Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 464: How to Keep Friendships From Imploding | Esther Perel

Episode Date: June 22, 2022

“The quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life.” These words from the legendary Esther Perel have the power to genuinely change your outlook on life. But while it’s easy to hear them and immediately have your mind go to family relationships or romantic relationships, today we’re going to talk about friendships. Friendships can be massive contributors to mental health. They can also, when they go pear-shaped, be the source of abundant misery. Today’s guest is the legendary Esther Perel. Her resume is beyond impressive: She is a psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of books such as Mating in Captivity. Her TED talk has attracted more than 30 million views. She is fluent in nine languages.  She is the host of the popular podcasts Where Should We Begin? and How’s Work? And her latest project is called Where Should We Begin - A Game of Stories with Esther Perel. In this episode we talk about: How the pandemic has impacted our friendshipsEsther’s contention that “love and commitment and intimacy don’t just belong to the world of romantic couples”What makes friendship unique, in good ways and tricky waysWhat to consider when determining whether to confront a difficulty in a friendshipHow to conduct a self-assessment of yourself as a friendHow systematic we should be about cultivating and maintaining our friendshipsHow to reconnect with friends authenticallyWhether or not we can have platonic friendships across the gender spectrumHow to handle friendships when you’re in a romantic relationship, including friendships you share, friendships with those with whom your partner doesn’t get along, and friendships with exesContent warning: There are some brief references to sensitive topics, including suicide. *Esther Perel invites you and a colleague to apply for a session with her that will be part of the new season of her podcast How's Work? Her team is looking for work pairs, co-founders, colleagues, managers, or any combination to join her for a session to explore the future of work together. Apply here.Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/esther-perel-464See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, hey, if you're listening to this show odds are that you are interested in getting happier or at least being less unhappy. The human animal engages in all kinds of endeavors both wise and unwise, scientifically validated or thoroughly debunked in order to boost happiness or reduce its opposite. But often in this pursuit, we overlook the variable that is probably the most important when it comes to psychological flourishing, and that is other people. As my guests today once told me,

and this is an utterance that has genuinely changed my outlook on life, the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life. Okay, so it's easy to hear this and to immediately have your mind go to family relationships or romantic relationships, but today we're gonna talk about the kind of relationship that I suspect many of us may not approach as intentionally or systematically as we do family and romance. And that is friendship. Friendship can be a massive contributor to mental

health. It can also, when it goes pear-shaped, be the source of abundant misery. My guest today is the legendary Esther Perel. Her resume is beyond impressive, psychotherapist, New York Times bestselling author of books such as mating and captivity, Ted Tucker with more than 30 million views, fluent in nine languages, host of the popular podcasts, where should we begin and how's work. And she's got a new project, which is called, where should we begin a game of stories with Esther Perel? It's not exactly a board game, but it's a game that you can play with friends or family

or whatever, and it's actually pretty cool. I've got one at home here. In this conversation, we talk about how the pandemic has impacted our friendships, her contention that love and commitment and intimacy don't just belong to the world of romantic couples that's a quote, actually. Her view on what makes friendship unique in good ways

and tricky ways, what to consider when determining whether to confront a difficulty with one of your friends, how to conduct a self-assessment of yourself as a friend, how systematic we should be about cultivating and maintaining our friendships, how to reconnect with old friends in a way that is likely to actually work, whether or not we can have platonic friendships across the gender spectrum, how to handle friendships when you're in a

romantic relationship, including friendships you share, friendships with whom your partner doesn't get along, and friendships with X's. So juicy stuff here. Heads up, there are some brief references to sensitive topics, including suicide. Also, you will hear some occasional background noise on her and she was recording at home in New York City. Before we jump into today's show,

many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelli McGonicle and the great meditation teacher, Alexis Santos, to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm.

All one word spelled out. Okay. On with the show. Hey, y'all. It's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer and entrepreneur on with the show. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. On my new podcast, Baby This is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad.

Where did memes come from? And where's Tom from, MySpace? Listen to Baby This is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcast. That's Terri Perrell. Nice to see you. Welcome back to the show. Pleasure to be back. Number three. Yes. Number three. You have a good memory. I'm curious as a starting point, you are well known for a number of reasons,

but perhaps most prominently for being a psychotherapist who has a specialty in working with romantic partners, couples and married couples and other kinds of couples. Yet you are currently really interested in friendship. Why? I think that my interest in friendships is not new. I have always been interested in friendships and I have done friendship therapy. I have had many times where someone talks to me

about a friendship that is struggling and I say, would you like to bring your friends for a session? Or I have worked with people who were suicidal and I gathered around them a group of friends that were gonna hold that person and make sure that they don't collapse friends that we're going to hold that person and make sure that they don't collapse and that they're there to support them and do a bit of a watch on them. I've always thought that love and commitment and intimacy don't just belong to the world of romantic couples. But I think that the pandemic, that two years of living in isolation has really changed a lot of things about our

friendships. Those who suddenly emerged as closer friends that we had not really been that close to because they happened to be physically in proximity to where we were. Those we lost touch with, those who kind of moved and we suddenly, you know, they're not coming back and friendships and the importance of them, for those who didn't necessarily have family around so that it becomes a family of choice. So from different angles, the immediate and the more ongoing, my focus on friendships has become very central. You've written that friendship is a uniquely free choice relationship, which is interesting.

I never really thought about it that way. You don't sign any contract the way you often do when you get married. Well, for a child, let's start because one of the beautiful things is that friendships can start very, very early on in your life. And it is one of the first free choice relationships that children have. You don't choose your family. You don't choose when your parents decide or your mother or your father, whoever decide to have another child. And a sibling comes along. Friendship is free choice. You decide who you like to play with.

And very early on, people will make sure that you get to see those people that you like because you can't get to them alone yet. But it is a place for freedom, autonomy, choice, et cetera. And it fluctuates. It's suddenly you can say, I don't want to play with that person anymore. So you get to say yes, and you get to say no.

With a romantic partner, which comes in adulthood, you do choose in the and you get to say no. With a romantic partner which comes in adulthood, you do choose in the West, we choose our partners, but it still is a very different relationship than your friends. You get to be more friends with somebody than they are sometimes with you. Friendships are a network of generation. Some of them are tight-knots. They accompany you throughout your whole life.

And some of them are kind of loose threats. You know, you'd move in and the neighborhood temporarily. And the people next door became your friends for a while, but it didn't graft itself to anything bigger. And it kind of fizzles out. It is very rare that a romantic relationship doesn't end with a major statement that says we are done, we will no longer be together. But a friendship, you never know sometimes when is the last text that you will be writing.

But that text became the last text, you don't necessarily know why. Unless there's a real fight crisis, something has happened. Often they fizzle out without you even being in charge of it. It kind of is a sense of atrophy inertia that sets in. So it has a lot of unique features, friendships. There's, I can see many other things, but that's just to start. I'm so intrigued by the fact that you actually do couples

counseling for friends. And just to bring up another thing, you've written that friendship can be as complex as a romantic relationship. We think of these as sort of blithe and easy, but they're not. You know, it's interesting. I have been asking people sometimes about lost friendships

or break up in friendships. And what's fascinating is how much they linger in people's memory. I mean, these are not small experiences. The friend who let you down. The friend who wasn't there when you needed them. The friend who chose to remain friends with your partner when you broke up and not with you. The friend who knew about the affair and never told you, the friend who owes you money,

the friend with whom you went into business. These are very loaded because you have expectations because there is a sense of loyalty, there is a sense of fairness, there is a sense of reciprocity. You expect to be treated as a friend. Everybody has a code in their head of what they think is a friend. There's not a single person, you can ask sometimes,

what is the definition of a friend who doesn't have something to say? What is it like to be a friend to somebody? What is it like to have a friend? How do you make friends? What is a friend? Everybody knows it because everybody has lived an entire life history with people who they called you are my friend You are no longer my friend. I thought we were friends. Would you be willing to be my friends? Are we friends for life?

We are surrounded by stories of friendships to other lives. I find that I can get my feelings hurt in friendship, not in frequently, from not being invited to a thing that everybody else is being invited to, to not feeling like the reciprocity isn't there with somebody who I would like to be friends with. What are your thoughts on how to handle that? Well, having your feelings hurt in friendships

is because friendship is a love story. But we tend to think of love story as romantic stories. Friendship is a love story, and a love story comes with boundaries, expectations, loyalties, friends provide community and continuity in an ever-changing world. There's often the witnesses of our lives that accompany us while lovers come and go, but the friends are

there to stay. The friends will go with us through our job changes on family rifts, the deaths, the recovery. I mean, and when the friend doesn't call you, it instantly says, am I important to you? Do I matter? Does it make a difference if I'm there or not? I thought we were friends. It's interesting. I did an episode of two men who are friends, who taught they were friends, who grew up together like every day, every day, every day. And the whole thing is that each of them projects that the other no longer particularly has a room for them in their life or a need for them in their life or a need for them in their life. It's totally not the case, but both of them are walking around hurt thinking that you

found other people in college who are much more to your liking than me and you seem to have gone off and tried to do business and you are driving in your work world and you really don't have much time for friends anymore. And each of them is living with rejection because that's what happens when you're not invited and your feelings are hurt, you feel rejected, you feel abandoned, you feel like I would never do this. I thought I was important to you. I thought we have a story and suddenly I'm edited out of the story called our friendship and that hurts.

So then the question is, what do you do? Do you tell the person? It's a very challenging thing. That's why this friendship therapy became so interesting to me. It's like sometimes it feels so much more difficult to tell a friend than it would be to tell a sibling or a colleague or a romantic partner. I really wondered why I wasn't invited.

Then you have to admit, I'm insecure. I really wondered why I wasn't in right, then you have to admit, I'm in secure, I'm lonely, I'm vulnerable. Maybe do I care about you more than you care about me? Is this that, you know, you have better friends than me, etc. When I was young, I loved to connect my friends to each other. But then I became always afraid that the friends I would introduce to each other would become tighter. And I would suddenly be siphoned out. But I could resist the pleasure of introducing them. And at the same time, it came with a bit of an anxiety of, and what if they can do this

perfectly fine without me? So it's very raw, it's very tender. The kinds of feelings of rejection and exclusion and who is in and who is out that friendships elicit in us, evoke in us. Have you ever told a friend when you feel this light at you? What do you do? I may have told a friend but I can't think of a time when I've actually done it. So maybe but I can't remember one. And I guess when you were describing that maybe the move is to say to somebody, Hey, I felt hurt that you didn't invite me to this or done it. So maybe, but I can't remember one. And I guess when you were describing that maybe the move is to say to somebody, Hey, I felt hurt that you didn't invite me to this or maybe you don't

want to be a friend as much as I do, I went right to thinking, well, that kind of thirst, maybe unattractive to many people. And so it might actually doom the friendship even further. That's possible. That sometimes can happen. Sometimes, you know, you say, it's interesting. We've never traveled together. We used to go and listen to a lot of live music. What happened to us? You know, it'd be really nice to go and do another ski trip together. And then you watch what is the response. I think also what happens is as we get older, sometimes when people are partnered, then the question becomes, how do you stay friends without it having to become instantly a diadic arrangement

rather than a one-on-one? But yes, sometimes if you say that, you'll actually get the truth in your face. Then the truth is, the only reason you still see this person is because you're the one who has been making all the initiatives. And that, in fact, when you look at it the last three years, it's always you inviting them and you have yet to be invited there. It's a very painful moment when you realize, looks like this thing is not driving very much, it's not alive. And I am putting all the efforts in and they're not really

coming back. And do I want to do that? So there's a lot of little moments of reckoning like that. And sometimes it's sitting with someone and just saying, you know what? Everybody does evaluations all the time. The only people who actually never sit down and say, how's our friendship doing? How do you think we're doing? Do you think we're just limping along here?

Or I have a sense that I'm the one who's doing all the work. But you're write that the consequence of the conversation is always the possibility that the relationship may show its true weakness. But you would recommend that we gather that data rather than walk around haunted by the suspicion. If you are walking around haunted by the suspicion, then sometimes I say you can stop the haunting, but just finding out. Sometimes,

if you say, it's not haunting, it's just something that lives inside of me, but it doesn't plague me particularly. Then I say, well, live as is. It's the context that will determine what would happen if this friendship ended. And if you tell me, I would rather it continue as is than have none, then don't say anything. Then try to do other things to make sure that the person stays in your life. The confrontation for its own sake is not important. It depends on what will be the consequences of telling. Every time you speak about something, before you speak, my first question is, well, we'd be the consequences of knowing.

How do you go about, and how would you recommend we go about the process of making cultivating friendships and then maintaining them? How deliberate are you about this? It's interesting. The question about how much does one deliberately invest in friendships? I could probably speak at it a lot from a personal point of view. First of all, when you are a foreigner coming to a new country as I was, you have to be deliberate about making new friends. And when you then go back home, I went home for many years with many friends who had

never been here. And so I knew my life there and I knew their life, but they had never seen my new life. And I'd traveled for 10 years to meet my best friends who didn't come. And I would say to her, you know, you've never come to New York, you've never come visit me. But I would say jokingly, I have friends that have come here hundreds of times to have dinner with me. I've never been to their homes. I know that. But I'm not the only one who have never been to their homes. I know that, but I'm not the only one who hasn't been to their homes. But what happens if you find out that other people have been and you have not, say, now the plot tickles, right? So, sometimes, if it's a thing that comes easy to you, building community, introducing people to

each other, then it's a wonderful way to enrich you like. I think that like all relationships, they are like plants, they need water. If you don't water them, some of them can kind of exist on a long-term basis with very little. And every time you water them, they flourish suddenly. Like, relationships where you see people once a year, but every time you see them, it's just like yesterday, because it's just living inside of you, the extent to which you need to write a call

or being direct contact with friends, that depends. There are people you see twice a week and you're not nearly as close to them as people you haven't seen in five years. It's very interesting when you begin to dig into what makes a friendship and a lasting friendship and on what does it hold, on what does it rest? It is clear that there are friendships that are historical,

that if you met them today, you probably would not become friends with them, but they're a part of your life, they're a part of your story. Whereas the friendships that you make later on, you know instantly who you click with and who you wanna see again. And because it isn't built on,

we are in school together and there is a structure that forces us to meet. You know that the only reason you meet is because you have shared interest, communities and the pleasure of being together. It's magic, it's medicine. It's magic and medicine. Yes, it's pleasure, magic medicine, It's magic, it's medicine. It's magic and medicine. Yes, it's pleasure, magic medicine, it's all of it.

It's an understudied and an undervalued relationship, especially in countries and cultures that like to talk about self-reliance and individualism and all of that, because a friendship is very much an interdependent relationship. The flip side of it though is, as you've already discussed, when you extend yourself in this way, when you engage in the love story, love, we're using the broad, capacious understanding of that word, when you engage in this love story with a friend, you're making yourself vulnerable. You can get hurt. You probably will get hurt. That is true. That is true. And you're making yourself vulnerable. You can get hurt. You probably will get hurt.

That is true. That is true. And I think one of the ways you know you're becoming somebody's friend is when they introduce you to their other friends. One of the ways that you know that you are no longer someone's friend is when they see those other people without you. So it's a very communal experience friendship as well. I mean, sometimes it's very much one on one,

but there is a lot of it that is I'm bringing you into my world. And I think that that is one of the things that people really experience during the pandemic now where the community shrunk into pods and pods were the few people that you were living with and relying upon, whereas the community is the secondary and tertiary people. It's all the friends of your friend that you see only when you see that friend, but they're

very important people in the fabric of our life, in the social fabric. So that I think is a very big difference, is We could look at what is the one on one friendships, and then what is the communal experience of friendships? It's both ends. After the break, how to figure out whether to address conflicts with your friends, and how to assess whether you are actually a good friend. After this. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life.

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on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. I'm curious about, and I'm sure that you make these decisions on a case-by-case basis. So, I apologize if this is an unfair question, but when your friends let you down, do you generally brooch the subject directly with them? So, there is when the friends let me down, and there is when the friends have rejected me,

which one are we going with? I've had both. I would like to hear both, actually. The easier one is when friends let you down. Come on, I'm traveling all the way to see you and this is the time you decide to go do XYZ. I made such an effort, really. I don't find that difficult to say to people

because I know that I'm investing and I know that they care and I find the relationship is robust enough that it can hold things like this. Or when people say to me, you're late again, you know, because my time is also important. I'm going to be your friend, you cannot do this to me kind of thing. And I'm just on the other side saying, you're absolutely right and we're going to change this. I find that a letdown, depending on the story, if you believe in the robustness of the relationship, you need to be able to say, I'm mad, I'm hurt, I'm sad,

to somebody that you think you care about and who cares about you. The rejection piece is a more challenging one because sometimes you know why someone drops you and you did something or you went out there for them, or they couldn't accept the let down, or there are people who systematically cut off when there is this conflict.

And you've always thought that it wouldn't happen to you, but you become the next one in line. Or because you did something that you don't even know exactly what it is. And those are the real confusing ones. And I have one day called dear dear friend who cut off. And I finally reached him. And I cannot tell you how much I was sweating and palpitating,

just finally getting on the line and just saying, you know, what happened? And he just said, you know, the panel person, I want to be friends with anymore. And it was crushing. I have never forgotten it, because I have lifelong friends. This is not a thing that happens to me. And what hurts was that he didn't give me a chance to repair.

I can take responsibility if I do things. But then I want to be able to make up. I want to be able to be established. Maybe it'll take a while. We have to have an off-rand. We're not right back instantly where we left off. But give me a chance. I think the more painful thing was that I was just told, you're done.

You do not get a second chance here. And whenever I have to tell stories of painful breakups, I often will tell of this one. And I probably have done similar in reverse. The thing with friendship is that you can find that you have been on both sides many times, that it's easy to identify with each side. That does sound really painful, just to affirm. Have you ever had a bad break up with a friend? I'm struggling to remember where a bright line was drawn in the same way in which you just described. But I've had painful drifting apart where I can think of one friend where we were very close, extremely close for a long time. And I'll be gender-nonspecific here. They moved away. And it was pretty shocking to see

the thing atrophy. I'm still a little kind of, takes my breath away when I consider how that's gone. And they take a part of your life with them. It's a whole history that is shared that you can tell to somebody else, but not with the person with whom you lived it. You tell that trip, you tell that concert, whatever thing you did.

And there's such a pleasure in retelling early stories with friends that are still in your life that when they're gone, it's like pages torn out of your diary. Yes. And the other thing that I find very interesting is, except for BumbleBFF, I think there are no other apps for friends. All the apps are to find partners or lovers or hookups, but not friends. Meetups used to be one of the ways people would try and connect with new people. I would love to have apps for people to meet friends.

We should start that company because it is meeting a primordial need. Come back to me. So just to go back to how you handle these situations, what I'm hearing, and I just want to make sure I'm right about this, is it seems like you are more inclined to broach things directly with people, to say what's on your mind rather than to harbor simmering resentments. Well, I think that my behavior is probably different if it's frustrations and simmering resentments, if it's a feelings of rejection and if it's feelings of hurt. I think that the first thing you ask yourself in terms of your own relational

self-awareness is what am I feeling in this relationship? And how do I see my behavior and how do I imagine that the other person perceives my way of being. I think that one of the ways that this has often come up is when couples split up. A number of my friends have been in couples, have been friends with the couple, and then they split up and then it's like, can you stay friends with both?

It's one of these classic questions that people ask all the time, right? And then it depends if I think that you're someone who knows how to say, yes, I did this, I realized I did this, and this is why I did this, that's what I think about it, or you say, I'm sorry, or you say, you owe me an apology, actually, or if I'm with someone who I think that's not the way they operate, there's no point in going to tell them how you feel, because either you'll get defensiveness or dismissal or their joke They'll make light of it. So let it go. I think instead of saying specifically the way I do it I would say what are the many things I'm thinking about I think how much does this friendship matter to me?

You know, or is it just that I'm kind of narcissistically wounded that somebody is letting dropping drop me. And but in fact, I don't so much care about you. I don't so much want to be with you. I just want you to be with me. That version. You know, and say, okay, parallel, a little bit of honesty, let it go. You know, if it's somebody you've known for a long time, and you just say, oh, come on, we're not going to spoil this for this incident. What are you doing? Then I'm just going to go and say, look, I owe you a major apology for what you feel I did. But I value what we have.

And then they may say, well, if you value what you have, you wouldn't have done this. I came to New York and you managed not to see me once. That's a classic one. You know, there's a lot of forevers, friendship dances like that. And you kind of want to say, I'm so sorry. But basically, what you need to see instead of explaining yourself and justifying yourself is, I get it. I wouldn't want to be the one that traveled across the ocean to then have you show up. I turned 60 a few years back. I invited people from my whole life

friends because I don't have a large family and I have only one brother and I invited really my family of choice, my friends from some of them I know from age six. People came from all over and for the first time the friends of my different lives met together in one place. It was really a beautiful tablooh, what was very important was to explain to each person why the fact that they came mattered. What is often so moving is when you go to celebrate a friend of their graduation, their wedding, their birthday, whatever.

And they basically explain why your presence is important to them. It's such an incredibly affirming experience. And I have been to another birthday recently where I said to the birthday girl who was doing her speech. I said, don't just say thank you all for coming. Look at the table and tell each person what they mean for you. And then I said to all the table, each of us here are here because we are important friends to this person. Why don't we each say one thing about what it's like for us to have this person in our life? This is food, this is nourishment for the soul.

So when you ask me, do you only go to tell about bad stuff? I think that what I also want to highlight is sometimes how important it is to say the good stuff. Why these people are so important? They were there when you got sick, they were there when you parent died, they were there when you child had problems, they were there when you marriage was in match angles, they were there when you had no job, they were there when you needed to renovate your place and you had a flood and you needed to go live somewhere else.

I mean, there's so many things that we typically go to ask friends that we don't necessarily even ask our family. In the last answer you gave, there was particularly the lightful little moment where you talked to yourself, okay, Perel, and it got me thinking about the fact that you have listed provocative questions that people might ask themselves to do a kind of self-assessment, to really see themselves clearly as they walk through this, I think undervalued, under-explored,

but incredibly important realm of friendship. So I was thinking maybe it's worth talking about the kind of self-assessment we can all do. How much of my dear for my friends? How have I shown up? That's a question that I often think is very important. Do you show up for your friends? Have you been there when they needed you? Like I have a friend who's very ill now. And it's nice to send a text and then I just thought to myself, pick up the phone and make an effort and call him twice a week. And then I have another friend who's in and I just make sure I text constantly without response just to say I'm here and thinking of you.

And then my other friend, father was dying of COVID a few weeks back. And I thought, it's so easy to forget. And it's so important to show up. So I think sometimes it's, how have you been as a friend? Who do you owe a phone call to? Who hasn't heard from you that should have heard from you? And that you keep thinking every morning, I should, I want to, I really need to, but then don't do that kind of thing. During the pandemic, I was very keenly aware. You could only stay in touch with a number of people. It felt too much to have to go to these long Zoom calls with so many friends. And so the world shrunk to a few people and a few with whom I was in a book club and a few with whom I was in a movie club and a few with whom I went hiking.

And I had clusters like that of people. And I remember thinking I miss meeting new people, I miss making new friends, I miss exploring the world with my friends, it's like we're just in that safe zone to make sure that nothing bad happens to us. And I miss the spontaneity, the curiosity and spontaneity that comes with friendships. And I mean, basically that's why one morning I woke up

and I said, I'm going to create a game because you think of playing, you think friendship, you think having fun together, spoofing together, that kind of thing. And there's so many things that I began to speak about with my friends during these last two years that had not been subject, we had ever touched upon, including what happens if we die,

not always light subjects, such darker topics. And I thought there needs to be a way to facilitate the conversations that friends often want to have. So I did it in the version of Where Should We Begin, the game, the card game, but the goal was, man, when friends begin to talk, especially friends who think they know each other very well. And they start to broach all kinds of subjects

that they rarely talk about. That is an amazing way to nourish friendships. I mean, not only friendships, but especially friendships is making people who think they know each other curious about each other again and discover things that, wow, like I saw you yesterday, like, how is that thing suddenly? You never told me that? This is a great line. You never told me. I never knew this. That is one of the most amazing juices for friendships. So the goal of the game, at least in part, is to peel back the layers of these relationships

where you thought, baby, you knew everything. Yes. The goal of the game is to promote intimacy, but intimacy, not just in the romantic sense, closeness, connection, curiosity, playfulness. The game is a container for taking risks. You know, you were telling me before about how vulnerability is to go and tell someone, I feel rejected by you or you haven't invited me.

But in the game, there can be a part. A friendship I need to let go of. A friend I owe an apology to. A message I fantasize receiving. A phone number I need to delete. I wish I had stood up for my friend when, or I've been a good friend or a lousy friend too. And so you get to tell the story about someone,

and then often it becomes less ominous to actually go and tell that person. But partly I think we have been a bit socially atrophied in this last period. And so it is, I thought I knew you. And it's that experience when a person that you think you've been with for a long time suddenly shifts the pan and you get a whole new perspective. Perspective changes often are very, very juicy. I'm hearing two juicy things there. One is, yes, you're learning these

surprising things about people. The other is that the game can provoke the kind of a self-assessment that will make you a better friend going forward. Yes, because you get to tell the stories, too. You get to tell your stories and some of them are about, they're all about it's a relationship game. So, you know, in where should we begin, you get a fair assessment of how aware you are, how you show up, it's not explicit, you're playing, it's not like you're doing a therapy session, but it's embedded in there and it's very funny because the questions are often quite irreverent and you get to tell stories, it's a storytelling game, I think I should say that.

And I think friendship's our stories. I think relationships are stories. And we are a story. And we get to be known, and we get to know others through their stories. Which is partly what you and I are doing here as well. I like to ask how you show up. I like to ask that you had painful breakups.

I like to ask, who is up. I like to ask that you had painful breakups. I like to ask who is the friend you envy the most One of my closest friends from childhood when I was a teenager. I was never sick if I didn't feel well If I adopted myself it was all a Job whereas she always was totally fine in her head She always was fine in her head. I'd never seen somebody struggle less than this person, but she had one boo-boo physical ailment after another. And on occasion, I would say, I wish I could also get a little physical symptom

of my troubles rather than it always be my moods. And she would say, I wish I could express my mood on occasion, I'd have to go to the doctor every time because I have these weird things in my neck and my shoulder. And I envy her. I envy her because she always looked so poised. So I think the envy of friendships is a very important subject that we don't like to admit

to jealousy that we have towards our friends. There's a lot of irreverent emotions that friendships elicits that are very primary and primitive and I think instead of thinking that they need to be hidden, they're just part of the experience and everybody has them. So if I have a friend who's more successful than me, wealthier than me, taller than me, it might make sense to broach that even through jokes. Of course you can, because the joke is, the humor is what allows to diffuse the tension around it,

right? The humor says, it's there, it's not a huge deal, but of course it's the case. Now that person may think, but look at your family, but look at your relationship to your kids, but you get to do what you really love. I make the money, but you get the meaning. I think one of the situations where it's often very challenging,

for example, is when people are in a developmental stage, right? One person has gotten accepted to college. The other one hasn't. One person has found a partner. The other hasn't. One person is having children, that the other one is wanting to have, but it's not happening nearly the way they would like.

And you experience that gap, sometimes the gap is in developmental terms and sometimes the gap in what the person has achieved and has been able to experience in life and you're longing for that. And it's very, very difficult to those moments. On both sides, from the side of the person who wants what you have, and from the side of the person who knows that you are happy for them, but every time you meet them, you're also realizing what you're missing. And this is also a dynamic in the friendship. It accompanies you a true life when you are older, when you get...

At every stage, we are in parallel track, and then we are like this. We are pushed apart by the fact that one of us is experiencing something that the other one would like to have or is hoping never to have, like illness. I mean, when you look at this thing called friendship, it's from tiny, tiny, after birth, all the way to the last day of your life. This relationship accompanies you

in multiple permutations friendship. I think that even just me talking with you today, I realize I haven't even explored half of it. But it's so rich. And those who say I'm blessed with friends, and those who say I wish I had good friends, I don't have good friends or those who say I just need to have two or three friends in my life and that's fine. I don't need a big group.

And those who are able to stay friends even when they coupled and those often men in straight relationships who lose their friendships, their direct friendships. And then the whole discussion in America about, can you have friends between men and women that are platonic, that is a thing that hardly debated. And people are very suspicious of it here, which is not at all the case where I come from, invention. You understand friendship between boys and girls from little on. So there are cultural

differences. There are major differences also around how the cultures, what they give license to, what they think is desirous in friendship terms, what kind of friendships are okay or not, is a mentorship relationship a friendship? Can you be friends with your boss? It's a ton of questions about can you be friends with? You're allowed to like, you're allowed to love and even, but can you be friends with them? And it's a litmus test, this question of friendship. So a question I love to ask is, what have been some unusual friendships that you have had?

Somebody was 50 years older than you, a person you met on the street. Friendships that were not supposedly in the normativity of your life. What have been unusual friendships that you have? That's a beautiful question. Coming up how to maintain friendships in ways that can strengthen your romantic relationships. And we're gonna talk about how systematic we should be about our friendships. Right after this. Let me close on a tactical question, and I'll give you a little bit of background first.

I got very busy in my career for many years and led a lot of friendships with her. And then recently retired from being a news anchor and all of a sudden for the first time was not working seven days a week anymore. I used to work on the weekends and anchor a show on the weekends and now I don't do that anymore. And so I have my weekends free. And as I've gotten older, I've gotten a little less stupid, hopefully.

And in part through hosting the show, more attuned to the fact that our social life, my social life as an individual human and my social life that I conduct jointly with my wife is very, very important. It is a massive contributor to my happiness. As you say, the quality of our life is determined by the quality of our relationships, which is I've really taken that to heart. Accurate quotes. It's a very good quote. It's a very good quote. It's a life-changing quote.

And so this is now I'm building up to the question, which is now that I'm in this new phase where I don't have to work seven days a week. My wife and I have gotten very systematic about making new friends and maintaining our existing relationships, sitting down with a calendar, figuring out who have we not seen for a while, reaching out, setting them up.

And it's become a really pleasant experience for the two of us. Beautiful. So let me ask you two questions. One is, I'd love to hear you hold forth on the importance of having friends while you're in a romantic relationship because I believe that you believe it takes some of the pressure

off of that romantic relationship. And two, how systematic and deliberate do you think we ought to be? And especially given that there's a maybe a little bit of a tab off of that romantic relationship. And two, how systematic and deliberate do you think we ought to be? And especially given that there's a maybe a little bit of a taboo around that, it can come off as a little graspy, a little thirsty to be that deliberate. I think what you're doing when you are willfully, conscientiously reaching out to old and new friends

is absolutely beautiful. And it strengthens your relationship with your wife at the same time. It's a double thing. I think that, so the first question is, what is the importance of friendships in the context of romantic relationships? I think it is essential.

And the research of Eli Finkl about driving relationships, romantic relationships, supports that idea, that the diversification of people in a romantic relationship is crucial. You cannot ask one person to give you what an entire community should provide. And that has become the fault line of the romantic relationship, is that this one person is everything to me. I think that relationships where people have solid friendships of their own as well as together are very important. And I say really it's both of their own in particular and especially friendships from

the past and especially if it's friendships of somebody that I had a session yesterday where one person has a lot of friendships from before and the partner moved to live close to them and they do not connect with these people and I said to the person, you know, to the local one, look, you need to make sure to find new people in town, which you probably would not have been inclined to do if it wasn't for your partner. But you want to reach out and make new friendships together. And then you have to maintain some of these friendships and not invite your partner necessarily to participate in them. They're yours. They are allowed not to like them and you will continue to develop them. And those social co-exist. If you give up those relationships because your partner didn't really like them,

it's not a good outcome. Now sometimes it moves because you go more towards the ones that you enjoy together. It's not always that deliberate. But the idea is these friendships are part of this person's history and they should be maintained. I think that some of the friendships can be along the entire gender spectrum. And that may mean sometimes it's a friendship with an ex, but it is a friendship.

So they are complicated ones. The old ones from town that I don't connect with, the exes, they're more fraught. So they need to be work true. They need to be a real sense of trust about what these friendships mean in the context of our life. But friendships parallel to the romantic relationship and absolute yes. How determined should we be? I think what you're doing is really very, very important. And on occasion, when you do a toast, you

can even say, I really appreciate how we have been able to reconnect, given that I was out of commission for so many years. I know, guys, that I wasn't there, that I've been working, and you could have just long replaced me. And it means a great deal for me, that at a moment when I finally realized that I have other important things to attend to in my life, you're giving me a chance to do this with you, and I really want to thank you. You will choke, they will choke, and it's beautiful. It's moving and beautiful, but it's so real, it's true. And then when it's people who are less interested

in you, you may say, depending on, well, as you're walking with one person from the car to a place, you know, these things don't need to be formally set up. And you just say, I'm really happy that we're going out tonight. It's been so long. And I can't believe how I lived without it. You told me that you're going out tonight

with friends to have dinner and then to music. And I just could imagine you, as you're standing in line to the club, just saying, I'm so glad I'm doing this., I'm so glad I'm doing this. And I'm so glad I'm doing this with all of us because this could have disappeared. It's not a given that people would wait for me. And to say that makes you own,

but also makes the people feel like it was worth waiting. It gives people a sense like, and then they will say, it's okay, dude, we love you. And then, you know, they'll just pat you and say something, or they'll just say nothing. I can't underestimate the importance of these little comments like that that really support the statement, the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life. It goes further than just a quote. And then we do new people. It's also to just say, it's like dating again after years of being in a relationship.

It's like, how does one do this? And then to just say that, this is a very interesting moment for me because I haven't done this in a while and I haven't done this with my wife and I haven't, I'm giddy. It's just like, I feel like energy is entering in my body. And I just want you to all know, I was so far from this for so long.

I was in a different space and I'm so glad I'm on this track again. And then you go on and you eat. And then, you know, it's not like this becomes a ceremony. It just, it allows you to take ownership of the experience, to give it meaning, to frame it, and to let people understand why they matter in your life. And that all is part of friendship.

And on occasion, you can see that to your wife alone as well. Rarely hurts. You cannot lose. You cannot, none of the stuff I just said, I mean, this is bulletproof, guaranteed, good elixir. You know, there are other things that I would say, I don't know if it's a good idea to say it or not to say it, but this kind of stuff, you can't go wrong. It's such a pleasure to listen to you talk.

Let me ask you how these lands are new. Extremely well. I may actually utter the same words that you placed in my mouth to friends in the various gatherings. We have arranged it over the next couple of weeks and months. Actually, at my 50th birthday, which was last summer, we had a group of friends for dinner, and I said something very similar to what you proposed, I say, which is one of the biggest mistakes in my life was kind of letting some friendships, laps, or not being sufficiently socially engaged. And I apologize for that and I'm back, if you'll have me. And it went over well.

Beautiful. Even listening to it, it feels my heart. So if I was that circle of your friends that sat your 50, you'd just say, glad you have your back, dude. There was a reason we didn't just say, okay, the hell with him, he's just busy climbing the ladder. But you know another one that we didn't touch today, that would be part of what some of your friends may say, is I'm not important enough for him. When one person starts to go on the achievement thing

and they do those things that they're passionate about and things go well for them. And they let go of their friends. The friends start to feel like I'm not important enough for that person. That's a very icky feeling too. So when you come back and you say, it wasn't that, I was just, you know, I got taken in this thing called work, you know, I loved it, I loved it, but I paid a price. And there's a better way to have a balance.

And I want to reach your life. And you are part of that reach your life. It's syrup. It's really, it lands, it's like, okay. And then we move on. But everybody registered it. That's what's so interesting in this miniat. And I always say is what you did at your 50th was beautiful and you don't have to wait

for those big occasions to do it. Its life is lived in the details. Yeah, it's as simple as, I was just thinking of being at dinner with a couple buddies recently and two of us kind of got up at the same time to go to the bathroom and we kind of put our arms around each other as we were going. We didn't have to say anything. It was like, yeah, I'm glad we're doing this. This is great. That's right. That's right. And what's so interesting is that this helps not just with

your soul and with your inner life, this helps with your immune system. We know that connection, social connection is essential for body, mind and spirit. It's not just about the meaning of life, it's also about health, it's so all-encompassing. I don't emphasize that side as much because I tend to talk more from an existential point of view, in a social point of view, but social connection is curative. Social connection is preserving. It helps us on so many levels. And that hug, it's pure oxytocin.

It's a bunch of hormones, you know, attachment, connection hormones floating in between two men. And especially for men who often tend to be more socially isolated. This longevity relates to social connection, immunity relates to social connections. I need to name these things because they are part of the importance of friendships. Thank you for taking time to do this. It's been awesome as always. It's a pleasure. Thanks again to Esther. Always fantastic to have her on the show. She's amazing. Speaking of amazing, let me thank the folks who work so hard to make this show on a two and a half times a week basis.

They include Gabrielle Zuckerman, DJ Kashmir, Justine Davy, Kim Baikama, Maria Wertel, Samuel Johnson, Jen Poient, and we get our audio engineering from our good friends over at Ultraviolet Audio. We'll see you all on Friday for a bonus. Hey, hey, Prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad- with 1-3-plus in Apple

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