How to Make Friends as a Grownup w/ Dr. Marisa G. Franco

So there are more funny duddies than you. You are the funny duddiest. Yes, welcome to go ask Allie. I'm Ali Wentworth Now. One of the most requested topics by listeners is making friends as adults. So for all you listeners out there, today's your lucky day. As important as food, oxygen, and water. Friendship, you know everybody has struggled with friendship, how we attach ourselves to people, how we detach ourselves

to people. I know for me that my friendships are as meaningful and integral to my life as my husband and my children and everything else. And friendship is a very big subject in my house for me because I hold my friendships so dear. But also I have two teenage daughters who are constantly trying to chart the waters of friendship and all the pain and elation that goes with it. And my mother, who at eighty eight years old, has found herself a widow and with many of her

friends deceased. So how do we maintain friendships? How do we make new friendships? My guest today is Dr Marissa G. Franco. She's a psychologist, professor, and author of Platonic, How the Science of Attachment can help You Make and Keep Friends. She writes about friendship for Psychology Today and has been a featured connection expert from major publications like The New

York Times, The Telegraph, Advice. Marissa is a professor at the University of Maryland and speaks on belonging at corporations, universities, and more. Welcome, Marissa, So happy to be talking with you. I am so glad you're here because I find that female friendship is such an integral part of all of our lives. And I take my friendships very seriously, and I have to say that my my friendships have caused me even more pain than my love relationships in the past.

So I just ate your book right up, Platonic how the science of attachment can help you make and keep friends, because there's so much there, and there's so much there that I want to give my daughters too, because is obviously they're younger than me, and they're dealing with friendships in a different way that I am as an old lady. Now, um, but the most important the theme in your book is really attachment and the whole theory of attachment. So let's

let's just dive into that right away. Yeah. Well, first of all, Alliam, I'm so honored to hear that you want to share it with your daughters. That really touches me. Oh, I sent your book Platonic to my daughter in college because I feel like they're always struggling with friendships, and you know, from from kindergarten on you're you're constantly dealing with how you attached to people. So let's start with

attachment theory. So attachment theory is basically the idea that in our early lives with our parents, we begin to develop a certain template for how people will treat us, and after that we we developed that template, we engage in like confirmation biases, where we see people interacting with us in ways that match that template and almost ignore

times that they don't write. And then we build a number of strategies in reaction to these assumptions that we think people in reaction to these ways that we think other people will treat us. So, you know, what does that mean in a more practical way, If you're anxiously attached, your template says people are going to abandon me unless I cling cling cling close to them, right, And so you know, anxiously attached people, they often misspire and think

they're being rejected even when they're not. They often give too much in friendships because again they need they feel like they need to to feel worthy to feel like they'll keep other people around. They don't stand up for themselves, they don't have boundaries, they don't bring up conflicts again

fear that other people are gonna abandon you. Sometimes they can also be quite demanding because of the sense that I need you to do this to prove that I am worthy to me right, And and sometimes they don't necessarily consider other people have different needs outside of them, or reacting to them in ways that aren't necessarily personal. Right, and then you have avoidingly attached people. Their template their early childhood was usually I got food, I got water,

I got shelter, but there was nothing emotionally. It was sort of like emotional neglect. I was told to handle things on my own, you know, be a big boy, be a big girl. And what that means is that avoidingly attached people are very uncomfortable with emotions, very uncomfortable with intimacy. Their template says, other people can't be trustworthy, so they tend to invest less in friendship. They tend to not be as vulnerable in friendship, they tend to

ghost more. Um, you know, people that are friends with them feel like I've known them for so long, but I don't feel like I really know them because they're not necessarily vulnerable. Or I don't feel reciprocity. I feel like I'm putting in all this effort but the other person isn't. Because avoidingly attached people fundamentally enjoy friendship less because they see it as a liability or responsibility. Right. And then you have securely attached people who have learned

in their relationships. And again, it's it starts with your parents or caretakers. But it evolves, right, so it's not just your early relationships, and they trust that they can build relationships with people. They trust that other people like them. They are comfortable being vulnerable, but in a way, that's

that oversharing, right. If someone withdraws from them or doesn't like them, they kind of walk away instead of work harder, which you tend to see with more anxiously attached people, they're better at initiating friendships, less likely to dissolve friendships. Their friendships are are very stable, right, And that's why I call them like the super friends of connection. And I think what we learn from attachment theory and what I argue in Platonic is that our personality is fundamentally

a reflection of our past experiences of connection. Whether we are open, warm, trusting, critical, aggressive, you know, generous, all of these are predicted by whether we've connected well in the past. But not only that, then who we are

affects how we connect. The people that are best at connecting now typically have healthier history of relationships, which have given them the template that other people are trustworthy, that they can connect with people that allows them to continue to connect whereas if you've had a very difficult history that you haven't processed, it can lead you with a set of beliefs and a set of strategies that actually make it a little bit more difficult to form relationships

and friendships in the future. Okay, So, can somebody be born with anxious attachment just sort of based on their personality or is it environmental? Yeah, this is a great question, um, something I want to clarify because I tell people about attachment theory and they're like, good for those people with healthy parents, Like, Okay, you know I'm at a luck then, And I don't think that's what I'm trying to convey, especially for me as someone who's gone from anxious to

more secure. Your attachment can fundamentally change over time. Some research finds that it's more likely to change than stay the same after you, you know, you have different relationships that that kind of adjust your sculpture template over time. Right, And I think knowing about our attachment style isn't deterministic that we're going to be doomed because we had doomed relationships in the past, but instead it allows us to instead say nobody can be trusted, you know, everybody's gonna

abandon me. And if you feel like that is the truth that's out there in the world, you have no agency, You're just powerless. Right. But when you know how your own behavior can influence people in ways that make it more likely that your fears are going to come to fruition because you sort of behave in ways that make these behaviors more likely to be true, then you can change your behaviors and you can develop really good relationships with people. So I hope that it can be more empowering.

But related to your question, Ali it there is a genetic component to attachment. Um. There's this theory and psychology called the orchid hypothesis, which is basically the idea that some of us are more vulnerable to our environments, whether good or bad. Right. So if these these more sensitive folks um genetically right, are in a good environment, they're going to thrive. If they're in a bad environment, are

going to be devastated. Right. Others of us are kind of like we have less of a range, Like we're gonna be kind of similar. We're not as affected by our environment, so our outcomes are going to be like sort of similar ish whether we have really good environment or a bad one, right, And so there is that genetic difference which is partially how much are we absorbing

our environment that that differs between a lot of us. Yeah, because I think, you know, for instance, I'm thinking about one of my daughters, who, you know, the second she came out in the hospital, she was mommy, mommy, mommy, and she was a clingy baby. She wouldn't let anyone else hold her. And you know, I think she falls under the category of anxious attachment, and it's it's, you know, maybe I coddled her too much, But I don't look at it as oh, did we not give her enough love?

Did we not you know, nurture her enough. We did in huge amounts. She literally was born like that, like as a baby, whereas my other daughter was like, hey, put me in the crib, I don't care, I'm fine, And she has, you know, she has more of the calmer, kind of less attached personality, and so in some ways,

I do think it's genetic. Yeah. Yeah, I think what you're talking about is a temperament and the psychology, which is like we're kind of born with a certain temperament that then can sort of interact with our environment in certain ways, right, because temperaments are also going to draw something different out of a parent, right. Yes. Absolutely, you might react to your babies differently because they have they're reacting to you differently. Right. So it's it's really interesting

how these two things can intersect. Yes. And so one of the things I am fascinated by in your book is the idea of, in terms of friendship, platonic love. Right. So, platonic love is the love I have, let's say, for my girlfriends, and even though they lack sex and fashion, they feel to me just as integral to my life

and as strong as a romantic relationship. Yeah. Yeah, And actually I think in platonic I was interested in learning the lines between romance and friendship because Angela Chen she she has this really great book Ace, and she kind of talks about how, you know, in the a sexual community, there's very much a distinction between being sexually attracted someone and romantically attracted to someone, right, And so sexual attraction as I want to have sex with you, Romantic attraction

is I'm passionate about you, I idealize you, I think you're amazing, you feel like my soul ate right. And so when we look at relationships between woman friends in particular, we see them saying things like you are my soulmate and all I want to do is spend my time with you, right, And that is sort of sounds like

it's kind of on the romantic spectrum. And in fact, throughout our history, um, you know, in the early seventeen hundreds, there was the sense that the genders are so distinct that you can only find this true and deep intimacy with your friends who share the same gender as you, kind of like romance being more of a part of

friendship than it was marriage. Right, And so at that time, friends were holding hands, friends were sharing beds, friends were cuddling, right because all of that, m oh, that was normal at that time. Now, of course, our script for friendship

is a lot more limited. Right. But I think if we look at if we can differentiate or take a fine tiof comb between the differences between all these different forms of love, we can see that romantic relationships romantic feelings are kind of I would argue, even normal without a lot of particularly close and intimate friendships. Okay, so let me ask you this, because this is advice that I've given my friends, and you can tell me it's probably wrong, and I'll make sure I edit this part out.

But um, I say to my girlfriends that they shouldn't expect their partner to be their best friend, because I feel like they are setting themselves up let's say when they first lived with somebody or marry them, because I have found the game changer in my marriage, which is a very good marriage, was that when I would go to my husband for a lot of kind of scaffolding, he he just wasn't the person like I never was

satiated by what I got back from him. But if I went to my girlfriends, you know, they like to chew on some of the stuff I like to chew on for a lot longer. And yet my life path is with my husband and sort of the big issues I deal with with my husband and obviously have sex with my husband. But my girlfriends I've sort of kept for a lot of the other emotional stuff that I

sometimes think it's too inundating for my husband. Meaning I say to my girlfriends, don't necessarily go into marriage with this idea that this person is your all, your best friend, your lover, or your everything. Am I right or am

I wrong? I agree with the idea that your spouse should not be your everything, and in fact I argue that being in a healthy romantic relationship or healthy marriage really requires you to have people to support you outside of that marriage, because the research finds that when you're in conflict with your spouse, it disrupts your stress hormone release in unhealthy ways unless you have quality connection outside

that marriage. That when you make a friend, not only are you less depressed, your spouse is less depressed too. Um that people that you know, related to what you said, Alie, engage in emotion ships, which means you go to different people to help you work through different emotions, they have higher overall well being. That women who have close friends out of the marriage are more resilient to strife within the marriag much whereas people that only rely on a spouse,

they're very devastated when things go wrong. Right their mental health, according to the research, is just more impacted by the natural ebbs and flows in that relationship. And what that means is that if something goes wrong and you're completely off kilter, it's harder to heal from it, Whereas if something goes wrong, and you go out and you get some support, you return to your relationship in a centered place to be like, we're not enemies, let's work this out.

I've process of my feelings. I'm not in a reactive place that is such a great resource for your marriage. And so I definitely agree with you that this has been a truth throughout our entire species that somehow we've forgotten in recent decades, that we've always needed an entire

community to feel whole. And so I hope that my message of friendship is really really important while I came to it going through breakups and feeling like I feel so bad in these breakups because I feel like romantic love is the only love that makes me lovable, and I'm questioning whether that's true because I see how much

my friends love me. Right. But I think this message of we have to maybe see love unless of a hierarchy, so that we can value and put effort into our platonic partnerships just like we do our marriage, right, I think it benefits all of us, whether we're single or whether we're married. I would go so far as to say that in the past what I found was so kind of helpful to my well being, And you talk about a wellness group at the beginning of the book.

UM was I've had versions of that. I've had lunch clubs, I've had book clubs. UM I have basically now a like a menopause club with a group of women my age. That is, so the sole purpose is to support each other. And you know, when somebody's parent dies or a divorce, or you know, any kind of life shift, we kind of circle the wagons and and I think it's so important. And I think that there's something about the group of women that kind of quilt together, the kind of support

that is impossible to find anywhere else. Yeah. I also love a group, you know, monthly Spanish speaking group and a bi weekly dinner club. And you know, I talked about the world this group. I love having groups for everything. But what we're doing when we create those groups is that we are creating the infrastructure for friendship to happen organically.

So this sociologist Rebecca Adams, she argues that for friendship to happen organically, we need repeated, unplanned interaction and shared vulnerability, which is school Jim lunch recess, right, But as adults, we don't often inhabit those environments unless we seek them out intentionally. Because work, we're not often vulnerable at work, So we're seeing each other repeatedly, we're only showing a professional quote unquote side of ourselves. We don't actually know

each other. Right, So if we rely on that template from childhood, we are going to be lonely and in fact as adults. A study found that people that think friendship happened without effort are more lonely five years later, whereas those that see it as taking effort are less lonely. Right. And so when we create these groups, right, we are

giving ourselves continuous, unplanned interaction and shared vulnerability. We are creating the ingredients for our friendships to sort of take off and strengthen on our own without us having to continue to product them in the same way. And it's interesting because I have my mother now, who is in

her late eighties. She was somebody that had very strong, incredible friendships in her lifetime, and she's at a point now and you talk about widows in your book, but she's at a point now where her husband is dead and all her close female friends are dead. And one of the things that she and I talked about a lot is how she at can find community now, you know what I mean, because she's not even out and about. And I said, I know that this sounds simplistic, but

you know you should invite people over to play. You know, you know there art classes and groups like and it used to those sort of things when you would hear people say it sounded so kind of perfunctory and like, oh yeah, okay, I'm not going to join a group. But as I get older, I realized, yeah, yeah, you kind of have to, you know what I mean. And for her well being, she needs to figure out a

way in her late eighties now to find friendship. In mind that and as much as she you know, needs to get her heart checked and bone density, all of it exactly. There's a lot more to come after the short break and we're back. It's funny what you were saying to earlier about vulnerability, because I have found that and and this is not gender prejudice, just in my in my life, I have noticed that a lot of my male friends have a fear of vulnerability, and therefore

their friendships aren't as close. And even my husband, I would say that that's true with him. Yeah, and you are right that vulnerability. First of all, um, men are about half as likely to to access support within their friendships in a given week than woman and that that really does hinder men's friendships. You know, men men have tend to have these more companionate friends where you're hanging out around an activity, and that is a great form

of friendship to write, but it has its limitations. We've seen that in the pandemic right. If you have friends that you're just hanging out with to to play golf and you can't see each other, someone moves or you have a pandemic, right, which hopefully doesn't happen again. But you know, if people move or they become long distance, then obviously your ability to maintain that connection is very limited. And fundamentally, being vulnerable, it does increase the depth and

the closeness. We know from the research that people that intimately self disclose are liked more than other people. People that express negative emotion. Although we think, you know, friendship is positive vibes only, they actually are more likely to make friends in their traditions in their transition to college. And we also know that it's very necessary for our

mental health and well being. Right. That throughout the book, I think you'll see that all of the things that we do that create connection also tend to improve our mental health and well being, vulnerability included. Right, So, people that conceal tend to be more concealing of information about themselves, they experience more depression, more suicidality. One study that looked at a hundred and six factors that predict depression found that having it a confidance, someone you're confiding is is

the number one factor that prevents depression. And so I think in the in the American culture, we kind of have this very false ideal that to be strong means I never need anyone and I'm handling things on my own at all times. Right, And the research binds that people that are like that, they tend to experience more physical health issues. They're not releasing their emotions, so they manifest physically. They experience more you know, headaches, more gas

through intestinal issues. It's not that they go away or those emotions aren't there, it's just that they're they're kind of wreaking havoc on you physically. It's even if you don't if you can't necessarily be aware of it, mentally right. And so when we see the people that actually are the most resilient, it's the securely attached people. And that security comes from I shared myself with other people. They responded in a loving and accepting way, and I internalize

that into being part of my sense of self. But I would say with the anxiety attachment, and I can speak for myself, but with anxiety attachment, there's obviously the fear of vulnerability. But what happens when you are vulnerable with somebody else You express a secretive part of yourself or you know, vulnerable party of yourself, and it freaks them out or it causes them to pull away. Then

you you it's like it's more damage than if you hadn't. Yeah, No, you're absolutely right, and you're right that it's actually better to not be vulnerable if the other person isn't safe. But you don't know that, right, Yeah, and you don't know that. But I also want to differentiate between oversharing and vulnerability. Um anxiously attached people, right, they're they're afraid that other people are going to reject and abandon them.

So often their vulnerability can come from a place of I want to test you to see if you'll abandon me, rather than I feel safe with you, and as a reflection of that relationship, I am then going to be vulnerable with you. Right, And so it isn't as authentic because it's like I'm doing this to test you and see your reaction and decide whether you'll stay around, whereas a vulnerable act is more like I'm discerning that I feel safe in this moment, and that is what is

pushing me to share my internal world with you. And so I think how we understand ourselves, whether I'm being vulnerable or over hearing. Is is this coming from a place of fear? Right? Is this coming from a place of fear that you're going to pull away from me? Versus when I'm vulnerable? Is this coming from a sense of safety? Right? Two different things that differentiate those two acts.

But I also want to say avoidably attached. There was a study that looked at people answering, you know, thirty six questions. It was even gotten to the New York Times thirty six questions to fall in love. When I read that study, I found that in general, if we go through these thirty six questions of deepening into the sy with each other, like when's the last time you cried? People feel more connected to each other, right, it generates a lot of closeness. But we found is that when

someone was avoidantly attached, that didn't happen. The voterability did not create connection. And that's another important thing to recognize. Sometimes your vulnerability didn't land and it wasn't necessarily because of your issue per se. I mean, it could be right, we just talked about oversharing, but it could also be because of someone else's baggage, Like they're not really able to sit with feelings like avoidingly attached people, they're not

able to sit with emotions. They're not able to be open to connection without feeling overburdened or without feeling like people are putting all this pressure on them and that comes from their path. So I think it's also important to recognize sometimes our vulnerability may not go right, and that's not necessarily our faults. What we can do in those moments is observed, take note, and decide in the future, I'm going to be vulnerable with someone that does make

me feel safe. Well that's a great point, So tell me what you mean when you say friendship is the underdog of relationships. Yeah, yeah, I mean that in so many ways, our cultural messages have focused around I'm going to say romantic relationship because that's the standard language for doubt, right, But we know you know the complexities of that, right. You know, people always ask you when are you're going to get married? Right? When are you going to find

the one? When are you gonna find your soul? Many when you gonna find your person? When we talk about friends, it's like we'll say things like we're just friends, signifying that, oh, if we're friends not involved sexually romantically, then it's an inferior relationship, or let's be more than friends, signifying again that there's this hierarchy that we have to relationships. And if people decide to center their life around friendship, it's

single people. There's a stigma attached to that. Right. While marriage does improve well being, single people who socialized well, who are well socialized, who have a larger social networks,

are actually happier than the average married person. And so I'm interested in, i guess, disrupting this hierarchy because I think it would allow all of us to be a little bit more creative and ask ourselves, what are the forms of connection that I do want in my life, what makes me feel fulfilled, right, instead of feeling this pressure to I'm gonna get married to this person and we're gonna become very insular. Right, it's just gonna be

this nuclear unit. Right, Like, we get these these strong cultural messages, and they're so strong that they kind of they fundamentally alter how we relate to our friends, where I think we see friendship as inferior and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because as we're less vulnerable, we invest less time, we're less affirming, we're not as intentional than we would be with a spouse. Inevitably, that relationship is going to be inferior. It's not because friendship is

in fear. It's because you're treating that relationship differently because you have this understanding. And so I think, you know, in the society where we are so so lonely, we just can't afford to throw a morsel of connection away. And I think so much, so often we're just throwing friendship away. We're not being intentional, we're not putting in the effort, we're not making it a priority. And I think it would benefit us all, especially from this very

disconnected state that we're in. If we started to see friendship for the value that it could really bring to our lives, well, especially because you say that, you know, friendship helps us figure out who we are, so which is you know, if you're saying that friendship through your life is like the building blocks of creating your character, then you know you should both have great friendships and fail at friendships, to have friendships that don't go well

or you know, break up or you know, all those things in order for you to figure out sort of your own character, and ultimately, I would say your adult attachment. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do argue that, you know, I think there is this intimate link between the self and how we form friendships. And you know, our friends, as they advertise different ways of being in the world to us, show us who we could be, right, show us all of the options that are available to us for how we could be

in this world. And I think when we're just around one person, we shrink. I mean I felt this in the pandemic, being with a partner at the time, that I felt like my relationship with myself had shrunk in some way. It was like my my identity had sort of thinned out, right, Like I had one experience of myself because each person calls forth a different experience of yourself.

Right around this person, I'm like this. I'm around this person, I'm like this, And so just being around one person, it was it was kind of like straight, straight jacketed version of my own identity. And so I think being around a community helps us develop a more dimensional, a richer sense of our own identities and our own selves. And do you think you know, just because of age

and experience, can you outgrow friendships? I mean, you talk about creating new friendships when you're an adult, absolutely, can you also let go of friendships? Yeah? So this is going to be the reality that even if you are comfortable with your friendships now, chances are there will be another time in your life when you might have to create friendships again. Um, some people move, obviously that can be disruptive for friendships. But another study just found that

every seven years we lose about half our friends. Um, so that just sort of means yeah a lot. Yeah, that the friends that we have now may not be the friends we have seven years from now, or so the have yet being the longer that you've kept a friendship, the more likely it is to keep going. And so the newer friendships, the younger friendships are a lot more

likely to shed. And I think it is important to realize first of all, that that's natural and normal, right, because I think a lot of us can feel shame around this. You can feel very isolating, like here's this person I thought would always be my person and they're not anymore. But everybody's going through this, not just you

and um. But also the other point that I want to make is that your friendships will also ebb and flow, and so there could be an EBB period and if you don't assume in that period that the friendship is over,

it's going to make it more likely to continue. There is a study on long distance friends that found that perceiving them as flexible and not fragile, like oh, maybe we don't talk for a few months, but I still assume that I could reach out at any time, right, that that actually promotes the friendship being maintained and continuing.

So I think that's also important. There are two different issues, like we have incompatibility, which is contributing to our separation, and but we also have normal EBB and flows of relationships, and in those cases when it's not driven by major jarring incompatibilities, then we can maintain hope for the friendship returning at a later time in life when we both have the availability for it. All Right, So let's go through the different steps of making a new friend in

our adulthood. Yeah, So first I would tell you, Ali, I hope you know that friendship and adulthood does not happen organically, and if you believe that, you're more likely to be lonely. So I want you to know that you're going to have to try, and you're going to have to put in an effort. Here's what might be coming up for you. That sounds very scary. I'm worried I'll be rejected. Here's what I want to share with you.

We're less likely to be rejected than we think. When strangers interact and they're asked how much do you think the other person likes them, their estimations tend to be inaccurate and more negative than the truth. So this is called the liking gap. Right, we we erroneously think people like us less than they actually do. Right. The other thing that I'm going to say, to prepare your mindset for going out there and interacting is to assume people

like you. Reason being, this is a self fulfilling prophecy called the acceptance prophecy. The acceptance prophecy is the finding that when researchers told people they go into a group and be accepted or liked based on their personality profile, this was a lie, by the way, but they found that people became warmer, open, and friendlier, and they actually were more likable. So I want you to start assuming people like you, right, And now that your mindset is right,

I think we can go two different avenues. One reconnect with people from your past, because the research finds first of all, that people appreciate that reconnection text more than we assume, but also that when we reconnect with people from our past, we have more trust, so the relationship moves more quickly. Okay, right, So is there anyone you've fallen out of touch with who you would have preferred to stay in touch with? Right? Can you reach out

to them? But the next thing I tell you to do is to pursue a hobby in community with other people. The reason being that when people are pursuing hobbies and community they are, they tend to be more open to friendship. Right. One of the reasons that we tend to pursue these hobbies and community is to meet people. It's like our covert way of saying, I what friends. As I joined this kickball league or this arn't class, right, I didn't

do it alone for a reason. And joining something that's repeated over time, which is not not a workshop, but uh, you know, a class that's more repeated, you're going to capitalize on something called the mere exposure effect, our unconscious

tendency to like people who are more familiar. So when these researchers planted women into a psychology class, students didn't remember any of the woman, but they like the woman who showed up for the most classes about more than the woman that didn't show up for any And so what that tells us is that when you first joined this group, it's going to be awkward. You're not gonna trust, You're gonna feel weary as refect has not set in. But as you stay in this group for two to

three months, those feelings are going to change. They're gonna like you more, You're going to like them more. Right. I also suggest when you join that group, you're overcoming something called overt avoidance, which is our tendency to not show up because we're scared. But you also have to overcome covert avoidance, which is our tendency to show up

physically but check out mentally. So I want to make sure that when you get to that group, you're not just on your phone, that you are actually introducing yourself and saying, Hey, I'm Marissa, it's great to meet you.

How have you liked this hiking group so far? Remember, you're assuming people like you here, and then lastly, generating exclusivity with someone in the group, finding someone in the group who you like, asking them to hang out outside of the group so you have particular memories and experiences with that person that you don't share with the rest of the group. That is what builds friendship. Yeah, I like to. I mean, I actually have made a lot

of new friends in my adulthood. Um. And I've found also that the older I get, I'm much bolder about pursuing friendships than I was when I was young. You know. Now I'm just like I got nothing to lose, you know what I mean? Like what And I also find that what you said before earlier, they people are more receptive. Like you think you're going to reach out and they're gonna be like, what is this fucking stalker doing, you know, but yet they're like, I would love to go for

a walk, you know. I love to like I'm always surprised when I'm received that way, you know, because you're you're always, you know, kind of your fourth grade self, no matter how old you are, when you're sort of reaching out and making a friend and it's time for a short break. Welcome back to go ask Alli. You talk about intentional generosity, which is something that I've tried to always feed and water in myself. Um, and one kind of friend I like to be is a creative friend.

So I make my own sort of holiday cards. I love to bake people's birthday cakes. I love. I have found that it has given me immense pleasure to be an intentional, intentionally generous friend. I guess you would phrase it that is really lovely. And um, I think what we're really getting at here is something called the theory of inferred attraction, which is the idea that people like people that they think like them. So anything that you do that shows people I care about you, You matter

to me, You're important. Those are going to generate friendship. And I think for me when I was younger, I have this misconception that to make friends I have to be entertaining. I have to be insightful, I have to say something funny all the time, right, And in fact, people report this entertaining piece being the least important value they look for in friendship. You, I'm screwed. Well, you do do the most important thing, which is making people

feel like they matter, especial people want. It's called ego support. And you know, I think humor can be a way into that right of making people feel like they matter. And so the more I think when we feel really insecure about belonging, we get into this place that's a little bit self centered because we're in pain. I think pain is inherently self centered. We don't have the resources to think of other other people. Where we think have they reached out to me? Have they welcomed me? Have

they initiated with me? Whereas people who are really good at friendship, they think a lot more about what they have they done for others? Have I made them feel welcome? Have I initiated with them? Have I made them feel cared for? Right? And they don't expect that people are going to invest in them if they see themselves aren't haven't been accountable for that same level investment. So I think sometimes we need to gently, kindly empathically check ourselves. Right,

if our friendships aren't working out? What have I done to make other people feel loved and valued? Right? Rather than what have people done for me to make me feel loved and value? Because it starts with I'm making them feel loved and then it tends to be a sort of more reciprocal cycle. How do you feel about the term best friend? Like, when you're young, it it's territorial, and but when you get older, I've noticed that women my age have a very strong reaction to the term

best friend. You know, I think we need quality, deep intimate connections. Whether that has to include the label best friend or not. I don't think it's completely necessary, but I will say the value of it is that friendship is so freaking ambiguous. We don't know what we can expect from our friends. We don't know how invested they

are with us. There's no formal ceremony right, set of expectations that come with being a friend, and friend can be anywhere from someone who's nearly an acquaintance that you met for coffee once. I mean, Facebook further diluted our perception of what it means to be a friend. And so we're all working from such different definitions, which means we all have different expectations from each other that come out of these different definite and those different expectations is

what part of what can create problems in friendship. Right, So what I like about best Friend is that it clarifies some of those expectations. It says, Okay, we are going to make each other a priority. Maybe we are gonna gauge in mutual support seeking. When I have a need, I know I can feel comfortable reaching out to you. That allows us to kind of calibrate our expectations of each other a little bit. Yeah, I think that. Yeah,

I also think um. I did this interpersonal exercise and what was kind of interesting about it was to see how much time we give the toxic people as compared to a lot of the people that are so close to us. Wow, there's as much air time for these people that make me feel bad as this circle around me, and it it actually seeing it visually made me kind of readjust you know, my my own landscape of friendship in general. Yeah, I think two things in relation to that.

I don't know which is often kind of passive in friendships, not necessarily discerning. Um. You know, this is what I've realized to having a large network of friends, I begin to ask myself, who do I want to invest in more deeply? Right, it can't be that whoever reaches out to me I'm going to go along with, because then I'm not able to cultivate and curate my friendships in

the ways that I want. Right, And so that I think is very often occurrence that we hang out with people who it's easiest to rather than who we want to go deeper with. Um. And so that requires some discernment. But I also say for anxiously attached people, there are many different stress mechanisms that we might use fight flight, freeze, but also fawn. Fawn is if someone is threatening to me, I try to get them to like me, and anxiously

attached people tend to experience this more so. They actually are attracted to people that are less engaged with them, that like them less because oh this triggers my fond response. So now I'm going to engage more and try to hang out with them more and try to get them to like me right. And that's part of the template of the anxiously attached that I am going to have to earn love right. Anxiously attached people can sometimes feel like someone just likes me. What do they know? What

do they know? This is weird? You know, it's suspicious almost right, Whereas securely attached people, if someone makes them feel bad, they walk away instead of working harder. So our attachment style could play into that as well. I mean, I wonder if sometimes it's very simplistic, But one thing I say to my daughters when it comes to friendship is find the people that make you feel good. M exactly. Yes. I also think that when I'm I want to not

go to assisted living. I actually want to get a house and live with my girlfriends because I think I'll be happier. I truly believe this. I'll be happier and I'll live longer if I already create a community um of people that make me feel good. Now, I love that, and I just love thinking more creatively about the potential of friendship. There's been more talk about people who physically in gen z choosing friends as life partners, right, and um, just being a lot more creative around what we think

friendship can do. Because, aside from sex, most of the things that you might look for from a spouse you can also look for from a friend. There's really no reason not to, aside from like a lack of creativity. Right, So what sort of life do you want to live? What sort of connections do you want to have? What feels good for you rather than what is the script

for how we are supposed to live? Right, I think that is just going to fundamentally allow for our needs to be met and for us to feel so much better. And so I think that just requires us to see friendship so much more expansively and and richly than how we have historically seen it. Yes, and I inspiration is one of my criteria for friendship. And so I guess we're going to be friends, Merissa, because you really inspired

me on this podcast. Thank you so, Marissa. In the spirit of friendship, it is now your turn to ask me a question about anything. I love this to the tables him turn. Yeah, you know, also a psychologists I'm always wanted to ask questions. You could listen, you can go deep if you want. I'm ready, thank you. I am wondering what's something that you learned about friendship that

you didn't understand ten years ago. I ten years ago, I didn't understand my worth in a friendship, meaning I I always felt so lucky that this person was my friend, and I didn't look at it like, well, they're lucky that I'm their friend, you know what I mean. I didn't see it as an equal relationship. Um, And I think it caused me a lot of pain, and I think it caused me to make bad decisions about who I spent my time with and who I did all

those creative things for. Because I find in friendship when you are one of my quote unquote people, I am an endless well of love. I love to do things for my friends. It makes me so happy the way it does, you know, when I do things for my daughters and so they because some of them became so one sided that I had to move away from them, And it was usually somebody else saying like, why are

you friends with that person? They don't treat you well, they don't, they don't call you on your birthday, you know, And so I started to realize, oh wait a second, where am I in all this? Whereas now I'm very good at that. And I also reach out to new friendships the way we talked about with somebody that I can already tell through just through experience and living life. Oh, this is a person I can tell who will be reciprocal and open and vulnerable with me. I love that, Ali,

I'm so proud of you. I don't know if I can ask questions, but you can. I mean, as he'll turn into a therapy at this session and he'll be like, oh my god, Okay, what a quick question. Yes psychologists, Yes, yes, like having sense of self worth so important for our friendships because we have to take risks in friendship, like reaching out to someone. Right. If we don't feel worthy, we're not going to want to take those risks because we think people don't want to hear from us. Right.

My follow up question is how did you develop that sense of worth in yourself? How did I develop the sense of worth? I think it was a few things. I think it was almost like sexual relationships in the past, you know, of being heard a bunch of times of trying different types of people. I think the same can be said about friendship. There are certain types of people that I just could innately like just feel on a

visceral level. Oh, I know what type of person that is, and I sort of get a sense of how they are as a friend. I also think that there are certain things that I am attracted to and friends. There's a bunch of things that I learned, and I think I learned it by befriending all different types of people.

And I feel like now in my fifties, I had the greatest group of female friends, more so than I did when I was forty year thirty like, and a few of them are are from many many years that we just sort of live life together, I guess, as the kids call it, ride or die, and I still seek new friends out. Yeah, I really like your answer, because, um, we develop our sense of self not in isolation from people, but when we experience loving people. That are if we

begin to feel more worthy. Right. Oh, absolutely, absolutely, Okay asked that with the foul up questions. Though I could ask more, I know you could, I'd be I'd be in therapy for the next four days. Thank you so much. This was so Your book is so great and insightful, and I did get two copies for my daughters, and I think everyone should read it because I think we tend to focus more on the sexual relationships more than our romantic friendships. And they exactly and they are like

oxygen and food and water. We need them. So thank you so much, thank you so much, thank you for listening to go ask Ali now Dr Marissa Franco's book Platonic, How the Science of Attachment can help you make and keep friends. I gave you but a sliver of the book that it is so full of interesting insights and information. So do yourself a favor and get the book. Because my producer Brook would not let me do a four

hour podcast, but I could have now. If you would like to follow Dr Marissa, she is on Instagram at Dr Marissa g Franco and her website Dr Marissa g Franco dot com, and you can take a quiz to assess your strengths and weaknesses as a friend. If you'd like more info on what you heard in this episode, check out our show notes and be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast, and follow me on Instagram

at the Real Ali wentworth Now. If you'd like to ask me a question or suggest a guest or a topic to dig into, I'd love to hear from you, and there's a bunch of ways you can do it. You can call or text me up three to three three six four six three six, or you can email a voice memo right from your phone to Go Ask Glli podcast at gmail dot com. And if you leave a question, you just might hear it. I'm go Ask Alli. Yeah, Go Ask Gali is a production of Shonda land Audio

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