What We Misunderstand about Friendship (with journalist Anna Goldfarb)

0:02Don't hold anything too tightly. Just wish for it, want it, let it come from the intention of real truth for you, and then let it go. For me, our soul is like it's unbound. It's limitless. But we will use words to limit ourselves. When people stop believing that somebody's got your back or Superman's coming, we turn to ourselves. And that's where you become empowered. Courageous participation attracts positive things. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow, and this is the Goop Podcast, where we bring together visionaries, scientists, healers, artists, and seekers. I'm so grateful that I get to interview these extraordinary thought leaders and share their wisdom with you.

0:51And I love listening to the conversations that are led by my co-host and dear friend, Cleo Wade. Cleo is a beautiful poet and author. I deeply admire her and the way she keeps her heart open to the world. Together, we believe that engaging in open-minded, honest, and sometimes difficult conversations has the power to change our lives. All right, over to Cleo. My guest today is Anna Goldfarb, author of Modern Friendship, How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections. Anna is a journalist who has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and many others. Her writing on friendship addresses a lot of the questions I often get asked, like how do we make new friends as adults?

1:37How do we maintain relationships across distance and life changes? And how do we navigate the conflicts that inevitably arise in our closest friendships? I had such a fun conversation with Anna, and I'm so excited to share her answers to these questions. So let's get right to my chat with Anna Goldfarb.

1:59I'm obsessed with friendship and how it forms us and holds us and grows us and stretches us and provides such a true social safety net that we really don't talk about enough in ways that show just how important it is. And so I loved your approach to this because it has really beautiful storytelling met with really kind of interactive ways that people can challenge themselves because friendship like love is something that is just not interrogated enough internally. And I think that's a lot of why people struggle in the dynamic. You know, we are so used to interrogating romantic relationships and what's good enough because every rom-com we read or do or sex in City episode or men are from Mars, women are from Venus or what all of these things.

2:53There's so much conversation and interrogation around romantic relationships. And, but part of why those struggles, because there's not enough interrogation around love and this practice of loving and wholehearted union and communion. And so the third thing to me for social safety is friendship. and we don't talk about it enough and how it functions. And you have this beautiful book called Modern Friendship, How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections. And I'm so grateful that you wrote it. And thank you so much for joining us. Oh, you're gonna make me cry. Thank you. Thank you for saying that.

3:31So I wanna talk, your book starts out with the grief of losing your father. And I'm so sorry. Do you mind telling us a little bit about him and what kind of prompted you to write this book? And what I think also what made you decide to include these exercises, or I kind of read them as interventions, because I feel that you're kind of flowing in your storytelling. And then there's this intervention that hands it back to the reader saying, okay, what are you going to do about it? And I really appreciated that as I went through it. I love that. You know, my profession is I'm a journalist and in particular, I'm a service journalist.

4:08I've written dozens, hundreds of articles, service stories for places like the New York Times, you know, the Washington Post, Fox, Time Magazine, The Atlantic, things like, here's a problem, here's how to fix it. And, you know, when I first started reporting on friendships, it was like 2017. And I noticed that all my friendships were buckling. Like I was, I don't know, something changed. I was 39. I had just gotten married and I felt like all my friendships were on the struggle bus. I didn't know if it was me. I didn't know if it was them. I didn't know if it was like a mercury and retrograde.

4:47And I started reporting on friendships, just being like, what's up with that? Like, what is up with this? What is up with that? And the more I learned about friendship, the more questions I had, you know, I love, I really got to dive deep into all sorts of nuances with friendship, like how to handle a quiet season. Why is there a quiet season? What's up with people pleasing? What's up with rekindling a friendship? What's up with siblings who are basically friends, but they're family. And all of this culminated in June, 2020. And I just, you know, this book is a COVID book. It can't be, it cannot not be a COVID book.

5:30This was written out of the lockdown. We all learned how important our friendships were because they were all disrupted at the same time, which is historically new as a reporter. I had just written a story for the New York Times, like I said, in June 2020, when so much of the advice given was reach out to people. We're in lockdown, reach out, reach out. And I wrote a story for the New York Times called, Should You Reach Out Right Now? Basically, like, well, why is there why have you fallen out of touch? What should you tailor your approach? If you haven't talked to this person in five, 10 years, what should you be mindful of with by reaching out?

6:12And I was visiting my parents. And my dad told me that this story really opened a wound in him an old wound. and he said that he really had been thinking about his old childhood friend in the book I call him Marty and Marty and him he didn't my dad didn't know why they stopped talking and he he it pained him it's you know it's been 10-15 years and I was like dad I'm a I'm a reporter I let me help here's his information here's his email like Marty just like send him an email here write this and I wanted to solve it for him. I wanted to be his hero. My dad didn't really talk to me too often about things like this.

6:55So I really wanted to show him like, hey, your star reporter daughter can fix this for you. But he hesitated. He never wrote that email. And I pestered him for an update, but there wasn't an update to give. And six months later, in January 2021, my dad got very sick and had to go to the hospital. and while he was at the hospital he was exposed to COVID and got I mean the COVID just decimated him because he was already sick from fighting the previous infection and he passed away which was shocking like so shocking to my little family was impacted like this but you know he he my dad was a scientist.

7:37He was a surfer. He was a referee for the special Olympics. He cared about cats. He cared about so many things. And he had four people at his funeral. It was just so gutting. My dad deserved more. He deserved better. And most of his friends didn't even know he was sick. I mean, it was like shocking to them to hear that my dad passed away. He was 74. He was in good health. So that it was just a shock, but my mind kept turning to his friend, Marty. And I just, I just resolved if I want to, I need to talk to Marty. So I looked up on LinkedIn, I found Marty's son and I reached out to his son and said, Hey, I'm Roy's daughter.

8:21And I need to, I need to talk to your dad. And 45 minutes later, I was on the phone with Marty. And he was so excited to hear for me. He was like, Anna, oh my gosh. It's like this moment where I knew I had to break this news to him. And I said, are you sitting down? Are you somewhere quiet? And he was like, yeah, yeah. What's up? What's happening? And I said, my dad passed away two days ago and Marty gasped. And I said, I had a whole conversation with my dad last summer that he wanted to reach out to you. He wanted to connect with you. And Marty cut me off. He said, I bear responsibility here too.

9:00I could have reached out to him as easily as he could have reached out to me. And, you know, Marty shared some stories about my dad in high school, how they went to football games together and annoyed my grandma by tracking in mud in their shoes all over our house. And he thanked me for reaching out. and it was then when I knew I wanted to write this book because I don't want anyone to feel that regret of you know this connection this yes and and so much anxiety gets in the way of these these men really loved each other they had a strong bond but my dad's anxiety his fear of the unknown of I don't know how Marty will react to hearing from me and that's just it I don't want it to be like that for any of us.

9:51So that gave me a mission. You know, when I was reporting on friendship, it was more me trying to understand my own life. But with this book, I wanted to help everyone of here is what is up with friendships. Here is how they work on a molecular level. Here's how you can understand the experiences you've had with friends. Here's how you can diagnose what you're seeing. And I really wanted to put something special together. And the exercises are to help people see how much power they have, how much power we have in our conversations with our friends, in our actions, in our attitudes, in our curiosity with our friends.

10:34Like those are things we can help. I wanted this book to be empowering. Like you come away feeling like this is achievable. I can do this. Now I know how different these things sound. Like my favorite exercises to write were some of the scripts of, you know, here's one way people offer support. Let's see how this plays out. Like, okay, take two. Let's try something just a little different and let's see where that goes. And you can just see in these tiny tweaks, these manageable, totally low lift tweaks in how we talk to our friends, how we regard our friends opens up a whole world. Well, I think ultimately one of the biggest struggles in friendship is, you know, in most relationships, whether it's your family or your romantic relationship, but it's conflict and not knowing how to wrap a conflict in grace or get to the conflict as soon as you can so that it is not completely fueled by like a greater, deeper relationship.

11:43resentment, overwhelm, you know, context of other things all kind of weighing on it. We don't know how to tend to these conflicts. We have much infinitely more complex conflicts with our friends than our grandparents did or great grandparents with their friends. Like the, all the different, our, our culture is fundamentally different than our parents and grandparents and ancestors. We have a hyper fluid culture that's historically new. So yes, it is harder for us to manage these conflicts because a lot of times with our friendships now, they only share common history with us. We have all different pockets of friendships from like childhood, school, job, you know, hobbies, whatever you're into.

12:36And they only share a common history with us, not with each other. So our burden is that we each individually have to create and negotiate reasons to keep a friendship active. We don't have a, most of us don't have a larger community when there's a conflict. You, you have, like, if you imagine you're in the 1950s and you, you know, never went to college and you basically are friends with a few friends in your church or synagogue or on your street. Friendships then were mostly a reprieve from marital boredom. It was someone just funny to hang out with. But now we expect our friends to be like mother, therapist, sister.

13:17I mean, the expectations are so much higher and we don't have historical precedent for it. We don't have, oh, mom, how did you handle conflicts with your best guy friend? My mom never had a best guy friend that she had to negotiate. figure out how we're going to live our lives, how we're going to maintain our friendships once we have other romantic relationships. Even the stuff we're into wasn't a thing 50, 100 years ago. Internet didn't, we didn't meet people online. It didn't exist. So we have very different challenges that we historically do not have models for. We cannot say to our grandma, how did you handle planning a European trip with your best friend when you were 25 and you didn't know what hotel room to pay.

14:05It's like my grandma did not do that. I don't know about your grandma. How do you depersonalize when your friend is flooded with hormones from egg freezing and they don't feel like this, you're not having the same connection you usually have. Yes. Or even workplace problems. Like it's just so culturally different and we don't have models for it. We've seen romantic breakups a million times. We know the scripts to use. We know how it looks like when you're fighting with a romantic partner, but fighting with a friend, it's like taboo still. I don't know how to navigate it. I certainly didn't. Or saying my friend broke my heart.

14:48You know, this idea. It's very lonely. It's very embarrassing. You're not really allowed to have that or have this kind of privacy or protection that you would have. Like, you know, you could have your close friend see your ex-boyfriend and they'd be like, I turned in the opposite direction. I would never engage with this person out of like honoring and protecting you. And if they saw someone that you were perhaps had a falling out with as a friend and they're like, oh, I just like went over to them and was like so interested in it. And you're like, wait, when you're actually having a real emotional fracture with someone and it hurt you, that requires a lot of protection from those around you as a part of your own healing.

15:34But if they feel that you have nothing to heal from, they don't give you any of that kind of the kind of preciousness you need. Yeah. And I think that's hard. It's so hard. It's really hard. And none of us know what we're doing. and none of us can model for each other. Well, this is how I've withdrawn from a friendship. This is how this is what it looks like. Like it's still very much, you know, it's just not part of the cultural conversation. Actually, that's the number one question people ask me is how do you get rid of like, how do you end a friendship? Which is hilarious because I wrote a book on how to keep friends.

16:11It's like how to make sure they don't let you they're more enduring. But everyone wants to know like, well, how do you get rid of a friend? How do you get rid of And that just says that our culture just has no clue what to do with all these friends that we accumulate from different parts of our life. We don't have a community to help us navigate conflicts. We just are on our own. And that's what it feels like. It's like I'm on my own to figure out these big problems.

16:43At Goop, we believe the spaces we spend time in shape how we feel and how we connect. That's why we're drawn to Convene, a global hospitality brand reimagining work in meeting spaces centered around design and care. Convene's sophisticated, purpose-built locations are designed to inspire connection, whether it's a board meeting for 10, a team off-site, or a workplace membership that gives you and your team a home base. With hospitality at its core, every detail is taken care of, so your in-person time feels seamless, elevated, and intentional. If you're looking for a new workspace or planning your next off-site or meeting, schedule a tour today at convene.com.

17:23And for our Goop listeners, mention Goop to receive up to$500 off your next meeting or event reservation rental fee. This promotion is valid for all new clients on select spaces booked and actualized prior to December 30th, 2025 and subject to availability. Convene, for the moments that move your business.

17:48Something I noticed so much is the different ways in which men and women friendship, because I think that men tend to friendship in a more old fashioned way. It's almost like club based, right? Like you play golf. I play golf. We're friends because we play golf. And if one of them gets an injury and never plays golf again, they never see those people again for the most part. And not to have a sweeping generalization, but that is a pretty common thing I've noticed. And I'd say that, you know, because women tend to look for real emotional connection and how they're, you know, in community with other people, it's just so different the way, the places in which they feel they don't know how to find friends.

18:26Because I would say the number one question I get is how do you make new friends? Where do you find people? Where can I find like-minded people? How can I, you know, create or have better friendships? And it is really tough because it's hard to say like, oh yes, if you just take up, you know, back in the day, you'd say, do you play bridge? And because there was a ritual around the weekly bridge or quilting, you know, I'm Southern. So, you know, there'd be quilting circles or be bridge, there'd be canasta, you know, there, you know, and that, like my, my best friend from childhood's grandma still has her canasta group every Monday and she's like 95.

19:07You know, it's, it's a different challenge that we have. It's easy for me to make friends. I don't know if it's because I grew up in Chicago and I'm this Midwestern nice, like, ah, what's your name? Tell me. I want to know everything. But what I learned about friendship is spending a beat to think about why would someone want to be my friend? Like, what kind of friend am I? Am I, what do I bring to the table? Like, everyone's so busy they have so much stuff on their plate what what what would I add to this person's life like when you when I think about making friends I think about people that I want to help and I want to care about what they care about and I think people make the mistake of I want more friends they want people to care about them and what they're into and their their life instead of I want to meet people to care deeply and help them and be a witness to their triumphs and challenges.

20:04I want to be a part of it. That's the part where I think people get most tripped up when they think about making friends. And in the book, I even open up my DMs and I show my efforts of trying to make friends with people of here's my effort trying to reach out to writers I liked. Guess what happened? Nothing. I didn't offer anything interesting. It was like, I think you're great. Love Anna. And they're like, okay, thanks for this like random DM lady. and then you could see how it evolved into I think your writing is terrific I've signed up five of my friends for your newsletter here's I see that you're writing a book here's how I can help would love to be a part of it with you and I can it's like writing this book is that made me feel like I've been listening to music my whole life with friends like friends are different bands that you put on I'm in the mood for you know arcade fire or radiohead whatever but writing this book I learned the notes.

20:58I learned how to write music and how to write beautiful music. And that's what we can do to understand this new friendship landscape is this is how friendship, this is how people want to be around you. This is how they care about you. And it starts by you caring about them and caring about what they care about. You know, I find that so true and moving. And when I think about my law, I have so I have, you know, probably three best friends from my childhood still and so many really long sustaining relationships. And if I had to say there's one sustaining factor, of course, from your in your book, we learned that there's a million sustaining factors.

21:40But if I had to say if I had to just choose one, I'd say there's a we can commune around shared values. So I can tell you that like my very best friend, Grace from childhood, we have gone in different directions and she's worked in politics and I've worked in poetry and we she's, we've lived in different places and we've had kids. We've done these all, we have, you know, completely traveled this way, that way, loop to loop. And we are still friends since we're five, because every time we get together, we share in that doesn't feel right to me. This feels right to me. That doesn't feel good. I wonder about this.

22:21I admit this, these types of things make me feel uncomfortable. This, I just don't think is fair. You know, those things where they're just like these kind of like fundamental things that don't have to do with the data. Cause sometimes it's great to bond with people on the day-to-dayness of like, Hey, where are you dropping your kid off at camp? Like, and that's, it's like kind of nice to have community around the logistics of day-to-day things. And I find that in my longest term relationships, that the closeness is completely wrapped around fundamental values. You know, I learned that there's two categories of friendships.

22:54There's active friendships and there's memorial friendships and memorial friendships are so precious to us, but there's not, there's not a height. There's a low in like low frequency. It's a low frequency of contact, but there's high affection. There's a long history there. And then there's active friendships. Those are the people we talk with all the time, we see all the time, and that are a big part of our day to day lives. And just knowing the difference between those groups of friends really gave me a lot of peace because the expectations are different for them. So for like my childhood friends, I can understand what box to put them in and put my expectations accordingly of when something big happens, when something, you know, good, really good or really bad happens, we'll be there for each other.

23:46But I also have my active friends. And it's just felt like I know how to classify all these people in our lives. Like we've made so many more people in our lives now than generations past. We move more, we move further away from where we grew up. And, you know, it's really confusing to know when someone says, how many friends do you have? You're like, I don't know how to answer that question. You think we're overusing friend and that we're not saying acquaintance enough or these different types of tiers of connection, or, you know, usually like back in the day, you'd say like, oh, that's my friend from school.

24:23And that was its own classification that kind of helped you to understand whatever. I was joking with someone recently, like, I don't know if it's because everyone's like a friend on Facebook or it's a, this kind of community of like the word friend is just everywhere and nowhere. Or I find people, friends who call me saying they're heartbroken over how someone treated them. And I was just like, but they're not your friend. Like she didn't write you back because you're actually acquaintances. Like you have met socially a few times and sometimes in a large gathering, you'll both be in the same room and have a really pleasant exchange.

24:57But neither of you, or at least only one of you has signed up for, to try to have an actual friendship, which means it's not, has not lifted off. Yes. It's been a failure of language that's created a lot of confusion and uncertainty. And I tried to, I do address this in the book. I call it different like watery tears. They're like water themed tears just to underscore how fluid these groups are. The most inner, the most intimate innermost here is your bathtub. And these numbers are based off of Robin Dunbar's research. He's a prolific, celebrated British anthropologist. He does a lot of work with friends, friendship groups.

25:38And he found that for men, usually in their bathtub, it's one other person. And that person is usually a significant other. For women, it's two people. It's their significant other and a best friend. Like emotional support. Yeah. And then the lower tier is the jacuzzi and that's three to five close friends. Those are the people you'd thank in the Academy Award speech. These are people you see all the time. You're very, very close. You have a strong, compelling about to the friendship. Every friendship needs an about and the about needs to be clear and compelling. So these are the most compelling friendships you have.

26:18then the lower tier is your swimming pool. That's the 10 to 15 people that you might double date with, maybe coworkers, you know, family, cousins, and then it goes on from there. But that can give people language to understand where their friends fit and how much energy to expend depending on what the level of closeness is. So what I've started doing is telling my friends, like, you're in my jacuzzi. You're in my jacuzzi tier. Here's what that means. That means I'll reply to all your texts and calls as soon as I can. That means we could celebrate each other's birthdays. It means we can get together.

26:58She's a VIP. My VIPs are my jacuzzi friends. And I told them, I tell them. And then it gives them permission to prioritize me as their friend. It's like the reassurance. I'm taking away anxiety. I'm taking away uncertainty. It's like, you don't have to guess. I love you. I love our friendship. You're so important to me. I'm going to be around for a long time. And that's something we can give to one another that'll just, again, like make our friendships feel so much more shatterproof.

27:38What do you say to the people who anxieties make it hard for them to leave one pool to go to the other. Do you know, because I think that there's people that are like, I definitely have the friends who are, I always say it's like they have the, they can have two friends and they actually just can't do more. And it doesn't even feel right to try to push them outside of their little, you know, their kind of bubble because there's just, whether it's because of their work or their time they need to themselves or their self-care or their kids or whatever it is. And you're just like, yes, this is like, that feels like their capacity.