SOLVED with Mark Manson - How to Be a Great Friend, Para-Social Relationships, and Why You Shouldn't Die Alone

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

The quality of your life often comes down to the quality of the relationships you have. That’s why we’re giving a huge f*ck about friendship this week. While the benefits of having good friends are pretty obvious, the cost of maintaining friendships is often overlooked by a lot of people. We dive into that, plus some advice on when you should and shouldn’t cut off people in your life, and how friends and romantic partners really impact our happiness. Check it out. Here’s the paper we discuss:People perceive parasocial relationships to be effective at fulfilling emotional needs Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help make you a less awful person:https://markmanson.net/breakthrough If you’d like to submit a question for us to consider, you can leave it in the comments below or email it [e-mail] Theme Music: "Icarus Lives" byPeriphery Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, before we get into it, if you listen to the show, you probably consume a lot of personal growth content. The books, the podcasts, YouTube videos, all of it. And you've probably noticed the gap between knowing what to do and then actually going out and doing it. You've got the insights, but what you don't have is something that connects them to your actual life. That's why I built purpose. It's a personal development AI that learns you, your patterns, your blind spots, all the stuff that you keep circling back to over and over again. Instead of handing you another framework, it gives you specific personalized direction.

So check it out. You can try it for free for seven days. Go to purpose. That is purpose. Dot app. I think I know my Halloween costume, Drew. We were just joking about it before we went live. I think I'm going to be a wind sock.

Go stand in front of a car dealership. You got the frame for it, yeah. You know, since I lost all the weight, I'm like shockingly lanky. The wind's going to blow you around. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I did last year? So I had this giant broccoli costume that we use for one of the YouTube videos.

Yeah. And I put that on. And I looked absolutely absurd. Just this massive like two meter tall broccoli walking around. And what I really wanted to do, because we get in our neighborhood here, we get a lot of kids coming to the house. I tried to convince Fernanda to do this. I was like, I want you to cook a ton of broccoli. So like instead of like giving the kids candy.

No, you didn't. What we'll do is I'll like, I'll open the doors a giant broccoli. and then I'll hand them a giant plate full of broccoli. And I thought this was hysterical. I was like, this is too fun. Like, we're going to record this. It's going to go viral on TikTok. Anyway, she beat, though.

You didn't even try it. My broccoli dreams were destroyed in the cradle. Well, they never, maybe this year. You would have traumatized some kids. I think you better not do that. There's still hope, Drew. There's still hope. That's as bad as like handing out toothbrushes or something like that.

like that's worse actually just some steamed broccoli what the fuck steamed broccoli served by a broccoli it's the subtle art of not giving a fuck podcast with your host mark manson anyway what are we uh what are we giving a fuck about today oh mark

or not giving a fuck about what do we get what's what's happening we're we're giving a fuck this week I'm giving a fuck anyway about about friends friendship friendship that's right We've talked about this a little bit before. You just flew back to Colorado. I did. I did.

For a dinner. Yeah. So I've been split my time between, you know, L.A. and Colorado. And I was out here and there was an anniversary dinner for some friends of mine back home. And I took a flight back. I didn't even ask you. I was like, I'm going to ask for forgiveness rather than permission on this one. I was hurt.

I was deeply upset. But yeah, it was like, oh, you left? It got me, you know, I was talking. some people and it's like, yeah, I flew back. And it was like a two-hour dinner that we had on a Friday night. I'm going to be honest. Like when you told me like an anniversary dinner, I thought it was like your parents 50th or something. I'm like, oh, this must be a big deal. The fact that you literally got on a plane to attend a dinner for two hours, two things. One, you are a much better friend than I am. Like hands down, bar none. But,

too, I mean, it's given, you know, sitting at LAX for hours dealing with the airline bullshit, not to mention the, you know, the money, like the cost and everything. So my question to you is, was it worth it? Like, how often do you do things like this? I mean, I, I, and is it worth it? Does it pay off? Okay, is it worth it? Yes, it was. If you're a psychopath like me and purely looks at human interaction as transactional. Is it worth it? It was worth it, but you're right. There was a lot of that.

Like, I was like, oh, my, I mean, I slept like shit last week, and I was just, it was the end of the week. Sure. You know, we had a long week and going to LAX is the last thing you want to do, you know, on a Friday. And I was just like, oh, my God. I was even texting my friends. Like, yeah, I'm really tired.

I'm sorry if I'm not, whatever. As soon as I got to the dinner, everything just like, it was a beautiful evening. They were able to open the doors at the restaurant. open the windows at the restaurant. It was beautiful. We had, we sat. It was a small group of people. We sat for a few hours and just, yeah, and that was worth it.

So it was worth it. That was absolutely worth it. It was. It's funny because I, I imagine most people wouldn't do something like, especially in this day and age, like, you know, maybe like 40, 30, 40 years ago. But like, I don't know. Like that, it is kind of unimaginable. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I mean, here's the thing is that, you know, know, I don't, I'm single right now. I don't have kids. I don't have like real big obligations to anyone else but myself. And so I put, no obligations. I was going to say I have a flexible job. Flexible working schedule. Before I was rudely cut off. So I have a lot of things working in my favor that allows me to do these kind of things. Sure. Right. Sure. Of course. But there is also a cost associated with maintaining these relationships that I've decided to invest in. Yeah.

Right. And yeah, to me, it's worth it. Yeah. It's absolutely worth it. Now, the cost thing too, I had a whole bunch of airline miles, so it really actually didn't cost me money to do that. I mean, there's little travel expenses. I got a pile on top of that or whatever, and I had to use those miles. But I understand not everybody has that, that access or that, that, that, they don't have the privileges or

sure sure sure I get that um but that said it's just it's something that I've chosen to give a fuck about is my friends yeah and I mean I find it admirable because I feel like this is something it's funny because you often hear like there are people who choose to invest very heavily in like a romantic relationship there are people invest very heavily in like a professional yes opportunity or professional relationship it at least in our culture I mean this is probably it's probably different in some other parts of the world, but like investing, making that choice of like, I am going to highly prioritize my friendships and really go, no pun intended, the extra mile for them. I think it's not only rare today, but it, like, I do find it really interesting

and maybe like more of us should be doing it. Like I definitely, like, this is an area of my life where I'm like, I probably should invest more in my friendships. Like, I'm, I'm a workaholic. I'm a homebody. Like, I sometimes struggle to just, like, follow up with people with a text, you know, much less like get on a fucking plane and go to their anniversary. So this is definitely an area of my life that I wish I gave more fucks or I was better at giving fox. So, and it is a rare thing.

Like, I don't know anybody else who does stuff like that. regularly. Yeah. And you ask if I if I do it I've done I've gone on plane to go see friends plenty of times. Yeah. Throughout my adult life I've done this and even like there's times I didn't have much money and I was so like you know what screw it. I'm going to go do this a wedding that's halfway across the country or or more. Yeah. I've done that and to me it's just like yeah because that's what you do. Yeah. That is like to me it's so self-evident. Like if you want if you want to like nurture these friendships you have to nurture these friendships. Sure. Right. Yeah. I think a lot of people, you know, just like, oh, sorry, I'm in L.A. And I, you know, I've got work stuff going on,

can't make it. To me, that's kind of like, well, then you can't really complain about not having friends in that situation. Do you ever run into, because sometimes, like, I will feel inspired and, like, want to reach out or, like, you know, maybe I'll, like, pop back to New York for a friend's thing or go see somebody, you know, it's like so-and-so's birthday or whatever. But I don't know, like, it's, especially if I have a. seen somebody in a couple years. I haven't talked to him a whole lot. Like, I don't know. Sometimes I worry, I'm like, well, is it going to be weird? I've gotten over that. Okay. I just go for it now. Anytime that comes up for me, I sense, I just shoot somebody to text. Like, anytime I start

thinking about somebody. And that's been more recent, I think. Anytime that pops up, I'm like, hey, just was just thinking about this thing that we did or whatever a while back. How's it going? I don't hesitate with that as much anymore. Okay. For sure. What would you say is like the, the Drew Bernie principles of being a good friend or like fostering good friendships. Number one is showing up. Show up. It is. It's showing up. And I was actually talking with my dad about this not too long ago. And he went to like a funeral or something that was within the family. And it was kind of, it was like, not like immediate family. You know, it was a little bit removed. And he showed up. And people were like, oh, it's good to see you. Kind of surprised we saw you. And he's like, what are you talking about?

Yeah. That's what we do. We show up. And I think I just from a younger age, It was like, you just show up for people. Yeah. That's rule number one right there. It's so funny because it's so obvious. And I remember, you know, you and I did an episode earlier this year about adult friendships. And it's like when you look at the research on how friendships are made, like the number one thing is frequency of exposure. Like how literally how often you physically see or speak to a person.

It's been, it's been wild to me to see how much, how true that is. and or even just small little gestures of of showing up in different ways like it means a lot to people yeah it means a lot and i mentioned i think on that episode too where i have reconnected with like childhood friends and um either just through reaching out with them or getting on a plane and going and seeing them yeah and it's a completely different relationship then you get it like it's like a new friendship that you're going to start again as an adult and it's just i don't know um i'm not sure if i have any good tips on like making friends, but I know like keeping friends. Right. That's kind of what I'm talking about here. Yeah. So principle number one showing up. What else? Being first, like acting

first. Okay. I think putting yourself out there first. Always being like showing vulnerability, maybe what it is or telling, telling somebody like how much they mean to you, not waiting for that from them. Inviting them. Inviting them the stuff. Inviting. Yeah. Yes. Reaching out, following up. Yeah. You know, we have, um, I, a group of my friends back in Colorado, we have like a dinner club. And we kind of get off track every now and then. Um, but it's about once a month we try to get together. Um, and you, uh, it's, it's so great because now everybody's like, oh, no, I want to host.

I want to host. I want to host. You know, like now everybody's like, they realize what it is, like offering, uh, being the first to offer is actually like the right move here. Yeah. And, and, and, and showing up for everybody in that way. Yeah. It's really, really important. Yeah. What would you say? So the going first thing, like, yeah, I'm bad at that. And I don't know why. Like, it's funny, you know, I had a lot of social anxiety when I was younger.

And there's definitely sometimes like some remnants of social anxiety. And it's funny because it really only pops up in very specific context. But for some reason, one of those contexts is like invitations reaching out to somebody I haven't talked to in like six months, following up with somebody. And it's so silly. Like I don't know. Like I have these moments where I'm like, I don't know. I feel like a high school kid all over again who's like worried that the cool kid's not going to like want to hang out with me.

So that's something that I need to get. I need to like practice and get better. And I imagine it is a practice. You just the more you do it, the easier. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think one other thing though too is just like help people. Maybe that's the same as going first. I don't know. But just if you can help. somebody with something, like people really, really appreciate that. Now, again, this is like a maintenance thing, kind of a friendship maintenance thing.

But I've had several of my friends tell me, you know, like, hey, if actually the couple that I went to go see for the anniversary, they said, if we ever got into a situation where we were in jail or, you know, anything like that, we would call you. We would definitely call you because we know that you're going to show up, but you're also going to have the ability to help us out. Help them bury the body. Yes. I would be very good at that.

Dispose of the evidence. I do have a lot of shovels. So yeah, we can do that. I'd probably call you for that, too. Yeah. Yeah. It's really funny. It's just the more you give, the more you get.

Yeah. It really is. That's really a, yeah. That's a true thing. All right. Moment of truth, though. Okay. Do you ever get frustrated?

Because I imagine a lot of people don't reciprocate these principles. Do you ever find yourself getting frustrated with people? No. No? No? I don't think I do. It's really unconditional. Like you just kind of give and you're like, if people don't reach out back to you or do things back for you, you like you don't get frustrated or resentful or.

No, I mean, if it was something, I guess if it was like a huge sum of money or something like that and then I just never talked to me again. Maybe I would. But it's never been like that. I just find that I don't know. You just, what else is there to do but help people in life? Honestly, what else is there to do? I know that sounds cheesy as shit. And seriously, when it comes down to it, like, what else is there to do?

We're going to Photoshop like you and a mother Teresa nun outfit. And then put in the cheesy cursive font like the, what else is there to do but help people? I'm not, okay, yes. Okay, I'm virtue signaling. Yes, yes, you got me. Fine. Put some PBS music under it. like, light a candle.

But it's not even that. I mean, like, you're not wrong. Hold a door open for somebody. You're not wrong. Like, even down to that. Like, just what else is there to do about help people? I mean, I'm with you. Like, and I think ultimately, like, philosophically, the things that feel meaningful in the

long run are the things that we do for other people, the impact that we have on people's lives and the relationships we build from that impact. It's so funny, too, because like, it is. A lot of these things, they do sound very cliche, but I also think you're a little bit ahead of the curve. I think people are just too cynical these days. Like, it's just... 100%. It's just too...

It's too easy to, like, sit in your phone and look at a billion things and disagree with everybody about everything and just be like, that's lame. I'm not going to go do that. And make up an excuse to sit at home and, you know, jerk off with the cat. Like, it's... Jesus, it's... This is what our social lives have come to. I mean, I don't... I don't know.

You have a... dog maybe. I don't know. Like whatever, whatever you're into, hamster, whatever you're into. Whatever you do. The catches in the corner watching. What is fucking going on here? Back to the mother Teresa. Yeah, what we're talking about? Let's stick with the mother Teresa. Okay. But yeah, I think it's too easy to do that. And I definitely, again, I feel my, I feel myself getting sucked into that cynical vortex. Right. Well, yeah, the conversation with John height he talked about this too right that that that television probably like it didn't rot our brains but it probably destroyed social capital isolated us it isolated us and i would say you know uh modern

digital technology does that even more yeah so absolutely yeah that's that's another goes back to the showing up thing but i i have a default basically to just say yes when everybody somebody invites me to something i kind of just i say yes yeah and then you know it's it's one of those things you get to the day and you're like oh i said yes to this thing that happens all the time and i still go and nine times out of 10, I'm so glad that I went. Yeah. 100%.

So just, yeah, putting yourself out there, getting going. I don't know, though. Okay, so that, that though is, again, that's a lot of like friendship

maintenance stuff. Sure. And again, I have the capacity and like the bandwidth to be able to do that. Yep. Because I don't have

these other big relationship obligations in my life right now. Yeah. I mean, if you got married, it'd ruin all this. Well, okay.

So is that, is that true? Because I think a lot of people say, well, it's nice. It must be nice. You don't have a partner and kids and this job that is just draining and, you know.

I think so relationships and kids, it's not that it gets harder. It just there's more complexity. Yeah. Every time you make a friend or meet somebody, there's kind of like this internal process as you figure out, okay, does my wife like his wife, like is this going to be like a couple's friendship, which you have like that's a thing. is it like, oh, this is one of my guy friends or this is, you know, this is going to be like her friend or this is my friend or whatever. And then I think when you introduce kids, there's like an even like there's a third layer of that complexity, which is does our kid get along with their kid? Are they close in age? Do they play well together? Then it's do we get along with the parents?

Could we travel with them? You know, oftentimes what you find is, and this gets frustrated when you're when you're married is, you know, it's like, my wife will meet somebody and they get along great. They start to become really good friends. And then I go meet the husband and it's like we have nothing in common and we have nothing to talk about. And so then it kind of becomes this question of like, okay, do he and I just kind of like quietly suffer through an awkward dinner or weekend or whatever so that our wives can be happy

or have fun or do they just go off and be friends on their own? So there's a lot of like, I don't know, situations like that. But I think the principle is the same. You show up for people. You go first. You reach out first. And you be helpful. Right.

Right. Yeah. And again, it goes back to the like understanding the tradeoffs. I think if there are people who probably do say, you know, they say, oh, it must be nice not to have kids, not to, you know, be married and unattached to all these things and whatever. There's also, I understand that tradeoff, though. I don't have a stable partner in that situation. that that's there for me. And instead, I've put that energy into some friendships, you know, which, you know, when it comes down to it, you know, my friends who are married or whatever, they have that stable. One person they can go to for everything. I don't have that. Yeah. So I've traded that off. I will say it like, it can work in the other direction too. Like it is really cool. Like when you do find, it's hard to find, but when you do find that couple where you both like them both equally, like, and they both like, and they both like. And they both like.

like you both equally, it's awesome. Yeah. Like, it's a really cool thing, but it's, it's hard to find. Yeah. Well,

that was kind of my next point I was going to make was the finding depth over breadth. Like, if you can find that couple and, you know, you don't need to find 10 couples that you can hang out with. You just, you probably need one to two couples that you guys can hang out with regularly. And I think you're going to be set.

You know, I, I joke. I don't have like tons and tons of friends. I have a group of, a core group of people that I can turn to. Yeah. And then, you know, then there's kind of a concentric rings, you know, the circles going further out.

But I think focusing more on depth of relationships, especially as you get older, is definitely the way to go. Drew Bernie goes deep inside just a few people. Cut that. And now a word from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Tell Us Online Security. Tag season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what?

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It's the family and friends event at Shoppers Drug Mart. Get 20% off almost all regular-priced merchandise. Two days only. Tuesday, April 28th, and Wednesday, April 29th. Open your PC Optimum app to get your coupon. All right, and we're back. Drew has come back from his submergence. What's on the docket today, Drew?

What is brilliant or bullshity today? What are we? Brilliant or bullshit, Mark, can YouTubers take the place of some of your casual friends? YouTubers, content creators, personal or public figures. What do you think of this? I am the only emotional sustenance anybody needs. Like and subscribe. Yeah, like and subscribe.

Smash that like button. And I too will be your friend. Yeah. Wait, no, is this really a thing? Like being serious, like what is this? So there's this study. It came out in nature too. So, you know, a high impact journal.

Prestigious journal. Prestigious journal, which doesn't mean it's right. But, you know. people perceive what they call parasycial relationships, which are basically one, one-sided relationships. So like a YouTuber, a celebrity, fictional characters even too. People can actually, they report anyway, that those relationships that they have,

those one-sided relationships they have, are actually more fulfilling than just like a casual acquaintance in-person interaction that they might have, or relationship. You might have a repeated relationship with somebody who's kind of considered like a casual friend. They actually find it more emotionally fulfilling to have a one-sided relationship with a public figure of some kind. That makes sense to me.

Okay. And that actually might, and all kidding aside, that actually does make sense to me. Only because it's a casual friendship or a casual acquaintance. Right. So it wasn't the case with close personal relationships. Those were valued the most valuable. Right. That makes sense to me because as somebody who, like if you watch a, if you watch,

watch streamers, for instance. I'm a huge gamer, as most my fans know. I've been watching Twitch almost daily for the last 10 years. I follow a lot of big streamers. I like watching. To me, it's actually very fascinating to watch streams, like watch the chat, the community around a streamer and how they interact with them. And then there's been a few streamers that I've been fans of and I've interacted with. So I get that because it is very like the the stream. streaming culture, and I think to a less, like TikTok feels a little bit this way to a lesser extent. I think some of the way that people use Instagram through like Instagram stories or Snapchat,

a lot of these forms of social media, it is extremely parasycial. It's basically optimized for a parasycial relationship. You know, most of the social media stuff that I do or that we do, it's like very unidirectional. It's like broadcast, you know, so it's like we post, I post stuff I write on. on Twitter and Instagram and, you know, we craft these highly produced YouTube videos and then we produce these pod. This is probably the closest thing we have to like a parissocial relationship with the audience. But like there's a lot of social media out there that is very much geared

and optimized to make people feel like they're hanging out with a fun and cool friend. I understand too why it's more satisfying because it requires no investment. It's always entertaining, like the person you're a fan of or whatever, like, they entertain you, they make you happy, they make you laugh. And there's like there's zero downside or social risk. Whereas when you meet a stranger and acquaintance, like let's say you go to a birthday party or something, you meet somebody new, there's like all this awkward stuff that happens of like, am I saying the right thing? Was that joke weird? Am I being funny? Like, does this person like me? You know, like there's kind of this like a lot. of the awkward stuff that you have to feel out when you meet a new person and you're not really sure if they like you or not. So I get it. I actually totally get it. Yeah. That I believe it. I don't think this is bullshit. I think it's brilliant. Well, and the authors of this study, too, they kind of theorize that there's kind of this shift going on right now. And it was, it's for a long time in the kind of media research landscape. It's been thought that people kind of

glom onto these relationships, these parasocial relationships, because they don't have anything else in their life. They're using it in place of something else in their life. They're saying, actually, this might be like kind of a healthy way to feel like you have some sense of either belonging or in this case, what it really is is that they feel like these relationships are at least responsive to them, not directly like they're not responding to them, but they're like, they're responsive to my needs because they're talking about things. that are important to me or they're making content about things that are important to me. And they are the person on in aggregate, again, I'm thinking of streamers here.

In aggregate, they are, like, you are part of 2,000 people in the chat that the streamer is responding to. You know, so it's like if the chat kind of like gets upset about something or starts, you know, trashing the streamer or making jokes or whatever, like the streamer is going to react. So it is, there is some form of interaction that's going on. And I also agree with that too. Like I definitely, again, like there are a number of people that I follow on social media that I have somewhat of a parasycial relationship. Like I'm a fan.

I enjoy just kind of sitting around watching them play a game. I think they're funny. Like I think their community is interesting or entertaining. And to me, it definitely supplements my social life. It's not a replacement for my social life. Yeah. So I get that too. Okay.

Yeah. Well, another interesting finding from this study was, They did three different studies in this. And the last one they did was they kind of, well, first of all, they gave people a self-esteem questionnaire. They kind of divided them into high and low self-esteem. And then they had them write about a time in which they were socially threatened in some way, you know, like being ostracized or neglected in some way from a group or whatever it was. And then they asked them another series of questions about these parisocial relationships with YouTubers or whatever they had. The people with high self-esteem still thought, you know, like, yes, during these times I would, like, they would help assuage some of this, like, social threat that I have.

The people with low self-esteem just consistently, doesn't matter if they're socially threatened or not, they consistently turn towards them. So I think that might be hinting at the beginnings of a toxic relationship with this. So I'm wondering about the limits here. What do you think about that? Obviously, like, if somebody's crazy and they're stalking. I'm not talking about that level. There are definitely unhealthy parasycial relationships. And I definitely do think there are streamers and creators who kind of foster a toxic relationship with their audience.

You know, they kind of thrive on antisocial behavior. And then the audience kind of gets the vicarious thrill of the antisocial behavior through the streamer. And yeah, I think it can just, it's another. case of like attracting a lot of very low self-esteem people and then like having them live vicariously through your risk taking and your like egregious behavior. To kind of like get them, I guess, hooked on your personality to a certain extent. There's a lot of culty type stuff that goes on. I think if you, I think it's it's kind of impossible to talk about this without bringing up

only fans and just like the insane numbers behind only fans. I not that I have I'm familiar with only fans. I'm actually in seriousness. I'm not familiar with only fans. I've never been ever ever tried to do that I've never signed up for only fans, but I've heard stories of just like insane shit that's happened on only fans and like absurd amounts of money that are paid yeah to usually women for like very toxic behaviors. I do know that like there are there are a number of models on only fans that just like have entire teams of fake people messaging their fans on their behalf, like flirting with these like desperate, lonely guys. So as with any human relationship, there are, there's, of course, permutations of toxicity

within parasycial relationships. But I do think that the parasycial thing, I think it's very interesting. And I think this is one of the few cases that I think social media is a marked improvement over, say, television or film. Okay. Because in the TV era, people would have parapsal relationships with just this, like, fictional image on a screen. You know, it's like people would become a Tom Cruise fan and obsess about Tom Cruise.

When really it's like all you did, you just saw him in risky business and Top Gun. Like, you literally know nothing about the guy. Like, he, I mean, he is, he turned out to be a headcase and like nobody knew. Whereas social media, you're at, you are, maybe you're not getting. like the full authentic version of the of the person on social media, but you are getting some facet of their actual personality. And you are, it's driven much more by authenticity. Like the people who tend to become famous online, they tend to be famous for being who they are,

not because they're playing a character in a movie or not because they're like, you know, on stage performing something. It's like they're in their room. They're being who they are. They've got this quirky or interesting personality. They're like really attractive or entertaining in some way. And so and they they're able to foster an ethos within their community that people like being a part of. And so I think that is actually like a much better form of parisocial relationship than say when we were growing up and just like had fucking posters of Cindy Crawford.

Right. Yeah. You're obsessing over some random celebrity. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Okay. Yeah.

So what is this, though? Like obviously we have not evolved to even be able to keep up with an environment like this. Why? What is being hacked about our brains do you think in this situation? So I find it it is very interesting that it, like people rate them higher than their just casual in-person relationships, but lower than their close connections. And yet there's a lot of loneliness going on. Sure. People say they want more friends.

Is it just, is it, I don't know, what is it, what is it hacking in our brains? Well, I think it removes the friction. Like, it allows you to feel socially connected and part of something with like, again, with zero friction, zero cost. The problem is, is that the ceiling on any parissocial relationship is extremely low. Right? So it's easy to get in and get a, get a dose of it. but, you know, the satisfaction that you get in week one or month one is probably, like,

it's probably never, it's probably never going to get much higher than that. Whereas with a casual acquaintance, you know, meeting that random person at a party, having those awkward conversations, stumbling through a couple like weird jokes or whatever, that can eventually evolve into a very deep and satisfying friendship. Like the ceiling on in-person interactions is infinitely high. Whereas the ceiling on online parasycial interactions is extremely low. It's just easy to hit that ceiling. So I think it's path of least resistance.

Okay. Okay. I mean, we've talked about this internally about the podcast. Podcasting is very different than that people listen to it while they're doing something else. And, you know, it's like when we make a YouTube video, people are just sitting down to watch the YouTube video. When we write, like when I write a book, people are just sitting down and reading the book. But with podcasting, you know, most people, statistically, most people are listening to this right now in their cars, cleaning the kitchen, taking out the trash, in the gym. And so there is one of the lessons, you know, we talked a couple episodes ago about lessons we learned from the first year of podcasting.

And one of the lessons I definitely learned is that like this medium is it's much less about, you know, like, sexy hooks and like hitting people in the face with a bunch of value and you know it's much more you're kind of hanging out with people as they go about their lives and it you're you're like kind of a companion to them and so I mean it's it it's definitely a reality and like what we work on and think about for sure well and I mean I do it as well the podcast I listen to I I see it as 100% this is a pariscial relationship 100% and so that's why yeah I'm calling brilliant on this one too it's okay not bullshit it's all brilliant On that note, we'll be right back.

Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flame thrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the Everyday with Amazon. All right. We're back.

What sort of questions we have this week, Drew? Well, I have a couple of questions. One from Julie. This was submitted on YouTube. She asked, is it possible to have a fulfilling life without friends? The data would suggest no. Yeah. Hard no, actually.

Yeah, a pretty hard no. We are very much wired for social relationships, It's like a group, being a part of a group, feeling a sense of belonging. Like, if you look up anything about psychological needs, like belonging is one of the first and foremost ones towards mental health. There's, I don't know how true this is. I don't know where this statistic originated, but there is a statistic that I've heard forever, which is that social isolation is just as unhealthy for you or has just as much

of an effect on your life expectancy as smoking a pack of a cigarette today. I've seen that some more too, yeah. Which is pretty mind-blowing. Yeah. So, yeah, I do think, I do think friends or some sort of community or group that you feel like you're a part of is absolutely fundamental. I think the word you said there was belonging to. The thing I had to figure out was I felt like I could fit in in a lot of different places, but I didn't feel like I belonged in a lot of different places. And that was all dependent on the people.

It was all dependent on friendships. Yeah. I've lived in a lot of different spots and, you know, felt like, yeah, I can fit in here. That's, you know, I can, I can survive. I'll be fine. Yeah. Having a sense of belonging, though, I think, is like that's next level. What is it?

I just feel like I can be myself when I feel like I'm in a place where I belong. I just, I don't feel, and I'm sure you feel this like in your marriage, you've mentioned this. Sure. You feel like you can just, there's no pretense. There's no guard up. Yeah. I feel like I can just be me without having to perform, without having to prove myself in any way, either too. It's just like a level of unconditionality there that I can feel.

And I think for me anyway, that was developed over time. Yeah. It didn't. It wasn't a thing that came. I know some people that go somewhere and like, I belong here. This is it. Right. I know it.

Right. And whether that turns out to be true or not, I have no idea. But there's people who feel that instantly. For me, it's a slow burn thing. Interesting. Yeah. It's funny because this is actually very like, this is very relevant in my life at the moment because my wife really misses New York. Yeah.

And she is, we've had this conversation where she says, I feel like I belong there and I don't belong here. And I feel kind of the opposite. I feel like in New York, I can fit in New York. I can do the New York thing. But here I feel like myself much more. And to me, you know, and my conversations. with her and like really digging into this and like what this is. We kind of discovered that a lot of it's reflective of personal values.

Like for me it's L.A., I feel like not even L.A., just like Southern California, it nudges me. The environment nudges me into being a better version of myself. That's an important point too, yeah. Whereas in New York, the environment nudges me into being a worse version of me. myself. It kind of nudges me into a lot of my addictions and compulsions and anxieties. So what was that though? What like the decision around moving from New York to L.A.? What was the conversation around that? Because you had to have been thinking of the tradeoffs, right? Yeah. What was the conversation of that with your wife? I mean, you know, she's from Brazil.

Yeah. You're from Texas. Sure. New York is cold as shit in the winter. Was that? I mean, you know, did you're like, oh, God, I'm tired of these winters and we're just going to move and you didn't think of all the other things around it or? It's funny. I have a very contrarian take on weather, which is I feel like... So the two things that I've... Here's a hill I will die on. Okay.

If you love where you live or if you feel like you belong where you live, whether and taxes don't matter. Yeah. I feel like that about Colorado. So, yeah. Anytime I hear somebody start like discussing taxes or weather, I'm like, they should move because they clearly don't love where they are anymore. Right.

Another great... Can you imagine moving somewhere for all the taxes? I'm like, what the fuck? You get some rich friends. Like, if fuck it comes up all the time. Yeah, that's true. Which kills me.

Because I'm like, dude, like, you're really going to uproot your whole life to save like, you know, 8% on your income. You're already making a bazillion dollars. But it's funny. Actually, I think Derek Sivers actually said this to me privately once. He said, he said everywhere in the world has the same tax rate. You just pay in different ways. Oh, that's 100% sure.

He would know too. He's lived all over. He's paid taxes in like five different countries. Yeah. So yeah, I'm definitely a staunch believer of that. But like the conversation around leaving New York, it was very much. I mean, New York has, it burns you out pretty hard. Like it's overwhelming.

There's so much going on. She and I also lived there during the pandemic. We went through like, we went through, I mean, we had been there for six years. We went through the pandemic. We had a bunch of like very bad experiences with where we lived, which New York is absolutely famous for its atrocious housing and services. So like we just just had a nightmare scenario with one of the apartments we lived in. And so we came out of it just like we went to New Zealand to because I was shooting, I was

doing the movie. So we spent a few months down there. And while we were down there, we're like, we got to get out of New York. Yeah. This is, it's too much. We need to leave. And we actually spent a lot of time in New Zealand and we went to a part of the South Island.

We spent most of our time in Auckland and we went to Wellington. We went part of the South Island. And, you know, she was like, I could, is there anywhere in the U.S. that's kind of like this? Because I could do this. I was like, then it's Southern California. Yeah. That's kind of it, right?

So, yeah, then we came out here. We spent a few weeks here that summer. We looked at houses. We hung out with a bunch of friends. and we loved it. But it's funny because there is a, you know, there's the honeymoon phase of a location and say a group of friends.

And then there's the actual relationship with the place you live and with the group of friends. And for me, the honeymoon phase turned into like a very great relationship. I've got my gripes as with every relationship. There's a downside to living anywhere. But, you know, for her, it's, it's, I think it's, she realized it's like it's not a perfect fit.

So it is interesting. That's a question I've been thinking about quite a bit lately. It's like, what is belonging? And it's, because there's a certain aspect of it you can't control. It's just, you just feel it. Yeah. Yeah, you do. And for the longest time, I just thought, well, I don't belong anywhere.

That's how I felt. And then once you do, you're like, oh, God. You know, like what, this is what I've been missing the whole time. And it's sad to me that a lot of people don't find that. I would compare that feeling to relationships. Like, it's, it's, well, okay, that's the other question. Okay. Can you be happy without a romantic relationship?

Yes, you can. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. Yeah. There's plenty of people who are single. So here's the one. This one comes up. We had a question come in through the newsletter recently that I did not answer in the newsletter

because I told Val, I was like, I'm going to write eight pages if I try to answer this. But a number of questions have come through around this around sex. Like, I would throw, we can throw a third question to the end of this. Can you be happy without sex?

That question actually came up too. I didn't include it here. Okay. So let's do romantic relationships first. So you can totally be happy throughout your life completely single without a romantic relationship. That said, people in romantic relationships, it cuts both ways. So if the relationship's good, you will be happier than you were if you were single. And if the relationship is bad, you'll be less happy than you were fucking common sense.

But it's the sort of thing like it's, you know, I guess risk reward type thing. So it's better to be single than in a bad relationship, but it's better to be in a good relationship. Like, on average, you will be happier in a good relationship than no relationship. Well, what do you think about turning your friends into romantic relationships? I think that's a great way to do it. I don't know. I would argue that. So, okay, so it's funny.

When I, when I, the fun thing about getting married is that everybody you've ever known, every old person you've ever known, starts just giving you unsolicited advice. Okay. Like what to do, what not to do. You actually learn a lot about your like extended family about some of the shit that they say to you. But it was interesting, you know, Fernanda and I, we noticed that like when we got married, all of the old people in our families who were still married and still happy, they all said the same thing. They said the friendship has to come first. The friend, like, if you're not friends, nothing else will last or like, like, The best way it was put to me is that everything else is going to come and go.

You know, the sex is going to come and go. The attractiveness is going to come and go. Like, their career is going to do great. It's going to do bad. Your career is going to do great. Everything's going to be in flux all the time. The only thing that's going to keep everything like tethered together is a strong friendship. If the friendship's not there, you're going to just be tossed, you know, like in a storm.

Yeah. So that made a lot of sense to me. And I, you know, as somebody who's been married 12 or been with her for 12 years, that feels very true. It's like every year's different. Our lives change constantly. She and I both change quite a bit. We're both very different people than we were 10 years ago. But the friendship is like what holds everything together.

Right. Right. Yeah. And I mean, I went the anniversary party I went back for, an anniversary dinner. They'd been together 15 years. since they were like late teens or like babies late teens or like in college they meant yeah yeah and that they say the same thing there's no way you can make it through that without being really good friends i feel like any any happy couple i've ever talked to about this they all say

it's the friendship has to come first right and it's funny it's similar it's like the tax so sex is the taxes of relationships like anytime people start complaining about sex it's like okay there's no friendship there. Like they've lost the friendship because I have found that like when when people are unhappy in the relationship that's when that's when they start getting upset about about sex that's when they start getting upset about like well he spends this money and you know I think we should be saving more and like you know or like she should take the kids to school more often they start arguing about chores they start arguing about like you know all like the the kind of surface level stuff

that if there's a happy, stable friendship there, yeah, you'll argue about it, but it sorts itself out. Because it's like when you're happy together, you're both willing to compromise and be like, you know what, I'll take the kids at school. Yeah. You know, I'll do this.

Like, she'll do that, you know, whatever. But when there's not a friendship there, it becomes a power struggle. And then it's like, well, you know, I'm not going to give this up because you didn't give that up. And you're not giving me this, so I'm not going to give you that.

But if you give me that, I'll give you this. Right. Would you treat your friend that way? Like, No. Right. Yeah.

No, that's like you'd fucking stop being friends with that person. But for some reason, in a romantic relationship, a lot of people think that this is like completely justified behavior. Right. And it's because they're not friends. Yeah. Yeah. I would also say to the best relationship advice, like the best dating advice is to go make new friends. Yeah.

Not necessarily even to date them, but you're going to meet more people that way. And then you also start from that friends, friendship as a priority. type of thing. You see how relationships with just friends work and then to get into relationships after that. I think that's, I don't know. I don't think I've ever really turned a, like a good friend into a relationship. That's never really happened with me. But I've met a lot of friends. Yeah. I met a lot of people I've dated through through friends. I feel I've heard of that happening. I don't think it's very common. But I would be very curious to see if there's any data out there on marriage success based on how you meet. I imagine there is. Yeah. I imagine meeting through friends

is probably the most successful way to like find a partner. I imagine maybe meeting through work is another one. I imagine dating apps is its hit rate is not great. I don't know. We'd have to look into that. That's a good one to look up.

Yeah. I like it. Maybe that's the next brilliant or bullshit thing. Yeah. Could be. All right. Cool. Well, that's all for this episode. Be sure to submit your questions. You can either comment on YouTube, or send them to podcast at markmanson.net. Please be sure to follow the show, like and subscribe, do all that good stuff.

It helps us. Know that we're doing a good job. Helps us feel like we have a parissocial relationship with you. What is the weekly wisdom this week? It comes from the great philosopher Bruce Lee. Love is like a friendship caught on fire. Ooh. Fire emoji.

Fire emoji. All right. On that note. See you guys next week. Thanks for listening. The subtle art of Not Getting a Fuck podcast is produced by Drew Bernie. It's edited by Andrew Nishimura. Jessica Choi is our videographer and sound engineer.

Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.