The Friendship Experiment: 36 Questions That Create Deep Female Friendships (Pt. 2/3)

29 Jul 2026 · 30 min · 10 chapters

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In short

Part 2 of a “Friendship Experiment” adapting the 1990s psychologist’s 36-question study to help women build deep friendships. The host answers questions 13–24, sharing personal reflections meant to be “mid-level personal,” and invites listeners to join a group chat/discussion.

Guests

No guests appear in this transcript; it’s a solo host interview-style episode.

Key claims

Deep friendship is built through trust, effort/time, shared experiences (“memories together”), and “two-way” support aligned with each person’s “love language.” The host values fewer but deeper core friendships over many superficial ones.

Notable examples

Wouldn’t want a crystal ball’s certainty, except hopes for longer dog lifespans; dreamed of singing lessons and starting live events; greatest accomplishments include the podcast’s recognition (Buckingham Palace/UK embassy) and facing scary things; treasured memories include getting a puppy (“Sweetie,” 700 grams) and a last-minute registry wedding in Dec 2019; friendship as chosen family and “shared firsts.”

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

Exploring Question 13: Crystal Ball Insights

0:45 to 2:53

Discussion about what truths they would want to know about their future.

“And if you want to be part of the experiment, there is a link in the show notes where you can join our group chat or our podcast discussion group and be part of the experiment.”

Question 14: Dreams and Aspirations

2:53 to 4:54

Reflecting on long-held dreams and the barriers to achieving them.

“Is there something that you've dreamed of doing for a long time?”

Question 15: Greatest Accomplishments

4:54 to 6:41

Sharing proud achievements in both personal and professional life.

“So I'm really proud of what the podcast has accomplished and kind of like what it's accomplished that I didn't think possible, like all the things that have come from that.”

Question 16: Values in Friendship

6:41 to 10:06

Discussing what they value most in friendships and personal connections.

“What do you value most in friendship or in a friendship?”

Question 17: Treasured Memories

10:06 to 14:00

Sharing cherished memories and the stories behind them.

“You're just going to go outside and like pick up the dog.”

Treasured Memories and Concert Experiences

14:00 to 15:42

Explore cherished memories and the joy of concerts, including a Taylor Swift concert experience.

“I wore like a sequin little sparkly wrap dress.”

Treasured Memories and Concert Experiences

15:49 to 16:27

Explore cherished memories and the joy of concerts, including a Taylor Swift concert experience.

“Experts trust it, rookies love it, and if you're switching from another platform, their team handles the whole migration process for free.”

Reflections on Life and Friendship

16:27 to 25:51

Discuss the significance of friendship, love, and adventure in life.

“If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you're living now and why?”

Family Dynamics and Childhood

25:51 to 28:00

Examine family relationships, childhood experiences, and their impact.

“There's like perspectives when you're having a conversation around the dinner table.”

Exploring Maternal Relationships

28:00 to 29:24

The hosts discuss their feelings about their relationships with their mothers, reflecting on mutual understanding and closeness.

“I feel like we have mutual understanding of each other.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00Doone Roisin:Welcome back to the podcast. Welcome back to FSC. This is episode two or part two of the friendship experiment where we're answering a series of 36 questions in three sets of 12. So we're answering the second set of 12 questions. And if you missed the first episode, the last episode, I highly recommend going back and listening to what it's about so you can get up to speed. and kind of what we're doing with this specific experiment or study that was run in the 90s by a psychologist and how we're adapting it for friendship and connection for women like you who are listening to the show. And if you want to be part of the experiment, there is a link in the show notes where you can join our group chat or our podcast discussion group and be part of the experiment.

0:59Doone Roisin:And you'll also get some really cute merch. Okay, so like last time, I haven't gone through the questions. I don't know what we're about to answer. So I'm a little bit nervous. I felt like the last ones were already kind of like personal. And these are meant to be like the mid-level personal. And then the next episode is going to be, you know, all systems go. Okay, so this is question number 13.

1:38Doone Roisin:If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?

1:52Doone Roisin:I put this here just for fun. Which seems fitting. Okay. Your life, the future, or anything else? I think actually I wouldn't want to know. I think part of the fun is not knowing. And just being on the journey. If it could tell me something about myself, my life, the future, or anything else.

2:27okay well i'm interested to know whether in five years time or 10 years time we'll be able to expand or extend the lifespan of dogs i would definitely want to know if that's coming so i have that to look forward to what else oh i don't think i would want to know i'm good

2:51Doone Roisin:Okay. Question number 14. Is there something that you've dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven't you done it?

3:04So last year, this would have been easy. I had kept saying to myself, I wish I could sing. Imagine if I could sing. And then I was like, well, wait a minute. I don't have to be good at singing, I could just go and take lessons and sing. And so I had been doing that in my head, like that loop for such a long time, like a really, really long time, years. And that would have been my answer a year ago.

3:32Doone Roisin:What have I dreamed of doing for a real long time?

3:40on the work front I think for a really long time we've wanted to start doing live events so it's been a while where I've been talking about wanting to have live audience participation kind of both small regular live podcast recordings and also more of a you know to a scripted stage performance type show. So I would say that that's been kind of like on my mind for a while and I'd really like to make that become a reality for next year. So kind of ending this year with a few of the smaller experimental type events and then next year moving to like fully into it. So I'm not constantly saying, I want to do that.

4:29I'm actually saying, I am doing that. Here's the next date. So that's probably what has been on my mind lately. I think I'm someone who just, if I think to myself, imagine if, or wouldn't it be cool if I have that like, okay, what's the action to then get to the outcome that I want?

4:53Doone Roisin:15 what is the greatest accomplishment of your life i guess work-wise i'm really proud of the podcast and what we've built i'm really proud that it's put me in rooms like buckingham palace being recognized by the king and queen consort of England and the embassy in the UK for Australia. So I'm really proud of what the podcast has accomplished and kind of like what it's accomplished that I didn't think possible, like all the things that have come from that. So those type of things, being able to travel around the world and get paid to travel around the world and like have my kind of dream career I think that's a great accomplishment.

5:51Knowing that I came from, you know, no money, dirt poor, living in the bush, I think I'm pretty proud of that.

6:02Doone Roisin:That's a great accomplishment. On the personal front, what is considered a great accomplishment? What would I think is a great accomplishment in someone else? It's a really hard one.

6:23Maybe one of my great accomplishments is doing the things that I find scary. You know, doing things that have built my confidence that I didn't think possible for myself. That's a great accomplishment. Question 16. What do you value most in friendship or in a friendship?

6:51What do I value most? I value effort and time. I value kind of like creating experiences and memories together and like doing cool things or like fun things or adventurous things. that kind of like, you know, will remember forever. I guess I value like fewer core friendships that are much deeper than a lot of deep friendships. I'm more of a small kind of group when it comes to like my core friendships. I heard this thing the other day, a friend of mine said this to me and he said people can be interested or interesting but ideally both and I think the people who are closest to me they're not necessarily two things but they're they're really strong in one of those things so they're you know they're reciprocal in terms of they're very interested back in my life the way that I'm interested in their life or they might be very interesting, doing interesting things.

8:14They're interested in a lot of different areas. I do love it when I have those kind of my close friendships that have interested and interesting. I value like kindness in friendships. I'm like not about the silly stuff or gossip. Or drama. Like, I like being around people that make me feel good, aren't just, like, connected in, like, a work sense, if that makes sense.

8:53Doone Roisin:It's actually kind of a hard question. What do I value most in friendship?

9:01Doone Roisin:Trust. trust definitely trust that you can just be yourself without like judgment it's almost like the question of what's your love language but what's your love language and friendship and that comes down to similar things of how you value someone showing up for you based on your love language and making sure that you fill up your friends tanks with their love language and vice versa and you know what each other's love languages are for friendship so depending on the friend and who it is and the relationship making sure that you're like giving to them and supporting to them or I'm giving to them and supporting them in the way that they need it at that time and vice versa, like that two-way street.

10:03Doone Roisin:Oh, I feel like we're breathing through these. Okay. Question number 17. What is your most treasured memory?

10:17okay i have so many i mean the day i got sweetie that is absolutely up there with one of the most treasured memories we were living in the uk at the time and we lived in this little one-bedroom apartment and the dog breeder natalie she was like, you know, the dog courier is going to come. You're just going to go outside and like pick up the dog. And I was like, they're not going to come in? Like, okay. So we go downstairs. We cross the road, like this busy road. There's a guy parked there. He just like opens it up, opens up the crate and just like hands us over this tiny little lump of sweetie.

10:59She was 700 grams.

11:01Doone Roisin:She was like this big and we were kind of like don't drop her like it was it was really cold I think it was December and oh we came back upstairs and like sat on the floor with her to like play and she was like really curious and like wanted to just jump around and she was really into PA straight away oh my god that's a treasured memory I loved our wedding day we decided like three weeks before we got married that we were going to get married because we were in Australia at the time thank god it was December 2019 and pre the pandemic getting stuck in the UK for the next couple of years but my grandma was sick at the time and we didn't know if I would see her again.

11:52And so we had just gotten engaged in July and then it was December and we were like, you know what, all of our close friends are flying into Brisbane for Christmas to go back to seeing their families. Why don't we just get married at the registry? My grandparents can be there and my mum and my auntie and a few of our friends. and so we kind of like messaged a few friends and were like you know if we did it on this date does that like align with your brisbane plans and so we were like a group of 20 20 something and at the last minute pa's parents also decided to fly in thank god because my grandma and pa's dad died the following August within the same two-week block.

12:47And it was such a nice wedding. I had never seen myself like wearing a white dress or like walking down an aisle. And so we kind of planned this really cute day just based on like how we wanted to have the day. So it was the registry and kind of playing like some nice music that we had. Like, what did we play we played Elvis Presley's oh no I walked down the aisle to Justin Bieber obviously to you with David Guetta and then we had a song playing by Elvis the wonder of you and we said some really sweet vows my grandparents were there PA's parents were there my mom and my auntie and our favorite friends and then we went to my auntie's backyard which is one of my favorite places in the world after my grandparents house but they didn't live there anymore and we just like played fuzzy bunny and like some other random games and we had like gone out in the morning and bought fresh like kilos and kilos and kilos of fresh prawns and like cheeses and we had our friends wine from their winery talitz estate and we just kind of like got all of our favorite things and then we were there for you know a few hours and then we went to like just with our friends to late night boozy chinese like byo style and it was just the absolute best.

14:25We had film cameras. I wore like a sequin little sparkly wrap dress. It was just really fun. It was such a fun day. That's definitely a treasured memory.

14:39Doone Roisin:What else? Honestly, probably the Taylor Swift concert. I wasn't even a really big fan before I went to the concert and PA and I had gotten seats, but like separately. So he was like over the other side of the stadium. I was by myself with, you know, this sweetest, cutest three-year-old girls next to me that were going to their first concert ever. And we were both like, this is up there with our wedding. Like it was the coolest day, like the love in the stadium. You could just feel it. so yeah I would say they're three of my treasured memories but I actually have so many treasured memories with my grandparents when I was little with my mom I've got a lot of treasured memories 18 what is your most terrible memory I have one I have multiple and I am not going to answer those today's episode is brought to you by our friends at omni send if you're an e-com founder you're probably paying premium prices for features you've never even touched but omni send gives you the same power email sms segmentation advanced automation for up to 35 less than the big names and their customers generate 79 back for every dollar they spend and that's not some standard marketing claim, that's their actual data.

16:11Doone Roisin:Experts trust it, rookies love it, and if you're switching from another platform, their team handles the whole migration process for free. Use code FSC for 30 % off your first three months by going to omnisend.com forward slash FSC or clicking the link in the show notes below. 19.

16:32If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you're living now and why? Yes, definitely. If I only had one year to live and I wasn't like, you know, sick, let's just say like I died in a year in a car accident, I would be like, right, let's sell the house. Let's take Sweetie back overseas and just travel full time and kind of develop a really fun bucket list and just kind of like do all the things that are like in my soul that I want to do all the different corners of the world that I want to go to. I guess I'd bring my mom too. And yeah, I just have like a really adventurous year with Sweetie.

17:33It's so hard getting a dog back into Australia, but once they're out, totally fine, easy. She can travel with us on planes and all that kind of stuff. I think I'd just be like, cool, let's go to all the weird corners of the world that we've never been to. Definitely let's go to Antarctica. I want to go there.

17:53Some cool hiking. I'd want to do some nature stuff. Yeah. This week I'm going to Mongolia. And that's kind of like the trips that I've been more excited to do, the trips that are a little bit off the beaten path, less on Instagram. And so I would want to do more of that.

18:24Doone Roisin:20. What does friendship mean to you? I guess I have the most fun with my friends. Like, I love traveling with my friends. One of my favorite Christmases of all time was with my close friendship group. And those friendships, you know, you just have such, like, the chosen family. The really chosen family. You have that like deep connection, support, people who make you laugh, people who you can turn to when you need a little support. Friendship to me and especially my core group of friends is very important.

19:27and it's cool to get to like experience the world or the different chapters of your life with your friends like there's the concept of shared firsts kind of like this where you kind of like learn something about someone or you do something with someone for the first time and that again accelerates connection and closeness and it's so cool to have your best friends doing something together that you've never done before something random or just something that's new and out of the day-to-day kind of grind I love doing that kind of stuff with my friends

20:15Doone Roisin:I don't know how you meant to answer that question though what does friendship it mean to you? Maybe I've answered it wrong, but that's my answer for now. 21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?

20:38I mean, it's definitely a daily role that it plays in my life. It's a daily constant role of love and affection, both from Sweetie and PA.

20:53I mean, definitely with Sweetie. Oh my God, every morning we are just like snuggled with her. I mean, actually, constantly throughout the day we're snuggled with her. She's like a little tiny glue stick that is just forever glued to one of us, overheating one of us, usually me. And it's the best.

21:16Doone Roisin:I have a lot of love from sweetie, but also PA. I guess the role is just consistent. And it's nice. Okay, 22. I feel like these are kind of easier than the first round. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

21:50Okay, well, this obviously doesn't work in this situation, but we can do it offline if you join the experiment by clicking the link in the show notes. I will obviously do this of my partner. So number one, PA is like just the person that you want to be around all the time. His spirit is absolutely one of his positive characteristics. He's always like calm, level-headed, like he doesn't lose his temper. I've never seen him yell. Actually, I saw him yell. Sorry, I didn't even see him yell. I heard about him yelling once to this guy who had a dog off the lead that was like about to attack sweetie and he said he lost it but his spirit is definitely um number

22:54Doone Roisin:one it's always very calm with pa um positive characteristics of pa he is like just the hype guy like he is there to celebrate me his friends his family like he will like always show up he is so um like he's the biggest cheerleader for everyone around him three i guess this is kind of similar but it's like it's his mood his mood is like always well like not always he's human but he's always like a always in a good mood and like

23:51Doone Roisin:steady if that makes sense like happy and steady for I guess like he's stable reliable and steady and as a trait that is something I really value. He says exactly like if he says something, he is going to do it without a doubt. And five, he's just like a wealth of knowledge. we can have the most random interesting conversations and like rabbit holes about absolutely anything like he has got thoughts to share on every single topic like that exists he would have been a really good like debater because he is someone that can like debate I cannot yeah like he's interesting he's really interesting and he has like a lot of different things to talk about and a lot of different like excitement for different topics which I love because I'm so curious about a lot of things too and I guess actually another positive characteristic, I'm going for six, is that he's someone, and I just like love this, this should be my number one, actually.

25:23Doone Roisin:I really value this. He is someone that is very open-minded and can shift or evolve his perspective once he has more information. He's not someone who's just like so set in his ways that he's not willing to change his perspective. And so, you know, that's like, there's like levels to that, right? There's like perspectives when you're having a conversation around the dinner table. But then there's perspectives and decisions around huge choices and topics in life. And so he is someone that is always kind of like open for self-development or changing perspective or like understanding things in a deeper way, which I love.

Read the full transcript

26:25Doone Roisin:23 how close and warm is your family do you feel like your childhood was happier than most other people's okay well that's two questions growing up me and my mom were like inseparable two peas in a pod I could not get away from her I was a glue stick I wanted to sleep in her bed I slept in her bed every night until well every night that she would let me until I went to boarding school when I was 14. And even after that, I would still sleep in the same bed with her now, but she, she's too loud and I'm too sensitive a sleeper. But going to boarding school definitely like severed that like insane closeness.

27:13Doone Roisin:um and I would say now we're not that close and warm and she's not a very touchy-feely you know smothery type person so I wouldn't say we're super close and warm now and there's just the two of us and then do I feel like my childhood was happier than most other people's yes and no my childhood was so amazing and like focused on freedom and play and imagination and just like being able to run absolutely wild um so 99 of the time or 90 of the time yes but then there's also I guess the things that happen in early childhood or early life that are super fucked up and maybe not everyone has had those experiences in that internal kind of environment or maybe they have I don't know and I think that a lot of my memories or lack of memories probably stem from early childhood stuff 24 how do you feel about your relationship with your mom it's a deep one I love my mom I love her a lot it's her first time figuring out the world as well I feel like we could be closer I would like to see her more

29:02Doone Roisin:but overall I feel good about my relationship with my mom. I feel like we have mutual understanding of each other.

29:16Wow.

29:16Doone Roisin:Oh, that's it. That's 12 questions. That one felt easier than the first one, but I'm also now worried for the third one. Okay. that is part two done if you want to join the experiment there's a link in the show notes and see you soon for part three that was the plug

From the publisher

Be part of the experiment by joining us here: https://forms.gle/zVr3Dt9CKGPVg55r7

We're back with part two of The Friendship Experiment! If you missed the first episode, start there and circle back for the first 12 questions…

Here's what we're answering:

What I'd change if I knew I only had one year to live

My most treasured memories

What I actually value in friendship

How I feel about my relationship with my mum

This one's for the woman who's craving real connection, who wants to go deeper than small talk, and is ready to answer these questions for herself.

You can be part of the experiment by joining us here: https://forms.gle/zVr3Dt9CKGPVg55r7

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🔗 LINKS

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