker 1: like with a possible romantic partner, because at least, like

819
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:16,959
Speaker 1: there's no pressure in the friendship thing. Yeah, well, that

820
00:49:16,960 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 1: that's another thing. It's like you have to relieve yourself

821
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 1: of being terrified that it might not work out, because

822
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:27,680
Speaker 1: it might not. You might not see this person, you

823
00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 1: might this person might not be your BFF, but that's

824
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 1: okay because he or she is busy, just like you

825
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:37,320
Speaker 1: are probably busy, and there are plenty of friend fish

826
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:39,759
Speaker 1: in the sea, that's right. I mean, that's another thing

827
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:41,920
Speaker 1: that that Tracy Moore said to is like the stakes

828
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:45,360
Speaker 1: are very low. You know, meet people who make you happy,

829
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:47,200
Speaker 1: and if they don't make you happy, or they don't

830
00:49:47,280 --> 00:49:49,600
Speaker 1: hang around or you don't see them again, you'll meet

831
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:52,239
Speaker 1: somebody else. Yeah, but I think it is important. I mean,

832
00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:55,360
Speaker 1: particularly if you're in a situation where you've moved to

833
00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 1: a new city or you are at a new job.

834
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 1: You're just sort of in like an known spots starting

835
00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:05,480
Speaker 1: from zero and obviously want some face to face friends.

836
00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:08,360
Speaker 1: It is. It is work in a lot of ways,

837
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 1: like like dating, if you want to if you want

838
00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:14,600
Speaker 1: to get out there, you gotta put some effort into it. Yeah,

839
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:17,520
Speaker 1: but I think yeah, to develop, I mean, anybody can

840
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:20,360
Speaker 1: have a circle of acquaintances where you're you're friendly to people,

841
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:23,800
Speaker 1: but if you really are after like a very close friendship,

842
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:26,480
Speaker 1: it's so critical to be yourself. And I mean, I

843
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:29,080
Speaker 1: know we say that in terms of romantic relationships too,

844
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:31,799
Speaker 1: but like, how are you expected to have a BFF

845
00:50:31,840 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: for a circle of close friends if you're acting like

846
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:38,560
Speaker 1: you're not who you say you are or something right,

847
00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 1: because the truth will come out eventually. But there was

848
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 1: one article that was in the Daily Email, so but

849
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:50,959
Speaker 1: bear with me. It was simply um a piece on

850
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:55,759
Speaker 1: friendships among women that had significant age gaps, and it

851
00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:57,920
Speaker 1: was just like anecdotes of how and why they got

852
00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 1: along so well, and it was fascinating to see these

853
00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:05,920
Speaker 1: like much older women befriending much younger women and vice versa,

854
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:10,160
Speaker 1: and how it's important to also as we get older,

855
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:14,000
Speaker 1: to stay open to making friends who might not be

856
00:51:14,080 --> 00:51:17,239
Speaker 1: within you know, like two years on either side of

857
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:20,360
Speaker 1: our age, because older folks are even younger folks depending

858
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:23,640
Speaker 1: on how old you are, can make fantastic friends too. Well.

859
00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:26,400
Speaker 1: It's that whole diversity of experience thing. One thing that

860
00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:30,799
Speaker 1: relationship coach Karen Smedley pointed out was that maybe you're

861
00:51:30,840 --> 00:51:32,719
Speaker 1: at an age where all of your friends are having

862
00:51:32,719 --> 00:51:36,400
Speaker 1: babies but you either can't, don't want to, aren't ready, whatever.

863
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:40,839
Speaker 1: Having an older friend who you know, having an older

864
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:42,680
Speaker 1: friend or a younger friend who's having a different life

865
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:46,359
Speaker 1: experience than your age group can be very valuable because

866
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:48,800
Speaker 1: it kind of takes the pressure off. You're like, oh,

867
00:51:48,880 --> 00:51:51,600
Speaker 1: now I can see that there are other lifestyles out there.

868
00:51:51,680 --> 00:51:53,360
Speaker 1: I don't have to have this pressure to do X

869
00:51:53,520 --> 00:51:56,920
Speaker 1: y Z that all my friends are doing. Yeah, but now, Caroline,

870
00:51:56,960 --> 00:51:59,719
Speaker 1: is at time for us to ask folks for friendship

871
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:03,239
Speaker 1: store for sure? Well, we want to hear from you

872
00:52:03,320 --> 00:52:09,160
Speaker 1: about your best friend and how friendship has affected your life.

873
00:52:09,800 --> 00:52:12,399
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is where

874
00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:14,319
Speaker 1: you can send us your letters. You can also though,

875
00:52:14,360 --> 00:52:16,880
Speaker 1: tweet us at mom stuf podcast or send us a

876
00:52:16,880 --> 00:52:21,440
Speaker 1: message on Facebook. And one final making friends tip. You know,

877
00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:24,440
Speaker 1: you can always bring up the podcast because you know,

878
00:52:24,520 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 1: if you both like the podcast, then hey, you got

879
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:31,239
Speaker 1: you have like over five topics to talk about. That's right.

880
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:34,279
Speaker 1: So with that, we have a couple of letters to

881
00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 1: share with you our friends right now. Okay, I have

882
00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:58,480
Speaker 1: a letter here from Anna who says that she used

883
00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 1: to get the question no, we're are you really from

884
00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:04,560
Speaker 1: all the time. She says, my family is a mix

885
00:53:04,600 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 1: of German, Croatian, Swedish and Ukrainian, and I came out

886
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: looking very Eastern European. My professors would pronounce my name

887
00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:14,480
Speaker 1: with a strong accent. During roll call and after class

888
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:17,279
Speaker 1: seemed very interested in asking where I was from. When

889
00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 1: I would reply, oh, about two hours north in Ohio,

890
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:23,920
Speaker 1: they would reply with no. Before that, I never quite

891
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:26,359
Speaker 1: knew how to respond. People have even gone so far

892
00:53:26,400 --> 00:53:28,720
Speaker 1: as to speak to me in Russian or in very

893
00:53:28,719 --> 00:53:31,799
Speaker 1: slow English. I also thought it might be interesting to

894
00:53:31,800 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 1: give a perspective on exotic beauty from a slightly different perspective.

895
00:53:35,280 --> 00:53:38,080
Speaker 1: I'm a very light skinned, light haired, green eyed girl

896
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:41,560
Speaker 1: living in rural Japan. Not many foreigners visit this part

897
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:44,160
Speaker 1: of Japan, let alone live here. So for many people,

898
00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:46,600
Speaker 1: I am their first white foreigner they have seen in person.

899
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:50,160
Speaker 1: The initial reaction is lots of squealing, with people touching

900
00:53:50,200 --> 00:53:54,319
Speaker 1: my hair, getting uncomfortably close to my eyes, and complimenting

901
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:56,600
Speaker 1: me on how small my face is and how big

902
00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: my nose and eyes are. Those are apparently compliments. I've

903
00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:01,920
Speaker 1: gotten many people asking me to take and use my

904
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:04,920
Speaker 1: photo for advertising purposes with no pay, because I have

905
00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:08,000
Speaker 1: that quote unquote Russian beauty that is sought after here.

906
00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:12,000
Speaker 1: It all seems very forced, ultrapolite, but definitely does make

907
00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:14,879
Speaker 1: me feel an other. I would also like to add

908
00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:17,080
Speaker 1: that the amount of products here to make people women

909
00:54:17,120 --> 00:54:20,840
Speaker 1: in particular look western is mind boggling. Whitening creams, I

910
00:54:21,040 --> 00:54:23,920
Speaker 1: tape colored contacts for less than the equivalent of ten

911
00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:27,040
Speaker 1: dollars at a drug store. Hair lightning kits, and arm

912
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:30,239
Speaker 1: and face covers for the beach, cars and bikes. I

913
00:54:30,280 --> 00:54:32,920
Speaker 1: just thought I would share. Man. Okay, Well, thanks for

914
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:35,799
Speaker 1: the very interesting perspective. Annah, Well, I've got another letter

915
00:54:35,840 --> 00:54:39,600
Speaker 1: here in response to our exotic beauty episode. This is

916
00:54:39,640 --> 00:54:42,160
Speaker 1: coming from Lillian, who writes, I grew up in an

917
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:45,040
Speaker 1: inner city neighborhood in northern New Jersey as a bi

918
00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:48,720
Speaker 1: racial woman of Puerto Rican and Chinese ethnicity. I've encountered

919
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:52,160
Speaker 1: a really uncomfortable amount of fetishizing, not only from white men,

920
00:54:52,360 --> 00:54:55,120
Speaker 1: but also from black and Hispanic men who generally watched

921
00:54:55,160 --> 00:54:57,800
Speaker 1: too many Kung Fu movies. If I had a dollar

922
00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:00,560
Speaker 1: for every time I've been told I'm comprised of quote

923
00:55:00,600 --> 00:55:03,560
Speaker 1: the best of both worlds, or told that somehow my

924
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:07,640
Speaker 1: mix is superior for stupid stereotypical reasons, I'd be a

925
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:11,560
Speaker 1: very wealthy woman Puerto Rican curves and a docile freak

926
00:55:11,600 --> 00:55:15,000
Speaker 1: in the bedroom. The sex must be amazing. Imagine the

927
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:17,920
Speaker 1: food she can cook. The first person to call me

928
00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:21,240
Speaker 1: exotic was my white male homeroom teacher in my freshman

929
00:55:21,320 --> 00:55:25,399
Speaker 1: year of high school. That was an uncomfortable year. Fortunately, though,

930
00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:28,359
Speaker 1: since then, I've heard the quote unquote compliment so many

931
00:55:28,360 --> 00:55:30,839
Speaker 1: times that I've developed the perfect response to it. Now.

932
00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:34,200
Speaker 1: Whenever someone calls me exotic, I say, oh great, another

933
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:36,320
Speaker 1: one who wants to put me in a cage a

934
00:55:36,440 --> 00:55:40,080
Speaker 1: parent is exotic. I'm from New Jersey. The resulting flash

935
00:55:40,080 --> 00:55:43,799
Speaker 1: of embarrassment that tends to cross their faces is just priceless.

936
00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:47,960
Speaker 1: So thanks Lilian, and thanks to everybody who's written into

937
00:55:48,040 --> 00:55:50,560
Speaker 1: us mom Stuff at how stuff Works dot Com is

938
00:55:50,640 --> 00:55:53,399
Speaker 1: our email address, but you can also reach us on

939
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:56,080
Speaker 1: Facebook and tweet us at mom Stuff podcast and for

940
00:55:56,160 --> 00:55:58,359
Speaker 1: links to all of our social media as well as

941
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:01,839
Speaker 1: all of our podcast, blog and videos. There's one place

942
00:56:01,880 --> 00:56:08,359
Speaker 1: to go, and it's stuff Mom Never Told You dot com.

943
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:10,840
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is

944
00:56:10,840 --> 00:56:21,319
Speaker 1: it how Stuff Works dot com. And that brings us

945
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:24,319
Speaker 1: to the end of this classic episode. I hope you've

946
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:26,880
Speaker 1: learned a lot about best friends and feeling warm and

947
00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:30,040
Speaker 1: fuzzy about perhaps your best friend. Uh we would love

948
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:32,360
Speaker 1: to hear about your best friend, and you can email

949
00:56:32,440 --> 00:56:35,160
Speaker 1: us about them at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeart

950
00:56:35,160 --> 00:56:37,760
Speaker 1: media dot com. You can also find us on Twitter

951
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:40,319
Speaker 1: at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at Stuff I've

952
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:44,040
Speaker 1: Never Told You. Thanks as always to our suproducer Andrew Howard,

953
00:56:44,600 --> 00:56:46,839
Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. Stuff I've Never Told

954
00:56:46,840 --> 00:56:48,839
Speaker 1: You the production of I Heart Radios how Stuff Works.

955
00:56:48,880 --> 00:56:51,439
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeart Radio app,

956
00:56:51,480 --> 00:56:53,760
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

957
00:57:00,440 --> 00:57:00,480
Speaker 1: W