ALAIN DE BOTTON: WHY MAKING FRIENDS AS AN ADULT FEELS IMPOSSIBLE (BUT ISN'T)

Summary

---

Podcast Summary

Great Company with Jamie Laing

Episode: Alain de Botton: Why Making Friends as an Adult Feels Impossible (But Isn't)
Date: September 2, 2025
Guest: Alain de Botton – Philosopher, bestselling author, and founder of The School of Life

---

Episode Overview

In this rich and candid conversation, Jamie Laing and Jemima Pj welcome philosopher Alain de Botton for his second appearance to discuss the complex world of adult friendships. The discussion dives into why forging and deepening friendships as an adult feels so challenging, the unique pressures (especially for men), the risk and beauty in vulnerability, and practical advice for growing, ending, or repairing friendships. With warmth and humor, Alain unpacks societal norms, personal stories, and psychological truths. The episode also touches upon parenthood, emotional honesty, and why listening to ourselves—not just podcasts—might be the most important habit of all.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Friendship: The “Unspoken Relationship”

• Friendships vs. Romantic Relationships
  • Friendships are seen as “easy” or intuitive, but actually, they're fraught with unspoken conventions and stigmas.
  • “Most of us have got space for some more really good friends.” (Alain, 12:15)
• Naming the Relationship

  • Unlike romantic partnerships, friendships rarely involve overt expressions of importance or commitment. Adults, unlike children, seldom affirm: “You’re my best friend.”

  • Men especially struggle here, inhibited by anxiety over intimacy and appearance.

    “In friendships, you very rarely know what you mean to the other person… Little children are much more alive to this than adults.”
    — Alain de Botton, 17:28

2. Vulnerability as Foundation

• Intimacy Grows from Risk

  • Deep friendships require sharing vulnerability, which feels risky—especially for men, who may fear being seen as weak or “unmanly”.

  • “To deepen a friendship, you have to take a risk that you're going to ruin that friendship.” (Alain, 34:00)

    “If you can never show your need to another person, you're denying them a chance to show their capacities. You're actually blocking intimacy.”
    — Alain de Botton, 14:28

• Men and Emotional Expression

  • Male friendships are often limited to “safe” topics (sport, cars), sidelining emotional realities due to anxieties around masculinity and sexuality.

    “The reason why male friendships are, on the whole, really quite dull is you've got two people… putting up a front, terrified of what might happen if that front disappears.”
    — Alain de Botton, 18:17

3. How to Be a Better Friend

• Confident Vulnerability
  • Leading by example: bringing honesty and real emotions into conversation.
• Active Listening & Signaling Openness

  • Good listening draws depth out of others.

    “It's your listening, the quality of your listening that is raising the quality of my speaking. That is another gift of friendship.”
    — Alain de Botton, 44:44

4. Making Friends as an Adult

• Take Friendship Seriously

  • There is no shame in struggling with friends; it’s a skill set, not a default trait.

  • Try “drunk without the alcohol”—offer the candor and warmth that often only emerges under social lubricants (33:28).

    “You can be an agent in your friendship group… try and change the mood. Most people are hovering on the surface not because they want to, but because they don't know any different.”
    — Alain de Botton, 34:25

• Practical Steps

  • Go first in vulnerability.
  • Suggest deeper topics.
  • Recognize and verbalize the value of your friendships.

5. Letting Go of Friendships

• When to Move On

  • It's natural and healthy to let some friendships end as life stages change.

  • Holding on out of guilt (not genuine connection) denies both parties space to thrive.

    “If you can't be the person they need you to be, that's selfish to pretend that you can be.”
    — Alain de Botton, 54:08

6. Parenthood, Inherited Patterns, and Emotional Legacy

• Jemima’s impending parenthood opens discussion on anxieties about passing down flaws and “not being present.”

• Alain: It is natural to fear, and healthy to acknowledge, the gravity of parenting and the need to accept one’s imperfections.

• Allowing pain and “embracing the complexity of life” benefits both parent and child.

  “Giving birth is both wonderful and joyful and is an enormous loss. You lose an enormous part of your life.”
  — Alain de Botton, 65:20

7. Honesty, Depth, and Cultural Change

• The importance of ending “the show” and daring to be real.
• Social norms are changed by example: “When you see other people doing something and you think, oh, I could give that a go.” (Alain, 24:22)
• True friendship and connection require repeated, conscious efforts to cross from surface to depth.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Modern Loneliness:

  “To say 'I'm lacking friends,' there's an air of tragedy, immediate tragedy, totally unwarranted.”
  (Alain, 11:43)

• On Men and Vulnerability:

  “Being a man is a tricky thing. There is such a fear in male friendships of homosexuality… a kind of sexual anxiety that inhibits the development of a good friendship.”
  (Alain, 00:02 & 20:26)

• On the “Deep Conversation” Dinner Game:

  “Why are we having surface level boring chat? Go deeper with people. Chat about what their real emotions are, their feelings are, what they want to achieve in life.”
  (Jemima, 07:17)

• On What Makes a Bad Friend:

  “Somebody who means well but is so bound up with ideas of what they should be doing that they can never go deep… You can only go with somebody else as far as you're prepared to go within yourself.”
  (Alain, 49:45 & 41:31)

• On Technology and Self-Knowledge:

  “Phones truly are the enemy of introspection. We know ourselves so much less well now because of our phones.”
  (Alain, 80:30)

• On Listening to Oneself:

  “The true moral of this podcast is: fewer podcasts. Listen to the podcast of yourself.”
  (Alain, 78:01)

---

Key Timestamps

• 00:02 — Alain on masculinity, vulnerability, and friendship
• 10:00-12:00 — The stigma of loneliness and the myth that everyone “should” know how to make friends
• 17:15 — “How do we do friendship properly?”
• 19:53 — On safe topics and male friendships
• 24:07 — Advice for men struggling to connect with friends
• 33:28 — “Be drunk sober”: using openness without alcohol
• 41:09 — Embracing loneliness; surface vs. deep relationships
• 44:44 — The power of attentive listening and creating space
• 53:31 — Breaking up with friends is normal and healthy
• 65:20 — The emotional complexity of parenthood and loss
• 80:30 — Phones and their effect on friendships with ourselves
• 81:43 — Alain’s lasting message: “Spend more time with yourself. Stop trying so hard to be normal.”

---

Actionable Takeaways

• Be proactive: Initiate deeper questions and admit vulnerability.
• Express: Tell friends how much they mean to you—even if it feels awkward.
• Listen deeply: Quality of listening raises the quality of conversation.
• Accept change: Let go of friendships that have run their course without guilt.
• Embrace honesty: Recognize and share uncomfortable emotions (envy, loneliness, fear).
• Make space for silence: Regularly spend time without distraction—listen to your own mind.
• Support others: When friends face things you don’t understand, acknowledge your limitations honestly rather than “putting on a show.”
• Rethink the ‘social norms’: The more we model openness, the more others will follow suit.

---

Final Thoughts

This episode offers a rare, wise, and practical guide to understanding friendship, vulnerability, and self-knowledge. Alain de Botton’s advice challenges listeners to risk honesty—to create more meaningful connections not only with friends, but with themselves. The episode closes reminding us to spend more time with ourselves, stop trying so hard to be normal, and recognize the magic that comes from intentional, brave conversations.

---

Top Takeaway:

“Spend more time with yourself. Stop trying so hard to be normal. It's exhausting, and it's not fun for anyone else.”
(Alain de Botton, 81:43)

---

For more, grab Alain’s upcoming book, Secrets of Successful Friendships (out September), and try his conversation starter cards at your next gathering.

Transcript

[Jamie Laing]

Coming up in this episode of Great Company.

[Alain de Botton]

Being a man is a tricky thing. There is such a fear in male friendships of homosexuality. You've got two people who are putting up a front, terrified of what might happen if that front disappears, which is a kind of sexual anxiety that inhibits the development of a good friendship.

[Jemima Pj]

If someone's listening to this right now, who is a man, what advice would you give him to try and connect more?

[Alain de Botton]

Hello, I'm Alain de Botton and I'm back and I'm in Great company. Founder of the School of Life and.

[Jamie Laing]

Best selling author, Alain de Botton.

[Alain de Botton]

A good friendship should allow room to let in space for the hurt. So to deepen a friendship, you have to take a risk that you're going to ruin that friendship. If you're living on the surface, you're going to have surface relationships with others.

[Jemima Pj]

Is it okay to let friends go.

[Alain de Botton]

If you can't be the person they need you to be? That's selfish to pretend that you can be. Every minute you spend with a partner where you're not fully invested is a day that you're robbing of them. The same thing is true of friendship.

[Jemima Pj]

I'm about to become a parent. The thing I'm worried about is passing down my sort of inherited behaviors that aren't quite right.

[Alain de Botton]

You were not scared at all. You wouldn't be acknowledging the gravity of what you're letting yourself into. Giving birth is both wonderful and joyful and is an enormous loss. You lose an enormous part of your life. How do you think that you might be not a good parent?

[Jemima Pj]

I think.

[Alain de Botton]

I want to give you a hug. Hey, it's Adam Grant from Work Life, a podcast from Ted. This episode is brought to you by freshworks. Freshworks believes that complexity is the enemy of efficiency. So stop wrestling with bloated, expensive service software that takes forever to implement an update where ROI is someday, not today. You've been overcharged and underserved for way too long. Uncomplicate with Fresh Service for IT and Fresh Desk for customer support. And with Freshworks AI assisted service software, you'll work smarter, not harder. Freshworks uncomplicates.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

Learn [e-mail] Every idea starts with a problem. Warby Parker's was simple. Glasses are too expensive. So they set out to change that. By designing glasses in house and selling directly to customers, they're able to offer prescription eyewear that's expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Warby Parker glasses are made from premium materials like impact resistant polycarbonate and custom Acetate and they start at just $95, including prescription lenses. Get glasses made from the good stuff. Stop by a Warby Parker store near you. Botox cosmetic outobotulinum toxinae FDA approved for over 20. So talk to your specialist to see if Botox Cosmetic is right for you.

[Alain de Botton]

For full prescribing information including boxed warning, visit botoxcosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

Remember to ask for Botox Cosmetic by name.

[Alain de Botton]

To see for yourself and learn more.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

Visit botoxcosmetic.com that's botoxcosmetic.com want to upskill.

[Jemima Pj]

On one of the most effective ad channels out there? With ACAS Ads Academy, you can learn everything you need to plan and run podcast advertising campaigns completely free. Whether you're new to audio or ready to sharpen your skills, our self paced courses fit your schedule and finish with.

[Alain de Botton]

An industry recognized certification. So if you want to grow your.

[Jemima Pj]

Expertise and stand out in a competitive industry, head to go. Acast.com Academy hello everyone. My name is Jamie Laing and this is Great Company. Welcome back, everybody, to Great Company Podcast.

[Jamie Laing]

Welcome back. Bienvenu.

[Jemima Pj]

Bienvenue. That person talking is Jemima pj. That is correct. And I'm the host, Jamie. Which is really exciting. Why is that exciting?

[Jamie Laing]

That is so exciting.

[Jemima Pj]

That is so exciting to have you back. It's because I was suddenly. I just got suddenly distracted by something in my own mind and then I was just talking about.

[Jamie Laing]

What were you distracted by?

[Jemima Pj]

About a thing that we're doing in Jampot, which is our company that creates this podcast and lots of other different shows. We're doing a Bake off and we're trying to find a judge for it. It's a complete side point. Nothing to do with this episode.

[Jamie Laing]

We are doing a Bake Off. Well, the bake off will probably be the week that this episode comes out.

[Jemima Pj]

Probably will be.

[Jamie Laing]

You were on Bake Off.

[Jemima Pj]

I was.

[Alain de Botton]

You were awful.

[Jemima Pj]

Yeah, but I can still bake. Baking is a science. Cooking is an art. Anyway, we're digressing from the episode. The point is, the reason you've come to this right now is because you've seen the person in the title who the episode is of today.

[Jamie Laing]

Oh, boy, oh boy.

[Jemima Pj]

And this person has been now on our show twice.

[Jamie Laing]

Yeah. I also want to say with the show, we keep. We've had a few things. We're like, we've never done this before. Like, we've had Reardon back. We also had a Jessie J, which was Recorded in two parts.

[Jemima Pj]

Two parts, but that was different. So we've had two people coming back. One was Reardon Maynard, and this is the other person, Alain de Botton.

[Jamie Laing]

Now, I say Alain de Botan, but I think it's Alain de Botton.

[Jemima Pj]

Alain de Botin. Botanical Alain de Botton. Alain came on the podcast probably about a year ago. It was one of our best performing episodes. And we talked about relationships, we talked about parenthood. And today is fascinating because we're talking about friendship now. I've been obsessed with friendship for so long, mainly because I think a lot of our happiness comes from connections with friends and family. And secondly, I had a huge amount of loneliness in my late 20s because I hadn't really connected with friends. And so today, to talk to Alain about friendship and how that affects us and how we can make friends, deal with friends, break up with friends, deal with toxic friends, deal what makes a good friend. All of that is in the episode today, which I cannot. I'm so excited for.

[Jamie Laing]

I totally agree. I also think friendship is a relationship that sometimes doesn't get the spotlight that it deserves. Because, you know, we talk loads about relationships and familial relationships and, like, love relationships, but the friendships are the ones that kind of keep you going. Sisters before misters, there you go. Bros before hoes, there you go.

[Jemima Pj]

It's exactly that. And sometimes we forget how important friendships are. And also we forget that some friendships last us for an amount of time, which is great, but then probably we go in different directions, and that is also okay. All of that is in the episode today, which is just.

[Jamie Laing]

I'm so excited. Alain de Botton. Alain de Botton has always been my dream, dream guest. I've read his stuff for years and years. And so when he came on that first time, I mean, we spoke about it, I lost my mind to have him back. I found my mind since I lost it and I've lost it again.

[Jemima Pj]

Go and find it while I intro this bit.

[Jamie Laing]

But can I just say, you know, last time you had Alan on.

[Jemima Pj]

Yeah, you.

[Jamie Laing]

In this episode, you talk a lot about how it really changed you.

[Jemima Pj]

Yeah.

[Jamie Laing]

How did you change after that last episode?

[Jemima Pj]

Well, there were a lot of things that I realized that I was probably doing in life because I thought I had to. The way that I would act with people, I wouldn't go as deep with certain situations. And when Alan came on before, I just started to open up about actually having a deep conversation with someone is what the other person wants. Why are we having surface level boring chat Go deeper with people, chat about what their real emotions are, their feelings are, what they want to achieve in life. And Allan made me kind of think in that way.

[Jamie Laing]

So your life is better for listening to that episode.

[Jemima Pj]

Without a doubt.

[Jamie Laing]

And we're ready for the next one.

[Jemima Pj]

We're also going to leave a link in the show description to go back to the old episode. So if you enjoy this one, click on that link and it'll take you back to the other one. But for now, if you haven't subscribed to the show already, please do. It does us absolute wonders. And if you want to get in touch, you can on our social media greatcompany podcast. All our clips are up there, also on YouTube and of course, email us greatcompanyampopproductions.co.uk. okay, enjoy this episode of Great Company with Alain de Botton.

[Alain de Botton]

Hello, I'm Alain de Botton and I'm back and I'm in great company.

[Jemima Pj]

Ever since we had our last. I think I said this on our last episode, we went for a dinner with Elizabeth Day, who's another podcaster who you were on her podcast. You invited us to dinner, we sat down and after dinner you played a game where you wanted to play a game of charades, but a much deeper game of charades where you really connect. And everyone, I think, was taken aback. They went, oh, hang on a second. But actually, everyone loved playing it and everyone connected. And that's the one thing I remember from the evening that really stands out, is that moment. And I've done that in my life now to the point where I actually sent my mum and this. I sent her a message on Saturday because I knew we were having this conversation. And so I was just researching things and looking at different things. I knew you would ask some questions. So I saw something which apparently we should all ask our parents, particularly our mother. So I sent this to my mum. I said, hi, Mum, I would like to ask you five questions. I saw this and apparently every son should ask their mother. So have a think and let me know your answers. Said if you could. If you could relive one day with me I said, if you could relive one day with me which day would you choose? Was there an occasion I made you sad and never apologized? When did I make you most proud? And are you proud of the person I've become? If you could map my future, what would it look like? What advice would you give me when I become a parent?

[Alain de Botton]

So moving.

[Jemima Pj]

And my mum replied.

[Alain de Botton]

If I could.

[Jemima Pj]

Relive One day, I think it would be in Hong Kong with your cousins. We're all so happy. I have a picture of you hugging me, which reminds me of that every day makes you get emotional. Starts to the second question. Have I ever upset you? Never apologized. She said, so many days that you made me sad and didn't apologize. But I never didn't love you more than life itself. But those days are past now. Most proud. She said, I was most proud of you when you won your Victor Ladorum, which was for athletics at school, but more probably when you did your marathons. She said, I'm so deeply proud of who you've become. Your future map from me would be committed husband, a devoted father, and a really good person. Parenthood. Teach them to be resilient and take life's knocks. Teach them to get up again and keep going and never lie. You can get many things back in life, but not your integrity.

[Alain de Botton]

Beautiful.

[Jemima Pj]

Isn't that amazing?

[Alain de Botton]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jemima Pj]

And her to say that to me. And then the other thing, which I did, and it was I went on a stag do. Okay. And stag do's are typically one of these places where it's drinking and all these different things. And we were sitting on a rooftop and there was 15 of our friends and my friend was getting married. And we were all laughing and joking and I said, okay, I want everyone to go around the circle. And this is because of you. And I'm not just saying, I promise it's because of you. I want everyone to go round the circle and say one memory that is your happiest memory with Ollie, who was the groom to be. And one thing that he's helped you and taught you in your life that you really remember and really love about it. And we went round one by one, and everyone after the weekend said, that was the most special moment. Cause we all connected. It's so. And that. And that's, you know, and looking at your book, the Secrets of Successful Friendships, that connection, having those deep conversations like these cards do in relationships, you've got to do those with friends.

[Alain de Botton]

And again, it feels so artificial, doesn't it? We think we know what it's like to have friendships. We think we know about friendships. And people are often quite brittle. I mean, in order to admit to say in public, you know, I don't have enough friends, or I'm not sure my friendships are as deep as they could be. Or I've got a bit of a problem here that carries a huge stigma. It's sort of like oh, you know, we've known ever since school that it's the losers who've got problems around friendships, the successful people, they know how to do that thing. It's far more admissible to say I've got problems in a relationship than I've got problems with my friendships. To say I'm lacking friends, that really there's an air of tragedy, immediate tragedy, totally unwarranted. And I think that a more honest view is to say that all of us could improve our friendships and probably all of us have got space for some more really good friends. I don't think that most of us have got full address books in that area, but.

[Jemima Pj]

So how many friends do you have?

[Alain de Botton]

I've got two really good friends and lots and lots and lots. But three really good friends and then lots and lots of friendly people. How do you separate the two? Who you would call in a really serious crisis? Who would be able to take, you know, any level of difficult news? Who do you feel you can really say everything to? That's a much more edited version. Of course, there are a lot of people with, you know, goodwill, and they might be open to that. But for whatever reason, a lot of it is just time administration, you know, just few opportunities to deepen a friendship. But it's, you know, it's a relatively limited thing. And I think as you get older, the opportunities to build good friendships diminish. Because often what you need in order to build a good friendship is spare time and slightly loose experiences, which is why so often university and, you know, traveling when you're young, moments when those deep friendships occur, because not too much is going on or nothing too structured. Once you get older and life takes over, you often meet in a city, in a coffee shop, in a restaurant. You go for a walk. These are quite static activities. And they deny that sort of fluid, kind of more multifaceted thing that friendship really grows from. And I think, you know, we've got this. It's interesting thing about need. If. If you show need to a friend, it's very easy to think, oh, I shouldn't have done that. I might be bothering the person. Of course, there are ways in which we can bother people, but to an enormous extent, to ask somebody to take somebody into a problem that you've got and to try and engage them is a real gift to them. It's a real gift to them. If you can never show your need to another person. You're denying them a chance to show their capacities. You're actually blocking intimacy. So one of The. As it were. One of the more paradoxical things you can do to build a friendship is to say, I can't cope. I'm lonely, I'm lost, I'm confused, I hate myself. I've done something awful. These are all presents that you actually bring to a friend.

[Jemima Pj]

I sort of think that's why, you know, people who are in recovery in AA are really connected because it's a room where you can be totally open and honest and your true self. And therefore the connection feels much stronger.

[Alain de Botton]

Why? And we go to such lengths to prevent that happening.

[Jemima Pj]

I know.

[Alain de Botton]

You know. How are you? I'm fine. If you say I'm fine, you're blocking intimacy. Whereas if you say the truth. Because all of us, on an average day, I mean, we're not fine most of the time. There's always something slightly vulnerable niggling at us. You know, we're a bit worried. And to be able to say, I'm a bit. I'm a bit tense about something. I'm a bit, you know, things have not been perfect. You're letting somebody in. It's not schadenfreude. Sometimes you think, well. Well, you know, you don't want to hear someone's good news because it could be humiliating. I think you're much more human. You don't have a way into somebody's life until and unless they give you access to something that's painful, something that's gone wrong.

[Jemima Pj]

So a couple of questions. Why did you decide to write this book now?

[Alain de Botton]

Because I think that we don't know how to have friendships. We think that it's something we should know how to do, and that's something that comes naturally. We think relationships are the tricky things and friendships are the easy things. It's really. Most of the problems that bedevil relationships are present in friendships too, as a good friend of mine remarked. Problem is, you haven't had sex with a friend, and sex is a wonderful way of resolving certain tensions. Really? Really. I think what. What that means is that we're allowed to be in a vers. Heavy in a relationship in a way which we're not in a friendship. You know, to say to a friend, I feel a bit hurt because of something you said to me last week that could sound unbearably intense. You think, I've got no right to say that to a friend. They're just a friend and therefore things need to be breezy. But. But that's cutting you off from the chance of deepening the friendship. You know, a Good friendship should allow room to let in space for the hurt that you know you will have hurt your friend in some way. Can they bear to tell you? So the roots to friendship are acknowledging the fact that friends hurt each other, friends misunderstand, and also that friends should be able to have space for the darkness in each one of them.

[Jemima Pj]

So, okay, so, so how do we do friendship properly? I know you touched on it, but when you phone up your friends or your three friends and you speak to them on the phone or have a conversation with them, what questions are you asking what conversations you're having?

[Alain de Botton]

Let's imagine setting the scene first. So when you're in a relationship with someone, you generally know you're in a relationship, correct. So you know what you mean to another person and it's quite important that both of you know what you mean. And there's a lot of insecurity around that and popularity of things like marriage is because you know that both of you signed up something. You both have a certain level of commitment now in friendships, you very rarely know what you mean to the other person. It sounds odd, you know, little children are much more alive to this than adults. As so often is the case, they have retain a kind of wisdom. So they'll go, you are my best friend or you're my third best friend or whatever. But they'll name the nature of the relationship and, or they'll say, you know, I have five, five best friends and you're one of them. And that's, you know, it could sound stupid and you know, it sounds naive from the mouth of a seven year old, but there's something extremely important going on there, which is that each person knows that they have a very important place in the other one's lives. So we very rarely say to our friends something like, you know, you're a really close friend of mine, you really mean a lot to me. I'm going to miss you. You're going on holiday for a couple of weeks. We're not going to be in touch. I'm really going to miss you. Do we say that to people? I mean, the boys don't say that very much. Girls are slightly better at this. Boys really don't say that. It sounds so odd. And by the way, in heterosexual friendships, there is such a fear in male friendships of homosexuality that constantly bedevils male friendships. It's a real pain. There's, you know, women are much better at this and there seems to be much less anxiety around sexuality and its role in friendships. I mean, think of the way that almost all women I know, if they go traveling with a girlfriend, they'll share a bed. I think nothing of it. I just share a hotel bed, a double bed, and I'll just share a bed, no problem. How many men do you know who would do that? Not very many. Right? What's going on there in that small moment? I think we're picking up a much larger theme, which is a kind of sexual anxiety that inhibits the development of a good friendship. So men, the reason why male friendships are, on the whole, really quite dull is you've got two people, especially heterosexual friendships, you've got two people who are putting up a front, terrified of what might happen if that front disappears. And therefore, you know, what's the topic? I mean, bless football, it's a really important topic. It has its role, but it's having an outsize role in many male friendships because there's simply no other way of accessing anything ripe, emotional.

[Jemima Pj]

I have this. Okay, so I have this big theory, right, which I envy my wife. And I tell you why I envy my wife. And it's around friendships, because, and this not in a negative, my wife is extremely good at gossiping with her friends. And when I say gossiping, they can talk about the weather, food, relationships, friendships, music, whatever it may, everything, Everything and anything. It's almost. I sit with some of her best friends. Oh, I've just eaten this. I'm wearing this. It's just very. It's amazing way to communicate. And with guys, I think there's a huge problem because we need to find a topic to talk about.

[Alain de Botton]

But.

[Jemima Pj]

And that's an issue.

[Alain de Botton]

But Jimmy, it's about a safe topic. And a safe topic is one where there isn't sadness, there isn't vulnerability, there isn't. Look, being a man is a tricky thing. All men have come from a place where the default position was to be a girl. And so you become a man, but you are a woman.

[Jemima Pj]

Explain that to me so I can understand it better.

[Alain de Botton]

Well, there's a sense that male. And I don't agree with this, but I'm simply observing. Masculinity is an achievement that a little boy gradually moves towards. And that's why the taunt in the. In the schoolyard is always, you're a girl. You know, the boy. A boy will say to another boy, you're a girl, or you're a mummy's boy, which is equivalent to being a girl. In other words, you are vulnerable in a way, which means that you have not yet got access to full masculinity. And there's always a risk in a male mind that you slide down that slope back to mummy, back to the womb, and we've all come, all men have come from a woman by definition, and, and all men have started, as it were, in a female identified position and then they have to move towards masculinity.

[Jemima Pj]

And it's a precarious discover masculinity and.

[Alain de Botton]

It'S a precarious achievement. Men experience it as a precarious, which is why heterosexual men don't share a bedroom with another man. Because there's a thought, oh, what happens if this starts to become something else? And the specter is what happens if there is a slide towards the feminine and if there's a sexual dynamic that emerges on the basis of that. Now, again, I'm not condoning this, I'm simply saying this is what I believe occurs, which makes male friendships so rigid often, because you've got two people who are saying, we've got to talk about Formula One, we've got about football, etc. They may want to. And these are exciting topics and interesting topics, but what about these other topics? What about the topic? I can't cope, I'm lost. I've got erectile dysfunctions, my liver's giving me trouble, I'm drinking too much, I'm, you know, I really miss my mother, there's somebody that I love at the office. All of these things which are actually on everybody's plate but you can't broach them and, you know, I mean, we should make a game of cards for blokes to talk about at the pub.

[Jemima Pj]

One million. Without that. 100%.

[Alain de Botton]

So on the cards, what would we talk about? Let's brainstorm this.

[Jemima Pj]

100%.

[Alain de Botton]

So what would we talk about? So we've got a game of cards coming out in six months from the school of life and they're cards for blokes in the pub. What should they. I mean, I want to say erectile dysfunction.

[Jemima Pj]

100%.

[Alain de Botton]

That's definitely on the list. Fear of death.

[Jemima Pj]

Fear of death, yes. Do you feel lonely?

[Alain de Botton]

Only totally.

[Jemima Pj]

I would say body image.

[Alain de Botton]

How do you feel about your body? What's. What's giving you trouble? You know, what are you anxious about?

[Jemima Pj]

Worried about money. Being performance. Performance. Being a good parent. Worried about whether I'm in the right career.

[Alain de Botton]

Yeah. Jealousy of other people. Right. Jealousy of other mates.

[Jemima Pj]

Who?

[Alain de Botton]

Outshining you. Fear of decline. Fear of being ridiculous. Fear of being a loser. All of those things.

[Jemima Pj]

If you share hair loss Everything.

[Alain de Botton]

Hair loss? Yeah, all of it. But.

[Jemima Pj]

But why? Okay, two things. Firstly, so going back to the masculinity thing is. Is masculinity is the fear of being feminine?

[Alain de Botton]

No, I think it's many things, but it's got that component. A certain kind of masculinity has got within it a fearsome component, a fearful component around a slide towards a perceived lesser status of femininity. As I say, I don't approve of this. It just seems to be the case.

[Jemima Pj]

Okay, and so if then someone's listening to this right now, who is a man and who is struggling and he's struggling to connect with his friends, his male friendship group, what advice would you give him to try and connect more?

[Alain de Botton]

Look, it's about confident vulnerability, isn't it? That if you can pull off a vulnerable state with a confidence, with a smile, with a sense of it's okay to be doing this. That's a very powerful position to be in.

[Jemima Pj]

But that's giving someone, if they don't have that confidence.

[Alain de Botton]

Would you do that Mindset. It's a little tweak. You listen to this podcast and do it. In other words, you can say, okay, here's Jamie and Alan. I heard these blokes talking, and they didn't mind talking about hair loss, impotence, fear of death, body image. Maybe these are topics I could raise. And they seemed okay. Neither of them was, you know, seemed totally repulsive. Maybe they did, but it felt okay. And so that's how social norms change. When you see other people doing something and you think, oh, I could give that a go.

[Jemima Pj]

But if you are in your teens or twenties, I'm assuming, but not suggesting, I think you might be a little bit older than me. Okay. Just a tiny bit. Not too much.

[Alain de Botton]

And.

[Jemima Pj]

But like I said, it's taking me till 36 years to be able to have these conversations, open conversations.

[Alain de Botton]

Yeah.

[Jemima Pj]

If you're in your 20s. In my 20s? No ways. You kidding me? Not a chance.

[Alain de Botton]

Why do you think when you say what's. What is age bringing to this? Why do you think that it's age, Experience.

[Jemima Pj]

Repetition, understanding. More myself.

[Alain de Botton]

Might we say confidence.

[Jemima Pj]

Confidence.

[Alain de Botton]

You know, when you're young, I mean, what's the number one defining factor of being young? Because you've not been around that long. You're very unsure of lots of things. And one of the things, I mean, little children of five come out with all sorts of stuff. And adults love hanging around children because they just come out with that, you know, like a granny's fat or, you know, that, you know, they'll just say the stuff you're not allowed to say, including things like, I'm really sad, or I wish you wouldn't go away, or, you know, et cetera, because they don't know the social norms. And then by 10 or 12, the whole show's come to an end and they're rigidly following the script set by society. And so that's why an average 14, 15 year old is a creature of society. And then I think, you know, the trick in life is how can you go back to how you were at 5, but with adult strength and capacities, how can you get back to saying the things that everybody actually thinks, saying the things that are really true, but with an adult's sense of security and also caution, because you don't want to do that in every context. But most of us are stuck somewhere in the middle. We've understood all the social norms. We're kind of slave to them. And we know that those social norms don't allow our true selves to emerge. But we can't quite find our way back to the true self, except maybe for a few moments. We've had a few glasses of wine, we're with one person, maybe we might gingerly take a few steps towards that, but that's a limited engagement with the true stuff of life. We want to try and broaden that.

[Jemima Pj]

And that's why I always say that Peter Pan had it right. Because Peter Pan never wanted to grow up. He didn't want to become a tyrant like Hook. He never wanted to do that. And then I read this, which I spoke about for again is the two poems by Blake, How Innocence is Destroyed by Experience. But as soon as we become experienced, that's why innocence disappears.

[Alain de Botton]

But Jamie, I want to resist the Peter Pan nostalgia because I think. Because I think it's a cul de sac. It's a dead end. Because we do have to grow up. We can't stop it. So the thing to do is not to try and stay a child, but to try from a position of adulthood, which we're all headed to, to recover what's best in childhood. That seems a more dynamic and more creative thing. Otherwise we're just. We're playing at kids and we can't be kids anymore. We're something different. But we can learn from childhood.

[Jemima Pj]

Speaking of sexual dynamics and friendships, does it ruin a friendship?

[Alain de Botton]

I think the fear of sexual dynamics does. And I think the best way to do it is to name it. So, you know, in the 19th century, in Germany. There was a cult in the early 9th century of friendship where for a time, because of certain poets and a certain kind of prestige, it became okay to hold hands with another man, to hug another man, to put one's arm around another man, you know, so be quite physically close. That became okay. And you could even write poems to another man about, you know, how much you'd enjoy their company or how nice they looked, etc. That wasn't considered taboo. That was a brief window where something was allowed. We can learn from moments like that in history and think, okay, there are other ways of doing friendship other than the way we're doing it now. And we could aim for friendships which have a lot more intimacy in them. And partly the tension is resolved by naming it. So, you know, if you and I were to begin a really close friendship, we might say, we really enjoy being close, we really enjoy hugging. We might allude to the fact there's sexual tension. But maybe we can say we're not going to have sex for all sorts of reasons, you know, because it doesn't really deeply fulfill us. We're not quite where we're at, etc. But we can name it. And, you know, there's such a fear of breaking out of a box. And that's why, you know, we're slowly learning. A word like queer is a useful word that people are sort of cottoning onto. Could we name sexuality in a slightly more diverse way? That word may upset people. That word may not be your word, but to be able to say, yeah, my sexuality is a little bit more complicated. To be able to say, you know, sometimes with a good friend, I feel something that's. I don't want to necessarily call it sexual, but it's. I'm acknowledging their attractiveness as a physical being. Bit of a mouthful. Imagine if we were able to. Able to say that and just go, it's not a big deal. You know, that's. That's part of friendship. Just as we're able to say lots of other slightly taboo things like I'm sad, or I'm going to miss you when you go away, or I'm a bit jealous that you've got into a relationship because I feel you're not going to have any time for me. That's the other thing. We're so, you know, when good things happen to our friends, it's, you know, a lot of the time what is actually happening is that we're worried that they're going to abandon us. We think, oh, well, now that they're in love with so and so or now they've been promoted, they're not going to have any time. And then we think, oh, that's so terrible. I'm feeling envious of my friend. I'm not happy for them, et cetera. Then we go into overdrive and go, I'm really happy for you, et cetera. And that sounds a bit rigid. And, you know, anytime that an emotion is blocked, something slightly dies in a relationship. And anytime that we're able to name the slightly unnameable or unsayable, that artery opens up again. So if we're able to say to a friend, I'm so happy that you've been promoted, in a way, it's great. But I've got to admit something to you. I'm a little bit worried that you're now going to be so important that you might look down on me. And I know that you probably won't, but can I just say that to you? That's a lovely gift. You know, if somebody said that to me, I'd go, God, no. In fact, I need you more than ever because I'm going to be surrounded by, you know, people I don't know or whatever, and I need your friendship, you know, more than ever. And I'm so glad you told going to be great. So. But you need to take those little moments of risk. So to deepen a friendship, you have to take a risk that you're going to ruin that friendship. You probably won't, but you have to take that risk by doing something that's slightly outside the bounds of the normal.

[Jemima Pj]

So if someone's listening now and they don't have any friends, they feel very lonely or they haven't been able to connect. How would that person best make friends?

[Alain de Botton]

Okay, first of all, take the problem seriously and not in any way a sign of anything bad about you. I think people are so embarrassed around their problems with friendship that it stops them from engaging with the topic fruitfully. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. It's a really difficult thing. You should be no more embarrassed at your problems around friendship than you would be around your problems of, I don't know, climbing Mount Everest. I mean, no one should be expected to know how to do it. So that's first thing. And then take a few early steps at saying, okay, well, how do I feel more or less close to another human being? What do I need to do in order to get close? And once you start to study that question, you will almost always find that the moments in which you feel closer to somebody are those in which you've been able to share something fragile, potentially embarrassing, potentially dangerous, potentially outside of the so called normal rules of engagement. It could even be, it's a sunny day and you're able to say, I don't much like the sunshine. That's a contrary point of view and that's the beginning of something a little deeper. Or if somebody says, you know, you're doing okay, you know, even that question, are you doing okay? That's loaded. We shouldn't be asking ourselves, are you doing okay? How are you not, are you doing okay? Because that makes it, it's a leading question. It's, you know, the right answer is, yes, I'm fine. We should be allowing space in our friendships for something a little bit more.

[Jemima Pj]

Complicated because a lot of our listeners will be, who will be listening to this, right? These stages of the lies, perhaps they have just left university or their friends are getting married or their friends are having babies. And so let's flip it. Rather than being the person to break up, they could be the person sitting now being broken up with by their friends because they're not in the right stages of life as everyone else. What do they do?

[Alain de Botton]

It's survivable. It's fine to lose a friend. The challenge is to make one think of alcohol, right? Alcohol is this great lubricant. I don't drink. And I'm not sure the people listening who depending on the wine industry. But let's imagine that all of us should ideally not drink as much as we do. Friendships should not depend on alcohol. But we should be learning what happens when we take an alcohol and do that when we're sober. What is it that people do when they're drunk? They lose fear and they lose fear around what vulnerability. So they're able to say, men are able to go, I love you, I love you, mate. They're able to say, right, because it's no longer so scary. And that's what you need to do sober.

[Jemima Pj]

That is brilliant.

[Alain de Botton]

We should all be learning how to become drunk sober. And to be drunk sober means essentially remembering what it was like when we were drunk and just putting it into action when we're not drunk. And to say, okay, if I were drunk now, I probably would say, I love the way you do that thing. Or your eyes are nice. Or could I share the fact that I cried all day yesterday? Whatever. If you were drunk and would say that, say it now. Say it now.

[Jemima Pj]

That is so brilliant. Because I drank a lot in my twenties. And then I sort of started to stop drinking just because it didn't. Didn't do me well, didn't please me, right. In lots of different ways. But what I missed from it at the beginning was that connections I thought I got with friends and, oh, when I got drunk, wasn't it fun? Because we had these deep conversations and we were silly with each other with this and with that. You're so. We should just be drunk without the alcohol, with our friendships, totally drunk without.

[Alain de Botton]

The alcohol in our friendships.

[Jemima Pj]

But it's so scary sometimes to be that vulnerable.

[Alain de Botton]

But you have to, because you have.

[Jemima Pj]

The excuse, God, I was drunk last night.

[Alain de Botton]

But think about, how do you do it? You can create an atmosphere. See, it's quite easy to change the dynamics of a group. Sometimes we're in a group and we think, right, I'm in a group of people, so I've got to go along with whatever people are talking about. So I've joined the group and they're talking about going skiing. And someone mentioned that they went to France, and somebody mentioned that they went to Austria. And then there was like, how skis way and blah, blah, blah. And you think, well, I've got to join this conversation because I'm just in this conversation. Absolutely not. What about suggesting a new conversation or gently steering it towards something else? You can be an actor in your friendship group. You don't merely have to respond. You can be an agent. And part of that could mean to say, as you said, as you described, hey, guys, anyone been lonely recently? Or anyone think that they've really messed up their life? Cause I think I've completely balls things up and, you know, and on you go. And that will change the dynamic. So, you know, don't be afraid to change the mood. Try and change the mood. And most of the time, people are hovering on the surface. Bear this in mind, not because they want to, but because they don't know any different. Let's just rehearse that. It's a really important point. Most people are having superficial conversations not because they want to, not because they're wedded to superficiality, but because they've never been shown that there is an alternative, that there are secure steps from the superficial to the deep that they can safely take. They just don't know it can be done. Wow.

[Jemima Pj]

Isn't it mad?

[Alain de Botton]

It's totally mad.

[Jemima Pj]

It's totally mad.

[Alain de Botton]

There's the difference between the most boring evening and the really exciting evening. You can shift your evening. We tend to think of interesting conversations a bit like A magical square that you find in a foreign city. And the next day you think, I don't know where this square was. I just stumbled on it late at night. Well, we've got maps. We can actually, you know, this book I wrote was attempting to be a map.

[Jemima Pj]

It is a map.

[Alain de Botton]

How you can more reliably find your way to the good moments. Because so often I think that friendships have magical moments, that the people around them literally just don't know how it happened. They go, oh, it's really weird. We were in the garden and suddenly it was just a magical moment, and you want to go, no, it wasn't. It wasn't magic. There is no such thing as magic. It was just that you found a way. A door opened and you found a way to something good. And you know what? You can do it again. It's why we invented agriculture. In the early days, people found a wild strawberry. Oh, that's nice, that wild strawberry. We must pray a bit more so we get more wild strawberries. And then somebody thought, no, you don't have to pray. Just invent agriculture, lay some seeds out and then you'll grow. And you have strawberries every day. So we can have conversational strawberries every day. We don't have to have wild strawberries. I don't know why I was in a friendship with Bill and Jane. We suddenly had a great conversation. You know, plan for it. We can plan for this every day.

[Jemima Pj]

It's so true. Because you have those moments go, God, wasn't it the best night ever last night? We just. And it's typically, yeah, sure, it's around maybe moments of, like, cycling naked or whatever it is, but also it's typically around, but you know what I mean? It is. You have those moments where you go, like, that was wild. We swam naked in the sea and we did this, and that was so fun. But actually, it's normally around conversation.

[Alain de Botton]

Somebody opened a door.

[Jemima Pj]

Correct.

[Alain de Botton]

Somebody allowed. Somebody gave permission to do something that. That allowed for depth to occur.

[Jemima Pj]

And it's not magic.

[Alain de Botton]

It's not magic at all. Not magic at all. We could be having this every single time.

[Jemima Pj]

How do we support a friend who's going through something that we don't understand?

[Alain de Botton]

Well, acknowledge we don't understand it first. You know, to say to a friend, I'm not sure I fully understand, rather than going, oh, my God, I don't. You know, whenever you're bereaved, when someone's bereaved, people get, you know, bless them. But people get very confused. They don't know what to say. They forget themselves. They think that their friend has gone to a place that you know is simply unidentifiable. They lose any sense that this is simply the friend who they knew yesterday who happens to have lost their mother or father or whoever it is. And then they don't know what to say, rather than going, God, you know, just continuing to be, as it were, natural. Which might include something like saying, I'm not sure what this must feel like to you. I'm confused as to what to say. So sticking as closely as you can to what you're actually feeling is. Is generally a really good principle in emotional life, in friendship, etc. Which includes such things as, I'm a little bored at the moment, I wonder why, or I'm feeling uncomfortable. You know, I've done something to think of entertaining. You know, we spend a lot of time entertaining our friends and bringing them around for dinner, etc. And then we do this weird thing like, called having a dinner party, which tends to be an exercise in unbelievable pain, you know, because you think, oh, my God, it's a dinner party. So I've got to have a starter and then I gotta have a napkin of a certain sort. And then we got to sit for a certain number of times, and then we got to talk on left and right, whatever. And, I mean, it just becomes a nightmare if you stop to ask yourself, okay, what do I really want to do? And you might think, actually what I want to do is sit on the floor and have a bit of hummus and bread and not bother with the cooking at all and just chat or. Or even just, you know, sing some nursery rhymes or whatever it happens to be, or do the washing up with a friend or talk to them about. Or show them around my house. Show them bits of my house that I've never, you know, I'm having them round. But rather than making it all formal, I want to show them. Why do we all share about. We all go to bed together and lie in bed and watch TV together. That's mostly what I do at home. Why don't I tell my friends how I live? Why don't I show them how I live?

[Jemima Pj]

Rather than putting on a show?

[Alain de Botton]

Rather than putting on a show. And Jamie, most of life we're putting on a show, and we're dying from putting on a show. We don't like putting on a show, but we think no one else will like us for the show. And there are far fewer. There are far greater dangers around the show. Putting on than there are around the show putting off.

[Jemima Pj]

I went for a dinner party with my friends and my friend cooked. And then we all sat on the floor and we were drinking beers and it was a group of guys and I went round and said, does anyone ever feel lonely? I did this again because of you. And one by one they all said, yes, yes, yes. And we spoke about it. Now we have a WhatsApp group called checking in and we WhatsApp each other every single month.

[Alain de Botton]

So sweet.

[Jemima Pj]

Yeah, amazing.

[Alain de Botton]

But, you know, but Jamie, it almost has a physical. I went to a dinner party the other day and because I was me, I said after a certain point, I'm really sorry, guys, but does anyone want to stretch their legs? And they said, yeah. And I said, do you mind if we just all go for a walk? And then, yeah, great idea. It was a beautiful night. So we all trooped out of the house and went for a walk. It was great. And then we came back. We're all feeling, you know, our bodies were. But. But that's just showing a physical manifestation of what's also psychological phenomenon, which is, can we just be more ourselves? Can we just say what we need?

[Jemima Pj]

And because that's so outside the box, people suddenly go, well, hang. That's not what we're meant to do. What do you mean? We're meant to go for a walk. Wait. But then you go and do it and everyone will remember that moment because that's what everyone wants to do. You want to go for a walk or be out?

[Alain de Botton]

It's hard sitting down for ages. No one like. No one likes it. Wow. So if we're uncomfortable with that basic thing about our bodies, my goodness, we're going to be uncomfortable with everything else.

[Jemima Pj]

We spend all of our lives trying to be comfortable, but live it uncomfortable.

[Alain de Botton]

We spend all of our lives thinking that we need to be somebody that no one is mad.

[Jemima Pj]

You talk about in the book how you should embrace loneliness and you sort of suggest that people who seem to have a lot of friends and who are quite loud or witty or. Basically, it felt like you were describing me, Jim, who fill silences.

[Alain de Botton]

If you can think that that's you, it's not you. Because the person who really would be like that wouldn't acknowledge that. But look, look, you're right that some of us resist acknowledging dark truths and that in the act of resisting them, we grow impoverished. It is part of becoming a fuller human being to acknowledge that there is loneliness, sadness, loss, etc. And sometimes we're so invested in Being upbeat. We're so scared of the dark things that we become slightly superficial. We live too much on the surface of things. And that's interpersonally quite hard because you can only go with somebody else as far as you're prepared to go within yourself. So if you're living on the surface, you're going to have surface relationships with others. Whereas if you're able to go deep into the sort of painful and sad and regretful parts of yourself, then you're giving room to other people. I mean, you know, it's fascinating how we don't feel like the same person with everyone. Some people help us to feel more interesting to ourselves. This is a fascinating thing. And, you know, the reason why, the reason why they make us feel more interesting is because they've gone deep inside themselves. And so they're creating room where you can go deep inside yourself.

[Jemima Pj]

Try and explain that to me more. So give me. What do you mean?

[Alain de Botton]

There are micro signals that we give off when we're talking about what would be possible to say and think in the presence of this person. And those micro signals help us to either accept an invitation to go deeper in ourselves or resist it. So, you know, there are just ways of signaling. No, I'm not a safe person to raise that topic with. You know, if I was insistently upbeat, you know, imagine this. You say to me, alan, how was your weekend? And I go, it was fantastic. It was really good. I love the sun shining and I played a lot of golf. That will be sending a micro signal, right? There's no room in this encounter for anything more vulnerable, sad, regretful. Whereas if you said that same question to me, you said, how about you go. And I go a little bit up and down. I love the sunshine. But do you know that feeling sometimes it's so sunny and you think, am I doing it justice? Am I doing the sunshine justice? Or somehow, am I not able to live up to this moment? I'm sending a micro signal, okay, this guy might have a bit of room for the darker bits of me. And then you start to engage with those darker bits of you and you start to feel more interesting to yourself. You literally feel, I've got more to say. We feel we've got more to say when we feel that the other person is ready to hear. The more someone feels like someone who could hear, the more we feel we want to say. And when we're in the presence, I mean, we've all had the feeling sometimes of being in the presence of someone. And you think, I've got nothing to say at all. I feel totally boring. I don't know anything that I want to say at all. Whereas with a good person, I mean, you're very good. That's why you've got podcasts. That's why people babble. You know, I don't talk like this with many people. I'm talking like this because you're looking at me and signaling, I've got space, I got room, I've got time. And that's drawing me out of myself. And also, every now and then you say, you know, my mother says this, my wife says that I felt sad. So you're signaling all the time, I've got space, I can take it. You don't need to put up a front, et cetera. And it's encouraging me. So I'm babbling on and on because you're. Even though you're not saying very much, mostly babbling. So I'm here for.

[Jemima Pj]

I'm not babbling at all, honestly.

[Alain de Botton]

But not most, you know, I'm talking a lot because you're listening. And it's your listening, the quality of your listening that is raising the quality of my speaking. And that is another gift of friendship. So we think, you know, I know so many people who say things like, oh, I can't be a very good friend. I don't feel I've got much just to contribute in a conversation. Well, that's only half the deal. Half. The other half, perhaps the much more important half, is are you someone who is signaling by the quality of your listening that you are someone who other people can emerge from their social self around and become the deeper self that they all are?

[Jemima Pj]

Yeah. The reason why I love this podcast is because I connect on a deeper level with so many incredible people, which I never. I get to have an hour, an hour and a half, two hour conversation with you. When would we ever do that in life? About the deepest things in the world that you know, all my insecurities, I could tell there is those little moments that you feel, oh, I can share, I can go deeper with this person. They're going to accept it.

[Alain de Botton]

So this is an artificial setting in which you're able to reach a level of depth. I mean, I have this with my psychotherapy clients, so I've got psychotherapy clients that I'm able to have a very privileged 50 minutes where it's an extremely profound, focused, deep conversation. These are artificial constructs, but boy, oh, boy, should we be learning from them in, you know, in life, because some of your Listeners be going, well, I don't have a podcast. I'm not a psychotherapist, so I can't do this. Well, yes, you can. You can do it anytime that you're sitting opposite somebody. It can be in a park bench, in a restaurant, anytime, anywhere. You can do that level of focused listening and also giving the person space to reveal the bits that they're aching to reveal.

[Jemima Pj]

But, Anna, what does it do to you? Because for me, when I have these deep conversations, it fills my cup up. And so in some ways, you can say it's a selfish conversation, because I enjoy it. I enjoy going deep. I enjoy. It's like laughter to me. It's like, look, I think it's the.

[Alain de Botton]

Nicest thing in life to connect deeply with another person. It's literally. It's the stuff that everything else is for. Why do we make money? Why do we try and struggle so hard? Some of it's the basic material income, but beyond a certain level, what we want is to be treated nicely, to be understood, to be sympathized with, to be with a group of people. We don't want to be losers. We don't want to be outsiders. So many of our efforts essentially pointing to something like this, a deep conversation in which we're able to be ourselves. That's. That's what we really want. That's what we're aching for. And if somebody could say, you could have this on tap, it would be the greatest thing. You know, we're so good at bringing people together physically and so bad at making them connect. So if you think about. In any large city, you've got so many bars, restaurants, cafes, public spaces, et cetera, where people nominally are together, but are they properly together? No, because as we know, it's not enough simply to be in physical space. You've got to be in emotional space, which means shared vulnerability. The gift of a true friend. To have a true friend really is an amazing thing. And I want to say. I want to say that many of your listeners might not have any friends. I might not have any friends. I might have half a friend, as it were. You know, maybe we don't have as many really good friends. Once we raise the bar of what friendship is, we might have to go through a phase of thinking, I'm not sure I've got any of these. Measured against what it should be. Maybe we don't have any. Now, that's not a cause for despair. It could be a wonderful moment to say, okay, there are actually people I would like to have really good friendships with. They're in my social circle, I see them, but I'm not quite where I really want to be. That could be a really exciting project to take on. You know, we have projects around making money, getting healthy, et cetera. Why not have a friendship? The deepened friendship problem challenge. And to say, okay, I'm going to try and go a bit deeper. I'm going to try and take a few risks and you know, I outline all sorts of steps that you might take, including, as I say, sharing vulnerability, sharing attraction, sharing sadness, sharing envy. All of these things are all steps to getting the true friend that you might not yet have.

[Jemima Pj]

But again, Alan, you're so right. Like beyond right. But it still goes back to that same thing, which is a sort of. It's like a social requirement that we need to have friends in order to survive. And if we don't have any friends, we're the loser in the playground. So admitting that to ourselves is almost admitting failure, that we have failed in this area, which is so important. And that's been ingrained with us since that playground.

[Alain de Botton]

But isn't it liberating to say, though I've been on the earth for a number of years, I may not know how to do something. It's the step towards doing it properly. I mean, take a think of sex. Imagine if you said to yourself, and it's a really challenging. Maybe I don't know how to do sex very well. Maybe, maybe I'm actually not a very good lover. Great, that's a fantastic starting point. Just as, you know, if you say maybe I'm not good at friendship or maybe I've never been good at certain aspects of office life or whatever. And I'm gonna re. Explore it, re examine it. We should have a culture which allows all of us to be beginners even though we're quite far down the road on something.

[Jemima Pj]

Okay, what makes a bad friend?

[Alain de Botton]

I mean, look, there are lots of bad ways. Let's take the generous view. The generous view is somebody who means well but is so bound up with ideas of what they should be doing that they can never go deep. I have some people who are very well meaning. They're always like, how are you? And they, you know, they do really mean well, but they can't. They haven't gotten far enough stuff inside themselves. And so they can't offer. They can't offer the true kindness that they could only really offer if they knew they were more at ease with themselves and with the complicated bits of themselves. So they can't be there during the difficult bits.

[Jemima Pj]

Do you think that's what it is? Do you think that's the blockage when someone doesn't quite understand themselves, therefore they can't be there in those situations because they don't understand what they're going through?

[Alain de Botton]

Yes. I mean, look, look, there are also people. There's a lot of envy around. And again, unexpressed envy is the danger here. There are a lot of inequalities of wealth, of success, of age, of beauty, et cetera. And we tend to think these are unmentionable. We can't get past them. But envy is one of the most fundamental things. You look at two children playing, what's the first thing they do? Whose fire truck is bigger? And children have it out. They go, I hate the fact that your fire truck's bigger. You're a big fat poo. Your fire truck's bigger than mine. They just get it out. And then, you know, and if necessary, they'll go over and steal the fire truck, etc, and they're getting it out. And as adults we think, oh, great. You know, my friend Jamie's just got a top, top running podcast in the UK and, you know, I've just been let go, but I can't possibly say anything if I was to be friends with you, you know, I need to be able to go, Jamie, sometimes I just feel so insecure around you. Everything you do turns to gold and it just makes me. It makes me slightly mad. Is it okay? Can I, can I tell you that? And you might go, that's sure, that's fine. I don't need you to be anything. I've actually picked you as my friend because I like the fact that we were at nursery school together or we go a long way back, or that I like your sense of humor. So I'm glad you told me. And I can see how it's annoying. I'm a bit of an overachiever because, you know, bits of my childhood, I probably don't need all this stuff. I do need to be famous, but I don't know why I'm still working it out. Maybe I won't need to be all the time, but I'm so glad. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about this dark stuff.

[Jemima Pj]

Is it okay to let friends go? Do you get to a certain point with friendships where actually that friendship's only gone so far and you need to go further?

[Alain de Botton]

I think that has to be the case. We know this in the case of relationships, don't We. We know in relationships that there are people who can take us thus far and no further. I think there could be a version of that in a friendship almost. I mean, in a perfect world, a kind of acknowledgement of saying, you know, you were a fantastic friend. When we both, you know, had small children and lived in that part of the world, times really have moved on. You know, our kids are now, you know, in their 20s, and things have. Things have changed. I'm no longer married or whatever it is, and the basis of the friendship has changed. We can't find topics that we can settle on. I think we have to allow for that because to allow that really hard. It is hard. To allow for that is also to allow for new friendships. Because, Jamie, there's only so many hours in the day if we have to hold onto everybody who we've ever been with. We're also saying something darker, which is, I'll never make a new friend. And I think there's a joyful side. We have to allow for new friends. And because as we're evolving, of course, we'd like to carry on.

[Jemima Pj]

No one teaches you this. No, no one teaches this. We feel very guilty.

[Alain de Botton]

And sometimes what we do is we try and hang onto friends and thinking, I can't be a good person if I haven't let someone go. And it's a version of what happens in relationships, in dating, when someone goes, oh, I've gone on a date with somebody, and you know, it didn't work out. And then rather than cleanly saying, I'm not sure, you know, down the road, road of life, people keep people orbiting, breadcrumbing, et cetera. None of it helps. You need to be able to say cleanly, look, I'm not sure. I think things have slightly changed. It's okay.

[Jemima Pj]

So you think we should break up with our friends.

[Alain de Botton]

I think aversion of breaking up is utterly fine. And even if we don't necessarily say it, to have it as an idea in society, as we're doing now, to put it out there, to say friendships can break up without either party being to blame for anything or need to feel guilty. And we really can, and it isn't just a sentiment, retain excellent memories of something we don't want to continue. We know this in art. I mean, imagine you really enjoyed a book and someone said, well, you've got to keep reading that book forever. You might say, no, I've really enjoyed that book. But part of continuing is that I'm going to read other books. I'm going to.

[Jemima Pj]

There's something selfish about that. No. What happens if that person needs you?

[Alain de Botton]

Well, if you can't be the person they need you to be, that's selfish to pretend that you can be. You know, if you can't deliver the friendship that they need, you need to acknowledge that rather than being a fake friend. Because I think a lot of again, it's like relationships. We know this phenomenon from relationships. What's one of the most painful things when people think I couldn't possibly break up, it will hurt my partner's feelings. And instead what they're doing, of course, is ruining their life. Every minute you spend with a partner where you're not fully invested and you think you're doing it because it's better to break up after the holidays or after their cousin's wedding is a day that you're robbing of them. The same thing is true of friendship. If you can't be the friend they need you to be, you shouldn't be there doing it half hearted because they'll be picking up that it's not going right. But Jamie, look, you're right to point to the idea that the ideal is to hold a friendship through time. There is something wonderful. It's the same applies in relationships because as we're evolving, if you're able to evolve, co. Evolve. Evolve alongside someone, there's something particularly joyful about being able to say, well, remember that time 10 years ago when we both were afraid of X or hadn't understood Y or were daunted by the prospect of zone? That's extremely attractive. It means that they have as full a record as possible of what it was like to be alive on the earth.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

Every idea starts with a problem. Warby Parker's was glasses are too expensive. So they set out to change that. By designing glasses in house and selling directly to customers, they're able to offer prescription eyewear that's expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Warby Parker glasses are made from premium materials like impact resistant polycarbonate and custom acetate. And they start at just $95 including prescription lenses. Get glasses made from the good stuff. Stop by a Warby Parker store near you. Botox Cosmetic out of botulinum toxinae FDA approved for over 20 years. So talk to your specialist to see if Botox Botox Cosmetic is right for you.

[Alain de Botton]

For full prescribing information including boxed warning, visit botoxcosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

Remember to ask for Botox Cosmetic by.

[Alain de Botton]

Name to see for Yourself and learn.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

More, visit botoxcosmetic.com that's botoxcosmetic.com hello, I'm Kathryn Ryan and this is Write Me Dirty the podcast where two comedians write write steamy, ridiculous erotica about each other. I give them a bizarre prompt, think apocalypse must include a zombie. And they read their spicy stories aloud while I judge them on sexiness, funniness, and sheer chaos. It's hilarious, awkward, and occasionally kinda hot. Write Me Dirty Thursdays just got thirstier.

[Alain de Botton]

Write Me Dirty. Do I am.

[Jemima Pj]

I'm about to become a parent.

[Alain de Botton]

Congratulations.

[Jemima Pj]

Thank you so much. And I'm scared because I've suddenly realized in life that we're just guessing.

[Alain de Botton]

Well, do you know I'm now gonna promote my other book. I wrote a book called the Good Enough Parent.

[Jemima Pj]

I've got it upstairs.

[Alain de Botton]

Okay, good. It's a very important. The phrase good enough comes from this wonderful psychoanalyst called Donald Winnicott who's practicing in the 50s and 60s, and he came up with this very helpful phrase because of course, it's perfectionism that gets in the way of decent efforts in lots of areas. And parenting is one where we, you know, we know that we're taking on an almost supernatural task. There is something supernatural about making another human being. I mean, let's just take a pause. We're going to make a human being. We humans make another human. I mean, it's just. It's awe inspiring and it's crippling. It really is crippling. So if we set the bar at a tolerable level, say we're not going to make it perfect, but it's going to be good enough. That's a good starting point.

[Jemima Pj]

The thing I'm worried about is passing down my sort of inherited behaviors that aren't quite right.

[Alain de Botton]

Tell me, what's the biggest fear you've got around the inherited behavior? What do you think you're most scared of passing on? How do you think that you might be not a good parent?

[Jemima Pj]

I think that I am so focused on future the whole time that I won't be so present.

[Alain de Botton]

And why do you think you're focused on the future?

[Jemima Pj]

Because I'm always thinking about next. What's next?

[Alain de Botton]

What's next for you, for the other person, for everyone?

[Jemima Pj]

I think for my family, I think a lot about that. What can we do more? But again, for me, a lot of the time I'm also.

[Alain de Botton]

You're crossing your arms.

[Jemima Pj]

What does that mean?

[Alain de Botton]

Defensive.

[Jemima Pj]

Okay, let's open them again.

[Alain de Botton]

No, but we can acknowledge this maybe. Maybe it's a frightening thing.

[Jemima Pj]

It is a frightening thing. It is frightening because I really want to be a good dad.

[Alain de Botton]

Of course you do.

[Jemima Pj]

And my fear is I'm going to mess it up good.

[Alain de Botton]

It's partly a good fear, really. I mean, if you were not scared at all, you wouldn't be acknowledging the gravity of what you're letting yourself into.

[Jemima Pj]

I'm worried that I'm going to become so anxious about being a dad that my anxiety is then going to pass on to my child because I'm anxious that I'm not getting it right, anxious that I'm not present, anxious that I'm not free enough, anxious all these anxieties, anxious I'm not going to provide. And then my anxiety is then going to be passed down. But I can't be anxious because if I'm anxious, then it makes anxiety everywhere. That's what I'm anxious about.

[Alain de Botton]

I want to give you a hug. It'll be fine. I mean, I speak as the father of two lovely late teenage boys, and I mean, I had every single one of your anxieties. Every single one.

[Jemima Pj]

Did you really?

[Alain de Botton]

Totally, totally. Every single one of them and more. And, you know, I want to go back to the earlier meet the younger me. I mean, this is why it's important to have intergenerational friendships as well, because there is, you know, it's like not everybody's at exactly that moment and. And you can pass down a bit of experience, wisdom, etc.

[Jemima Pj]

Well, can I ask you a personal question?

[Alain de Botton]

Yeah.

[Jemima Pj]

So the card that we pulled there about the couple saying what could. Would I go back to and change as a parent? Would you go back and change anything?

[Alain de Botton]

I would. I would. I think I was incredibly anxious that my children would be unhappy and suffer a little bit too anxious. And I think I would have left more room in their upbringing for pain and difficulty at certain moments, because I think it is part of life and I'm not alone. Like many parents, it's a generational, you know, the pendulum keeps swinging. And I think that many people in my generation, probably still in that generation broadly, have gone perhaps a little too far in the pain minimization strategy, which is of course a very important corrective to centuries of pain maximization strategy and stoicism really does have limited role to play in parenting. However, it does still have some role to play. And I think that I would have just been able to help my children to acknowledge difficulties.

[Jemima Pj]

Because what you're saying is this is that which I agree is that there was a generation of parents that really cushioned their children to make sure that they had no worries, no problems, no issues because they were so fearful they were going to fear anything. That actually then the resilience maybe is not quite there as much as it should be.

[Alain de Botton]

Yeah, and it's, you know, it's much observed, and I think it is something that our whole societies are thinking a lot about. And, you know, what does that mean? Does that mean you should. I mean, the Spartans thought you should leave your children to survive on the hillside, and if they lived, they lived, and if they died, they died. You know, that's obviously too Spartan, but, you know, we're trying to find a way towards something that feels like a tolerable middle ground. And I'm sure you will find it, but it can be a little tricky.

[Jemima Pj]

So if you have to give me. If I was doing a test and you had to give me an A to be a good parent, what would that look like?

[Alain de Botton]

I mean, you know, a really important test is what am I? What are the issues that I'm carrying through from my parents that I'm likely to be, you know, playing out with my children? We're all part of a kind of intergenerational psychological story and we do, you know, project issues. Parents. Parents have very complicated feelings. Parents can feel envious of their children. That's a weird one, isn't it? We didn't expect that. That, you know, parents will. Children will challenge their parents. They'll find the weak spots in you and they will challenge you. I mean, whatever weak spot you think you have that people can't see, your children will spot it and they'll head towards it and they will, in some ways, live in relation to that weak spot. In some way they'll be trying to, I don't know, find a way forward. Children and parents are involved in. In very complicated intergenerational kind of games, but also often heading towards trying to make something good. We're often trying to solve the problems of our parents. A lot of what we're doing is done in relation to something our parents did or didn't do. And if you get a handle on as a parent, well, what might that thing be that bothers my child given the things that are problematic in me? What might my children find to criticize? What might they need to find their own way towards it? Might be, you know, there's something unresolved about masculinity for me, or there's something unresolved about money for me, or there's something awkward around relationships for me. Your children are going to sense it. They are going to sense it. They sense everything like that. And, you know, the more you can get on top of it yourself, you'll make it easier for them to find their way to it.

[Jemima Pj]

I remember you mentioned it last time about the envy that parents can have to their children. And that's really important to try and not create.

[Alain de Botton]

Well, or. I mean, you want your children to have a better life than you. If they do, that's not totally easy. It's going to.

[Jemima Pj]

Is it really?

[Alain de Botton]

Sure. Because no one.

[Jemima Pj]

Would you be envious of your children.

[Alain de Botton]

Truthfully, envy wouldn't be the only emotion, but it might be part of a complex array of emotions. And I think just as you talked about friendship earlier, friendship can have envy. Relationship can have envy. You have to allow for complexity on the emotional spectrum, really. And if you don't allow it, you're foreshortening. It's likely to be there. Wow.

[Jemima Pj]

So you have to accept that it might be something, it might be there.

[Alain de Botton]

And whenever people say things like, I never feel envious, I think, yes, you do, because it's one of those things. It's just, it's going to be there. And so the best thing to do is to acknowledge it with grace and to go, yeah, sure.

[Jemima Pj]

Something that my wife is dealing with at the moment, which I'm sure she won't mind me saying, is that she's feeling pretty lonely because she's sort of one of her. One of the only friends who is pregnant. She's sort of dealing with the situation by herself. Me as the husband, I'm not carrying anything, dealing with anything. I'm out doing exactly the same things that I'm always doing. And she said to me yesterday, he said, I feel lonely. And I lovely to say that, by.

[Alain de Botton]

The way, I mean, really good sign, really good sign that she can say it.

[Jemima Pj]

But I didn't know how to respond. I just said, I'm so sorry you're feeling that way.

[Alain de Botton]

A lot of women after birth, as we know, feel very depressed because giving birth is both wonderful and joyful and is an enormous loss. It's a huge loss. When you have a baby, you lose an enormous part of your life. And you lose it not just for a month or a year, but for decades. For decades. Aspects of your life will be taken from you. And the narrative around giving birth is all about joy. This is what our society keeps doing to us. You'll recognize the themes. So it says you become a new Dad, a new mum, congratulations, et cetera. Rather than. That's tricky. I bet you'll be mourning something. There is nothing good that doesn't at the same time entail a loss of something else. And, you know, a lot of what makes women's lives very difficult immediately after birth is that there's no space for them to publicly acknowledge and mourn the fact they've lost a huge part of their lives. And if you're able to say to your wife, and if friends are able to say, to give space to that and to go, yeah, you know, I'm sure you're really happy with your child, but I bet at some level you resent your child. It's crying all the time. It's robbed you of everything. Your body's feeling in all sorts of pain, you know, your house is a mess, etc. You can acknowledge that that's fine, that's okay. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. It just means you're allowing the full complexity of life to intrude. And that's always the way it should be.

[Jemima Pj]

It's so great allowing the complexity of life to intrude. To be out there is so important. We don't. The biggest thing that I sort of want to take from this whole conversation is that we just have to be more honest with ourselves.

[Alain de Botton]

You always say, right, what should I be feeling at X moment? And then you check in on yourself and you can go, what am I actually feeling? And when you notice the disjuncture, think, okay, could I take a risk to narrow the gap? That's the beginning of friendship. Risk, creativity as well. Could I do something to narrow the gap between what I should be feeling and what I'm actually feeling? That gap between what should and what is is a wonderful holy space in which you can make great discovery.

[Jemima Pj]

What's more important to have in life, friendships or romantic relationships?

[Alain de Botton]

I mean, you really do need both. You do need both. I think, you know, some of the problems we've got into with polyamory in our society is because people don't understand how to have deep friendships. They. You know, I think my private hunch is that polyamory gets some of its energy from the thought that people know more how to do relationships and they know how to do friendships. And so they're craving lots of people in their lives, which is very natural. It's very natural. And they think, well, the only way in which to get the right sort of people at the right depth is to also sleep with them. And, you know, that may be true. And I don't want to, you know, not polyamory. I would say that for many people, if they knew how to do friendship properly, the need for polyamory might decline.

[Jemima Pj]

Why do we in relationships find it so hard to hear the negativity from our partner? Why do we not want to hear that? Why do we sort of reject their emotions? A lot of the time I think.

[Alain de Botton]

We feel so guilty that we may have hurt someone that we care about, that we can't accept that we have hurt them, and therefore we hurt them even more. And then you're in a cycle of a denial of your agency within a relationship. So to love someone is always going to be to hurt them. Not willingly, but just. If you adopt a powerful position in somebody's life, you're going at certain points to misunderstand them. Your needs will conflict with their needs, et cetera. But, you know, the great thing is we've got time. You know, I always think, you know, couples are squabbling, et cetera. It's never just one moment. There's the day after, there's the morning after the fog clears, and, you know, you can get back to business, and there's always a chance to apologize. And, you know, again, the first thing they teach you, relationship 101 management, is if somebody's telling you something, don't say it wasn't like that. Say, I hear that you were feeling. You just acknowledge their feeling. That doesn't remove your right to later put your point of view across. But if you just do that basic work of acknowledgement, it sounds simple. It literally, those very serious things called divorces, where lawyers are involved, removal vans, and children are separated, et cetera. The cracks that have led to that kind of disaster will have begun in little moments when someone just didn't feel heard. I mean, that is the number one cause of relationship dysfunction. Someone feels that something that's urgent and important has not been listened to. It sounds like child's play, but the universe depends on taking that point on board.

[Jemima Pj]

It's so simple. It's so simple. Just communicate, hear, understand, listen. And you're so right. As soon as someone. As soon as your partner says to you something. I don't know, whatever it may be, and you go, go. Okay, I'm.

[Alain de Botton]

I'm here, you.

[Jemima Pj]

And I understand what you're saying. It diffuses so much of it.

[Alain de Botton]

And as I say, feeling hurt, it doesn't mean that you have to totally agree. You just acknowledge their reality, allowing your.

[Jemima Pj]

Partner to be Angry or be emotional is so important because what I used to do in our relationship is not allow that. So my partner would be upset, angry about something that I thought wasn't fair. You can't. That's unfair. You can't do that. That's wrong. And. And actually, it was my mum who gave me some amazing advice once who said, you have three options when it comes to arguments or when your partner's upset. You can either play the child, you can either play the parent, or you can play the adult. Now, the child's response is, well, if you're angry, I'm gonna get angry. That's the way I'm gonna respond. The parent's response is, don't talk to me like that. You can't. How dare you talk to me like that? And the adult's response is, God, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize you were feeling that way. How can I please respond or make it better? And I always now try and respond like the Adam.

[Alain de Botton]

That's so good. I mean, you know, I did a psychotherapy training. You know, I'm a trained psychotherapist. It's a very strange part of my cv, or not strange, but not necessarily well known. So I did a psychotherapy training. And one of the things.

[Jemima Pj]

For how long?

[Alain de Botton]

For three years. And one of the things that they teach you, one of the very first things, is the art of paraphrasing. It sounds kind of weird. Why do you need to paraphrase? But when someone says something to you, there's something beautiful if the other person can listen and paraphrase it back to them. So the person goes, you know, I'm really annoyed that, you know, when I was in America, you never called me. And the other person listens and goes, okay, so I'm hearing that when you were away, when I was away, you felt I wasn't in contact enough. It's just. It's so simple. You're just finding. Using different words to rehearse the theme. But the. The message to the other person is the person's been listening really closely because it takes that extra effort to do that paraphrasing. They proving that they've listened and they've listened to every point. And that feels good. It feels safe. And the relationship is, if I can use a word, it's sexy kind of. You know, we think of sexiness as about being candles or dates or clothes or whatever. Sexiness is connection. Sexiness is being heard. That is what. What drives people to feel desirable and desired.

[Jemima Pj]

But then when you're in an argument, let's say, and you really generally feel what the other person is saying is wrong, you become defensive. How do you then combat that with.

[Alain de Botton]

I mean, defensiveness is the number one problem, you know, between couples. It. It is the. The enemy of, you know, all good dialogue and interaction. In. In a better world, we'd have sort of not just measuring ozone levels, we'd be measuring defensiveness levels. In a. In a society, how much do we feel the need to deny what other people are telling us? And how much can we bear to acknowledge wherever it comes from, it is a reality in their court? So can we just allow that reality to have the space it needs?

[Jemima Pj]

It's so hard sometimes.

[Alain de Botton]

So hard.

[Jemima Pj]

I realize it's just repetition, it's exposure. I always was defensive. That's not my fault. No, it's not all that. And now what I've done is I've pushed myself to a place where I just listened to. I listen and I accept. And then I do exactly what you say is. Then revert back to it later down the line and go, by the way, this is maybe not quite how I feel, but this is how I think it is. And do it that way around rather than straight away hitting it.

[Alain de Botton]

And Jeremy, how old are you?

[Jemima Pj]

36.

[Alain de Botton]

So why is it taken to 36 for this? Vital. I mean, most people don't get there by 96. So you're doing really, really well. And it's because we live in a romantic culture that insists on thinking that love drew love. Love comes spontaneously. You know, for most of human history, people have not got together with partners spontaneously. It's been arranged by society. It's been in. Lots of strictures and structures have come from the outside to force people together. And it's bred a countervailing idea that true love should just come from the heart spontaneously, suddenly, should follow your feelings. I mean, generally following your feelings is a treacherous idea at the best of times. Because our feelings, you know, follow all kinds of channels. We do need education, we need training, as we do in. In everything, every other area of life. It's a tragedy that this thing called relationships we have so little systematic instruction in. Imagine if. I mean, most of us, how many relationships have you had in your life?

[Jemima Pj]

Deep ones or just in general friendships?

[Alain de Botton]

No, no.

[Jemima Pj]

Love.

[Alain de Botton]

Love. Relationships.

[Jemima Pj]

Five.

[Alain de Botton]

Okay, so you've had five relationships. Let's even know for the audience, let's double that to 10. Even if you've had 20. Imagine you had 20 relationships. Imagine if you had 20. Goes at playing the piano and then, right, you on stage at the victor, at the, you know, Royal Albert hall, and. And you've had 20 piano lessons. How's it going to sound? Absolutely terrible. And the same thing, you know, you're learning to throw a javelin. You've got 20 goes at the javelin. But as you say, most people, it's five, It's. It's as tricky, it's far trickier. Throwing the javelin's easy and we've got five shots at it. No wonder we make a total ball zip. We get together with the wrong person, we've got the wrong skills, etc. Of course we do. We need a lot of assistance and a lot of sympathy for the mess we make.

[Jemima Pj]

And we think that we should get.

[Alain de Botton]

It straight away, of course, because we're under this romantic culture that tells us, don't think too much. I mean, you do get people who continue to say things like, you're overthinking. My goodness, overthinking. We're radically underthinking. Of course, there's such a thing as thinking in the wrong way. When you're chasing your tail, you're not getting anywhere. And we've all know those sort of things. But broadly speaking, there's a. There's an epidemic of underthinking that goes on. And when couples are told you guys are thinking too much, well, absolutely not. They're probably not playing cards enough.

[Jemima Pj]

Alan, do you ever sit in silence and think about what you truly want?

[Alain de Botton]

I mostly sit inside. Most of my life's in silence. I'm only chatting here because you've invited me kindly. Most of the time, I'm in silence.

[Jemima Pj]

Well, the reason I say this right, is because. So producer Jemima, who's sitting here, just went on a solo camping trip. Okay.

[Alain de Botton]

And not because she lacked friends or maybe because she liked friends. Both are fine. Both are fine.

[Jemima Pj]

I don't think. I don't think either think she wanted to. She wanted to connect with herself. And after. Again, after our conversation we had at the end of last year, I sat in a room by myself in silence to really think about what I wanted and wanted to achieve and also reflect on what I've done the other. And I feel like we never sit in silence anymore because we need to be distracted the whole time.

[Alain de Botton]

Well, we can be distracted. That's the point. Yes, we can be. And it is really. It's so difficult because thinking creates anxiety because every time you start thinking, you don't know what you're gonna stumble upon. Imagine if I Start thinking about my relationship, my job, my friendship, and I discover that something's really wrong. Oh, my goodness, what will happen then? So we deny our chance of fixing things, because in order to fix anything, you have to acknowledge there might be a problem, and in order to acknowledge that, there's a little charge of anxiety, and if your phone is constantly willing to relieve you of that anxiety, you won't make progress. So one of the great tragedies of recent times has been on airplanes, WI fi trains, phone signals, et cetera. We almost have no spaces left where our phones don't work. The air used to be, you know, people used to say, oh, I love a long flight. I can think of. Well, now even long flights, you can't think there's something to be done. So thinking is hard because it threatens to bring you face to face with difficult things. And so long as we can never have an appetite for slightly awkward thoughts, we're not going to make progress with ourselves.

[Jemima Pj]

That is the point that I wanted to get right, because I think people listening to this right now in their cars, on their run, on their walk, on the commute, whatever it is, they're going to be listening to it, and then they're gonna go, oh, that's good. I like that. That's really interesting. Okay, I might write that down. I might put a note in my. But then this podcast will finish.

[Alain de Botton]

Yep.

[Jemima Pj]

And whoever's listening now will continue with their lives because this was just a distraction.

[Alain de Botton]

Not. Not to collapse your audience figures, but the true moral of this podcast is fewer podcasts. You're listening to fewer podcasts. Listen to the podcast of yourself. Don't listen to Jamie and Alain talking. Listen to the podcast of your true self. That's the podcast you need to be listening to.

[Jemima Pj]

You're so right. We're constantly reading books or listening to podcasts or being distracted or looking at this or looking at it. But actually, we're not listening to ourselves.

[Alain de Botton]

We've got in ourselves the most amazing perceptual machine. It's noticed everything. It's recorded everything. It's noticed a billion things, but we don't notice what's inside us. We've got this treasure trove. We've got the Library of Alexandria, the British Library inside us. We tip it into the sea every day. We don't pay it attention. And if we can just look at the book inside us, the podcast inside us this, we'll be able to pull out riches. But it does involve a bit of anxiety. And to make it sweeter, you Know where do our best thoughts come to us at? It's a bit of a mystery, right? We're all aware that sometimes, I mean, the worst thing, if you want to get somebody to think clearly, deeply about themselves, do not give them a huge desk and a lovely computer or blank sheet of paper. They're going to freeze. They're going to think, that's terrible. Give them. Send them on a walk where there isn't a wi fi so signal. Give them a really hot bath where they can just lie and luxuriate for an hour. A shower. Not bad as well. We think best when thinking isn't the only thing we're meant to be doing. When one side of the mind, the anxious, censorious side of the mind, is able to go off and do something else. People think very well in trains. The reason is you're sitting on a train and you're able to follow the telegraph poles. And this landscape is constantly changing, so whenever you're at risk of getting stuck in a thought, the landscape's saying, don't worry, keep going. We're traveling on and on. The motion of the train helps the motion of your mind. And so we need to sweeten the task of thinking by helping it to take place in good places. So, you know, we've got these things called trains. Trains aren't really places to go from A to B. They're places to get to know bits of yourself. So, you know, sometimes take a train journey into a bit of yourself. I'm not going to Manchester, I'm going to a bit of me. Wow.

[Jemima Pj]

I knew this was going to be amazing, honestly. I want you. I want whoever's listening to this right now to try. Don't put anything on after. Maybe just put a timer on for 30 minutes and just sit and have a think.

[Alain de Botton]

But. But I'd say have a shower, go for a walk or something, you know, do something. Don't. Don't stay stuck in a place, but.

[Jemima Pj]

Put the phone down, go on a walk with no distraction. Just think.

[Alain de Botton]

Look, we love our phones. Phones bring us things, but they truly are the enemy of introspection. We know ourselves so much less well now because of our phones. You know, you were saying, you know, do friendships get in the way? Sorry? Do phones get in the way of friendships? Not so much. The thing they really get in the way of is a friendship with yourself, an acknowledgment of yourself, knowledge of yourself. That's where they bite.

[Jemima Pj]

Normally we end the. I mean, firstly, just. I almost want to applaud You. Because that was phenomenal in every single way. And honestly, I could sit with you just for hours and hours, hours and hours and hours with all your books. But your new book, which is coming out in September, the Secrets of Successful Friendships, where can we get it everywhere?

[Alain de Botton]

Everything by book. Amazon bookshops, you know, UK bookshops, US bookshops, etc.

[Jemima Pj]

Please go. Please go and buy it. Go and get it. We'll leave a link in the description below. Go and get it because it will change your life for the best, for the better. It's just brilliant. And you have that. People have the ability to have that knowledge. It's there, it's in a book. Go and get it on. It's just amazing. Normally we end the podcast with eight questions. We've done that with you before. So if you'd like the listener to come away with one phrase from the recording, what would it be?

[Alain de Botton]

Spend more time with yourself. Can we give another one? Stop trying so hard to be normal. It's exhausting and it's not fun for anyone else.

[Jemima Pj]

And you've been amazing. Thank you you so much. I really appreciate. That was incredible.

[Alain de Botton]

Thanks, Jim.

[Jemima Pj]

That was. That was. You are brilliant, Deborah. That was fantastic. Yeah, amazing. Amazing.

[Jamie Laing]

We wanted him more.

[Jemima Pj]

Alain is one of those people that I would have. If I was going to invite for dinner, he'd be one of my five people.

[Jamie Laing]

I'd like him to just always be near me.

[Alain de Botton]

Yeah.

[Jemima Pj]

You could just have him like a sort of shadow in the northern lights.

[Jamie Laing]

Yeah.

[Jemima Pj]

Oh, he could be your shadow.

[Alain de Botton]

My demon.

[Jemima Pj]

My daemon demon.

[Jamie Laing]

Matt Damon.

[Jemima Pj]

Matt Damon.

[Jamie Laing]

Can I ask, you mentioned a charades game in the episode that you played. What was it? Because you've mentioned it before, but you've never told me what the rules are.

[Jemima Pj]

We played a game of charades where you would have to write down your fears.

[Alain de Botton]

Oh, my God.

[Jemima Pj]

It was quite deep. You had to write down your fears and then put it into a hat. They were picked out and then read out. Yeah, but no one.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

Every idea starts with a problem. Warby Parker's was glasses are too expensive. So they set out to change that. By designing glasses in house and selling directly to customers, they're able to offer prescription eyewear that's expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Warby Parker glasses are made from premium materials like impact resistant polycarbonate and custom acetate. And they start at just $95, including prescription lenses. Get glasses made from the good stuff.

[Alain de Botton]

Stuff.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

Stop by a Warby Parker store near you. Botox Cosmetic, Outobotulinum toxinae FDA approved for over 20 years.

[Alain de Botton]

So talk to your specialist to see.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

If Botox Cosmetic is right for you.

[Alain de Botton]

For full prescribing information including boxed warning, visit botoxcosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

Remember to ask for Botox Cosmetic by name.

[Alain de Botton]

To see for your yourself and learn.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

More, visit botoxcosmetic.com that's botoxcosmetic.com when you think about businesses that are selling through the roof. Sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand and brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business making selling simple for millions of businesses. That business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify. They're the home of the number one checkout on the planet and the not so secret shop pay that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales happening. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout allbirds and skims use Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.comstartselling all lowercase go to shopify.comstartselling to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com startselling hey there.

[Jemima Pj]

You hear that, right?

[Alain de Botton]

You don't?

[Jemima Pj]

That's what it's like to order food for your workplace with EasyCater. No hold music while you wait to place your order. No tap tapping as you type in special dietary instructions or long, complicated searches for options in your budget.

[Alain de Botton]

No crinkling of paper receipts.

[Advertisement/Announcer]

Just dang, these are some tasty sandwiches.

[Alain de Botton]

EasyCater the better way to order food for work order [e-mail].

[Jemima Pj]

Know whose fears they were. They were then put in and then you have to take them out and act them out. And the one that I had to act out someone's fear was that a baby, their baby would die and I had to act out. And they were worried about their baby dying. And I looked to my left, my right, and there was Phoebe Wallerbridge. And she looked at me and she just held up a gun because she knew that's the one that I picked out.

[Jamie Laing]

So hang on, how was that? Did that bring you all?

[Alain de Botton]

Did you.

[Jemima Pj]

It was quite funny.

[Jamie Laing]

Why did you have to do it like that? I'm confused.

[Jemima Pj]

It was just a game of charades, but about emotions rather than movies.

[Jamie Laing]

Oh, fine. Did you feel like your fears had, you know.

[Jemima Pj]

No, it didn't help my fears, but I quite liked it. It was just interesting, a way to connect which I really liked and I really hope everyone connects in this episode. And go and Alan's books. We're gonna leave again the link in the description if you wanna go and connect with his books because they're fabulous.

[Jamie Laing]

He sent a load of books over to Jamie and one of them I really love. It's hard to read some of the book titles and not think they're a subtle par but one of them he sent to Jamie was how emotionally mature are you?

[Jemima Pj]

Yeah, yeah, I'm a complete child.

[Jamie Laing]

No, I think it's a. I would really like to read that book. But it's just such a funny gift.

[Jemima Pj]

To give someone 100%. But it also is great. So listen, we really hope you enjoyed the episode. As always, please subscribe to our show. It does us wonders. I cannot tell you. Get in touch at greatcompanypodcast on Instagram or send us Great Company at jampoproductions.co uk. Everything is in the show description. And we'll see you next week, of course, for another episode of Great Company.