ALAIN DE BOTTON: WHY MAKING FRIENDS AS AN ADULT FEELS IMPOSSIBLE (BUT ISN'T)

0:00Coming up in this episode of Great Company. Being a man is a tricky thing. There is such a fear in male friendships of homosexuality. You've got two people who are putting up a front, terrified of what might happen if that front disappears, which is a kind of sexual anxiety that inhibits the development of a good friendship. If someone's listening to this right now who is a man, what advice would you give him to try and connect more? Hello, I'm Alain de Botton and I'm back and I'm in great company. Founder of the School of Life and best-selling author, Alain de Botton. A good friendship should allow room to let in space for the hurt.

0:38So to deepen a friendship, you have to take a risk that you're going to ruin that friendship. If you're living on the surface, you're going to have surface relationships with others. Is it okay to let friends go? If you can't be the person they need you to be, that's selfish to pretend that you can be. Every minute you spend with a partner where you're not fully invested is a day that you're robbing of them. The same thing is true of friendship. I'm about to become a parent. The thing I'm worried about is passing down my sort of inherited behaviours that aren't quite right. You were not scared at all.

1:10You wouldn't be acknowledging the gravity of what you're letting yourself into. Giving birth is both wonderful and joyful and is an enormous loss. You lose an enormous part of your life. How do you think that you might be not a good parent? I think... I want to give you a hug.

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4:15Hello, everyone. My name is Jamie Lang, and this is Great Company.

4:23Welcome back, everybody, to Great Company Podcast. Welcome back. Bienvenue. Bienvenue. That person talking is? Jemima PJ. That is correct. And I'm the host, Jamie, which is really exciting. Why is that exciting? That is so exciting. That is so exciting to have you back. It's because I was suddenly, I just got suddenly distracted by something in my own mind, and then I was just talking in my mind. What were you distracted by? About a thing we were doing in Jampot, which is our company that creates this podcast and lots of other different shows. We're doing a bake-off and we're trying to find a judge for it.

4:55It's a complete side point, nothing to do with this episode. We are doing a bake-off. Well, the bake-off will probably be the week that this episode comes out. Probably will be. You were on bake-off. I was. You were awful. Yeah, but I can still bake. Baking is a science, cooking is an art. Anyway, we're digressing from the episode. The point is, the reason you've come to this right now is because you've seen the person in the title who the episode is of today. Oh boy, oh boy. And this person has been now on our show twice Yeah, I also want to say with the show We've had a few things where we're like We've never done this before Like we've had Reardon back We also had a Jessie J which was recorded in two parts Two parts, but that was different So we've had two people coming back One was Reardon Maynard And this is the other person, Alain de Bottin Now, I say Alain de Bottin But I think it's Alain de Botton Alain de Botton Alain de Botton.

5:49Alain came on the podcast probably about a year ago. It was one of our best performing episodes and we talked about relationships, we talked about parenthood and today is fascinating because we're talking about friendship. Now I've been obsessed with friendship for so long mainly because I think a lot of our happiness comes from connections with friends and family. And secondly, I had a huge amount of loneliness in my late 20s because I hadn't really connected with friends. And so today to talk to Alan about friendship and how that affects us and how we can make friends, deal with friends, break up with friends, deal with toxic friends, deal with what makes a good friend, all of that is in the episode today, which I'm so excited for.

6:35I totally agree. I also think friendship is a relationship that sometimes doesn't get the spotlight that it deserves. because, you know, we talk loads about relationships and familial relationships and, like, love relationships. Yeah. But the friendships are the ones that kind of keep you going. Yeah. Sisters before misters. There you go. Bros before hoes. There you go. It's exactly that. And sometimes we forget how important friendships are. And also, we forget that some friendships last us for an amount of time, which is great, but then probably we go in different directions, and that is also okay.

7:07All of that is in the episode today, which is just... I'm so excited Alain de Bottin Alain de Botton is has always been my dream dream guest I've like read his stuff for years and years and so when he came on that first time I mean we spoke about it I lost my mind to have him back I've found my mind since I lost it and I've lost it again and then you've lost it again go on go and find it while I intro this bit but can I just say you know last time you had Alain on you in this episode you talk a lot about how it really changed you. Yeah, it did. How did you change after that last episode? Well, there were a lot of things that I realised that I was probably doing in life because I thought I had to.

7:53The way that I would act with people, I wouldn't go as deep with certain situations. And when Alan came on before, I just started to open up about actually having a deep conversation with someone is what the other person wants. Why are we having surface level boring chat? Go deeper with people. chat about what their real emotions are, their feelings are, what they want to achieve in life. And Allah made me kind of think in that way. Your life is better for listening to that episode. Without a doubt. And we're ready for the next one. We're also going to leave a link in the show description to go back to the old episodes.

8:26If you enjoy this one, click on that link and it'll take you back to the other one. But for now, if you haven't subscribed to the show already, please do. It does us absolute wonders. And if you want to get in touch, you can on our social media, at Great Company Podcast. All our clips are up there. also on YouTube and of course email us greatcompany at jampopproductions.co.uk. Okay, enjoy this episode of Great Company with Alain de Bottin. Hello, I'm Alain de Bottin and I'm back and I'm in Great Company.

8:57Ever since we had our last conversation, I think I said this on our last episode, we went for a dinner with Elizabeth Day, who's another podcaster, who you were on her podcast, she invited us to dinner, we sat down and after dinner you played a game where you wanted to play a game of charades, but a much deeper game of charades where you really connect. And everyone, I think, was taken aback. They went, oh, hang on a second, but actually everyone loved playing it and everyone connected. And that's the one thing I remember from the evening that really stands out is that moment. And I've done that in my life now to the point where I actually sent my mum and this, I sent her a message on Saturday.

9:36because I knew we were having this conversation. And so I was just researching things and looking at different things. I knew you would ask some questions. And so I saw something, which apparently we should all ask our parents, particularly our mother. So I sent this to my mum. I said, hi, mum, I would like to ask you five questions. I saw this. And apparently every son should ask their mother. So have a think and let me know your answers. So if you could relive one day with me, if you could relive one day with me, which day would you choose? Was there an occasion I made you sad and never apologized?

10:11When did I make you most proud and are you proud of the person I've become? If you could map my future, what would it look like? What advice would you give me when I become a parent? So moving. And my mum replied, if I could relive one day, I think it would be in Hong Kong with your cousins, we are all so happy. I have a picture of you hugging me, which reminds me of that every day. It makes you get emotional. To answer the second question, have I ever upset you and ever apologized? She said, so many days that you made me sad and didn't apologize. But I never didn't love you more than life itself.

10:48But those days are past now. Most proud, she said, I was most proud of you when you won your Victor Ladorum, which was for athletics at school, but more probably when you did your marathons. She said, I'm so deeply proud of who you've become. Your future map from me would be committed husband, a devoted father, and a really good person. Parenthood, teach them to be resilient and take life's knocks. Teach them to get up again and keep going and never lie. You can get many things back in life, but not your integrity. Beautiful. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, yeah. And her to say that to me. And then the other thing which I did, Alan, was I went on a stag do.

11:25Okay. And stag do's are typically one of these places where it's drinking and all these different things. and we were sitting on a rooftop and there was 15 of our friends and my friend was getting married and we were all laughing and joking and I said okay I want everyone to go around the circle and this is because of you and I'm not just saying I promise you it's because of you I want everyone to go around the circle and say one memory that is your happiest memory with Ollie who was the groom to be and um one thing that he's helped you and taught you in your life that you really remember and really love about it and we went around one by one and everyone after the weekend and said that was the most special moment because we all connected.

12:02And looking at your book, The Secrets of Successful Friendships, that connection, having those deep conversations like these cars do in relations, you've got to do those with friends. And again, it feels so artificial, doesn't it? We think we know what it's like to have friendships. We think we know about friendships. And people are often quite brittle. I mean, in order to admit to say in public you know i don't have enough friends or i'm not sure my friendships are as deep as they could be or i've got a bit of a problem here that carries a huge stigma it's sort of like oh you know we've known ever since school that it's the losers who've got problems around friendships the successful people they know how to do that thing it's it's far more admissible to say i've got problems in a relationship than i've got problems with my friendships, to say, I'm lacking friends.

12:57There's an air of tragic, immediate tragic, totally unwarranted. And I think that a more honest view is to say that all of us could improve our friendships and probably all of us have got space for some more really good friends. I don't think that most of us have got full of dress books in that area. So how many friends do you have? I've got two really good friends and lots and lots and lots, but three really good friends, and then lots and lots of friendly people. How do you separate the two? Who you would call in a really serious crisis. Who would be able to take any level of difficult news.

13:37Who do you feel you can really say everything to. That's a much more edited version. Of course, there are a lot of people with goodwill and they might be open to that. But for whatever reason, a lot of it is just time and administration. You know, you just few opportunities to deepen a friendship. But it's, you know, it's a relatively limited thing. And I think as you get older, the opportunities to build good friendships diminish because often what you need in order to build a good friendship is spare time and slightly loose experiences, which is why so often university and, you know, traveling when you're when you're young, moments when those deep friendships occur, because not too much is going on or nothing too structured.

14:20Once you get older and life takes over, you often meet in a city, in a coffee shop, in a restaurant, you go for a walk. These are quite static activities. And they deny that sort of fluid, kind of more multifaceted thing that friendship really grows from. and I think we've got this it's interesting thing about need if you show need to a friend it's very easy to think oh I shouldn't have done that I might be bothering the person of course there are ways in which we can bother people but to an enormous extent to ask somebody to take somebody into a problem that you've got and to try and engage them is a real gift to them it's a real gift to them if you can never show your need to another person, you're denying them a chance to show their capacities.

15:11You're actually blocking intimacy. So one of the, as it were, one of the more paradoxical things you can do to build a friendship is to say, I can't cope. I'm lonely. I'm lost. I'm confused. I hate myself. I've done something awful. These are all presents that you actually bring to a friend. I sort of think that's why, you know, people who are in recovery in AA are really connected because it's a room where you can be totally open and honest and your true self and therefore the connection feels much stronger why and we go to such lengths to to prevent that happening i know um you know how are you i'm fine if if you say i'm fine you're blocking intimacy whereas if you say the truth because all of us on an average day i mean we're not fine most of the time there's always something slightly vulnerable niggling at us you know we're a bit worried and to be able to say i'm a bit i'm a bit tense about something.

16:06Things have not been perfect. You're letting somebody in. It's not schadenfreude. Sometimes you think, well, you don't want to hear somebody's good news because it could be humiliating. I think you're much more human. You don't have a way into somebody's life until and unless they give you access to something that's painful, something that's gone wrong. So a couple of questions. Why did you decide to write this book now? because i think that we don't know how to have friendships we think that it's something we should know how to do and that's something that comes naturally we think relationships are the tricky things and friendships are the easy things it's really most of the problems that uh bedevil relationships are present in friendships too as a good friend of mine remarked the problem is you haven't had sex with a friend and sex is a wonderful way of resolving certain tensions um Really, I think what that means is that we're allowed to be, in inverted commas, heavy in a relationship in a way which we're not in a friendship.

17:06To say to a friend, I feel a bit hurt because of something you said to me last week, that could sound unbearably intense. I've got no right to say that to a friend. They're just a friend, and therefore things need to be breezy. But that's cutting you off from the chance of deepening the friendship. A good friendship should allow room to let in space for the hurt. that you will have hurt your friend in some way. Can they bear to tell you? So the roots to friendship are acknowledging the fact that friends hurt each other, that friends misunderstand, and also that friends should be able to have space for the darkness in each one of them.

17:47So, okay, so how do we do friendship properly? I know you touched on it, but when you phone up your friends or your three friends and you speak to them on the phone or have a conversation with them, what questions are you asking what conversations you have let's imagine setting the scene first so when you're in a relationship with someone you generally know you're in a relationship correct so you know what you mean to another person and it's quite important that both of you know what you mean and there's a lot of insecurity around that and popularity things like marriage is because you know that both of you signed up something you both have a certain level of commitment and friendships you very rarely know what you mean to the other person it's it sounds odd you know Little children are much more alive to this than adults, as so often is the case.

18:29They retain a kind of wisdom. So they'll go, you are my best friend, or you're my third best friend, or whatever. But they'll name the nature of the relationship. Or they'll say, I have five best friends, and you're one of them. And it could sound stupid, and it sounds naive from the mouth of a seven-year-old. But there's something extremely important going on there, which is that each person knows that they have a very important place in the other one's lives. So we very rarely say to our friends something like, you know, you're a really close friend of mine. You really mean a lot to me. I'm going to miss you.

19:03You're going on holiday for a couple of weeks. We're not going to be in touch. I'm really going to miss you. Do we say that to people? I mean, the boys don't say that very much. Girls are slightly better at this. Boys really don't say that. It sounds so odd. And by the way, in heterosexual friendships, there is such a fear in male friendships of homosexuality that constantly bedevils male friendships. It's a real pain. Women are much better at this, and there seems to be much less anxiety around sexuality and its role in friendships. I mean, think of the way that almost all women I know, if they go traveling with a girlfriend, they'll share a bed.

19:39Nothing of it. They'll just share a hotel bed, a double bed, and they'll just share a bed. No problem. How many men do you know who would do that? Not very many, right? What's going on there? In that small moment, I think we're picking up a much larger theme, which is a kind of sexual anxiety that inhibits the development of a good friendship. So men, the reason why male friendships are on the whole really quite dull is you've got two people, especially heterosexual friendships. You've got two people who are putting up a front, terrified of what might happen if that front disappears. And therefore, you know, what's the topic?

20:12I mean, bless football. It's a really important topic. It has its role. But it's having an outsized role in many male friendships because there's simply no other way of accessing anything ripe, emotional. I have this okay so I have this big theory right which I envy my wife and I tell you why I envy my wife and it's around friendships because and this not in a negative way my wife is extremely good at gossiping with her friends and when I say gossiping I'm they can talk about the weather food relationships friendships music whatever it may everything everything and everything it's almost I sit with some of her best friends oh I've just eaten this I'm wearing this it's just It's an amazing way to communicate.

20:53And with guys, I think there's a huge problem because we need to find a topic to talk about. And that's an issue. But, Jamie, it's about a safe topic. And a safe topic is one where there isn't sadness, there isn't vulnerability, there isn't... Being a man is a tricky thing. All men have come from a place where the default position was to be a girl. And so you become a man, but you are a woman. Explain that to me so I can understand it better. Well, there's a sense that male, and I don't agree with this, but I'm simply observing. Masculinity is an achievement that a little boy gradually moves towards.

21:29And that's why the taunt in the schoolyard is always, you're a girl. You know, a boy will say another boy, you're a girl. Or you're a mummy's boy, which is equivalent to being a girl. In other words, you are vulnerable in a way which means that you have not yet got access to full masculinity. And there's always a risk in a male mind that you slide down that slope back to mummy, back to the womb. And we've all come, all men have come from a woman by definition. And all men have started, as it were, in a female identified position. And then they have to move towards masculinity. And it's a precarious...

22:07You have to discover masculinity. And it's a precarious achievement. Men experience it as a precarious human, which is why heterosexual men don't share a bedroom with another man. Because there's a thought, oh, what happens if this starts to become something else? And the specter is, what happens if there is a slide towards the feminine? And if there's a sexual dynamic that emerges on the basis of that. Now, again, I'm not condoning this. I'm simply saying this is what I believe occurs, which makes male friendships so rigid often. Because you've got two people who are saying, we've got to talk about formula one, we've got to talk about football, etc.

22:41They may want to, and these are exciting topics and interesting topics, but what about these other topics? What about the topic? I can't cope. I'm lost. I've got erectile dysfunctions. My liver's giving me trouble. I'm drinking too much. I'm, you know, I really miss my mother. There's somebody that I love at the office. All of these things, which are actually on everybody's plate, but you can't broach them. And, you know, I mean, we should make a game of cards for blokes to talk about at the pub one million without that 100 so okay so on the cards what would we talk about let's let's brainstorm this now so what we do so we've got a game of cards bring coming out from in six months from school of life yeah and they're they're cards for blokes in the pub what should they i mean i want to say erectile dysfunction 100 that's definitely on the list i think fear of death fear of death yes um do you feel lonely lonely totally um i would say um body image how do you feel about your body what's what's giving you trouble you know what are you anxious about uh But worried about...

23:38Money, performance. Performance, being a good parent. Yeah. Worried about whether I'm in the right career. Yeah. Jealousy of other people, right? Jealousy of other mates who are outshining you. Fear of decline. Fear of being ridiculous. Fear of being a loser. All of those things. Hair loss, everything. Hair loss, yeah. All of it. But why... Okay, two things. Firstly, so going back to the masculinity thing, is masculinity is the fear of being feminine? No, I think it's many things, but it's got that component. A certain kind of masculinity has got within it a fearsome component, a fearful component around a slide towards a perceived lesser status of femininity.

24:23As I say, I don't approve of this. It just seems to be the case. Okay. And so if then someone's listening to this right now who is a man and he's struggling to connect with his friends, his male friendship group, what advice would you give him to try and connect more um look it's about confident vulnerability isn't it that um if you can pull off a vulnerable state with a with a confidence with a smile with a sense of it's okay to be doing this that's a very powerful position but that's but that's giving someone if they don't have that confidence what do you do that it's a little mindset it'll tweak you listen to this podcast and do it in other words you can say okay here's jamie and i heard these blokes talking and they didn't mind talking about hair loss, impotence, fear of death, body image, maybe these are topics I could raise.

25:07And they seemed okay. Neither of them seemed totally repulsive. Maybe they did, but it felt okay. And so that's how social norms change. When you see other people doing something and you think, oh, I could give that a go. But if you are in your teens or twenties, I'm assuming, but not suggesting, I think you might be a little bit older than me totally okay just a tiny bit not too much and but like i said it's taking me till 36 years to be able to have these conversations open conversations yeah if you're in your 20s in my 20s no ways you kidding me not a chance why do you think when you say what what's what is age bringing to this why do you think that it's age experience um uh repetition um understanding more myself might we say confidence confidence you know when you're young i mean What's the number one defining factor of being young?

25:54Because you've not been around that long. You're very unsure of lots of things. And one of the things, I mean, little children of five come out with all sorts of stuff. And adults love hanging around children because they just come out with that, you know, like a granny's fat or, you know, that. They'll just say the stuff you're not allowed to say, including things like I'm really sad or I wish you wouldn't go away or, you know, et cetera. Because they don't know the social norms. And then by 10 or 12, the whole show's come to an end. And they're rigidly following the script set by society. And so that's why an average 14, 15-year-old is a creature of society.

26:29And then I think, you know, the trick in life is how can you go back to how you were at five, but with adult strength and capacities? How can you get back to saying the things that everybody actually thinks, saying the things that are really true, but with an adult's sense of security and also caution? Because you don't want to do that in every context. But most of us are stuck somewhere in the middle. We've understood all the social norms. We're kind of slave to them. And we know that those social norms don't allow our true selves to emerge. But we can't quite find our way back to the true self, except maybe for a few moments.

27:03We've had a few glasses of wine. We're with one person, maybe. We might gingerly take a few steps towards that. But that's a limited engagement with the true stuff of life. We want to try and broaden that. And that's why I always say that Peter Pan had it right. because Peter Pan never wanted to grow up. He didn't want to become a tyrant like Hook. He never wanted to do that. And then I read this, which I spoke about before again, is the two poems by Blake, how innocence is destroyed by experience. And as soon as we become experienced, that's where innocence disappears. But Jamie, I want to resist the Peter Pan nostalgia because I think it's a cul-de-sac.

27:35It's a dead end because we do have to grow up. We can't stop it. So the thing to do is not to try and stay a child, but to try from a position of adulthood, which we're all headed to, to recover what's best in childhood. That seems a more dynamic and more creative thing. Otherwise, we're just playing at kids and we can't be kids anymore. We're something different, but we can learn from childhood. Speaking of sexual dynamics and friendships, does it ruin a friendship? I think the fear of sexual dynamics does. And I think the best way to do it is to name it. So in the 19th century in Germany, there was a cult in the early 19th century of friendship where for a time, because of certain poets and a certain kind of prestige, It became okay to hold hands with another man, to hug another man, to put one's arm around another man, you know, so be quite physically close.

28:23That became okay. And you could even write poems to another man about, you know, how much you'd enjoy their company or how nice they looked, etc. That wasn't considered taboo. That was a brief window where something was allowed. We can learn from moments like that in history and think, okay, there are other ways of doing friendship other than the way we're doing it now. and we could aim for friendships which have a lot more intimacy in them and partly the tension is resolved by naming it so you know if you and i were to begin a really close friendship we might say we really enjoy being close we really enjoy hugging we might allude to the fact there's sexual tension but maybe we can say we're not going to have sex for all sorts of reasons you know because it doesn't really deeply fulfill us we're not it's not quite where we're at etc but we can name it and you know there's such a fear of breaking out of a box and that's why you know we're slowly learning word like queer is is a useful word that people are sort of cottoning onto could could we name sexuality in a slightly more diverse way that word may upset people that word may not be your word but to be able to say yeah my sexuality is a little bit more complicated to be able to say you know sometimes with a good friend i feel something that's i don't want to necessarily call it sexual but it's i'm acknowledging their attractiveness as a physical being a bit of a mouthful.

29:36Imagine if we were able to say that and just go, it's not a big deal. That's part of friendship. Just as we're able to say lots of other slightly taboo things like, I'm sad, or I'm going to miss you when you go away, or I'm a bit jealous that you've got into a relationship because I feel you're not going to have any time for me. That's the other thing. We're so, when good things happen to our friends, a lot of the time what is actually happening is that we're worried that they're going to abandon us. We think, oh, well, now that they're in love with so-and-so, or now they've been promoted, they're not going to have any time.

30:08And then we think, oh, that's so terrible. I'm feeling envious of my friend. I'm not happy for them, et cetera. And then we go into overdrive and go, I'm really happy for you, et cetera. And that sounds a bit rigid. And any time that an emotion is blocked, something slightly dies in a relationship. And any time that we're able to name the slightly unnameable or unsayable, that artery opens up again. So if we're able to say to a friend, And I'm so happy that you've been promoted. In a way, it's great. But I've got to admit something to you. I'm a little bit worried that you're now going to be so important that you might look down on me.

30:37And I know that you probably won't. But can I just say that to you? That's a lovely gift. You know, if somebody said that to me, I'd go, God, no. In fact, I need you more than ever because I'm going to be surrounded by, you know, people I don't know or whatever. And I need your friendship more than ever. And I'm so glad you told me. It's going to be great. But you need to take those little moments of risk. So to deepen a friendship. you have to take a risk that you're going to ruin that friendship. You probably won't, but you have to take that risk by doing something that's slightly outside the bounds of the normal.

31:15So if someone's listening now and they don't have any friends, they feel very lonely or they haven't been able to connect, how would that person best make friends? Okay, first of all, take the problem seriously and not... in any way a sign of anything bad about you. I think people are so embarrassed around their problems with friendship that it stops them from engaging with the topic fruitfully. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. It's a really difficult thing. You should be no more embarrassed at your problems around friendship than you would be around your problems of, I don't know, climbing Mount Everest.

31:47I mean, no one should be expected to know how to do it. So that's the first thing. And then take a few early steps at saying, okay, well, how do I feel more or less close to another human being? What do I need to do in order to get close? And once you start to study that question, you will almost always find that the moments in which you feel closer to somebody are those in which you've been able to share something fragile, potentially embarrassing, potentially dangerous, potentially outside of the so-called normal rules of engagement. It could even be it's a sunny day and you're able to say, I don't much like the sunshine.

32:26That's a contrary point of view. And that's the beginning of something a little deeper. Or if somebody says, you know, you're doing okay. Even that question, are you doing okay? That's loaded. We shouldn't be asking ourselves, are you doing okay? How are you? Not, are you doing okay? Because that makes it, it's a leading question. It's, you know, the right answer is yes, I'm fine. We should be allowing space in our friendships for something a little bit more complicated. Because a lot of our listeners who will be listening to this, right, these stages of the lives, perhaps they have just left university or their friends are getting married or their friends are having babies.

33:04And so let's flip it. Rather than being the person to break up, they could be the person now being broken up with by their friends because they're not in the right stages of life as everyone else. What do they do? It's survivable. It's fine to lose a friend. The challenge is to make one. Think of alcohol, right? Alcohol is this great lubricant. I don't drink, and I'm not sure the people listening who, you know, depending on the wine industry. But let's imagine that all of us should ideally not drink as much as we do. Friendships should not depend on alcohol. But we should be learning what happens when we take an alcohol and do that when we're sober.

33:43What is it that people do when they're drunk? They lose fear. And they lose fear around what? Vulnerability. So they're able to say, men are able to go, I love you. I love you, mate. They're able to say, right? Because it's no longer so scary. And that's what you need to do sober. That is brilliant. We should all be learning how to become drunk sober. And to be drunk sober means essentially remembering what it was like when we were drunk and just putting it into action when we're not drunk. And to say, okay, if I were drunk now, I probably would say, I love the way you do that thing. Or your eyes are nice.

34:16or could I share the fact that I cried all day yesterday? Whatever. If you were drunk and would say that, say it now. Say it now. That is so brilliant because I drank a lot in my 20s and then I sort of started to stop drinking just because it didn't do me well, it didn't please me, right, in lots of different ways. But what I missed from it at the beginning was the connections I thought I got with friends. And, oh, when I got drunk, wasn't it fun because we had these deep conversations and we were silly with each other and with this and with that. you're sorry we should just be drunk without the alcohol with our friendships totally drunk without the alcohol in our friendship but it's so scary sometimes to be that vulnerable but you have to have the excuse god i was drunk last night but think about how to do it you can create an atmosphere in a in a see it's quite easy to change the dynamics of a group sometimes we're in a group and we think right i'm in a group of people so i've got to go along with whatever people are talking about so i've joined the group and they're talking about going skiing and someone mentioned that they went to france and somebody mentioned that they went to austria and then there was that house keys way and blah, blah, blah.

35:16And you think, well, I've got to join this conversation because I'm just in this conversation. Absolutely not. What about suggesting a new conversation or gently steering it towards something else? You can be an actor in your friendship group. You don't merely have to respond. You can be an agent. And part of that could mean to say, as you said, as you described, hey guys, anyone been lonely recently? Or anyone think that they've really messed up their life? Because I think I've completely ballsed things up. And on you go, and that will change the dynamic. So, you know, don't be afraid to change the mood.

35:47Try and change the mood. And most of the time, people are hovering on the surface, bear this in mind, not because they want to, but because they don't know any different. Let's just rehearse that, but it's a really important point. Most people are having superficial conversations, not because they want to, not because they're wedded to superficiality, but because they've never been shown that there is an alternative, that there are secure steps from the superficial to the deep that they can safely take. They just don't know it can be done. Wow. Isn't it mad? It's totally mad. It's totally mad.

36:18It's the difference between the most boring evening and the really exciting evening. You can shift your evening. We tend to think of interesting conversations a bit like a magical square that you find in a foreign city. And the next day you think, I don't know where this square was. I just stumbled on it late at night. Well, we've got maps. We can actually, you know, this book I wrote was attempting to be a map. It is a map. For how you can more reliably find your way to the good moments. Because so often, I think that friendships have magical moments that the people around them literally just don't know how it happened.

36:48They go, oh, it was really weird. We were in the garden, and suddenly it was just a magical moment. And you want to go, no, it wasn't. It wasn't magic. There is no such thing as magic. It was just that you found a way, a door opened, and you found a way to something good. And you know what? You can do it again. It's why we invented agriculture. In the early days, people found a wild strawberry. Oh, that's nice, that wild strawberry. we must pray a bit more so we get more wild strawberries. And then somebody thought, no, you don't have to pray. Just invent agriculture. Lay some seeds out and then you grow and you'll have strawberries every day.

37:19So we can have conversational strawberries every day. We don't have to have wild strawberries. I don't know why I was in a friendship with Bill and Jane. We suddenly had a great conversation. You know, plan for it. We can plan for this every day. It's so true because you have those moments. God, wasn't it the best night ever last night? And it's typically, yeah, sure it's around maybe moments of cycling naked or whatever it is. But also it's typically around, you know what I mean? You have those moments where you go like, that was wild. We swam naked in the sea and we did this. And that was so fun.

37:49But actually it's normally around conversation. Somebody opened a door. Correct. Somebody allowed, somebody gave permission to do something that allowed for depth to occur. And it's not magic. It's not magic at all. Not magic at all. We could be having this every single time. How do we support a friend who's going through something that we don't understand? Well, acknowledge we don't understand it first. You know, to say to a friend, I'm not sure I fully understand. Rather than going, oh my God, I don't, you know. Whenever you're bereaved, when someone's bereaved, people get, you know, bless them, but people get very confused.

38:22They don't know what to say. They forget themselves. They think that their friend has gone to a place that, you know, is simply unidentifiable. They lose any sense that this is simply the friend who they knew yesterday who happens to have lost their mother or father or whoever it is. And then they don't know what to say. Rather than going, God, you know, just continuing to be, as it were, natural, which might include something like saying, I'm not sure what this must feel like to you. You know, I'm confused as to what to say. So sticking as closely as you can to what you're actually feeling is generally a really good principle in emotional life, in friendship, etc., which includes such things as I'm a little bored at the moment.

39:02I wonder why. Or I'm feeling uncomfortable. I've learned something to think of entertaining. We spend a lot of time entertaining our friends and bringing them around for dinner, etc. And then we do this weird thing called having a dinner party, which tends to be an exercise in unbelievable pain. you know because you think oh my god it's a dinner party so i've got to have a starter and then and i've got to have a napkin of a certain sort and then and we got to sit for a certain number of times and then we got to talk on left and right whatever and i mean it just becomes a nightmare if you stopped and asked yourself okay what do i really want to do and you might think actually what i want to do is sit on the floor and have a bit of hummus and bread and not bother with the cooking at all and just chat or or even just you know sing some nursery rhymes or whatever it happens to be or do the washing up with a friend or talk to them about or show them around my house show them bits of my house that I've never, you know, I'm having them round.

39:48But rather than making it all formal, I want to show them. Why don't we all share a bit? Why don't we all go to bed together and lie in bed and watch TV together? Because that's mostly what I do at home. Why don't I tell my friends how I live? Why don't I show them how I live? Rather than putting on a show. Rather than putting on a show. And, Jamie, most of life we're putting on a show. And we're dying from putting on a show. We don't like putting on a show, but we think no one else will like us for the show. and there are far fewer there are far greater dangers around the show uh putting on than there are around the show putting off it's i i went for a dinner party with my friends and my friend cooked and then we all sat on the floor and we were drinking beers and it was a group of guys and i went round and said does anyone ever feel lonely i did this again because of you and one by one they all said yes yes yes we spoke about it now we have a whatsapp group called checking in and we whatsapp each other every single month so sweet yeah amazing sweet but you know but it's almost as a physical i went to a dinner party the other day and because i was me i said after a certain point i'm really sorry guys but does anyone want to stretch their legs and they said yeah and i said do you mind if we just all go for a walk and then yeah great idea it was a beautiful night so we all trooped out of the house and went for a walk it was great and then we came back we're all feeling you know our bodies were but but that's just showing a physical manifestation of what's also a psychological phenomenon, which is, can we just be more ourselves?

41:08Can we just say what we need? And because that's so outside the box, people suddenly go, well, hang on, that's not what we're meant to do. What do you mean we're meant to go for a walk? But then you go and do it and everyone will remember that moment because that's what everyone wants to do. You want to go for a walk. It's so hard sitting down for ages. No one likes it. So if we're uncomfortable with that basic thing about our bodies, my goodness, we're going to be uncomfortable with everything else. We spend all of our lives trying to be comfortable but live it uncomfortable. We spend all of our lives thinking that we need to be somebody that no one is.

41:35It's mad!

41:40You talk about in the book how you should embrace loneliness. And you sort of suggest that people who seem to have a lot of friends and who are quite loud or witty or...

41:58Basically it felt like you were describing me. Jamie, if you can think that that's you, it's not you. Because the person who really would be like that wouldn't acknowledge that. But look, you're right that some of us resist acknowledging dark truths. And in the act of resisting them, we grow impoverished. It is part of becoming a fuller human being to acknowledge that there is loneliness, sadness, loss, etc. And sometimes we're so invested in being upbeat. We're so scared of the dark things that we become slightly superficial. We live too much on the surface of things. And that's interpersonally quite hard because you can only go with somebody else as far as you're prepared to go within yourself.

42:42So if you're living on the surface, you're going to have surface relationships with others. Whereas if you're able to go deep into the sort of painful and sad and regretful parts of yourself, then you're giving room to other people. I mean, you know, it's fascinating how we don't feel like the same person with everyone. Some people help us to feel more interesting to ourselves. This is a fascinating thing. And you know the reason why? The reason why they make us feel more interesting is because they've gone deep inside themselves. And so they're creating room where you can go deep inside yourself.

43:16Try and explain that to me more. So give me, what do you mean? There are micro signals that we give off when we're talking about what would be possible to say and think in the presence of this person. And those micro signals help us to either accept an invitation to go deeper in ourselves or resist it. So, you know, there are just ways of signaling, no, I'm not a safe person to raise that topic with. You know, if I was insistently upbeat, you know, imagine this, you say to me, Ella, how was your weekend? And I go, it was fantastic. It was really good. I love the sun shining and I played a lot of golf.

43:46That will be sending a micro signal, right, there's no room in this encounter for anything more vulnerable, sad, regretful. Whereas if you said that same question to me and you said, how do you go? And I go a little bit up and down. I love the sunshine, but do you know that feeling sometimes it's so sunny and you think, am I doing it justice? Am I doing the sunshine justice? Or somehow am I not able to live up to this moment? I'm sending a micro signal. Okay, this guy might have a bit of room for the darker bits of me. And then you start to engage with those darker bits of you and you start to feel more interesting to yourself.

44:16You literally feel I've got more to say. We feel we've got more to say when we feel that the other person is ready to hear. The more someone feels like someone who could hear, the more we feel we want to say. And when we're in the presence, I mean, we've all had the feeling sometimes of being in the presence of someone and you think, I've got nothing to say at all. I feel totally boring. I don't know anything that I want to say at all. Whereas with a good person, I mean, you're very good. That's why you've got podcasts. That's why people babble. You know, I don't talk like this with many people.

44:47I'm talking like this because you're looking at me and signaling, I've got space. I've got room. I've got time. And that's drawing me out of myself. And also every now and then you say, you know, my mother says this, my wife says that I felt sad. So you're signaling all the time. I've got space. I can take it. You don't need to put up a front, et cetera. And that's encouraging me. So I'm babbling on and on because you're, even though you're not saying very much mostly babbling so i'm here for not babbling at all honestly but mostly you know i'm talking a lot because you're listening and you're it's you're listening the quality of your listening that is raising the quality of my speaking and and that is another gift of friendship so we think you know i know the i know so many people who say things like oh i can't be a very good friend i don't feel i've got much to contribute in a conversation well that's only half half the deal.

45:37The other half, perhaps the much more important half, is are you someone who is signaling by the quality of your listening that you are someone who other people can emerge from their social self around and become the deeper self that they all are? Yeah, the reason why I love this podcast is because I connect on a deeper level with so many incredible people, which I never, I get to have an hour, an hour and a half, two hour conversation with you. When would we ever do that in life, about the deepest things in the world that, you know, all my insecurity, I could tell. There is those little moments that you feel, oh, I can share.

46:13I can go deeper with this person. They're going to accept it. So this is an artificial setting in which you're able to reach a level of depth. I mean, I have this with my psychotherapy clients. So I've got psychotherapy clients that I'm able to have a very privileged 50 minutes where it's an extremely profound, focused, deep conversation. These are artificial constructs. But boy, oh boy, should we be learning from them in life? Because some of your listeners will be going, well, I don't have a podcast. I'm not a psychotherapist, so I can't do this. Well, yes, you can. You can do it any time that you're sitting opposite somebody.

46:44You can be in a park bench, in a restaurant, anytime, anywhere. You can do that level of focused listening and also giving the person space to reveal the bits that they're aching to reveal. But Anna, what does it do to you? Because for me, when I have these deep conversations, it fills my cup up. And so in some ways you can say it's a selfish conversation because I enjoy it. I enjoy going deep. It's like laughter to me. It's like... Look, I think it's the nicest thing in life to connect deeply with another person. It's literally, it's the stuff that everything else is for. Why do we make money?

47:20Why do we try and struggle so hard? Some of it's basic material income. But beyond a certain level, what we want is to be treated nicely, to be understood, to be sympathised with, to be with a group of people. We don't want to be losers. We don't want to be outsiders. So many of our efforts are essentially pointing to something like this, a deep conversation in which we're able to be ourselves. That's what we really want. That's what we're aching for. And if somebody could say, you could have this on tap, it would be the greatest thing. You know, we're so good at bringing people together physically and so bad at making them connect.

47:52So if you think about in any large city, you've got so many bars, restaurants, cafes, public spaces, et cetera, where people nominally are together. But are they properly together? No, because as we know, it's not enough simply to be in physical space. You've got to be in emotional space, which means shared vulnerability. The gift of a true friend, to have a true friend really is an amazing thing. And I want to say, I want to say that many of your listeners might not have any friends. I might not have any friends. I might have half a friend, Maybe we don't have as many really good friends. Once we raise the bar of what friendship is, we might have to go through a phase of thinking, I'm not sure I've got any of these.

48:31Measured against what it should be, maybe we don't have any. Now, that's not a cause for despair. It could be a wonderful moment to say, okay, there are actually people I would like to have really good friendships with. They're in my social circle. I see them, but I'm not quite where I really want to be that could be a really exciting project to take on you know we have projects around making money getting healthy etc why not have a friendship the deepened friendship problem a challenge and to say okay i'm going to try and go a bit deeper i'm going to try and take a few risks and you know i outline all sorts of steps that you might take including as i say sharing vulnerability sharing attraction sharing sadness sharing envy all of these things are all steps to getting the true friend that you might not yet have but again you're so alan you're so right like beyond right but it still goes back to that same thing which is a sort of um it's like a social requirement that we need to have friends in order to survive and if we don't have any friends we're the loser in the playground so admitting that to ourselves is almost admitting failure that we have failed in this area which is so important and that's been ingrained with us since that playground But isn't it liberating to say, though I've been on the earth for a number of years, I may not know how to do something.

49:45It's a step towards doing it properly. I mean, think of sex. Imagine if you said to yourself, and it's a really challenging thing, maybe I don't know how to do sex very well. Maybe I'm actually not a very good lover. Great. That's a fantastic starting point. Just as if you say, maybe I'm not good at friendship, or maybe I've never been good at certain aspect of office life or whatever, and I'm going to re-explore it, re-examine it. We should have a culture which allows all of us to be beginners, even though we're quite far down the road on something. Okay, what makes a bad friend? I mean, look, there are lots of bad ways.

50:19Let's take the generous view. The generous view is somebody who means well, but is so bound up with ideas of what they should be doing that they can never go deeper. I have some people who are very well-meaning. They're always like, how are you? And they do really mean well, but they haven't gotten far enough inside themselves. And so they can't offer the true kindness that they could only really offer if they knew they were more at ease with themselves and with the complicated bits of themselves. So they can't be there during the difficult bits. Do you think that's what it is? Do you think that's the block is when someone doesn't quite understand themselves, therefore they can't be there in those situations because they don't understand what they're going through?

51:01Yes. I mean, look, there are also people. There's a lot of envy around. And again, unexpressed envy is the danger here. There are a lot of inequalities of wealth, of success, of age, of beauty, et cetera. And we tend to think these are unmentionable. We can't get past them. But envy is one of the most fundamental things. You look at two children playing. What's the first thing they do? Whose fire truck is bigger? And children have it out. They go, I hate the fact that your fire truck's bigger. You're a big fat poo. Your fire truck's bigger than mine. They just get it out. And if necessary, they'll go over and steal the firetrop.

51:34And they're getting it out. And as adults, we think, oh, it's great. My friend Jamie's just got a top-running podcast in the UK, and I've just been let go. But I can't possibly say anything. if I was to be friends with you you know I need to be able to go Jamie sometimes I just feel so insecure around you everything you do turns to gold and it just makes me it makes me slightly mad is is it okay can I can I tell you that and you might go that's sure that's fine I I don't need you to be anything I I've actually picked you out as my friend because I like the fact that we were at nursery school together or we go a long way back or that I like your sense of humor so I'm glad you told me and I can see how it's annoying I'm a bit of an overachiever because you know bits in my childhood I probably don't need all this stuff I'm I do need to be famous but but I don't I don't know why I'm still working it out maybe I won't need to be all the time but but I'm so glad let's talk about it let's talk about this dark stuff is it okay to let friends go do you get to a certain point with friendships where actually they that French has only gone so far and you need to go further i think i think that has to be the case we know this in the case of relationships don't we we know in relationships there are people who can take us thus far and no further um i think there could be a version of that in in a friendship almost i mean in a perfect world the kind of acknowledgement of saying you know you were a fantastic friend when we both you know had small children and lived in that part of the world um times really have moved on Our kids are now in their 20s and things have changed.

53:06I'm no longer married or whatever it is. And the basis of the friendship has changed. We can't find topics that we can settle on. I think we have to allow for that because to allow for that. I found that really hard. It is hard. To allow for that is also to allow for new friendships because, Jamie, there's only so many hours in the day. If we have to hold on to everybody who we've ever been with, we're also saying something darker, which is I'll never make a new friend. and and i think there's a joyful side we have to allow for new friends and because as we're evolving of course we'd like to carry one teaches you this no no one teaches this and we feel very guilty and sometimes what we do is we try and hang on to friends i can't be a good person if i haven't let someone go and it's a version of what happens in relationships particularly in dating when someone goes oh i've gone on a date with somebody and you know it didn't work out and then rather than cleanly saying i'm not sure you know down the road road of life people keep people orbiting breadcrumbing, etc.

53:54None of it helps. You need to be able to say cleanly, look, I'm not sure. I think things have slightly changed. It's okay. So you think we should break up with our friends? I think a version of breaking up is utterly fine. And even if we don't necessarily say it, to have it as an idea in society, as we're doing now, to put it out there, to say friendships can break up without either party being to blame for anything or need to feel guilty. And we really can, And it isn't just a sentimental sop. Retain excellent memories of something we don't want to continue. We know this in art. I mean, imagine you really enjoyed a book and someone said, well, you've got to keep reading that book forever.

54:29You might say, no, I've really enjoyed that book. But part of continuing is that I'm going to read other books. I'm going to move on. But there's something selfish about that, no. What happens if that person needs you? Well, if you can't be the person they need you to be, that's selfish to pretend that you can be. If you can't deliver the friendship that they need, you need to acknowledge that rather than being a fake friend. Because I think a lot of, again, it's like relationships. We know this phenomenon from relationships. One of the most painful things when people think, I couldn't possibly break up.

54:57It will hurt my partner's feelings. And instead, what they're doing, of course, is ruining their life. Every minute you spend with a partner where you're not fully invested and you think you're doing it because it's better to break up after the holidays or after their cousin's wedding is a day that you're robbing of them. The same thing is true of friendship. If you can't be the friend they need you to be, you shouldn't be there doing it half-heartedly because they'll be picking up that it's not going right. But, Jamie, look, you're right to point to the idea that the ideal is to hold a friendship through time.

55:27There is something wonderful. It's the same applies in relationships because as we're evolving, if you're able to evolve, co-evolve, evolve alongside someone, there's something particularly joyful about being able to say, well, remember that time 10 years ago when we both were afraid of X or hadn't understood Y or were daunted by the prospect of Zed. That's extremely attractive. It means that they have as full a record as possible of what it was like to be alive on the earth.

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58:08I'm about to become a parent Congratulations Thank you so much And I'm scared because I've suddenly realised in life that we're just guessing Well, do you know, I'm now going to promote my other book I wrote a book called The Good Enough Parent I've got it upstairs Okay, good It's a very important topic The phrase good enough comes from this wonderful psychoanalyst called Donald Winnicott who's practising in the 50s and 60s And he came up with this very helpful phrase because, of course, it's perfectionism that gets in the way of decent efforts in lots of areas. And parenting is one where we know that we're taking on an almost supernatural task.

58:47There is something supernatural about making another human being. Let's just take a pause. We're going to make a human being? We humans make another human? I mean, it's just awe-inspiring. And it's crippling. It really is crippling. So if we set the bar at a tolerable level, say we're not going to make it perfect, but it's going to be good enough. That's a good starting point. The thing I'm worried about is passing down my sort of inherited behaviors that aren't quite right. Tell me what's the biggest fear you've got around the inherited behavior? What do you think you're most scared of passing on?

59:21How do you think that you might be not a good parent? I think that I am so focused on future the whole time that I won't be so present. and why do you think you're focused on the future because I'm always thinking about next what's next what's next for you for the other person for everyone I think for my family I think a lot about that what can we do more but again for me a lot of the time I'm also you're crossing your arms what does that mean defensive okay let's open them again no but we can acknowledge this maybe it's a frightening thing it is a frightening thing it is frightening because I really want to be a good dad of course you do And my fear is I'm going to mess it up.

1:00:07It's partly a good fear. Really? I mean, if you were not scared at all, you wouldn't be acknowledging the gravity of what you're letting yourself into. I'm worried that I'm going to become so anxious about being a dad that my anxiety is then going to pass on to my child because I'm anxious that I'm not getting it right, anxious that I'm not present, anxious that I'm not free enough, anxious, all these anxieties, anxious that I'm not going to provide. and then my anxiety is then going to be passed down but I can't be anxious because if I'm anxious then it makes anxiety everywhere. That's what I'm anxious about.

1:00:39I want to give you a hug. It'll be fine. I mean, I speak as the father of two lovely late teenage boys and I mean, I had every single one of your anxieties. Did you really? Totally, totally. Every single one of them and more. And, you know, I want to go back to the earlier, meet the younger me. I mean, this is why it's important to have intergenerational friendships as well because there is, you know, it's like not everybody's exactly that moment. And you can pass down a bit of experience, wisdom, et cetera. Well, can I ask you a personal question? Yeah. So the card that we pulled there about the couple saying, what would I go back to and change?

1:01:14As a parent, would you go back and change anything? I would. I would. I think I was incredibly anxious that my children would be unhappy and suffer. A little bit too anxious. And I think I would have left more room in their upbringing for pain and difficulty at certain moments. Because I think it is part of life. And I'm not alone. Like many parents, it's a generational, you know, the pendulum keeps swinging. And I think that many people in my generation, probably still in that generation broadly, have gone perhaps a little too far in the pain minimization strategy. which is, of course, a very important corrective to centuries of pain maximization strategy.

1:01:58And stoicism really does have a limited role to play in parenting. However, it does still have some role to play. And I think that I would have just been able to help my children to acknowledge difficulties. Because what you're saying is this, which I agree, is that there was a generation of parents that really cushioned their children to make sure that they had no worries, no problems, no issues, because they were so fearful they were going to fear anything, that actually then the resilience maybe is not quite there as much as it should be. Yeah, and it's much observed, and I think it is something that our whole societies are thinking a lot about.

1:02:40And what does that mean? Does that mean you should, I mean, the Spartans thought you should leave your children to survive on the hillside. And if they lived, they lived. And if they died, they died. You know, that's obviously too Spartan. But, you know, we're trying to find a way towards something that feels like a tolerable middle ground. And I'm sure you will find it, but it can be a little tricky. So if you have to give me, if I was doing a test and you had to give me an A plus to be a good parent, what would that look like? I mean, a really important test is what are the issues that I'm carrying through from my parents that I'm likely to be playing out with my children?

1:03:21We're all part of a kind of intergenerational psychological story. And we do project issues. Parents have very complicated feelings. Parents can feel envious of their children. That's a weird one, isn't it? We didn't expect that. You know, parents will, children will challenge their parents. They'll find the weak spots in you and they will challenge you. I mean, whatever weak spot you think you have that people can't see, your children will spot it and they'll head towards it. And they will in some ways live in relation to that weak spot in some way. They'll be trying to, I don't know, find a way forward.

1:04:00But children and parents are involved in very complicated intergenerational kind of games. But also often heading towards trying to make something good. We're often trying to solve the problems of our parents. A lot of what we're doing is done in relation to something our parents did or didn't do. And if you get a handle on as a parent, well, what might that thing be that bothers my child? Given the things that are problematic in me, what might my children find to criticize? What might they need to find their own way towards? It might be, you know, there's something unresolved about masculinity for me, or there's something unresolved about money for me, or there's something awkward around relationships for me.

1:04:42Your children are going to sense it. They are going to sense it. They sense everything like that. And, you know, the more you can get on top of it yourself, you'll make it easier for them to find their way to it. I remember you mentioned it last time about the envy that parents can have to their children. and that's really important to try and not create well i mean you want your children to have a better life than you if they do that's not totally easy um it's going to is it really sure because because would you be envious of your children truthfully envy wouldn't be the only emotion but it might be part of a complex array of emotions and i think just as we talked about friendship earlier friendship can have envy relationship can have envy you you have to allow for complexity on the emotional spectrum really and if you don't allow it you're foreshortening it's likely to be there wow so you have to accept that it might be something might be there and whenever people say things like i never feel envious i think yes you do because it's one of those things it's just it's going to be there and so the best thing to do is to acknowledge it with grace and to go yeah sure something that my wife is dealing with at the moment which i'm she won't mind me saying is that she's feeling pretty lonely because she's one of the only friends who is pregnant.

1:06:01She's sort of dealing with the situation by herself. As the husband, I'm not carrying anything, dealing with anything. I'm out doing exactly the same things that I'm always doing. And she said to me yesterday, she said, I feel lonely. And I... Lovely to say that, by the way. Yeah. I mean, really good sign. Really good sign that she can say it. But I didn't know how to respond. I just said, I'm so sorry you're feeling that way. A lot of women after birth, as we know, feel very depressed. Because giving birth is both wonderful and joyful and is an enormous loss. It's a huge loss. When you have a baby, you lose an enormous part of your life.

1:06:40And you lose it not just for a month or a year, but for decades. For decades, aspects of your life will be taken from you. And the narrative around giving birth is all about joy. This is what our society keeps doing to us. You'll recognize the themes. So it says you become a new dad, a new mom, congratulations, etc. Rather than, that's tricky. I bet you'll be mourning something. There is nothing good that doesn't at the same time entail a loss of something else. And, you know, a lot of what makes women's lives very difficult immediately after birth is that there's no space for them to publicly acknowledge and mourn the fact they've lost a huge part of their lives.

1:07:17and if you're able to say to your wife and if friends are able to say to give space to that and to go yeah you know i'm sure you're really happy with your child but i bet at some level you resent your child is crying all the time it's robbed you of everything your body's feeling in all sorts of pain you you know your house is a mess etc you can acknowledge that that's fine that's okay it doesn't mean you're a bad person it just means you're allowing the full complexity of life to intrude and and that's always the way it should be it's so great allowing the complexity of life to intrude to be out there is so important we don't the biggest thing that i sort of want to take in this whole conversation is that we just have to be more honest with ourselves you always say right what should i be feeling at x moment and then you check in on yourself and you go what am i actually feeling and when you notice the disjuncture think okay could i take a risk to narrow the gap that's the beginning of friendship risk creativity as well.

1:08:14Could I do something to narrow the gap between what I should be feeling and what I'm actually feeling? That gap between what should and what is, is a wonderful holy space in which you can make great discoveries.

1:08:32What's more important to have in life? Friendships or romantic relationships? I mean, you really do need both. You do need both. I think, some of the problems we've got into with polyamory in our society is because people don't understand how to have deep friendships. My private hunch is that polyamory gets some of its energy from the thought that people know more how to do relationships and they know how to do friendships. And so they're craving lots of people in their lives, which is very natural. And they think, well, the only way in which to get the right sort of people at the right depth is to also sleep with them.

1:09:10And, you know, that may be true, and I don't want to, you know, not polyamory. It works for some people. What do you think is filling a need? I would say that for many people, if they knew how to do friendship properly, the need for polyamory might decline. Why do we in relationships find it so hard to hear the negativity from our partner? Why do we not want to hear that? Why do we sort of reject their emotions a lot of the time? I think we feel so guilty that we may have hurt someone that we care about, that we can't accept that we have hurt them, and therefore we hurt them even more. And then you're in a cycle of a denial of your agency within a relationship.

1:09:44So to love someone is always going to be to hurt them, not willingly, but just if you adopt a powerful position in somebody's life, you're going at certain points to misunderstand them. Your needs will conflict with their needs, et cetera. But the great thing is we've got time. I always think when couples are squabbling, et cetera, it's never just one moment. There's the day after, there's the morning after, The fog clears and you can get back to business. And there's always a chance to apologize. And again, the first thing they teach you, relationship 101 management, is if somebody's telling you something, don't say, it wasn't like that.

1:10:19Say, I hear that you were feeling dot, dot, dot. You just acknowledge their feeling. That doesn't remove your right to later put your point of view across. But if you do that basic work of acknowledgement, it sounds simple. It literally, those very serious things called divorces where lawyers are involved, removal, vans and children are separated, etc. The cracks that have led to that kind of disaster will have begun in little moments when someone just didn't feel heard. I mean, that is the number one cause of relationship dysfunction. Someone feels that something that's urgent and important has not been listened to.

1:10:54It sounds like child's play, but the universe depends on taking that point on board. It's so simple. It's so simple. Just communicate. Hear, understand. And you're so right. As soon as someone, as soon as your partner says to you something, I don't know, whatever it may be, and you go, okay, I'm here you and I understand what you're saying. It diffuses so much of it. And as I say, it doesn't mean that you have to totally agree. You just acknowledge their reality. Allowing your partner to be angry or be emotional is so important because what I used to do in our relationship is not allowed that.

1:11:29So my partner would be upset, angry about something that I thought wasn't fair. Well, you can't, that's unfair. You can't do that. That's wrong. And actually it was my mum who gave me some amazing advice once who said, you have three options when it comes to arguments or when your partner's upset. You can either play the child, you can either play the parent or you can play the adult. Now the child's response is, well, if you're angry, I'm going to get angry. That's the way I'm going to respond. The parent's response is, don't talk to me like that. You can't. How dare you talk to me like that?

1:12:00And the adult's response is, God, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize you were feeling that way. How can I please respond or make it better? And I always now try and respond like the adult. That's so good. I mean, you know, I did a psychotherapy training. You know, I'm a trained psychotherapist. It's a very strange part of my CV. Or not strange, but not necessarily well known. So I did a psychotherapy training. and one of the things... For how long for? Three years. And one of the things that they teach, one of the very first things is the art of paraphrasing. It sounds kind of weird. Why do you need to paraphrase?

1:12:30But when someone says something to you, there's something beautiful if the other person can listen and paraphrase it back to them. So the person goes, you know, I'm really annoyed that when I was in America, you never called me. And the other person listens and goes, okay, so I'm hearing that when you were away, when I was away, you felt I wasn't in contact enough. It's just, it's so simple. You're just finding different words to rehearse the theme. But the message to the other person is the person's been listening really closely because it takes that extra effort to do that paraphrasing. They're proving that they've listened and they've listened to every point.

1:13:09And that feels good. It feels safe. And the relationship is, if I can use a word, it's sexy. We think of sexiness as a little bit about being candles or dates or clothes or whatever. Sexiness is connection. Sexiness is being heard. That is what drives people to feel desirable and desired. But then when you're in an argument, let's say, and you really generally feel what the other person is saying is wrong, you become defensive. How do you then combat that with a view? I mean, defensiveness is the number one problem between couples. It is the enemy of all good dialogue and interaction. in a better world, we'd have sort of not just measuring ozone levels, we'd be measuring defensiveness levels in a society.

1:13:53How much do we feel the need to deny what other people are telling us? And how much can we bear to acknowledge wherever it comes from, it is a reality in their court. So can we just allow that reality to have the space it needs? It's so hard sometimes. So hard. I realize it's just repetition. It's exposure. I always was defensive. That's not my fault. No, it's not all that. And now what I've done is I've pushed myself to a place where I just listen. I listen and I accept. And then I do exactly what you say is then revert back to it later down the line and go, by the way, this is maybe not quite how I feel, but this is how I think it is.

1:14:32And do it that way around rather than straight away hitting it. And Jimmy, how old are you? 36. So why is it taken to 36 for this vital? I mean, most people don't get there by 96. So you're doing really, really well. And it's because we live in a romantic culture that insists on thinking that love, true love, comes spontaneously. You know, for most of human history, people have not got together with partners spontaneously. It's been arranged by society. It's been lots of strictures and structures have come from the outside to force people together. And it's bred a countervailing idea that true love should just come from the heart spontaneously, suddenly, should follow your feelings.

1:15:08I mean, generally following your feelings is a treacherous idea at the best of times. Because our feelings, you know, follow all kinds of channels. We do need education. We need training, as we do in everything, every other area of life. It's a tragedy that this thing called relationships, we have so little systematic instruction in. Imagine if, I mean, most of us, how many relationships have you had in your life? Deep ones? Or just in general? Friendships? No, no, love. Love relationships. relationships uh five okay so you've had five relationships let's even you know let's double that to 10 even if you've had 20 imagine you had 20 relationships imagine if you had 20 goes at playing the piano and then right you're on stage at the victor at the you know royal albert hall and and you've had 20 piano lessons how's it going to sound absolutely terrible and the same thing you know you're learning to throw a javelin you've got 20 goes at the javelin as you say most people it's five.

1:16:03It's as tricky. It's far trickier. Throwing the javelin's easy. And we've got five shots at it. No wonder we make a total balls-up of it. We get together with the wrong person. We've got the wrong skills, et cetera. Of course we do. We need a lot of assistance and a lot of sympathy for the mess we make. And we think that we should get it straight away. Of course. Because we're under this romantic culture that tells us, don't think too much. I mean, you do get people who continue to say things like, you're overthinking. My goodness, is overthinking, we're radically underthinking. Of course, there's such a thing as thinking in the wrong way.

1:16:35When you're chasing your tail, you're not getting anywhere. We've all know those sort of things. But broadly speaking, there's an epidemic of underthinking that goes on. And when couples are told, you guys are thinking too much, well, absolutely not. They're probably not playing cards enough.

1:16:53And do you ever sit in silence and think about what you truly want? I mostly sit in silence. Most of my life is in silence. I'm only chatting here because you've invited me kindly. Most of the time I'm in science. Well, the reason I say this, right, is because... So, producer Jemima, who's sitting here, just went on a solo camping trip. Okay. And... Not because she lacked friends, or maybe because she lacked friends. Both are fine. Both are fine. I don't think... I don't think she wanted to... She wanted to connect with herself. And after... Again, after our conversation we had, at the end of last year, I sat in a room by myself in silence to really think about what I wanted and want to achieve and also reflect on what I've done the year before.

1:17:32And I feel like we never sit in silence anymore because we need to be distracted the whole time. Well, we can be distracted. That's the point. Yes. We can be. And it is really, it's so difficult because thinking creates anxiety because every time you start thinking, you don't know what you're going to stumble upon. Imagine if I start thinking about my relationship, my job, my friendship, and I discover that something's really wrong. Oh my goodness, what will happen then? So we deny our chance of fixing things because in order to fix anything, you have to acknowledge there might be a problem. And in order to acknowledge that, there's a little charge of anxiety.

1:18:06And if your phone is constantly willing to relieve you of that anxiety, you won't make progress. So one of the great tragedies of recent times has been on airplanes, Wi-Fi, trains, phone signals, et cetera. We almost have no spaces left where our phones don't work. The air used to be – people used to say, oh, I love a long flight. I can think. Well, now even long flights, you can't think. There's something to be done. So thinking is hard because it threatens to bring you face to face with difficult things. And so long as we can never have an appetite for slightly awkward thoughts, we're not going to make progress with ourselves.

1:18:43So that is the point that I wanted to get right. Because I think people listening to this right now in their cars, on their run, on their walk, on the commute, whatever it is, they're going to be listening to it. And then they're going to go, oh, that's good. I like that. that's really interesting okay i might write that down i might put a no to me but then this podcast will finish yep and whoever's listening now will continue with their lives because this was just a distraction not to collapse your audience figures but the true moral of this podcast is fewer podcasts you're listening to fewer podcasts listen to the podcast of yourself don't listen to jamie and alan talking listen to the podcast of your true self that's the podcast you need to be listening to you're so right we're constantly reading books or listening to podcasts or being distracted or look at this or look at that but actually we're not listening to ourselves we've got in ourselves the most amazing perceptual machine it's noticed everything it's recorded everything it's noticed a billion things but we don't notice what's inside us we've got this treasure trove we've got the library of alexandria the british library inside us we tip it into the sea every day we don't pay attention and if we can just look at the book inside us the podcast inside us, we'll be able to pull out riches.

1:19:50But it does involve a bit of anxiety. And to make it sweeter, where do our best thoughts come to us at? It's a bit of a mystery, right? We're all aware that sometimes, I mean, the worst thing, if you want to get somebody to think clearly, deeply about themselves, do not give them a huge desk and a lovely computer or blank sheet of paper. They're going to freeze. They're going to think that's terrible. Send them on a walk where there isn't a Wi-Fi signal. Give them a really hot bath where they can just lie and luxuriate for an hour. A shower is not bad as well. We think best when thinking isn't the only thing we're meant to be doing.

1:20:25When one side of the mind, the anxious, censorious side of the mind, is able to go off and do something else. People think very well in trains. The reason is you're sitting on a train and you're able to follow the telegraph poles and the landscape is constantly changing. So whenever you're at risk of getting stuck in a thought, the landscape's saying, don't worry, keep going. We're traveling on and on. The motion of the train helps the motion of your mind. And so we need to sweeten the task of thinking by helping it to take place in good places. So we've got these things called trains. Trains aren't really places to go from A to B.

1:21:01They're places to get to know bits of yourself. So sometimes take a train journey into a bit of yourself. I'm not going to Manchester. I'm going to a bit of me. Wow. I knew this was going to be amazing. Honestly, I want whoever's listening to this right now to try. Don't put anything on after. Maybe just put a timer on for 30 minutes and just sit and have a think. But I'd say have a shower, go for a walk or something. Do something. Don't stay stuck in a place. But put the phone down, go on a walk with no distraction. Just think. Look, we love our Phones bring us things, but they truly are the enemy of introspection.

1:21:40We know ourselves so much less well now because of our phones. You were saying, do phones get in the way of friendships? Not so much. The thing they really get in the way of is a friendship with yourself, an acknowledgement of yourself, knowledge of yourself. That's where they bite. Normally we end the... I mean, firstly, Jess, I almost want to applaud you because that was phenomenal in every single way. And honestly, I could sit with you just for hours and hours and hours and hours. With all your books, but your new book, which is coming out in September, The Secrets of Successful Friendships, where can we get it?

1:22:16Everywhere. Everywhere. Amazon bookshops, UK bookshops, US bookshops, etc. Please go and buy it. We'll leave a link in the description below. Go and get it because it will change your life for the better. It's just brilliant. And people have the ability to have that knowledge. It's there. It's in a book. Go and get it. Sure. It's just amazing. Normally we end the podcast with eight questions. We've done that with you before. So if you'd like the listener to come away with one phrase from the recording, what would it be? Spend more time with yourself. Can we give another one? Stop trying so hard to be normal.

1:22:55It's exhausting and it's not fun for anyone else. And you've been amazing. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. That was incredible. Thanks, Jim. That was... That was... You are brilliant, Debra. That was fantastic.

1:23:14Yeah, amazing. Everything we wanted and more. Alan is one of those people that I would have, if I was going to invite for dinner, he'd be one of my five people I'd invite for dinner. I'd like him to just always be near me. Yeah, you could just have him like a sort of shadow in the Northern Lights. Yeah. He could be your shadow. My demon. My daemon. Demon? Matt Damon. Matt Damon. Can I ask, you mentioned a charades game in the episode that you played. What was it? Because you've mentioned it before, but you've never told me what the rules are. We played a game of charades where you would have to write down your fears.

1:23:45Oh, my God. It was quite deep. You had to write down your fears and then put it into a hat. They were picked out and then read out. Yeah. But no one... If you're a smoker or vaper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zinn Nicotine Pouches, you'll discover many good reasons. Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, Zinn offers a robust rewards program. There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction. But there's only one Zinn. Check out Zinn.com slash find to find Zinn at a store near you. Warning, this product contains nicotine.

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1:24:57Your receipt did. The sausage from bubbling with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just$5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Prices and participation may vary. Hello, I'm Katherine Ryan and this is Write Me Dirty, the podcast where two comedians write steamy, ridiculous erotica about each other. I give them a bizarre prompt, think apocalypse must include a zombie, and they read their spicy stories aloud while I judge them on sexiness, funniness and sheer chaos. It's hilarious, awkward and occasionally kind of hot. Write Me Dirty. Thursdays just got thirstier.

1:25:36Write Me Dirty.

1:25:41Know whose fears they were. They were then put in and then you have to take them out and act them out. And the one that I had to act out, someone's fear was that a baby, their baby would die. and I had to act out they were worried about their baby dying and I looked to my left, my right and there was Phoebe Wallerbridge and she looked at me and she just held up a gun because she knew that's the one that I picked out. So hang on, how was that? Did that bring you all? Did you? It was quite funny. Why did you have to do it like that? I'm confused. It was just a game of charades but about emotions rather than movies.

1:26:15Oh fine, did you feel like your fears had, you know? No, it didn't help my fears but I quite liked it. It was just interesting A way to connect Which I really liked And I really hope Everyone connects in this episode And go and get Alan's books We're going to leave again The link in the description If you want to go and connect With his books Because they're fabulous He sent a load of books Over to Jamie And one of them I really love It's hard to read Some of the book titles And not think they're A subtle par But one of them He sent to Jamie Was How Emotionally Mature Are You Yeah yeah Because I'm a complete child No I think it's a I would really like To read that book But it's just such a funny Gift to give someone 100 % But they're also just great So listen We really hope you enjoyed The episode As always, please subscribe to our show.

1:26:51It does us wonders, I cannot tell you. Get in touch at Great Company Podcast on Instagram or send us an email. Great Company at jampoproductions.co.uk. Everything is in the show description and we'll see you next week, of course, for another episode of Great Company.