How to make (and keep) friends | from A Slight Change of Plans

Many of us tend to prioritize our romantic and familial relationships over friendships — and that could be harming our wellbeing and health. In this special episode from our friends at A Slight Change of Plans, cognitive behavioral scientist and bestselling author Dr. Maya Shankar looks at how friendships expand our sense of self. Maya is joined by psychologist Dr. Marisa Franco, who offers research-based strategies to make new friends and deepen our existing friendships, including helpful concepts like mutuality and the mere-exposure effect. Marisa and Maya also discuss how to stay friends through big life changes, why fighting could make your friendship stronger, and how to break up with a friend with clarity and kindness. On A Slight Change of Plans, Maya explores how we experience change and provides strategies we can use to better navigate moments of upheaval. Find A Slight Change of Plans wherever you get podcasts. https://lnk.to/SCPHTBABH For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts https://go.ted.com/BHTranscripts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:32Chris Duffy?

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• 1:19Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone. Chris here. If you had to rank some of the major relationships in your life, I'm talking about your partner, your family, your colleagues, where would your friendships land? Chances are, they're probably not at the very top of the list. They might be pretty far down. And that might not be the right spot for them because not prioritizing our friendships can harm our health and our well-being. So today, we are bringing you an episode of another podcast that examines how friendships can expand our sense of self. This episode comes from A Slight Change of Plans, a podcast that everyone here on our show really loves. It is hosted by Dr. Maya Shankar, a cognitive behavioral scientist, and she explores who we become in the face of change, how we can better navigate moments of upheaval, and why change might just give

• 2:01Speaker 02

  us an opportunity to unlock great possibilities. So in this episode, Dr. Marisa Franco is going to join Maya to share evidence-based strategies for making new friends, for enriching your existing friendships, for keeping friendships alive through times of personal transformation, and for navigating a friendship breakup with clarity and kindness.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Enjoy this episode. And if you like what you hear, find a slight change of plans wherever you get podcasts. And then go call a friend. Tell them about the show.

• 2:40Speaker 03

  You know, I looked around at my friends and I was like, well, why doesn't this love matter? Why have I been told that this love doesn't count? It called into question some of the beliefs that I had about romantic versus platonic love. I thought that those messages were actively harming me and that they might be harming other people, too.

• 2:57Speaker 04

  That's Dr. Marisa Franco, a psychologist and an expert on friendship. Society often teaches us that friendship is secondary to other relationships, like family or romantic partners. And Marissa wants to change that. In our conversation, she shares some helpful strategies to enrich the quality of our friendships, including a concept known as mutuality.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  Mutuality is different from a lot of the ways that we think about friendship in terms of like, we might think of it as reciprocity. Like, I reach out this time, you should reach out the next time. But mutuality is taking a step back to look at the broader dynamics that are going on for each of us and figuring out whose needs make sense to prioritize in this given situation.

• 3:47Speaker 04

  On today's episode, we explore the science of friendship, why it matters more than we might think, and what we can do to make new friends and keep the ones we have.

• 4:03Speaker 04

  I'm Maya Shankar, and this is A Slight Change of Plans, a show about who we are and who we become in the face of a big change.

• 4:24Speaker 04

  Marissa is the author of the book Platonic, How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make and Keep Friends. She realized just how important friendship was to her when she was in her early twenties and navigating a painful breakup.

• 4:38Speaker 03

  I think I just felt that if I couldn't maintain this romantic relationship, then I wasn't lovable. I didn't have any love in my life. And I was feeling so miserable, I think, in part because of those beliefs. And to heal, I ended up asking my friend Heather, what if we start this wellness group? We can meet up, practice wellness, cook, do yoga, go on walks, have dinner. And I thought that would really help me heal my grief. And it did. Like, meeting up with these friends every week totally healed me. It wasn't because we were meditating or doing yoga. It was just being in community with people that I loved that loved me every week. And I think another reason why that group really healed me is that it called into question some of the beliefs that I had

• 5:23Speaker 03

  that had caused me to take this breakup so hard, which was, here I was, thinking I didn't have love in my life when I had evidence of just how loved I was every week. Like, I could no longer engage in that lie that I didn't have love. You know, I felt like, well, I don't think this is just me. I think this really reflects something larger in our culture that's really harming and hurting us all. And so, understanding it not just as my own lived experience, but as a larger societal, cultural problem or issue that we had is really what drove me to want to write Platonic.

• 5:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, this is one of the reasons I was obsessed with having you on. A slight change of plans is because I think your work does speak to this larger cultural issue, which is that we deprioritize friendship to a third-rate relationship. And I was thinking back to my past and the views that I had. And I absolutely grew up thinking that... Romantic relationships sit at the top of the relationship hierarchy and that if you don't have that, it really doesn't matter how many friends you have or how high quality those friendships are.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  Exactly. Yep. I had definitely felt the same way. And, you know, I guess we even hear things like you need one person to complete you, which really made me feel like I didn't have a sense of self without having a romantic partner. And also, like, why do we think that one template fits for everybody?

• 6:47Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  I think that when we have a cultural narrative that's so crushing, it can get hard for people to actually discern, like, what do I actually want in my life? What's actually best for me? Like, would I prefer a life where I have a large network of friends and am single? But, but yeah, when I, your society teaches you that if you make that choice, you're less of a person, people aren't as free to actually discern, what is the life that I actually want for myself?

• 7:12Speaker 04

  Hmm. You know, the argument you make in your book is that we need to reclaim friendship and elevate it to the status that it deserves. So let's start there. I read in your book that there's a very interesting connection that exists between friendship and self-identity. And that's a connection I never really thought about before. So can you tell us a bit more about this connection?

• 7:34Speaker 03

  So I think each person that we interact with is an advertisement for the kaleidoscope of ways in which we can live. And the ways that people show up in the world, or how we learn to show up in the world, too, like, that learning happens through being able to see a friend engage in a certain hobby or interest. And you're like, maybe I would like that hobby or interest. Like, it's that exposure that we get through each friend. And so in that way, it's like each person that we interact with can bring out a new and different side of our identity. And so when we're only interacting with one person, it's like, well, a spouse, which we've, we've been told should be, you know, the only relationship we need to feel complete. Sometimes it's like we only have one experience of ourself and all of the parts of ourselves that maybe aren't aligned with what our spouse likes,

• 8:18Speaker 03

  not because you're incompatible with your spouse, but just because you're different people with different hobbies and different interests. Those parts of you might not come out when you're only interacting with them. And so it requires us to be in community with different types of people to experience the different sides of ourselves and to have our identities. Fan out. And I think that this was a sense, at least I got the sense in the pandemic when I was living with a partner and still feeling like unease or still feeling like it's a weird sort of malaise when you're just like, I don't know, my identity is kind of scrunching inward. Like I would hang out with my friends and feel like I'm just filling with life. I don't know. I just have

• 8:59Speaker 03

  different emotions that tend to come up around different people. And so I was experiencing my palette of emotions more greatly. And I think that's really important because I think there's a lot of feeling gray and feeling bleak or feeling kind of numb. And so it almost made me feel more alive to feel like, oh, this friend, I'm like laughing and we're joking about this thing and we're excited about this other thing. And that might have been part of why they just made me feel like more expansive and more alive when I interacted with them.

• 9:28Speaker 04

  Marissa, I'm curious, is there research showing that there is a strong connection between friendship and our physical and mental health?

• 9:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. So there's a study that found that people that were exposed to the virus that causes the common cold, for example, were less likely to actually contract the common cold when they had a diversity of support, when they weren't just relying on a spouse, but relying on different people for support in their lives. And there's other research that just links having a diversity of support to your general sense of well being overall.

• 9:59Speaker 04

  I love the research, Marissa, that shows that healthy, strong friendships are associated with more resilience in our other relationships. Do you mind sharing a bit more about that?

• 10:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, I love this research too, because I think it's unfortunate that we sometimes perceive our romantic relationships and our friendships as antagonistic, like, oh, you're hanging out with your friends, you're not hanging out with me, instead of, oh, you're hanging out with your friends. That's great. Now we can have more quality connection when you come back.

• 10:24Speaker 04

  Definitely.

• 10:24Speaker 03

  Which is the truth, because, you know, research finds that, for example, if I make a friend, not only am I less depressed, but my romantic partner is also likely to be less depressed. So what can improve one partner's mental health will likely improve the other partner's mental health. And that's what we see when people make friends. There's research that finds that when spouses are in a state of conflict, it negatively impacts their release of the stress hormone cortisol, but not when they have that quality connection outside of the marriage as well. And so it's just like, if you're just relying on your spouse, whatever happens in that relationship is going to be so deterministic for how you're doing overall. But if you have quality connection outside of the marriage, it's like, You have a buffer, you know, you kind of have a shield.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  Like if things aren't going well, that doesn't mean that you're completely sunk internally because you can rely on these outside resources as a pick me up.

• 11:18Speaker 04

  Okay, so Marissa, you've convinced us that friendship is important, right? It's something that we should all be working to invest in. I'm wondering if we can get tactical at this stage and if we can learn from you how we can do a better job of making friends in adulthood.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  I think an issue that we have is that we think friendship will happen in adulthood like it did in childhood, which means we won't have to try and be intentional. And there's a sociologist Rebecca Adams, and she says when we have repeated unplanned interaction and shared vulnerability, that's when friendships happen more organically. In your adult life, it's like, do you see people in a way that's repeated over time, even though it's not planned, like work, for example? And do you have your guard down? And at work, I don't know if people have their guard downs, like they tend to not be as vulnerable as they might be outside of the workplace. So basically what that means is like, as adults, we don't have that same environment we had as kids to just rely on friendship happening.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  We can't assume that it happens organically anymore. Like, we're gonna have to try. And in fact, one study found that people that thought friendship happened without effort were more lonely over time, whereas those that saw it as happening based on effort were less lonely over time, and they were also more likely to actually make that effort. So I think, you know, by showing up at a place of worship or a hobby or interest group. So, you know, when we understand it as not happening organically, we understand that, okay, that means I'm gonna have to make a choice to do something in my life to find friends.

• 12:53Speaker 04

  Can you tell us a bit more about why repeated interactions are so important when it comes to facilitating friendship?

• 12:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it's because of something called the mere exposure effect, which the mere exposure effect describes our tendency to like things that are familiar and for people to like us the more that we become familiar. If you continue to be exposed to someone, they don't harm you, then you build trust with them. And so I think when we have that repeated interaction, mere exposure increases, we like them more, they like us more. And if we do want to initiate an interaction and say something like, "Hey, I really enjoyed talking to you, would love to connect further. You open to exchanging contact information." We're just more likely to be successful versus when we've seen someone once, maybe at like a lecture or at a bar, and then we ask them to hang out.

• 13:43Speaker 04

  You know, one reason we fear initiating friendship is that, of course, most of us are afraid of rejection. And so what's your advice to us to help us overcome this kind of anxiety?

• 13:55Speaker 03

  Well, the research finds that people like you more than you think they do.

• 13:59Speaker 04

  Me specifically, right? No, I'm just kidding.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, you specifically. The rest of us were, yeah, it's gonna be rough out there. That basically when strangers interact, they then underestimate how liked they are by the other person. And the more self-critical you are, the more pronounced this underestimation is. And so generally, people like us more than we might think. Like, our brain is kind of programmed with this negativity bias where we register negative information more than positive, which means our predictions as to how we're coming off are often more cynical than the actual truth. So people are less likely to reject you than you think. And I also tell people to assume people like them because the research finds that when people are told, you know, "Based on your personality profile, you will be liked."

• 14:46Speaker 03

  And this is a lie from the researchers just deceiving people, but they actually go out into a group and they become warmer, open, and friendlier. And so it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Whereas we know that people who are more rejection-sensitive, who tend to see rejection when it's not there, like, "Oh, my friend didn't text me back." Or, "My friend came to this show and they didn't sit right next to me. Does that mean they don't like me?" They actually tend to reject people. They become more cold, they become more withdrawn, and then people reject them back after, you know, they've been rejected. So in some ways, when we always think we're being rejected, it also influences our behavior to make that rejection more of a self-fulfilling prophecy, too.

• 15:29Speaker 04

  So to summarize, there is a, this is so interesting because I talked with Vanessa Bonds for this show as well, and she calls this the liking gap, right? And I'm assuming that's what you're referring to, which is the liking gap.

• 15:40Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 15:40Speaker 04

  So there's a gap between our expectations of how much people really like us versus how much we think they like us. And the good news is that they tend to like us more than we think. So that's reassuring.

• 15:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 15:51Speaker 04

  And then the second is, just remember that it is a self fulfilling prophecy. So play the part of someone who believes they are likable and lovable and worthy of friendship love. And the more you do that, the more your best traits are recruited from you. Whereas if you go into a situation believing you'll get rejected, that will bring out the worst sides of you, right?

• 16:11Speaker 03

  Exactly. You know, that is a really great point. Really, when I see people act in very harmful ways in their friendship, it's because they think people don't care about them, right? So I never reach out to my friends because I think they're going to see it as a burden. It's just when we think someone is going to reject us, it licenses us to engage in all types of harmful and crappy behaviors because we're like, they're not going to care anyway if I ghost them. So I guess I'm just going to ghost them because they don't really care about me. And so in some ways, I think that's why believing people care about you and believing people love you causes you to be a lot better of a friend.

• 16:46Speaker 04

  After the break, Marissa tells us how we can be better friends to the people who are already in our lives. We'll be back in a moment with a slight change of plans.

• 16:57Chris Duffy?

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• 17:41Chris Duffy?

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• 19:51Speaker 04

  So we've talked up to this point about how it is that we can do a better job making new friends. Now I'd love to pivot to how we can do a better job of investing in and maintaining our current friendships.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 20:04Speaker 04

  What are the factors that we should keep in mind?

• 20:07Speaker 03

  So when it comes to keeping friends, that makes me think about this theory called risk regulation theory, which was originally created for romantic partners, but I think applies for friends too. And it's this idea that we decide how much to invest in a relationship based on our likelihood of being rejected. And the more that we can convey to someone that we won't reject them, the more they can invest in the relationship with us. And so showing affection towards friends, being generous towards friends, anything that shows someone that you love and you value them is going to help the friendship. It's going to deepen the friendship. Anything that shows care, consideration, investment in the other person, because that's a sign to that other person, like, oh, now I can invest in this relationship.

• 20:50Speaker 03

  It's safe for me to invest because of how much investment they've shown in me. And so I talk in my book about, for example, generosity, affection, even I think vulnerability in some ways, like when people are vulnerable with us, that conveys to us that they trust us. And it makes us more likely to be vulnerable with them. All of these behaviors that show investment are going to better our relationships. But we can also talk about this concept called mutuality. And mutuality is different from a lot of the ways that we think about friendship in terms of, we might think of it as reciprocity. I reach out this time, you should reach out the next time. But mutuality is like taking a step back to look at the broader dynamics that are going

• 21:30Speaker 03

  on for each of us and figuring out whose needs make sense to prioritize in this given situation. So what I mean by that, Maya, is that there might be times when my friend is in a lot of stress, you know, going through mental health issues, just had a newborn baby, where I can't expect mutuality because I understand that I have greater capacity than they do. And then at other times, you know, they might be investing more in me. Like Michelle Obama also talked about this in her new book, like a relationship is never going to be 50/50. And I see that in terms of long-term friendships too. There's going to be a period when you're giving more, there's going to be a period when you're getting more. And it's like, the measure of equality is more so in like the larger scheme of things.

• 22:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's so funny that you mention that because one of my best friends recently came over to share that she was pregnant and she and her husband were here and they joked, "We're actually here to say our goodbyes, Maya and Jimmy. It's been so wonderful being friends with you." And of course, she's nodding to the fact that, you know, first time parents kind of disappear for an extended period in those early years. And, you know, it was a joke, but it did actually lead me to have a candid conversation with her a couple of weeks later about how, for the first time ever, since we met in college, when we were teenagers, our lives are diverging in this really profound way. And so I'm wondering if you have advice, for me in this case, and listeners as well, about how to navigate friendships when our

• 22:56Speaker 04

  lives feel like they're entering completely different phases.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  I love the fact that you had a conversation with your friend because I think part of the reason why friendships tend to tear when we move into these different stages is because we rely on a set of assumptions. Like, oh, this person has a kid. They have no time to talk to me. They don't want to hear from me. Or people that have kids being like, "My single friend just thinks my life is boring and they don't want to be around my kids, so I can't hang out with them." And it's this set of assumptions that tends to pull us apart. Whereas when we can actually have the conversation, "Okay, like, I would love to still hang out sometime. What does that look like for you? Does it mean I have to come over after the kid is put to bed? How comfortable are you hanging out with the kid around? What are your boundaries around this?" Instead of, "I'm just going to assume that you're too busy to ever talk to me again." You can affirm an identity in a friend even

• 23:45Speaker 03

  though it's not your own, even it's not one that you would choose for yourself, but realizing that it's right for them. And that's actually related to maintaining best friendships over time, maintaining and deepening best friendships over time when you can do that. And so that looks like, even if we don't have the same life experience, let's still show interest in our differences. Let's still show interest in what's it like for you to be a mom? Or what's it like for you to live your childless life? What are you doing with that? And instead of assuming that because we have this difference, it's not something that we can connect on, because we do look for friendships. For commonality, but also for expansion. And so now this friendship is going to provide you an opportunity to expand and be like, oh, this is what it's like when someone really close to me has a kid and these are what their concerns are, these are the things that stress them out and just maintain curiosity about that.

• 24:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, it touches back on a point you were making earlier in our conversation, Marissa, about how friendships can be mind expanding in this really powerful way, right? You felt so alive when these parts of yourself were tapped into or you were learning about new aspects of the world. And I really love that reframe. And I think it's one I'll carry with me as my friend has this child. And another thing that she and I talked about in this conversation was the long-term nature of our friendship. So we kind of acknowledged there might be some speed bumps. There might be some harder moments in time in the short term, but let's not forget that we are committed for life as friends.

• 25:06Speaker 03

  I love that.

• 25:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, I found the conversation pretty therapeutic because I think I was having a lot of anxiety around what would happen to this best friendship of mine. And so it felt good to confront it head on, even though I was a little nervous to have the conversation.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  I think that's really awesome. I think that's really, really awesome. And it reminds me of the study on like, long-distance friendships, that maintaining them was kind of looking at the times when you don't talk as flexible, not fragile. Like friendship can ebb and flow. If we have an ebb, let's not assume the friendship is over and never reengage, but instead it's assume that this is part of the life story of the friendship. There's going to be moments where we're spread apart and then there's going to be moments where we come back together again.

• 25:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, and you're reminding me in this moment with this particular friend, we already share that in our history. So we were inseparable, we were attached at the hip when we were in college, and then she studied abroad for a period of time. And then obviously, communication went down for a bit. And then a couple of years later, the intensity of our communications increased. I mean, there's been that waxing and waning already. And yet here we are in current day with a very stable, healthy friendship. And so it's nice to be able to look back at that historical data point as evidence that we can get through these periods where things go up and down.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  I mean, yeah. And I was on a podcast with someone who was, I think he was in his 60s, and he never had kids. And he was like, just remember, your friendships are going to come back. Their kids are going to leave the nest. And then it's going to be like, you're back in your 20s, like how much time you want to spend with your friends. I'm like, wow.

• 26:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, she's going to need me eventually. And she's an empty nester. I love it. I love it. So you know, I mentioned, Marissa, that I felt a little bit of anxiety when it came to raising this topic with my friend. And speaking of anxiety, one area that can cause us a lot of anxiety is fighting in the context of friendship. And in part, this is because we're led to believe that it's unreasonable for us to have big arguments with our friends, because after all, they're just our friends, right? But you say in your book, it's actually quite important to fight in friendships. Empower us in this moment, empower us to have those difficult conversations with friends where

• 27:17Speaker 04

  in the moment, it feels easier just pushing under the rug, but that's not actually in the long-term best interest of the friendship.

• 27:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, this was like my biggest growth area in friendships that I was like, being a good friend means me getting over it.

• 27:30Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  Getting over the problem that I have in this friendship and then realizing, oh, I'm actually like just withdrawing. I'm not actually just getting over it and it's hurting and harming my friendships. And so I started to read all this research that, you know, people who really value friendship tend to actually address problems instead of just ignoring them and that open empathic conflict is correlated with deeper intimacy. And so I was like, wow, am I actually missing out on this opportunity for intimacy by trying to ignore the conflict? And there's a psychoanalyst, Virginia Goldner, who talks about how you can have flaccid safety, which is basically we're close because we pretend there's never any problems, or dynamic safety, where you could actually rupture and

• 28:12Speaker 03

  repair and rupture and repair. And then you have a precedent that whenever a problem comes up, we know that we can actually address it and make it better instead of our only options being to just injure or walk away. And so I just was like, hmm, maybe I actually need to address problems with my friends. And that was another way where I compartmentalized intimacy, right? Because I knew in my romantic partnerships that I was gonna have to address problems and work through issues and you're about marriage is hard, you're gonna have to, you know, work through all these problems together and not realizing that part of intimacy is conflict. And so friendship is also going to require the same set of skills. And the other thing that I realized was that I was conflating conflict with combat,

• 28:54Speaker 03

  when in fact, conflict could look like reconciliation. And so it was me learning to do things like frame the conversation as an act of love. Like, hey, I want to talk about this because you're so important to me, you know? And, and I know you're having kids and I'm so excited for you. And, you know, I have some anxieties about whether we're going to stay close. So I figured I would bring it up so we could still find a way to stay close through this big life change of ours. And then using I statements like, yeah, I've been feeling a little nervous about how this could impact our closeness. And then perspective taking, which looks like the mutuality of as you share your feelings, how do you feel? What are you thinking? And then asking for what you need in the future, like, you know, maybe I'd still like to see you like once a month or twice a month.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  How would that work out for you? And so I think healthy conflict looks like wading into the ambivalence. Like a part of me is afraid too. We actually feel some of the same things as this big change or this issue in our friendship has come up.

• 29:50Speaker 04

  I really resonate with the frame the conversation as an affirmation of love. I'm thinking about one of my closest friends and, you know, at times he's like, can't we just let this go? Shunks, Shunks is my nickname among my friends. He's like, can we just, why do we have to discuss these things? You know, can't we just let? And I, I told him, I was like, hey, you do realize that I don't put in this effort with everyone, right? It's because I care so much about you and our communication and our lifelong friendship that I do try to conflict resolve and problem solve. And obviously, look, there's a happy medium, but it was, I think that was really affirming for him. I feel like he, it changed the whole spin on why it was that I was initiating these kinds of uncomfortable conversations.

• 30:33Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And I think as a professor, I really tried to be intentional about making my students feel safe. And what comes out of that is they demand so much more of me. And I remember hearing from this psychologist who studies narcissism. She said, the most toxic person is the least confronted. And so if your friends are coming up to you to address an issue, maybe it's not a sign that you're a crappy friend. Maybe it's a sign that they feel safe enough to actually bring up a problem instead of trying to ignore it.

• 30:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's a really excellent way of seeing it. You wouldn't invest the time in someone that you didn't, you, you wouldn't feel vulnerable enough to bring this up with someone that you didn't. In this deep way, trust.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 31:11Speaker 04

  And so it's actually an ode to the quality of the friendship that you're having these conversations.

• 31:18Speaker 04

  There are some cases, of course, where, for whatever reason, transitions in life, the nature of the relationship, you actually feel it's important to break up with a friend. And that can be extremely uncomfortable.

• 31:31Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 31:31Speaker 04

  What do you recommend that people do in a situation like that where they just realize, this friendship, it isn't serving me anymore. It's not good for either of us. You know, whatever the reason is, it feels, it's such a hard space, Marissa, because there's an expectation in society that we break up with significant others. I mean, that's just like part of the cultural narrative that that happens. But the idea of breaking up with a friend just feels almost a bit foreign and a little taboo. And yeah, help me make sense of this.

• 32:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I think it depends on whether the other person is still invested in you or not. If it seems mutual and the other person's pulling away, you're pulling away, then I think it's fine to just kind of pull away and let it be. But if the other person continues to seem invested in a friendship with you and you're no longer invested in the friendship with them, the kindest thing to do is to tell them. Because if you don't tell them, you trigger something called ambiguous loss, which is when we have a lot of trouble processing our grief because we don't have any closure. And it's almost like they're going to end up grieving twice because you weren't able to muster up the courage to have a conversation. So it's quite mean, but it doesn't feel mean. That's the thing. I think with something like ghosting, there's such emotional incongruence

• 32:45Speaker 03

  between the experience of being the ghoster and receiving the ghosting. Like, it's like, oh, I just kind of forgot about it. But the other person is like, it's keeping them up at night and they're ruminating on it. So I think it's really important to remember that incongruence. Because if we don't, we might be like, well, it's no sweat for me. So I think it's fine, right? And then they are just going to make up all types of stories. And because our brain has this negativity bias, the stories are probably going to be a lot meaner than what you're going to tell them.

• 33:08Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 33:09Speaker 03

  So yeah, I suggest, you know, having a conversation about it. It's not cruel. You're talking about yourself and your own experience and how your needs have changed. And I hope that this conversation happens after you've tried to address the problem with them and given them a chance to repair it. And it hasn't necessarily worked, unless it's a big betrayal, of course. You know, if it's a big betrayal, then it might be one thing that really has broken the friendship. But if it's something like smaller and ongoing, like sometimes I feel like in our conversations, You don't give space to like, hear about me and we're mostly focused on you. Like, I hope that you have that conversation before deciding to end the friendship. But, um, you know, if it's coming to a point where you're just like, you know, sometimes I feel like we have really incompatible communication styles and that leaves me,

• 33:54Speaker 03

  leaving our interactions feeling like kinda sad. And that's why I'm feeling like this friendship isn't necessarily working out for us anymore. Maybe you are trying to engage with me in a certain way, but I just haven't been reading it that way. And so that's why this friendship really hasn't felt like it's working for me. You know, adding like, I just wanted to make sure I was being upfront and transparent with you moving forward. Something like that. It sounds cruel, but it's a lot less cruel than not giving someone any closure.

• 34:26Speaker 04

  Yeah. Uh, one piece of advice I took away from your book is that when a friendship ends, for whatever reason, we really need to give ourselves the space to grieve. Because you talk about the fact that in our society, pain associated with the loss of friendship is devalued.

• 34:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's this term called disenfranchised grief, which is like when society doesn't legitimize our loss. We can't legitimize it ourselves internally and we might invalidate our own grief process. And if there's one thing you should know about grief, it's that you can't just suppress it and push it away, that you actually have to feel the grief for it to be released from you. And so that's why I think a lot of people that lose really close friends feel very isolated, feel very alienated, can feel preoccupied with the loss for such a long period of time, because they feel like their loss isn't valid and their loss isn't significant, while their body's telling them the opposite message, that this is a big loss for you, that you have to feel this and that you have to acknowledge it.

• 35:25Speaker 03

  And so that's one of the reasons why some people are like, friendship breakups hurt even more than, uh, you know, divorce or romantic relationship breakup.

• 35:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, I've been reading a lot of writing on this topic recently, and there are many, many people who have said that their friendships ending, exactly as you say, were far more painful than any romantic relationship that came to an end. So I'm at least grateful that you're giving us strategies for trying to end the friendships with a bit more closure, to the extent that can help us heal or help the other person heal. How has working in this space changed the way that you think about the friends in your life? Like, is there any anecdote that comes to mind in which you think, ooh, as a result of exploring this research for years, I'm now engaging with my friends differently?

• 36:11Speaker 03

  So I aspire to hold friendship at the same regard as I do romantic relationships, especially for my closest friends in my life. So I had a friend, she was coming back from Mexico and arriving back from the airport at like 12:30 a.m. And I was contemplating whether I wanted to pick her up. And I was like, I'm so tired. I'm in bed by 12 midnight. And I asked myself, would I offer to pick up my romantic partner? And I was like, yeah, absolutely. Like, I would stay up to pick up my romantic partner. And so then I decided that I would go offer to pick her up from the airport, too. And I did. And I realized this is the work.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  And what was your friend's reaction to that? Like, what impact do you think that had on your friendship?

• 36:55Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh. I think it really changed our friendship.

• 36:59Speaker 04

  That's amazing.

• 36:59Speaker 03

  I think she realized that I was really invested in the friendship. When she realized I was invested, she started to invest. Like, all my plants died because it got too cold. And she noticed that. And she just like came over and bought a plant for me. And then since then, we've just been like hanging out a lot more often because I think there's this freedom that comes from knowing this person loves you and is intentionally trying to invest in you that allows each of us to engage in a lot more of the risky behaviors that promote intimacy.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  I'd love to end our conversation with a piece of research that you talk about in your book. And it's about how we tend to have the wrong idea about what people value in us as friends.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:39Speaker 04

  And understanding this can actually be quite empowering. Can you tell us more?

• 37:44Speaker 03

  Yeah. So this is a study where people were asked to rate the most important traits in a friend. And I think before studying friendship, I thought that trait was being charismatic, or entertaining, or funny.

• 37:55Speaker 03

  That it was about kind of like putting on a show to get people to like you. But the number one trait people valued was this concept ego support, which is someone making you feel like you matter and someone making you feel really valued and really loved. And I think this message is really hopeful because some people think that if I want to make friends, I have to change fundamentally who I am. And it's not about who you are. Making friends is about being loving toward other people.

• 38:55Chris Duffy?

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• 39:39Chris Duffy?

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• 40:46Speaker 04

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to this season of A Slight Change of Plans. I really hope you found these conversations helpful. The conversation you just heard actually inspired me to reach out to my best friend from childhood, Christine. I hadn't talked to her in over 20 years. It was a magical reconnection. If something you've heard on this show has changed the way you approach your life, I'd love to hear from you on Instagram, at DrMayaShankar. You can also check this account for a sneak peek of our coming season. We'll be back in your feeds in no time, in late May. I'll see you then.

• 41:32Speaker 04

  A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive produced by me, Maya Shankar. The Slight Change family includes our showrunner, Tyler Green, our senior editor, Kate Parkinson-Morgan, our sound engineer, Andrew Bastola, and our associate producer, Sarah McCray. Louise Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there. And of course, a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.

• 42:04Speaker 04

  You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram, at DrMayaShankar.

• 42:29Speaker 03

  Okay, um, am I sounding like I have a little bit of a lag?

• 42:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:32Speaker 03

  You're sounding like you have a little bit of a lag to me.

• 42:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, you have a lag.

• 42:36Speaker 03

  Okay, it worked. Hello.

• 42:38Speaker 04

  Hi. Oh, that, I think that's a lot better. Can you just tell me what you ate for breakfast?

• 42:43Speaker 03

  Yes, I had some fruits, some grapes, some cauliflower toast. Then for lunch, I had some rice and some fish and some salad with olives and pickles. How am I sounding?

• 42:56Speaker 04

  You're sounding like you're an extremely healthy person.

• 43:02Speaker 04

  Cauliflower bread? What is cauliflower bread?

• 43:09Chris Duffy?

  What you just heard was a special episode from A Slight Change of Plans with Dr. Maya Shankar. Find more episodes of A Slight Change of Plans wherever you get podcasts. This episode is sponsored by PayPal. This holiday season, don't miss your chance to turn just looking into just bought it. Make it easy for your customers to say yes on the spot. PayPal Checkout is a trusted conversion engine fueled by 400 million active PayPal and Venmo accounts. And when you add Pay Later, you can turn holiday shoppers into regulars. 96% of Pay Later shoppers are repeat users. So if you give them Pay Later flexibility now, it could help earn their loyalty all year long. PayPal is built for all business. Get started at paypal.com/business.

• 43:54Chris Duffy?

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• 44:04Chris Duffy?

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• 44:53Speaker 08

  With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends, it's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See Capital One dot com slash bank. Capital One, N A, Member FDIC.

• 45:23Speaker 06

  Hey, this is Penn and Kim Holderness from Laugh Lines.

• 45:26Speaker 07

  Some travelers want the charm of an independent hotel. Others want the confidence of a trusted global brand. With Series by Marriott, you get both.

• 45:35Speaker 06

  Each property is uniquely connected to its destination, delivering local experiences and memorable stays while being backed by the quality, reliability, and Marriott Bonvoy benefits that travelers know and trust.

• 45:47Speaker 07

  Experience the destination without the compromise.

• 45:50Speaker 06

  Series by Marriott is part of Marriott Bonvoy. Book direct at Marriott dot com or on the Marriott Bonvoy app.