Do Our Friendships Have to Be This Complicated?

22:11Amy Wilson:Like, I think you can have a range of these things. That's right. And people who you deeply admire who aren't like a ball to go to a concert with or something. That's right. And I also think that that takes a little pressure off that you maybe don't have to write the paragraphs of text to say, OK, I thought Amy and I were all six friends. And I'm realizing that we're really just positive regard and instrumental aid friends, but we're not similar and enjoyment or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, I think it's OK to have friends who meet different needs. This is a quote from Olga Kazan, who wrote this article for The Atlantic about friendship breakups and what's the deal with friendship breakups.

22:50And she said, the resounding chorus from everyone she interviewed is that no one person can fulfill all of your needs. Some friends are good listeners. Some invite you on fun trips. the person you call in a crisis might not be the one who tells the best jokes at happy hour. So agreed. And maybe some of these unnecessary conflicts are coming from maybe somebody's bad at remembering your birthday, but they're super fun to go to Tuesday tacos with once a month. And that's all it has to be. You don't have to send them a text about how they let you down.

23:17Amy Wilson:Right. And the old Internet joke of this is not an airport. You don't have to announce your exit, your departure. It's also OK to recategorize people just in your own head and say, OK, well, I was thinking we were this friend, but we're that friend. Right. And I do think that women have an instinct to say, I need Amy to know that I'm changing her friend category in my mind. And I think I would argue that you don't actually. It's not going to lead to peacefulness. Maybe I sound like an old lady when I say this stuff, but the boundary setting and all that. You can do all that, but you don't have to let the other person even know.

23:59Amy Wilson:No announcements necessary. It is time that I finally set a boundary with you, Amy, that I am not going to be available for your phone calls and da-da-da-da-da. If it's not going to result in a good outcome with the other person, like, why are we engaging in it, I guess? And I think the whole point is you have these things that are important to you, these six things. You don't screen. It's not like a dating app. It isn't like, oh, I see you every week at Pilates and you tell good jokes. Will you be there for me when my kid is in the hospital? Like, who knows? So maybe maybe I do lean into it and then discover six months in that you're not somebody that I can depend on when the time gets rough.

24:36You're just flaky and super fun. We don't interview for you see what I'm saying. And so then we think it's like this huge letdown when we didn't screen for that on the way in when we started laughing after Pilates class.

24:46Amy Wilson:And lives are long. My best friend, I met her when she was, when we were 13 years old. You wouldn't marry someone you met when you were 13. And we've navigated a lot, but I think part of it is that we hold that friendship somewhat loosely. You know, we've separated and come back together many times in our lives and had periods where we lived together and then periods where we maybe didn't speak for a year. But we do kind of pick up where we left off. And I think that maybe sometimes that very close or best friendship feels more like a marriage, like you have to divorce or you're I mean, I don't think the conflict is wrong.

25:26Amy Wilson:Obviously, you're going to have conflict with people who you've been with for many, many years. You know who has an amazing version of this is this season. Did you watch the last season of White Lotus? Yes. There's three female friends. And they talk about whoever's not there. Yeah, they've been friends since high school, but they really have a kind of a grotesque relationship in a lot of ways. Yeah, whenever one of them leaves, the other two talk about how terrible she is. And I don't know, I found that portrait of friendship really interesting. Their kind of love for each other. And just the fact that they've known each other for so long means so much.

26:02Amy Wilson:I was just with my best friend and we've known each other for 40 years, you know, and my parents have gotten older. My mom died. Her parents have gotten older and seeing them and we just sit and laugh now. It's just it's fun to have been friends with someone for so, so long. So these six categories of what we look for in friends, Dr. Hall wanted to see if women and men value these categories differently? And guess what they do? So he discovered in his research that women have higher expectations for their friends in symmetrical reciprocity, as in I tell you my problems and you tell me your problems or I'm there for you and then you're there for me.

26:42It has to be reciprocal. Women really value that. Women really value more than men intimacy that comes through disclosing through vulnerability. So women have expectations around being intimate, being reciprocal, and solidarity and having things in common. And that men were higher in agency, which is so funny, because the agency is like, you'll help my nephew find an apartment. And you're like, that's a weird one. That was my instinct, too. Like, this is a strange one. And even Olga Kazan, the author of this Atlantic article was like this, a strange one called agency. And per Dr. Jeffrey Hall's research, that's the one of the six that men have higher expectations of from a friend than women?

27:21Amy Wilson:I was hearing agency a little bit more as transactional, like you'll help my kid get a job. I do think that one of the things I love about being from a big family and having friendships is, hey, my kid is moving across the country, but they're going to be near you. And I think of a friend of ours who said, oh, I live in the town where your son's going to college. I'll make him dinner if he gets sick. The kind of the network and the reaching out. I do think that is an important part of friendship that's a little bit more than I was hearing at first as the Carmilla soprano, like you better write a good recommendation for my kid.

27:55Amy Wilson:Otherwise my husband will. Yeah, I think it's maybe not so transactional, but just like they do you favors. I have to go to a wedding this weekend and we're using my husband's friend's summer house. It's in a summer location. We're using a summer house. Don't worry about it. Get out of here. You're not going to pay us anything for it. It's fine, right? And that is obviously very kind of this friend. And I think that is something that I would value in a friend. And maybe men do a little more than women that like you do favors for each other. It isn't I'll cry on your shoulder. It's much more you use.

28:23I let you have my house for free.

28:25Amy Wilson:That's that's how I show you. I love you. I think that makes sense. Yeah. My husband is definitely not crying on anyone's shoulders. So anyway, when we come back, let's talk about what do we do when we feel like we're disconnected besides send long breakup texts? Love it. Who cares about your poops? Ali does. That's why Oli's science-backed gut health lineup helps support your family's regularity. From daily probiotics to fiber gummies, your kiddos will love. Find it all on oli.com. That's O-L-L-Y dot com. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

29:06Amy Wilson:This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom-scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

29:36Amy Wilson:And now, when moms are bad at making friends. From the What Fresh Hell podcast. The introvert. Oh my god. School pickup. Please, please, please don't let anyone talk to me. Where is my kid? Oh no. I think that mom who invited me to book club once is coming this way. Oh, hi honey. I'll just be in the car. Come meet me over there. The awkward mom. Oh, hello fellow playground mom. Look, you have a small human person. Just as I also do. Do you think that's enough information to build a lasting platonic bond with me? Okay, then I'll take your frightened scurrying away from me as I know. The too busy mom.

30:18Oh my god, yes. We need to hang out. Looking at my spreadsheet calendar, I think I might be free for a quick cocktail, like, next August? Around 4pm?

30:30Amy Wilson:The just can't make normal conversation mom. Don't talk about serial killer documentaries. Do not talk about serial killer documentaries. Three minutes later. And then it turned out he had a whole pile of bodies in his barn. Where are you guys going? The nine hours of sleep nader. I would love to come to bunco night, but it starts at eight. And that's 30 minutes after my bedtime, so it's a hard no from me. The oversharer. Oh, hi. You're Natalie's mom, right? How are you? Oh, hi, I'm not great, actually. My son has this horrible stomach thing, and he was throwing up all night in the bed, barf, in the sheets.

31:09I'm talking everywhere. And my husband's boss is a piece of work, but it's not like he can just start looking for another job right now. He is in a very tough field, and I'm really starting to worry about my mom's health. She has this weird rash, and the doctors say it's fine. But, you know, sometimes these things seem innocent, and the next thing you know, you're dealing with the flesh-eating virus of the face.

31:29Amy Wilson:Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Natalie's mom. Oh, no, my daughter's name is Linda. I don't think we've met. This has been When Moms Are Bad at Making Friends. From the What Fresh Hell podcast.

31:48So I don't want friendships with drama, female friendships. Okay. I think you don't either. We're talking about this low conflict stance that we're at. I don't want female friendships to feel like work. It's like, why would I do that, right? Like that's what you have a marriage, you work on it, you have good days, bad days, friendships should just be like nice to see you. And yet I wonder if the depth is supposed to require some work that I'm sort of whistling past.

32:12Amy Wilson:I also think that we have to acknowledge that we live in big cities. Uh-huh. That's interesting. Maybe there's a little bit less pressure on friendships than when you live in a small town. And there's, you know, four people who you've been friends forever. And it's more of a, like, dynamic. And then it's a little bit harder to do the thing I'm talking about. My best friend lives in California. And we see each other, you know, once a year if we're lucky. But if you're seeing each other, if you and your best friend are, like, next door and raising your kids together, There's a lot more opportunity for conflict, a lot more opportunity for the balances to get off.

32:45Amy Wilson:So I do think also we're talking about our friendships and our stage of life in a way that it's very easy to do all the stuff we're talking about, which is hold it loosely. But if you are raising kids with another mom who has really different parenting, I mean, there's a lot more room for conflict at, I think, earlier phases of life. And also a lot more opportunities to have lighthearted connection when you're dropping your kids off every day at school or you're picking them up or you're on the soccer sidelines every week or you're at ballet every week. When you see that nice mom and you chit chat with her, that's not the person who's going to like come visit you and your parent in hospice.

33:24But they're really nice and you're really happy to see them. Right. But then when ballet and soccer goes away, like I'm coming from the future and your kids graduate, you don't see those people anymore. And then I am like, is that weird? Is that weird that I still think about that nice mom at soccer? And two years later, that's where I do start to overthink it. Like, would it be weird if I reached out to Heather and said, hey, haven't seen you in a while. Let's let's have lunch. And then I'm like, the woman from soccer?

33:49Amy Wilson:Or I think also the dynamics of friendship that is more like a marriage, like a very close friendship where one person's, let's say, child becomes ill, chronically ill, seriously ill. And then of the three other friends, they're pouring all of their energy into this situation all of the time, that those can get very off balance. And even smaller examples where who's supporting who, who's not getting supported. And I don't mean to be dismissive of these things. I'm like, just let it go. Who cares? Hold it more lightly. These dynamics can be really challenging and really painful. And I've certainly felt it in my friendships and family and different relationships where it's like, hey, you really let me down.

34:35Amy Wilson:Hey, you really I feel like you took advantage of me. I feel like whatever happened here, we actually have to work it out because you are like my spouse. You are my best friend. And to lose that friendship would be like getting divorced. It can be really really challenging and hard and I think neither one of us has gone through that situation But I have seen friends who have it's like a marriage certain marriages. You're like, okay You married a horrible narcissist monster and finally you're away from him But there's also a lot of marriages where it's like you two tried really hard and it didn't work out and it's really hard You know, nobody's the nobody's the villain Michelle Elman makes a really good point in this book, Bad Friend, I thought about friendship groups, like the playgroup, the baby playgroup that you're in or like the third grade friends or whatever, that in any group of friends, she talks honestly in this book, like, I don't have a group of friends.

35:30I have friends, but I don't have four friends and we're all best friends. They're like White Lotus. We go to Thailand together. We go on trips. She doesn't have that group of friends. And I guess I kind of do. I almost have a friend from here and a friend from there. And she said the thing about the friendship groups that's hard is there's usually at least one person in that group that you would never be friends with were it not for the travel soccer that's bringing you together. And so then once the travel soccer is over, it gets bumpy and weird. And that then when you don't have a group, she talks a lot in this book about the shame that you feel when your friendship situation.

36:01I don't have a best friend and other people do. And I don't, I don't have a group. I've been in this new city for two years and I don't have a gang. I don't have it and that there's so much shame around that. You feel like there must be something wrong with you, that your friendship situation isn't what you want.

36:17Amy Wilson:Yeah, it's funny. This is one of the few topics that we talk about where I don't relate to this very much. I'm just I think that meeting people, making friends is what do they call it with kids? It's a preferred activity and it's a positive skill. And then you could go to the other side to be like, here are my negatives. I understand that people feel this way, but I feel lonely and I don't have enough people to talk to is a feeling that I have not experienced since I was like a young kid. You were an extrovert. I am a hyper extrovert. I mean, I think on the extrovert scale, I am off it. You're like a dog down.

36:57Amy Wilson:I mean, like you're skewing the whole study. Yeah. My biggest problem is I have to almost outline the people who I want to see and talk to and visit with because I always feel bad that I haven't seen so-and-so in a week or haven't had a phone call with so-and-so, but that list is extremely large. I've been at a party with Margaret and like, if you weren't being intentional, you could just talk to the bartender the whole night, right? You get in a really interesting conversation. I like talking to people. I really like meeting people. And then the bartender and I will find out that, you know, he dated my cousin and we'll become friends.

37:29Amy Wilson:And then I'm like, oh, I haven't talked to the bartender in like a week. I feel bad. I identify more with Heather Haverleski. She is a really good writer, essayist. She used to have an advice column called Ask Polly for New York Magazine. Anyway, I love this quote from her talking about friendships. She says, I'm an incredibly emotional, sensitive, open human being, but I can also be very withdrawn, guarded, and judgmental. I'm one half clown car, one half armored vehicle. Yeah. Right. And I think, yeah, that clown car armored vehicle balance. Thinking you're focusing on yourself like, oh, why can't I be more clown car than armored vehicle.

38:03And she suggests that having compassion for who you are is the way to start down the yellow brick road to better friendships, sort of accepting that there's nothing wrong with you, that you don't have that one best friend, you don't have this. You can be intentional about changing it, but getting stuck on like, why don't I and what's wrong with me is counterproductive.

38:22Amy Wilson:I also think it's interesting that these relationships don't have an arbiter usually. Like a spouse relationship, I can talk to you, which I never do for the record, and be like, my husband is being so annoying. Or we could go to a therapist and say like, hey, we're having this constant problem and help us work it out. With friends, you're kind of on your own. You're navigating it in one way. To talk about them feels like a betrayal, but they can be driving you crazy. I think the advice that I would go to which is from my mom therapist is behavior can be fixed and personality cannot be fixed hardwired stuff what's a variable and what's a constant one of my closest friends in the world lifetime friend I've known him for 40 years when we were first friends he would show up late everywhere and it would drive me crazy and pretty early in our friendship I just started leaving and saying I'm not going to wait for you anymore we still laugh about the fact that I would just be like, I'm not going to wait around.

39:21Amy Wilson:But that's a behavior. It's not like I don't like the fact that you're so selfish or angry or you complain all the time. Those things can't be fixed. You can really only fix behavior. And I feel like I used to be a person who would have that conversation all the time. It's like, Amy, have a seat. I need to talk to you about how you are selfish and greedy. I used to have those conversations with people all the time. And I think I have learned that there's no one who I like everything about them. There's no one. And there's everybody annoys me in some way. Similarly, I annoy someone. That's your memoir.

39:57Amy Wilson:Everybody annoys me. Everybody annoys me. But also, I very much clock that I also annoy everybody. And what about that can be fixed? And what about that cannot be fixed? You can only focus on behavior. You cannot change a person's personality? Do I want to be friends with a person with this personality? Or do I want to just choose a few of the six things to be how to engage with this person? I think that's it. It's like you need to get these six things, the enjoyment. You need to have somebody that makes you laugh and you need to have somebody that loves Broadway musicals as much as you. And like you can have friends that scratch each of these itches.

40:37I mean, I've always thought you don't, your romantic partner doesn't need to have all six of these things necessarily either and neither do your friends and so you just make sure that you have these in your life they don't do with one person or one friend i think most people have figured

40:51Amy Wilson:this out about spouses at a certain point along the line that my spouse is amazing at a million things but i sometimes find when i'm trying to work out a problem with him he's very solution oriented and then i feel rushed and we get in a fight and you don't really understand how but but my sister is extremely good at talking those things through with me. One person can't be all of these things. And I think sometimes you can recategorize people or say, which is kind of the White Lotus conclusion. Spoiler alert. If you haven't watched White Lotus, it's not even a spoiler, but like coming to the conclusion that having known someone for 30 years is worthwhile, no matter how much they drive you crazy.

41:33Amy Wilson:Maybe that's it too. You know, I have this one little bit of advice that I have from Dr. Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study on Adult Development, that if you want to reconnect with somebody that you haven't seen in a while, that you can reach out and you just ask what they've been up to. Just ask people, he says, tell you about the things that are most important to them because curiosity goes a long way toward reconnecting people. Just really be interested in who this person is now. So I like that idea. That's a great open-ended way to reconnect with somebody that you've drifted away from.

42:06Amy Wilson:We talked to Charles Duhigg, and that's his number one thing, is curiosity about other people. Makes a good friend. And I also think that we go through a lot of seasons. If you receive the paragraphs of text, do you need to go back and say, listen, you're right. I did take my eye off of our friendship because I've been wrapped up in what's going on. or you may say the season is over for us, but vaya con Dios, it's been a great ride. You're not going to get everything from any one person. And you're certainly not going to get everything from someone throughout your entire season of friendships and kids and everything else.

42:44Yeah. So I guess ease up on the expectations and go make more friends. Yeah.

42:49Amy Wilson:And I think when you're writing the text, come from your place of maximum generosity. Is there another excuse for this other than this horrible, selfish monster only talks about their kids when I wasn't able to have kids? I bet they didn't think about that. I bet if you pointed it out in a way that was friendly, you might be able to get somewhere. But if you've just realized they're a horrible person, you might want to walk away without the text. I don't know. Maybe that's ghosting and people don't like that either. Yeah, it's ghosting if you don't respond. I guess it depends on how close the friendship is.

43:21I really don't need to know, person I see at Pilates sometimes, that you're setting a boundary with me. It's like, what? Wait, what? This is a Wendy's. Please don't tell me. Please say it behind my back.

43:30Amy Wilson:Please say it behind my back. I beg you, literally beg you. Okay, so our friendships do not have to be this complicated. I think we've solved it. I feel like we solved it by being like, get older and you won't care about anything. Right. Kind of the thing. Which when you're young probably is not that helpful. But believe me, Life is better with less conflict. That's my point of view. So we want to hear what you want to hear us talking about. We're doing more episodes these days on our own lives, on things like female friendships and cognitive biases or things that we're interested in that really affect our lives.

44:01But we want to hear from you what you want to hear us talk about. And there's so many ways you can tell us. You can send us a DM on Instagram at WhatFreshHellcast. You can join our Facebook group, post it there. Facebook.com slash group slash WhatFreshHellcast. You can send us an email, info at wellfreshhealthpodcast.com. You can leave us a voicemail on our website, wellfreshhealthpodcast.com. There's so many ways to get in touch with us. Just do it.

44:23Amy Wilson:Do it today. Get in touch with us. Share our topic, but don't say anything mean about us to our faces. Just say that part to your friends. That's right. And with that, thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you next time. So long.

44:38Amy Wilson:Thank you to Osea for sponsoring the show. Osea's Hyaluronic Body Serum is multi-layer hyaluronic powered hydration for the entire body. And right now we have a special discount just for you. Get 10 % off your first order site-wide with code FRESH at OseaMalibu.com. That's code FRESH at O-S-E-A Malibu.com.