Bill Rollins is a professor of interpersonal communication at Ohio University and author of several books on the dynamics of friendship, including Friendship Matters. In this episode, we discuss why friendship is both uniquely wonderful and uniquely challenging, and what makes it different from other types of relationships.
00:18:47.980Some people call it character friendship.
00:18:49.680And that's the kind of, sort of the, the ideal of friendship that I have in mind when I'm
00:18:55.980talking with you about a lot of these characteristics.
00:18:58.320I'm, I'm gravitating towards a notion of true friendship, like Aristotle would celebrate, where he calls it mutual well-wishing of each other for their own sake.
00:19:11.240We're caring about each other for our own sake.
00:19:15.280And I'm curious, I mean, you've been studying friendship for 40 years.
00:19:18.160Have you been looking at like how social media has affected this tension?
00:19:22.100Because my hunch is social media promotes sort of a more instrumental friendship, right?
00:19:27.900Like you use friends to, I don't know, gain status in the Instagram world or whatever.
00:19:33.060But I mean, it could be used for affection, but I see like it can be used primarily for instrumentality.
00:19:37.480I just met a couple hours ago with a capstone course on friendship with 24 seniors in college.
00:19:47.780And they're talking about the very thing you just mentioned there.
00:19:52.860I mean, one of the points they were making in one of our last sessions of the class is how significant it is to have friends that you can talk with.
00:20:04.100That you spend time in each other's presence.
00:20:08.140That, you know, they are listening face-to-face or voice-to-voice, but in real time, they are present to you and concerned and interested in your stories and what you're going through.
00:20:22.060And they talked about almost as you've raised the question, how all the gadgets and all the platforms have thinned that out.
00:20:31.100And in some ways, kind of buttonhole friendship, put friendships in certain categories.
00:20:38.480And then across the whole array of platforms, I do think it becomes very instrumental for social status to literally present the appearance of enjoying life, present the appearance of all of these activities.
00:20:52.000While meanwhile, they're saying, you know, students have talked to me.
00:20:56.980They say even getting together for class reunions doesn't have the meaning it used to have because everybody knows all these things about each other.
00:21:05.460Everybody's already made these assessments about each other, but they haven't talked with each other.
00:21:11.500Another tension that pops up in friendships is the tension between judgment and acceptance.
00:21:17.360I thought this was one of the more interesting ones.
00:22:18.840And so we accept them as our friends, and they accept us as their friends.
00:22:23.660But that's because we have judged each other to be worthy of our acceptance.
00:22:28.260So what happens is, and this is why it's a dialectical tension, it's both mutually conditioning and mutually opposing.
00:22:38.060You know, it's conditioning because we've judged each other to be worthy of acceptance, but it's opposing because we don't enjoy being judged by our friends.
00:22:48.760I think there's a lot of times when friends seek out friends, and they ask them our opinion on something.
00:22:58.600And it's not always clear whether they want to get just supported and have the friends support them, accept them, or if they want the friend's judgment, okay?
00:23:11.800This is a tension where, you know, I wasn't asking to be criticized.
00:23:16.700I wasn't asking for you to, you know, to judge me.
00:23:46.520And so it can be an expression of caring.
00:23:50.020But it, again, it has to be, it has to be negotiated.
00:23:53.920And what I suggest is to communicate your opinions, your evaluations, if you believe they're being asked for, with what I call compassionate objectivity, which is to say, I am giving you the straight story, but I'm giving you, giving it to you in a way that respects your feelings and that understands, I'm walking on thin ice here.
00:24:20.660Another place where that tension can pop up is, let's say you're a friend with somebody and you see them making decisions that are just, you know, are going to be a disaster for their life.
00:24:32.280They're about to take a job that's nowhere or, you know, they're, they're having an alcohol, they have a problem with alcohol or some other substance.
00:24:53.300And I mean, I think it's one of the really singular moments in, in what we might call true friendship.
00:25:01.800When someone risks, risks delivering that judgment that needs to be delivered.
00:25:09.900You know, there's a, there's a famous story about Richard Pryor and Jimmy Brown, you know, Jimmy Brown, the famous running back for the Cleveland Browns and Richard Pryor and Richard Pryor, you know, in the early eighties, he's like the king of the world.
00:25:22.980I mean, he is on top of the entertainment industry and he's also freebasing cocaine and he's destroying himself.
00:25:31.180And Jimmy Brown comes to him and he says, listen, you've got everybody who surrounds you is telling you want to hear, but you are not going to do this anymore.
00:25:42.340And if no one else is going to tell you, I'm going to tell you.
00:25:45.540And that's a dramatic example, but you're exactly right.
00:25:49.240It's like, so what do you think of this person?
00:25:52.320You know, what do you think of this woman?
00:25:53.720And your friend says, listen, man, I know you're enjoying this person, but I'm really troubled about some of the things she's doing and saying to you.
00:26:03.860And I think you need to think carefully about this.
00:26:07.120I've had many people that I've interviewed have said a real defining moment in their friendship is when the other person told them what they needed to hear, not what they wanted to hear.
00:26:18.900And that's part of the courage of friendship.
00:26:21.720And it's also, it's back to the notion of what always intrigues me about friendship is it's all about what's the well-lived life.
00:26:29.760So we have standards in our relationship.
00:26:32.400And if you are suddenly violating the standards, I mean, we say to a friend, listen, I can't believe you're getting involved in this.
00:26:54.420And basically what's being said is, I can't live in friendship with you if you violate this belief that we share and what it means to be a good person.
00:29:16.720And there's other things that you don't tell friends because they're your friends.
00:29:20.740In your research, in talking about looking at these tensions, these dialectical tensions, do men have a particular style of friendship that leans towards one end of these tension spectrums?
00:30:19.560And that's how they live in friendship.
00:30:21.440In terms of affection and instrumentality, men are getting better.
00:30:25.680And this is where, I mean, I think, you know, our conversation has to acknowledge this right off the bat, that the closer friendships of men and the closer the friendship that a man has, the more these differences kind of go away.
00:31:48.900So, in terms of judgment and acceptance, you know, this is where, when you look at men and women being friends, let me just talk about the contrast a second.
00:32:14.800You know, if you want to do that, women will be more judgmental of each other.
00:32:19.260You know, this is kind of the famous drama of women's friendships.
00:32:24.720Because they care, they're going to judge.
00:32:28.120Men aren't quite as worried about being seen as caring, so they're going to accept a lot of things.
00:32:33.980And when I talk to women, they say one of the things that they like about being friends with men is men don't, nothing much bothers them.
00:32:42.040But when you talk to men, one of the things they really like about being friends with women is women really care and are concerned about what's happening to them.
00:32:50.640But, I mean, another sort of this idea you hear is that people say that modern men don't have good friendships.
00:32:57.380Do you think that's true, or are we misjudging male friendships based on a standard of female friendships?
00:33:02.300You know, I'm glad you asked me that right there.
00:33:05.480I would like to just quickly tell you expressiveness and protectiveness, and then I'm going to answer your question, okay?
00:33:35.700I do believe that we're starting to see more and more encouragement for men, you know, to be able to care about their friends, openly care about their friends, and express affection.
00:33:50.500I mean, you know, you see the I love you, man, and men have this way of hugging each other and patting each other on the back, and that's okay.
00:34:00.280But, I mean, even beyond that, I think especially when you get a little farther along in what I call living life for keeps, you really get – all of us come to realize how much we love our friends, and I think are more inclined to express that.
00:34:17.940So, what I'm going to say is, first of all, I think that, yes, I think that, by and large, in my book, when I was really after an understanding of how close friendships are made and sustained across the life course,
00:34:40.080I felt that there were a lot of things that women do in their friendships that would help men to understand how to do.
00:34:49.040So, I think when people say that men's friendships are lacking in something, I think they are holding them up to a standard that, in a lot of ways, has been composed by how women conduct their friendships.
00:35:03.780Now, I say that with all respect. Having said that, I want to say that I think it's a little bit off the mark, first of all, because men are getting better and feeling called to respond and express affection for their friends in more forthcoming ways.
00:35:21.720But the other thing I want to say is this. You have to back off a second and realize, when we talk about affection and instrumentality, and we talk about character, and we talk about friendships being about something, that's a really important aspect, almost architecture, of men's friendships.
00:35:41.360And it goes like this. You learn a lot about someone by their actions, by whether they show up when you need them, by whether they keep their mouth shut when they should, by whether they stick up for you in a certain situation, you know, like at work, where, you know, they could have folded, but they don't.
00:36:00.580You learn about someone there, and you also learn about what you are to them. Even just doing things together. I mean, I'll give you an example. One of my best friends and I went hunting.
00:36:10.640I wasn't raised in a family with guns. My dad was a small town physician, wonderful doctor, but wasn't too excited about guns, okay? My friend Ed, I started to go duck hunting with him. Go out on the marsh, you know, see the sun come up, you know, see the ducks come flying in. It was fantastic.
00:36:31.540And, you know, the point wasn't so much to shoot the ducks, although I was very proud that I was able to once or twice, and we ate them. But that wasn't the whole point. The point was to spend time together and have this experience.
00:36:45.220So I'm out on the marsh. We're walking out. And my gun goes off. You know what I'm saying? We're walking out on the marsh, and my gun goes off. Do you know what Ed said, Brett?
00:37:09.860Hey, we walk a couple more steps. He says, hey, Bill, let me see your gun. He goes, look, you need to put this safety like this. He gave it back to me.
00:37:21.180I'll never forget that, you know. If the opposite thing had happened, I would say, what are you doing?
00:38:51.100But as you were talking about how men maybe show affection differently from women, it reminded me of Gus and Woodrow's relationship in the book.
00:38:59.860Like, they were friends, and you're kind of like, why are they friends? They have so much not in common.
00:39:04.200But they knew how, they understood each other, and oftentimes they showed affection by, like, leaving things left unsaid.
00:39:12.620Exactly. I mean, that's a terrific example to bring up.
00:39:17.560I mean, I've read the book several times myself, Brett, and I think it's, I mean, and I think the, I'm a communication professor, and I think the description of their interaction and their description of how they are in each other's presence and what they say to each other.
00:40:02.860I think it's very interesting that you invoked their friendship. It's a very classic. And now, but we have to realize that's a classic kind of traditional male friendship, I think I would say.
00:40:17.420Yeah, no, I'd agree. That book's all about relationships.
00:40:23.440So I recommend, I tell people, if you're looking for, guys, if you're looking for a fiction book to read, like, Start Off with Lonesome Dove, it's long.
00:40:29.680It's like 800 pages, but it's the best, the best novel.
00:40:33.760It's awesome. It is the best. I mean, in terms, I mean, in terms of a portrayal of, of, of, in terms of a portrayal of, of men's friendship, that is a very, very good one. Very good one.
00:40:46.580So we've been talking about these different tensions on a general level, but you mentioned earlier that these tensions and the nature of friendship changes as we, as we go, as we age and as we enter a new circumstance in our life.
00:40:58.740So, for example, so you start off, like, talking about friendships in childhood. And I thought it was interesting. I think oftentimes parents project their idea of friendship on their kids. And so when they look at their school age kids, like, does my school, does my kid have friends? I think parents simply think, do they have friends like I think of friends, but kids don't think of friends the way adults think of friends.
00:41:19.320Friendship across childhood is very intriguing to observe because starting and learning to develop friendships with others is a very, very important part of childhood.
00:41:34.180Because friends are the first people that like you, but they don't have to like you, see? You know, they're not your relatives. They're not your family members. They don't have to like you. So you have to start figuring out, you know, what makes a person the kind of person that people would want to be friends with.
00:41:54.960And that's where, you know, you see almost immediately how friendship has to do with sharing, getting along, maybe not hurting other people's feelings, cooperating, you know, finding something that other people like to do and doing it with them.
00:42:11.240And it starts off as simply as that. But then across childhood, then you start to have people develop a more mature understanding of friendship, which means, wow, friendship isn't just because we're on the same team with each other or because, you know, we play kick the can at night.
00:42:31.020Friendship goes beyond that. It has something to do with each other and who we are to each other.
00:42:35.540And it's fascinating to understand, but that takes a while. And some people, it takes them a long time.
00:42:47.020When you look at like moral development and issues like that and how it correlates with friendship, you find that you're like, you know, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old before you really start to grasp how friendship involves really appreciating the personhood.
00:43:05.540Of someone else and who you are in relation to that person. Okay. So childhood is kind of friendships are part of moral development and developing someone, developing a moral capacity also enables them to be in friendships. Hope that wasn't too abstract.
00:43:25.540No, it makes sense. You know, so I guess the idea is like early on in childhood, friendships are just based like, do I play with this guy? He's my friend.
00:43:33.360But then around nine, kids start developing this idea that you, you can have a friendship based on personality, your shared values, shared interests.
00:43:41.780And it can go, like friendship can extend beyond like being together, right? Like you, you can still be friends with someone, even if you don't do specific things with them, like you can still be friends.
00:43:56.140So let's moving into adolescence. That's, you know, when you start really starting to see these tensions that we've talked about earlier happen, but I'm curious about adolescence friendship because for me, I feel like the friends I made in as, as a teenager, like, even though we haven't seen each other in two decades, I, I still have a strong connection with them.
00:44:17.920I can pick up where we left off. I feel comfortable with them. I still value those friendships. Why is it those friendships we make as a teenager are often the friends we still think of as our best or good friends?
00:44:30.160There's a couple reasons for it. And they're somewhat ironic. I mean, first of all, you know, we're all, most people are very, very self-conscious during adolescence, you know, I mean, adolescence start to understand.
00:44:47.920And that who they are is also being observed by others. Okay. So they're observing other people and trying to understand other people. And then they realize other people observing them and they get very self-conscious.
00:45:03.040What happens during adolescence, though, I think, to your point, to your question, Brett, is that adolescence really idealize friendship. I mean, it's, it's really this place where you can kind of figure out who you are, you can figure out your identity.
00:45:20.120I mean, some people have argued that one of the primary tasks of adolescence is learning friendship. Because learning friendship is, you know, you're taking yourself seriously, you're taking someone else seriously. And you realize that there's a lot of things, there's all kinds of evaluation going on in adolescence.
00:45:38.360You know, there's cliques, there's the sports, there's school, there's, you know, dating starting, there's, there's all of these ways that can you can be evaluated. And friendship is kind of a safe space in all that, you know, it's someone that you can trust to really think with about what you're going through.
00:45:58.280Now, so, but friendship is really idealized and adolescents are notorious for sometimes breaching that trust. And you back to social media, that's happening now with a vengeance. I mean, adolescents are so concerned about privacy, about what they're going through. And to have that broadcast to everybody is something that they really deeply, deeply resent and feel betrayed by.
00:46:23.660So, back to your question. So, you do things with friends in adolescence while you're on going through this period of learning about who you are. And the ones that really helped you become who you are and went through some of those challenges and didn't compromise you or betray you, okay? Or there's, there's some good, there's some strong feelings for them.
00:46:46.820No, that makes sense. I think that's, that's, so like in adolescence, your, your self as an adult is forming. And oftentimes we think of this, the formation of the self as an individual project, but it really is, it's a social project. You have all these different influences, parents, teachers, but as an adolescent, people start, kids are looking at their peers for information.
00:47:10.260And so, their friends during that time, like they had the biggest, they had one of the biggest influences on them as a burgeoning adult.
00:47:17.440It's absolutely the case. It's absolutely the case. I mean, it's, you know, it's kind of a twin, twin born understanding. You're coming to understand your identity and you're also coming to understand what it means to be close to someone.
00:47:36.660So, intimacy and identity are very tightly coupled in adolescence. And many times it's the friends who've been a key partner for that.
00:47:46.840So, after adolescence, after high school, you go to college and that same sort of dynamic I feel is still high school. College is often, like the first few years are often an extension of high school.
00:47:55.700You're with people who are your age peer and you have a lot in common there. Like, at what point do friendships in adulthood start changing where they shift away from that more adolescent type of friendship to a more adult type friendship?
00:48:09.840And I guess what we need to do first is like, what is an adult friendship and how does it differ from an adolescent friendship?
00:48:16.440Truth to tell, Brett, I mean, I believe that the friendships that we make in adolescence are very, very important.
00:48:27.420I think the ones that we preserve across the decades have very likely been sifted through the challenges of young adulthood.
00:48:38.760You have to ask yourself, if the friends you're thinking about and thinking about having made them during adolescence, I would argue that they really got refined during young adulthood.
00:48:51.760See, I think adolescence is very important, but here's the difference, and you're asking for a difference here.
00:48:58.780During adolescence, a lot of times, if you want to be friends with someone and they like something but you don't, adolescence will decide that they like that thing so they can be friends with someone.
00:49:14.800It's like, oh, maybe play down what I thought was cool if you think this is cool if I can be your friend.
00:49:21.660Sometimes it's more mutually decided, but I'm arguing that adolescents are more likely to change who they are, to become friends with someone.
00:49:31.880When you get to young adulthood, you can run into someone and it's like, say a rock band.
00:49:39.580It's like, you find out they like Journey.
00:49:47.840You know, and, oh, man, Journey's the stuff, and you're like, well, no, I don't think so.
00:49:54.300And there might be something else, but if you're all about music, maybe you gravitate towards someone else that shares your opinions about that.
00:50:04.620When you're an adolescent, you might say, yeah, Journey's okay, okay?
00:50:10.160So, when we get to young adulthood, people have a clear understanding of who they are.
00:50:17.360A lot of that has been accomplished with friends.
00:50:20.120That's why those friends that we made in adolescence might accompany us, okay, but a lot of times into college and into young adulthood.
00:50:28.180But, you know, the transition to college, Brett, is one of the loneliest times in the entire life course.
00:50:34.780People report more loneliness than any other time in the life course.
00:50:41.800And a lot of the reason is, is because all of a sudden, I thought who I knew who I was, and I had all these friends that celebrated that, and I'm in a different situation with a lot of really interesting people who don't see things the same way I do.
00:50:57.800And I got to decide which of them do I really want to be friends with.
00:51:02.440I'm not going to change just to be friends with people.
00:51:05.860And some of our friends from adolescence don't want to let go of who we were then, and they don't want to let go of who they were then.
00:51:14.900And then there's some people who, when they come into young adulthood, many people are really trying to figure out now, what does adulthood hold for me?
00:51:23.540So across young adulthood, you're figuring out, you're really refining and figuring out what you might want to do for a living, you know, what your sexual identity is and what romance means to you.
00:51:37.800You might be figuring out hobbies and all these things, and you're figuring them out in a really unencumbered way because now you're away from home.
00:51:48.540And these are people who are privileged enough to go to college, Brad.
00:51:53.540I'm talking about people who have been gifted the opportunity to go to college.
00:51:58.060I know there's other ways this can happen, but I'm speaking about the college setting.
00:52:02.180So what happens, I think, across young adulthood, it's kind of bittersweet, is the very people in young adulthood, and again, to be fair to your point about adolescence, some of these people very well may have been friends initially during adolescence.
00:52:17.820Others we made during young adulthood, when we're really with a bunch of people who are excited about their possibilities, trying to equip themselves for the future, trying to figure out, you know, what are the things that they're really excited about now that they kind of understand who they are.
00:52:36.660And these friends help us make these choices, like we were talking about earlier.
00:53:05.400Our friends help us make a lot of decisions.
00:53:09.000This is this judging together about relationships, about, you know, work, about recreation, that suddenly is kind of designs how our life is going to be organized.
00:53:22.860By the end of young adulthood, our lives are organized in certain ways, much of which is a function of decisions we've made with friends.
00:53:31.260But the irony is, is then we're so committed and involved in these other things, we have less time for the friends.
00:53:44.800I mean, you talk about in the study, like 30s to like 50s, basically, until the kids get out of the house.
00:53:50.940A lot of adults don't say they don't have a lot of friends.
00:53:54.380When I said to you about friendship susceptibility to circumstances, what I would say is, and I'm going to come right directly to adulthood, but once people, once people develop a mature capacity for friendship and start to develop friendships that kind of have the attributes we've been talking about.
00:54:17.620All right, the greatest determinant of whether friendships are going to be preserved or not is what's going on outside of the friendship.
00:54:27.840Have you taken a job that now takes you to the other side of the country?
00:54:32.360Have you married someone who doesn't like me very much?
00:54:38.600In other words, what happens and really starts to, in many ways, specify, that's a bit too strong of the word, but kind of articulates the conditions for friendship is how your life is organized.
00:54:53.400I mean, when I say friendships are susceptible to circumstances, I am saying that many times, whether we can be friends with people as adulthood really starts to unfold depends on how our lives are organized.
00:55:10.740That's why you might find people with young children who are very different ages, but they're all about their young children.
00:55:17.340And so they're able to kind of coordinate their friendship and enjoy each other as friends around that activity.
00:55:25.240Other people who are all about work, that's the thing that we realized some years ago.
00:55:30.160It's like, if you're working all the time, you better hope that you have some people there that you might be able to be friends with because there's not going to be time otherwise to have friends.
00:55:46.900So it seems like friendship gets compartmentalized in a lot of ways in adulthood.
00:55:51.400Like you have like maybe church friends, or you have a work friend, or you have a neighbor friend, and you might talk to each other, but you have friendship based on your neighborliness, but it might not go beyond that.
00:56:30.840And that's kind of how we've been talking about it, you know, because then all of a sudden, there's all these other responsibilities and roles that might compete with our opportunity to just flat out hang out together, right?
00:57:11.920It can become a dimension of other relationships.
00:57:14.560And that's part of the genius of friendship is at the same time that it's susceptible to how our lives are organized, it also can be a dimension of other relationships.
00:57:26.260So across the life course, a lot of times children at a certain point might choose to be friends with their parents.
00:57:34.560They might, they're not going to see their parents because they have to.
00:57:38.400They're going to see their parents because they like them or love them because they want to spend time with them.
00:57:44.260And it's a, and, and they've found a way to interact more as equals.
00:58:06.260So now the risk, as you, as you kind of implied, the risk of some of these friendships later on in life is that they start to be primarily matters of convenience.
00:58:18.180And, and, and it is a dimension of the relationship, but the relationship is still primarily driven by work or some other role responsibility.
00:58:28.820And so then the susceptibility returns, friendship, susceptibility.
00:58:35.520I thought an interesting point you talk about friendships in adult that I've seen in my own life is for, you know, childhood and adolescence, early adulthood.
00:58:43.100Most of your friends are about your same age.
00:58:45.420In adulthood, that's sort of like the, the soul, you don't really care how old your friends are.
00:58:50.300They can't be too old, but they can't be too young.
00:58:52.220But you might have friends who are seven years older than you, seven years younger than you, and you're okay with that.
00:58:58.020And that wouldn't be the case when you're an adolescent.
00:59:01.760And, and again, I think that the reason for that is, is because we have something in common that's more important than age.
00:59:11.620You know, early on in life, you know, we've got really limited understanding and, you know, that brings up an irony that I'm going to mention in a second.
00:59:18.500But yes, I think during adulthood, I mean, the primary obstacle to friendship in adulthood is time.
00:59:37.680So it, and sometimes it, I talk about the notion of functional proximity.
00:59:44.400It's like, you might live in a neighborhood where you don't even get to know this person two doors down on the left, because their life is organized very differently from yours.
00:59:55.840And you might wave to them when they're, you know, going to the bus stop or whatever.
01:00:01.360But you might have someone, who knows?
01:00:05.500I mean, you know, you're, you're working a lot of stuff that's mediated, but I mean, your lives, there's functional proximity.
01:00:13.100I mean, this person lives two towns away, but we show up at this studio and we work together.
01:00:18.820So our lives are more interwoven than someone who lives 500 feet from me.
01:00:24.240The issue I'm trying to mention is in terms of for their, like the age difference, I think what matters is how are our lives organized?
01:00:32.900And how does the organization of our lives allow us to share things we care about?
01:00:39.480So let's talk about how friendship changes and how these tensions of friendship can, can apply at work when you try to make friends at work.
01:00:47.680And for most people, he said, most people don't have time to make friends outside of work.
01:00:51.240So they look to work to find friends, but work, friendship and work is fraught with a lot of, a lot of problems.
01:00:57.800Because, okay, we go back to this idea that friendship is voluntary, it's equal, it's effective instead of instrumental.
01:01:03.940Like work sort of is against all of that, right?
01:01:20.980One thing I would say is, is that the culture of the workplace is a very significant issue, okay?
01:01:27.800There are certain types of work that are just absolutely permeated with competition.
01:01:34.320I mean, the thing is set up to put people in very, very stark competition with each other.
01:01:40.520We might have, you know, sales territories that even overlap, you know, and our, what we accomplish, you know, is presented to us, unfortunately, as a zero-sum game.
01:01:55.240I mean, it's difficult to accomplish very much friendship in a work culture that, you know, that, I mean, there are work cultures that, that, that are just emphasized competition so much.
01:02:10.960So, but within that, as you were pointing out, let's just say a more garden variety work setting where, of course, there's a certain amount of competition, but there's also a lot of cooperation.
01:02:25.140You've already mentioned some of them.
01:02:27.820It's, it's, there's hierarchies at work, and so it's difficult to kind of suss out the appropriateness of being friends with people in different levels in the organization.
01:02:41.900Now, it can happen, but there, if you're, if you're a boss, you have to watch out for perceptions of favoritism.
01:02:48.840If you're someone subordinate, you don't want to be perceived as just trying to, you know, kiss up to the boss, so to speak.
01:02:58.140What I recommend in pursuing friendships in a work setting is, first of all, is to try to preserve some clear definitions of the relationship.
01:03:11.320For example, I've been friends with people at work and, and, and very good friends.
01:03:18.040What we've been able to do is, if there's an important issue, we literally say, let's talk about this as friends, or let's talk about this flat out as co-workers.
01:03:32.260Or we'll say, let's do it both ways, and then decide what we want to do.
01:03:39.140I mean, I literally, I had an opportunity to assume a really important office in my discipline, and I went to my director of the school I was in, and he was a good friend of mine.
01:03:50.280And I said, should I run for this office?
01:03:52.740And he said, do you want me to answer as your friend or as your boss?
01:04:16.720You know, you'll, you'll have to go to every conference in the field, and I don't recommend you do it.
01:04:21.740And so, I mean, that's an example of how I think you have to clearly define what's the nature of the conversation we're having.
01:04:29.660The other thing is, is if you're friends with people you work with, it's nice.
01:04:34.100I think one of the really signal events of what I call moves to friendship or people trying to become friends is to spend time together in situations where they are not required to be together.
01:04:48.000Because what that does is it really keys up the fact that we are choosing to spend time together.
01:04:54.580We're not doing this because we have to.
01:04:56.820So, I think that's an important, both of those are important strategies at work, in my opinion.
01:05:01.960To be clear about what relationship is foregrounded right now in terms of this issue, and also to find time to be friends when we don't have to be in each other's presence.
01:05:16.040In terms of men who are married, you know, when you look across adulthood, I've interviewed men and women, and you'll ask a man who's your best friend.
01:05:29.520If he's married, he'll typically say his wife.
01:05:32.120You ask a woman who's her best friend, she'll say, well, you know, I really, you know, I really care about Michael and he's a good guy, but Sheila is my best friend.
01:05:43.060And then you say, well, because she listens to me, you know, and you ask a guy, why is your wife your best friend?
01:05:52.920Because I can talk to her, because I can trust her with anything.
01:05:55.600When you spend your day in and day out hustling or crunching or processing information or trying to convince people to do things, a lot of times when people aren't doing that, they just retreat.
01:06:12.940And then, so they'll retreat and they'll find comfort if they have a spouse in their spouse, all right?
01:06:21.540I think it's important for men to get involved in a variety of activities.
01:06:33.120I think it's important to try to get involved with doing different things than work.
01:06:39.620Because, as you said, if all you've done is focus on work and raising your children, when your children leave and when you're not as excited about doing everything you possibly can for work and are starting to think about other things in life,
01:06:58.100you're going to need to figure out how to connect with people that might share interests that you have.
01:07:08.740So, if a man reaches a point in his life when his kids leave or even long before that when he just realizes that there's a lack in his life from not having friends, what can he do to overcome that challenge and make friends?
01:07:19.320You can form habits of how you go about living in friendship, okay?
01:07:25.360You know, there's three types I could mention.
01:07:29.680And these are people that make friends wherever they go.
01:07:33.140I mean, they – and you could say, perhaps these aren't the deepest friendships, but you can't decide that.
01:07:39.800I mean, what happens between people, you can't decide.
01:07:42.660And I've already said that if we deeply, deeply enjoy this activity and we do it together for 25 years, we're probably going to have learned a lot about each other, me, a lot closer than people are giving us credit for.
01:07:57.120And maybe we're even giving ourselves credit for it, all right?
01:08:00.920So – but independence, make friends wherever they go.
01:08:06.460He said, look, I've made friends wherever I go all my life.
01:08:09.000And if – when I go into the nursing home, I'll make friends there.
01:08:11.540So there's people that will put in the effort, get out there, and socialize, all right?
01:08:18.320Then there's friends that – people that you might call discerning where, you know, they made that one friend, you know, maybe during adolescence, maybe during college or two of them.
01:08:29.040And man, oh man, that is what friendship is to them.
01:08:32.920And across the life course, that person – and it could be one spouse or it could be someone else besides one spouse.
01:08:42.360But that's how they've lived in friendship.
01:08:44.320And, you know, that can have a really – a real core strength to it.
01:08:48.080And really, that person can really kind of curate your life story and even co-author your life story with you.
01:08:59.040It really creates a really big hole in someone's life.
01:09:02.840And then there's folks that you might call acquisitive that both try to preserve and remain tight and connected with people that they've really cared about throughout their lives and to continue to make new friends.
01:09:16.860So, it sounds like it's great to maintain your tight-knit friendships in the past throughout your life, but to also remain open to making new friendships.
01:09:25.460And that might mean opening up and broadening what you might consider a friend and being okay with just having a gym buddy or whatever because that person could become one of your close friends eventually.
01:09:45.360Think about what you like doing and see if there's folks around who are doing that.
01:09:52.860And I know I'm speaking generally there, but, you know, if you like playing music, find out who around town is playing music.
01:10:01.060If you like fantasy football instead of, you know, doing it, you know, online, nose around and find some folks that might be interested in doing that.
01:10:11.360In other words, take some risks and try to find some activities that you like to do that other people might like to do.
01:10:19.960Second thing I'd say is this, and you just hinted at this, but I'm really adamant about it.
01:10:25.760Small talk is fine because small talk can lead to other talk.
01:10:32.300It can lead to big talk, you know, I think we're back to expressiveness and protectiveness.
01:10:37.400Some people think we have to get really deep quick or we have to really show signs that we're going to be real friends and kind of rush the process.
01:12:59.460And once it happens, everything will be fine.
01:13:02.560And if you assume that friendship doesn't require effort, I think you're – that's a very naive outlook.
01:13:10.020And what I want to try to say, which is what you just said is, and it's what I've kind of tried to articulate for a long time as a scholar of friendship,
01:13:20.140is that there are inherent tensions involved in friendship.
01:14:26.260You can also check out our show notes at aom.is slash friendship, where you can find links to resources, where you can delve deeper into this topic.
01:14:38.980Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.
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