The Art of Manliness - #567： Understanding the Wonderful, Frustrating Dynamic of Friendship

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.480 Friendship is arguably the most unique type of relationship in our lives.

00:00:15.140 They aren't driven by sexual attraction, like in a romantic relationship,

00:00:18.260 or duty, as in a familiar relationship, but instead are entirely freely chosen.

00:00:23.060 My guest today said that's why friendship is both uniquely wonderful and uniquely challenging.

00:00:27.360 His name is Bill Rollins. He's a professor of interpersonal communication,

00:00:30.200 and he spent his career studying the dynamics of friendship and authored several books on the subject,

00:00:34.060 including Friendship Matters.

00:00:35.660 Bill and I begin our conversation discussing why friendship is often taken for granted

00:00:39.160 and what makes friendship unique from other types of relationships.

00:00:42.460 We then explore the four particular tensions that arise in friendships,

00:00:45.800 the tension between independence and dependence, affection and instrumentality,

00:00:49.800 judgment and acceptance, and expressiveness and protectiveness.

00:00:52.940 We also talk about how these tensions manifest in male friendships versus female friendships

00:00:56.640 and whether it's true, as it's commonly said, that modern men don't have good friends.

00:01:00.740 We then shift and talk about how friendships change across the life cycle,

00:01:03.880 starting with how kids think about friendships differently than adults.

00:01:06.660 We unpack why it is we often think the friends we made in adolescence are the best friends we ever had

00:01:10.900 and why many men stop having good friends in adulthood.

00:01:13.700 We end our conversation with Bill's advice for making friends as a grown-up.

00:01:17.200 Lots of insights in this show on a relationship that isn't particularly examined or well understood.

00:01:21.460 After it's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash friendship.

00:01:26.640 Bill Rollins, welcome to the show.

00:01:36.860 Thanks, Brett.

00:01:37.980 So you're a professor of communications at Ohio University,

00:01:39.920 and you've spent your career researching and writing about friendships and communication within friendships.

00:01:45.340 And you've also written about the nature of friendships and the joys of friendship

00:01:49.160 and the tensions that exist in friendship.

00:01:51.020 And a book you wrote back in 1992 called Friendship Matters.

00:01:54.920 And I thought it was interesting, in the intro of that book, you noted that social scientists, psychologists

00:01:59.860 had pretty much ignored researching friendships.

00:02:03.280 Is that still the case today, almost 30 years later?

00:02:06.580 You know, I'm going to have to say yes and no.

00:02:08.960 I'm going to say yes, because friendship continues to kind of fall through the cracks when people

00:02:17.180 think about sort of like the hierarchy of relationships in their lives.

00:02:22.100 I mean, you have work obligations.

00:02:26.420 You have family obligations.

00:02:28.440 Some people are, you know, married and have full-time partners, have children.

00:02:33.420 And friendships are profoundly important, but somehow taken for granted in that mix.

00:02:40.160 And we can talk about that a little bit more.

00:02:42.600 So I believe that more attention is being given to friendship, but not near as much as you would expect.

00:02:49.240 Why do you think it gets overlooked?

00:02:50.580 Why do we take it for granted, you think?

00:02:52.020 Well, I mean, it's kind of like one of the most distinctive qualities of friendship is that you

00:03:00.580 choose your friends and your friends choose you.

00:03:04.400 I mean, so friendships are voluntary.

00:03:05.980 You can't make people be friends and you can't prevent people from becoming friends if they

00:03:11.380 choose to live in friendship with each other.

00:03:13.940 So that's a beautiful thing.

00:03:15.640 However, when you think about friendship, that contrasts with some of the other relationships

00:03:21.640 that are a really important part of our lives.

00:03:23.960 You look at family, that's a blood bond.

00:03:27.280 You're never not someone's son, someone's father, someone's brother or sister.

00:03:32.900 You know, you are always related by blood.

00:03:36.020 You can't wish that away.

00:03:38.900 Another type of relationship is work relationships that are contractually, you know,

00:03:45.100 sanctioned, you sign a contract, you're working with someone, you have to breach that contract

00:03:50.200 to end that relationship.

00:03:52.260 You think about marriage.

00:03:54.400 Marriage is both a legal bond and in many cases a religiously sanctioned bond and people

00:04:01.100 have to be divorced to not be married anymore.

00:04:05.000 Friendship, in contrast to all those relationships, people choose each other to be friends and they

00:04:11.520 can also walk away from each other.

00:04:13.300 So it's an edifying potential of friendship, but it's also something that makes it a very

00:04:20.220 risky relationship.

00:04:22.840 And besides the voluntary nature of friendship, what else makes friendship unique from other

00:04:26.880 relationships that we have?

00:04:28.600 Well, in my opinion, the voluntary aspect of friendship is definitive, but there's some

00:04:34.980 other important qualities of friendship that I think are true across the life course.

00:04:41.940 It's a personal relationship.

00:04:44.740 And what I mean by that is people are friends with someone else because of the person that

00:04:49.620 they are, not for categorical reasons.

00:04:53.200 They're friends with someone because of the person that person is.

00:04:57.280 They're also, they also involve affection.

00:05:00.200 We care about our friends.

00:05:01.860 And, you know, people like their friends a lot.

00:05:04.120 And when they become kind of honest with themselves across the course of a lifetime, they realize

00:05:09.340 they love their friends.

00:05:10.960 Some of us realize that sooner than others.

00:05:14.200 But affection is an important part of friendship.

00:05:16.960 The other two qualities, Brett, that I find very intriguing are friendships thrive on equality.

00:05:23.600 Now, that doesn't mean that we're necessarily equally talented or make the same amount of money or

00:05:31.220 equally attractive or, you know, equally good at fixing cars or anything.

00:05:36.260 What it does mean is that there's some aspect of our relationship that functions as a leveler.

00:05:43.580 We stand as equals in certain aspects of our friendship.

00:05:47.040 Maybe it's we're football fans and we just flat out enjoy football together and we speak as equals about that.

00:05:53.160 It could be hobbies that we do together.

00:05:55.980 Because another thing about friendship that I find really intriguing is, is that friendships

00:06:01.660 are always about something.

00:06:04.360 And so many times that common interest, we treat each other as equals with regard to that.

00:06:10.800 My great uncle Lester owned a farm machinery business.

00:06:14.800 His best friend drove a cab and they hunted every October.

00:06:19.560 And buddy, when Reds came into Uncle Lester's home, they sat down to the table. 0.93

00:06:25.820 You could tell so deeply they were friends.

00:06:28.340 They spoke as equals.

00:06:29.840 Their so-called stations in life didn't make any difference.

00:06:32.900 So that's also part of why friendship is kind of inherently an ethical relationship.

00:06:38.440 And we can come back to that.

00:06:40.260 The final thing I would say, I've said it's a voluntary relationship.

00:06:43.900 It's a personal relationship.

00:06:46.340 It's a relationship that involves affection.

00:06:49.000 It's a relationship that finds some way to treat each other as equals.

00:06:53.760 And lastly, it's a mutual relationship.

00:06:56.740 Friends choose each other.

00:06:58.960 If you choose someone as a friend and they don't respond to you as a friend, that's a would-be

00:07:03.580 friendship.

00:07:04.560 A true friendship involves people choosing each other for the person that they are.

00:07:09.800 And going back to this idea of voluntariness, I mean, I think it's interesting that as well,

00:07:13.840 social psychologists and sociologists have ignored friendship.

00:07:17.480 Philosophers had been writing about friendship for a long time.

00:07:20.940 You know, Aristotle famously wrote about different types of friendships.

00:07:24.280 And C.S. Lewis had this quote that I came across talking about the voluntary nature of friendship.

00:07:30.300 And it says, I have no duty to be anyone's friend, and no man in the world has the duty

00:07:36.180 to be mine.

00:07:37.060 No claims, no shattered necessity.

00:07:39.880 Friendship is unnecessary like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself.

00:07:43.700 It has no survival value.

00:07:45.940 Rather, it's one of those things which give value to survival.

00:07:48.700 You bet.

00:07:50.020 That's a wonderful quote.

00:07:51.440 C.S. Lewis in The Four Loves writes about friendship extensively.

00:07:55.840 And it's a terrific treatment of that.

00:07:58.460 And Brett, you mentioned Aristotle.

00:08:01.400 We're talking about the fourth century before the Common Era, BCE, fourth century.

00:08:07.580 Aristotle writes two books about friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics.

00:08:12.480 And he says that life is not worth living without friendship.

00:08:17.800 And I have talked to people, I mean, I've talked to people 100 years old who have said that

00:08:22.560 very same thing.

00:08:23.540 They've said, my life would not have been worth living without my friends.

00:08:29.040 And so I like how he says, you know, it's not necessary like all these incredibly necessary

00:08:34.840 things are, but it is something that we choose.

00:08:38.060 And it's something that we kind of have to live up to.

00:08:40.980 I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but that's, I mean, it's part of the genius of

00:08:44.900 friendship.

00:08:45.640 Because we choose each other, because you can't make people be friends, it's very flexible.

00:08:53.160 Theoretically, we could make friends with anyone, and that's a really promising potential of

00:08:57.860 friendship.

00:08:58.580 We could reach across differences.

00:09:01.280 You know, we could reach across all kinds of divides and treat each other as friends.

00:09:05.840 But this voluntary aspect, and the fact that I talked with you about earlier, about there

00:09:12.300 aren't these external sanctions that preserve friendship, no contracts, no blood.

00:09:19.000 Friendships are susceptible to circumstances.

00:09:21.940 I mean, throughout our lives, friendships can end because of things outside of the friendship,

00:09:27.880 not because of what's going on between the two friends.

00:09:30.840 So we choose each other, and that gives it a lot of flexibility, but it's also very

00:09:35.800 susceptible to circumstances.

00:09:38.520 Well, that's what you talk about.

00:09:39.340 That's the focus of your book, Friendship Matters, is that because of the nature of friendship,

00:09:42.720 that it's voluntary, it's equal, there's a role for affection, and it's mutually, people

00:09:47.740 mutually want to be friends with another.

00:09:49.660 There are these tensions that can arise.

00:09:51.920 And that first tension you talk about is the tension between the freedom to be independent

00:09:56.300 and the freedom to be dependent.

00:09:58.540 How does that tension play out in a friendship?

00:10:01.580 I appreciate you raising that.

00:10:03.540 I mean, when I first began studying friendships in depth, and this has been my life's work,

00:10:11.380 Brett, I've studied friendships since 1978, one of the first things I realized, and it's

00:10:17.920 still extremely important in my mind, is that when we become friends, see, the first sentence

00:10:25.920 of my second book, The Compass of Friendship, I say, freedom lives at the heart of friendship.

00:10:33.020 And by that, I want to get right to the question you're asking me here.

00:10:36.520 When people become friends, they gift each other two freedoms.

00:10:42.480 Brett, let's say you and I become friends, and you say to me, Bill, I'm glad we became friends,

00:10:48.560 and we've really had a great time, you know, here in Tulsa, you know, and we're big fans

00:10:54.440 of all the musicians that play with Leon Russell.

00:10:57.280 And, you know, we're, you know, we're good friends.

00:11:01.660 But you know what?

00:11:03.140 This podcast has attracted a lot of attention to me, Bill, and I have a chance to move into

00:11:08.500 a market in San Francisco that I would really like to, I'd really like to go there.

00:11:12.360 And I say, Brett, you got to do that, man, you have got to do that.

00:11:16.500 You have to take advantage of that.

00:11:17.920 So I'm gifting you the freedom to be independent.

00:11:20.800 But at the same time, I say, listen, buddy, if you ever need me, I'm here for you.

00:11:28.020 So friends gift each other both of those freedoms, the freedom to live your own life, to become

00:11:35.360 the best you can be, but also the freedom to depend on that friend if you need to.

00:11:41.060 And so the reason why it can cause tensions in friendships is, you know, we might both

00:11:47.780 be in really independent periods in our lives.

00:11:50.940 So there's hardly any connection between us.

00:11:54.180 But there's that belief and that understanding that if we needed each other, we could call

00:11:59.320 on each other.

00:12:00.160 But what might happen is I get more and more independent because of what I'm doing.

00:12:05.180 And suddenly you come up against some health issues or some financial issues or some relational

00:12:12.100 issues and you need to depend on me.

00:12:15.020 And what if that's right at the moment where I need to exercise my independence?

00:12:19.460 That can cause problems.

00:12:21.560 So these tensions, or we could both really, really be needing each other a lot to the point

00:12:28.080 that, you know, we're not giving each other enough freedom.

00:12:30.880 So these are some of the ways those tensions play out.

00:12:36.480 Yeah.

00:12:36.600 And I can see, I appreciate the allusion to the Tulsa music scene.

00:12:40.480 That was fantastic.

00:12:42.580 But yeah, another, how that tension can play out is that one friend, you know, he puts a

00:12:48.320 premium on independence while the other friend puts a premium on dependence.

00:12:51.840 And there could be some conflict there and some discommunication and cause frustration within

00:12:57.240 the relationship.

00:12:57.880 That's, you know, I appreciate how carefully you've read the book.

00:13:02.760 I'm very honored by that, for sure.

00:13:05.100 I mean, we're going to talk a bit about across the life course, people have different kind

00:13:12.880 of styles, you know, they form sort of habits of friendship.

00:13:16.080 And by and large, when you like look at, you know, gendered patterns of friendship, by and

00:13:25.900 large, a lot of times males kind of expect and sort of celebrate independence in their

00:13:32.880 friendship.

00:13:33.640 So, I mean, I went with that example at the beginning.

00:13:37.020 I may be playing out a kind of traditional image of male friendships as very independent.

00:13:43.440 However, you can have, you can have friends where one person really wants to emphasize

00:13:52.520 that kind of gift of the freedom to be independent in the friendship.

00:13:56.720 And the other friend, she might really be a more dependent friend, really kind of value a

00:14:02.080 lot more contact.

00:14:04.080 That's got to be reconciled somehow.

00:14:05.960 I mean, what you see, I mentioned kind of modal patterns of male friendships.

00:14:12.080 A lot of times, men are really, really comfortable with each other being very independent.

00:14:17.100 And we catch as catch can, or we have a pattern that works for us of when we spend time together

00:14:22.640 or talk or communicate.

00:14:25.480 I contrast that with a lot of times what happens with women's friendships is they synthesize this 0.99

00:14:32.360 independence and dependence, and they develop pretty interdependent friendships where their

00:14:38.420 lives are very interwoven.

00:14:41.200 So, if you're a guy and you've really valued and do value independence in your friendship,

00:14:47.220 you may have to be reconciled to the fact that you've made friends with someone that wants

00:14:53.020 more contact, you know, wants more dependence, might even be more emotional dependence.

00:14:57.340 So, but again, you know, one of the things that has kept me interested in friendship for

00:15:03.820 four decades, Brett, is the fact that people remain friends to the extent that they fulfill

00:15:13.160 each other's expectation of the relationship.

00:15:16.900 And so, if we're not living up to each other's expectations, we have to talk about it.

00:15:24.400 We, you know, we need, we need to figure out, we need to figure it out.

00:15:28.900 Well, another tension that rises up because of the nature of friendship is the tension between

00:15:34.220 affection and instrumentality.

00:15:37.280 What do you mean by that?

00:15:38.860 That's a very significant one, in my opinion.

00:15:41.700 You know, the tension between affection and instrumentality is, do you care about this friend

00:15:47.520 as an end in itself?

00:15:49.800 Or do you care about this friend as a means to an end?

00:15:52.500 Now, there are different times in our life where we flat out need each other, and that's

00:15:59.020 understood.

00:16:00.040 But if someone feels like the primary reason that someone is a friend with them, you know,

00:16:06.040 to advance at work or, you know, see, because across the life course, let's look at it like

00:16:11.100 that.

00:16:11.420 This is a real tough tension for adolescents.

00:16:14.860 You know, adolescents are very insecure a lot of times in friendship.

00:16:19.960 They've idealized friendships, and then they want to know that that person cares about

00:16:25.480 them for who they are.

00:16:26.680 If they feel like they're just being cared about because I've got my license or because

00:16:32.140 I've got the best platform for video games or because my folks have a swimming pool or

00:16:37.400 something like that, it doesn't make them feel good as friends.

00:16:41.180 They can be very insecure in that kind of friendship.

00:16:43.160 So, and that plays out across the life course.

00:16:46.300 Now, again, if when you look at gendered patterns of this, by and large, men are fairly comfortable

00:16:54.800 with the notion of an instrumental basis for friendship.

00:16:57.640 You know, they help each other with this, help each other with that.

00:17:00.120 I help you build your deck.

00:17:01.660 You can help repair my car.

00:17:03.420 And it kind of, it's viewed as an expression of affection.

00:17:07.000 Many times as you get more into the role crunch of adult life where people are managing a lot

00:17:14.000 of demands, in arrangements where, for example, women are raising children, working, and involved

00:17:22.100 with a variety of activities, it can create tensions between women because they really need 1.00

00:17:29.260 to call on each other a lot.

00:17:30.760 At the same time that they understand that this person cares about them, and that's why they feel

00:17:37.420 like they can call on them.

00:17:38.880 Well, this distinction between this tension of affection and instrumentality, this goes back to

00:17:41.940 Aristotle.

00:17:42.500 He hit on this, that, you know, there's like, sometimes there's friendships of utility.

00:17:46.000 You're darn right.

00:17:47.080 And then, but then like the, the ideal of friendship is that platonic or the sort of like, you know,

00:17:51.600 you're friends because you both make each other, you know, more virtuous and you just love each

00:17:56.420 other because, you know, just because they are who they are.

00:17:59.260 And you're exactly right.

00:18:01.460 I mean, Aristotle, the friendship of utility, he wasn't very proud of.

00:18:05.640 He said, you know, such friendships end when the, you know, the utility is over.

00:18:10.680 He prefers friendships of pleasure, which is friends who enjoy each other.

00:18:16.320 And I really kind of like that Aristotle celebrates this because part of what friendship is about

00:18:21.980 is deciding what's the well-lived life.

00:18:25.000 What does it mean to live well?

00:18:26.560 What does it mean to be a good person?

00:18:28.140 And you, you alluded to this, Brett, the friendship of pleasure is on the way there because we

00:18:33.060 enjoy each other and we share pleasure in things.

00:18:36.160 That's an important part of friendship.

00:18:38.160 I would argue across the life course, it still is.

00:18:41.240 But where Aristotle, what he really celebrates is, is what you might call, he called it true

00:18:46.960 friendship.

00:18:47.980 Some people call it character friendship.

00:18:49.680 And that's the kind of, sort of the, the ideal of friendship that I have in mind when I'm

00:18:55.980 talking with you about a lot of these characteristics.

00:18:58.320 I'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.

00:19:11.240 We're caring about each other for our own sake.

00:19:13.500 Kind of what I call the personal.

00:19:15.280 And I'm curious, I mean, you've been studying friendship for 40 years.

00:19:18.160 Have you been looking at like how social media has affected this tension?

00:19:22.100 Because my hunch is social media promotes sort of a more instrumental friendship, right?

00:19:27.900 Like you use friends to, I don't know, gain status in the Instagram world or whatever.

00:19:33.060 But I mean, it could be used for affection, but I see like it can be used primarily for instrumentality.

00:19:37.480 I just met a couple hours ago with a capstone course on friendship with 24 seniors in college.

00:19:47.780 And they're talking about the very thing you just mentioned there.

00:19:52.860 I 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.

00:20:04.100 That you spend time in each other's presence.

00:20:08.140 That, 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.

00:20:22.060 And they talked about almost as you've raised the question, how all the gadgets and all the platforms have thinned that out.

00:20:31.100 And in some ways, kind of buttonhole friendship, put friendships in certain categories.

00:20:38.480 And 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.

00:20:52.000 While meanwhile, they're saying, you know, students have talked to me.

00:20:56.980 They 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.

00:21:05.460 Everybody's already made these assessments about each other, but they haven't talked with each other.

00:21:11.500 Another tension that pops up in friendships is the tension between judgment and acceptance.

00:21:17.360 I thought this was one of the more interesting ones.

00:21:19.160 I've seen that in my own friendships.

00:21:21.280 Tell us about that tension.

00:21:22.860 This tension, I find it captivating, and I'm glad you do.

00:21:26.800 I find it very, very significant.

00:21:29.980 It goes like this.

00:21:31.140 We expect our friends to accept us.

00:21:33.500 You know, I mean, one of my favorite descriptions of a friend is someone who sees me in ways that I like to be seen.

00:21:41.140 When we come in the presence of a friend of ours, you can kind of see in how they're responding to you.

00:21:46.940 It makes you feel, it's just very affirming, okay?

00:21:50.560 It's a very important part of friendship.

00:21:52.680 We expect our friends to accept us.

00:21:55.440 But what the tension arises is because we have judged that person to be worthy of our friendship.

00:22:02.160 We don't just, we don't make friends with just anybody.

00:22:05.700 We make friends with people who we respect, people we admire.

00:22:10.660 You know, we like their sense of humor.

00:22:12.460 We like their humanity.

00:22:13.700 We like any number of things we might like about them.

00:22:17.060 And we like their character.

00:22:18.840 And so we accept them as our friends, and they accept us as their friends.

00:22:23.660 But that's because we have judged each other to be worthy of our acceptance.

00:22:28.260 So what happens is, and this is why it's a dialectical tension, it's both mutually conditioning and mutually opposing.

00:22:38.060 You 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.

00:22:48.760 I think there's a lot of times when friends seek out friends, and they ask them our opinion on something.

00:22:58.600 And 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?

00:23:11.800 This is a tension where, you know, I wasn't asking to be criticized.

00:23:16.700 I wasn't asking for you to, you know, to judge me.

00:23:19.840 I just wanted your support.

00:23:21.380 But at another point in time, I may very well flat out want to know what you think.

00:23:27.700 So I think this has to be understood and navigated by friends.

00:23:31.420 I mean, the way I, I mean, the thing that was interesting to me is, is that friends many times will judge their friends because they care.

00:23:44.120 They're judging because they care.

00:23:46.520 And so it can be an expression of caring.

00:23:50.020 But it, again, it has to be, it has to be negotiated.

00:23:53.920 And 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.

00:24:17.820 I got to be careful here.

00:24:18.880 I got to tread carefully.

00:24:20.660 Another 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.

00:24:29.960 They're dating the wrong person.

00:24:32.280 They'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.

00:24:38.620 Yes.

00:24:39.060 And there's that, do I step in and say something?

00:24:41.680 And some people say, well, a true friend would, but then some people, when that actually happens, like, I don't like that.

00:24:47.060 You're not, you're my, you're supposed to be my friend.

00:24:48.720 You're supposed to support me.

00:24:49.680 So that's another tension.

00:24:51.580 It is.

00:24:52.200 It's a great example.

00:24:53.300 And I mean, I think it's one of the really singular moments in, in what we might call true friendship.

00:25:01.800 When someone risks, risks delivering that judgment that needs to be delivered.

00:25:09.900 You 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.

00:25:22.980 I mean, he is on top of the entertainment industry and he's also freebasing cocaine and he's destroying himself.

00:25:31.180 And 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.

00:25:40.640 It's going to stop now.

00:25:42.340 And if no one else is going to tell you, I'm going to tell you.

00:25:45.540 And that's a dramatic example, but you're exactly right.

00:25:49.240 It's like, so what do you think of this person?

00:25:52.320 You know, what do you think of this woman? 1.00

00:25:53.720 And 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.

00:26:03.860 And I think you need to think carefully about this.

00:26:07.120 I'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.

00:26:18.900 And that's part of the courage of friendship.

00:26:21.720 And 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.

00:26:29.760 So we have standards in our relationship.

00:26:32.400 And 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.

00:26:41.300 You have to stop this.

00:26:43.500 And hey, come on, man, lighten up, you know, I'm just, this is only for a little while.

00:26:48.500 I can come out ahead with this.

00:26:49.780 And you say, look, you continue doing this.

00:26:53.340 I can't be your friend.

00:26:54.420 And 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.

00:27:07.160 As, it's that serious.

00:27:09.940 It's that serious.

00:27:11.620 And this is a related tension.

00:27:13.160 The final one is this tension between expressiveness and protectiveness.

00:27:16.720 What's that?

00:27:18.040 What is that about?

00:27:19.520 You know, when I first started studying friendship, it was during the kind of an era where open communication was being celebrated.

00:27:28.760 You know, tell everyone what you're thinking.

00:27:31.940 Disclose yourself.

00:27:33.460 Make yourself known to others.

00:27:34.980 And the kind of linear model of relationships that was being offered was, you should tell the person who's close to you everything.

00:27:45.300 Okay, no holds barred.

00:27:47.480 And, but see, I spent a lot of time talking with people who were friends.

00:27:51.960 And they were good friends, some of them for a number of years.

00:27:55.560 And what they were saying was not that.

00:27:58.940 What they were saying, I described as a tension between expressiveness and protectiveness.

00:28:04.980 And it goes like this.

00:28:07.420 Yes, we need to be expressive with our friends.

00:28:10.800 We need to tell our friends what we're going through.

00:28:13.580 We need to tell our friends what we think.

00:28:15.440 We need to tell our friends what we think about what they're going through.

00:28:19.300 Okay, so that's how we get to know each other better.

00:28:22.340 But there are limits to it.

00:28:24.380 And that's where protectiveness comes in.

00:28:26.680 There's some things that I'm not going to tell you because I'm not going to tell anybody.

00:28:32.900 There are things that make me me.

00:28:34.480 There are things that I just simply do not want to share.

00:28:39.040 And that's just to protect part of who I am.

00:28:42.260 There's certain things that I'm not going to tell you because I want to protect you.

00:28:46.520 I don't want to hurt your feelings.

00:28:49.060 You know, I know that you're self-conscious about something.

00:28:52.520 We learn that from being friends.

00:28:55.220 If I keep mentioning that, that's not a productive thing to do.

00:29:01.320 It can make people feel, you know, unwilling to be vulnerable with you.

00:29:05.880 See, because the thing about friendship is also we've got to be comfortable with our vulnerabilities with each other.

00:29:11.520 And the way we protect our vulnerabilities is sometimes not going there.

00:29:16.360 All right?

00:29:16.720 And there's other things that you don't tell friends because they're your friends.

00:29:20.740 In 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?

00:29:31.860 That's an important question.

00:29:34.700 Now, I'm going to speak modally, Brett.

00:29:38.220 Like, you can have women that have very masculine style of friendship, as I'm speaking of it here. 0.99

00:29:44.760 You can have men that tend toward a more feminine style of friendship, as I'm speaking of it here.

00:29:51.080 So, I'm talking about modally a lot of the research that describes men's friendships and women's friendships.

00:29:59.060 And I'm going to contrast them for you with regard to these tensions we're talking about.

00:30:03.780 I mentioned before, as far as independence and dependence, men are really comfortable with a lot of independence in their friendship.

00:30:12.540 Women tend to synthesize those into interdependent friendships. 1.00

00:30:17.620 They weave their lives together.

00:30:19.560 And that's how they live in friendship.

00:30:21.440 In terms of affection and instrumentality, men are getting better.

00:30:25.680 And 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.

00:30:41.900 Okay?

00:30:42.080 So, in closer male friendships, there is this interdependence.

00:30:46.660 And the other things I'm going to talk about, it's not as much of a contrast.

00:30:52.440 However, let's go back to the modal pattern.

00:30:55.020 So, when you've got affection and instrumentality, men are being encouraged more to express affection with other men.

00:31:04.520 But there's still some kind of cultural imagery that has men not being quite as expressive of their affection with other men.

00:31:13.320 Women are very comfortable expressing affection. 0.99

00:31:17.040 And they use each other.

00:31:18.540 So, in terms of affection and instrumentality, men are really comfortable with a lot of instrumentality in their friendships.

00:31:25.920 Women have both affection and instrumentality. 1.00

00:31:29.760 And that can get kind of testy, especially when they work together.

00:31:33.600 Okay?

00:31:33.900 When you're, they're expecting, I thought we were friends and now you're really, you know, laying this, you know, work thing on me.

00:31:41.540 Men have kept that affection out of it and basically say, okay, I got this.

00:31:48.540 All right?

00:31:48.900 So, 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.

00:31:59.520 All right?

00:32:00.460 Men don't spend a lot of time judging each other.

00:32:03.540 It's sort of like accepting each other.

00:32:05.420 Okay?

00:32:05.900 If you want to do it, do it.

00:32:07.220 Unless something serious like you and I were talking about a few minutes ago.

00:32:10.960 But by and large, hey, do what you want.

00:32:13.880 Go ahead.

00:32:14.800 You know, if you want to do that, women will be more judgmental of each other. 1.00

00:32:19.260 You know, this is kind of the famous drama of women's friendships. 0.99

00:32:24.720 Because they care, they're going to judge.

00:32:28.120 Men aren't quite as worried about being seen as caring, so they're going to accept a lot of things.

00:32:33.980 And 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.

00:32:42.040 But 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.

00:32:50.640 But, I mean, another sort of this idea you hear is that people say that modern men don't have good friendships.

00:32:57.380 Do you think that's true, or are we misjudging male friendships based on a standard of female friendships?

00:33:02.300 You know, I'm glad you asked me that right there.

00:33:05.480 I would like to just quickly tell you expressiveness and protectiveness, and then I'm going to answer your question, okay?

00:33:11.700 Sure.

00:33:12.180 In terms of expressiveness and protectiveness, women are more disclosive and tend to say more what they're thinking in their friendships. 0.99

00:33:20.700 Men are more protective.

00:33:21.880 In other words, they keep their thoughts to themselves.

00:33:24.820 And in some ways, that's celebrated in our culture.

00:33:28.380 Now, however, I want to look your question in the eye.

00:33:33.280 There's a few things I want to say.

00:33:35.700 I 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.

00:33:50.500 I 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.

00:34:00.280 But, 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.

00:34:17.940 So, 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,

00:34:40.080 I felt that there were a lot of things that women do in their friendships that would help men to understand how to do.

00:34:49.040 So, 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.

00:35:03.780 Now, 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.

00:35:21.720 But 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.

00:35:41.360 And 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.

00:36:00.580 You 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.

00:36:10.640 I 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.

00:36:31.540 And, 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.

00:36:45.220 So 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?

00:37:01.280 What'd he say?

00:37:01.940 Nothing.

00:37:06.120 The gun goes off, and I'm mortified.

00:37:09.860 Hey, 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.

00:37:21.180 I'll never forget that, you know. If the opposite thing had happened, I would say, what are you doing?

00:37:28.100 Yeah.

00:37:28.440 What are you thinking of being, you know what I'm saying? If his gun had gone off, I probably would have jumped out of that whole swamp.

00:37:35.720 I learned something about him, and I also learned something about how to treat somebody in a situation like that.

00:37:43.540 So what I'm trying to say is this. In men's friendships, actions and activities say a lot. So there is a lot expressed there.

00:37:56.060 And so a lot of that closeness and understanding of what matters can be demonstrated without being spoken.

00:38:05.760 However, having said that, I'm a dialectical guy, Brett, and these things are interlaced.

00:38:12.940 The thing about women is, yeah, you say women talk a lot, but for women, talking is an activity. 1.00

00:38:21.320 I mean, it's something that they really value as an activity, and they also talk when they're doing things, which men can.

00:38:29.920 You know, that's another thing. I mean, men can be talking while they're doing stuff, but not always.

00:38:34.140 Have you read Lonesome Dove or seen the miniseries?

00:38:37.540 Oh, my gosh. That is the best Western period.

00:38:40.820 It is.

00:38:41.760 That's my opinion. It's the best Western ever.

00:38:44.320 I agree. I've read the book like five times.

00:38:46.880 Yes.

00:38:47.040 I named my kid Gus after Gus McRae.

00:38:49.780 Oh, my gosh. I'm gusted.

00:38:51.100 But 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.

00:38:59.860 Like, they were friends, and you're kind of like, why are they friends? They have so much not in common.

00:39:04.200 But they knew how, they understood each other, and oftentimes they showed affection by, like, leaving things left unsaid.

00:39:12.620 Exactly. I mean, that's a terrific example to bring up.

00:39:17.560 I 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.

00:39:32.860 I think you're right.

00:40:02.860 I 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.

00:40:17.420 Yeah, no, I'd agree. That book's all about relationships.

00:40:21.500 It is. It quite, it really is.

00:40:23.440 So 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.

00:40:29.680 It's like 800 pages, but it's the best, the best novel.

00:40:33.760 It'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.

00:40:46.580 So 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.

00:40:58.740 So, 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.

00:41:19.320 Friendship across childhood is very intriguing to observe because starting and learning to develop friendships with others is a very, very important part of childhood.

00:41:34.180 Because 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.

00:41:54.960 And 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.

00:42:11.240 And 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.

00:42:31.020 Friendship goes beyond that. It has something to do with each other and who we are to each other.

00:42:35.540 And it's fascinating to understand, but that takes a while. And some people, it takes them a long time.

00:42:47.020 When 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.

00:43:05.540 Of 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.

00:43:25.540 No, 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.

00:43:33.360 But then around nine, kids start developing this idea that you, you can have a friendship based on personality, your shared values, shared interests.

00:43:41.480 Yes.

00:43:41.780 And 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.

00:43:53.440 Absolutely. It's nicely put. It's nicely put.

00:43:56.140 So 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.

00:44:17.920 I 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?

00:44:30.160 There'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.

00:44:47.920 And 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.

00:45:03.040 What 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.

00:45:20.120 I 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.

00:45:38.360 You 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.

00:45:58.280 Now, 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.

00:46:23.660 So, 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.

00:46:46.820 No, 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.

00:47:10.260 And so, their friends during that time, like they had the biggest, they had one of the biggest influences on them as a burgeoning adult.

00:47:17.440 It'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.

00:47:36.660 So, intimacy and identity are very tightly coupled in adolescence. And many times it's the friends who've been a key partner for that.

00:47:46.840 So, 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.

00:47:55.700 You'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?

00:48:09.840 And I guess what we need to do first is like, what is an adult friendship and how does it differ from an adolescent friendship?

00:48:16.440 Truth to tell, Brett, I mean, I believe that the friendships that we make in adolescence are very, very important.

00:48:27.420 I think the ones that we preserve across the decades have very likely been sifted through the challenges of young adulthood.

00:48:38.760 You 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.

00:48:51.760 See, I think adolescence is very important, but here's the difference, and you're asking for a difference here.

00:48:58.780 During 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.

00:49:11.480 You know what I mean?

00:49:13.140 It's a tractable self.

00:49:14.800 It's like, oh, maybe play down what I thought was cool if you think this is cool if I can be your friend.

00:49:21.660 Sometimes it's more mutually decided, but I'm arguing that adolescents are more likely to change who they are, to become friends with someone.

00:49:31.880 When you get to young adulthood, you can run into someone and it's like, say a rock band.

00:49:39.580 It's like, you find out they like Journey.

00:49:42.820 You're like, Journey?

00:49:44.520 Are you kidding me? 1.00

00:49:46.420 That's crap. 0.99

00:49:47.840 You know, and, oh, man, Journey's the stuff, and you're like, well, no, I don't think so. 0.99

00:49:54.300 And there might be something else, but if you're all about music, maybe you gravitate towards someone else that shares your opinions about that.

00:50:04.620 When you're an adolescent, you might say, yeah, Journey's okay, okay?

00:50:08.920 What I'm trying to say is this.

00:50:10.160 So, when we get to young adulthood, people have a clear understanding of who they are.

00:50:17.360 A lot of that has been accomplished with friends.

00:50:20.120 That's why those friends that we made in adolescence might accompany us, okay, but a lot of times into college and into young adulthood.

00:50:28.180 But, you know, the transition to college, Brett, is one of the loneliest times in the entire life course.

00:50:34.780 People report more loneliness than any other time in the life course.

00:50:41.800 And 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.

00:50:57.800 And I got to decide which of them do I really want to be friends with.

00:51:02.440 I'm not going to change just to be friends with people.

00:51:05.860 And 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.

00:51:14.900 And 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?

00:51:23.540 So 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.

00:51:37.800 You 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.

00:51:48.540 And these are people who are privileged enough to go to college, Brad.

00:51:53.540 I'm talking about people who have been gifted the opportunity to go to college.

00:51:58.060 I know there's other ways this can happen, but I'm speaking about the college setting.

00:52:02.180 So 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.

00:52:17.820 Others 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.

00:52:36.660 And these friends help us make these choices, like we were talking about earlier.

00:52:43.980 What do you think of this woman? 1.00

00:52:46.000 And your friends say, listen, man, you are lucky.

00:52:49.060 You better take care of her. 0.99

00:52:51.180 You are lucky to have her.

00:52:53.140 Or your friend says, hey, hey, man, come on, watch out.

00:52:56.760 You know what, you know, you better not, watch out for her.

00:53:00.540 Anyway, our friends help us.

00:53:02.680 You say, hey, I've got an interview with this company.

00:53:04.740 What do you think?

00:53:05.400 Our friends help us make a lot of decisions.

00:53:09.000 This 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.

00:53:22.860 By 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.

00:53:31.260 But the irony is, is then we're so committed and involved in these other things, we have less time for the friends.

00:53:38.760 Yeah.

00:53:39.020 So that brings us to adulthood, where making friends is really hard as an adult.

00:53:43.460 I'd say like from your 30s.

00:53:44.800 I mean, you talk about in the study, like 30s to like 50s, basically, until the kids get out of the house.

00:53:50.940 A lot of adults don't say they don't have a lot of friends.

00:53:54.380 When 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.

00:54:17.620 All right, the greatest determinant of whether friendships are going to be preserved or not is what's going on outside of the friendship.

00:54:27.840 Have you taken a job that now takes you to the other side of the country?

00:54:32.360 Have you married someone who doesn't like me very much?

00:54:36.500 Okay.

00:54:36.920 Have you had children?

00:54:38.600 In 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.

00:54:53.400 I 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.

00:55:10.740 That's why you might find people with young children who are very different ages, but they're all about their young children.

00:55:17.340 And so they're able to kind of coordinate their friendship and enjoy each other as friends around that activity.

00:55:25.240 Other people who are all about work, that's the thing that we realized some years ago.

00:55:30.160 It'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.

00:55:44.700 That's what I'm talking about here.

00:55:46.900 So it seems like friendship gets compartmentalized in a lot of ways in adulthood.

00:55:51.400 Like 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.

00:56:02.540 It might just stay there.

00:56:03.580 You know, I'm glad you mentioned that.

00:56:06.780 It's something I wanted to say early on because it broadens the discussion of friendship in an important way.

00:56:14.260 And you asked me, what makes friendship distinctive?

00:56:18.220 There's one other thing I would want to say here just adamantly.

00:56:22.260 And that is this.

00:56:24.120 Friendship can be a freestanding relationship.

00:56:28.400 In other words, we are friends.

00:56:30.840 And 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?

00:56:42.440 Right?

00:56:42.940 So you've got freestanding friends.

00:56:47.780 We are friends.

00:56:49.040 But the other aspect about friendship is friendship can be a dimension of other relationships.

00:56:55.220 So we can become friends with our spouse.

00:56:59.540 We can become friends with coworkers.

00:57:02.340 We can become friends with people that we maybe are in some kind of club or civic association with.

00:57:10.220 We can become friends with them.

00:57:11.920 It can become a dimension of other relationships.

00:57:14.560 And 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.

00:57:26.260 So across the life course, a lot of times children at a certain point might choose to be friends with their parents.

00:57:34.560 They might, they're not going to see their parents because they have to.

00:57:38.400 They're going to see their parents because they like them or love them because they want to spend time with them.

00:57:44.260 And it's a, and, and they've found a way to interact more as equals.

00:57:49.400 Why?

00:57:50.000 Because we like doing this together.

00:57:51.720 Because I, you know, the parent realizes that the son knows a lot more about this than the parent does.

00:57:57.260 So they stand, they've found a dimension of their relationship to interact as equals, to interact as friends.

00:58:03.980 We can become friends with coworkers.

00:58:06.260 So 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.

00:58:18.180 And, and, and it is a dimension of the relationship, but the relationship is still primarily driven by work or some other role responsibility.

00:58:28.820 And so then the susceptibility returns, friendship, susceptibility.

00:58:35.040 Yeah.

00:58:35.520 I 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.

00:58:43.100 Most of your friends are about your same age.

00:58:45.420 In adulthood, that's sort of like the, the soul, you don't really care how old your friends are.

00:58:50.300 They can't be too old, but they can't be too young.

00:58:52.220 But you might have friends who are seven years older than you, seven years younger than you, and you're okay with that.

00:58:58.020 And that wouldn't be the case when you're an adolescent.

00:59:00.960 Absolutely.

00:59:01.760 And, and again, I think that the reason for that is, is because we have something in common that's more important than age.

00:59:11.620 You 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.

00:59:18.500 But yes, I think during adulthood, I mean, the primary obstacle to friendship in adulthood is time.

00:59:30.100 Okay.

00:59:30.380 The deepest chasm between anybody in adulthood is time.

00:59:37.160 Okay.

00:59:37.680 So it, and sometimes it, I talk about the notion of functional proximity.

00:59:44.400 It'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.

00:59:55.840 And you might wave to them when they're, you know, going to the bus stop or whatever.

01:00:00.220 Okay.

01:00:01.360 But you might have someone, who knows?

01:00:05.500 I mean, you know, you're, you're working a lot of stuff that's mediated, but I mean, your lives, there's functional proximity.

01:00:13.100 I mean, this person lives two towns away, but we show up at this studio and we work together.

01:00:18.820 So our lives are more interwoven than someone who lives 500 feet from me.

01:00:24.240 The 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?

01:00:32.900 And how does the organization of our lives allow us to share things we care about?

01:00:39.480 So 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.

01:00:47.680 And for most people, he said, most people don't have time to make friends outside of work.

01:00:51.240 So they look to work to find friends, but work, friendship and work is fraught with a lot of, a lot of problems.

01:00:57.800 Because, okay, we go back to this idea that friendship is voluntary, it's equal, it's effective instead of instrumental.

01:01:03.940 Like work sort of is against all of that, right?

01:01:07.560 It's, there are hierarchies in work.

01:01:09.640 Work is about instrumentality.

01:01:11.760 So how can work, like how do people manage to make friends at work and what tensions they have to navigate with friendships at work?

01:01:18.780 Oh, quite so.

01:01:20.980 One thing I would say is, is that the culture of the workplace is a very significant issue, okay?

01:01:27.800 There are certain types of work that are just absolutely permeated with competition.

01:01:34.320 I mean, the thing is set up to put people in very, very stark competition with each other.

01:01:40.520 We 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.

01:01:52.980 So that's inimical to friendship.

01:01:55.240 I 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.

01:02:09.820 It's very hard to be friends.

01:02:10.960 So, 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.

01:02:25.140 You've already mentioned some of them.

01:02:27.820 It'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.

01:02:41.900 Now, it can happen, but there, if you're, if you're a boss, you have to watch out for perceptions of favoritism.

01:02:48.840 If 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.

01:02:58.140 What I recommend in pursuing friendships in a work setting is, first of all, is to try to preserve some clear definitions of the relationship.

01:03:11.320 For example, I've been friends with people at work and, and, and very good friends.

01:03:18.040 What 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.

01:03:32.260 Or we'll say, let's do it both ways, and then decide what we want to do.

01:03:39.140 I 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.

01:03:50.280 And I said, should I run for this office?

01:03:52.740 And he said, do you want me to answer as your friend or as your boss?

01:03:56.500 And I said, both.

01:03:58.120 And he said, as your boss, I'd say, of course, go for it.

01:04:02.580 It gives us all kinds of visibility.

01:04:04.380 It's the most important office in the discipline, and I think you could get elected.

01:04:08.540 I said, wow.

01:04:09.860 I said, what about as my friend?

01:04:11.460 He said, I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole.

01:04:14.700 He said, your time won't be your own.

01:04:16.720 You know, you'll, you'll have to go to every conference in the field, and I don't recommend you do it.

01:04:21.740 And 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.

01:04:29.660 The other thing is, is if you're friends with people you work with, it's nice.

01:04:34.100 I 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.

01:04:48.000 Because what that does is it really keys up the fact that we are choosing to spend time together.

01:04:54.580 We're not doing this because we have to.

01:04:56.820 So, I think that's an important, both of those are important strategies at work, in my opinion.

01:05:01.960 To 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.

01:05:15.100 We choose to be.

01:05:16.040 In 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.

01:05:29.520 If he's married, he'll typically say his wife.

01:05:32.120 You 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.

01:05:43.060 And then you say, well, because she listens to me, you know, and you ask a guy, why is your wife your best friend?

01:05:52.920 Because I can talk to her, because I can trust her with anything.

01:05:55.600 When 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.

01:06:12.940 And then, so they'll retreat and they'll find comfort if they have a spouse in their spouse, all right?

01:06:21.540 I think it's important for men to get involved in a variety of activities.

01:06:32.340 I really do.

01:06:33.120 I think it's important to try to get involved with doing different things than work.

01:06:39.620 Because, 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,

01:06:58.100 you're going to need to figure out how to connect with people that might share interests that you have.

01:07:06.940 That can be a challenge.

01:07:08.740 So, 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?

01:07:19.320 You can form habits of how you go about living in friendship, okay?

01:07:25.360 You know, there's three types I could mention.

01:07:27.960 One would be independence.

01:07:29.680 And these are people that make friends wherever they go.

01:07:33.140 I mean, they – and you could say, perhaps these aren't the deepest friendships, but you can't decide that.

01:07:39.800 I mean, what happens between people, you can't decide.

01:07:42.660 And 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.

01:07:57.120 And maybe we're even giving ourselves credit for it, all right?

01:08:00.920 So – but independence, make friends wherever they go.

01:08:04.060 If they move, they make new friends.

01:08:05.420 I mean, I talked to one guy.

01:08:06.460 He said, look, I've made friends wherever I go all my life.

01:08:09.000 And if – when I go into the nursing home, I'll make friends there.

01:08:11.540 So there's people that will put in the effort, get out there, and socialize, all right?

01:08:18.320 Then 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.

01:08:29.040 And man, oh man, that is what friendship is to them.

01:08:32.920 And across the life course, that person – and it could be one spouse or it could be someone else besides one spouse.

01:08:42.360 But that's how they've lived in friendship.

01:08:44.320 And, you know, that can have a really – a real core strength to it.

01:08:48.080 And really, that person can really kind of curate your life story and even co-author your life story with you.

01:08:55.260 But you lose that friend.

01:08:56.520 That's a really significant blow.

01:08:59.040 It really creates a really big hole in someone's life.

01:09:02.840 And 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.

01:09:16.860 So, 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.

01:09:25.460 And 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.

01:09:36.040 Exactly.

01:09:36.820 I mean, if I was to make some recommendations, I would say a few things.

01:09:42.840 Try some activities, okay?

01:09:45.360 Think about what you like doing and see if there's folks around who are doing that.

01:09:52.860 And I know I'm speaking generally there, but, you know, if you like playing music, find out who around town is playing music.

01:10:01.060 If 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.

01:10:11.360 In other words, take some risks and try to find some activities that you like to do that other people might like to do.

01:10:19.960 Second thing I'd say is this, and you just hinted at this, but I'm really adamant about it.

01:10:25.760 Small talk is fine because small talk can lead to other talk.

01:10:32.300 It can lead to big talk, you know, I think we're back to expressiveness and protectiveness.

01:10:37.400 Some 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.

01:10:49.100 And I don't recommend that.

01:10:51.200 I recommend, you know, talking about whatever comes up.

01:10:54.640 And this leads to a third thing I would suggest.

01:10:57.820 Listen, I mean, people enjoy talking about themselves.

01:11:03.160 And so if you're someone who listens, they may enjoy talking with you, okay?

01:11:09.960 And after you've listened to them, I bet they very well may listen to you.

01:11:15.660 So small talk about, you know, whatever it is, don't go political too soon.

01:11:21.740 And that can be, in these highly divisive times, that's not a good choice.

01:11:27.480 And don't go too personal too quick, you know?

01:11:30.280 Just talk about what's in front of us.

01:11:33.280 Small talk, it can lead to other talk.

01:11:35.460 And you can sense what might be good talk.

01:11:38.560 And listen, okay?

01:11:40.600 So try some activities.

01:11:43.440 Talk about what's right there.

01:11:45.600 Practice listening and take the risk.

01:11:48.420 And then take the risk.

01:11:50.520 You might find someone that you end up pairing off with a lot or feel comfortable with.

01:11:55.580 And then you might say, hey, you want to catch a cup of coffee?

01:11:59.120 Or, hey, you want to catch the game this Friday at the sports bar or something, you know?

01:12:04.260 I mean, it's a risk.

01:12:07.040 It's a risk to try to make a friendship.

01:12:10.840 But it's a risk I think should be taken.

01:12:13.880 And I think also from our conversation, from your insights in the book,

01:12:16.580 that can help people with friendship is understanding because of the nature of friendship,

01:12:20.640 because it's voluntary, because it's equal.

01:12:23.340 There's going to be tensions there that you'll have to navigate.

01:12:26.260 And that's okay.

01:12:27.080 Like, it's just part of the game of friendship.

01:12:30.000 And successful friendship requires you navigating those tensions.

01:12:32.720 So, Brad, again, I appreciate the care you've taken with Friendship Matters.

01:12:39.280 I mean, one of the – when I talked earlier on about open communication as some kind of a linear model,

01:12:45.820 and when I started talking about expressiveness, protectiveness, what I'm saying is, you know,

01:12:51.020 there's going to be tensions.

01:12:52.260 It's like you just said.

01:12:53.480 I mean, people think friendship – first of all, they think it really doesn't take effort.

01:12:58.000 It'll happen naturally.

01:12:59.460 And once it happens, everything will be fine.

01:13:02.560 And if you assume that friendship doesn't require effort, I think you're – that's a very naive outlook.

01:13:10.020 And 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,

01:13:20.140 is that there are inherent tensions involved in friendship.

01:13:24.640 They're inherent.

01:13:26.000 When I talk about independence and dependence, judgment and acceptance, affection and instrumentality, expressiveness and protectiveness,

01:13:34.720 these are inherent tensions.

01:13:36.620 All friendships experience them to greater or lesser degrees.

01:13:41.180 So if you're in a friendship and you start to notice this tension, try to talk about it.

01:13:46.580 And even before that, realize that it's not that unusual.

01:13:50.240 You know, friends go through tough patches.

01:13:53.000 And friendships are highly susceptible to circumstances.

01:13:57.500 So it's good to be aware of that.

01:13:59.700 And it's good to feel like, you know, you're not unusual because you're feeling these tensions in your friendship.

01:14:07.320 Most people, if not a lot of people, feel them.

01:14:12.040 Well, Bill, this has been a great conversation.

01:14:13.660 Thanks so much for your time.

01:14:14.240 It's been an absolute pleasure.

01:14:15.940 Well, I'm happy to talk with you, Brett.

01:14:18.020 I've appreciated your questions.

01:14:20.140 My guest there is Bill Rollins.

01:14:21.180 He's the author of the book Friendship Matters, as well as other books on friendship.

01:14:24.700 They're all available on Amazon.com.

01:14:26.260 You 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.

01:14:38.980 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.

01:14:41.820 You can check out our website at artofmanalience.com for our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles we've written over the past 11 years.

01:14:48.300 And a lot of them, we've got several articles on friendships.

01:14:50.200 So check those out.

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01:15:16.980 Until next time, this is Brett McKay, reminding you not only to listen to the AOM Podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

01:15:24.520 We'll see you next time.

The Art of Manliness - December 09, 2019

#567： Understanding the Wonderful, Frustrating Dynamic of Friendship

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