Discussing Modern Friendship (with Anna Goldfarb)

Welcome back to The Fatherless Cheat Sheet! In today’s episode Andrew is joined by friendship expert and writer, Anna Goldfarb! They talk about efforts required in relationships now versus the past, being vulnerable with friends, and the importance of putting in proper time with friends new & old.Follow Anna! Website: https://annagoldfarb.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annagoldfarb/ About Anna: Anna Goldfarb is a friendship expert and journalist. Her reporting on friendships has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, TIME, and more. Her book, Modern Friendship: How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections, examines the challenges of navigating adult friendships in a rapidly evolving world. She also publishes Friendship Explained, a Substack newsletter that explains the mechanics of friendship through a pop culture lens. The Fatherless Cheat Sheet, hosted by Andrew Parise, is about everything you wish a father (or father figure) could have shown you. Growing up without a dad taught Andrew that chasing "what could have been" is never the answer. When you need a hand on your shoulder, a kick in the pants, or some profound life advice, you can find it here. Have questions? Need advice? Email us at fatherlesscheatsheetpodcast@gmail.com. Follow the Podcast: https://www.instagram.com/thefatherlesscheatsheet Produced by Nicole Lyons Productions Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/nicolelyonsproductions/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Website: www.nicolelyonsproductions.com Art by Briana Raucci Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brianaraucci/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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SPEAKER_05 1:00

Our grandmas in their kitchens were not like uh bearing their souls. They were like keeping it light. They were keeping it funny.

SPEAKER_06 1:06

Well, look, in all fairness, they were all on quaaludes and gin by 11 o'clock anyway. So, I mean, so am I, but you know, just generally, generally speaking. Hey, welcome to the fatherless chi-chi. I am your fatherless friend, Andrew. Emphasis on friend. We're talking friendship today. Talking friendship as I have my my sweet boy Jake in here with me. One of my pups. He snuck in to the studio. Happy to have him. And on that note, right now I'm in the middle of a studio build out, so I can have some guests back here. So some exciting changes coming for the fatherless cheat sheet. But for the episode at hand, I have Anna Goldfarb with me today. She's a writer, very talented writer, journalist, and really just a kind, warm person and entertaining as all hell. She wrote a book called Modern Friendship. There's the book. Personally, d I have friend stuff. I've had friend stuff in the past. Got it's gotten much better. But do do we all have friends stuff? Everybody? Who's got to figure it out? I don't know. Hannah's got it figured out in his book. But I've been the friend who is what needed, wanted too much, doing too much, working too hard at it. Then pendulum swings all the way the other way. Put myself on Wolf Island with a jar of peanut butter and a bottle of whiskey, and just get sort of reclusive and take my ball and go home. So any and all of it I've done. But Anna is is very helpful, very informative, insightful. And the book is extremely accessible and applicable. She gives towards the end of the book a 14-day wholehearted friendship cleanse. We all need a good cleanse. And a friendship cleanse is welcome because we don't even know how to make things better with friends sometimes if there's a falling out and things like that. And she really puts it in a way that you can you can do it. So so much of these books that help you out are very meta, very just sort of fairy dust, and and you can't really apply it to your own life. She doesn't do that. So she's here to talk to us today. I hope you enjoy it. Fatherless cheat sheet, check it out. Okay, guys, welcome back to the show. And today I am I'm pumped right now because I have someone on who's gonna help me a bit with and has helped me with my friendship, Michigas. And her name is Anna Goldfarb. Hi, Anna. Welcome.

SPEAKER_05 3:45

Hi, hi Andrew.

SPEAKER_06 3:46

All right, thanks for being here. This is great. I'm pumped.

SPEAKER_05 3:49

Yeah, I'm stoked.

SPEAKER_06 3:50

Yeah. And this is Anna's book. I'm gonna show you that a couple different times. Modern Friendship. Um, what what the hell's our problem? Why can't we just why can't we all just be friends, Anna? Tell me, go.

SPEAKER_05 4:03

You know, it's really the trade-offs. I mean, it's just the trade-offs are are really intense at our at this time. Like we have such cho like unlimited choice on who we can befriend, but that also makes them more fragile because we can just pick up and make a new friend if it doesn't align with anything. So, you know, we used to have much more rigid parameters on who we can befriend. They had to be people in your neighborhood, they had to be people of the same gender, it had to be the same class, the same race. Yeah. But now, I mean, you could with the internet, with how varied interests can be, how different our identities are. Like we just have had an explosion of identities. Like I'm a runner, I'm a Star Trek fan, I'm a, you know, I'm a I'm a baker. I'm a it's like there's so many different identities someone can have. Even just saying, what's your religion cannot be one answer. It can be several answers.

SPEAKER_07 5:06

Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 5:07

So all of that impacts who we seek out and why, of well, who are we? And we can just be more things.

SPEAKER_06 5:14

Yeah. And it's such a it is such a reflection on who we see ourselves as. And I found, and obviously with the fatherless cheat sheet of it all, men will, I guess we're problems. Like we can't, we can't nail it down. I remember a part of the book, and I'm sort of start starting a little bit backwards, but well, I'll, you know, whatever. We'll just go for it. But there was a guy named Joe, like right around the middle of the book, and he's like, Yeah, I don't want to put any effort into this. Like, all right, hey, Joe, kick rocks, pal. All right. And I think that's a lot of times men, we because they're so stigmatized. We're trying to be tough guys and masculine. And I'm actually, I'm actually lucky enough to have, I have the greatest best friend in the whole world. And I have another friend who I'm very close with who doesn't live here, and we have like a different relationship that sometimes we'll just pick up where we left off, type of thing. But my best friend, I call him Dino. The the audience knows him as Dino because I keep him private. And uh I I'm so sort of blessed to have that relationship. And I I wouldn't trade him for for 90 for a whole swimming pool of pe full of people. Also, I just want to say that the my jacuzzi friends in my early 20s meant a whole different thing, by the way. But I like the I like the terminology. But anyway, what I what I want to say too is that right before it's so funny because I guess we can't fight who we are. When you e uh and I reached out to Anna yesterday just to say hello and make sure just to tell the audience, say I was excited, da-da-da, and I am. And what I do is I put a lot of pressure on myself with these shows. Too much pressure. You responded in in a way that so reflected how you were in the book, you said, we're gonna have so much fun. And right away, you took the air out of my any kind of because I was, you know, I was a ball player and I always get game ready. It was such a nice thing that you did for me in that one sentence. And I think, and in your entire entirety of the book, a lot of these books, a lot of books that are there to help you can can sort of be, first of all, extremely meta, extremely precious, and not very helpful, kind of preachy at you. I want to talk quickly about I thought you did such a lovely job of sort of going, yeah, you know, I fucked up. I wasn't a good friend, and this is how. And I th that helped me go, okay, yeah, I've done that too.

SPEAKER_05 7:36

You know, I knew how vulnerable I had to be for a book like this to work. And I just had this energy going into, you know, but the part the reason I wrote the book was because I had I had been reporting on friendships for the New York Times, but it was losing my dad during COVID that made me realize that I wanted to do this for him. And a lot of people who write these books, it's about other things. I'm not I'm not casting judgment or anything. You know, I think it's like a just different motivations. There's all sorts of different motivations to write a book, but you know, I share in the introduction that I watched my dad hesitate to reach out to a dear friend of his. And the impact of that decision really changed me. Of there is something going on here that, you know, everyone who's gonna I knew who was gonna read that was gonna have some person in mind of like, well, I haven't talked to this friend. I don't know where to start. I'm anxious. I don't know if they're gonna reply. I don't even know if that's the email address that they still use. I don't know if this is even that if they're open to hearing from me. And to see, you know, after the book came, I'm sort of skipping around a lot, Andrew, but yeah, that's okay. In the introduction, I share a story about how six months um before my dad died, we had a conversation in his in my parents' backyard about how he had read an article of mine in the New York Times about should you reach out to this friend right now? Because so many people just do it, you know, and it doesn't where does it go? It doesn't go anywhere. Um and he said that really hit him in a really in a in a sore place. And I wanted to fix it for him. I wanted to be his hero. I was like, dad, I got this. Let me do something for you. And I found all the information like immediately. I'm like, Dad, here's his info. Go call him. And my dad never did. And then when my dad died of COVID, like pretty quickly, I mean, I mean, it didn't, it it happened very fast. Like it was, I think about two or three weeks um when he got it and ended up at the hospital and ended up dying. And I um about a day or two after I thought back to that conversation that we had, and I reached out to his to his friend's son on LinkedIn and said, I need to speak with your dad. And 45 minutes later, I was on the phone with my dad's long-lost best friend. And I was the one to tell him that my dad had died and told him like he had wanted to talk to you, he had wanted to reach out. And the despair, I heard the despair in his voice of like, I would have loved to have heard from like I I bear responsibility too. I didn't reach out to him either.

SPEAKER_08 10:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:25

Um when the book came out, I sent him a copy of the book and I said in the in the inscription, like, or when I wrote it out to him, I said, you know, I look forward to people reading your the story and seeing the changes they make in their own lives. And he's like, And he told me that it just meant so much to him that that hearing from me that it changed his life. He'd actually been um think been beating himself up, saying I should have reached out to my dad sooner. He felt bad. And I had a chance to tell him, No, you're such a wonderful friend, my dad never forgot you. Like, you know, I could reframe it for him of you know, you weren't a bad friend. He he treasured you, he cherished you. And it was just a really meaningful moving experience. And I think so many friendship books come at it from a place of, well, friendships are great. So, like, yeah, do this great thing. And I'm like, no, friendships are very painful. Friendships are confusing, people are painful, people are confusing. And I've moved around a lot. I'm a pinball, I've lived in different cities. Um, and each of those moves have changed me, but they've changed my capacity to be friends. It's changed, it's just been a lot. It's a lot to parse through. And generationally, it's more we've had to deal with than say our grandparents ever did with their own.

SPEAKER_06 11:53

Yeah, there was there was a lot, a lot less nuance back then. And just and just to talk about, thank you for sharing that about your dad. And I, you know, I was so I was so fascinated when I saw that bit of the story. And and honestly, uh I sort of reached out, sort of not understanding that completely, and then going, whoa, that's that's a talk about a you know, your all-time tie-ins to to this show. And I know that that was really painful for you. And I'm sure that um boy, it it's you did do something. You did a mitz for for your dad, you know, and and to get his friend. You sure did. Now he was from Queens, right? Is that what I'm saying? Now, was he a med fan?

SPEAKER_02 12:34

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SPEAKER_05 13:01

Never Mets. I never I never grew up with Mets. I know he was into the um Giants. I remember when I was a kid, he was into the Giants. Whatever that means. I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 13:12

I've checked out that's okay.

SPEAKER_05 13:14

Now the biggest girl, stink me the mall. I don't know what this is.

SPEAKER_06 13:17

Yeah, as I as I throw uh wiffle balls at my two daughters in the back hoping a praying. Meanwhile, everything is unicorn themed in my whole house now. So I've got uniform sweatpants, uh unicorn sweatpants on right now. But um so now I guess and also something I I harp on constantly on this show is is like if you're gonna do the thing, don't worry about just try it. If you're gonna get kicked in the teeth, reach out to the friend because if they don't want to hear from you, you'll know. But you have to know yourself to do it because time is the commodity because it's not always guaranteed, as with the very sad story about the loss of your dad during COVID. I'm very sorry to hear that.

SPEAKER_08 13:55

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 13:56

Um Yeah. But you know, as things as things get more and more nuanced, complicated, and sort of uh fragmented, I I think the other very positive thing about the book is that as much as things change, they don't. Friendships take effort, they take care, they take shutting the hell up and listening during a problem. I also, something that resonated quite a bit with me, if you're willing to talk about it, was you know, having really tough conversations when your your friends are dealing with some sort of loss, specifically um your friend going through IVF struggles, and you felt like a you felt like a failure as a friend because you didn't say the exact, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a pass a little bit because you know, you did you did what you thought was the right thing at the time. Honestly, you tried. I always say like r regrets, regrets funny because at that moment we think we're doing the right thing. We can't always shoulder all of the regret. But, you know, tell me tell me a little bit about sort of, you know, shouldering some of that burden and a little bit about what you said in the book with taking on a friend's loss or heavy stuff, and how do you navigate that?

SPEAKER_05 15:13

Well, I realized what I was doing wrong was I was so immersed in my own discomfort because I didn't have a plan. I didn't I don't have a strategy. When someone when I to see a friend in distress, you feel so helpless and it's so uh consuming of like, I don't know what to say. I don't want to say the wrong thing. And I just I couldn't meet the moment. It really took it and the stakes are so high, especially with female friendships. I feel like I mean they're very fragile. They're the the expectations are so high because it's like you should know what to, you're a woman too. You should know what to say, you should know what that feels like. And we don't have a lot of models of how to negotiate friendships. It's a very ambiguous relationship. You know, unlike our romantic relationships where there's, you know, explicit, it's public. It's these relationships, we have discussions of what does it mean? Of like, what is our label? And friends don't have anything like that. It's so ambiguous. It's like, are you, are we still friends? Am I your best friend? Are you my best friend? Are we just close friends? Are you a dear friend? Like it, it really can scramble your brain not knowing what's required of you. And especially with emotional support, our our problems are more complicated now. And we're more comfortable sharing them with each other. Like in the 50s, women didn't talk about shit. They were just like, oh, I got an abortion. Like they didn't mention anything. They're like, Yeah, you don't talk about that, you don't make that public. Um they were much more guarded. Friendships were much lighter. They were sort of a reprieve from the drudgery of just, you know, being domestic, like the domestic sure. You know, our grandmas in their kitchens were not like uh bearing their souls. They were like keeping it light. They were keeping it funny.

SPEAKER_06 17:14

Well, look, in all fairness, they were all on quaaludes and gin by 11 o'clock anyway. So, I mean, so am I, but you know, just generally, generally speaking.

SPEAKER_05 17:22

But like that wasn't the they didn't practice their friendship with these disclosures, you know, that's like sort of since the 80s and talk shows, and this is how you get close. You share everything about you, but we don't have training and how to handle any of these things. So there's a disconnect because you know, society tells us friendship is, you know, about disclosure and vulnerability. And but I I have no training in how to handle that. You know, I make a weird joke. I'm like a middle kid, a middle child that just tries to make a weird joke out of it.

SPEAKER_07 17:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 17:56

And my friendships were peeling off left and right because I didn't know how to handle anything. Um so I had to learn how to do it. But one thing I learned writing this book is that people make friends for five reasons. Okay. The first is career. They want help, you know, navigating the, you know, help helping them in their in their work. Second is mating, they want people to date. Um, so you go out clubbing in your 20s, you know, you go out to try to meet people. Third is desirable qualities, which means that there's chemistry and you share hobbies and passions. Fourth is emotional support, and fifth is sociability, which means you're in the mix, like you join a, you know, whatever, like a pickleball club or a kickball league just to like meet people. But those are the same reasons that friendships fade, the same five reasons. So with emotional support, yes, friends seek each other out, but if you don't give adequate emotional support, and if that's what your friendship's about, your friends might distance themselves. They're like, well, I don't like how this friend does it. So the stakes are pretty high.

SPEAKER_06 19:03

Stakes are high, and it's and it's tough. Hi, man. I'm gonna tell, I'm gonna tell you something. I I realized something else. It's like as I'm reading the book, I'm going, all right, dude, you're crazy, but everybody else is too. You're not alone. We're all nuts.

SPEAKER_05 19:17

We all are crazy.

SPEAKER_06 19:19

I've been, I've been the I've been the way too intense friend. I've been the pleaser friend, and I've been the friend on the island who's like, I'm out, I gotta get, and and everything in between. And I think also a big part of your book, and you said this about yourself, is how you matured, and that really helped you becoming a better per the best version of yourself, a better friend. Because life, as I always say, is the best teacher. And um, I just want to call out one friend group. Uh, how about the friend group that you feel like you always have to audition for? They can go and kick rocks right down the road. I can't stand, I can't stand them. So I've also I've gotten rid of a lot of friends uh as the years go on. I think naturally it happens. Or the friend group that you go, or the friend per the friend specifically that you go, oh wow, you're a terrible person. How did I not see this?

SPEAKER_05 20:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 20:12

Yeah, it's amazing what we learn as we get a little bit older.

SPEAKER_05 20:15

Yes, and it's all very normal. It I didn't realize how normal this churn was.

SPEAKER_07 20:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:22

Like I thought, is something wrong with me? And it's like, well, I'm meeting more people historically than ever before in the history of civilization. Okay. Like our grandparents, our great grandparents in their stetl or their little like little old country neighborhood did not have to deal with any of this. We literally did not have any of these options.

SPEAKER_08 20:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:47

But this is the trade-off to modern friendship. It's like, well, I get to meet more people, I get to interact with people I would never cross paths with because I'm living a different life than most people ever get to live.

SPEAKER_07 21:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:02

Um, but this is a trade-off, is people are people are a lot. And what I learned about friendship the first thing is that friendships can end at any time for any reason. It's a voluntary relationship. It's one of the only relationships of peers, of equals. You know, there's so much, so many power dynamics in every other relationship we have with our bosses or children or spouses or you know, neighbors. There's always like some power dynamic. And friends are are not that that shouldn't be there.

SPEAKER_07 21:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:36

Um, that's why we fight so hard for our friendships because it is a really special relationship. But friends are comp people are complicated and we all are trying to get our needs met at the same time.

SPEAKER_07 21:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:52

So once you learn that, and also we have no help with our friendships. We have no institutions helping us. It's not like Like, you know, we're all part of the same synagogue, and this I've known these people since I was in kindergarten, and this is it. I'm not moving, they're not moving. This is this is just what's happening. Like we have so much choice. We have so much, so much choice.

SPEAKER_06 22:15

Yeah, we're kind of all we're kind of all in the wind. We're all in the wind. Friendships like that bag in American beauty. It's just kind of swirling around the air, you know, and it landed where it wants.

SPEAKER_05 22:25

It can be. And you know, friendships, I didn't really talk about this in the book, but a lot of friendships have shifted from favors to entertainment. So, you know, we used to rely on our friends to help us move or give us a ride to the airport, or you know, you can outsource all those things now.

SPEAKER_07 22:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:46

But for a certain class of people, if you're lower lower class people still need to rely on their friends for favors and they might have more siblings and cousins, then like the more money you have, the more isolated you get from other people. So it's really, it's a lumpy problem, I kind of think of it.

SPEAKER_06 23:10

Like I think but also I think there's something to I think there's something to still saying, hey man, yeah, I'm I'm right there for you. I'm gonna help you move. I'm gonna get in the trenches with you and do this thing. And um, or I don't I don't do airport trips anymore. I'll pay for the Uber. I'm not driving a New York Airport, sorry. But I love you, Dino, but I'm not driving you guys to the airport.

SPEAKER_05 23:33

Well, that that is a calculation we all make of I love you, Dino, but I'm not figuring out what this flight is and what you know what terminal. You outsource those things.

SPEAKER_07 23:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:45

But the consequence is, well, what do you do with Dino? Is it more about entertainment? Is it more about, well, let's go play golf? Let's go, you know, do this. And the kind of person you seek out is going to be the person who's better to go out for dinner with, not necessarily the best one to lend you a lawnmower.

SPEAKER_07 24:03

Sure. Wow.

SPEAKER_05 24:05

So that changes the calculation of, well, if our, you know, part a lot of modern friendship is like, let's just go out to eat. Let's go out, let's go out. So that's then you get people who are good to go out with, but they may not be good for other things. And you don't find out until, you know, maybe you need it. And you're like, oh, that's right. In that way, because that's not what our fridge is about.

SPEAKER_06 24:32

This shit hits the fan and he ain't gonna grab a mop. You know what I'm saying? So it's like you need people like that in your corner. But and and I've gotten a lot better at the compartmentalizing friends and people as as we have two young girls, our circle has gotten gotten bigger. And, you know, you do enjoy these people that you see in these certain situations, but sometimes and you know it's not gonna get past a certain point. Or maybe it will. You know, whatever the thing is, maybe it will. Um the the the number of 200 hours spent with someone to become sort of a a real friend, it was a staggering number to me. It's like 200 hours. I don't have 200 hours.

SPEAKER_05 25:14

You know, Andrew, I talked to another friendship researcher and she said that that is most likely an underestimated figure because that that that survey was taken for college kids. So those are college kids finding that time. Imagine an adult with two girls that's like juggling all these things. I mean, yeah, I thought she said it's probably closer to 600 hours.

SPEAKER_07 25:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 25:37

And I'm like, well, that will take that takes years. That takes years to build that.

SPEAKER_07 25:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:43

So there's a lot going on here, Andrew.

SPEAKER_06 25:46

Yeah, there's a lot of things. Do you do you think it's do you think it's almost in a way unfair to compare sort of new contemporary friendships against the 600-hour friendships? Is it sort of like it's a battle you almost can't win, right?

SPEAKER_05 26:03

I just look at it like, I mean, I'm I'm like a sweet fiend. So I'm like, I just look at it like cake. Okay. You have these friendships that's been 20 years, and you're like, look at this beautiful cake. And new friends are really just the ingredients sitting on the counter. The cake takes time to bake. Okay. So you're looking at I have these cakes in my, you know, in my periphery, and then there's this new friend, and it's like, well, this is not a cake. This is literally just a mess. And the the magic ingredient is time. Um, I talk a lot in the book about time and how that is such a crucial component of friendships. Friendships take a long time to make happen. So, but we live in a world where friendships are so fluid. So you're always starting new friendships. So it's always like this weird bakery that we're hosting in our house of we have the fully formed ones, we have new ones we're doing. It's like a lot of hats to wear.

SPEAKER_07 27:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:03

Um, and a lot of different attention. Um, some of those cakes I you know are more nostalgic friendships. They're not active, like they're they're baked, they're set, that's their you don't they don't need as much attention. But I really try to explain like there's a lot going on, but we have more choice, we have more flexibility and how we work with that.

unknown 27:26

Right.

SPEAKER_05 27:27

Um, the culture has changed so much, and it's very disorienting because we don't have any real models of what adult friendships look like. Um it's not something we have any any uh like we don't talk about it. This is something our parents and grandparents can't help us with, even. It's not like Grandma, how did you handle the group chat? She's like, isn't it a fucking group chat? Like, oh grandma, how do you handle it when you when your friend texts you while you're checking out and you have both your daughters hanging out? Like you're checking out the grocery store and your friend reaches out, you free, and you're like trying to figure out what he wants, and you have your kids like hanging off you, like your your grandma's like, I don't have a phone. Like I didn't it wasn't accessible at all times.

SPEAKER_06 28:13

Yeah, like grandma, how'd you feel when Beatrix sent you an eggplant emoji? How'd that make you feel?

SPEAKER_05 28:18

How'd it make you feel? And it's just shows how how like wildly different our expectations are for availability, for communication, for I mean, it's changed a lot, Andrew. And yeah, what I really wanted to highlight also was how social media has really distorted our understanding of friendships too. It is taken our social circle and flattened it. And it's very confusing to our brain to have so much information about people that we don't really need to know this much information about. We don't need to know what our third cousin, you know, is like grilling.

SPEAKER_06 28:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:00

Like, I don't need to know this.

SPEAKER_06 29:02

Yeah. Well, me too, well, Mitsu is smoking out here.

SPEAKER_05 29:05

I don't need to know this. I you know, I I think when you look at your life and you think, who do who do I actually need to know about? And you realize social media is feeding you all sorts of information that's just irrelevant. And it's a distraction from what you should be focusing on.

SPEAKER_06 29:24

Sure. Yeah, that that cup of coffee, even with a newer friend, to get really get to know them in a real way, and then and and they get their head down on that goddamn phone. Pick your head up out of the phone. I have friends like that. Get stop, put the phone away, I'm leaving.

SPEAKER_05 29:40

Yes. And it's uh it it has been a distraction.

SPEAKER_06 29:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:45

Instead of let me just focus on a few people and really be wonderful to them and say, let me keep in touch with everyone I've ever met. It's just not, it's not a good strategy. It's not a good strategy.

SPEAKER_06 29:57

It doesn't, it doesn't work. Now, I want to just get back to something you mentioned. Uh in in your opinion opinion and in your research, if someone grew up without a father or or modeled behavior of even male friendship specifically, they didn't see that as I did not. What could be some of the fallout or how could that manifest uh if in your opinion?

SPEAKER_05 30:19

Well, you know, I think if you don't see your parents modeling friendships and how they practice it, how they juggle it, how they prioritize it. Um it can be really confusing of what to expect when you couple up. Of well, how do we how do we practice friendships as a couple? Um, much less individually.

SPEAKER_07 30:41

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 30:41

Um, I think, you know, my dad lost his father. My my grandpa died when my dad was six.

SPEAKER_07 30:48

But oh boy.

SPEAKER_05 30:50

My dad grew up without a dad too. But and my dad had so many friendships, but he had so many interests. And his interests required other people to be there. So I think what's what's confusing for people is if your interests don't need anyone else. If you do sports betting or if you do like gambling or video games, you don't need anyone else in the room.

SPEAKER_07 31:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:16

My dad taught me that when you if you want to it was more the interests led to the friendships, not the friendships that led to the interest. Like he loved, you know, racing cars or whatever. So we'd have to go to a racetrack. You can't race a car in your living room. Like you have to get your body somewhere else. Um, I think that that's really the biggest problem is that I think men don't want to be around other people. I think men don't like being around other men. That's not really answering your question. I'm looking into this now, like this is the research I'm doing now, actually, Andrew, about how men practice friendship while in a couple.

SPEAKER_07 31:56

Right.

SPEAKER_05 31:57

And I think men are really struggling because men aren't really loving hanging out with other guys as much. Um because women are just more emotionally supportive. Men, men don't offer that to one another as much. And I'm sort of going on a tangent here, but No, that's okay.

SPEAKER_06 32:16

I feel like But that's why I think maybe that's why you have, you know, uh uh I I think a lot of times where do men congregate? The bar.

SPEAKER_05 32:24

The bar, right. For sports or like watch a game.

SPEAKER_06 32:28

Sports stadiums. Yeah, because it's a it it's sort of a a convenient, like a convenient um third, like third wingman, if you will, between you and who whoever else. You don't have to get into big conversations, deep conversations. You just want to, you just, you know, you want to sit there sometimes with your liquor and your quiet and you just want to be. You don't want to get into the week and and hash it out. I mean, you know, men are di very different, I think different social animals than women. Now, I mean, m me and Dino will get together, uh, you know, like two two Yentas, we'll talk about anything and everything, but I don't know if that's that's sort of an atypical relationship, potentially. But, you know, you go to a bar and you BS a little bit with the game on, and it's just easier to have that to go to the game. Like, hey, you see this thing? Okay, here's my beer, whatever, if if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_05 33:22

How long have you known Dino?

SPEAKER_06 33:24

I met him, I met him uh my first day of sophomore year of high school. Yeah. I moved to a new a new place. I moved up to Jersey from New York City, and uh and I actually I asked him uh where the guidance office was, and he he literally took out a piece of paper and drew me a map. I said, All right, this is my guy. I said, No, I'm not leaving you alone, no. That's it. You're my you're my best friend. So and I haven't I haven't left the guy alone since. I have a feeling he he probably would prefer it if I did leave him alone, but I'm not gonna do it. Once I get my hooks in you, that's it. I I love hard.

SPEAKER_05 33:59

So Do you have any brothers?

SPEAKER_06 34:02

No, I have an older sister.

SPEAKER_05 34:04

Does Dino have any brothers?

SPEAKER_06 34:05

Dino, yeah, he has an older brother, yeah, by a couple years, two or three years.

SPEAKER_05 34:10

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_06 34:11

Yeah, yeah. But he's just a he's just a like a good I I I think I think at the end of the day, I'm sort of a a softer soul. Um and uh, you know, we we we break each other's chops and stuff like that, but it's not like this. You know how guys really kind of go at each other sometimes?

SPEAKER_08 34:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:31

I'm not really like, I'm not interested in that. It's boring to me. I don't not think I don't need to replace anything else with with mean. I think that's sort of a surrogate for feelings that you don't want to share. Now, I'm not I'm not sitting there with drinks with Dino, go, I love you, man. I love you, man. Like it's not like that. But, you know, it's it's a thing where I think I I I grew up really quickly. And he's always been sort of a mature person. So we we share, I guess we share that um quick evolution with each other. We just look, you have your you have your your your friend who you just get each other at the end of the day. And I'm lucky enough to have found that. Um and whereas I've had other I've gone through other friends taking out the Rolodex tab and throwing it out because they just like, hey, I I don't like me sometimes. I don't need you not to like me too. Right? So I think you have to sort of rifle through some of those people and and figure it out as you go. But like you said before, the cake takes a long time and and uh you know, but it is fragile. You you always get concerned. Something can happen, God forbid, and stuff like that, and falling out, but anyway.

SPEAKER_05 35:40

So Is Dino also a dad?

SPEAKER_06 35:43

Yes, his his two kids are just uh are all a little bit older than mine.

SPEAKER_05 35:48

Well, I'm hearing like you guys have a lot of mirrored, like a lot of mirror a lot of symmetry of you know, both being dads. Um I mean it's really beautiful. One of my favorite texts to understand friendship is Hollywood Walk of Fame speeches. I don't know if you've heard me talk about this before.

SPEAKER_06 36:12

I have not, but I love I'd love to hear it. Tell me.

SPEAKER_05 36:14

One of my favorite Hollywood Walk of Fame speeches is Matthew McConaughey talking at Guy Fieri's Hollywood Walk of the Star Walk of Fame speech. Okay. And in it, Matthew McConaughey shares that he was driving around his airstream as like a struggling actor, and his favorite show was Diner Drive-Ins and Dives. And he was gonna be in Spokane, Washington. So he reached out to Guy Fieri and said, Love your show, man. I'm gonna be in Spokane, where should I eat? And they started a friendship based on roadside restaurant, like where to eat.

SPEAKER_07 36:49

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 36:49

So they had the initial interest of where to eat, where to eat. But then Matthew McConaughey shares when um Guy Fieri moved to LA and Matthew McConaughey was in LA and they got together and they realized they connected over deeper values of fame, like navigating fame, family, faith. And that's what cemented their friendship. Was first it was the interest, but then it was the shared values. And almost every Hollywood Walk of Fame speech kind of mirrors that trajectory of, oh, we started on a job, but then we realized we shared so much deeper in common. So it sounds like you and Dino have shared values, and that's part of what's made your friendship so durable.

SPEAKER_06 37:33

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And and also, you know, I I I could bring this, I've talked about on the show before, but his so my dad passed when I was uh three years old. No, and you know, mom never remarried, anything like that. And uh his his dad, who is I talk about his dad regularly because he was just a really amazing man, and I only got to know him for a little while because he he passed our junior year of college. He passed away uh tragically. And uh, you know, I was a pall bearer, you know, and uh I was just still a young young kid pretty much. But you know, we share that as well. Not that that's uh believe me, we have a a great time together. We we go and we shoot the shit like nobody else. But i I I think to your point, you do it's it's almost like it's almost like the the forming and erosion of rock uh over time, the the wind, the rain, the whatever metaphor you want to use. Yeah. It's indelible and and it really makes it concrete. So yeah, I guess I guess Dino, you listen, you ain't getting rid of me, big guy. Sorry to bring it to you.

SPEAKER_05 38:33

Well, it makes sense that your friendship has been so durable because there's symmetry is really important in a friendship. And it sounds like you guys have really strong symmetry. Um and that could that's very powerful.

SPEAKER_06 38:47

Yeah. Yeah. And we're very but we're very dissimilar too. If you met us, you I mean, like, you know, if you were with me, you'd know we're very different. We're in in a great way, but we're similar in other ways too. But I want to, before we sort of get to rep, if if you're okay with it, we do a segment called My Old Man Used to Say. Yeah. And I I I want to ask, what what are some things? And I'm what I'm sorry, what was your dad's first name?

SPEAKER_05 39:08

Oh, Roy. I remember. Roy.

SPEAKER_06 39:09

Okay, Roy. Yeah. And you said he was a he was a scientist. Is that what I remember reading?

SPEAKER_05 39:13

He was a scientist. He um volunteered for the Special Olympics. He was a referee, he was a surfer. Like my dad was cool as fuck. He was the coolest guy.

SPEAKER_08 39:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 39:24

Um what he used to say, beats me a lot. Like when we were kids, we'd be like, hey daddy, but he's like, beats me. And it's like it sounded like a cartoon, like something like a Popeye character would say that.

unknown 39:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 39:37

And we always thought that was like the funniest thing, like beats me. I'm like, what is that? Cartoon talks like that. Um, I sort of jumped the gun on the question, but no, that's okay.

SPEAKER_06 39:48

So it's that's just something that stuck with you. Was there any like piece of advice that r that you remember over the years or anything like that? Or anything he did that sort of stuck with you?

SPEAKER_05 39:57

You know, those actions. Um what did my dad do? It's he just gave me the best bear hugs. I mean, he was very affectionate. He'd always cut my like um kiss the top of my head. Very affectionate. Um oh gosh, what did my dad? It's what is you know, he's very anti-authority. Like he loved sticking it to the man. He loved it. Like he always got so many speeding tickets, like just don't tell me what to drive. Yeah. And it really, I had I was like punk rocker growing up, and a lot of it was questioning authority. I think losing his dad at such a young age made him really rebellious in a way. Like he did not want to do what you told him to do.

SPEAKER_06 40:43

I I could hear that. I I I hate being told what to do. I hate it.

SPEAKER_05 40:48

He hated it. And he just would just not give a fuck. Like he just did what he wanted to do. And sometimes that would embarrass me, but sometimes it would empower me of like, well, I'm not gonna have this teacher tell me that. Like, no, what no, no, no, no, no. And I was very much anti-authority. Like, I do what I want, for better or for worse.

SPEAKER_06 41:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:11

Yes, very anti-authority.

SPEAKER_06 41:14

That's that's so funny. And and it's so so shared. I mean, I totally get that. Because honestly, I still, to some degree, I have no idea how to have a conversation with an adult male of authority, none bosses. I've had a lot of female bosses over the years, and that's worked out better for me because I just I have no idea what you're saying, how you're saying it, I don't like it, I don't like you. Uh it's always been the way with me. And just very I could totally see where Roy was coming from with that.

SPEAKER_05 41:44

My dad was a little bit of a rebel. Like Yeah, I like that. Don't he was always fighting with someone, like always challenging, always pushing the boundaries of like, don't tell me what don't mess with my kid, don't do that. Like, he would pipe up. And it definitely created in me of piping up of when I see something. And even this book was my way of piping up of yeah, like, no, like people, here's what people are misunderstanding about friendship. Like, it's not, it's not easy. It's very painful, it's very fraught, it's very fragile. And that's I wanted to write something my dad would be proud of. Um, I dedicated the book to him.

SPEAKER_07 42:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:25

Which was like my, you know, daughter. It was like very personal for me to it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_06 42:33

And he's uh he's absolutely proud of you. The book is really fantastic, and so many great lessons. Oh, over and above friendship, lessons on giving compliments, getting compliments, gift giving, just stuff that you wouldn't think you'd have to tell somebody, and you did it. And I'm gonna we're adding it to the to the cheat sheet, to the fatherless cheat sheet. This book is very important. It's going right up on that shelf behind me. Yeah, and it's important.

SPEAKER_05 42:58

Yeah, Andrew, thank you for taking the time to read it. Like I really wanted to create something that men would love and men would find value in. And it's not too saccharine or too like, you know, Vaseline on the lens. It's very much like I wanted to include stories that you may not have heard before. I included a story about my friend Adam who gave his kidney to his who donated his kidney to his best friend, and to show all sorts of how male friendships, you know, but it's not a male friendship book, but it definitely includes all types of friendships. It's not just, you know, women sharing, you know, like uh, I was gonna say Merlot, but I feel like women drink Moscato. Like it's not like two women drinking Moscato on like uh a porch. It's like yeah, it's it's I get a little my hands dirty of like the shit is fucked up. Like we're this is a crazy, it's a crazy relationship, but it's it's worth understanding because the benefits are just you know, just unparalleled. It's uh I love friendships. I believe in them, and I'm optimistic that anyone can have better ones.

SPEAKER_06 44:06

I completely agree. And will you come back when you do the the book, uh, a men's friendship book or the article, whatever you come back, talk to us about this. Yes, yes, of course.

SPEAKER_05 44:14

Oh, I would love that, Andrew. I really love talking with you. You thank you and thank you again. You asked great questions and you clearly read the book, and I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_06 44:24

I just I'm just no no problem.

SPEAKER_05 44:26

It's like the best.

SPEAKER_06 44:27

I'm glad you came. I'm so glad to have met you and that you came, and thank you for spending some time with the fatherless cheat sheet, and we'll talk to you soon. Yeah, cares. Thank you. Okay, everyone. I hope you liked that episode. I did. I had a great time. I had a great talk with Anna. I hope she comes back after she works on some of that new stuff she's researching. And I hope you found some of that insight worthwhile and important and put it right in your cheat sheet. And as always, YouTube, subscribe, come see me on Instagram doing some of this New Jersey dad buffoonery. I'm having fun with that. Come check that out on Instagram, Father's Podcast. And as always, it's the Father's Cheat Sheet. Alright.

SPEAKER_04 45:23

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