Podcast Episode 67: Anna Goldfarb

Jean: Well, here…

Alison: Here we go.

Jean: Here we go. We were. We were just saying how we both feel. A little weird or off.

Alison: Like weird. Like it doesn’t. I don’t feel like me on some level. Like it’s strange. Like a little off, a little tired, a little weird.

Jean: Yeah. So we’re at the end of April, the new moon, right?

Alison: And this is probably not going to air until Christmas. I don’t even know.

Jean: But what we have to share today is, is some great, um, information about friendships.

Alison: Which is perfect because friendships are…. So they’re like a little life stream. Don’t you think? There’s this, like, they’re, like, wonderful.

Jean: Right? I don’t know what author said,  um, “my friends are the flowers in my garden.”

Alison: Jean, that’s so sweet. Mhm. You know, all these little good quips. But today we’re talking to Anna Goldfarb and that, that she’s, we read her book Modern Friendship. It’s so good because, it really does a deep dive into friendship. It’s just not like you need more friends. Right. Get more friends.

Jean: Exactly. And, uh, she shares many personal stories. And the New York Times refers to her as its friendship correspondent.

Alison: Right. Which is great.

Jean: That would be so, so great to have that title.

Alison: Yeah. You know, it would be perfect.

Jean: You have foreign correspondent, weather, financial, and then your friendship correspondent.

Alison: I love that. And I, I love that, um, her friendships as she describes in the book, sometimes she’ll say, look, I, I didn’t do this. I’m not perfect, which I love when a writer says that because it becomes, it makes me feel like more accessible to them.

Jean: Absolutely.

Alison: You know, I can’t wait to meet her. She looks so happy, smiley and happy and sweet. Well, here she is. Anna Goldfarb.

Anna: Okay. I’m coming. Hi.

Jean: Hi.

Anna: Good afternoon.

Alison: Oh. Where are you?

Anna: I’m in Philadelphia.

Alison: Oh, I love Philadelphia. We’re in LA.

Anna: Yeah, I wish I was in LA, unfortunately.

Jean: Well, we wish we could be in Philadelphia.

Anna: We should do switcheroo.

Alison: Exactly.

Jean: That’s right.

Alison: It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Alison.

Anna:  Hi, Alison.

Anna: Hi, Jean. It’s nice to meet you, too.

Alison: We loved your book!  “Modern Friendship, How to nurture our most valued connections.” And I love that this is you. You’re the friendship… You’re the friendship correspondent.

Anna: Yeah. Well, that’s something my editor tweeted. It’s not an actual position, but I love it. Yeah. But I was like, this is. I was just so flattered. And yeah, I’m obsessed with friendship.

Jean: It’s such a beautiful obsession. Yeah.

Alison: It is.

Jean: Um, I just was curious.

Anna: Yeah.

Jean: Before we really get into the meat of your book, what’s up with the word modern as opposed to just friendships?

Anna: Oh, um. Well, modern. I wanted to highlight how different friendship is practiced. It’s not our mothers and grandmothers landscape. When, um, making friends and keeping friends. So I really wanted to get into the sociology of friendship. Why is it different? Why does it feel so, so much harder to keep all these connections in play, it’s like we’re we’re spinning plates that no generation in history had to do this much work to keep their connections afloat. Like, it’s also very modern, that it’s so easy to be in touch with our friends, but we choose not to. Um, we don’t, you know, it used to be friendship relied more on favors in the favor economy, and now it’s entertainment. Friends are sort of seen as this cherry on top of a sundae. And it’s more, let’s go out for dinner. Let’s go out. Let’s, you know, go to a concert. Let’s let’s just entertain ourselves. It’s not can you give me a cup of sugar so much, or give me a ride to the airport or help me, you know, with things I need that’s almost, um, seen as gauche to ask for favors sometimes. When for our grandmothers, it was much more based on favors or even, um, you know, lower classes still rely on favors much more than wealthier people in wealthier communities.

Anna: I mean, modern friendship is like we live in the suburbs with lots of space between our friends. We’re not on our porches, you know, talking with people nearby. Um, our identities have changed so much. That’s modern friendship. Um, in the book Our Worst Strength, which is about individualism, it’s by, um, Doctor James Richardson, F Richardson. And he talks about how in 1920, the 1920s, our choices for identity were like, really not that many. It’s like, well, I’m a woman. I’m married, probably. I’m a mother, probably. Um, I’m in a religious community, probably. But fast forward to 1970, and now there’s like dozens of identities of I’m separated, I’m divorced,I don’t have I’m not a parent. Like, there’s so many more like, different identities people can have, which can also impact closeness and connection. So I mean, just think about like your local, your block, how different everyone is and how many different identities. And you seek out different people when you go through different things. So it’s not all married women with children in the same school. It’s, you know, a a retiree and a young family and everyone’s different. So it’s not as homogenous.

Jean: That’s so true. You know. And it just reminds me about modern friendships… Now that you’re putting a little meat on the bone for that, the context of friendship, you know, back in the 70s and 60s, people would just drop by. Oh, yeah. Like, oh, hey, I’m here. I thought I’d come in. Now, you know, you have to announce yourself. And this there’s this great comedian, Sebastian Maniscalco who who does a skit about that.

Alison: Really?

Jean: Like, who’s at the door? Everyone get down. Where before, there was

Anna: a lot more trust. There was a lot more trust. Yes. Yeah, there was a lot more trust. Um, since the 70s, our trust in our government, our institutions have plummeted. So our personal relationships are bound to reflect that. So that’s modern friendship… Well, now we’re living in a society with less trust amongst people. Um, that impacts, i mean, that just sends ripples through all of our decisions. You know, even, um, when people reach out, it’s sort of like, well, what’s your angle? Do you want to sell me something? Like what? Why are you reaching out? Why am I hearing from this old friend? Uh, what do you want to sell me, like a lotion? Do you want to sell me like a like a legging? And all these, you know, these things chip away at your trust. And I think we’re all a little bit more on guard. Um, and there’s a suspicion of like, well, why are you reaching out? What do you need? What? You know, it’s just it’s a different, like, atmosphere we’re living in. Yeah. In my opinion.

Alison: And proximity. Do you know, like, some of our really good friends live far away?

Anna: Yeah.

Alison: You know, and I think that that wasn’t the case for my mom or my grandma. Like, they were like. Yeah, grandma. You know, my grandmother was in a really Italian neighborhood. There were people on the stoops, and that was it. And also, I don’t think that my grandma, maybe this is just my family, and my mother had friends like — it wasn’t it wasn’t considered as important as I think it is now. Do you know do you, do you do you find that like now it’s sort of like… Everyone talks about who are your friends, make more friends. I don’t know that that was happening for my grandmother and mother.

Anna: They didn’t have to try so hard because they probably were really involved in their church or synagogue. They probably had people they saw all the time and they had help. They had an institution helping with their social lives. My grandma was in the synagogue, was a member of the sisters of the synagogue. They got she didn’t have to do it all on her own. But that’s part of the trade off of modern friendship is now we have unlimited flexibility. We can, you know, we have the clipboard. We’re our own cruise directors of our own good ship, good times. And we can pick whoever we want. But it’s also easier to leave those relationships. Um, so that’s the beauty. And the burden of modern friendship is like, well, we can befriend the young couple next door and, you know, get what we can from them, but it’s going to be harder to, you know, have someone else to come up with ideas and the where are we going to meet? What are we going to do? Um, is it going to cost me money? Like, you know, that’s  a whole different, uh, you know, a whole different, uh, casserole that we that we’re eating from. Oh, God, that’s a terrible metaphor, but it’s very different than my grandma did not have to spend a ton of energy. She lived in the same house for 53 years. Born and raised in Philly. You know, she had friends from first grade she was still friendly with. And it doesn’t look anything like my friendships. I mean, it’s just very, very, very different.

Alison: Yeah. And I what I really enjoyed about your book was, you know, you read a lot of things and you get a lot of messaging get get a new friend, get more friends. You need more friends. And it feels a little bit like pull a rabbit out of a hat, you know, swim the English Channel. It’s like, what the heck? Like, I can barely find my shoes. Some days I can’t just get a new friend. And that’s what I really loved about this book that you give very clear, concise, and non-threatening ways to deal with this. I didn’t feel like overburdened, and one of the things I really liked is give them a reason to say yes. When you text someone. Don’t just be like, hey, thinking about you.

Anna:  yeah.

Alison: Which I’ve done always, but it’s like, great. And I was like, oh, I’m a I got to like refine this. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Anna: Yeah. Well, you know, this is this is a message… This is a messaging, an outdated message that we’ve been receiving. And especially during the during the pandemic, a lot of the messaging was just reach out to people. Now’s the time. We’re all home. We’re go reach out to people, send that message. And I thought like, well, why did they lose touch in the first place? And well, what’s happening with that? Like what? Why do I have to reach out and say, thinking of you? Why aren’t we in touch regularly? And then secondly, like then, how does that turn into an active friendship? Just by reaching out and saying hi to someone. Is that. That’s. I mean, so much. We’re in a loneliness epidemic, and so much of the advice is lacking that nuance of, well, why aren’t you in touch?  what kind of friendship is this? Like, why is there distance? Um, and I think part of the messaging, I agree that a lot of it is make new friends, get new friends. It’s a little bit like adopt a new puppy. It’s like, okay, well, I have puppies. And, you know, they’re kind of it’s kind of like touch and go with them and they’re like, adopt a new one. It’s like, well, what’s going on with the friends I already have, who I already know, who I already like and I love. And why aren’t we why aren’t I talking to the people I already like? And the other thing is, why would someone want to be my friend? What am I bringing to the table? Like, it’s a little bit of an entitlement to think just because I reach out to someone unsolicited, as as nice and as pleasant as my message is, it’s unsolicited and I don’t know what they’re doing in the middle.

Anna: I don’t know how this message, this message is received. I don’t know the circumstances. They could have just gotten horrible news about their job, you know, or a loved one. And then I’m like, hey, thinking of you send like, I don’t know, you know. And then it becomes a bit of a to do list item for the recipient of like, okay, I have to discern what does this person want from me? Like, is this something I want to I and then you feel guilty, like I want to sit down and really write. I want to pay attention. But that’s going to probably be a few days until I get back to them, if you remember to get back to them, it’s just a really inefficient system, even though we have this access to our friends. It’s, um, not optimizing the experience for any of us. It’s not, you know, recognizing how busy and unpredictable and complex our lives are to just reach out with a message. I mean, we’re not in eighth grade passing notes in the hallway like I have other stuff going on. What do you need? Why me?

Alison: Yeah.

Anna: So we gotta help him out. We gotta explain. Like I’m not trying to sell you anything. I was just thinking about how we went on that trip that one time, and, you know, like, lessen the uncertainty. Yeah, that’s  our, uh…. You can see my cat Iggy in the background. He really wants to be a part of. He wants to be a part of the conversation. Clearly.

Alison: Come on in.

Anna: But, um, that’s that’s the nuance that I felt was missing from these conversations about friendship.

Jean: Yeah. It’s true.  Right. And I love, um… You give so many great personal stories, and then you turn it around and you ask the reader to be reflective if they want to. So. So I thought your questions were great. And, um, Anna, let’s just talk a little bit about friendships. You you say that there are two kinds and there are tears, which I, Allison and I both love that chapter.

Anna: So hold on a second. My cat just knocked my my microphone off. I’m so sorry.

Alison: No, it’s, um, I love it.

Anna:  You just knocked it off. Iggy is a troublemaker, you guys!!

Alison: That’s just how we roll.

Anna: I’m back. Thank you. Hello. Guys.  Uh, okay.  So two kinds of friendships.

Jean: Yes, yes, yes.

Anna: So, um, in the book, I talk about different tiers of friendship. Um, and that was based on the research of Robin Dunbar, who’s a British anthropologist, and he looked at societies of  – monkey societies. Do they have a society like monkey social ecosystems? And he determined that that we’re designed to really have a few varying degrees of, um, friendships in our life. And, you know, in his book, friends, he talks about these, uh, these tiers. And I wanted to highlight how fluid these groups are. I mean, we talk about how fluid they are, but I really wanted to, um, drive it home that these are, like, you can dip in and out. And so I decided to rebrand them with water imagery, um, and to, to, to describe how fluid these are. And the way it works is the most intimate tier Dunbar found was 1 or 2 people. And for men, it’s usually one person, and it’s usually their significant other. For women, it’s usually two people. It’s a significant other. And their closest friend and I called this tier the bathtub because there’s not much room in it. And then the next, the lower the the next tier, I call the Jacuzzi, and that’s 3 to 5 friends. Those are the friends that he calls your support system, your support group. And those are people that play really important roles for you, and you play important roles for them too.  these friendships take a really long time to come to build. Um, Jeffrey A Hall is a professor at Kansas University, and he found that it takes over 200 hours to go from stranger to close friend. So this Jacuzzi tier are people you spend over 200 hours with. Um, it’s a lot and hundred hours. 200 hours. And, you know, when you think about your best friends, like, yeah, it’s two over 200 hours of, um, spending time together and the next tier I call the swimming pool. And that’s the 10 to 15 people that, um, researchers call the sympathy group, which I thought was like, okay, like, if you need a happy hour or someone to cry on, but it’s actually called the sympathy group, because if anyone in this group died, you’d be very sad, which is very morbid, but that’s the sympathy group, and these are the people that you might double date with, um, coworkers, uh, they know, like, a lot of, uh, intimate details about you, but not as much as the support tier.

Anna: Um, maybe their family members. And then then it kind of goes on from there. Um, the next group I call the beach bonfire group, that’s about 50 people. Like, if you had a birthday party, a big party, and then the last group I call the water park, and that’s 150 people, which Dunbar calls the weddings and Funeral cohort. Like, these are people that come out for that big event. And that’s how our social lives should look like. You know, that’s part of why social media scrambles our brains so much, because it flattens your social circle. Like I’m only supposed to know so much about my Jacuzzi tier and swimming pool tier. But with social media, you’re you’re learning all these things about people that are in your water park that you don’t necessarily need to know this much about them. You don’t need to know that, you know what they ate for dinner. Or you know that their kid just got into this college, like, okay. And that’s what sort of feels weird about social media is I don’t need to know this much. I want to know this much about people in my life.

Alison: Right.

Anna: That actually impacts me. These these outer rings of our social life, Um, we’re not we’re it’s we’re not designed to know this much about them.

Jean: Because it takes time to have a friend, obviously, with that, with that number, you know, and to develop intimacy, you have to….

Alison: If you spend four hours a week with a friend, which is a lot, it’s a year, like it’s two years, right, or something. It’s like a year. It’s like you go, this is a lot of time.

Anna: Well, it is a lot of time. And there’s only a few people that you can realistically do that with, right? So that’s why friendship becomes more precious when we get older. Because where do you get those hours? Where does that time come? What are you taking away? You know, when we’re younger and in school, it’s so much easier to rack up those hours. And we really hit a brick wall with our social lives when we in our 30s, because we don’t have that time to just lay around, watch a movie, crack each other up like that’s a luxury now. I mean, that’s like a that’s the dream of when you can just sit around with a friend. There’s there’s only really realistically a few, a few people you should be doing that with. And that’s part, that’s why I wanted to write this book, because I didn’t have a strategy before with my friendships. I treated everyone like they were in the Jacuzzi and you spread yourself really thin. If you’re taking all these invitations of an old coworker and one of your oldest friends and you know a lady from your yoga class, and you weigh them all equally. You’re going to feel spread way too thin. It’s not.. you can’t keep these relationships up  as easily as you could when you were younger. You really have to make some choices and triage it of who’s really important here. Who should I focus on? When you get text messages. When, when, when my friends text me, um, I reply to my Jacuzzi friends immediately, like ASAP. But other people have to wait. You know, the swimming pool tire might be a day to, like, get back the beach bonfire- good luck…. Maybe in a week i’ll reach out and, you know, that’s how we triage… That’s what we’re doing when we reply to some friends and not others, we have to make choices on where to spend our energy.

Alison: It’s such a it was such a helpful model, truly, because I felt like I was supposed to be treating everyone full force. And I’m tired, man. Like, yes, yes. It’s tiring. You know, um, when you said a second ago. Like. Why me? What am I bringing to the friendship? What do you think you bring to a friendship? You personally.

Anna: What do I do? Well, you know, um, I site a study in the book about the five reasons people tend to make friends. Right? Um, it was done in 2021 from a group of Cypriot researchers. Um, Cyprus, I hear, is some place that exists, like the Cypriot um, and they, they, they identified five reasons. The first is career. Um, we tend to befriend people that want to help us with our career. Uh, second is mating. We, you know, for single or looking to date, uh, friends can be appealing if they can meet us with other if they can hook us up with other, you know, appropriate meets. The third is what they call desirable qualities. And that basically means someone’s super fun. And you share hobbies and passions like, they just seem…. they’re great. Um, and yeah, you share those interests. The fourth is, um, emotional support. That’s a huge one with our friends. We want someone who can listen and support us. And the last one is what they call sociability. And that means we just want to be a part of something. Be out and about. You join a book club or, you know, like a class just to just to meet people and be in the mix. So with that said, this is like learning how to play music. Like these are the notes of friendship. And what I learned is I needed to up my emotional support skills. I’m not very good at it. And I was repelling friends because I didn’t know how to comfort them when they’d have these, you know, these big you know, I tell a story in the book of….I have a friend who was going through IBF and I didn’t know how to comfort her. And my friend stopped, i mean, she blew me off, which honestly, I get– like I did not do a good job of meeting the moment. And that’s when I realized, like, the stakes are really high, especially in our culture. We get this messaging of, you know, that person’s toxic, drop them. You know, I feel like if I don’t say the right thing or meet the moment, I’m not a trained therapist. I don’t I don’t know how to do this stuff. And our grandmothers did not necessarily do this for one another. Their friendships were much more like based on getting a reprieve from the drudgery of married life. It was much lighter. They didn’t really disclose these kinds of like, personal, deeply personal, intimate details with one another as much. You know, women didn’t talk about miscarriages. They didn’t talk about, you know, these these deep things with one another the way that our culture has shifted towards. So I learned I had to up my emotional support game. I mean, and also with career. And when I reach out to new friends now, I’m like, oh, I’m interested in what you’re doing, how can I help? And people tend to keep those around that care about what they care about. So it’s like, okay, well, what does this person care about– that’s I designate one of my Jacuzzi friends. She cares about her career. Okay. I’m going to help her with her career.

Anna: We share that in common. Um. Let’s see. Desirable qualities. We both love the same movies. We like eating out to restaurants. We crack each other up. We’re fun. Friends want their friends to be fun. Like, I think we forget that. Not just use call and complain. It’s like, okay, we got to have fun. Um, I can just start hitting those notes. Um, conversely, all those reasons are why friends, um, fall apart is we don’t share a career. So like you, you realize you’re gravitating towards people that you share that in common with. So you might pull back from a friendship if you’re in completely different career fields. Um, if their emotional support skills aren’t up to snuff, you’re going to be closer to the friends that are, that can be empathetic and, you know,  have just have better skills, be more validating, be more supportive. So it really these five things really are the crux. This is like nugget– like highlight this information everybody and I know it’s we’re listening, but this is what we can do for our friends is we can tap into those skills and see what your friend needs. Does she need more fun? Let’s pump up the fun. Does she need support? Let’s figure out how to how to support her. Um, does she need sociability? Let’s start a group. Let’s start a monthly thing. And then you’ll notice that your friends are more likely to to keep you in the mix and keep you around because you’re helping them with these things that they care about.

Alison: You know what I love that you did not say, well, I’m a good person. I’m funny. I’m like, it takes all the personal vulnerability and like, like making me feel like I’m not enough away by saying, hey, work on being sympathetic. Work on getting together. I think that’s like, that’s what I loved because it’s just so not like like, I think the reason people want to be my friend is because, like, you know, I’m good, I’m okay. But really, I think people like to be my friend for some of the reasons you’re saying, which is outside of me in a way, like it’s skills I can learn, you know, which is fantastic.

Anna: It was really important to me to suggest things that are not out of your comfort zone, not out of anyone’s comfort zone. I am like a little bit lazy. Let’s be real. Like I’m a cat mom. I just want to hang out in Philly. And I wanted people to read this book and feel like they can put this into action. They don’t have to become someone else. They don’t have to pantomime, you know, some idea that’s not them. It’s like, no, you have people already like, let’s take a look at why things are working or why things aren’t. And once you start identifying, who am I going to focus on? I’m going to focus on a few people and be an outstanding friend to them. And you will just feel like this is achievable. Friendship is achievable and sustainable.

Alison: Right.

Jean: Yeah..You know, I think another valid point, you you really champion is that we all change– you know, i definitely am not the same woman I was in my 20s, you know, and what I required in my 20s is not what I need now. And my friends are going to reflect that… Um, and that’s also why, Anna, I loved how you spoke about the fluidity of the tears, because someone who was in my Jacuzzi is now maybe on the beach.

Anna: Yeah.

Jean: You know, I think to give us ourselves, some grace and go, you know, and rather than guilt for feeling bad, we’re not maintaining something. But if it’s just not there, um, and and yet, to your point, there are great things to do to rekindle a relationship. And, um. Can you share your story with your sister?

Anna: Oh my gosh. Well, with you know, it’s interesting as I started reporting on friendship, um, my first story was like 2016, 2017 where I started reporting on friendships and I was estranged from one of my sisters. Like, we really could not even get through a meal without smoke coming out of our ears of like, we are just at each other’s throats and I cannot get on the same page with her. And I, um, I wrote an article about how to maintain friendships for the New York Times that ran in 2017, and I spoke with a friendship expert, which I didn’t even know that was that thing such a such a thing existed. Like what? There’s friendship experts. Uh, her name is Shasta Nelson. She’s like, just a total, just a wonderful voice in the friendship space. She’s written so many books on friendship And what I learned from Shasta was that friendships, healthy friendships require three things- consistency, positivity, and vulnerability. So I started putting it to work with my sister. I started with consistency. She just had a kid, so I said, why don’t I come up every Saturday and help you watch your kid? Um, and then positivity. I started buying her little gifts of, like, I got you some of your cookies i thought you’d like. I got you a little lip balm. And then the last thing was vulnerability. Because once I came, she knew I was coming every week. And I was giving her little things. And then she’d– i’d be like, let me watch your kid while you while you take a nap. And she’d wake up, she’d be like, well, how are you? What’s going on with you? And that opened the portal to vulnerability. And we now talk on the phone every morning. Um, our we’ve never been closer. And we went from – we couldn’t even sit at a table together to now we vacation together. Um, our our relationship has completely transformed. And it all started because, I turned down the volume on thoughts like, why isn’t she doing more for me? Why isn’t she happier for me? And I turned up the thoughts, the volume on, sorry.. I turned up the volume on thoughts like what can I do to help her today? And that’s what our friends are looking, looking for from us. Of what can I do to help them? You know, I, I really think that movies and popular culture sell us this idea of- I’m in the middle and I have all my friends on my side, like, surrounding me.

Anna: They’re throwing me a party. They’re celebrating me. But what friendship actually is, is being the sidekick. It’s looking at friends that you love and admire and thinking, how can I help them? How can I help them? How can I be a witness to their challenges and triumphs? How can I cheer them on? And that’s where the good feelings of friendship come. It doesn’t come from how many people you know are in your phone. It doesn’t feel that good. We all have tons of friends in our phone. We’re not calling them, you know, like, it doesn’t feel that good. It actually can feel really lonely … I have so many dozens of friends and it it doesn’t really feel as good as you think it would. And studies reflect that. Studies show that it feels better to be considered someone’s best friend, to have people we admire point to us and say, that’s my best friend. So that’s like totally flipping the narrative on its head of it’s not about who’s in your posse, who you choose, it’s who do you support, who do you want to invest in, who do you want to cheer on?

Alison: And that’s great, really for any relationship.

Anna: Yeah.

Alison: You know, the more you can do that with anybody your kid, your husband, your sibling, your , anybody. It really even even sort of like, um, neighbors or a little bit of strangers just sort of being kind and a little bit open. I think that’s beautiful, beautiful advice that you…. What do you think is the thing from researching all this that surprised you the most? Were you was there anything that really surprised you while you were doing all this friendship sort of research?

Anna: I think it surprised me that you really only need 3 to 5 close friends– like that really surprised me. Because, you know, you think about all the people you’ve met in your life and trying to keep everyone, all of it going, trying to reach out to everyone and to hear you only need a handful, you only need a few. Actually, it was like a lightning bolt because it makes…. When I think back to when I was happiest with my friendships, it was, it was high school when I just had a few friends and I just focused on them. I wasn’t trying to keep up every connection I’ve ever made in my life. You know, I just had a few people and I was so happy. Yeah. And then, you know, you go away to school and you move around and you meet all these other people, and it just takes you away from that simplicity. So I think that’s the most surprising thing is how simple this can be, because it feels so complicated and it takes it took up a lot of real estate in my brain of are we still friends? I haven’t like, what’s up with my best friend from, you know, college? I haven’t talked to her. Am I a jerk? Is she? It would take up so much mental energy. And since I wrote this book, I feels like putting down a heavy backpack. Like, I don’t have to think this much. I can I have language for these tiers… I understand that they’re fluid, I understand I can negotiate a friendship. I can say, Jean, I want to spend more time with you. I really miss you. Like, what are your goals this quarter? How can we, how can I help? Do you want a accountability buddy for something? Do you want to move your body more? Do you want to do social media stuff together? Like we can negotiate with our friends, which was something I didn’t understand about friendship before either.

Jean: And so, that what you just said reminds me of your , About .

Alison: Yeah. That’s so great.

Jean: Right. So if you’re going to help me organize my kitchen, or you’re going to help me start my garden—So I’ll let you take it from there., Anna– the about.

Anna: Yes. Thank you. Um, thank you for bringing for asking about that. This is, this I think is the core thesis of the book is, you know, friendship is a story of time. You know, we talked about those 200 hours, and I was I remember learning that and thinking, well, what would I spend? What would I spend 200 hours doing? Like what would what? Like what does that look like? And that’s when I thought, well, why does anyone do anything? And do how do friendships fit in with that? And so I learned about choice theory, which was written, which is a theory by Doctor William Glasser. He came up with choice theory in the 60s. And it was all about how humans behave. We all have these five genetic inherent needs um, survival, power, love and belonging, freedom and fun. Every decision we make is because we’re trying to get one of those needs met. You know why I eat Oreos? Even though I’m not hungry? It’s like, well, you know what? I want A little fun, i’m a little bored, I don’t know. Um, the chocolate gives a sense of belonging because it’s the oxytocin, oxytocin, whatever– it’s in my brain. The chemical I just misspoke. Right. So I was thinking about why anyone does anything. And then I merged the two of like, okay, how does this work with time, friends and behaviors? And what I learned is that every friendship needs an, “about” and the about needs to be clear and compelling.

Anna: So what this means, is it’s not enough that we just want to spend time together… We have to find something apart from us that we love doing, that we want someone to do with us to talk about, with us, to explore, with us, to comment on, with us. Um, and I learned that abouts can change, be outdated or be absent. And that really explained why I gravitated towards some friendships and not others. Or when you meet someone new and you’re like, you seem promising, we should get lunch. And you’re like, well, why is that? Why doesn’t that lunch happen? It’s because we didn’t identify and about… it wasn’t clear and it wasn’t compelling, as opposed to if I said, do you want to get together for lunch? We can talk about, you know, the podcast you’re starting, i’ve been on some podcasts, i can share some names. Well, that could be very compelling to the other person. So they’re more likely to say, yes. Um, and that really just opened up a whole portal for me of understanding. It’s not just affection. Affection isn’t enough to keep a friendship active. You really need a a clear and compelling about for both people to make time to see one another.

Alison: But the about can not be um, can be simple, right? Like, let’s let’s take a hike. Let’s hike once a week. It doesn’t have to be something…

Anna: Some huge thing.

Alison: You know, because I want people to know that it’s so easy to sort of think of and about like–

Anna: It could be anything. And it goes back to those five reasons that people make friends. If our about is career, I might, that might be very compelling for me, and that will make me be more interested in seeing you and spending time with you. Um, mating in our 20s, a lot of our my abouts were, let’s go out dancing and let’s go meet guys. You know, it doesn’t translate to another decade, perhaps, but when in my 20s that was our about. And that’s also the reason that some of those friendships faded away is because, that about wasn’t as compelling to me once I got older. Um, the third about is desirable qualities like we talked about, you know, being fun, sharing passions and hobbies. Um, fourth, emotional support. That’s a great about sometimes we call our friends because we need a little support and we want to get together. We want to vent. Um, so those are all abouts. They totally overlap. And it’s a whole, it is a whole new way to think about your friendships of… It’s not personal, it’s we, it’s okay, we have affection, we care for one another, but what’s our about is our about outdated? We talk about, you know, going to camp when we were when we were 15. How often do I want to talk about camp? Maybe every 12 years. Maybe that’s why we talk every 12 years. So you can negotiate, you know. Well, I want to spend more time with you. What do you care about today? How can I help with that? And you can negotiate a new, “about.”

Alison: Fantastic.

Jean: Love that.

Alison: I love that,  you’re so and you’re so, you really are fun.

Anna: Oh, my God, I try. I really try to be fun. I’m a middle child, you know? We’re all little…. We all want the attention.

Alison: Yeah, I get it, I get it, yeah.

Jean: And you have a gorgeous smile.

Alison: You really do.

Anna: Thank you, thank you. Oh, my God, we should talk all the time.

Alison: That could be our about…

Anna: Desirable qualities. Check.

Alison: Um, just to sort of wrap up, we always ask these two questions of people. Um, our podcast is called Inside Wink, and I was wondering, what do you think that means? There’s no wrong answer…

Anna: Inside wink, I think of, um, stumbling upon a really good pastry, and I just think like, yeah, I found a good I don’t know what inside wink means, but I think of that little flutter I get of, oh my God, that looks so good. I’m going to get that cream puff. Um, I live right by the Italian market in South Philly. So, um, for my birthday, I went to a little Italian bakery and looking at the whole row of pastries, I felt like an inside wink of, I am going to get some treats for that… I’m not going to share them… They’re all for me. And that’s what it feels like. hahah

Alison: We could definitely be friends. The three of us. Definitely.

Jean: I love going into bakeries.

Alison: Yeah.

Jean: I and I know those cases that you walk in and you see… Oh, Napoleon, you know.

Alison: Oh, yes.

Jean: the rainbow cookies.

Anna: Yes.

Alison: Hungry? Yeah.

Anna: We should do a field trip.

Alison: We should….When we come to Philly, we’ll do bakeries.

Jean: Um, okay. So, speaking about desserts.

Anna: Yes.

Jean: What’s your favorite cake? Pie or ice cream?

Anna: I love that there’s a world where they can all be separate things and not live on the same plate. But I gotta say, ice cream cake is my favorite. A Carvel.

Jean: Nice.

Anna: I think about Carvel ice cream cakes solidly once a week.

Jean: I love Carvel.

Alison: I love Carvel.

Anna: I know it’s East Coast.

Alison: We’re both from the East Coast, and I love the way that he would take, um, like, Dumpy the Pumpkin or something and turn it around. And it was Fudgie the Whale.

Anna: Like yes. Cookie puss. Yes.

Alison: And same mold. Like, I just kind of love that. Yeah. You know.

Jean: Those were the, um, you know, the the dips, the vanilla ice cream or chocolate soft serve, and they would dip it in chocolate or strawberry and the crunch in  the cake.

Anna: And all the textures

Jean: There are those great restaurants on the East Coast that we don’t have… I mean, there is a Carvel every now and then here, but not like on the East coast.

Anna: I know we’re spoiled and they sell Carvel in the supermarket.

Alison: Really?

Anna: Yeah, right in the freezer section. So I need to manufacture reasons to get a little ice cream cake.

Alison: I love that. Thank you so much for this. You’ve just…

Anna: Oh my gosh.

Alison: You’re a sweet woman, and just a great friend…. And we really enjoyed this. And I hope a lot of people read it because it’s really important and very accessible.

Anna: Yes. Thank you for saying that. I really wanted it to, you know. Was it under-promise and overdeliver? Yeah. Like okay, friendship…. Like, where are we going? And then it’s like, oh, wow. Like, this really is putting a lot of things into sharp focus. And I just am here to help. I really am obsessed with friendship. And, you know, just to get to help people understand their friendships better and just feel like I can to really empower people of, you know, friendships, you can make them work for you at any stage. It’s not just for younger people. It’s not just for when you were young. You can have wildly amazing friendships. Your best friendships are ahead of you. That’s how I feel. So that’s how I want people to feel optimistic, hopeful, empowered. Um, all of that. So thank you for saying that. That really means a lot to me.

Alison: You’re fantastic. Thank you so much, Anna.

Jean: Yes.

Anna: Thank you.

Alison: Have a beautiful day. And we love your cat.

Anna: Thank you. Cheers.

Alison: That was. That was an excellent, excellent interview.

Jean: She was wonderful. She was exactly what I thought she was going to be like. And, you know, some interviews, i’m like, wow, how is this going to go down? But with Anna, that was really lovely.

Alison: She was so smart. We were just we were just saying that she can keep all that in her head. This was from this doctor and this was this study in Cyprus. And here are the and I thought, wow. Like she really knows her stuff. It’s really interesting to me.

Jean: Right.

Jean: Yeah. And really her book truly made me think about my friendships.. Where I, I could, I could reach out more and where I’m feeling, no, that feels good.

Alison: Right? And she at the end of the book, she does a cleanse, a friendship cleanse. And it’s really interesting about really reevaluating where you are, cleaning out a drawer, getting things moving, getting energy moving. And it’s really, um, I really enjoyed it. And I really like talking to her because there’s none of this felt blameful.

Jean: Exactly. And, and, and I think that’s the most important thing to remember is that we’re all humans… We all have our different seasons. And, um, some of us are going to ride the train the whole way, and some of us get on and off at different stops.

Alison: And I just have to say, I, I think you two are very blessed with beautiful, beautiful friends. And likewise, I feel that, um, it we have invested a lot of time and we have invested on both sides. My friends have invested a lot of time into me and a lot of love and likewise. And so when she was like, you can always have an opportunity to even be a better friend, i love that because it gives me something to achieve as opposed to just like, you know, she said, go get a puppy, you know?

Jean: Right, right. And that friendships grow. Yeah. Grow and change. And, uh, you know, something we didn’t talk about, but I thought, I think it was I don’t know where I heard it, but she does say it’s really nice to do something a little special for your friend. Something out of the norm.

Alison: And you always do that.

Jean: I was just gonna say, you do that for me

Alison: So that’s exactly what I was. I think I got it from you because you’re just so…

Jean: Romance Your friendship.

Alison: That’s right, that’s right. Have some fun. So I think this is a great book for everyone to read, any age, everything. And I, I wanted to ask about male friendships, which I didn’t get to. I wonder if that’s different, but really, if you have a minute, pick up,  Modern Friendship by Anna Goldfarb.

Jean: Yes.

Jean: It’ll be something that you can use with your friends and in any relationship.

Alison: Oh yeah, that would be a great thing to read like for a friend book club. Mhm. Right. That would be great. Well anyway. Okay. Thank you Jeannie. Thank you everybody.

Jean: Thank you. Friend of mine Alison.

Alison: Yes, Thank you friend and thank you friends. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

Jean: Bye.