Friendships: Handling Change, Conflict and Finding New Friends

Dr Laurie was invited by her pal Gretchen Rubin to appear on a special edition of the More Happier https://gretchenrubin.com/podcast/more-happier-welcome-to-more-happier-podcast/ podcast to examine friendship. The two old friends were joined in their discussion by a new friend, Reshma Saujani (founder of Girls Who Code https://girlswhocode.com/ and Moms First https://momsfirst.us/ and host of the podcast My So-Called Midlife https://lemonadamedia.com/show/my-so-called-midlife-with-reshma-saujani/). The trio talked about how our friendships change over time, how to handle conflict, and how to make new friends in adulthood. Listen to Gretchen's show Happier with Gretchen Rubin https://gretchenrubin.com/happier/ and More Happier https://gretchenrubin.com/podcast/more-happier-welcome-to-more-happier-podcast/ - and Reshma's My So-Called Midlife https://lemonadamedia.com/show/my-so-called-midlife-with-reshma-saujani/ - wherever you get your podcast See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy 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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• 1:08Laurie Santos?

  Pushkin.

• 1:13Laurie Santos?

  Hey, Happiness Lab listeners. Today, you're in for a treat because my friend, bestselling author and happiness expert Gretchen Rubin, just had me join her for a special episode of her podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin. In this episode, Gretchen and I took part in her first ever Friendship Roundtable. And we were joined by the amazing Rashma Sawjani, founder of Girls Who Code and host of the My So-Called Midlife Podcast.

• 1:39Laurie Santos?

  Gretchen, Rashma, and I talked about our friendships, how they've changed over time, how we try to handle conflict, and how we've made friends in adulthood. I enjoyed our conversation a lot, and I bet you will too.

• 1:58Speaker 06

  Because friendship is such a huge element to a happier life, it is a great subject for a roundtable discussion to go deeper. And three of us are here today to talk about friendship. I'm Gretchen Rubin, a writer who studies happiness, human nature, and friendship, and I am the host of the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast. And also here today is Laurie Santos. Laurie is a professor at Yale University, where she has taught the most popular course in Yale history, Psychology and the Good Life. And she's also host of the Happiness Lab podcast, a terrific podcast that helps listeners improve their wellbeing with the science of happiness. Hello, Laurie.

• 2:38Laurie Santos?

  Hey Gretchen, thanks so much for having me on the show. This roundtable is fun and we'll build our own friendship.

• 2:43Speaker 06

  We'll build our own friendship. There you go. And we are also here with Reshma Sajani. Reshma is the founder of successful nonprofits, Girls Who Code, and Moms First, and the bestselling author of books, including Pay Up, Brave Not Perfect, and the Girls Who Code book series. She is host of the terrific podcast, My So-Called Midlife, where she tackles the question, she's gotten everything she's ever wanted, so why does she feel so unsatisfied? Hello, Reshma. Hi Gretchen, so great to be here. This is going to be such a fun conversation. Okay, so friendship. Ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree that relationships are a key element

• 3:24Speaker 06

  to a happy life, and friendship is certainly an extraordinarily important form of relationship. Lately, I have been going through the empty nest phase of life, which I'm rebranding as the open door phase of life. And one thing that I noticed is how sometimes in this stage, people realize that they've been confusing friends with acquaintances, like they thought they had friends, but they really just had friendly acquaintances. And as I started talking more and more about friendship, I could see that people were really fired up about this subject. People really understand how important it is. And we're recording this in Women's History Month, and while friendships are certainly not exclusive to women, there is something kind of special about women's friendships. And so I'm so excited to talk to you both about friendship.

• 4:07Laurie Santos?

  Yeah. Be awesome.

• 4:09Speaker 06

  Excellent. So let's talk about friendship in your own life. Have there been any special steps that you have taken in your own life to either strengthen existing friendships or to create new friendships? I mean, because what is it make new friends but keep the old? One is silver, the other is gold. What have you done in your own life toward this aim? L'Oreal, let me ask you first.

• 4:31Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, well, one of the reasons I was so excited to have this conversation is I feel like this is something I've been thinking about a lot. Right? You know, I went through this period of feeling super burned out. And and one of the things I recognized during that period was that like I hadn't been investing enough time in my friendships. I too felt like I had a lot of these like so called relational friendships where it's like, you know, maybe I would see somebody at work or we were just kind of friends because we happen. You know, my, my husband happened to know his partner or something like that. And like it was, I was finding that I just like didn't have the close connections that I thought. And so, you know, like a dutiful like happiness scientist that I am, I was like, I'm going to go about making friends.

• 5:06Speaker 06

  I'm putting it in the lab.

• 5:07Laurie Santos?

  Putting it in the lab, right? Like, but it's hard. It's hard in midlife, I think, for lots of reasons, right? One is that we're all so busy, right? It wasn't the ease with which I made friendships with people, say, like in college or something like that, where you're naturally running into each other. You meet someone at your yoga class, or I have this sort of movie night that I go to, you meet friends there. And it's like, you actually have to put something in the calendar. And that can be kind of prohibitively taxing. But having put some effort into this, I can say that it is possible in midlife to make new friends. But it does feel like it takes some energy and some work.

• 5:40Speaker 06

  And was there anything specific you tried?

• 5:42Laurie Santos?

  I think it's like putting yourself out there and offering, like you have to be the one that says like, hey, maybe we should go on a coffee date, or maybe we should go shopping together. Maybe we should go see this movie together. What I did find, though, is that if you can kind of get through the hurdle of like figuring out everybody's collective schedules, people are usually really into it. Like, my experience has been like, when, when you kind of push people to like, take the friendship a next step, most people are kind of into that. It's just like, we're all so busy. It can be hard to get things on the calendar.

• 6:10Speaker 06

  Well, and I know that there's research showing that like people really do value relationships. And even though you can feel sort of awkward or self-conscious by making that gesture. To go deeper with a friendship, usually people are very welcome of it. Like, if you want to be friends, probably they want to be friends. And that's kind of comforting to remember.

• 6:25Laurie Santos?

  Totally. And I think this is a whole set of biases that I think if we're talking about friendship, we need to acknowledge, which is that our minds kind of suck when it comes to thinking about friendships. Like, we just have these biases that lead us towards anti-friendship, or under-sociality, as the researcher Nick Epley calls it. One of my favorite ones is this effect called the liking gap, which is just like, you assume that everybody in your life, from your best, best, you know, ride or die bestie, to like, the person that you chat with occasionally at the coffee shop, you assume that that person likes you, less than that person actually likes you. The liking gap is like such a sad series of studies, like, because they find that like, even like, college roommates, like, your college roommate that you've lived with for a year, if you ask, "How much does your college roommate like you?", a person will say, "Well, they like me, you like only so-so",

• 7:10Laurie Santos?

  whereas the college roommate's like, "Oh, my gosh, I love them so much." That's so interesting. It's like systematically pushing us, yeah, systematically pushing us towards less friendship, which is, which is terrible. Our minds shouldn't work that way.

• 7:21Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's reassuring to remember that, though. That's helpful. Now, how about you, Reshma? What have you done to strengthen or build relationships?

• 7:29Speaker 07

  God, I mean, as Lori's talking, I have so many thoughts. I mean, well, first of all, I always had a tight crew of friends. And so I have been someone who, you know, spends my life being extrovert, as both of you understand. And so like, I like keeping it tight and small. And I like being able to just, you know, when I have dinner with a friend or we go on a girl's trips, like, we're just talking about gossip, about celebrity gossip, or about nothing, like, it's just not serious. We're not talking about our jobs, we're not talking about like, what we want to change. I've spent my whole life doing that. So I'm a really good friend. Like, I pride myself on it, right?

• 8:06Speaker 06

  So that's part of your identity?

• 8:08Speaker 07

  Yeah, like, I feel like ironically, even though I might be the busiest out of all my friends, like, I'm the 3:00 AM phone call, right? I'm the friend when you're going through substance abuse that is there, right? Like, I'm that friend. And so I think in order for me to be a good friend, I always kept my friendship circle really small, but my acquaintance pool very large, right? So I'll have a drink with you, right, you know what I mean? We'll catch up, but I'm not going to tell you all my secrets, right? Or like, we're not, you know, we're not going to get there because I just don't think then I have, can give that way. So- I think one, that's always been really important to me. So one of the reasons why I wanted to really start looking at midlife is in midlife, things change.

• 8:51Speaker 07

  And even people you've been friends with for 20 years change and there's breakups. And if you're somebody that like, has kept your crew tight, that's really hard. I think the second thing is, is that living in New York, everybody leaves. So all of a sudden, right, I feel like I found myself when my kids were really young, being like, oh my God, I got too many people I gotta have dinner with, or see a Broadway show with, or do this thing with, to all of a sudden, like, looking at my 10 year old, being like, what are you doing tonight? You wanna watch a movie? Right? Like, everything shifted because nobody was there left. And I had not learned, and I still don't know, I still don't, I still don't know how to make new friends. I really struggle. I can make a lot of acquaintances, but I really struggle with new friends. And if I

• 9:35Speaker 07

  was honest too, I just also like, had a little bit of judgment around it. And I remember I was reading my mentor Hillary Clinton's book, and she wrote in there, like, that she makes a new friend every year. And I was like, really? Like, if Hillary can make a new friend every year, then I should be able to make a new friend, you know what I mean, every year? So that was a big eye opener for me.

• 9:55Speaker 06

  Let me ask you a quick question. When you say you keep it tight, like, what is that number? I'm just curious. Like, is that three? Is that 10?

• 10:01Speaker 07

  It's under, it's under, I would say it's under, under seven, under eight.

• 10:07Laurie Santos?

  All of Rushman's friends listening right now are like, they're like, am I one of the seven?

• 10:19Laurie Santos?

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• 11:04Laurie Santos?

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• 11:49Laurie Santos?

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• 12:34Laurie Santos?

  That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com.

• 12:39Laurie Santos?

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• 13:21Laurie Santos?

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• 13:34Speaker 06

  I think that there are many different types of friendship, maybe more than people say. Like, I think sometimes it's like, are you friends or are you not friends? Or it's interesting, Rashma, you were saying you have your tight, close friends and then you have your acquaintances. And to me, it seems like maybe it's good to think about different categories, all of whom maybe add to our life in a different way. And also, like you say, have different levels of responsibility.

• 13:56Laurie Santos?

  Yeah.

• 13:57Speaker 06

  And like intimacy that we that we bring to it and that we expect from it, but they can all add to our lives. But before we get into sort of our own colloquial sense of all these different kinds of friends, Lori, what is the research showing about types of friendship as we're thinking this through?

• 14:11Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, what's the science say? I mean, I guess a couple of things. I mean, one is what the science really clearly shows is that like, any kind of social connection is good, right?

• 14:19Speaker 06

  A barista.

• 14:20Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, the barista at the coffee shop, chat with the person on the train, all of that's good, right? And so I think overall, what the research is trying to do is to categorize those forms of social connection. And so often researchers break up different kinds of ways that we could connect up to other people in terms of three different categories. They call them intimate kind of friendships, relational friends and sort of communal friends. And so the intimate one, it doesn't mean like intimate in a like romantic intimate sense. It means kind of, I think, what Rashma is getting at, like your ride or dies, your crew.

• 14:50Speaker 06

  The 3 a.m. call.

• 14:51Laurie Santos?

  Everything, exactly, right? The relational friends are the ones that you like do stuff with, you know? So you might like grab a glass of wine, you might go see a movie and it's like a one-on-one thing, but they're not the 3 a.m. call in the same way. Gretchen, I think this is what you're getting at when you were saying that like when your kids move away, you realize a lot of people are in that relational category, but maybe not the intimate category, right? But there's another domain that I think we often forget, which is a sort of communal or kind of community friends. And this is like your book club, like the crew of people you go to Pilates with and or your church group, right? Like, this is like a group of people. Parents in your kids' class. Your kids' class, like the soccer moms that you see. Like, you know, on the field, right?

• 15:33Laurie Santos?

  And those are sometimes the people that we can see most often, depending on what those like community events are. They might be our most frequent of their friends. And they're really good for kind of having these shared values and these shared activities. But again, they're a little bit different than than the other ones. You might not with the soccer mom, unless you take it to a new level. It's definitely not gonna be a 3 a.m. call, but it might not even be the go to the movie together.

• 15:53Speaker 06

  But it could be the first step toward an intimate friend. It could be a starter. It might have the capacity or the possibility of going further, even if it's not then. If you want to build a friend, like Rashma was saying, it's hard to make new friends. Maybe that's a place to find new friends.

• 16:07Laurie Santos?

  Totally, right? Because you have to have some sort of connection with people to like move them from the categories. And I think it just takes some, takes some work, right? You have to be on the soccer field with the mom and be like, hey, do you want to get a coffee later outside the soccer field? Or do you want to like go get a movie or share something together? And again, that feels vulnerable, like it feels scary to almost ask like, because the person might be like, no, or I don't have time. And you'll just feel like, ah, I got rejected.

• 16:32Speaker 07

  Lori, where does your work friends go? Because that's the other thing I've found, like, I'm a workaholic. So I find that my work friends are now like my best friends. My, that's always teases me is like, it doesn't count if you pay them.

• 16:44Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:45Laurie Santos?

  It's tricky. No, I think, I think, I think work friends can be in any of these categories, right? You know, take the work friend that like you all go to the softball game together, right? That might feel very communal, right? If it's a work friend that you occasionally go out to get a drink for, but they don't really know any of your, you know, real intimate life or your big secrets, right? That would probably be more relational. But there are definitely work friends that are the ride or die besties that hear, you know, all this stuff. I definitely have had work friends that are my 3 a.m. call, right? And so.

• 17:13Speaker 06

  I'm not sure that I think that those three categories are very helpful. Because it almost makes them feel like they're in a hierarchy. But I feel like it's almost more helpful to think about them as types of friends or the role they play. Like a childhood friend.

• 17:25Laurie Santos?

  Yeah.

• 17:26Speaker 06

  They know us in a way, they know our parents, they know our childhood dog. You know, even if now we're very far apart than them in life, there's something about the childhood friends. Lori, you mentioned the couples friends. Where, you know, you can go out on a double date, there's sort of a special kind of thing. If you travel with people. And that's maybe not even that they're so intimate, but you would travel in the same way. People that you know online.

• 17:50Laurie Santos?

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:51Speaker 06

  Does that count? Like, if you haven't met people in real life, or like, people that you've only seen on Zoom? You guys, I mean, what about parasocial relationships? I mean, I bet you all have people who consider you their parasocial friends. Plus, I do. And then I also have my own parasocial friends and people who I listen to. So I don't know. I mean, what other kinds of friends am I missing?

• 18:11Laurie Santos?

  No, I mean, I think I think you're totally right, that it's super complicated. Although, push back on the idea that those three categories I gave are hierarchical. I think we kind of need all of them, right?

• 18:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, that's true.

• 18:21Laurie Santos?

  I definitely have been in situations, and even during my burnout situation, I would describe being in this, where I still had my intimate friends. I had my besties that I could call at night. But I had nobody to go to yoga class with. I had nobody to go for a walk with.

• 18:33Speaker 06

  Well, this has to go with near friends and far friends. And Reshma, this is what you're talking about, is what about when somebody who was a near friend then becomes a far friend? Well, then that completely changes the energy of the relationship.

• 18:46Speaker 07

  Well, this is why I liked your category story, because it made me feel almost like better, right? Like, I think one of the things that I've had to contend with in midlife is that it's okay if friendships shift. They don't have to be somebody who's your intimate friend, has to be your intimate friend forever. They can then become your relational friend. And that's, that doesn't mean that you failed. Because I think, for women in particular, because we take our friendships so seriously, is that it's very hard when they fall apart. Right? And you're like, I feel like I did something wrong, or I shouldn't have tried harder. And it's, and it's different, because it's unlike your parents, like, no matter what, you're stuck with them. Right? Or your siblings, right? It doesn't matter.

• 19:27Speaker 06

  It's an obligation.

• 19:28Speaker 07

  Right. What happens to them, whether they turn into an alcoholic, or become a raging bitch, or like, you know what I mean, didn't get this? Like, you're like, stuck with them. Whereas with friendships, especially as you get older, I think people realize, well, I don't have to be in this toxic relationship. Like, I don't have to do this.

• 19:43Speaker 06

  Have you managed severe strife in a friendship yourself, Reshma?

• 19:47Speaker 07

  I mean, most recently, I've had to contend with a potential breakup, which is the first time that's ever happened to me.

• 19:54Speaker 06

  I've never, yeah.

• 19:55Speaker 07

  It's never happened to me before. But I think part of, without going into the details, right? But part of what I think I realized is that it's okay. And that sometimes people are going through things, and you gotta allow there to be some distance, and that doesn't mean it's forever. And that's okay. You know, I, I think for a lot of us as women, we carry a lot of regret and we carry a lot of envy, a lot of what, a should, a could is, you know, and I think the older you get, you realize that, well, that might not happen for me. And I think that that oftentimes breeds a lot of anger. And I think that a lot of people are struggling, as my monk would say, like, a lot of people are really suffering.

• 20:40Speaker 07

  And friendships used to be the way you healed, right? Like, you remember that when you would go through a breakup? And you'd be like devastated and you just had to sit in a room with your girlfriends and like drink a lot of wine and eat a lot of bad food and just cry and watch a movie. And like, it just, after a week of doing that, you were like, you felt better. That's just friendship, it's just harder to do that these days because of all the commitments that you have in your life. To really use friendship as a tool of healing.

• 21:11Speaker 06

  Well, so maybe that's a good point, which is that we have to acknowledge that friendship looks different at different stages of life and not, and again, not feel like a failure if it doesn't look the way that it used to look. You know, if you're not staying up until 2:00 AM, talking heart to heart with somebody, that doesn't mean that they're not a real, true intimate friend, the way they might have been.

• 21:33Laurie Santos?

  Although I think we also have to get other people's definitions of friends, because some of my friendship strife throughout the years has been realizing that like, we're just on a different page with how we're defining friendship.

• 21:44Speaker 06

  Like what, like what?

• 21:45Laurie Santos?

  Like, so I had this very close friend, still my very close friend, I won't use names, but she'll know I'm talking about her, who lived near me in New Haven, like worked near me at Yale. We were like, you know, besties, besties tight. And for lots of reasons, she wound up taking a job really far away. And, you know, I was not just sad that my friend was moving away for all the reasons. I felt devastated, like I felt like there was like a break to the friendship. And she couldn't understand this.

• 22:10Speaker 06

  Like you felt betrayed almost or abandoned?

• 22:12Laurie Santos?

  That she took the job, that she took the job. And, and I knew the job was right for her. It was like, it was totally the right move. But I had this special sense of betrayal and, and it was only through like a long conversation where we, we realized she was like, oh, wait, like devastated. Definitional to your idea of our friendship is that we hang out in person, see each other at our house, eat meals together, walk her dog together. And she was like, that's not, in my definition, our friendship will be just as good a friends if we do all that same stuff on the phone or over Zoom or once a month. And that conversation, I think, really helped both of us because it was like, oh, under your definition, you're, this isn't a friend breakup to you. In the same way, it's sort of feeling to me.

• 22:50Speaker 06

  Right.

• 22:51Laurie Santos?

  And, and that just caused me to realize like, oh, we, we all have these different definitions. Like, you know, if you don't, maybe your definition includes like, if you don't spend your birthday with me, then we're not a good friend. Or if like, you know, if we don't give gifts to each other at Christmas, or we don't celebrate our kids' birthdays, I think we all have these kind of deep seated, intricate ideas of what matters for friendships that we haven't told our friends. And so our friends sometimes wind up violating these without, without realizing they're doing that.

• 23:17Speaker 06

  That is a really good point.

• 23:18Speaker 07

  And like life maturity, right? Because I think as you grow, you have more responsibilities. You gotta take care of your kids, or if you have a partner, or if you have like a, like a challenging job. So it's like, the time that you can spend is just different. And I think for some people, like for me, I judge quality of time rather than like the length of time. Like I'm going on a girl's trip with one of my friends tomorrow who like lives in Atlanta. And maybe we talk on that, we see each other three times a year, but she is my best friend. Right? And we know that we're going to get together for 48 hours and like, it's going to feel like we spent a year together. And like, those are a lot of like, you know, the relationships that I have in my life where I don't have to spend all of this time,

• 23:58Speaker 07

  but it's the quality of time we're together, we're like, super into each other and super engaged and just not like nothing's changed.

• 24:06Speaker 06

  I would say that I think scheduling is the biggest obstacle in my life to friendship, which is just the sheer nuisance of, are you free? Okay, maybe you live in another country, are you free that I can call you while I'm on a call in Central Park? And we can talk by phone?

• 24:22Laurie Santos?

  Yes.

• 24:23Speaker 06

  Okay, what, we gotta manage the time difference. Oh, we want to go into Atlanta on a girl's trip.

• 24:27Laurie Santos?

  Yeah.

• 24:27Speaker 06

  I can't do this weekend, what about that weekend? No, this weekend. Oh, turns out I can't. Can we move it back a week? No, we can't.

• 24:33Laurie Santos?

  Greshen, it's like you're in my DMs right now. No, I'm turning 50 years old this year. Oh, congratulations. But maybe you're going through the same thing, Rashma, which is like my college friends, like I have this whole cohort of friends who are also turning 50. And we're like, wouldn't it be great if we could have, you know, a 50 birthday party all together? And literally, our whole DM is like, what about June? No, my in-laws are coming in June. Like, I can't do that. It's like, oh, my gosh.

• 25:00Speaker 07

  And then you just give up. You're like, yeah.

• 25:02Laurie Santos?

  That's exactly what's happened in my group chat. It's like, no one's replied for like, the last four days. And I think we're all just like, oh, it's too hard.

• 25:08Speaker 07

  Yeah, that's true.

• 25:17Laurie Santos?

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• 28:13Laurie Santos?

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• 28:20Speaker 06

  Okay, now, speaking of the question of understanding friends and maybe holding grace when people bring a different a set of expectations or different understandings. Okay, so my four tendencies framework, which is a personality framework that divides people into upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels. And it has to do with whether you meet or resist outer and inner expectations. Outer expectations like a work deadline. Inner expectations like... Your own desire to keep a New Year's resolution. And I'm just going to go through this super fast. If people want to know more about it, they can just go to Gretchen Rubin dot com slash quiz and take the quiz and find out if they're an upholder, a questioner, obliger, rebel, learn all about it. But just for this, just the nutshell version is upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations. So they meet the work deadline. They keep the New Year's resolution without much fuss.

• 29:04Speaker 06

  Reshma, I know you're an upholder and I'm an upholder. We're a small group, small but mighty. A bigger group is questioners. Questioners question all expectations. They'll do something if they think it makes sense. So they're turning everything into an inner expectation. So they have to know why. But if they know why and they understand why they can do something. Then there are obligers. This is the biggest group of people for both men and women. This is the largest group. Lori, you are a proud member of Team Obliger. Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. So they're really good at keeping their promises to other people, but they struggle to keep their promises to themselves unless they have that outer accountability. And then finally rebels. Rebels resist all expectations outer and inner alike. So these are the people who can do anything they want to do, anything they choose to do.

• 29:49Speaker 06

  But if you ask or tell them to do something, they will resist. And typically they don't tell themselves what to do. So they don't like put anything on the calendar. And the reason why I think the four tendencies is helpful for friendship is that I found that now that I understand the four tendencies, I'm much more understanding of how different people are different and bring a different energy into relationships. For instance, rebels often don't like to put something on the calendar. It makes them feel trapped. They don't like it. So I had a rebel friend who I would try to say something like, "Hey, do you want to go to a movie on Friday?" And she would always just be really evasive. I'd be like, "Oh, there's this great play. Do you want to see it?" And I'm like, "Does this person not really like me?" "Because they don't want to commit to me." But then I'm like, "No, now that I know she's a rebel,

• 30:33Speaker 06

  it's much better to say something last minute, like, "Hey, I'm going to be in your neighborhood. If you're going to be around on Saturday afternoon, you want to grab a coffee, you can let me know. I'll just text you when I'm outside your door." Because then it's spontaneous and she can do whatever she wants. But so that helped me understand how not to be angry or resentful when people behave in a certain way. So I don't know, as an Obliger or an upholder, have you seen how this might cause conflict or explain things that you've experienced with others?

• 30:58Speaker 07

  Well, I have a question. Am I more likely to have a better relationship with like someone who is just like me and upholder or no?

• 31:05Speaker 06

  Probably, yeah, right? Because because it's like you both are just executing.

• 31:08Laurie Santos?

  All right, I'll just leave you too. That's fun.

• 31:11Speaker 06

  No, but obligers get along with everybody. Obligers are type O. They're the ones that get along the best with all three tendencies. Yes.

• 31:17Laurie Santos?

  Except, I think, except, you know, I've always like wondered about, you know, the like scientific efficacy of the four tendencies.

• 31:24Speaker 06

  Oh, sure. I know. And Annie Murphy-Paul, who studies personality frameworks. Yes.

• 31:29Laurie Santos?

  But there is deep truth into one part of the obliger personality type that you've talked about, which is this phenomenon that you've called obliger rebellion, which is when the obligers have too many external demands on their time. Sometimes they're just like, F it. I'm out. I'm giving up on everyone.

• 31:46Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 31:46Laurie Santos?

  And definitely I have been in that mode before. And the sad thing is like, sometimes what has to give is stuff with my friends for which I'm really embarrassed, right? Like, I'm kind of like, oh, my gosh, I'm overwhelmed for everything, but I don't, you know, quit my podcasting job or not show up for my teaching gig. But that yoga session I was gonna have with a friend, hey, can we do that another time? I'll switch it up. Or that call that I know I was gonna put out for a friend who was grieving, that kind of falls by the wayside.

• 32:14Speaker 07

  That's interesting.

• 32:15Speaker 06

  And I think this is a perfect example. If I'm your friend and I know you're obliger and I see obliger rebellion, I feel like the burning resentment and the burnout and the overwhelm happening. I can say things to you so that you don't feel like I'm putting pressure on you.

• 32:28Laurie Santos?

  Yes, exactly.

• 32:30Speaker 06

  You know, like, hey, you know, you've got so much going on. I know we talked about doing it this weekend, but maybe we should push it to next month when the dust settles.

• 32:38Laurie Santos?

  Oh, my gosh, Gretchen, you just saying that, I feel like the weight on my chest was like, okay. That's great. Yeah.

• 32:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, because you don't feel like it's personal.

• 32:45Speaker 06

  You don't feel like it's personal.

• 32:47Speaker 07

  Personal. And so for, I think for an upholder, I don't have those problems because I'm so disciplined and so scheduled that I'm like, I immediately think it's personal.

• 32:58Speaker 06

  Mm hmm. Right? Like, if you dropped the ball on me, why? You must have chosen to do that.

• 33:03Speaker 07

  You must have not thought that I was, you must have looked through your calendar.

• 33:06Laurie Santos?

  I'm like, well, she's not important, so I'm gonna cancel that.

• 33:10Speaker 06

  Or if somebody, if you say to a friend, oh, well, you know, I'm gonna be free Saturday afternoon, five weeks from now at 2:00 PM. And somebody's like, well, I don't really want to commit. And you're like, what's your problem? Let's put this on the calendar so that it happens. If you're important to me, and I'm important to you, there's a place on the calendar for that. And other people are like, you're bananas for scheduling out your life, you know, five weeks in advance.

• 33:32Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, as someone who's close friends with a few different rebels, that just...

• 33:36Speaker 06

  Yeah, it doesn't work.

• 33:37Laurie Santos?

  It doesn't work. Yeah.

• 33:38Speaker 07

  It doesn't work. So I guess in midlife, though, should we just make friends with people like us? Because it's easier?

• 33:42Laurie Santos?

  No, you get so much out of friendships with people who are different than you.

• 33:47Speaker 06

  Well, and I'm married to a questioner, and it's super valuable, because I always have his voice in my head being like, why are you gonna do that? Because as an upholder, my tendency is like, okay, will do. And I think it gives you a grace for understanding how people are just bringing a completely different perspective in. So then the last thing I want to ask, and this is a really fun question, which is, do you have a try this at home suggestion for listeners? Is there something that a person could do as part of their ordinary day to either deepen existing friendships or build towards new friendships? Because we've talked about both, and you sort of have to maintain and cultivate both, which sounds like a lot of work and a lot of time, which we do not have.

• 34:28Laurie Santos?

  Yes.

• 34:29Speaker 06

  But what are some simple, easy things that we can incorporate?

• 34:32Speaker 07

  I got one, like, so my friend Tiffany Jafu taught me this. I think you don't Tiffany.

• 34:36Speaker 06

  Tiffany, she's an obliger.

• 34:40Speaker 07

  I can see that. So she, well, this is an interesting story. So she was telling us where she had, you know, she had a girl's trip planned. And her daughter, Akua, said to her, oh, Mom, you know, I need you this weekend.

• 34:51Speaker 06

  Ooh, okay, Lori, as an obliger.

• 34:54Laurie Santos?

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:55Speaker 06

  Is that pushing all your buttons?

• 34:56Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's like, I need you this weekend. It's really important. And Tiffany thought about it, and she looked at her and she said, no. I'm gonna go on my girl's trip. Because if I don't show you that I'm gonna put myself first, then you are never gonna learn that that's important to do that. And so I think the take home that I would say to all of us is we all need to do that. Because it's often the girl's trip that gets canceled. It's often the dinner with friends that gets canceled. It's often our friendships, right, that take the backseat to like everyone else's needs. And we know, no, no, no, that when you die, the thing that mattered the most was your friendships and your relationships. So like, that can't be in the back. So I think every time we feel that push and pull, pick friendship.

• 35:41Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, love that. Love that suggestion.

• 35:43Speaker 06

  Can you think of an example in your own life where you had to have that struggle in your own mind? Part of me wants to keep working or buckle down or go to sleep early.

• 35:52Speaker 07

  All the time. I have like a five and a 10 year old who are two boys who make me feel guilty every single minute. I could be around them all day long, they're, where are you going? I'm going to Miami with my girlfriend Deepa tomorrow. And my son pouted all the way to school when he realized that I was leaving the next day. So I think like mom guilt is real and it is a constant exercise. You know what I mean? That I know that I have to go through. And one of the things, though, it has taught me though, Gretchen, and I've really been thinking about this, I remember I'd go to a conference and I would tell a story about that, that my son was upset that I was leaving. And the women in the room would say, well, don't worry, Rashma, because he's not gonna remember. And I remember thinking to myself, but I'm gonna remember.

• 36:33Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 36:34Speaker 07

  So I think it's really important to figure out what you want.

• 36:38Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 36:38Speaker 07

  And what makes you happy. And it was interesting, Laurie, as I was listening to you, I cancel other things before my friends. I need to be with friends. I need that girl's trip, that dinner, that plate. I like, I need my, my girl time.

• 36:53Laurie Santos?

  Well, as Gretchen will tell you, obliged rebellion is not the most rational state to be in when you hit that point, unfortunately. But yes.

• 36:59Speaker 06

  Yeah. But it's interesting that you articulate it for yourself in that way. And I think that's helpful. Like, my identity is, I am a good friend. I show up. And when I'm weighing this versus that.

• 37:13Speaker 06

  Friendship prevails. Like, I always say to myself, when I'm trying to think of how to spend my precious time, energy, or money, I should always try to spend it on relationships. And that's just like a heuristic that helps me, like, should I pay to go to my college reunion and deal with the hassle of making the things? Or should I stay on that really tiresome text chain? Or, like you were saying, Lori, are you the one that has to bear the awkwardness of the first, "Wanna get a copy?" where you feel like, "Oh, my gosh, this feels so silly." So that's, I think that's a really great thing. And I think just being really spelling that out for ourselves, being very explicit is very helpful. And how about you, Lori? What would you say?

• 37:53Laurie Santos?

  So mine that I've been really trying to act on myself lately is remembering that we're biased when it comes to like connecting with other people, right? So I often am just going through the day and will have thoughts about friends. Like, yesterday I was carrying a bag that a friend of mine picked up on her trip to Africa. It's this very pretty, like, blue, kind of like grocery bag thing. And I was just using it to carry something. And I just had a positive thought about my friend, right? What we normally do is just keep those positive thoughts to ourself. But of course, I could have just like text her and be like, "Hey, have your bag today? Still enjoying it just thinking of you."

• 38:22Speaker 06

  Or like, just even sending a photo of you holding the bag.

• 38:25Laurie Santos?

  Me with the bag. I'm still using it, yeah. And so this is something I've tried to do a lot more. When I have a positive thought about a friend, whether that's a memory or especially a gift that someone gave you, often you're still enjoying the gifts that someone gave you and noticing it.

• 38:38Speaker 06

  That's such a good idea.

• 38:39Laurie Santos?

  But you never like remind people, you know?

• 38:41Speaker 06

  Like a mug they gave you or something.

• 38:43Laurie Santos?

  Exactly. And in fact, I did, I did just this, this week with a friend of mine who literally gave me a mug that I was like, "I'm enjoying your mug this morning." And it caused a conversation with a friend I hadn't connected with. And she was like, "Oh, that's so nice to hear this morning because I'm right now sitting in palliative care with my father who is not doing well." And then I knew about, and had I not texted her about the mug, I wouldn't have known that situation. And so whenever you have an urge to give a compliment, a moment of gratitude, a memory, thinking of you, just send the text, just put in the call, just drop it in the email, you feel like they won't notice, it won't matter to them. But there's literally studies on this. Shows, no, it matters more than you think. It's less awkward than you think.

• 39:26Laurie Santos?

  It means more to the person than you think. Our biases mean we like are under reach out. But that like moment of check in, you know, especially that story, I wouldn't have known that something bad was happening in her life. And now I can check in and we can reconnect and I can be there to help in a way that I'm so happy I get to do that.

• 39:42Speaker 07

  Right. I love that.

• 39:44Speaker 06

  One way that I do that is I'll often in an idle moment, go back. I'm always sort of interested in like, what was happening this day eight years ago or whatever? And it'll often surface a picture of a friend or something that we shared. And I'll just send it to them and I usually just say flashback. I don't even, I don't even, I can't even be bothered to type a caption, you know? But again, I think it is the idea that you're present in someone else's consciousness.

• 40:10Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 40:10Speaker 06

  They're thinking of you. They're remembering you or like, oh, some, the sequel to a movie you saw together, like something even from the news or something like that. Yeah, yeah.

• 40:21Speaker 07

  Yeah, because people are going through things, so many things. And I think knowing that someone may be thinking about them, it's just, it can shift their whole day. So.

• 40:30Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 40:30Laurie Santos?

  Completely.

• 40:31Speaker 06

  Well, and, and maybe that's a good thing to remember, which is we think about how the friendships strengthen us and make us happier. But then you also think, well, but they're being made happier. The friend in palliative care, you didn't even think of it, but you're making that person happier. And so when you're planning your trip to Atlanta, you're happier, but then your friend is happier too. And so it's easy to sort of think about, well, how is this boosting my happiness? But of course there's more than a person involved.

• 40:58Laurie Santos?

  And, and usually your perspective is wrong, right? Like when, when I'm thinking like, oh, I'll text my friend and you know, because using her bag and really appreciating it. I'm thinking like, well, how's that going to feel to me? But of course she's on the other end and it's going to hit her totally different. She's in the middle of some random Wednesday and whatever stressor. And she gets this happy text, right? That's a surprise, which I didn't feel when I was planning it, but she feels it on the recipient end. And there's like, you know, just like this warm glow that people think about. This is, this is something else that some of the research shows that I've always tried to take to heart. This is work by Nick Epley and his colleagues. He finds that when we're thinking. About reaching out to someone, we tend to focus on what he calls our competency. Am I going to write the right text? Do I have time to not just put like flashback and write the whole thing?

• 41:42Laurie Santos?

  Right? Am I saying it right? You know, that's what we focus on. But our recipient doesn't see any of that. They tend to just focus on the warmth of it. Like it's out of nowhere. This person thought of me. It made me feel good. Right? And so sometimes our ability to do something nice for our friends gets stuck in the competency part.

• 41:58Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 41:59Laurie Santos?

  Here's just another example. I had a friend who is just, he and his wife just had a new baby. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's been around since my friends were having newborns. Like, what do you do? Like, oh, you send food? Like, how do you send food or whatever? And I was all up in my head about, do you send lasagna? Do they like lasagna? Should I be granola? I don't know.

• 42:15Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 42:16Laurie Santos?

  And then I was thinking back to Nick's research and it was like, wait, they're not going to think about any of that. They're not going to analyze, was it like that kind of lasagna? They're just gonna be like, oh, my gosh, Lori out of the blue sent me this nice thing. That's so nice. And so the idea is like, whenever you get an urge to do something nice or to connect, don't overanalyze. They're not going to notice that. Just dive in and do it. However you do it, it will feel good to them.

• 42:35Speaker 07

  Yeah. The other thing is you guys were talking, I think it's also great role modeling for our kids.

• 42:39Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 42:39Speaker 07

  Yes. Both me and my husband like really value friendships. People are always in our house. Like, you know what I mean? Like, and it's good, especially when you see how much more isolated children are becoming now because of technology. And that where we're making the effort to go have dinner with people or go to the Knicks game with somebody or go on vacation with somebody, it's just good role modeling too, I think.

• 42:59Speaker 06

  Yeah. No, they see that you have a book group. They see that you're going out with, yeah, right. Exactly, exactly. That you're going to birthday parties. You're having a birthday party.

• 43:08Laurie Santos?

  It also just makes adult life look less miserable than when we're not like having fun with other people. I think a lot of times kids are like, man, adult life is like terrible. But like, when they see us going to, on a trip to Miami with our girlfriends or having that book club, it's like, oh, it's much more palatable than I thought.

• 43:23Speaker 06

  Yes, exactly. Well, listen, this is so much fun. Lori, Reshma, thank you for talking friendship with me. I feel, I feel elevated just having this conversation.

• 43:34Laurie Santos?

  Thanks so much for having us on the show.

• 43:36Speaker 07

  This was so much fun. And we're new friends now.

• 43:39Laurie Santos?

  Yay, new friends.

• 43:40Speaker 06

  Now, yay.

• 43:41Laurie Santos?

  Miami trip next week.

• 43:42Speaker 06

  That's right. That's right. Let's do it.

• 43:48Speaker 06

  Well, we hope you're feeling happier after this episode. Remember, the best time to start a happiness project is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

• 44:16Laurie Santos?

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