Speaker 1: Our friends kind of make us feel like whole people
Speaker 1: because of the ways they invite different parts of ourselves
Speaker 1: to come out.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 2: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 2: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 2: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 3: Marissa Franco, a psychologist and national speaker. She's known for
Speaker 3: digesting and communicating science in ways that resonate deeply enough
Speaker 3: with people to change their lives. Marissa is a professor
Speaker 3: at the University of Maryland and wrote the New York
Speaker 3: Times best selling book that is discussed in this interview.
Speaker 3: It's called Platonic, How the Science of Attachment can help
Speaker 3: You Make and keep Friends.
Speaker 4: Him Marissa, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hi, thanks so much for having me Eric.
Speaker 4: I'm excited to have you on. We're going to be
Speaker 4: discussing your book Platonic, How the Science of Attachment can
Speaker 4: help you Make and Keep Friends. But before we do that,
Speaker 4: I'd like to start, like we always do, with a parable.
Speaker 4: And in the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with
Speaker 4: their grandchild and they say, in life, there's two wolves
Speaker 4: inside of us that are always a battle. One is
Speaker 4: a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery
Speaker 4: and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which represents
Speaker 4: things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops.
Speaker 4: They think about it for a second. They look up
Speaker 4: at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins?
Speaker 4: And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 4: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 4: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 4: that you do.
Speaker 1: Mmmm hmmm, yeah. I think that what that brings up
Speaker 1: for me is like internal family systems theory. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've heard of it, But yeah, that maybe
Speaker 1: part of attuning to our good wolf is being able
Speaker 1: to understand our bad wolf as unmet needs and sitting
Speaker 1: with what that bad wolf might need from us so
Speaker 1: that it can express itself differently than the ways that
Speaker 1: it is expressing itself.
Speaker 4: Yep, that makes a lot of sense. I think the
Speaker 4: thing about that parable is it makes it sound like
Speaker 4: we have these sort of two competing things within us,
Speaker 4: which most of us if you pay close at time
Speaker 4: in yourself, you realize there's more than two things going
Speaker 4: on in there. It's a family, as they say. So
Speaker 4: part of why I was so excited to have you
Speaker 4: on is we are spending June orienting our email, newsletter
Speaker 4: and our text that we send to people around friendship.
Speaker 4: And friendship is core to this show because part of
Speaker 4: the reason that I started it ten years ago was
Speaker 4: because my best friend was an audio engineer and I
Speaker 4: wanted something for us to do together. You know, friendship
Speaker 4: has been important. On our hundredth episode, we discussed Chris
Speaker 4: andized friendship. So it's always been something that I've really valued,
Speaker 4: and yet you describe early on in the book, I
Speaker 4: think something that's pretty common for most of us and
Speaker 4: you talk about the end of a promising romance ending
Speaker 4: in disaster.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So in my young twenties, I was way
Speaker 1: more romantically oriented than platonically oriented. And I went through
Speaker 1: this breakup and you know, thoughts that went through my
Speaker 1: head was like, Oh, I guess I'm unlovable because I
Speaker 1: don't have this romantic love and I have no love
Speaker 1: in my life. But one thing that I did that
Speaker 1: I'm really happy that I did was I went to
Speaker 1: my friend Heather, and I was like, let's start a
Speaker 1: wellness group. We can meet up and cook and meditate
Speaker 1: and do yoga and practice wellness. And I thought this
Speaker 1: will really help me grieve. But what it did was
Speaker 1: it just blew my mind because I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this form of love is so stabilizing right now, It's
Speaker 1: so significant to me. It's the safest love I've known
Speaker 1: so far. And I began to question those assumptions that
Speaker 1: I had about I have no love in my life
Speaker 1: without romantic love, and I was like, well, why doesn't
Speaker 1: this love matter, Like why isn't this considered significant? Why
Speaker 1: do I feel like I'm worthless without one form of
Speaker 1: love when I have so much of another form of love?
Speaker 1: And so that's how I became really interested in friendship
Speaker 1: because I felt like my experience probably reflects a larger
Speaker 1: culture that really has a problem in this hierarchy that
Speaker 1: we place on love.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you talk about the fact that platon love lies
Speaker 4: at the lowest rung of the hierarchy our culture places
Speaker 4: on love. Right, It goes under the one that most
Speaker 4: people glorify, which is romantic love, and then it falls
Speaker 4: certainly under even family love in our general cultural way
Speaker 4: of viewing the world. And I certainly have fallen into
Speaker 4: that in the past. When a relationship ends, I grieve
Speaker 4: that relationship greatly, and then when I'm in the relationship,
Speaker 4: I spend less time on my friendships. Now, I've been
Speaker 4: fortunate to have a number of friends that I've had
Speaker 4: for a long time, and those friendships sort of have
Speaker 4: managed to endure, and it's always been important, and I've
Speaker 4: always wondered if some degree, what's going on with me
Speaker 4: is I take my friendships for granted because I have them.
Speaker 4: But I think you're pointing towards a much broader phenomenon
Speaker 4: than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I am. And it's interesting because I like
Speaker 1: to mention that it hasn't always been like this, that
Speaker 1: the term platonic is based off of Plato's teachings, and
Speaker 1: it's a love so beautiful that it transcends the physical
Speaker 1: and it's actually seen as like a superior form of
Speaker 1: love that we don't need this physicality to bring us together.
Speaker 1: What really changed was, you know, women used to kind
Speaker 1: of have to get married because we didn't have any rights,
Speaker 1: and so there was no way to threaten romantic love
Speaker 1: and threaten marriage. But once women started to get more rights,
Speaker 1: and now you don't need this marriage. There's this cultural
Speaker 1: shift that made it so that people now felt psychologically
Speaker 1: incomplete even if they weren't materially incomplete in the same
Speaker 1: way without marriage. And so, you know, around the turn
Speaker 1: of the nineteen hundreds, that's when we saw this like
Speaker 1: big change in terms of the hierarchy that we have
Speaker 1: of love. And I say that because I think we
Speaker 1: can easily think that the ways we perceive love now
Speaker 1: are normal and natural, and I want to call out
Speaker 1: that in fact, your friendships may be weaker than your
Speaker 1: platonic partnerships because you think that that's normal and natural,
Speaker 1: you then invest so much less. You're not reaching out
Speaker 1: as much, you're not as vulnerable. You're not prioritizing, you're
Speaker 1: not spending as much time together, and any relationship that
Speaker 1: you're not putting as much effort in is going to
Speaker 1: be inferior, not because it's inferior inherently by definition.
Speaker 4: One of the points that you make that I think
Speaker 4: is interesting because it reflects back on romantic love is
Speaker 4: that people who have good friendships, I don't know if
Speaker 4: this is the way you would say it, but tend
Speaker 4: to be more successful in romantic love or have better relationships.
Speaker 4: Friendships outside of the core romance actually are a strengthen
Speaker 4: an and protective factor for that relationship itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we see in the research, for example, that you know,
Speaker 1: if I have a partner, not only am I less
Speaker 1: depressed if I have friends outside of the partnership, but
Speaker 1: also my partner is less depressed. It's like a spillover
Speaker 1: effect that if I go through conflict with my romantic
Speaker 1: partner the next day, my stress hormones are all wonky
Speaker 1: in terms of their release, but not if I have
Speaker 1: quality connection outside the partnership. So anything that stabilizes and
Speaker 1: anchors you, like friendship does for us, allows us to
Speaker 1: have resources to show up in our romantic partnerships better.
Speaker 1: The other thing is, you know, I certainly realized this
Speaker 1: in the pandemic. I was living with a partner and
Speaker 1: still feeling very lonely, and I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 1: people felt that way. And I read that there were
Speaker 1: actually three different types of loneliness. Intimate loneliness, the desire
Speaker 1: for a close intimate relationship, relational loneliness, the desire for
Speaker 1: someone as close as a friend, and then collective loneliness,
Speaker 1: which is the desire for a group working towards a
Speaker 1: common goal. And the implications of this research is that
Speaker 1: you could find someone that you feel so deeply connected
Speaker 1: to romantically and still feel lonely because as human beings
Speaker 1: were kind of wired to need an entire community to
Speaker 1: feel completely socially nourished.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that's interesting because I have used the
Speaker 4: term community for a long time. I got sober in
Speaker 4: twelve step programs, which is a very much a community thing.
Speaker 4: It's a phrase that gets thrown out a lot in
Speaker 4: well being circles. And part of the reason that I
Speaker 4: wanted to spend June not on community but on the
Speaker 4: idea of friendship is because it seemed like as I
Speaker 4: thought about it, I was like, well, that's a slightly
Speaker 4: maybe easier entry point because a community indicates that there's
Speaker 4: lots of people moving around you, and friendships are if
Speaker 4: you have one friend and you get another friend, you've
Speaker 4: doubled your your friendships, right, And so it's interesting to
Speaker 4: hear you talk about that those are distinct needs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, when I think of like friendship versus community,
Speaker 1: like I think community of people that are like investing
Speaker 1: in each other or taking care of each other, Like
Speaker 1: it could be a place of worship, and people could
Speaker 1: kind of be more anonymous to you, and you could
Speaker 1: still have community with them because you're you know, you're
Speaker 1: all invested in like mutual support. But friendship feels like
Speaker 1: there's more of a direct connection. And I think both
Speaker 1: are very valuable. But why I think friendship is so
Speaker 1: important is because like there's almost like pieces of ourselves
Speaker 1: that we only access around different people. And so when
Speaker 1: we're close to someone, it's like, oh, there's this piece
Speaker 1: of me that I get to experience because you're here.
Speaker 1: And then there's this other piece of me I get
Speaker 1: to experience because there's this friend and that friend and
Speaker 1: this friend, and so it feels like our friends kind
Speaker 1: of make us feel like whole people because of the
Speaker 1: ways they invite different parts of ourselves to come out.
Speaker 4: You refer to it in the book as self expansion theory,
Speaker 4: the idea that our identity needs to expand for us
Speaker 4: to be fulfilled, and the way that happens is through
Speaker 4: our relationships. Can you give us an example of that, Well.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think about a friend that has expanded
Speaker 1: me recently. Oh, okay, So I have a friend, Reina Cohen,
Speaker 1: who also wrote a book on friendship, and her book
Speaker 1: is on platonic life partners, and that you can choose
Speaker 1: a friend as a life partner, you know, just like
Speaker 1: you could choose someone romantic. And my best friend was
Speaker 1: having a hard time living in New York and I
Speaker 1: said to her, I have a one bedroom apartment in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: I had just talked to Reina. Reina had just told me.
Speaker 1: You know, when we think about living with people, we
Speaker 1: often think about the trade offs, and we undersell the
Speaker 1: benefits of it, like, oh, I won't have my privacy,
Speaker 1: you know, especially when we're doing something non traditional, we
Speaker 1: tend to focus a lot more on the negatives and
Speaker 1: ignore the positives. Like everyone's like, yeah, I go to
Speaker 1: your big house in the suburbs, separate from other people.
Speaker 1: But you know when you're like, oh, actually I want
Speaker 1: to like live with a friend, They're like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know that's rough. I don't know what's wrong. So
Speaker 1: I was just had all of these things in mind,
Speaker 1: and I ended up inviting my best friend to stay
Speaker 1: with me, and she stayed with me for like nearly
Speaker 1: a month in my one bedroom apartment. That is just
Speaker 1: not something that I would have done if Reina didn't
Speaker 1: expand for me to like not just focus on, oh,
Speaker 1: I won't have my privacy in the same way and
Speaker 1: we're in this small space, but like, what will I
Speaker 1: get out of this? Like precious time with my best
Speaker 1: friend that as adults gets harder and harder, and so
Speaker 1: it was like some of the best times in my
Speaker 1: life having her here. It was awesome. I mean it
Speaker 1: was just so good. She's coming back. We're like part
Speaker 1: time platonic life partners. So rain I really expanded my
Speaker 1: way of thinking and then and I also self expanded
Speaker 1: with my best friend because of that. So it's interesting
Speaker 1: to see how like one form of self expansion can
Speaker 1: ricochet and affect another forum.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's such a great story. I think we tend
Speaker 4: to think of like that situation as like going backwards, like, wellah,
Speaker 4: I had roommates when I couldn't afford not to, and
Speaker 4: now that I can afford not to, you know, whereas Yeah,
Speaker 4: I was just actually having this conversation with somebody the
Speaker 4: other day about traveling and sharing a hotel room with
Speaker 4: a friend. And you know, on one hand, you can
Speaker 4: be like, well, but we're both older and we need
Speaker 4: a little bit of space, and so you focus on
Speaker 4: the negatives, but the positive is you get a lot
Speaker 4: of really great time with that person, like you.
Speaker 1: Said, exactly, Yeah, I want.
Speaker 4: To talk about the role that friendship plays in the
Speaker 4: way we view the world.
Speaker 1: So you know, I feel like there's like two directions
Speaker 1: I want to take with this. There's the psychiatrist Harry
Speaker 1: Stack Sullivan, and he kind of says, you basically learn
Speaker 1: to relate to people through your friends, is his theory
Speaker 1: of chumships, Like is the first reciprocal relationship we have
Speaker 1: in our lives. This is how you relate, This is
Speaker 1: how you connect, Like we learn that first from our
Speaker 1: friends because our parents, you know, it's not exactly equal
Speaker 1: footing a different kind of thing. But the other thing
Speaker 1: that I wanted to share is that we perceive the
Speaker 1: world very differently when we're lonely. We often think of
Speaker 1: loneliness as just a feeling, but it actually completely alters
Speaker 1: how we view reality. People that are lonely think they're
Speaker 1: more rejected than they are think people are judging them
Speaker 1: more than they are. We kind of get just like,
Speaker 1: very vigilant for signs of negativity in the world. We
Speaker 1: tend to get more judgmental of others. Like lonely people
Speaker 1: report liking others less. We can be more punishing and
Speaker 1: hostile and response to others. And from an evolutionary perspective,
Speaker 1: this happens because you know, if you were lonely in
Speaker 1: your tribe and on the African savannah, you suddenly became separate,
Speaker 1: you were in danger, you had to be very vigilant
Speaker 1: for threat. But now obviously it doesn't function the same way.
Speaker 1: But I think it's really helpful to know because I
Speaker 1: think for me, sometimes I'll be like, why am I
Speaker 1: in a bad mood? Or why do I feel like
Speaker 1: reaching out to your friend, but also feel like they
Speaker 1: don't want to hear from me, and I know, oh,
Speaker 1: that's just loneliness, so I don't necessarily have to buy
Speaker 1: into it. Hi.
Speaker 4: Everyone, One of the things that I know many of
Speaker 4: you struggle with is anxiety, and very recently I shared
Speaker 4: some tips on managing anxiety in our newsletter. Specifically, I
Speaker 4: shared a practice on clarifying your values. In the practice,
Speaker 4: you write down one or two of your core values
Speaker 4: and then identify one action step that aligns with them.
Speaker 4: I find that taking one positive action towards things that
Speaker 4: matter to me really helps reduce anxiety. Also, I have
Speaker 4: a reflection question, what positive experiences have you had today
Speaker 4: that you could focus on instead of your anxiety. Every Wednesday,
Speaker 4: I send out a newsletter called a Weekly Bye to
Speaker 4: Wisdom for a wiser, happier You, And in it I
Speaker 4: give tips and reflections like you just got And it's
Speaker 4: an opportunity for you to pause, reflect, and practice. It's
Speaker 4: a way to stay focused on what's important and meaningful
Speaker 4: to you. Each month we focus on a theme. This
Speaker 4: month's theme is anxiety, and next month we'll be focusing
Speaker 4: on acceptance. To sign up for these bits of weekly wisdom,
Speaker 4: go to Goodwolf dot me slash newsletter. That is the
Speaker 4: classic example of the downward spiral. You're a little bit lonely.
Speaker 4: Maybe you have some unfortunate things happen in your social life,
Speaker 4: you lose a friend, a friend dies. I mean, I
Speaker 4: think this happens to people as they get older, right,
Speaker 4: there's more opportunities for your social structure to crumble. I
Speaker 4: see this with people that are like my parents' age,
Speaker 4: Like friends are starting to disappear. I don't mean disappear
Speaker 4: as in like do something different, I mean like the
Speaker 4: long goodbye. Yeah, so you get lonely, whatever the condition is,
Speaker 4: which then causes you to do all the things that
Speaker 4: you just said, which causes you to become more lonely.
Speaker 4: It's the classic downward spiral that can be really difficult
Speaker 4: to get out of. And so recognizing that is, I think,
Speaker 4: as you pointed out, is so important. I want to
Speaker 4: ask a question because I feel with all the research
Speaker 4: that's come out about loneliness, which is in essence, it's
Speaker 4: terrible for you. Right, It's just a terrible thing for you.
Speaker 4: I feel a little bit like I felt for a
Speaker 4: while when everybody was all over how important sleep was,
Speaker 4: and if you weren't sleeping basically, you were going to
Speaker 4: be dead six minutes from now, and.
Speaker 1: You're already dead, and speaking from beyond the grape, I worry.
Speaker 4: About the effect that that had on people who might
Speaker 4: be saying, I'm trying to sleep and I'm having trouble,
Speaker 4: and now I'm way more stressed about sleeping than i
Speaker 4: was before. And I worry about this a little bit
Speaker 4: with loneliness, which is that all of a sudden, I'm
Speaker 4: being told how bad loneliness is, so now I am
Speaker 4: more worried about this. What are ways that we can
Speaker 4: take this lesson? And it's partially why I wanted to
Speaker 4: talk to you about your book, because it gives us
Speaker 4: actual strategies for cultivating friendship. But before we get to those,
Speaker 4: let's just talk about what I just said and what
Speaker 4: your thoughts are.
Speaker 1: It's such an important point. And I teach a class
Speaker 1: on why we're also lonely, and the first thing I
Speaker 1: have to say is like, if you're lonely, there's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with you. In fact, if you're lonely, you're more
Speaker 1: normal than the people that are very socially connected. Statistically speaking,
Speaker 1: you know, we see the statistics of anywhere like up
Speaker 1: to fifty percent of people are lonely, and gen Z,
Speaker 1: it's like even worse. And so it's not a you problem,
Speaker 1: And I think that that's really important to say. This
Speaker 1: is a systemic issue, like the way our society is
Speaker 1: set up means that a lot of us are inherently
Speaker 1: going to be lonely unless we're very intentional about swimming
Speaker 1: upstream against the tides of loneliness. So we were just
Speaker 1: talking about the importance of hope, Eric, and I feel
Speaker 1: like what you said was really poignant that it's not
Speaker 1: about hitting rock bottom. If you're like in despair, that's
Speaker 1: not necessarily good or going to motivate you to change
Speaker 1: unless you also have hope. So I want to give
Speaker 1: everyone hope by telling them it's not your fault. You're normal.
Speaker 1: And also I'm sure we're going to get into a
Speaker 1: ton of strategies that you can use that are going
Speaker 1: to help you feel less lonely.
Speaker 4: You talk very eloquently about shame, and I think being
Speaker 4: lonely is one of those things that tends to cause
Speaker 4: us a lot of shame. You feel shameful to be lonely,
Speaker 4: as if there's something wrong with me. Talk about the
Speaker 4: role that shame is playing in this and the role
Speaker 4: that shame can play in us billing friendships.
Speaker 1: Also, this is from Harry stuck Sullivan too, and he
Speaker 1: says that why shame is so harmful is because it
Speaker 1: makes us feel unhuman. It makes us feel as if
Speaker 1: we are having an experience that is outside of the
Speaker 1: human experience. We are uniquely wrong, uniquely deficient, uniquely weak,
Speaker 1: and that shame is the kind of thing that will
Speaker 1: make your loneliness continue. If that's how you're interpreting your loneliness.
Speaker 1: I'm you know, if they would call it internal stable attributions,
Speaker 1: which mean it's something wrong with me that's not going
Speaker 1: to change. I'm just flawed. I have issues. I'm awkward,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm just not a good person. I'm
Speaker 1: not a person that people like, you know. I think
Speaker 1: it is understandable, just the way that loneliness affects how
Speaker 1: we feel and see ourselves in the world. Why one
Speaker 1: might think that way when they feel lonely and they're
Speaker 1: experiencing rejection. But there's a possibility, right, like, like we
Speaker 1: talked about, that you're feeling that way because that's just
Speaker 1: how loneliness makes you feel, rather than because it's a reality.
Speaker 1: And there's so much research I'm sure we're going to
Speaker 1: get more into, but I'll just mention one study briefly
Speaker 1: now on something called the liking gap, which is this
Speaker 1: finding that when strangers interact and they predict how much
Speaker 1: the other person likes them, we underestimate how liked we are.
Speaker 3: We're actually a.
Speaker 1: Lot more liked by other people than our brains tend
Speaker 1: to tell us. I think that's because when our brains
Speaker 1: are deciding between safety and connection, and those two things
Speaker 1: feel a little bit at war with each other, our
Speaker 1: brain's always going to push us to safety. And so
Speaker 1: one of the things I like tell people, like, if
Speaker 1: you're scared of reaching out to connect, you should ask yourself,
Speaker 1: how would it feel if someone did this to me, right,
Speaker 1: because then you're gonna get over your brain's inbuilt biased
Speaker 1: to try to make you safe at the cost of connection,
Speaker 1: because now you're taking the self out of it. And
Speaker 1: usually my students are like, I would love if someone
Speaker 1: would reach out to me, Like I would love if
Speaker 1: someone in my class was like, oh, you're so cool,
Speaker 1: Like I would love to hang out with you. But
Speaker 1: then when they think about how would it come off
Speaker 1: if I reached out to them, They're like, Oh, they'd
Speaker 1: be creeped out. They'd be weirded out. They'd be like,
Speaker 1: why is this clinging person wanting to talk to me
Speaker 1: and hang out with me? And I'm like, yes, But
Speaker 1: if you understand this research, you understand that you should
Speaker 1: probably use the question of how did it come off
Speaker 1: if someone did it to me, like, that's probably more
Speaker 1: reflective of the truth.
Speaker 4: That's a great way of looking at it. So one
Speaker 4: of the core things that you talk about is that
Speaker 4: adult friendships don't happen organically. Say more about why not?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think our issue is that friendship once
Speaker 1: happened organically in our lives when we were children. And
Speaker 1: there's a sociologist for Becca g Adams, and she identifies
Speaker 1: that as children, we have repeated unplanned interaction and shared
Speaker 1: vulnerability in our lives through school, through lunch, through art class,
Speaker 1: through recess, through extracurricular activities. As adults, we often don't
Speaker 1: have that. Like maybe you see people through work repeatedly,
Speaker 1: but you're often not vulnerable with them because you're like,
Speaker 1: this is work and I want to keep some professional distance.
Speaker 1: So what that means is that you don't have the
Speaker 1: same infrastructure. You cannot rely on the same assumptions that
Speaker 1: it's just going to happen for you. And we see
Speaker 1: in studies, for example, that people that see friendship as
Speaker 1: something that just happens without effort, they are more likely
Speaker 1: to be lonely five years later, whereas people that see
Speaker 1: it as taking effort, they are less likely to be
Speaker 1: lonely five years later because they make the effort. They
Speaker 1: show up at volunteering, they show up at place of worship,
Speaker 1: they find different clubs to join, They're putting themselves out there.
Speaker 1: And as I mentioned in the book, it's not just
Speaker 1: that you have to show up even to these events,
Speaker 1: because that's what I call overcoming overt avoidance, which is
Speaker 1: like over avoidance is like I'm scared, so I'm not
Speaker 1: going to get out of my house. But you also
Speaker 1: have to overcome covert avoidance, which means, you know, I
Speaker 1: show up to that kickball league, I show up to
Speaker 1: that yoga retreat, and I engage when I get there.
Speaker 1: I'm not just on my phone in the corner. I'm
Speaker 1: not talking to the one person I already know. I'm
Speaker 1: introducing myself. Hey, I'm Marisa, how have you liked this
Speaker 1: yoga class? How have you liked this teacher? Tell me
Speaker 1: more about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's where things break down for me. I can
Speaker 4: overcome the overt of but boy, when I get there,
Speaker 4: it's a whole lot harder. Part of what I've recognized
Speaker 4: about myself is that if I'm in a situation that
Speaker 4: is going to have repeated interaction, then I actually relax
Speaker 4: a little bit and recognize that it's just going to
Speaker 4: take me a few times and just Okay, that's who
Speaker 4: I am. And if I keep showing up by about
Speaker 4: the fourth time or whatever, some of my personality you'll
Speaker 4: start to leak out. I'll start to be more of myself,
Speaker 4: which is why one of the things you point out
Speaker 4: in the book is as you're looking for ways to
Speaker 4: build friends, one good strategy is to find events that
Speaker 4: are going to occur repeatedly, a language class versus a
Speaker 4: half day workshop. Let me ask you a question, because
Speaker 4: I think you go from adult friendships don't happen organically
Speaker 4: to people have to take initiative. And when we think
Speaker 4: about people taking initiative, one of the reasons that we
Speaker 4: think it's really hard for people is because they're afraid
Speaker 4: of being rejected, and I want to talk about that
Speaker 4: in a minute. I think that's a big one, but
Speaker 4: I don't think it's all of it. I think that
Speaker 4: that's part of it, is our fear of rejection. But
Speaker 4: I also think as we get older, it gets harder
Speaker 4: because we are I don't know another way to say
Speaker 4: this except to say we are more tired, like it
Speaker 4: takes more effort. It feels to me like it's harder
Speaker 4: to sort of get out into the world than it
Speaker 4: did when I was being at fifty. However, I don't
Speaker 4: know where somewhere in my fifties than when I was,
Speaker 4: say thirty five, So I think there's that element too,
Speaker 4: But I think there's something else, which is not always
Speaker 4: that we're going to be rejected, but that we're not
Speaker 4: going to find anybody that we want to be friends with.
Speaker 4: And what made me think about this is I was
Speaker 4: thinking about it. I know a couple of women who
Speaker 4: have been on match dot Com recently, and they'll go
Speaker 4: out on a few dates and then maybe something will
Speaker 4: work out for a little while and then it'll stop.
Speaker 4: And the thought of waiting back in to that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: some of it's rejection, but some of it is just like, oh,
Speaker 4: it's going to be a ton of work weeding through
Speaker 4: a bunch of people that I don't really like. So
Speaker 4: I think in addition to rejection, there are these other
Speaker 4: factors that get in our way. Can you give us
Speaker 4: some advice about how to work with those?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point. And there is research that
Speaker 1: finds that as we get older we do get pickier
Speaker 1: about our friends. Whereas when we're young, we're just looking
Speaker 1: to expand our identity, so we're willing to hang out
Speaker 1: with all different types of people. But as we get older,
Speaker 1: we're like fewer quality people that I really love, that
Speaker 1: really understand me, So we get pickier and it makes
Speaker 1: it harder. But that's where I would give the advice
Speaker 1: of just do something you love. Like you love sailing,
Speaker 1: join the do something you love in community. You love bowling,
Speaker 1: join the bowling league. You know you love walking, join
Speaker 1: the hiking crew, And so that at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it's like, well, whether I meet people or not,
Speaker 1: this is still going to be an enjoyable experience for me.
Speaker 1: And you're also like at your best at connecting with
Speaker 1: people when you are in a state of joy, like
Speaker 1: research finds that the more positive your mood is going
Speaker 1: into a social interaction, the more you like people, the
Speaker 1: more they like you. So I would just suggest to
Speaker 1: like take a little bit of the pressure off, Like,
Speaker 1: all right, I want to find community, but I can
Speaker 1: just really I'm going to do that through the back door,
Speaker 1: and the front door is me just getting out there
Speaker 1: or doing things I really like.
Speaker 4: That makes a lot of sense, And I guess the
Speaker 4: same thing would go for volunteering. I might be volunteering
Speaker 4: with the hope that I'm going to meet people, but
Speaker 4: I'm also doing it because I think it's a cause
Speaker 4: that matters, and I can feel good about doing that
Speaker 4: even if the other things don't necessarily happen exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So what other things under you know, sort of taking
Speaker 4: initiative do you think are important that we may not
Speaker 4: have covered.
Speaker 1: Well, I know we covered showing up repeatedly doing something
Speaker 1: repeated over time, and I just wanted to mention the
Speaker 1: research behind that is on the mere exposure effect, this
Speaker 1: phenomenon that when we interact with people more, we like
Speaker 1: them more and they like us more, and it's completely unconscious,
Speaker 1: Like based on a study that researchers planted women into
Speaker 1: a large psychology lecture and at the end of the semester,
Speaker 1: no one remembered any of the women, but they liked
Speaker 1: the women that showed up for the most classes twenty
Speaker 1: percent more than the women that didn't show up for
Speaker 1: any And I think this is really important because when
Speaker 1: I wanted to make friends in the past, I would
Speaker 1: show up to an event once and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: because this isn't working. It's a sign that you are
Speaker 1: in the process of connecting. So that's why one thing
Speaker 1: I tell people is like, if you're not dreading it,
Speaker 1: stick with it for like two to three months, you know,
Speaker 1: because trust that you're going to have a very different
Speaker 1: experience when you're two months in than you do right now,
Speaker 1: because that's like, literally how we're wired to be like
Speaker 1: stressed out by what's unfamiliar. The other tip that I
Speaker 1: like to give people, and literally, this is a very
Speaker 1: hard tip to practice, because my second book is all
Speaker 1: about being able to do this, and that is to
Speaker 1: try to assume that people are going to like you.
Speaker 1: And that is based off of research on something called
Speaker 1: the acceptance prophecy. This finding that when people are told hey,
Speaker 1: base in your personality profile. We did this analysis, and
Speaker 1: we think you're going to go meet this person and
Speaker 1: they're going to like you. And when they're told that,
Speaker 1: even though that's fake, that's deception from the researchers, people
Speaker 1: actually become more likable. They become warmer, friendlier, more open.
Speaker 1: Whereas when we think we're going to get rejected, we
Speaker 1: reject people, we become more closed off, we become more withdrawn.
Speaker 1: We reject them, then they reject us right back. So
Speaker 1: I know it's hard to tell yourself that people are
Speaker 1: going to like you or they do like you. And
Speaker 1: I think it's okay to have a voice that's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm really scared, I'm nervous, they think I'm weird. But
Speaker 1: just to offer that voice some humility and say, well
Speaker 1: what if they think I'm great? You know what if
Speaker 1: they do like me, And to just try to lean
Speaker 1: into that voice, even if you can't necessarily silence the
Speaker 1: other one.
Speaker 4: Oftentimes what you offered there at the end is the
Speaker 4: way that those things work for me. I mean not
Speaker 4: be able to get all the way to like they're
Speaker 4: gonna love me, but I can at least get to
Speaker 4: like you just don't know, like, why are you assuming
Speaker 4: the worst, Like, let's just be neutral on this topic
Speaker 4: for right now, you know, if I can even get there?
Speaker 4: That often helps? Were these mice that they were telling
Speaker 4: that the mice were going to be accepted? Or was
Speaker 4: this done on.
Speaker 1: Humans human beings?
Speaker 4: I've been reading about a bunch of well, you're always
Speaker 4: reading about mouse studies if you're reading science stuff, and.
Speaker 1: Any man, I've been reading about the mice too, so funny.
Speaker 1: I love the mouse studies or rats, yep.
Speaker 4: I just thought it would be mean to tell a
Speaker 4: mouse that nobody likes them, That's all. So I want
Speaker 4: to go back to the mere exposure effect for a second.
Speaker 4: I actually was reading about that recently in a totally
Speaker 4: different context, which means that the more times we hear
Speaker 4: a message, the more we start to become more likely
Speaker 4: to almost believe it, meaning it's why politicians keep repeating
Speaker 4: the same things over and over. I also think it
Speaker 4: might happen with songs that the more I hear a song,
Speaker 4: I often like it more. Neither of those reflections had
Speaker 4: anything to do with what we're talking about, but.
Speaker 1: What they're pretty good though. I don't know that we
Speaker 1: have relationships with everything, right, not just people. We have
Speaker 1: relationships with things that are inadamant. Our template for how
Speaker 1: people relate to us can predict how we relate to items,
Speaker 1: can predict how I relate to things that we're abstract,
Speaker 1: and I think that's kind of fascinating.
Speaker 4: I do too. You'll also talk about, and it's in
Speaker 4: the title of the book, how the science of attachment
Speaker 4: can help you make and keep friends. We've done some
Speaker 4: episodes in the past about attachment theory, but I'm wondering
Speaker 4: if you could run us very quickly through what attachment
Speaker 4: theory is and how it plays out in our friendships.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, the idea behind attachment theory is how we've
Speaker 1: connected fundamentally shapes who we are, how trusting we are,
Speaker 1: how loving we are, how affectionate we are, how nervous
Speaker 1: we are, And so our previous experiences of connection have
Speaker 1: built for us an internal template of how people will
Speaker 1: respond to us, and that internal template becomes more true
Speaker 1: than the truth because social interaction is so ambiguous. People
Speaker 1: don't explicitly tell us I love you or I hate you,
Speaker 1: and even if they do, we often suspect they mean
Speaker 1: something different than what they say, and that becomes what's
Speaker 1: true for us, and so people that have had loving,
Speaker 1: stable relationships, they develop secure attachment, which means they go
Speaker 1: into connections assuming that they're going to go well. They
Speaker 1: can trust people, they can be vulnerable with people. They're
Speaker 1: just open. People that have had more inconsistent caregivers, they've
Speaker 1: had caregivers that maybe we're more distracted by other things.
Speaker 1: They learn that I can only get love and affection
Speaker 1: by forcing it and trying so hard, and you know,
Speaker 1: people are rejecting me, and I have to earn their affection.
Speaker 1: That's what's called anxious attachment. People that are anxiously attached,
Speaker 1: they tend to put a lot of effort in their
Speaker 1: friendships but get little reward. They're just like, why are
Speaker 1: my friendships ending? They're not sustainable. I'm trying so hard,
Speaker 1: I'm working so hard. And that's really because if you're
Speaker 1: anxiously attached, you often feel rejected even when you're not.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what we see in the research, Like
Speaker 1: you're amigdala is lighting up more often, and so because
Speaker 1: of that, you're taking things as rejection. You might be
Speaker 1: withdrawing from friends when they're just sort of like busy
Speaker 1: and kind of ending relationships and not even realizing that
Speaker 1: you're doing it. And then we have avoidantly attached people.
Speaker 1: And these folks, their early relationships were characterized by emotional neglect.
Speaker 1: If they ever expressed a feeling, they were perceived as weak,
Speaker 1: push that down, don't share that here, And so they
Speaker 1: have learned that they can't trust people, they can't share
Speaker 1: themselves with people and trusts, and so they kind of
Speaker 1: become these low for low reward folks. In friendship, they're
Speaker 1: either on their own, not really investing in anyone, or
Speaker 1: their relationships are more shallow. They really struggle with vulnerability.
Speaker 1: So even if they have friends, their friends don't feel
Speaker 1: close to them, don't feel like they really know them.
Speaker 1: And so the anxious and the avoidant they're both considered
Speaker 1: insecure attachment patterns, where you're basically coping processes people are
Speaker 1: using because they're predicting that, just like their past people
Speaker 1: will continue to treat them that way, and these are
Speaker 1: the strategies that they're going to use to manage that
Speaker 1: in their interpersonal relationships.
Speaker 4: And then there's the lucky ones of us who have
Speaker 4: what's known as disorganized attachment style, which means we just
Speaker 4: still do a little bit of all of it. You know,
Speaker 4: we'll just bounce back and forth. You know, I like you,
Speaker 4: I don't like you. Come close, get away, you know
Speaker 4: that whole dance. Yeah, les me just think it's funny.
Speaker 4: It's called disorganized because it just makes me laugh.
Speaker 1: Because there's no one strategy. You're like, I'm going to
Speaker 1: use whatever strategy. It's not an yeah, you're just.
Speaker 4: A yeah, yeah. Well. I often talk with people because
Speaker 4: I've run group programs over the years through the one
Speaker 4: you feed, and I often talk about how like groups
Speaker 4: can be so powerful because there's such good mirrors. You know,
Speaker 4: you get into a group, and all of us when
Speaker 4: we get into and even people I think who are
Speaker 4: securely attached are going to be doing some measure of
Speaker 4: figuring out where do I fit here? Right, It's just
Speaker 4: a natural human thing. We're trying to figure out where
Speaker 4: we fit. And so to your point, someone who is
Speaker 4: anxiously attached is probably going to assume that people there
Speaker 4: don't like them. Someone who's avoidantly attached is probably going
Speaker 4: to assume, like, I know, these people are worth my time.
Speaker 4: And then those of us that do both will pingpong
Speaker 4: back and forth through those feelings. All within the first hour.
Speaker 4: And I think it can be so good if we
Speaker 4: understand these things because we can just observe it sort
Speaker 4: of happening and then go Okay, So that's what my
Speaker 4: brain is telling me, and that's doing that because this
Speaker 4: is what happens to me in group situations. Can I
Speaker 4: just relax that a little bit, you know, and just
Speaker 4: can I hang around long enough that the mere exposure
Speaker 4: effect can take effect? I can relax and I can
Speaker 4: get closer. And so I thought recognizing our attachment styles.
Speaker 4: And I think one of the important things about attachment style,
Speaker 4: and I've heard you say this in your book and
Speaker 4: on other shows, is that some of us will take
Speaker 4: that as like that's the way we are, and that's
Speaker 4: not the point. The point is that's an unconscious pattern
Speaker 4: that you have the ability to rewire.
Speaker 1: Right yep, Oh my gosh. Can I go into this
Speaker 1: a little bit because this is literally my next book
Speaker 1: on how to yeel your sense of self? What is
Speaker 1: your attachment style?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Why do you feel unworthy or insecure? Right? You might
Speaker 1: think it's because I don't have job success or I'm
Speaker 1: not as attractive as I hope I am, But it's
Speaker 1: really not about who you are right now. It's about
Speaker 1: your past, and it's about your memories. And so memories
Speaker 1: that are unprocessed impose themselves onto how we perceive reality.
Speaker 1: Now just attachment style series of unprocessed memories from the
Speaker 1: past that are telling you it's going to continue avoid
Speaker 1: an attachment style very similar. You're just perceiving the future
Speaker 1: like the past because you have these unprocessed childhood memories.
Speaker 1: When I say unprocessed, I mean when you go back
Speaker 1: to those memories, they still trigger you. You feel uncomfortable
Speaker 1: thinking about it, You ruminate on it. You know, It's
Speaker 1: not like I can put that behind me. It's like
Speaker 1: I don't even want to think about this. When I
Speaker 1: think about my parents, when I think about my childhood,
Speaker 1: all these feelings still come up. But the thing about
Speaker 1: memories is that memories are made to predict the future,
Speaker 1: not reflect the past. What that means is we can
Speaker 1: change our memories. Every time you revisit a memory, you
Speaker 1: can change your memories. It's called memory reconsolidation theory, which
Speaker 1: basically means for people that are anxiously attached, if they're
Speaker 1: able to go back to old memories where they have
Speaker 1: been abandoned or rejected. And this is like interparenting work,
Speaker 1: you know, like basically offer that young you like, love
Speaker 1: and appreciation and tell them everything they needed to here. Right,
Speaker 1: that can actually begin to heal your attachment style. And
Speaker 1: the research on attachment style, something that's really popular that
Speaker 1: has been found to be effective for healing attachment is
Speaker 1: security priming, which means you're constantly exposing yourself to like
Speaker 1: pictures of people that love you, words of people that
Speaker 1: love you. Right, then, what you're doing here is like
Speaker 1: really trying to change these memories because you know, you
Speaker 1: don't need a coping mechanism. Is the threat going to reoccur,
Speaker 1: and if you are able to heal your memories, then
Speaker 1: you no longer think it's going to happen again, and
Speaker 1: so you don't need to prepare yourself with the you know,
Speaker 1: anxious clinging or with the avoidant pushing away.
Speaker 4: I love that. What about for people and I fall
Speaker 4: firmly into this camp that have very very little memory
Speaker 4: of well, I mean I have a very little memory
Speaker 4: of even a week ago, let alone you know, when
Speaker 4: I was a kid, Like, I mean, I have almost
Speaker 4: no memory of my childhood. I think, what memory I
Speaker 4: do have I've gotten from pictures or stories that I've
Speaker 4: been told. So what do you do in that case?
Speaker 1: It's a good question. This is like debuting the material.
Speaker 4: You're You're gonna have to address this in the board.
Speaker 1: I know, and I totally am. So here's the thing
Speaker 1: about memory. We think of it as an image of video,
Speaker 1: of picture, but memory also manifests as a sensation. It
Speaker 1: manifests as how we feel. There's two different parts of
Speaker 1: our brains that record memory. The hippocampus records the scene,
Speaker 1: the picture, and if it's a traumatic, stressful event, though,
Speaker 1: that hippocampus goes offline. But you know what stays online
Speaker 1: the amygdala, which records the emotion of the memory. And
Speaker 1: so even if you don't remember things when you're triggered,
Speaker 1: that's a sign of a memory that needs to be reprocessed.
Speaker 1: When you're feeling so strongly and other people don't feel
Speaker 1: as strong, that's a sign of a memory that you
Speaker 1: need to reprocess. Now, how do you process amygdala based memories. Well,
Speaker 1: there's this theory called working memory theory, which is basically
Speaker 1: the idea that when you access a memory, your working
Speaker 1: memories very limited. And so because of that if you're
Speaker 1: distracted with something else when you access that memory or
Speaker 1: sensation in the sense that might represent a memory, trigger
Speaker 1: that might represent a memory, and you distract yourself with
Speaker 1: something else at the same time. Because you only have
Speaker 1: limited memory ram to call up that memory, you can
Speaker 1: actually degrade that memory. And this is the crux of EMDR.
Speaker 1: If you're familiar with it, you're like looking at something
Speaker 1: moving back and forth while picturing the memory, because that
Speaker 1: actually degrades the memory because you're focused on something else.
Speaker 1: And there's also interesting research that if you play tetris
Speaker 1: while feeling triggered, or if you even like count while
Speaker 1: like thinking about your triggered sensation at the same time,
Speaker 1: like you begin to degrade the sensory aspect of your memories.
Speaker 4: You just kind of blew my mind there. I've been
Speaker 4: doing this podcast for a decade. It's rare I hear
Speaker 4: something that I haven't heard before, So bravo.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 4: That sensation that's being triggered by the amigdova is a
Speaker 4: form of a memory.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: That's kind of amazing because one thing that people say
Speaker 4: and I recognize it on some level, but the rationalist
Speaker 4: in me goes well, but hang on, what's the mechanism.
Speaker 4: And it's when people talk about memories being stored in
Speaker 4: the body. I get that they're sensations, but the fact
Speaker 4: that they're in the migdala, I'm like, oh, that makes.
Speaker 1: Sense breaking amygdala, Yeah, remembering everything for you. You can't
Speaker 1: deny the amygdala. You can deny the hippocampus, your hippocampus.
Speaker 4: So nothing happened here my hippocampus. I suppose it's not
Speaker 4: entirely broken, or I wouldn't function. It's got problems for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, you can always trus the amida to stress
Speaker 1: you out for the rest of your life on things
Speaker 1: you don't even remember happened.
Speaker 4: That's fascinating that just the actual sensation is sufficient. I
Speaker 4: understand the memory reconsolidation stuff, right, Like every time you
Speaker 4: pull out a memory, right you, when you put it back,
Speaker 4: it's subtly changed, and so what you do while you
Speaker 4: have it out, yeah, affects it. So fascinating. That's really interesting.
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna love my next book. Well, you'll
Speaker 1: and your listeners have a sneak peek.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're nearly at the end of our time here.
Speaker 4: You and I are going to continue in the post
Speaker 4: show conversation because I do want to talk a little
Speaker 4: bit more about some other strategies for building friendship. I
Speaker 4: love that you position this as almost as a skill, right,
Speaker 4: And I think so much of what goes on in
Speaker 4: our mental and emotional lives. If we can position it
Speaker 4: as a skill or something that we can learn, it
Speaker 4: takes so much of the shame out of it, which
Speaker 4: then allows us to actually do it. And I love
Speaker 4: that you are really taking that to something that can
Speaker 4: feel in very personal loneliness.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, I totally agree with you. I think
Speaker 1: it is a skill. I mean, I find my fellow
Speaker 1: introverts we are the worst at thinking that we are
Speaker 1: inherently non social and there's no hope for us because
Speaker 1: that's part of our personalities. But initiating is not a
Speaker 1: part of your personality. It is a skill set and
Speaker 1: it's as easy as let me give you some language.
Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed spending time with you. I'd love to
Speaker 1: stay connected. Would you be open to exchanging phone numbers?
Speaker 1: That's all you gotta do?
Speaker 4: Were you asking me or was that as an example? Well?
Speaker 1: Both really, Eric, I mean, initially as an example. But
Speaker 1: now that you're offering, yeah, I will take that route.
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, all right, you and I will continue
Speaker 4: in the post show conversation with some additional strategies. Thank
Speaker 4: you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
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