← For Good
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- [00:00]
A
Loneliness is gonna affect how long you live more than your diet, more than how much you exercise. I mean, meta analyses which combine the existing research finds that it predicts how long we live. It's like more than diet and exercise combined, basically. And I think if you're really into health, you're probably eating your vegetables and going to the gym. But are you asking yourself, how much am I connecting with others? The other thing about loneliness is we often think of it as just a feeling. I feel lonely. But the research finds that when we're lonely, it changes how we see the world. We see things as more threatening. We see people as more harmful. We see people as out to get us. We become more hostile towards other people because of that. So let's say you're someone who is always anxious that your friends don't like you. You feel like you always need reassurance. You tend to overshare. You move very fast in your friendships because you want confirmation that that person likes you and is into you. You don't bring up problems and issues because you have a fundamental fear that to abandon you, you are anxiously attached. And attachment styles comes from your early interactions with your parents and even early friendships.
- [01:22]
B
Head over to vandamsenergy.com and put your first order in for the most luxury energy drink on the market. Van Dams, stay woke. What's good, everybody? It's your guy, JoJo Simmons. And welcome back to the For Good podcast, where we focus on the good, never the bad, and we're measured by what we do, not what we have. Today, I'm sitting down with Dr. Marisa Franco, psychologist, author, one of the leading voices on adult friendship, belonging, and loneliness. Marissa is the author of the book Platonic how the Science of Attachment can help you make and keep Friends. Where she breaks down why friendship gets harder as we get older, and why connection isn't just nice to have. It's essential to our mental and emotional health. In a time when loneliness is being called the public health crisis, this conversation is about friendship, vulnerability, attachment, and what it really means to show up for each other as adults. Dr. Marissa Franco, welcome to the For Good podcast. Thank you for coming on.
- [02:13]
A
Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.
- [02:16]
B
Thank you. Yeah, we're really excited. Obviously, this is going to be a great conversation about friendship. This is a conversation we haven't touched on yet, but on the podcast, yeah, we touch on a lot of stuff. Mental health, obviously, we spoke about earlier. We talked about emotional regulation, and, you know, we speak about fatherhood. We Speak about a lot, but we haven't spoke about friendship. And I find it. I find it. It's a really great conversation for me because. Quick story. This podcast is produced by a media company that I founded with two of my high school buddies, friends that I've known since high school. The company's called 3 is 4. It produces this podcast, the 4 Good podcast, and just three friends that known each other from high school, got older and said, we still align, we want to do great, and let's do it together. So I just love how this conversation can really tie into some of my longstanding friendships I've had with some friends. So let's get into the questions and not my life story right now. Right. So before the book and the research and the platform that you have, who are you, Marissa Franco, as a person, what led you to friendship in connection? What led you to study? Yeah.
- [03:24]
A
Yeah, that's a great question. It certainly is. Some me search. Because when I was in my young 20s, I was so focused on romance, and I went through this breakup, and I was like, I have no love in my life. And so I decided to start this group with my friends where we would meet up and practice wellness, meditate, cook, do yoga. And it was so transformative for me. And I was like, why did I feel like I had no love in my life? Like, I always had these friends? Or why did I feel like I wasn't worthy unless I had a romantic partner when I always had so many people loving me? And so in that moment, I kind of realized that as a society, we treat friendship like it doesn't matter, like it's trivial. I call it like gold under our feet that we see as concrete. And I want it to be part of leveling that hierarchy that we place on love, because that was just so meaningful to me.
- [04:13]
B
Right? Yeah. I love how you said, you know, when you were so focused on love, but then you kind of leaned into your friends and the people that you felt really do love you, and you started doing wellness things and yoga and stuff together. And I think that togetherness can cure so much of what is going on in the world. But we'll get more into it as we go on. You know, when you think about making friends and having friends, it really kind of brings you back to your adolescence. Like, you know, when you went to school, it was like, make sure you're gonna make some friends. Hey, did you make some friends today? You'd hear from your parents, but can you tell me how maintaining friendships feel so much harder in adulthood than it did when we were younger.
- [04:47]
A
Yeah. So there's this sociologist, Rebecca G. Adams, and she says to make friends, you need three ingredients. You need to have an experience that's repeated over time. So in school, that's gym, recess, lunch. It has to be unplanned. So it's not like we schedule it. We show up for work, we show up for school. And there has to be shared vulnerability. We're sharing more about ourselves. And if you think about it as adults, we don't often have those kinds of environments anymore. Maybe we go to work where it's repeated, but we are often confined by these norms of professionalism where we're not actually sharing much about ourselves. And so what that means is, as kids, we were in environments for friendship to kind of more or less happen organically. Again, extracurriculars, recess, gym, like all these places that have these ingredients, but as adults, we no longer have those ingredients. So it just doesn't play by the same rules anymore. And. And in fact, if you think friendship does happen organically without putting in extra effort, then that's actually related to being lonelier over time.
- [05:48]
B
Yeah. And, you know, I love how you said that, like, you know, you need to put in that extra effort. And you brought up an important word, lonely. And I wanted to bring up loneliness. Right. Loneliness is being talked about as a public health crisis. Honestly, what are we underestimating how serious it really is to be lonely?
- [06:07]
A
Well, loneliness is going to affect how long you live more than your diet, more than how much you exercise. I mean, meta analyses which combine the existing research finds that it predicts how long we live more than diet and exercise combined, basically. And I think if you're really into health, you're probably eating your vegetables and going to the gym. But are you asking yourself, how much am I connecting with others? The other thing about loneliness is we often think of it as just a feeling. I feel lonely. But the research finds that when we're lonely, it changes how we see the world. We see things as more threatening. We see people as more harmful. We see people as out to get us. We become more hostile towards other people because of that. And to the extent that research actually finds that when someone that you're friends with becomes lonely, you become over 50% more likely to become lonely yourself because they become more likely to engage in behaviors like hostility, withdrawal, aggression, passive aggressiveness. And you think about it, it doesn't seem to make sense. Right? Like, why, when we're lonely, do we actually want to withdraw and do we see people as more threatening. It's like being hungry and then not wanting food. And psychologists think from an evolutionary perspective, when you were lonely, you were under threat, you were separated from your tribe, you had to be vigilant because you were in danger potentially in that act of separation. And, and so this sort of like evolutionary biology continues to this day where it's actually, there's no time when it's harder to connect than when you are in a state of loneliness because you think you're a burden. They're not going to like me, they're going to reject me in ways that we don't tend to think when we feel well connected.
- [07:45]
B
Yeah, growing up I was always taught isolation is sickness. Like it's okay to take a moment, have boundaries, take some time to yourself, but to isolate yourself completely, it isn't healthy, you know, and I mean, I think, you know, you should always have somebody to talk to. You should always have people to lean in. You should always have a community of like minded people that you feel safe around. So I always believe that, you know, isolation was a sickness. Now you talked about earlier how you prioritize love, you know, a little bit more than friendships. And I'd love to know why do you think society, you know, prioritizes romantic relationships over friendships even though friendships are just as critical as for our well being?
- [08:23]
A
Well, there's a great historian, Stephanie Koontz, and she goes into this and she says like basically women used to have to get married, to have any rights to own property, to get a credit card. And so friendship could not threaten marriage because your friend could not give you access to all of these material items that you would only get if you were married. And now as women do not necessarily need marriage in that same way. Instead what's trying to, what pushes people or drives them towards marriage is this sort of narrative that we have that this is the one person that's going to complete you, this is your soulmate, this is your puzzle piece. Right. No one else. You get this special status in society if you get married, which honestly is, it's quite complex in the research that marriage does benefit our well being, but a lot less for women than for men. And some women report being, feeling closer to their friends than their intimate partner. So part of the reason that this hierarchy exists is to maintain the social order of marriage as an institution and not have friends threaten that.
- [09:26]
B
I love that. That was extremely deep, how your friendship can't threaten that. So I get what you're saying to stay on the subject of dating and relationships. Right. We talk a lot about attachment styles and dating, but can you talk about attachment styles and friendships?
- [09:41]
A
Yeah. Yeah. So let's say you're someone who is always anxious that your friends don't like you. You feel like you always need reassurance. You tend to overshare. You move very fast in your friendships because you want confirmation that that person likes you and is into you. You don't bring up problems and issues because you have a fundamental fear that people are going to abandon you. You are anxiously attached. And attachment styles comes from your early interactions with your parents and even early friendships. That then determines this template for how you see interactions that becomes more truer than the truth because social interaction is so ambiguous. So we're always applying this template that we have. So that's anxiously attached people. That's their template. You're gonna abandon me. I have to cling as close as possible and get confirmation that you like me. But then you have avoidantly attached people, and they tended to grow up with neglect. It was sort of like food was there, maybe shelter was there, but emotions were shut down. And maybe you were told you were sensitive or blamed if you had too much emotion or. Or just punished if you showed any display of emotion. I mean, this is. Men in particular, we're told, man up, you shouldn't cry, or things like that. And avoidantly attached people, they tend to feel very threatened by people trying to get close to them because they associate closeness with. You're going to overwhelm me. You're going to suffocate me. You're going to take away my autonomy, you're going to shame me. And I don't want that to happen. And so these avoidantly attached people, they don't have a lot of friends, or they do have a lot of friends, but it's sort of like almost like a network. Not people that actually know them. They're not vulnerable. They don't express a lot of affection. They. Yeah, they tend to feel easily burdened by other people. They don't see friendships for the rewards that they give them. Their friends feel like they don't really know them. And then you have. Yeah, yeah. They're just. They're kind of like a black box to other people and a little bit to themselves. Because if you're always avoiding your emotions, how can you know yourself? Your emotions are telling you you are. And then you have securely attached people who had kind of good enough parents who were responsive to them, you know, help them regulate their emotions. Like, if you Were cry, they would comfort you instead of saying like shut up. And so these securely attached people, they trust that others like them and that they can get build intimacy. They can be vulnerable, they can express affection. They don't assume that they're rejected, but that other people are gonna harm them. They have this more optimism that people are going to like and accept them. And they are what I call the super friends because research finds that they're better at initiating friendship, better at working through conflict, end friendships in more fair and considerate ways, just more empathic, more forgiving. All these things that we want in a friend, securely attached people tend to provide us.
- [12:23]
B
Yeah, I definitely, I can see that being the truth for real. So that's what's up. You talked about people being in fear sometimes of avoidance and not being accepted or whatever. Right. So a lot of people, you know, that want deeper friendships but are afraid of being rejected, how do they move past that fear of being rejected?
- [12:47]
A
So let me hit you with some, some research that has honestly really helped me. There's research on something called the liking gap that finds that when strangers interact, they underestimate how liked they are by other people. And we see this, it's called like under socialization, that we see this across the board. Any act of connection, sharing affection, being vulnerable, doing random act of kindness, when we predict how it comes off, we underestimate just how positively it comes off. So one tip that I share with people is you might think that it's going to come off as weird if you ask someone to hang out, but what if they did that towards you? How would you feel? And typically people are like, I'm flattered, be so nice. They're vulnerable with me, oh my God, I feel so close to them. And that's a better measure of how your act of connection will come off to them. And so basically what I'm telling people more fundamentally is one of the tips that I tend to share that tends to resonate people when I'm doing speaking events is to assume that people are going to like you. Because we see from the research that these people that make this assumption, which is more securely attached people, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. You become friendlier, warmer, more open. Whereas when you tend to think you're being rejected, look at how you act when you think you'll be rejected. You're closed off, you're withdrawn, you're judgmental, you're cold, you're rejecting people and then you're getting rejected back. And so also try to remind yourself this could go right. This could go better than I thought before. You're afraid rather than just succumbing to some of those fears.
- [14:17]
B
I love that. And I'm gonna remind my daughter that someday. She's nine. But like, sometimes we put her in new situations, like, hey, go make a friend. And I'm like, maybe it is that kids, people are in their mind about what if it goes wrong? Or what if this person doesn't like me, or what if they don't accept me and just have that thought of what if it goes right? It probably will go right. Right. I love that you said that. I'm gonna definitely use that now. There's a famous quote that a lot of people say, like, you know, if we don't talk for months, but it's still all love, right? Is that always healthy to kind of be like that or is that sometimes avoidance? You know, when people are like, oh, even if you don't talk for months, I still got love for you, but you're not talking, you're not communicating. Some people change every few months.
- [15:03]
A
You know, it is, I think, definitely a balance. I think the part of it that's healthy is, you know, you tend to maintain friendships more when you assume that they're continuing, even if there's an absence of contact, especially long distance friends, that it tends to be more sustainable over time for the friendship. But the harm is that it's a way to justify not putting effort into your friendship. And your friendships are a product of the effort that you put into them. And so maybe you have this internal sense that I'm close to this person, but you're not benefiting fully. Right? Because we benefit when we're vulnerable with a friend. That is the biggest predictor of decreasing depressive symptoms. Feeling less depressed is being vulnerable with friends or, or when friends tell us they like us and value us, then we feel really good. It even regulates our physiology. And so just having a friend in your head as like, we're close to it does benefit you in some ways, but you're not fully unlocking the potential that friends can add to your life if you're just kind of relying on that.
- [16:02]
B
I super agree with that personally. Quick life story. I had my kids, I have two kids now, but I have my first kid nine years ago and I moved out of the city state I was living in, which was obviously near my best friends. Right? But I think it's important. He thinks it's important. My friends think it's important. We're all in different states at Times we talk every week. I can't see it not being any other way. I need to check on my friends. I need to make sure they're still good. We have to, you know, check in with each other. And it's like a brotherhood. So, like, you know, I feel you too, on there's a balance of, okay, we cannot talk for months, but me personally, I can't go talking for months, you know, without talking for months to any, like, true friend of mine, you know, because like you said, there's a vulnerability we share and there's, there's a, there's a history we share. And I think in order for a successful friendship to keep on growing and blossoming, you have to work on it, right? Like any, like anything, like a job, like a relationship. Your friendships have to be constantly worked on, in my opinion. You know, you never know when your friend isn't going through a good time, and sometimes you may just reach out to them, say, hey, I was just thinking about you, bro. I do it all the time. My friends. And one of them was like, you must have really knew I needed this today. I was like, no, I didn't know you needed. You came across my mind and I thought about it and we haven't spoken in two weeks, you know, and that may not seem like long to some people, but to me it felt like a long time to not, you know, work on my friendship, you know, and so I love that that's, you know, what you said. Because I definitely believe that in order to keep a good friendship, you have to continuously work on it or you can lose contact, you know?
- [17:40]
A
You know, Jojo, I want to ask a follow up question to you because I know that men tend to be more passive in their friendships than women tend to not express a lot of as much vulnerability and affection. And I think there's a lot of men who are like, how do I have friendships like Jojo, when my guy friends don't reach out to me or, you know, they're canceling on me last minute. And so I wonder, like, what advice you would give.
- [18:03]
B
Yeah, well, a lot. All my friends, I have had the same friends since middle school, high school. My daughter's godfather is my best friend from first grade. All my circle, if you know me, if people know me, they know the guys, the names of the guys that are with me, right? I've been thankful and blessed and grateful to have solid friends that even when we had small discrepancies or fallouts, we were able to be men, even at young ages. And talk about it and realize our friendship was more important than any disagreement that wasn't a serious disagreement. A serious disagreement is something that is truly something you can't come back from. And we've never went through any of that. So we've always made it a thing. But to be like me, like, I'm not saying you have to be perfect. I'm not saying all the time your friend is going to initiate that. You have to be the initiator. Sometimes that's me a lot of the times. And I don't take no, you know, no harm to my friends not being an initiator. Sometimes life is happening for everybody, right? People are going through things. People are trying to pay bills. People are trying to keep their head on a swivel, trying to stay motivated. Like a joke. I always do is. And my friends would tell you, I call them, and I'm like, hey, man, I'm just calling somebody that doesn't love me. Somebody I love, that doesn't love me. You know what I mean? I might get a call a couple weeks later. Like, I'm just calling somebody I love that doesn't love me. I'm like, ah, you got. So I like to remind them that, like, bro, I love you. And if you're not reaching out to me, I'm not gonna take that personal. I'm gonna reach out to you. Now, if I reach out to you and you don't hit me back or you were acting weird, and then I think something's going on, right? But that's never the case. It's gonna go right. It's the. That's my brother. That's my friend. That's a good friend of mine. And why does he have to reach out to me to feel like we're not. We're in a good space. Let me reach out to him. And now we're on the phone for an hour and a half talking about whatever, our kids, our lives, you know, anything. So, yeah, that's my opinion. To any man out there that feels like their friends want to initiate it, you be the initiator. And you'd be surprised how you will start a wildfire of conversation and vulnerability and love.
- [20:03]
A
I love that. This reminds me of, like, there's this model of loneliness that's like. There's kind of three reasons you can be lonely. One is structural. You don't have the friends. The second, that I think we underestimate, is functional. You're not reaching out to people when you need them. And the third is quality you don't have quality connections. And so you could be lonely for any of those reasons. We often think. Cause I don't have friends. But for me, I realized actually when I feel lonely, it's more about functional reason. I'm not reaching out when I need connection to say, hey, are you available to connect right now? And so I've had to push myself to be like, okay, I have all these friends. But again, I'm not gonna unlock the full potential unless I actually reach out to them when I wanna reach out to them, when I feel like I need connection.
- [20:45]
B
Yeah, thank you for that question too, you know. Cause that was part of my next question. Is men in friendships? And obviously, I gave a. I hope I gave a good answer. But, like, I'd love to know. You know, obviously men often struggle, like you said, to build emotionally intimate, you know, intimate friendships. Why is that? And what. And what does that cost us in the long term?
- [21:07]
A
Yeah. So what we see in the research is that friendship has been declining for everyone. But in the last few decades, four times as many women have no friends, but five times as many men have no friends. And so the sort of loneliness crisis has been particularly bad for men. We see that men are about half as likely to be vulnerable with their friends, half as likely to express affection. And it's hard to pin down why this is for. Because there's no evidence that men don't like affection as much or don't like vulnerability as much. But this is kind of the state of things. Some things that researchers have thought about, I guess, is this phenomenon called homo hysteria, which is the fear of being perceived as gay by straight men. And so people that are more homo hysterical could feel like any act of intimacy, not just romantic or sexual, is something that is unnatural to men. Right. And so if I'm sharing that affection, that might call my sexuality into question in a way that it wouldn't for women, where it's a lot more normalized for women to engage in behaviors that might. That other people might only consider romantic. Right. Like when we're like, you're my soulmate, love of my life to their friends. Right.
- [22:15]
B
You know, friends, the soulmate. But I know what you say.
- [22:19]
A
Yeah, yeah. So what I think really needs to happen there, which I think is happening more for younger generations, is like a culture shift. Like, any form of intimacy isn't inherently sexual. Right. Like, you can express love to people. It doesn't mean you want to have sex with them. It doesn't mean your straightness is called into question. And, you know, even if it was, who cares, right, if we're not in a homophobic society anymore? And so to just normalize that, like, we all need intimacy and expressing intimacy doesn't call into question any aspect of your identity and in fact, affirms your identity as a human being.
- [22:52]
B
You know, I find it interesting and funny that two conversations I had today, and I got the same kind of answer of men that feel like they can't share their feelings or be vulnerable, feel like they're gay, right? And this, you know, I spoke to this guy named Dr. Brackett, and he was saying, you know, whether you're gay or not, you need to get in touch with your emotions, your feelings, and be vulnerable. You know what I mean? So, you know, it's crazy that still, to this day, and yes, it is getting better, men are becoming more vulnerable, are talking up, are wanting to have safe spaces. But it's still funny how, like, to this day, people, Men feel like we are of another. You know, we like the same sex if we happen to just talk about things, you know what I mean? It's a pretty wild assumption, you know what I mean? Yeah. So for people that. That aren't. That didn't kind of figure it out like me, I want to talk about how friendships change when people enter new seasons, like marriage, kids, like me. Like I said, career shifts, you know, state, you know, different move in different cities. How can we navigate that without resentment? Because a lot of friends, you know, personally, I've heard that from my friend years ago, like, but you moved out there and now you're no longer here, and we da, da, da. And it's almost like a resentment, you know what I mean? And we had to have those conversations, like, yeah, I'm sorry that I moved an hour and a half, two hours away from where I used to be. But that doesn't change our friendship. And we can make some time on weekends or every other weekend to go get some food or something. The drive isn't too far for me to, you know, to make sure I see my brother that I've known for a long time. So how do people not live with that resentment? Because I. Obviously, I wouldn't say I figured it out, but I try to figure it out, you know what I mean, to keep those big friends.
- [24:32]
A
Well, first I just want to say you just sound like a really good friend. You sound like an awesome friend.
- [24:39]
B
Not all the time, trust me. Sometimes people ask me to ask. Asked me to pick them up from the airport, and I lie and Say, I'm busy, so I'm not the gangster. I'm just kidding.
- [24:48]
A
That's real. That's real. Yeah. So life transitions do tend to disrupt our friendship. So first I just wanted to normalize that. When people get married, they lose about two friends. When people have kids, they tend to lose more friends. And I think part of it is that it's a set of assumptions, right? That, hey, you know, the married friend is thinking, the single person's gonna hear about my life and my. My tedious life with kids. The single friend is like, oh, yeah, they're like, focused on their family now and not me, right? And it's. We have this assumption of rejection that's not actually tested. And so continue to reach out, continue to invest. Don't just assume that because we're at different life experiences, that means we can't connect. Because one thing that we look for in friendship is similarity. But we also look for friends to expand our sense of self. And so if you're telling me what it's like as a father and I don't have that experience, you know, that's valuable to me. Similarly, maybe you want to learn what it's like to be single in your 40s or whatever it is that that is also a gift that we can give each other. So it's not being discouraged and taking that difference in life stage to mean that we can't connect anymore and continuing to make that effort to connect. But I think, Jojo, you just had a really good example, because the issue in friendship is that often when we are resentful and we're hurt, we don't bring it up like we do with romantic partnerships. We instead just withdraw. But ask yourself, if a friend had a problem with you, would you want them to just withdraw from you and you don't know what's going on? You probably wouldn't. You wouldn't get it, get a chance to at least, like, talk about it or repair the situation. And so why would you assume that your friend would rather you just back away than hear you hear. Hear you out in terms of whatever conflict or issue there is? So good. People that can work through conflict. Well, this was a growth area for me because I found that people that have open empathic conflict actually have more deep, intimate relationships. Like, I thought it's gonna bring up combat between us, antagonism. People that work through conflict, they're more popular, they're more liked by other people. When you can do it well, specifically. And what you did really well in that example, Jojo, is something called responsiveness. Which means if someone has a need, you don't just say, well, what's wrong with you? Like you're too sensitive, you need to get over it. You say, okay, like what, what capacity do I have to try to meet you there a little bit? Because this is a sign that you're really invested in my connection with you, which I really receive. And so it's also when we, when someone brings up stuff to us, do we take that for the act of care and investment that it is or do we like automatically just go into fight or flight and dismiss them?
- [27:20]
B
Yeah. I love how you said, you know, as, as me being a father and a married man and I may have a single friend that we can kind of share stories of what each life is. Because it is interesting having my single friend tell me about their wild nights. And I'm like, yeah, well, me and Joey had a doctor checkup yesterday. That's kind of what I was doing. So we have fun conversations like that that are, that are totally opposite but still fun conversations because they're, they're things that we both want to hear. You know what I mean? So, so I love that I want to talk about social media, how it creates kind of an illusion of connection while actually making people more disconnected. Can you talk about that a little bit?
- [27:59]
A
Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of us, if we rely on social media for connection, first of all, social media is even more so now, showing us a lot of people that we're not necessarily connected with, which is creating something called parasocial relationships, which are one sided relationships with people we don't actually know. And so those don't benefit us as much as connecting with people that we do actually know. And I think what social media does in those parasocial relationships is it gives us a snack of connection, but we never actually get the meal right. Like I see with my, I teach a class on why we're so lonely. And I tell my students to go a day without using their phones. And I realize that the problem isn't that we're lonely. It's that we're not lonely enough. We never allow ourselves to get lonely enough to be like, oh my God, I gotta reach out to someone. Because I see my students without their phones. They're like, I had to go to talk to the cashier in Trader Joe's. I was just so desperate. I needed to talk to students someone. And that's what social media does. It sort of distracts us and numbs us out. So that we don't have to address the underlying problem, but we do see from the data that specifically, if you're using social media in what's called passive ways, where you're just sort of lurking and you're scrolling, that's related to poor mental health, more loneliness. But if you use it in active ways, where I'm now DMing my friend. Cause I saw this update and I'm like, oh, here's this event we can go to. If you use it to bridge real life in person connections, then social media can be a powerful tool for connection.
- [29:23]
B
Yeah, I can see that. And I can see, like, you think you're connected to your friend because you're like, oh, I just saw him the other day on social media in LA on a trip. But have you spoken to them? Have you said, how's your trip going? Did you fly safely? Stuff like that. So, yes, it could. I think it can create an illusion of I'm actually connected to you without being connected to you. Because I'm seeing what you're doing through your Instagram stories, through your posts, through your page, but I'm actually not talking to you and feeling how you're doing and seeing how you feel. So I definitely see where you came from there. Please elaborate on what I said.
- [29:56]
A
Yeah, no, you just gave me a moment of insight because you have me thinking about. So there's this concept called ambiguous loss, which is like, when someone's still mentally present but physically gone. So it's like when you have a breakup with a friend and you don't know why it happened and you know, it's like, you know it's. Yeah. Or like when you're estranged from family members, it's like you're still connected in some way, even though you're not, like, physically in each other's lives. And it's known to make the grief much more complicated of a loss because you don't have closure. I think what you're talking about is, like, ambiguous connection where I, like, have the sense of being connected, but I'm, like, not actually connected to you. And it's confusing me and maybe stopping me from gaining the clarity that, like, I actually want to talk to you.
- [30:40]
B
Yeah, and I like how you brought that up. You just segued perfect into this. Next question about friendship breakups. They can hurt just as much as romantic ones, but we don't talk about them as much. How should people process that kind of loss of a friendship breakup? Because we hear breakups, we think, oh, you broke up with your Boyfriend you broke with your girlfriend. What about when friends truly go the other way and they have a breakup per se? Yeah.
- [31:04]
A
Yeah. Well, the first thing that I would say is, there's nothing wrong with you. It's not talked about enough. But all of us will lose friends throughout our life. And in fact, every seven years, the average person loses about half their friends. And so if you are going through this breakup and thinking, I'm ashamed, you know, like, this isn't normal or typical, people don't break up with their friends. They absolutely do. And so that's. That's the first thing, that it's okay that you're going through this. And the second thing is when we go through a friendship breakup, we tend to experience something called disenfranchised grief, which means grief that it's not validated by society. Right. If you go through that divorce, someone dies. People are like, let me bring you this casserole. You lose a friend, People are like, why are you still thinking about that? They were just a friend. And because society devalues our grief, we devalue our own grief. And so what I want to say is that your grief is legitimate, and intimacy is intimacy. It's not just like, our body cordons off. This was romantic intimacy, and this will hurt, and this was platonic intimacy, and this will not hurt. Like, that is a lie. Like, you have to feel how you feel and let yourself work, work through it. And then the last thing that I would suggest is that for every loss, we. We need to make meaning of it, and we need to recognize that within every loss, there is some sort of offering. And so maybe this breakup told you more about what you need in a friend to feel good and what doesn't work for you. Right. Maybe if you lost this friend that you used to call all the time and be so vulnerable with, it gives you the opportunity to spread that out across multiple people and get closer to some of your existing friends. And so my question for you is, what does it mean to you to turn this friendship breakup into some sort of offering for you?
- [32:44]
B
I love that. And another quick personal story. So, you know, I'm actually personally going through that right now. Like, I have a friend. About eight years ago, we had a fallout. Pretty bad fallout. Haven't been friends. He was brought up on this podcast with another friend that we were all friends of, and we tried to reach out to him, and he had recently came out. And I respect how he came up because he said exactly what you said. He said, you know, there's no hard feelings. But it helped me get back to some other friends that I feel are good for me. And not that he doesn't think we're not good for him. Maybe we'll mend that up. Maybe we'll patch that up. Only God knows. But I love how you said that sometimes those lessons and those opportunities are ways to go. Leaning into some other friends that are really truly for you or truly better for you that you feel are better for your mental. You feel are better for you. Not to say that, you know, me and my friend are his bad friends, but I love how he's found other friends that have been supportive in a time where, you know, we have not been on good terms. You know what I mean? So, yeah, so I have bad. I have. I. You know, I had. I go through things. I lose friends. Still, that friendship still hurts. You know, my wife tells me to let it go. I'm like, you don't know the history. We've known each other for a really long time. You know what I mean? And, you know, so. So, you know, you had me really at the edge of my seat just now with what you were saying, because it really hit home for me because this recently has been happening this week.
- [34:07]
A
Yeah, I get that. I've also gone through a recent friendship breakup with one of my best friends, and it hurts a lot. And I guess one thing I'm thinking about, which maybe I can ask you too, is like, I think this friend was going through a difficult time, and that's why they weren't treating me like they typically did. And I'm asking myself, you know, what is the line between being the bigger person and understanding that and abandoning myself self abandonment that, like, oh, like, I'm accepting treatment that feels bad for me, that I just doesn't reflect the kind of relationships that I want to have. And so I'm just trying to think through that tension right now because we might reconnect. We're kind of on an extended break. And I don't know if that's come up for you because you seem really good at understanding people and seeing the bigger picture. But, you know, of course, there can be that part of you that's like. But I'm really hurt about this. And if I'm the bigger person, like, I'm, like, estranging myself from the part of me that's still struggling with this. So I would love to hear your thoughts on that.
- [35:03]
B
Yeah, you know, I wasn't always the bigger person. Probably when the argument came up nine years or Eight years ago, I probably was the smaller person, but I chose to be the bigger person in these days and age. And I think you're totally right. I think on both sides, nine years ago, we probably both felt we were abandoning ourselves and how we, you know, how we felt about how we were treating each other, you know what I mean? And it's hard, you know, it's truly a hard situation to go through. But what I, what I try to look at it now is like everybody's got something going on that they're not talking about. And I try to put myself in their shoes. And it doesn't mean I give them total grace or total apologies if they've violated my boundaries or violated something that I don't, you know, honor. But I also, like, I guess I said this earlier in my, you know, in the interviews, like I'm a Libra. Libras tend to see everybody's side of the story. We tend to, you know, want to, you know, want to fix things. And Libras work well in groups, we work well in friendships because whether we need to lead or just be a part of something, we like being a part of community. So me personally, I just try to think. Think what, what the other person would think, you know what I mean, when we're going through that issue. And like you said, I don't know, you know, like I said too, I don't know if me and this friend will ever patch it up. It's been a really long time since we've actually had closure. I would say I think closure is important. And it's been a really long time that we've, you know, we should have had this conversation nine years ago. And now the conversation is coming up now and I'm seeing a lot of resentment on his side, which I don't fault him for because it's resentment of built up, unheard conversation, you know what I mean? And that's the problem here. So, you know, I don't have the full answer for you, but what I will say is, you know, I try to make sure that I'm good with me, but also make sure that I have a heart and a mind for the person that I'm going through that discrepancy with. Like you said, I didn't know. He just came out saying he was going through a rough time. At the times that we were going, he needed me, but at that time he wasn't treating me how I felt was right. So I didn't know you were going through a rough time. I'M just feeling my emotions. I'm not feeling you emotions. You know what I mean? So it's hard to feel the other person's emotions, man. But it's good to talk about it, you know? Good to talk.
- [37:17]
A
I. I love that. I love the piece that you said about, like, what does it mean to take care of you? Because I think we can get so focused on how do I change this friendship, how do I change this other person, how do I change our dynamic? But I think how you do that is you take care of you, right? Because then you are re entering the dynamic in a less heated place, in a place where you have more capacity, more understanding, more grace. So I think that that's a really beautiful idea. I think the other thing that has helped me is that I think with the conflict, I thought that I did something wrong. And I don't know if. I mean, I'm sure I contributed to the dynamic, but I think I have this sense that if there's a conflict, I will blame myself a little bit. And I was at this speaking event, and we were talking about vulnerability and how someone became more vulnerable. And I asked, what helped you become more vulnerable over time? And she was like, vulnerability is really uncomfortable in the moment, but in the larger scheme of things, it's gonna benefit your life a lot. And I thought about that with conflict, that you can't judge the power of bringing up issues and talking through them based off of one instance, because overall, it's a risk to bring up stuff, and risks don't always go right. But in the bigger scheme of things, this is going to bring more to your life than it takes away. And you can't judge, oh, this one moment, it didn't go right. So that means I should never do this, because these are tips for you of how to live a flourishing life full of connection, not how to be assured that everything will go well in every single moment. And so that also helped me where I could tell myself, you know, I took some risks here, they didn't go right. But I don't want to become a person that doesn't take risks because of this experience. Because in the broader picture, taking risks, being vulnerable, bringing up the issue, right, that is the kind of person I want to be, and that's the kind of life that I want to live.
- [39:03]
B
I love that. I love that. You know, I agree what you said, 100%. I think when you start working on yourself, you start finding out the type of friend and person you are, and then you move accordingly with the Friends you have the friends you had, the relationships you want to keep building, the relationships you want to maybe mend. I think the most important part is you is looking in the mirror and say, who am I? You know, and then that shows you everything else that opens up everything else for you I want to talk about, you know, because a lot of friends out there, they think that the grand gestures mean they're really good friends if they do a grand gesture with somebody. But let's talk about whether grand gestures or consistent presence is more important in being a friend. You know, what actually matters the most to me, obviously, presence. But I'd love to hear your take on that.
- [39:46]
A
Well, I think the two are really associated because, like, how do you know it's time to celebrate your friend's promotion if you're not consistently in their life? Like, how do you know that they're going through the struggle, right. If you're not checking in like you did? And so it's almost like you can't really access it grand gestures as much if you're not a consistent presence, getting those updates and being able to check in. Oh, my God. How did that doctor's appointment end up going? Right. That I heard of. So I see that that real symbiosis there between the two things. The other thing that I will say is there when we are in moments of high emotion, whether low, whether we feel really bad or really good, we tend to remember those moments more. And so I call them diagnostic moments, which means how this person showed up when you were in high emotion, when you went through that divorce or had to start caretaking for your parent or got a promotion. Right. If someone reaches out at that time, it matters more than they. If they reach out any other time. Right. So I need to send friends soup when they're sick. And I could send friends food at any time just to say, I love you. But I know that that's going to matter more and do more for solidifying our friendship if I choose to do that in a diagnostic moment. So for my busy people who are like, I don't have a lot of time to be a consistent presence, can you at least try to be intentional about reaching out during diagnostic moments? You know, I send my friend just had a kid. I'm gonna send them a gift card to doordash. Make sure, you know, send them something to clean their house, whatever that looks like for you. Even if it's just a thoughtful message of like, I've just been thinking about you. Cause I know you've been Going through xyz, like that's gonna matter a lot for your friendship.
- [41:25]
B
Yeah. You know, as you said, I want to bring up one of my best friends, my co founding partner, Chris Carl. He's man, me and him are, you know, he's a great guy and you reminded me like when I'm sick, he's the first to text me, hey, how are you feeling? If you need me, I'll bring some honey from my farm to your house or I'll ship you. He shipped me honey before, like in the mail overnight. Yeah, you know, he has a farm. So quiet flex for Chris. So yeah, he has a farm and you know where he has, you know, bunch of honeybees and livestock. So like he's always the first one to contact me and say, hey, if you need me for anything, you know, let me know. And I don't ever really need him to come show up with honey. I don't need him. I just getting that text message is the best feeling in the world from somebody that actually feels like they care about your well being. So I want to give him a shout out because you said something like that of just like, even if you're a busy person. Because he's a busy person. He runs a farm, he helps, you know, me run this media company that we have together and you know, everything else that we'll be doing this year and beyond. So he's a very, very busy person. He has four sons, he's married. Right. So like, yeah, this is a person that's not like just sitting around, but yet finds the time to reach out to a friend and say, oh shit, my friend JoJo's sick. You know, hey, bro, how you feeling? You good? You know, I just had something just like that, you know, this might be a good way to attack it or whatever the case may be. And I think that that's why I continue to have great friendships is because not only am I the initiator, but I have some great initiators in my circle as well that check on me. Shout out to Chris, Carl, I love you, bro. If you watch, he will watch this episode. Guaranteed he'll watch this episode.
- [42:58]
A
Okay, now I have another follow up question for you first because I think a lot of people are like, I'm putting so much effort into my friendships, but it feels one sided. I don't get that reciprocity and I'm really upset about it. And I think you said that you don't mind being the person to reach out, but do you feel like by being the initiator. You create initiators or do you feel like it's about finding the right people who are already invested and intentional about relationship building and trying to be discerning and building relationship with those people?
- [43:27]
B
Yeah, I think, I think it's a little bit of both. I think it's, you know, it has to be a two way street, you know, even if, even if you're the only initiator, the person that you're initiating with has to want to talk, right? They have to want to have the conversation, you know, they have. You have to have that feeling from that other person that, that they're excited to hear from you or that they're thankful to hear from you, even if they don't tell you, you can hear it in their voice or you can feel it in their text, you know what I mean? If they answer back quickly or if you know what I mean. So, like, I think it really comes down to both, you know, it really comes down to really both of, of it. You know what I mean? So that's probably, you know, the best way that I could probably explain it is even when you're not, you know, we spoke about this earlier, I suppose, or even when you're the initiator, I think it does spread like wildfire to create a bunch of initiatives. But yes, it does depend on the person. They have to be invested into you, like you're invested into them, you know, and that's just.
- [44:20]
A
Well, what I hear in your answer too is that you're really good at reading signs of love and affirmation from other people. Because some people are like, well, they're not showing love the same exact way that I'm showing love. So they're not showing love at all. Right. But you're able to say, even if I'm the one initiating there, I appreciate hearing from you or their engagement when I, you know, that counts too, rather than kind of filtering out any form of affirmation if it doesn't match, like a sort of preconceived script. So I think that's a powerful way to stay engaged, even when it's quote unquote, non reciprocal, but perhaps it's reciprocal in a different way. And I think we could all pay attention to that. Like, is it that this person isn't meeting me there? Are they meeting me there in a different way that I'm not understanding or recognizing?
- [45:01]
B
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I love that. And you know, I just, you know, I just think, just, you know, I don't know What I was gonna say. I want to get into the next question because I was gonna get deeper on this podcast, though. It's the 4 Good podcast for a reason, because we talk about a lot about doing good on this podcast. How does building strong friendships contribute to healthier communities and a better society as a whole?
- [45:30]
A
Oh, my God. We were just talking about this. Yeah, so I was just talking to my students about this. There's a study of, like, 17 different European countries, and it found that when people were less engaged in this in their society, they were more likely to support political systems that were about destroying the minority, destroying opposition, that were about kind of like having a very loose definition of democracy to find a means to an end. Right. When people are in a state of fear, in a state of fear, they are willing to support policies that are very harmful to people that they perceive as helpful to themselves and don't necessarily recognize that we are all an ecosystem. So for her many other people, it's gonna come back and hurt us. And so the general sense of trust and safety that friendship provides really determines how we engage politically. A lot. A lot of it. And there's this great documentary by Robert Putnam. He's like, a famous person in the connection space, and he looks at functioning democracies, and he finds that there's such a role of people on the ground to apply the policy of the government. And that only happens when people are socially connected. Are they able to, like, take those grassroots actions that is required to, like, make the government functional on the ground? And so this is, you know, this is friendship, connection. It's just so much bigger than the individual. It's just really necessary for a functioning society, a functioning government. We need to be able to work and cooperate with each other. There's this other author, I think her name is Narina Hertz, and she talks about how friendship is a microcosm of democracy. Right. I have to think about your needs and think about my needs and think about how to meet everybody's needs. And it's like I'm continuing to practice that over time. And I can then think about how that's reflected in, like, how I engage with the government, too. And if we don't have that, we're not practicing democracy.
- [47:29]
B
Yeah, I agree. And it brings me to my favorite Christmas movie, the Grinch who Stole Christmas. It reminds me so much of that. All he needed was a friend in Cindy Lou who to remind him that he was part of society, he was part of the community, because before he thought that, he thought everybody Hated him. He wanted to steal presents, he wanted to steal Christmas, he wanted to cause havoc. And all he really needed was to feel a part of something. So it goes back to just being lonely can be a sickness and it can make you think things and try to ruin the society as it is. Just because you don't feel that love and you don't feel that connection. And when you don't feel that love and connection, you don't have that experience. To understand what the society as a whole needs, you only think about what you need. You know what I mean? That's why the grip. Even though it's a funny, fun movie, Jim Carrey's My Guy, it has a lot of great lessons in it for kids.
- [48:17]
A
Absolutely.
- [48:18]
B
For sure.
- [48:19]
A
Yeah. I think pain can make us so self absorbed and we don't often realize it.
- [48:23]
B
Right.
- [48:23]
A
When we're in pain, it's like, how. Can't believe they did that to me. How are they affecting me? This is how they're harming me. And it's not how have I harmed them? What's their perspective? Like, how can I make them feel included? How can I make them feel more cared for?
- [48:35]
B
Yeah. Now, if someone's listening or watching right now as we talk and they feel deeply lonely right now, what's one thing you want?
- [48:45]
A
I would say that you need to know that there's nothing wrong with you. You need to know that if you make an effort to connect, it can go well and lead to positive outcomes. You need to know that people are waiting to connect with you and they're just waiting for you to take the initiative. The thing that perpetuates loneliness, what we see over time, the people that stay lonely, it's because they think this loneliness means I'm fundamentally defective. There is wrong something wrong with me. I am unlikable or everyone else is defective. I can't trust people, they're bad. And the people that get out of it, they have hope. They think maybe this can get better over time. Maybe if I try, then things will go better and I'll find the connection that they seek. And so the less that you can internalize that loneliness, which you shouldn't do, because in modern society, the average person is lonely. And it's not that the average person is defective. There's so many things going on in our society that are trickling down and making us feel more lonely. So I just want you to know that there's nothing wrong with you and that you, if you go out there and you just reach out to someone Right. You just say, hey, I would love to connect with you further. Like, do you want to hang out sometime? Right. That that can make a difference, that even a small act like saying hello can make such a difference. And lonely people might have to start with something smaller, like saying hello to the person next, like texting someone they already know a little bit more consistently. Because when we're lonely, we feel so threatened by other people, we think they're going to reject us. Right. And even just what's something really small and attainable that you can do to feel a little bit more connected? I just, you know, in the research and psychology, we call it a locus of control, which is to feel like you have some control over the outcomes of your life. And often lonely people don't feel that way. They think no matter what I do, it's going to go badly. People are not going to want to talk to me or hang out with me. And I need you to know that that's a way that we think when we're lonely. That is not actually true.
- [50:51]
B
Yeah, I agree. And I just want to add on that you are worthy of friendship, you are worthy of connection, and you are worthy of all the love that people have for you out there. So anybody that thinks that aren't worthy of friendship or aren't worthy to have great friends, you definitely are worthy. And loneliness, you know, to touch on loneliness, you know, it's definitely, you know, you're not alone. There's another person lonely out there that you could connect with and you won't be lonely anymore. You know what I mean? So that's how I look at it. You're not alone in this fight of trying to connect and be. So as we wrap it up, one last question for you, Dr. Franco. What's one simple habit people can start today to build stronger, more meaningful friendships?
- [51:34]
A
I really like this one. There's this thing called covert and overt avoidance. And overt avoidance is when you don't show up to places to connect because you're scared of people. So you have to overcome that, but you also have to overcome covert avoidance, which is when you show up at places to connect, but you're disengaged. You are on your phone, you're in the corner, you're watching the TV, you have your AirPods in your ears. And so to connect, you don't just have to overcome that overt avoidance by finding a place where you can meet other people, but also covert avoidance when you get there. Hey. Hi. My name's Marissa. How's it going. How have you like this event? You have to, you know, engage, initiate conversations with other people.
- [52:12]
B
Yeah, Yeah, I love that, you know, and I hope. I hope anybody that's watching or listening took they pen and they pad and jotted down the gems that Dr. Franco was dropping today. I do want to say this before we get out of here, too, and before we go, you know, wrap this up. You know, I appreciate you, you know, commending me on my good friendship, but I do want to let people know that although I may sound like a great friend now, and I have it all figured out, I was like everybody else. I would get offended when people wouldn't contact me. I would feel away when people. When I felt like people were acting funny to me. But I wanted to be different. I wanted to see what would be the difference if I was the initiator and what would be the difference if I reached out and saw that it was actually all good and it was just me in my head. So 99% of the time, it's just you in your head thinking like Dr. Franco said. What if it goes bad? What if it doesn't go well? What if this person is mad at me? What if this person won't accept me? What if this person doesn't love me? Most of the time, people are just going through what they're going through, and they want to hear from you as much as you want to hear from them. And that's what I want to add on. So, Dr. Franco, before you get out of here, can you please let us know and my subscribers know listeners know where they can find you on all social platforms. What you got coming up or anything you want to promote?
- [53:20]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Dr. Marissa G. Franco. D R M A R I S A G F R A N C o on Instagram LinkedIn, I share tips on the science of connection. You could take a quiz to assess your strengths and weaknesses as a friend on my website, Dr.marissagfranco.com and I'm available for speaking engagements on how to make friends or the science of belonging at work on my website, too.
- [53:43]
B
I love it. Make sure you guys go take her quiz. Sounds like a very useful tool if you're trying to build connection and grow connection. Anyways, Dr. Franco, I just want to give you your four good flowers like I give to everybody at the end of these episodes. I don't have any flowers, but they're digital flowers. We're doing the work that you've been doing.
- [54:01]
A
Thank you.
- [54:03]
B
I think it's very important. I think it's an overlooked conversation that loneliness and friendships plays a big part in our mental health and our physical health and how long we actually live. You started off in the beginning of it affects our life and it affects how long we can actually live being lonely and not having real connections. So thank you so much, Dr. Franco, for coming on the For Good podcast. We're officially locked in now. We're homies. We're friends. You know what I mean? I really love this conversation. I was excited about it and it definitely was worth everybody, every, every excitement that I was waiting to have this conversation with you. So thank you so much to my subscribers. Make sure you hit that subscribe button. Drop some comments, Drop some reviews on this episode. This is the 4 Good podcast. It's your guy, JoJo Simmons, where we focus on the good, never the bad, and we're measured by what we do, not what we have. Signing out for the For Good podcast Till next time, you guy, JoJo Simmons. Dr. Marissa Franco. Peace.