Speaker 1: Flex and Rooms Flex and Frooms. This is the Flex
Speaker 1: and Frooms catch up podcast.
Speaker 2: It is Flex and Rooms on CAT. We talk a
Speaker 2: lot about friendships because they matter. I have it on
Speaker 2: good authority that if you want to live a good,
Speaker 2: healthy life, the friendships and the relationships that you build
Speaker 2: are fundamental equal to physical health according to some studies.
Speaker 2: In this instance, you know, I've in particular, spoken a
Speaker 2: lot about the way that I segment my friends. It's
Speaker 2: not a science and it's not really a fine line.
Speaker 2: But I know that I have my best best friends,
Speaker 2: my close friends. And this is not a number defined
Speaker 2: by time, just more like feelings, like who I'm being
Speaker 2: the most intimate with, who I'm sharing a lot within it.
Speaker 2: At any given time. I've got acquaintances, I've got peers
Speaker 2: and colleagues, and I've got strangers. All these people I
Speaker 2: can be buddy buddy with, chummy with, share a lot with,
Speaker 2: But the deepness has to come with a close friend
Speaker 2: and a best friend. And I was thinking to myself,
Speaker 2: how many hours would it actually take for someone to
Speaker 2: become a close friend if we need to really break
Speaker 2: that down, Because I feel that a lot of people
Speaker 2: think you know one or two parties, a few deep conversations,
Speaker 2: we should be on our way, But really it could
Speaker 2: take one hundred hours, two hundred hours including in your life, talking, texting, facetiming.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Anyway, there's this TikTok here from Anyway. There's TikTok he
Speaker 2: from Hannah gets hired and she has some insight for us.
Speaker 4: Don't have enough friends as an adult.
Speaker 3: So if you feel like you don't have enough friends
Speaker 3: as an adult, then you're probably just.
Speaker 4: Not working hard enough.
Speaker 3: At the risk of sounding like a complete asshole, let
Speaker 3: me explain what I mean. There's this study that was
Speaker 3: done several years ago about making friendships as an adult
Speaker 3: that lives rent free in my brain.
Speaker 4: You've heard of like the ten thousand hour logic.
Speaker 3: Right, Like, to master a skill, you need to spend
Speaker 3: ten thousand hours doing it. Friendships work in a similar way,
Speaker 3: but you need actually a lot less time. This study
Speaker 3: literally quantify the number of hours that it takes to
Speaker 3: consider somebody a friend of varying degrees. I find this
Speaker 3: so interesting because making new friends can be such a
Speaker 3: painful process. It's kind of like dating, and like it's
Speaker 3: really awkward.
Speaker 4: You have to hang out and see if.
Speaker 3: You vibe and like put the reps in in.
Speaker 4: Order to find your people.
Speaker 3: So this study looked at a ton of different factors,
Speaker 3: like the amount of brain space you actually have to
Speaker 3: maintain friends, the way you spend time with friends, whether
Speaker 3: you're at work or you're like actually hanging out together,
Speaker 3: and the opportunity cost of hanging out.
Speaker 4: With some people over others.
Speaker 3: And this study found that it only actually takes fifty
Speaker 3: hours to consider somebody a friend, ninety hours to consider
Speaker 3: somebody a good friend, and two hundred hours to consider
Speaker 3: somebody a close friend.
Speaker 4: Two hundred hours is not a lot of time. That
Speaker 4: is about nine days.
Speaker 3: Ever since I've learned about this, I always kind of
Speaker 3: have in the back of my mind whenever I go
Speaker 3: hang out with friends, especially newer ones, accumulative accumulative clock
Speaker 3: of how much time we've spent together and what kind
Speaker 3: of progress we've made according to.
Speaker 4: This timeline in our friendship. Call me crazy right now.
Speaker 3: And if you're an adult and you feel like you're
Speaker 3: missing close relationships from your life, like maybe you move
Speaker 3: to a new city or all your friends moved to
Speaker 3: a new city, or you switch schools or whatever it is,
Speaker 3: I hope that this study can give you.
Speaker 4: We got the point.
Speaker 2: Yes, two hundred hours to become a close friend. She
Speaker 2: did say that's nine days if we're doing twenty four
Speaker 2: hour hangs. I'm sure, But I want to debate this
Speaker 2: a little bit on our podcast Flex and Rooms anywhere
Speaker 2: you get good podcasts, four point nine stars, heaps of ratings.
Speaker 2: Do we actually feel that this is true? And for
Speaker 2: the most part, do we feel like it's worth the investment.
Speaker 2: I think two hundred hours for a close friend feels
Speaker 2: like a fair investment. Yeah, However, the fifty or ninety
Speaker 2: or one hundred hours it takes you to invest in
Speaker 2: someone before you even know if there will be a
Speaker 2: close friend a different story. I find it hard to
Speaker 2: articulate to a lot of people that I like building relationships.
Speaker 2: I don't want a lot of friends. Yes, you're my
Speaker 2: newest friend, major, major, you know, and like that's this
Speaker 2: is we're pushing two years or something, and this is
Speaker 2: two years of a lot of talking, not just here
Speaker 2: on air. We're facetiming, we're texting constantly, We're sharing into
Speaker 2: personal stories. We're adding layers, we're giving each other advice,
Speaker 2: we're feeding in, we're introducing each other, to our other friends.
Speaker 2: We're creating networks. A lot of time has been put in.
Speaker 2: It's worth it. I'm not looking for new friends like that.
Speaker 2: But I love chit chatting and hanging it out and
Speaker 2: so and so and so, and I think it comes
Speaker 2: across to a lot of people as quite noncommittal or
Speaker 2: a little bit demeaning, right when I try to explain that, like,
Speaker 2: I want to be social with other people, I don't
Speaker 2: want new friends. I know the responsibility of being a
Speaker 2: good friend. I don't have the time to do that.
Speaker 2: I don't want to do that. Yes, so with the
Speaker 2: friends I have already struggling, you know, Okay, okay, we've
Speaker 2: merged these groups. Now we can hang out all together.
Speaker 2: And that's sort of. But I live here and you
Speaker 2: live here. Now you're getting engaged and so on and
Speaker 2: so forth, and I don't trust a lot of you, bitches.
Speaker 2: It's the point blank. Too many of you aren't interesting enough.
Speaker 2: I like the people I have on my sight, but
Speaker 2: also I think a lot of people do their best
Speaker 2: work in acquaintanceships when you just go. You meet for
Speaker 2: that moment, you meet for that birthday party, you meet
Speaker 2: for that coffee and you.
Speaker 1: Let it go, Keven.
Speaker 2: As soon as there's an expectation of what this requires,
Speaker 2: it gets difficult. That's why a lot of people love
Speaker 2: casually dating, because it's nice to dip in, get that intimacy,
Speaker 2: and go because what's required. The responsibility gets too difficult,
Speaker 2: and it's trickier to respect in a romantic situation because
Speaker 2: the stakes feel kind of high for me. If with
Speaker 2: friendships the stakes feel higher, true, I don't need new
Speaker 2: friends like that, because it really does change your life.
Speaker 2: You absorb so much at ly as I do, I
Speaker 2: become quite immeshed with my friends. We're like sharing lives.
Speaker 2: At a point, I've gotta be careful. It's treacherous waters.
Speaker 1: Can't get any little parasites in there. I think you
Speaker 1: make a really good point, because I'm someone who would
Speaker 1: say the opposite of you, being like, no, I always
Speaker 1: want to make new friends. So when I get it
Speaker 1: when people are like, wait, what do you? What do you?
Speaker 1: What does FLEX mean by like she already has enough friends?
Speaker 1: Like that sounds almost antisocial? Dare I say? But when
Speaker 1: you you have like a very considered understanding of what
Speaker 1: friendship is. When I think I always want new friends,
Speaker 1: I just think like I want another person to hang.
Speaker 1: I don't actually think of a friendship as what it is,
Speaker 1: which is a give and take and you actually only
Speaker 1: do have a finite amount of resources to give and
Speaker 1: to take. So you're just being intentional about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it makes sense when it's when when you like
Speaker 1: position friendship as something that is like quantifiable as this
Speaker 1: woman has, as a give and a take and a
Speaker 1: kind of time thing, then it makes like I don't
Speaker 1: want you friends to be you know.
Speaker 2: It, another job. Yes, I already have one heaps heaps
Speaker 2: the time in this current job. I don't need another job.
Speaker 2: So but with that in mind, like I said before,
Speaker 2: I like this idea of I think that close friends
Speaker 2: are really worth the investment. But I also respect the
Speaker 2: time it takes to build close friends. And I'm not
Speaker 2: a patient person at all in any area of my
Speaker 2: life really, but friendship is an area where I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'll see how.
Speaker 4: We go with this one. I'll let it build. I'll
Speaker 4: see how we go.
Speaker 2: Because you know, I don't think a lot of us
Speaker 2: are mindful that proximity gives us the illusion of a
Speaker 2: closer friendship than we have. And so when the proximity
Speaker 2: is not long a convenient. We're not living in the
Speaker 2: same suburb, we're not going to the same place, you
Speaker 2: don't work in the same place, you don't go to.
Speaker 1: The same school.
Speaker 2: It gets difficult to build on the friendship. It's still there,
Speaker 2: but you also know, like it's easier because we have
Speaker 2: the same friends, our boyfriends are best friends, whatever it
Speaker 2: might be, and so like you let things take their
Speaker 2: natural course. But I've had a few situations where people
Speaker 2: haven't seen the friendship like I've seen it. They haven't
Speaker 2: seen it be this proximity things, and it's kind like, well, wait,
Speaker 2: what happened. I'm like, oh, you were just dating a
Speaker 2: friend of mine and that's why we were friends. They're
Speaker 2: not dating anymore. Or you were close friends with someone
Speaker 2: I'm not close friends with any more, and that was
Speaker 2: the conduit. Like I only ever hung out with you
Speaker 2: in the context of being invited by them.
Speaker 1: I love how literally you are with it, like, but
Speaker 1: to me, it.
Speaker 4: Kind of is literal.
Speaker 2: I just think that before and this is definitely a
Speaker 2: coping mechanism of some sort, because before I used to
Speaker 2: be far more free with it, and it caused way
Speaker 2: more problems than added joy into my life. I think
Speaker 2: that it's really hard to be to be picky. It's
Speaker 2: really hard to be super intentional in some part to
Speaker 2: your air. Sorry, it's really hard to be very intentional
Speaker 2: in some areas of your life and willing nearly with
Speaker 2: the others because they contradict in a way that confuses
Speaker 2: your behavior and makes you confusing to other people. I
Speaker 2: like people knowing where they stand with me. It's really
Speaker 2: important that my friends know like, I've chosen you, I'm
Speaker 2: dedicated to your responsible, I'm responsible for you and everybody
Speaker 2: else enjoy the gray area of us just being people
Speaker 2: who get to interact. No, but it's it's not that
Speaker 2: I don't hate people, but I'm also like, let's say
Speaker 2: there are people that I've probably clocked in a total
Speaker 2: of one hour of interactions with through like cute high
Speaker 2: buys and conversations at parties.
Speaker 4: We haven't got there yet.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting though, because I think I've had a
Speaker 2: lot of I remember I was a fashion week last
Speaker 2: year and this girl comes up to me and she
Speaker 2: was like, I'm gonna crack you. We're gonna be friends,
Speaker 2: can you imagine? And I was like, I get what
Speaker 2: you're saying, and this feels enthusiastic, but like the commodity
Speaker 2: of the way that you're approaching this relationship is like
Speaker 2: what is it? The commodity of how they are approaching
Speaker 2: the relationship is what I think people think I'm doing
Speaker 2: where I'm like tallying up how many times we've got
Speaker 2: to see each other before we become friends. I want that.
Speaker 2: I want to give it time to build. I want
Speaker 2: you to know what you're really getting into. Like Free
Speaker 2: me knows I'm a moody bitch. You don't know that.
Speaker 2: You don't feel it, but Free knows I'm generous. You
Speaker 2: won't know that, and you're not gonna know until you've
Speaker 2: clocked in another two hundred hours back.
Speaker 1: When you get in the airporter abury, Yeah, yeah, thank
Speaker 1: you very much.
Speaker 2: When you're on each other's feeding schedules, then you'll know.
Speaker 2: And I feel like I'm making I want to make
Speaker 2: friends for life. I'm thinking the people who am like
Speaker 2: in ten years time, like, my kids know your kids,
Speaker 2: and my kid might have pulled your kids hair, but
Speaker 2: it's all love.
Speaker 1: Our kids will end up dating, so it's all chill.
Speaker 4: Oh, I can't wait your flexing Frooms. You've been listening
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