On with Kara Swisher - Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel: Friendship — My Reliable Gift
Episode Date: August 14, 2023Today, we’re sharing an episode of Where Should We Begin?, a Vox Media podcast hosted by the iconic psychotherapist Esther Perel. Listen in as real people in search of insight bare the raw, intimate..., and profound details of their stories. In this episode, a Where Should We Begin first, Esther sits down with two friends. They’ve been close for so long they feel like brothers, with all of the baggage that comes with family but none of the certainty. There are things that go unspoken between them, issues they have skimmed over in their two decades of friendship. Esther creates the space for the conversation they didn't know quite where to begin. This session was recorded in collaboration with NPR's Invisibilia and a sibling episode with Esther can be heard on their podcast. Kara & Nayeema will be back Thursday with a fresh episode of ON. You can find Esther Perel on Instagram @estherperelofficial Listen and follow Were Should We Begin? with Ester Perel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Hi, guys. Today, we have an episode of Where Should We Begin from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Take a listen each Monday as iconic psychotherapist Esther Perel
talks to real people and helps them find insights in the raw, intimate details of their lives.
In this episode, Esther talks to two best friends who feel like brothers but have
drifted apart and gives them the space and guidance to voice the unspoken issues they've
accumulated over two decades of friendship. In the meantime, if you haven't gotten a chance to
hear our episode from Monday, August 7th on grief in the workplace, we did it with Esther. Please
go back and take a listen. None of the voices in this series are ongoing
patients of Esther Perel. Each episode of Where Should We Begin is a one-time counseling session.
For the purposes of maintaining confidentiality, names and some identifiable characteristics have
been removed, but their voices and their stories are real.
It's one of those things where it's like,
ah, yeah, you know, we both say we're best friends,
but like, are we?
Do you have a best friend?
And what does best friend mean to you?
And is your best friend your oldest friend, or is your best friend the one with whom
you share the most today? Who hasn't had to ask themselves, if someone is my friend, what does
that friendship mean? Has that friendship outlived itself? Neither of us had really been prioritizing
the friendship anymore, I think in the same way
that maybe we had when we were younger. So we met in preschool. I think a lot of personalities,
a lot of our experiences, a lot of who we are is very intertwined at a pretty subconscious level.
So much of our identities and our ego is actually weirdly intertwined and wrapped up with seeing the other, appraising the other in some way.
Friendship is the most free choice relationship.
It's a relationship that is mutual, reciprocal, and it's very difficult to be the friend of someone for whom we are not the friend.
So it has something that demands equity.
There's just tensions that exist between us two, and we're both kind of strong personalities.
And there's a little bit of competitive spirit that comes from that.
I mean, it really is like a brotherly relationship in that way.
There's just been kind of drifting apart. For so long, I've always thought of him as my best friend. I think only
maybe in the past year or two, I've really started to question that. Everybody has questioned their
friendships at some point in their lives. And I wanted to explore that unique relationship called my best friend.
I think that one of the essential questions I understood that you have between both of you is,
do we share a passion or how has this passion now become more of a competition?
What is that friction that we both experienced?
So there is no major divergent narrative here.
It's not like you think our story is one thing and you think that the story is something else.
Yeah.
So part of us being here is the conversations you haven't had.
Right.
The conversations you have in your head and the ones that may emerge that you have no idea about.
Yeah.
Yeah, wow.
And we have time.
Yeah, yeah, wow.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of stuff we've sort of scratched the surface a little bit to go deeper, but we haven't really gone deep enough.
We haven't really spent time in the deep end. And a part of it is because we're now in different
cities, I think. And we used to spend so much time together where it was easy to really understand
and intuitively know where the other person was at. And we were going through life together.
Can you share a little bit about the history?
Yeah, definitely. So we went to preschool
together, which is where we met and our families met. And from what they say and from our memories
back then, we were best friends in preschool. And then we actually didn't see each other for
about a decade. Fate sort of brought us back together. We were working in the same place.
I recognized his face.
I remember being like, oh, that guy looks familiar.
Your families knew each other too?
Yeah, it was kind of crazy. So his dad ran a restaurant in the community. It was like the
only Indian restaurant and my parents made the website for it. And so we would go to the
restaurant all the time. It was my favorite restaurant growing up. And, you know, our
parents would just sort of like chat about each other, just checking
in, you know, how's he doing? How am I doing? I actually think in this style of South Asian
parenting and talking about kids is like a pretty competitive style of communication.
For sure. Oh, he's been doing this.
What are you doing in sports? What are you doing in academics?
There was like, they don't just tell stories, they brag.
There's always a little bit of bragging involved. Yeah, for sure.
Their parents would compare notes
and tell each other what each child is doing,
and they would report that to their kids
so that when 10 years later they met again,
they kind of were updated.
Then they met for a few years.
They were in different schools, but very tight.
And then they parted again during college years.
And they have had a kind of an accordion relationship
where they go in and out of each other's life physically
while always remaining deeply connected emotionally.
Yeah, I mean, when we met again,
I had never come across anybody in my life until that point that I felt more similar to.
We grew up in a pretty small town where most people, it's sort of simple-minded, simple life with goals and what they're trying to do, what gave them joy. How did your parents get there, to that small town?
Yeah, I mean, it's not a tiny town, but it's definitely a, you know,
smaller neighborhood.
Like when you say we share, do you include backgrounds?
Yeah, I think so, for sure.
I mean, you know, South Asian immigrant parents.
From?
My parents are from India.
His parents are from Bangladesh.
Yep.
My parents came to America and, you know,
they were placed in a really rural town in Alabama
by a visa sponsorship organization. That's where I was born. So my sister was born. And then when
I was about three or four, they moved to Atlanta to work at Home Depot. Yeah. I mean, I think this
is one of the differentiators that I always carried as well, is that my family came through
a less traditional route. My dad actually
came to the States undocumented, to New York actually. And he had a sibling who, you know,
legally lived in Atlanta. And so she was like, oh, come here. There's a lot of trees. It's like
Bangladesh. And so he came to Atlanta with really just like $500 in his pocket. He just worked
really hard, you know, got married,
then decided to open that restaurant. And that's kind of how we began.
Your mom is also Bangladesh?
Yes. And my mom also no schooling beyond high school level. So my parents are just a bit more
like traditional and also didn't come from like an educated path. And so that was, I think,
like a differentiator as well.
And I felt that also as well growing up.
A differentiator between the two of you, you mean?
Yeah, definitely.
Because for so long growing up,
there was so much like anxiety around their lack of education.
And like they've carried that insecurity themselves pretty deeply,
but wanted to like level up in terms of socioeconomic class.
And so like strivers in that sense. And so I think that even made them actually nervous to ever
develop a relationship much deeper with his parents. And I actually remember talking to my
parents about that being like, oh, we, you know, we could all hang out. And, you know, I remember
my mom was like, oh, you know, like they don't want to hang out with us. Like we didn't, we don't
have any schooling or anything like that.
That's crazy to hear.
Did you know that?
I did not know that.
Yeah.
But I think the similar thing is we were one of the few South Asian families in our town.
So regardless of the different directions that we came, that was the common linkage there for sure. And growing up, there was no other person that I
met who was, you know, loved their traditional heritage as much as also being quite comfortable
in like predominantly like white spaces, which is where we grew up. I think one distinction I also
always carried is that he's Catholic, was raised Catholic, and went to
Catholic school. I'm Muslim. And so I always felt a little bit more of an outsider in that way.
I also, oh yeah, big time in that town. I used to, you know, I remember when Osama bin Laden
was killed, people were like, oh, yo, sorry to hear about your uncle. Like really intense
Islamophobia growing up.
And I think that is also something that I envied, you know.
It would just make me wonder. Do you know all that?
Yeah, this is all, I mean, yeah, no, not really.
I mean, some stuff I was obviously aware of,
just knowing that he's Muslim.
And my family.
It's not that he is.
It's what that experience.
Yeah, means to
I really wish
and then he says
he says a little
and you know
it means a lot
I try to downplay
but
don't
okay
or at least not here
okay
I think it makes me
here is okay
we will take it
as it was
not as you've tried
to make it
it was shitty it was definitely shitty um and so
I think it's easier for me to downplay it so that I can relate on a level to like um you know best
friend um and so but you just told your best friend some nuances of your experience. Yeah, I guess I never put those pieces together.
Let's hear how.
Yeah, I mean, I think there is nothing in your story that I didn't know.
Right.
But in terms of how that story made you feel different from me
and the amount that it made you feel different from me is, yeah, it makes me sad
for a couple of reasons, obviously, because I honestly feel like this would have been really
great to have talked about earlier on the difference there, because honestly, I think
the gap that you feel for me is not the same gap that I grew up feeling with you. My context is relative to the people around me, much more of a gap than
my gap with you to the extent where even knowing all these differences with you, it never felt like
there was a difference. Obviously there is, you feel it, that's your experience. But my parents,
sure, they definitely, the biggest difference is the education, but they had a really rough time
in this country, like really, really rough time. My
dad was here by himself for seven years after getting engaged for a week, you know, and had to
like work in a factory for most of that time. And like, even though I went to like a Catholic school,
like my parents went in serious debt for that, did not grow up, you know, super well off at all.
And like, felt like, you know, I mean, I I mean I I got Islamophobia too yeah even though
I'm not I mean just the only person I was in an all-white space in school my entire life which
was like a space where I envied you like you got to grow up with diversity yeah um and like I always
wished I went to public school um because of that and like did not enjoy going to a school where I
didn't have that kind of experience. Yeah.
And or even like enough experience to feel comfortable being around other South Asian people or just not getting to do that.
And my parents never were able to deeply connect with people who weren't from the same exact
community as them.
And all of those were things that I felt like, yes, our experiences are different, but they're
both so
much more different than everybody else's here that we connect really like deeply because of
that. Right. Yeah. So I guess it just makes me sad that you've like gone so much of your life
feeling like there was that much of a gap and not sharing that because I would have loved to
like stepped in more there or. Yeah. Yeah. I would say, I mean,
I think I carried that gap earlier in our friendship.
From the moment they met,
they shared a ton together.
But here, as they walked in,
stuff was pouring out of them,
of the ways that they had each observed the other,
the other's family,
with things that they had actually never said out loud.
And also pieces of their own experience, particularly more painful aspects.
And it reminded me, when my childhood friends meet my adult friends, the adult friends always
want to know how was she when she was little.
And what's so amazing is the way that we take each other in at six,
what we perceive, how we understood the family.
It's amazing that the little details that we stay with
of how we internalize someone when we were young.
Like maybe like when we were living in the same town together,
it started to fade more as I think we, like, went to, like, college in different cities.
I remember when I actually learned about your family's financial anxieties
because I actually, I didn't know.
I thought y'all were, like, pretty, like, well off.
I didn't actually know that, like, there was all of this underneath
because on the surface yeah definitely you see
one thing and then that that detail I definitely helped that yeah I mean my family definitely
tried to present like my parents definitely tried to present differently than yeah I was there and
like yeah and we didn't we just don't talk about that stuff like I didn't grow up we didn't talk
about anything so I didn't know and but it was clear like being my family you know we just didn't
talk about money and we didn't do things.
We never really did anything extravagantly.
My parents would just save up all their money just to go to India every few years.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the reason I've been doing my own thing, you know.
Like, I didn't want to be a burden financially to my parents.
I've been paying for everything in my life since I was, like, 16.
Specifically so that I don't have to you know
add to that burden specifically so that I can try to help them yeah and like give back for their
sacrifice you know which you feel I know you talk about and you you you feel as well yeah absolutely
yeah you both help your families yeah like he definitely does more so. Yeah, like regular payments to them.
One of the things that I really admire is he,
I don't know if this is...
Yeah, you can use it.
Okay, cool.
Like, you know, launched his own company.
And it's something that I really want to do.
I don't have a safety net.
Like, as soon as I stop making money,
that's an income source that's lost to the family.
And they can't support me doing
this. And so like, uh, I always really admired and envious too. I think like envious too.
Yeah. I mean, I think that's accurate. Like, I don't want to, I don't want to make it seem like
we come from the exact same background, right? Like I think there is, there's obviously a
difference there. And, um, one that I absolutely recognize. Um, and I think part of the reason I
didn't share it all is because I didn't feel like it was my space to share because, you know, that you had more that you were dealing with.
So I didn't want to take away from that.
That's tough.
Some of the things that you don't address, your intention is to protect the other.
I mean, that's where the lack of... Finish the other. I mean, that's where the last sentence. Yeah. I mean, you know, as much as I felt like
we were in this together, this is someone I can relate to someone who shares all these things
that I feel. Yeah. You've just always been so authentic, so open in ways that I've always been
very self-protective. You know, I never talk about anything that's like a point of stress like
growing up I didn't and um you were the first person I felt like okay I don't still don't
really need to talk about it but I at least feel very comfortable here but I also talks like an
open book yeah what's it like for you total just admiration how can someone be like this
how can someone go through this world that
I feel like I'm also going through and be so comfortable sharing about themselves?
It's been, I think, the part that has been both I want to emulate and that I've been,
if we're talking about jealousy, envy, that's something that I absolutely don't feel like I have. And it's, it's part of the reason why you cultivate such
deep relationships so quickly. And I just, I just don't let myself really get there.
And I don't know if I'm like, you know, capable to do it super well. So, so yeah. And so I felt
like we were in this together, but also I did feel like there was more tension in your life,
like pulling at you, in your life, like
pulling at you, holding you back, guiding the way that you had to make decisions. Whereas I did still
feel like I could sort of choose my own path here. When they talk about being one among a few South
Asian families in the South, they emphasize the similarities. But when they start to peel
the layers of the differences between them and the nuances of their backgrounds and their
respective family cultures, the differences become much more manifest. What they admire,
what they envy, what they compete about, what they hate, what they long for.
And what they share.
C'est moi.
Well, I mean, your family was asking of you things directly.
Whereas my parents never talked about things.
They were under duress all the time, but they never shared anything.
And as a result, they never asked me directly to do
anything in a way that his family was always asking him to like help here, do this. What do
you think makes for that difference? I do think there's a level of financial security, I'm sure,
to some degree, but also culture. In what sense? In our family's culture, there's just not really like an asking for help ever.
Asking for help from the children or period, meaning the parents take care of the kids
and the kids are meant to be kids versus the parents and the kids are part of one system
and everybody has responsibilities and everybody takes care of everyone
yeah i mean i think that's what we're talking about yeah yeah yeah that that's very very heavy
as even you were talking about the risks the asks i was just feeling the burdens on my body
of just like oh god all of the things yeah that i I'm being asked. Meaning, in a certain kind of a Western sense of the word,
you were defined as a child.
Yes.
And you were defined as a little adult.
Yep.
Yeah, I think that's a big deal.
Because my parents were always wanting to protect my sister and I
from having to deal with this world.
That's right.
And they would do everything behind closed doors.
They would do everything without us knowing,
no matter what that took.
And you associate that to your parents,
to their particular culture,
to their being Catholic Indians,
to which part of it or to whatever.
I think to our family culture.
They're both older siblings.
We have huge family.
They're both the oldest of like 40 plus first cousins.
And in growing up in India.
They were in his role.
They were in his role.
And they wanted to make sure that their kids that have to be.
Didn't have to, exactly.
Oh my God, interesting.
Yeah.
So you, in a way, grew up with the notion that I'm going to be so independent that I don't have to ask them for anything.
Yeah.
And you grew up with the notion that I'm going to make it so that I can give them everything they need.
That is the dream.
Yeah.
My heart goes out to both of you.
are very, very caring, thoughtful stances of which some of it was articulated early on
and some of it you intuitively understood
and are now putting words to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think we both really related
on the care for our families.
Yeah.
Like deep, deep feeling that
there was things that we needed to alleviate.
But I think that breakdown
makes it a clearer
distinction of like the different ways that we internalize and approached it like I think growing
up like your parents found a lot of meaning and joy in seeing you like have fun Whereas my parents wanted me to have happiness and joy, but it was so rooted in
like this family web.
I will say it hasn't been a light, easy path with my parents at all. Like growing, going
through that, I had to, I split from my parents, you know, like I had a ton of, for a full
year and a half, like just, just didn't talk to my mom. In order to? In order to start
from scratch, do my own thing, carve my own path and not feel, not feel bound to a world that I
didn't choose. So it's a, it's a kind of a tension between my loyalty to my family and my pursuit of
my individual achievements and America. Absolutely. It was an east meets west
conflict. Yeah. It's very powerful what you're saying, right? You're kind of dividing this a
little bit in a dualistic way, right? The interdependence versus the self-reliance.
If I wanted to be able to finally pursue,
not only did I have to not talk about anything,
which was your first degree,
but the next degree was I had to cut off for a bit in order to not hear them inside of me,
which of course doesn't really work this way.
And so the idea, you know, you pay a price.
You pay a price of the disconnect inside.
You get to achieve, but you also get to numb yourself
and to cut off parts of you.
You don't just cut off your parents.
And you end up feeling, at some point, I have to accept my rhythm.
It won't go in the same speed
because I can never think what do I want
separately from how does it affect them.
It's a different way of placing the self.
And you're 20 what, five, both of you?
So it's a, you know, this is also developmental.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
Well, and that was when I was 16.
That you didn't speak.
You know, looking back,
it's the experience that I have the most guilt around,
without a doubt,
because, I mean, there was a fracture
in my relationship with them,
and there's been healing.
But I still feel that tension,
unless I can do something that is
just so much greater than they would have expected me or that I would have been able to.
It's to be able to just, you know, pay off all their debts and like, you know, let them travel,
let them relax. Because that would justify why you had to do what you had to do. Exactly. But
they may be wiser than you on that yeah maybe they actually if you even could
explain that to them yeah that in itself yeah I I think I'm just afraid and what would happen
I know that that's not part of the friendship yeah but I also think he could be extraordinarily extraordinarily helpful to you on that. Yeah, yeah.
It's like you are the person he looks at when he wants to think about pursuing himself.
You look to him when you are looking at how to maintain connection.
And these two go hand in hand, actually.
They don't exist without each other.
Mm-hmm. And these two go hand in hand, actually. They don't exist without each other.
I bet that this way that you think of attachment to your parents and the way that it relates to your own self-growth,
I'm sure it manifests in our relationship as well as very close friends.
Bang.
Yeah.
How?
I was waiting for that.
Yeah, I mean, like, I feel like sometimes in our friendship,
and I, like, hear you make the effort sometimes,
but I think sometimes I worry that, like,
the growth is more important than the, like, relationship.
Growth, you mean the achievement?
Yeah.
Accomplishments?
Yeah.
Success.
Like, your journey that, journey that you're on.
And because I also look up to you and I admire you,
I've tried to live that way too.
And it's just caused me insane distress.
I've tried to push my family.
And it's just so hard.
It's really hard for me.
And that's why I've had to accept like that it's just not also me.
I actually don't really know about this period of a year-long fracture from your mother,
but I also cannot even imagine it.
Like I cannot, it's beyond conception for me how does that resonate for you
the you are more interested in your pursuits and your self-development and your achievements
than in the importance of your relationships which. Yeah. I've heard it from every partner I've
ever had as well. So I think it's, there's probably something to it. I've always been
someone who's had very specific kind of change in mind that's taken precedence over the people in my life or even my own joy.
I don't really do things for joy often.
And I've just been very reactive in my relationships in general.
We just worked, you know, like we, there's so much overlap.
There's so much connection.
We have such a similar sense of adventure and curiosity that when we were in the same space,
especially early on when there weren't other people in our lives like that
the just there was an explosion um and there was no proactive let's let's do this let's work on
this let's build this and now I don't think I've I've like actively prioritized it and um I really
do want to be more intentional about it but I haven't been
make sure that you get in that you stay in touch he's the one who reaches out I think we both do
every once in a while I think it's changed recently I pulled back in the past couple years yeah yeah
yeah even though because what finish your talk because I mean I was just like is it really about
like our best friendship or like are you trying to meet other, like, I was sometimes feeling like,
was it just, like, the adventures
and the, like, growth that you experience
in our relationship?
Or was it actually, like, you know,
us being best friends?
Because I felt like there were periods of time
where I was, like,
if he just meets another person
who will offer him more growth opportunities
in terms of self and career,
you will be more in tuned and interested in that
as opposed to our friendship.
Dang.
Yeah, I mean, you'll always be my best friend.
Yeah.
There's never going to be a connection.
But is there truth to this?
I mean, I can understand where that's coming from.
And I absolutely think my behavior and
where my mind was leading me in places that that's super fair and I'm sorry
I appreciate the apology but I pulled back intentionally you know there's a relationship
is like a like a rubber band you know like there's
I didn't want it to get to like a point where it ever snaps it was like I needed to
create some of that breathing room for us to like recognize that there was tension
yeah emerging so I always have faith um can I also say I mean you know I can see where you're
coming from I also did feel something similar yeah towards you yeah because you're you're a
super dynamic person you make friends super easily yeah because you're a super dynamic person. You make friends super
easily and you're always doing different things. And when we went off to college, I knew you were
making really deep friendships with people. And I wasn't. I mean, I was very much like, I wasn't
trying to, but was making a lot of different connections and acquaintances and you know people who I'd know
but wasn't making deep friendships and that probably scared me um I mean it did scare me
yeah um but I don't think we really spent enough time validating what we meant to each other
and what we wanted to mean to each other at the time yeah I think that was the nature of growing up in Georgia.
We were these two male best friends.
It was just so homophobic in that area that like even just saying things like talking about how much the relationship meant to one another was just like taboo, you know.
Too intimate?
Yeah, too intimate.
We never, and I think, so what that happened for me going to college was, I was like, yo, like, I mean, I was, I was like, you know, he's probably like, basically, like didn't think I was important as a best friend
to you and so I was throwing myself into that because I didn't feel secure enough in our
friendship to just trust that like that was always there but I will say that for many years in
college like I avoided calling anyone like like a best friend. Yeah. Because that was, I was always, you know, my best friend is you.
Would it have been like a betrayal?
Yeah, it would have felt like a betrayal.
And then honestly, like I think growing up, it was a lot of me trying to keep the relationship going and the friendship going.
But I was like, oh, like, what if I'm stifling your growth?
And that made me like insecure.
And maybe I was like, I think there was one thing that.
Hold on. hold on.
Yeah.
Take a breath.
Yeah, yeah.
A lot coming out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just take a moment.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I remember...
Hold on.
Oh.
Oh.
In the course of the session,
every time they would start speaking truth,
they'd start talking faster and faster
and getting more and more revved up.
And the anxiety that accompanied the revelations
was such that I had to continuously temper,
create rhythm,
slow down, breathe, listen, and integrate.
And every time they'd start to speed up again, as if they wanted to protect each other so much
that they wouldn't say things that would hurt the other or annoy the other,
and it just was pouring out. And then again, slow down, breathe, and integrate.
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And they're making bank.
Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion.
It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world.
These are very savvy business people.
These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem,
we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims
sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best
defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other.
We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim and we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at
risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect
yourself at Vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send
money to people you know and trust. Support for this show is brought to you by Nissan Kicks.
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Sometimes it's about what needs to be said.
And then after that, it's about sitting quietly with what has just been said. inside.
Part of what you're saying is we felt
very, very close, but we've
never told each other how
close we feel.
But I knew that I couldn't call somebody
else my best friend, because
it would be disloyal to you. That's
super powerful.
Yeah, wow. That wow some real shit yeah sounds like we let a bunch of our own insecurities about our relationship get in the way
I remember I mean so many occasions where you would tell me something really important in your life.
And then you would follow it up with talking about how other people that you've shared this with have responded in different ways.
And maybe that was you trying to protect yourself.
For sure.
But to me, that was, oh, he doesn't really need this relationship that much.
Like, I feel like it's little things like that.
And I was quiet, you know, I wasn't sharing that, obviously.
So I tell you about my other friends
so that you don't think that I am putting all my weight on you
and that I'm too needy.
And then I hear you tell me about the other friends.
And so then I think I'm not that important after all.
Yeah.
And so each of you who are so important to each other,
leave these conversations thinking you're not that important after all.
How ironic.
Yeah.
Yeah, that is true.
He just expressed the core of the conflict
and I didn't want them to just ride over it.
In fact, he applied
because he was feeling more and more that he was the best friend of the past, that the pursuit of self-development and growth and achievement and success was such that he was in search of another best friend, the one that would accompany him into the next phase. And since he had chosen
relationships over self, he was moving at a different pace. And that would become the
fracture in their relationship. And they needed to just sit with that for a moment.
This is a dilemma that actually transcends their origins,
their immigrant backgrounds.
This is a piece in every friendship
where is your individual pursuit
more important than our bond?
And if I start to feel that our bond
is secondary to you,
then I'm going to retreat.
Do you share your love lives with each other?
Do you talk about that?
Yeah.
I think so, yeah.
That was another area where I think early on was a big difference between us.
Because I didn't really have a love life for a while because of a lot of insecurities I had.
What stood in the way for you when you say insecurities?
Well, so this is one of the factors that led to my breaking point with my parents.
When I was in middle school, you know, I was asked out on a date and I really wanted to go
and finally worked up the courage to tell my mom. And she completely shut me down. And it was like
a traumatic experience for me at the time, because especially I'd been thinking about this for days
and days and days before finally figuring out the words, testing it out, finally sharing it.
First time, really, I felt like I was sharing something that was off path from what they wanted
of me. And that was a tension I carried with me for so long. And I
always wondered, you know, how can I do something that my parents would be so not supportive of?
You know, so it took me, it was until I got to college and like that I really was in a serious
relationship for the first time. And you were, you dated those girls, them? Yeah, I dated, I dated a
woman in, woman during college.
We ended up dating for about a year.
And it was actually crazy when we finally started sharing.
We were going through a lot of similar things
and really crazy similarities in our relationships.
We both started dating our first serious partners
around the same time, actually.
There came a period when we both realized
we wanted to end our romantic partnerships
with our partners around the same time as well.
And he was like, it's really hard.
She's having a hard time,
but I know it's not right for me.
This is where my growth is headed.
I'm going to move in this direction.
Whereas when I did it and I saw
just the grief, just like the challenge
and also how I felt, I was like
whoa, whoa, whoa, I really love you
you're a really important person in my life
what am I doing here?
there was a lot of thinking
I was really looking at your example
the whole time
why do you put them as opposed to each other?
your personal growth
and your relationships,
don't they go hand in hand?
We used to have a lot
of conversations about this.
Are romantic relationships
actually a tether
towards ultimate growth
and achievement?
And I believe that.
That they are?
I think at that, I was under a lot of tension.
I didn't know, I was like looking up to you
and I wanted to be like you.
And I knew that like...
But it actually has been a bane for him.
Yeah.
And the way I ended that relationship was awful.
Yeah, yeah.
And I wish I didn't do it that way.
I've learned a lot since then yeah I didn't
really know hold on a sec yes this is New York City yes yeah it's a metaphor for the emergency
crisis I was in at the time yeah meaning you know I just didn't know how to communicate
and really have a conversation about it.
It was really kind of came out of nowhere.
And why did you want to end things?
I was feeling...
For that same split that he's talking about?
I felt like there was more of my energy consistently that was going towards the relationship than I wanted.
Do you never think that the relationship can give you energy that you can then use for your
career pursuits? That it actually is an emboldening thing rather than a suck?
It's a really good point. I mean, it's something that I need to open myself up more to that idea.
There's a part of you that sees relationships,
and that's what you describe with your parents, as restrictive. You don't see them as generative.
It's like me versus. And the relationship takes from me rather than the relationship
offers me, opens me, energizes me. You name it. It's not a jail.
offers me, opens me, energizes me, you name it.
It's not a jail.
Biggest tension I feel with allowing myself to go there is this fear that this person's goals,
this person's energies, this person's desires,
and what ours will be together
will shift me away from some goals that I have
that I care really deeply about.
Because I made that split so early,
I feel like I can do things on my own, and I just feel like things will deviate me from the path.
And I think a lot of my emotional structures are probably deeply rooted with feeling very
profound connections with people like you and my sister. But he also ends up feeling like he
becomes a deviation from your path.
Yeah. Well, it's weird because the reason I feel like, I think my, I feel comfortable doing things on my own is because I know I have such profound connections with people like him. As long as he
makes sure that the connection is preserved. But if he steps back like he did in the last two years,
do you notice it?
I definitely have, yeah.
After how long?
No, throughout.
I definitely have recognized it.
But I do sense.
I think it's more than just an investment that isn't mutual.
I think there's actually been some active growing apart.
Say more about the growing apart.
There's tension.
The last couple of years when we've just hung out,
it's felt like we're not only sitting with that tension of not talking about it,
but we're doing things consistently,
saying little things here and there that add to that tension.
Mentioning different things that we're each doing in a way that,
like, yeah, I just went on this trip here,
and I just met these friends,
and here's an experience I just went on that is maybe
something we would have done together back in the day and it almost feels like a like a jab like
here's something that I am capable of doing this without you like each one jabs the other with
statements that say look how great my life is without you something like that yeah but I think
in terms of relationships I still am I see I don, I do see this as like an additive relationship to me.
Best friends is not what can you do for me.
It's not organized around interest, ROI.
It's a different level.
And if you start to feel like we're each showing the other,
hey, cool without you.
And you start to do it as a way also of saying,
I don't really miss you.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
I think that's just spot, like, I was definitely,
and I think it's coming back to not knowing where the others stood because you were doing some amazing things over the years.
And like I said, I've looked up to you for so long.
For a while, I didn't know where I would necessarily,
I didn't know, like, yeah, whether whether I needed I had any value in that chain and I and I think there was a
period where there was definitely the jabs where it was like oh I actually
don't need you either you know what I'm cool and it was hoping that like me
doing that would elicit some sort of reaction of, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, like, what about us? And I think...
Do you travel together?
Have you?
Have we?
I don't think so.
Oh, my God.
Your mind, maybe?
Yeah, your mind, yeah.
I mean, we've, like...
Yes, yes.
Internal journeys, you've done many.
Yeah, we'd never really been so intentional about, like,
you know, carving out that time for each other
because we had been
so accustomed
to being like,
oh, our friendship
is so strong.
We don't need to
intentionally maintain it.
It's just a natural thing.
There's no work
or effort
that needs to be put into it.
It's really not the case.
Not at all.
It's crazy
because he's just someone
who,
you're just someone who you're we
were talking about this earlier but you're you are really open and sharing with everybody that
it's it's always been hard for me to know yeah like is there anything that's just preserved for
me that's where a lot for me is like oh you're gonna be good you're gonna create support systems
everywhere you go yeah whereas in my world it wasn't that at all you know I'm internalized
more things.
So yeah, so it's just, it's just interesting how that kind of adds to this too.
Well, you're my favorite person to like take on the world with. I realize and recognize it now,
like when I said I want us to be lifelong friends, just like, because I want you to be in my life,
like in my life, not like checking in here and there, but like, you know, be best
friends. And I know for myself that I need to stop thinking about the amount of value I need to like
provide or create in order to like feel like you can justify this friendship. And I know that that's
also a personal journey that you're trying to understand more around. But like that was how I was feeling for some time.
I mean, I love you, man.
I love you too, man.
It's just like I want you to know how much like you really do mean to me too.
Because you're not just like my favorite like friend.
You're the single like best human being I've ever met.
You really are.
I really think you're just you're just like
an incredible person
so
like there's no
I don't like the
notion of
like I've never
thought about this
as like a value exchange
if anything I've thought
about the same exact thing
of like
as someone who is so
like I think of friendship
and relationship
being so grounded
in sharing
and as someone who is
so willing to share
and comfortable sharing
like do I offer
anything uniquely here?
Can I ask you something?
Yeah.
I could ask so many different things.
I'm just curious in the moment,
what do you think has made it so that you've never said
any of these things to each other?
Being freaking mad?
Yeah, I think I feel the resistance of just like upbringings and just being like.
Upbringings or men?
Or men in your upbringing?
Men in our specific upbringing.
I mean, I don't think that other men necessarily would have an easier time.
Yeah.
Two straight guys.
Yeah.
Who can admit to the love that they feel for each
other is that what we're talking about yeah probably so what is the taboo when you say we
men cisgendered straight guys i mean we men so what what do we and do what don't we yeah i think
we don't necessarily share our feelings about each other openly.
I can do what I need to do.
You know, I'm powerful.
I don't need anybody else.
I don't have vulnerabilities.
That aspect.
This belief in true independence as well.
I don't think we've ever talked about actually like needing one another.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't think we even mentioned it in this conversation as well either no you were talking about how you were trying to make clear
to the other that you don't need them exactly exactly what are the other taboos i mean there
is like a there is a power element to it as well i don't want to feel ever like less in power
in relation to you, I think,
because it would create some sort of like submissive or needy.
I think we've used that word a couple of times here.
Every time you talk about not wanting to be needy, you cross your arms.
Oh, yeah.
I don't, I've never felt I have more power or I'm more powerful or anything like that.
I don't want to.
I think there's actually, when you say that,
I think there's actually a part of me that values achievement
and growth and impact more so than the relational component.
And I wonder if he's actually right.
This is how you must be
in order to achieve.
You know,
my friend and colleague, Terry Real,
he says, under patriarchy,
men can either feel powerful
or connected.
But they can't necessarily
have both at the same time.
That is exactly how I feel.
And I feel like I'm on the flip side, you know, wanting the exact, it's like yin and yang a little bit.
Cultural systems change.
You, more than anybody, know this.
Yeah.
You represent cultures in transition inside of you
so can you do it vis-a-vis these norms these supposed contradictions of either or either
powerful or connected yeah and so now it becomes the powerful and the connected. He's the powerful,
you're the connected.
Right.
Which is a wild, yeah.
And you grapple
with the part of you
that wants
what you call
achievement, power,
but it comes at the price
of disconnect,
which is what
you've emphasized.
It's efficient,
I've succeeded,
I don't need anybody.
Let me give you the list
of everything I can do
for which I don't need
other people,
but he then becomes
the part of you that is disavowed yeah and part of the distance that I think has been created between
the two of you is because each one has become a representation of the part of you that you
struggle with yeah yeah 100% yeah um that's very. Do your fathers have best friends?
My father's best friend broke his heart.
That is the story.
They were business partners.
And then my father, who is much more of a...
He is a prominent community organizer
and has helped hundreds of Bangladeshi migrants come to the States.
And basically, they were... My dad tells me this story. He's like, we were best friends
in the village growing up from preschool. He married his sister. My father's best friend
married his sister, his favorite sister. And they were in business together. And basically,
his friend was more driven and just cut him off in the business. And my father told me then, friends are only this.
It's family that's the most important. Your friends are great, but you never know when they
might stab you. And I think that's what creates this protective response in me because my father
is incredibly protective and carries a lot of sorrow from relationships that he feels like he overinvested in
and then people didn't reciprocate in return because he's so community organizing
and he feels like he did not achieve his dreams because he spent so much time trying to help
and connect with others.
Wow.
But of course, I can't not think that the same dance is happening right here, right?
How often do you see each other?
It's been a long time.
Nowadays?
Like a couple times a year, maybe.
Yeah.
So what some people do is to have rituals.
Every two months, we take a weekend of what other kind of things you enjoy doing
when you're
everything
yeah
give me a few
yeah
we could go to some
basketball games together
yeah
we could go hiking together
I'm sure
yeah
film something together
one day
would be really cool
like trying to like
make a small movie
yeah
when we're both
so why don't you say
we have a ritual
we meet every eight weeks
let's do it man
yeah
be down for that
you know
we spend a weekend
together
or a long weekend
together
one time here
one time at my place
one time
to something else
and have it be
the ritual
you never broke
yeah
so that
even when you have
families
one day
if you do or partners you just say this and it may
not be two months at that time but there is a pillar there's a thing and then one day you'll
say for the past 30 years wow every x yeah that thing is an immovable. Yeah.
It's an ode to us.
Wow.
Dang.
I think it would be nice for each of us to make a commitment like that to each other.
For sure.
Yeah.
This doesn't scare me at all.
This is exciting.
Let's do it.
Let's do it. On the meta level, it's exciting that I'm even experiencing something like that.
So this is not a long-term commitment.
This is a reliable gift. A reliable gift. A reliable gift. I like that. Friendship,
my reliable gift. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere and you're making content
that no one sees and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot.
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Tells you which leads are worth knowing.
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Something happened in their friendship that expressed an internal conflict that became a relational conflict.
So that each of them became the representation of the part that the other one was struggling with and felt ambivalent about.
One struggled with the side of him that wanted to maintain connections at the price of experiencing a compromise of the self.
And the other experienced the price of maintaining his pursuits and his focus on his own individual compass
at the price of losing his connection to the people that mattered to him.
And they were each hurt by that.
Am I not important enough for you
when you keep climbing
and doing your own individual stuff, said one.
And the other, am I not important to you
when you have so many other important people in your life?
And they were hurt.
And they felt neglected by the other and they needed to reconnect
and now let's see if they will actually take on some of these rituals Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise.
We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network,
in partnership with New York Magazine and The Cut.
Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Eva Walchover,
Destry Sibley, Hyweta Gatana, Sabrina Farhi, Eleanor Kagan, Kristen Muller, and Julianne Atten.
Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider.
And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker.
We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, Jen Marler, and Jack Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton,
Mary Alice Miller,
Jen Marler,
and Jack Saul.
Support for this show is brought to you by Nissan Kicks.
It's never too late
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And it's never too late to reinvent yourself. The all-new Reim by Nissan Kicks. It's never too late to try new things, and it's never too late
to reinvent yourself. The all-new reimagined Nissan Kicks is the city-sized crossover vehicle
that's been completely revamped for urban adventure. From the design and styling to the
performance, all the way to features like the Bose Personal Plus sound system, you can get closer to
everything you love about city life in the all-new, reimagined Nissan Kicks. Learn more at www.nissanusa.com slash 2025 dash kicks.
Available feature. Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation.
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