Latest / Love Matters With Leeza Mangaldas / The Importance of Adult Friendships ft. Rohan Joshi

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The Importance of Adult Friendships ft. Rohan Joshi · Love Matters With Leeza Mangaldas

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I'm Lisa Mangoldas, and this is Love Matters, and today we're talking about
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one of the most valuable, yet too often underprioritized relationships in adult life,
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friendship. When you're a kid, making friends can be as easy as sitting
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next to each other in class or going out onto the monkey bars together.
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But unfortunately, as adults it becomes much more difficult. And yet study after
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study has indicated that friendship is central to human happiness. So how can we
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get better at making and sustaining friendships even as adult? That's what I'm going
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to be talking about today with my guest Rohan Joshi, one of the country's
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most accomplished comedians, a terrific writer, and one of the smartest, kindest,
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most compassionate people I know. Also someone I feel very lucky to be
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able to call a friend. Rohan, thanks so much for joining us on
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Love Matters. I am so delighted to be talking to you today. Hi,
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friend I made as an adult, that's amazing. That's the most important
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part. You forgot the most important part of the friend you made as an
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adult? Right? Would you say that you can tell you know minutes after
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meeting someone whether they're likely to be a close friend or not. I think
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so. I think, in fact, I would go so far as to
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believe that I am a much stronger believer in sort of love of friendship at
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first sight than I am in romantic love at first sight. I feel like
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there have been way more times in my life where I've had that sort of
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you know, Bollywood moment of you know, you say something and somebody says
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something and your eyes because like, yeah, they say, you and I
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I got to be great friends for a really long time. And do you
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think that as you've gotten older, you've gotten better at identifying who's likely to
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be a friendship that you you know, have for life, and who maybe
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is just a fleeting interaction because you're working on a project together happen to be
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at the same place. I find that I have like like my radar has
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gotten stronger as I've gotten older. I feel like my radar for I'm going
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to find this person tiresome has definitely gotten which, unfortunately, in my case,
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is like ninety percent of people, which is why I feel like I
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have such few friends. No but quality of a quantity right with friends.
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I think what happens as you age is is if sort of friendship is like
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if you had to think of it as a sort of bunch of grapes.
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I think when you're young, it's like like a bunch of baps. You
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just have hundreds to hand out to sort of everybody. But as you get
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older, it sort of becomes like I have this box a dozen mangoes.
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I have a dozen friendship mangoes to give out, and I just rather hand
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out these twelve mangos to twelve people that I care about, and then I
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want to look into their eyes as we disgustingly eat mango together. And I
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think that's how that's how it works. You have fewer friends, but you
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have friends that you're thrilled to see every single time you see them, and
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I think that's what counts. I actually have less than twelve, but I
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still think that you know those those few it could even be fewer than it
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could be two want to three, But as long as they delight you,
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as long as they delight you, as long as it's not even about feeling
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good feeling bad, because he sometimes you can be having a bad deal,
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so you might not. But it's just I think when you see a call
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from them, or a text from them, or when they walk in the
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door and the day just feels a little better than it felt before they were
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there. I think that is enough. That is enough. Like on my
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worst days, it's literally it's completely okay for to me, for me to
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be around my friends and not and we don't say a word to each other,
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but just being in each other's presence and just sort of knowing that if
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I did have to be vulnerable, this would be a safe space and these
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would be safe people around home to do it. So the longest study on
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human happiness is actually a Harvard study that's been going on for eighty five years.
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Okay, it established that there's a really strong correlation between deep relationships and
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well being, which I mean, I guess we didn't need Harvard to tell
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us that. But basically, a good relationships but you know, it doesn't
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hurt, it doesn't, it doesn't hurt, right, So good relationships literally
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lead to health and happiness where I mean, you know, research found that
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people actually tend to live longer when they have strong relationships as compared to those
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who are isolated or you know, where loneliness is actually correlated with anxiety and
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depression and even physical illness. So much so, in fact, that a
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recent a report issued recently by a sergeant general from the US actually wanted that
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a lack of social connection is as damaging to help as smoking fifteen cigarettes a
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day and worst affected on men, by the way, And I was like,
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gosh, I smoke cigarettes and I'm isolated. I'm going to die young.
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Yeah. So what I'm saying is if I smoke fifteen cigarettes with fifteen
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of my closest friends around me all the time, do you mitigate healthy?
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Yeah, I'm trying to figure out. I'm trying to figure out it's a
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friendship studies is a smoking study. But I mean, again, I'm not
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a scientist, but it's just one of those things to hear you say.
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It just sounds intuitively like where if you're lonely, you're going to because I
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mean, it's it's your will to live comes from so many comes, whether
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it's just having laughter in your life, whether it's having joy in your life,
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just something that you want to see, something to look forward to.
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And I think as an adult often you know just the sort of productivity trap,
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this idea that your identity is so much about how successful you are at
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work, and then you know, the relationships we're kind of encouraged to prioritize
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tend to be family and romantic partner above all else. There's definitely this hierarchy
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of love concept that at least you know, I unfortunately resonate with to some
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extent, where I always put family and partner first and work after that.
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And then there's so little time, you know, just in a practical way,
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my friends tend to get the little time that's left over, and it's
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something I'm really trying to get better at. But you seem like someone who's
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really hacked that. Like I see a drum kit at the back as well.
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I feel like you're always able to make I guess people make time for
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what's important to them, and to some extent, we have to unlearn this
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hierarchy. Like work, for example, I really think might not deserve the
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huge pedestal it seems to occupy in everyone's life, even after you've reached the
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financial goals you need for basic survival, et cetera. You know, like
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your sense of self worth, when it's linked to how successful you are,
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it's actually really lonely if all you're doing is working right. So what are
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your thoughts on that. Do you feel your friendships also get only the crumbs
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of your time or do you think as an adult to managed to keep them
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front and center. I feel like they don't necessarily get It's sort of like
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exercise in Jimmy, Am I a perfect feature when it comes to exercising A
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good to the gym? Probably not. I could probably spend a few more
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hours being a little more disciplined than focusing, but I still feel like I
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do more of it than the average person, and I think that that's made
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some pretty rich dividends in my life. It's interesting that you mentioned, you
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know, we sort of prioritize the family and the romantic unit over you know,
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blatonic relationships and friendships and things. And I think, and I could
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be wrong. I'm not an expert. This is just purely on my own
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observation. And this is as much a question to you as it is a
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statement. Do you think that that sort of hierarchy of love, aside from
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a being damaging to yourself, which obviously it can because you're exhausted to you
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know, do right by family? Do you write by romantic love? But
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do you think maybe because this is what I think. I think that it's
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actually damaging to the family unit and to your romantic partner if you don't have
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other places to go and grow as a person, because it a just puts
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so much pressure and strain on those units. Right, Let's say, for
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example, on the one hand, you've got family and romantic love. But
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say now you like I've seen marriages in this thing where the partner becomes such
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a sole focused that at the end of the day, you are going to
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be disappointed in each other because no one person, Like how is one person
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supposed to take all the best of you and all the worst of you and
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all the everything. You're going to eventually sort of chew each other out and
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just spit each other out. That's going to happen versus you know, if
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you have friends or if you have people you can talk to, you can
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get different perspectives. There's more people to sort of when you're sad, you
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can go be sad with other people. If you're having a fight with your
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partner, you can go get perspective from other people. You can go just
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blow off steam, you can go learn new things. You can come back,
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And this is important for you, This is important to your partner,
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This is important for families. I genuinely think like today's so much of what
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we see with older people right when they get sucked into whether it's what's happened
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Piraseas or in America, they talk about you and on, etc. So
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much of that has to do with the fact that today's old people are largely
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lone people who were taught generationally to focus so hard just on building that family
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or romantic unit that you know, all other relationships were neglected, and now
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you're sort of lonely. You don't have sort of warm relationships and happiness to
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fill up that space and that idle mind. Something's going to move in there.
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Eventually, it's going to be darker and worse. And I genuinely feel
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like being in sort of friendly relationships, etc. It makes you use your
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brain more, It makes use so heart more, It keeps you more present
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in the moment. It does so many of those things that I feel like
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could keep away so many problems later on. Yeah, so yeah, I
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have one hundred percent think it's important. I would absolutely agree with you.
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I just think that to some extent it's not the family or the romantic partner
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that's making it difficult to spend time with friends. For me, at least,
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it's a work takes so much of my time that then I have so
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little time even to give these parties in my life that then there's just nothing
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left up over, you know. And I think that's a really unfortunate aspect
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of work when, especially when it entails technology as well as when you're working
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from home, it can just there's like so little work life divide in a
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way that you're never not work working, you know. And I also think
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technology creates this illusion that you have that you have all these people, especially
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on social media or something, right, we have husds of thousands of people
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who seemingly resonate with things we say, or I don't know, you maybe
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feel a little bit seen on the internet or something. But social relationships that
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everybody's talking about right exactly where it's either sort of you attached to a bunch
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of people on social media or attach the celebrity, but you don't have a
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real relationship. I think the work thing, of course, it's very true.
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And I want to be very clear about the fact that you know,
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I know that I'm a privileged person we're both reasonently privileged people in terms of
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our financial situation. And I get that there are people who are working sometimes
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twenty four to seven because they have to, they don't have a choice,
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and those are best circumstances. But I feel like the real disservice we do
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is when we frame the other end of this way, where we sort of
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frame it as this dichotomy of there is my worktime and there is my free
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time, and if I have this free this free time is this very dispensable
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concept of if I have it, then I will see. If I have
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a free minute somewhere, I will go for a walk. If I have
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a free minute somewhere, I will call this spread. I actually think we
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need to stop looking at this free time as this dispensable concept. You need
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to have some discipline about it in the same way that you would with the
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gym or with the discisi. But tell yourself, you know what, even
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if I'm working twenty four seven, I will take out. It's not free
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time. I am carving out one hour on Sunday if nothing to at least
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do a zoom call with three friends and catch up with people and have people
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aware of what my emotional state is and the sort of temperature of my friend's
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emotional stay right like today, when I started playing tennis or I started playing
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sport, I was very aware of the fact that I was coming from a
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place of sort of privilege as a freelancer, as somebody who's financially okay,
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all of those things part. At that sports field, you meet people who
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are working way harder than you and who actually do nine to five, but
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they are taking the time by not treating this as free time, but by
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treating this as like an inviolable, like sacred hour of the time that they
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have to make space for, whether it's to go play football or go play
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tennis. And through that play is one you are having a social interaction that
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is not transactional or state disoriented. You are having your socially interacting with people
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while you are releasing indolphins and there's dopamine in your body. And you know,
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I think what happens when you start playing is like if you're playing doubles
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tennis, if you're playing football, or you're playing whatever, the sort of
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power moves so much from player to player to player, right that it's never
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like just one hierarchy being established right. I feel like in a normal conversation,
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like just with say close for that, the one person will be dominant
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and you have to listen. But in spot like if I'm the goal's got
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it, I have a little power, there's another guy who's killing it.
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And then through this play you're bringing so much emotion out positive negative, all
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of it you and with people who have no reason to be there, there's
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no transactions. There are the fact that joint right, and I feel like
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there's a whole dimension of your personality that over years gets just straight up castrated
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away when you don't engage in these things. And I think that one of
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the things that has genuinely kept my joy is the fact that I get to
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go out two to three times and we can do things that children take for
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granted, like yell, scream, fall to my knees, run and hug
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someone because we scored one lucky point out of nowhere, throw a racket to
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the ground once in a way, make stupid joke, come up with nicknames.
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I think play has genuine brain changing effects that we forget, and it's
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just we forget so fast because it's kids like you, Like you said in
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your introduction. This is something that as children we are encouraged to do every
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day. Every single day, you finish school and then you go and you
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play, you do something, and somehow we go from that to never and
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only, if possible, will you do this social interaction with other people that
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is not transactional or status based, to just enjoy your self that's gonna take
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itself out on society. Men in particular, I think often as adults even
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more unable to express emotion or about because it's kind of like against the grain
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of how masculinity is coded in society. Right, I'm not supposed to cry
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or hug. You're supposed to be this sort of seal by yourself, and
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I don't think that's true. Would you say, though, that it was
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a journey for you to be able to sort of become comfortable being vulnerable or
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emotionally honest with other men, or was that something that always came naturally to
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you, or do you think something like sport allows for a sort of medium
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via which to experience all of life's emotions in a socially acceptable format For men,
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I think sport is a great gateway sort of to just being able to
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reconnect with people, especially whether it's team sport or doubles or any of those
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things. I genuinely believe that that's true. In my case personally, I
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was very lucky that I from a very young age, like whether it's school
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or in college, orney I got to interact with boys who were luckily and
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that's with their emotions. And I'm very proud to say that those are still
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some of the closest sends that I have onto those boards. In fact,
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it's funny that you should say that, but I have a live example for
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you where my entire sort of weekend was spent with these two boys and we
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literally we had a sleepover and we played video games and we talked about our
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feelings and we ate, I screamed together, and we had the best time.
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And when they left yesterday, I still have we have a group chat
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where where we have we said message the other, oh my god, I
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love you guys. The house seems so quiet without you. I miss you.
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And there was like, oh man, we miss you and we're gonna
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wait to do this again. And that was just such a positive weekend and
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I just feel so good. And so I'm just very lucky to be sort
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of surrounded by and I'm very away how poor my mental state would be if
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they weren't in my mind. And this is a weekend I sort of spent
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on my own, not just sitting and watching TV alone and smoking, to
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have that physical interaction and you know, playing video games. And we screamed
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at each other and we cust at each other, and we high fived and
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we hugged, and we went through this whole sort of range of emotions that
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were otherwise have just been trapped inside of us. And it was good.
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And do you think that gender plays into the nature of your friendships, Like
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would you say there's a brotherhood or something with the types of friends that you
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just describe spending the weekend with. That's a bit different from the quality that
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your friendships with with women or people of other genders so occupy I think with
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these people, yes, I think it's more than in this case, more
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than a gender thing, because I do have friends like this, like of
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all genders, where I think there's been a sort of comfort over time.
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But what has happened is we have never taken these friendships for granted. It's
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never just been like, you know, what do we been fans for twenty
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years, so it'll keep We keep tending this garden. This is with friends
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of all genders. We keep tending this garden. We keep texting each other,
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we keep teching, like even on a group chat, you know,
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if somebody seems to be a little lot, there will be a private message
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of hey, are you okay? What's going on? And I think that
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that again makes it. It's more than just the brotherhood than the boys,
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et cetera. It's I think what's happened is this is a group of people
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where we have allowed ourselves vulnerability for so long that to stop now would almost
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be a shame like in some way, I think. And this is where
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the pandemic also helped we realize how lucky we were to have each other.
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You know, in this time of such grave isolation, we realized how lucky
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we were. But even when we couldn't mean just to have people that were
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texting and checking up on you and just doing things like that, and more
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importantly, people who are not doing out of politeness, people where I can
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be so vulnerable with I'll just be like, no, I'm not like you
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know, the sort of constant, relentless just death and sadness and this my
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head is not in a good post and to have them be like, it's
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okay, and I'm not going to try and sure you are for sort of
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fake, sure you up into this or whatever, but just lean into the
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sort of sadness and vulnerability to they just know that we are here like or
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whatever that you need and don't do anything stupid. And I think it's not
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that complicated, Lisa, in the sense that, like you know, you
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say, especially with gender roles. On the one hand, I think,
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yes, men are taught to be lonely, et cetera, but even women,
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right, especially in Indian society, When is a woman ever told to
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just go out and cultivate a friendship for the sake of it? Right?
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Like? In fact, the stereotype becomes the gossiping building aunties, which weirdly
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enough, has only come because the only friendships that women of a certain generation
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perform was the friendships that they had to with their neighbors, where they come
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into with their husband's place or move into like the man's family's place. When
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was that, like, when do we see adult women at me in this
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country or in social spaces at all for that matter, right, because I
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feel like we see young women playing and then we straightway see what has already
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become, like this humorous stereotype of sixty year old aunties going for walks in
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their kids and salvarkameises. But what happens to women in the middle, what
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happens to them just sort of playing and engaging with each other in a vulnerable
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and have way where they get to share their insecurities and their sort of bundabilities
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with each other in a safe space to do. Is that something that we
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encourage? I don't think so. Like whenever I travel with this country,
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I feel like women are really outside of the social space. Like you see
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men on the street everywhere, but you see so few women. I think
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women are definitely not at all remotely as entitled to public space unfortunately as men
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are. And there's also the aspect of safety that we're constantly made to feel
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at the shaft and things like that. But I also feel like the way
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what is permissible is quoted is such that women are able to express emotion more
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freely and also intimacy. You know, I could hold a woman's hand,
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or give her a hug and kiss, or sit on a lap and it
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wouldn't be construed as sexual necessarily, whereas I think men aren't allowed physical intimacy
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with each other without it being construed as sexual. And on the other hand,
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I think also women are more likely to be allowed friendships with other women
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then with other men, especially if they're already in a relationship, you know.
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So there are some gender politics that aren't necessarily a factor of one's desires
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of personality, but rather just thrust upon us as members of this society that
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can be harder to navigate and harder as you're an adult, right like as
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a kid, I think gender politics did not play into my friendships, whereas
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if I'm honest, even despite all my privilege, et cetera, to some
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extent, I think to it, I think it can be quite hard for
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an adult man and an adult woman to form a friendship if both of them
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already in romantic relationships, because society just perceives that a man and a woman
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alone doing something it must mean in a friendship. You know. It's almost
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like many people aren't even allowed to engage with or imagine the possibility of a
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platonic friendship between an adult man and woman, you know, which is so
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heteronormative and ridiculous because I mean I could be having a sexual equation with a
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woman, right, I don't need to wait for some dudes exactly where are
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these politics? Make no sense? But I think having that having a sexually
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I could be a sexual equation with somebody from the opposite sort of sex where
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I don't even have a friendship or relationship with them. Also, right,
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Like that's also possible, right, So it's so stupid to sort of do
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that. I do think in general that and adults, we're not I don't
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even know if I'm encouraged to be lonely. I think, yes, we
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are a little bit, but I'm definitely not encouraged to sort of just go
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out and see just solace in just which is when it strikes me as so
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silly. When you know you, in fact, I feel like you get
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older, you accumulate so many experiences that in fact, you should be out
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there making friends because your life is such a complex thing. And then this
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other person whose life is such a complex. Imagine what could happen if you
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just start having a conversation, right, just imagine what could happen. I
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have one of the most fortunate experiences of my life is about five years ago.
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Since you mentioned the drum kit that's in the background, is I joined
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a drum hobby class. I just I don't want to be a drum but
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I just always wanted to learn the drums, and I went and I went
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to this music school and it was revelating because there's four five people trying to
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learn the drums. There's for five people tend to learn the guitars, for
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five people trying to learn vocals, for five people tend to learn the piano.
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And the only reason that all of us are here on this Monday evening
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is because we love music. And as adults, we thought, hey,
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this is not something that we got to do as skills. Let's just sort
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of be here and let's try and let's mark around, and we sort of
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started hanging out and in the middle of all of a suddenly, in my
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thirties, I'm friends with high level HR executives from an FMCC company, a
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spinal surgeon, a dancer, you know, two executives from like random financial
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institutions, people of different ages, a kid who was just in college.
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And as a result of this, we also sort of started going out for
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beers together, and it became like a post class ritual for us because all
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of us have this moment people like, nobody here has a transactional need of
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anything from anyone. Every person here is so different from what I would meet
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in the normal run of my life, whether it's to work or whatever.
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Wow, we're just being we're just making friends. We're just making friends in
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the way we would in a garden or somewhere else. And we're still friends
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today. We're still all of us friends today. And again, if somebody
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other, how did you all meet, it's such a great story because they're
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like, there's nothing, there's no he was working with this guy, so
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then this happened. You No, just got together over music, and now
24:34
we hang out because we enjoy each other's company. What a delight. I
24:38
think that's wonderful though, that you sought out a deliberate opportunity for meeting new
24:44
people, right taking that percussion class, and in a way, that's such
24:48
a simple thing for someone who wants to, you know, put them on.
24:52
I encourage everybody and go out, Yeah, do anything, find us,
24:59
find something you like? All right, If you say you're like I'm
25:00
an introverted person, I'm afraid of meeting people, et cetera. You must
25:03
have a passion, you must have something you enjoy doing. Go there.
25:08
If nothing, you meet other people with the same passion exactly, And I
25:12
think a shared passion or a shared interest or even having like the favorite same
25:17
favorite snack is wonderful, exact sort of fodder for understarting share the word passion,
25:26
Yeah, exactly, electualized. The word passion can be. It can
25:29
be mad. You guys can be family guy for fans, right like,
25:30
that's it. That can be your start point that you both like to show
25:34
family guy, or you both like something silly like that, but just something
25:38
that breaks the ice and just get you to connect with another human being is
25:42
so life changing in your thirties and your forties that cannot even tell you totally.
25:48
And you know, actually this has made me think of what I read
25:52
of as the friendship formula developed by a former FBI psychologist. In fact that
25:59
sad us yeah, strong, trust worthy relationships. Hear me out, show
26:06
me out. Oh my goodness, Seriously, I thought it was quite funny,
26:08
but but I did quite like the formula and it kind of speaks to
26:11
what we were just talking about. So so this is how it goes.
26:15
That friendship equals proximity into frequency plus duration into intensity. Okay, proximity into
26:25
frequency plus duration into intensity. And when you think of proximity and frequency,
26:30
like literally just how close by physically even you are to someone and how often
26:34
you're able to meet, I think in some ways that the practical reality of
26:38
that is actually so central to forming friendship. On that topic, though,
26:42
do you think that as someone who people know, like given your public figure
26:48
or people think they might know, does that make it more difficult to meet
26:52
new friends, to make new friends where perhaps you're up against certain assumptions or
26:56
just an imbalance and how much they know about you as you know about them
27:00
at the get go. But in a way it actually yes. In some
27:03
ways, it makes it difficult because people come in with preconceived notions. But
27:08
one way that it does make it easier is because I guess people know certain
27:11
things about me. If there's certain people that have common interests as me,
27:17
since I've put them out there publicly, they will be more likely to approach
27:21
me and talk about right, Like, for example, I put it out
27:25
there that I enjoy pop culture and superhero stuff, which now because that's the
27:27
thing that people know about me. Just the chances of me walking into a
27:30
room and somebody coming to me and engaging me on a subject that they're not
27:34
like goes up. The other way that it can be an advantage is that,
27:37
all right, you already know all of these things about me, but
27:41
I don't know anything about you, So why don't you talk? Because the
27:45
other thing that I think that doesn't happen, though, is that people don't
27:48
get a chance to talk about themselves because who really gets asked about like,
27:52
you know, outside of the what's your job? In our country, outside
27:56
of what's your job? What's your cast? Gives a shit? Right about
27:59
Peopleeople are reduced to those two things. Right, how many times do you,
28:03
as an adult kid to go out and talk excitedly to you about things
28:07
that you're passionate? Right? So I feel like, sometimes because people already
28:12
know about me, I'm not even trying to be a good person or whatever.
28:15
It's just because people already know about me and I don't know about that.
28:18
I be like, okay, but don't you tell me more about you?
28:22
And they're they're like, oh wow, this person is actually making space
28:26
for me and my feelings. Yeah, and that's all it takes. A
28:29
startup frentship is like, hey, do you want somebody to eat or drink?
28:33
And why don't you tell me about your hopes and dreams? And that's
28:37
it, that's all, that's all it takes really to get I think,
28:41
specially actually in the Indian context, often no one ever asks you what your
28:45
hopes and dreams are or who who are you? Actually? Who are you?
28:51
What do you want in this life? You know? I think one
28:53
of the only gone as where perhaps that kind of self inquiry is possible is
29:00
friendships, And often as adults, we haven't even thought about those things.
29:03
Like sometimes I think if the conversations I've managed to have with certain friends as
29:07
so deeply clarifying of my own yes, sort of internal landscape, you know,
29:15
because sometimes you don't know what your thoughts are about something until somebody asked
29:18
you a question about it, right, which is only going to happen in
29:19
a friendship like this time, Like, actually, I've never thought about this,
29:23
only this question sort of came up and yeah, usually rewarding and so
29:30
okay, so when did you meet your really good friends? Would you say
29:33
that your childhood friends are your closest friends or where they work friends. I
29:37
feel like there's so many aspects of your life that must have lent themselves to
29:41
intense proximity duration they frequent. Do you have pockets of different friends? I
29:48
do. I do. Actually, I do have pockets of different things because
29:52
I feel like there's there's different groups of people that I have encountered adversity and
29:57
batterfronts with and that has forged us. You know what I mean. You
30:00
go through the Indian school education system together. Pauged in that battle. So
30:06
there's four people who will never understand what it was like doing the SSE boards
30:11
in the nineties and what is specifically a terrifying time that was right because like
30:15
everybody has to be an engineer, everybody. Then I went to college and
30:19
then I switched to mass media and I made these great friends with whom I
30:23
just enjoyed hanging out. We enjoyed the same things. We enjoyed doing product
30:27
projects, building things together. Paulged from that. Then I went to the
30:33
Asian Collegure journalism, lived away from home for the first time, met entirely
30:37
new perspectives. Some battle forged friends from that. So I feel like I've
30:40
been very fortunate to sort of pick up people wherever I go, and I
30:45
think I've been fortunate that most of them, in the sort of times they
30:48
do overlap, actually get along quite well together. The biggest, I firmly
30:53
think the biggest compliment I have ever been paid is not a compliment about myself.
30:59
I was just I had a work friends sort of join us at a
31:03
New Year's Eve party with all of my friends or my friends people there.
31:07
At one point I just sort of wandered over to go do a vibe check
31:10
and a drink check or whatever, and he looks at me and he goes,
31:12
Dude, all your friends are awesome and not one of them is pretentious.
31:18
And I'm like, I don't think I've ever had a better compliment in
31:21
my life, right, because what it says that a chosen when and this
31:25
is a compliment that sort of validates the fact that I am in an incredibly
31:29
safe and lovely group of people, and that somebody who's just walked from the
31:33
outside has been able to sort of see that warmth. And I made good
31:36
choices. I made good choices, and yeah, that's something that I'm incredibly
31:41
grateful for that I've managed to pick up some lovely people from like I can't
31:45
think of a single ear of my life where I'm like, oh, I'm
31:48
not in touch with anybody from at all. Would you say, though,
31:53
that there are some people who may have been closer at a time and now
31:59
you know, perhaps one hundred percent you've grown in different ways. I think
32:02
one thing about childhood friendships, at least for me, is that, like,
32:06
some people just ended up being difficult to relate to as adults. Yeah,
32:12
one hundred percent. There are some of them that are difficult to relate
32:14
to, some of them that I would not say I'm like day to day
32:16
friends with, but also like some of them, while they might be difficult
32:21
to delay to on a day to day basis, that friendship is well tended
32:23
enough that if there's a three am four call call, it take me twenty
32:25
minutes for when even though we can't necessarily have a day to day sort of
32:30
because it's not even because there's the people that are difficult to relate to just
32:35
because some of their sort of social positions became impossible to digest, that's a
32:39
whole different conversation, right, But there are certain people who are difficult to
32:43
rely to just because today I'm a forty year old, unmarried, childless,
32:47
et cetera person, whereas some of them that got married young now have two
32:51
kids are focusing on their kids education and family unit, et cetera. All
32:54
of that, I can't get mad at them for not having the time for
32:58
me, and for sort of pauging another group with the parents and this thing
33:00
where the school schedules are singing up and they can travel together, a vacation
33:04
together, all of that. But I also know that everything that we have
33:08
from back then counts for so much that even if we sort of need once
33:13
a your touch base, it keeps the friendship strong enough that if there's ever
33:19
a problem one person, and I think that also counts for something. I
33:22
think that that is something that happens. I think friends sort of come closer
33:27
and go away because life and friendship is a marathon, not a sprain.
33:31
So I think part of what has happened with getting older is also learning to
33:37
sort of have less strong emotional reactions to the behavior of friends, especially older
33:42
friends, because sometimes you know, it's so easy to build up perceived slights,
33:45
and sort of that means I think part of it just becomes this sort
33:49
of always keeping in mind that a marathon, not a spraint can't keep score
33:54
like that. You can't keep score for me. It's like sometimes friends are
33:58
like, oh, you never called me at midnight on your on my birthday,
34:01
or like yeah, no you didn't. You know. For me,
34:02
those little like it's it's not about seeming like a good friend. You've got
34:07
to be a good friend. Yeah, one hundred percent. You can't keep
34:10
scoring. And what do you think of work friends? You know, some
34:14
people say it's best not to mix work and friendship, but I mean,
34:17
I'm in business with a very close friend of mine, for example, you
34:21
were, yeah, absolutely, you know. See I think you are.
34:25
If you're an emotional person. You are. It's not like we go to
34:29
work as robots right thereas people. If we connect with people and we're going
34:34
to I think what does happen though, with work friends is you have to
34:37
have a few boundaries at the start Mexico worker two types of like you're both
34:40
employees of an organization and you happen to be sitting next to each other or
34:45
your work friends in the way where the two of you are trying to build
34:47
something together be four of you are trying to build something together. I think
34:52
with work friends, what does happen is you do have to keep in mind
34:55
that at the end of the day you might be in been a zero some
35:00
game with this person right where at the end of the day it might be
35:04
one promotion where for you know, you two win, they have to lose
35:07
for them to win to lose. So I do feel like there are certain
35:12
limitations when you're working with somebody because and it's not even because though they might
35:15
be bad people or you might be a bad person, it's just the cards
35:20
might fall a certain way one day. So I absolutely think you should have
35:25
with I don't think you can go into work and just be like this sort
35:29
of still nobody engaged with me for anything the next session, right because today,
35:35
at the end of the day, you don't work in isolation. Usually
35:37
teams do things right and and today, like a team also has to have
35:43
aside from just a shared objective, they've got to have something that connects,
35:47
something that makes you feel like, Okay, this is my team. I
35:52
trust them, they trust me. And today that can mean being able to
35:58
go to them with like a small personal problem or something like that. But
36:01
at the end of the day, if you go and you pitch out your
36:05
boss and you know one of the members, and the team uses that to
36:08
sort of get promoted over you, then you have nobody to play. But
36:12
you're saying because the sort of danger was always built into the situation. So
36:16
I do believe that you have to have slightly strong about little But I don't
36:21
think that just because you work with somebody who can not all be friends.
36:25
I think that's very sort of reductive injally, And I suppose what I had
36:30
in mind was a bit more the second scenario that you outlined, where like
36:34
going into business starting something with friends, or where you have a choice of
36:37
having a non friend business partner as opposed to you know, when you end
36:40
up becoming friends with a colleague because you're sitting next to each other at work.
36:44
It's a bit different than like deciding was when you guys had a comedy
36:50
collective. It was friends that you're working with. Right, make sure that
36:53
your communication is really amazing, otherwise you're screwed. Right, don't get into
36:57
business with a friend. I think the best advice I've ever heard about this
37:00
is when you're getting into business with a friend, always imagine how both of
37:06
you will react to each other in a worst case scene. Right, everybody
37:09
can be like yare e those the best feneral business is killing it and things
37:14
are going great. Right. The question is what happens when you get to
37:16
a point where things are bad. Will you be able to have honest conversations
37:21
with each other or is this going to be one of those things where it's
37:24
just going to be like a slow motion nuclear explosion. I think that's very
37:30
important. So if you are going to do that, I think one thing
37:34
that you have to do is be very honest with yourself or then really way
37:39
the sort of business versus the friendship aspect of it, where you go in
37:43
a worst case situation if I lose both of these, is my life going
37:46
to be okay? Or both or one of these? Because it can happen,
37:52
right Cridayo. Business can start off today, You and your best friend
37:53
can start off with nothing but clear arts and the best of intents. But
37:59
you know, it's four years in debt and shit has happened and this person
38:05
has not been able to and it's not from a bad place, but they've
38:07
not been able to deliver what they thought they could or you've not been able
38:09
to deliver. Can you negotiate? Is that something those emotions you can negotiate
38:15
without it becoming a problem, Or is one of you now going to try
38:20
and sort of use the friendship relationship to cashlight the other into feeling bad about
38:24
shape. I think you've got to It's complicated. I'm not I don't think
38:29
there's a definitive yes, no answer, but it definity is complicated, and
38:34
it's something that you should enter with your eyes ears and praying very wide open.
38:42
You always run into it, don't rush into it. Have you always
38:47
managed to preserve the friendships that you wish to or have you also lost friendships?
38:55
Sometimes lost friendship factors beyond your control, due to factors beyond my control
39:00
and some dut factors in my control also that I didn't control. There,
39:05
you know, I mean, I'm not a perfect person. So I'm sure
39:07
like as much that like the bee, I'm sure there are people in my
39:10
life, for people who are not in my life that would look back and
39:14
be like, you know, there was a time where it would have been
39:15
impolved word. You know, there was this thing that that it mattered,
39:21
and you weren't there or you couldn't help me in this way, or you
39:25
just you were the friend I needed. So yeah, I don't. I
39:29
don't think that like every single friendship has worked out two hundred I think more
39:37
have than have it. But yes, there is of course a certain percentages
39:40
of friendships that have been lost and that always worked a little bit about in
39:45
my head and also sort of feel like, okay, maybe one day,
39:47
you know, if life is long and our roads will intersect again. But
39:53
also they don't intersect again as the part of me that goes I understand and
39:58
I accept. Then you sad and it hurts, but I hope I can
40:01
use it to be a better friend in my next nature. And would you
40:07
say that when it comes to romantic relationships, is entering into a romantic relationship
40:15
with a friend kind of like I was talking about with starting a business with
40:17
a friend. Do you have a ruse about that? It's just it's just
40:22
one of those things where again you'd better be sure, right because at the
40:25
end of the day, what happens when you sort of enter a romantic relationship
40:30
with a friend, it's again the same thing is what's going to happen in
40:32
the worst case what's going to happen like this, Is this going to blow
40:37
up the entire friend circle if it goes south, If it is something that's
40:42
going to blow up the entire friend circle, is the love still strong enough
40:45
that it's worth blowing up the entire friend circle for if it goes down at
40:50
some point you just so. Again, it's one of those things where,
40:53
again if you can't say it, because on some level one of the best
40:57
things get into a relationship somebody who knows you inside. But again, just
41:04
eyes, ears, and head as clear as possible when doing it. Don't
41:07
rush into it, don't be an idiot about it. These things have huge
41:13
andalala consequences in more circles than one, because then you're blowing up your relationship,
41:16
are your friendship at the same time, So do it, do it,
41:21
but again, just just approach it with a certain amount of care and
41:23
love. I love that. I think resilience is such a wonderful quality in
41:31
a friendship, and some of my most valuable friendships are the most resilient ones
41:37
where you're able to overcome, you know, disagreements, conflict, misunderstanding,
41:44
whatever it may be. I think some friendships simply aren't resilient enough to also
41:47
take on the stress of a business or a romantic relationship and understand to lose
41:52
them. But I strive to cultivate friendships which would survive even in those pressures
42:00
and even if they don't. Absolutely, but it's not always the case,
42:05
right are you? Are you friends with your exes or some are you able
42:08
to be if you want to talk about one hundred percent No, no,
42:10
no, no, one hundred percent in the sense I am with some,
42:14
I'm not with others, And again those friendships also, I want to be
42:17
clear, I've gone through phases. I have gone through phases of where it's
42:21
felt like an acquaintanceship felt a bit like, oh maybe right now, the
42:24
healthy thing for both of us to do is actually to draw away and make
42:28
space for other people in our lives. Sometimes that friendship then expresses itself as
42:34
anger or hurt feelings that come up that get processed sometimes many months after the
42:38
relationship right where either like you know, they'll all or like you know,
42:44
actually this thing that you did it left like a very deep hurt, and
42:47
then you know, I try and clarify, I'm sorry, How can I
42:52
make it right today? Oh? My Sosa where you know, in that
42:54
friendship, I'll be talking to be like, actually, sorry, this is
42:57
just bringing up certain feelings of hurt for me right now, because you know,
43:01
it sort of happened back to this thing in our relationship. So they're
43:05
tough, but I feel like unless it was a very sort of you know,
43:12
or like where it wasn't amicable at all. The other way of looking
43:15
at is, if you've been in a serious relationship with this person, there
43:19
are things this person knows about you, like about your vulnerabilities and your lowest
43:22
points that nobody else has seen. Why would you throw this friendship away?
43:27
Like why would you throw this baby out with the bath water? Like if
43:30
there's no relationship, then we might not even be Like what's happened with some
43:34
friends is there's been a cool of people where it is very difficult to have
43:37
an honest friendship. And then afterwards, after a couple of years, when
43:42
things have set it down, when you know sort of everybody's temperst COmON,
43:45
you then approach something where you go, we needed a cooler period from each
43:51
other, but also you know me in a way that nobody else does.
43:54
You know, you know about this specific hardship that I went through and were
43:58
there for me in a way that nobody else. So you know, why
44:00
would I for this friendship away? Why why would I startainly like take away
44:05
your ability to call me at the prop in the morning if you have a
44:07
problem or a certain vulnerability of ice forsa And I think that those things,
44:13
yeah, I touch. Would I've managed to at the very least achieve like
44:15
a sweet equilibrium with people I have been in a relationship, or at least
44:21
now you have to ask them what their perspective is on it. Yeah,
44:23
But I mean, unfortunately it's a two way street, and sometimes people are
44:29
at varying degrees of so comfort with saying sorry, with you know, kind
44:36
of forgiveness. Also, I think I like to be able to forgive,
44:38
but I think some people haven't always forgiven me, so it can be hard.
44:44
Right, So maybe what do you do when someone wants to cut you
44:45
out of their life? I guess then you just got to suck it up.
44:49
But I try, I try to cling on my friendship, suck it
44:52
up, suck it up, and then you just randomly feel terrible about it,
44:55
Like on a perfectly sunny, beautiful day that has nothing to do with
44:59
anything walking on the speak and go and be like, oh, remember that
45:01
person hates me. Damn. I probably meant that the day feeling terrible about
45:06
that. That can happen, said, suck it up. That's like you
45:09
can't force people, right, yeah, because no one's perfect, right I
45:13
think you know, no matter how wonderful one seems. I mean, we
45:17
are all hard to laugh. Everything maybe for me is sort of informing my
45:27
adult relationship relationships very much. We're like, I am not perfect. I
45:30
think I'm I try hard, but I am difficult to laugh. You know,
45:37
I don't even know anymore. This has been so much fun. As
45:45
we wrap, we always like to leave viewers and listeners with some practical tips
45:50
or actionable insights. And as someone who I think really has done very well
45:55
at navigating adult friendships, I would love to hear from you what you think
46:00
people can do and also the sort of qualities they can look for, perhaps
46:04
in that in their friendships they pursue as adults. Okay, so at thought
46:08
of the qualities. First, first things, people who are not afraid to
46:14
have complicated conversations. People with whom you feel safe having complicated conversations. And
46:19
by this I mean that if there's ever any hurt or vulnerability or whatever where
46:22
you know that people aren't just going to fly off the handle or lose their
46:25
shit, and they'll actually engage with you and have a conversation with you at
46:30
a sweet, at sober tempo. The other thing, in terms of practically
46:34
is I not cannot stress this enough. Play with your friends. Play with
46:38
your friends, find the structured or unstructured way to be gleefully, happily vulnerably
46:45
stupid with each other. And when I say play, it can be as
46:49
simple as dumb sharads or who know where you're you know, making somebody eat
46:53
a draw to well or monopoly deal or board games or whatever. But I
46:59
cannot, I cannot stress what it will do for your emotional strength and or
47:04
just your cohesion as a group. If as adults, you can again just
47:08
find a way to be giant, cudly pandas with each other. Right,
47:15
I think that is the thing we forget. And the last thing if I
47:17
would tell your friends constantly but absolutely no reason at all, that you love
47:23
them and you miss them, all right, but absolutely no reason earth like
47:27
if you're listening to this right now, like I want you to just text
47:30
the random friend say qurity, I love you and I miss you, and
47:34
just that's it and see how they respond you. You might make that day.
47:37
You don't know at what point of the day you be getting them.
47:38
They might be having a ship day at work. They might have had a
47:40
fight with their partner, family stuff might be hard, they might have gotten
47:44
bad news. So if they just picked their phone up and see a text
47:47
from somebody in their life who has no reason to text them transactionally, just
47:52
saying a qty love you, I think you would change your friends day.
47:59
I think we could have ended on a sweeter note. And so I want
48:01
to let everyone go and text their friends asap, and so I want to
48:06
fuck quickly. Tell everyone that they can find in the show notes where they
48:09
can look at more of your work on social media and online. We're also
48:15
going to be very very excited to hear from viewers. If anyone wants to
48:20
write into us about friendship, love or anything else, you can contact us
48:22
at Lovematters at DW dot com. This is Lovematters, produced by The Indian
48:28
Express and DW, Germany's international broadcaster, and we'd love it if you rate,
48:32
review, share, go Share this podcast with your friends as well.
48:36
Text them tell them about the podcast, and hopefully we will see you again
48:40
very soon. I'm Lisa Mangelnas and I believe love matters.