How to Overcome Loneliness and Navigate Adult Friendships with Kristen Meinzer & Jolenta Greenberg

Episode Transcript:

00:01:44 – Eric Zimmer
Hi Kristen. Welcome to the show.

00:01:45 – Jolenta Greenberg
Hey.

00:01:46 – Kristen Meinzer
Hi. Thanks for having us.

00:01:48 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah, I’m excited to have you guys on. I have been fans of your work for a long time. You had a great podcast called by the book where you tried to live by self help help books, which is a great idea. I love the way you did it. Then you change to a podcast called how to be fine, and now you have how to be fine with friends. And so we’ll be talking about all of those things. But before we do, let’s start like we always do, with the parable. In the parable, there’s a grandparent who’s talking with their grandchild, and they say in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and thinks about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

00:02:46 – Kristen Meinzer
Well, I think for me, a lot of it also comes down to not just feeding the good wolf, but knowing that sometimes feeding the good wolf initially might feel like more work until it becomes second nature. Something I used to always say is, bitterness is easy and being happy is what’s hard. It’s so easy to just be a complainer. It’s so easy to look at what’s wrong in life. It’s so easy to be mad at things because there’s so much to be mad about, and I’m not in denial about any of that. There’s a lot of crap in this world and I think it’s so easy to give into that. I think that’s one reason why it can almost feel addicted. Go on to angry message boards. It can be so addictive to just complain online and complain to others because it’s easy. I think it’s much harder to actually do the work of saying no. I’m going to look for what’s decent in the world and in other people. I’m going to try to spread that decency. I’m going to try to make things more kind. But at least what I have found in life is that after the initial hurdles of doing that, which seem hard, that actually eventually becomes easy, too. And so to me, that’s what feeding the good wolf is about, is maybe feeding the good wolf initially feels like it’s hard, but eventually that wolf will feed me back.

00:04:02 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah. How about you, Jolenta?

00:04:04 – Jolenta Greenberg
I would say it’s similar to Kristen, where you try and put your focus where it can be most useful. Not like. Cause something’s like calling for your attention, essentially.

00:04:17 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah.

00:04:17 – Jolenta Greenberg
The loud, flashy thing might not always be, like, the best use of your time.

00:04:21 – Eric Zimmer
There are a lot of loud, flashy things that are not the best use.

00:04:24 – Jolenta Greenberg
Of our time, but they can be so distracting and, like, appealing sometimes feel really urgent, you know? Yeah.

00:04:32 – Eric Zimmer
Yes, yes, yes. So we’ll get into how to be fine with friends, which is your latest, I don’t know if you want to call it series or endeavor, which is really about how do we create and sustain friendships as adults. So we’ll get into that in a second. But I’d like to go back first and talk a little bit about by the book, because the first time that I heard about what you’re doing and listened, I loved it, because I think I have interviewed many of the people who’ve written some of the books that you guys have had on, and so there’s a little element of crossover, but you guys take it a step further in which you read the book and then you really pick out, like, okay, here are some of the key things this book says we should do. And then you try and do those things for a period of time, and then you come back and do a podcast about those things, which is such a great idea. What I’d love to know is this. I mean, you started that a long time ago. We’ve all been in this business for a while, and this question may be impossible, but I’m going to put it out there anyway, and you guys can modify it in whatever way you want, which is, what do you think doing that for that long caused? In what way are you fundamentally, maybe you’re not, but different than before you started on that endeavor.

00:05:53 – Jolenta Greenberg
Wow, good question. I feel like we’re different in lots of ways. Speaking for myself, I’ve become less trusting over the years of people claiming to be experts about certain things. You know, there are lots of self help books that are written by actual doctors and practitioners who have, like, sound advice based on research. But there are lots of people who are self proclaimed experts who want to tell you how to live and where to spend your money. It’s surprising how many of those types of authors there are in the self help world. So I feel like my view has become a bit more skeptical, if I’m being honest.

00:06:34 – Kristen Meinzer
Yeah. And I would say the flip is true for me, because when we first embarked on this show, which, you know, was about eight years ago, Jowenta was the one who was like, I really want to believe these promises. Oh, my gosh. Look, I can do this in six easy steps. I was exactly the opposite. I’m like, these people are all charlatans. They’re trying to sell us stuff. Most of them are not legit experts. And the people who read these books are frankly pathetic that they’re falling for people who are so clearly not real sources, not real scientists. And I was very judgmental about the books in the beginning and also embarrassed to even be seen in public reading them. I remember going to a bar with a secret and thinking, oh, God, what if somebody sees what I’m reading? What are they going to think about me? And as time went on, I really came to change my tune, where I started to develop a lot more empathy for the people who turn to these books because we live in a culture. The US is really a pull yourself up by your bootstraps culture. And shouldn’t we all be aiming to be better, to be stronger, faster, to optimize ourselves in some way? And of course, some people are going to, as part of our American culture try to do those things. And it doesn’t mean that they’re stupid people or bad people for falling for these books that are calling to them. And also, our healthcare system is designed where we’re not always, especially as women, getting all of the help and answers we need. Women historically have been so dismissed in the world of medicine and wellness and been treated as secondary men are the default. These studies are done on boys who are 18 to 25, who are white, who are this tall. It’s very rare that women are the center of these studies. Up until recently, we didn’t even know what heart attacks looked like in women. And to a certain extent, we still don’t know. And so it makes sense that a lot of women would turn to these books, women in particular, because most self help readers are actually women. And so I think over time, I became a lot less judgmental of the people who read the books. In the beginning, I was very judgmental. And now I’m like, I get it. I totally get the idea of wanting to get answers or wanting to make ourselves better. But I also get that for some people, it’s just a little dose of hope when things are feeling hopeless. And I get that.

00:08:55 – Eric Zimmer
I relate with what you both said. I’m pretty particular in what people I interview on the show. Like, I tend to have people on that I think have something that’s useful to say. And I don’t think a lot of what’s in self help is useful, necessarily. And Kristen, I really relate with the desire to be better, whether that be a striving to be better or that be a, I’m in a lot of pain and I just don’t want to be. So how might I not be? I think that is a noble impulse. I think that this distinction between expert and non experts is an interesting one because I come from, my sort of first introduction to this sort of world was in twelve step programs, and there are not experts. Right. It’s pointedly non expert. It’s the fact that, like, I’ve been through this, I’ve had the same problems you have. So I have something to share with you. And experts are almost sometimes dismissed in that culture, which is not good. I actually don’t think that’s good. I think there’s a place for both. I think there’s a place for people who have studied these things and have some, quote unquote, credibility. And I think there’s a place for people who’ve been through these things and have personal experience. And like you, I think that a healthy dose of skepticism is useful in both cases. Right. Experts have done all kinds of harm over the years. Right. It’s not like just because you’ve got a PhD after your name, you’re not completely full of it. Also.

00:10:34 – Jolenta Greenberg
Right.

00:10:34 – Eric Zimmer
It doesn’t mean that, but we do need to be sort of careful. So I really relate with what both of you guys said. So that was sort of how your orientation to the self help world changed. In what ways do you think that you might have changed for the better, besides the way you viewed the self help world? Like, are there any ways you look back and you’re like, you know what, year three, we did this book and I started doing this one thing, and boy, I still do that. And that’s been really helpful. Or if anything like that stands out. I mean, questions like that are really hard. It’s like asking like, well, what’s your favorite episode? Well, I did 300. I loved like 150 of them. So I may be asking you to go with too narrow of a comb here, but anything come to mind?

00:11:19 – Kristen Meinzer
Yeah. For me, there was a season that we lived by the best selling self help books by decade in American history. And I believe we started with the 1930s, thirties, forties, fifties, and so on. And we lived by Dale Carnegie’s original version of how to win friends and influence people. And one thing from that book jumped out at me, and I still continue to do it to this day. And it is to be the dog. When you see the dog, the dog is excited to see you. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t seen the dog in five minutes or 5 hours. It meets you at the door and says, Eric, it’s so good to see you. You are the best. I love you the most. You’re fantastic. And I’m so lucky that I get to have you in my life. And if we greet people with that spirit in mind of being the dog, not the first thing out of my mouth is a complaint. The first thing out of my mouth is something that shows love or gratitude. It makes me Happier. I found, and it makes my relationships better, because I do think that in the past, it would sometimes be easy for me to lead with a complaint or lead with a ho hum or, you know, barely notice, like, oh, hey, you know, a roommate or a partner or whatever is coming home after a long day. And it’s just Nicer for me, at least when I try to feel like that dog, when I try to be.

00:12:38 – Jolenta Greenberg
The dog, just be the dog.

00:12:41 – Eric Zimmer
Dogs are good.

00:12:42 – Jolenta Greenberg
Plus, I would love it if I had a Talking Dog. That was really like, hey, Eric, great to see you.

00:12:47 – Eric Zimmer
I would love that.

00:12:48 – Jolenta Greenberg
That’s straight where my mind went when you described that. Kristen. Sorry. I would say for me one thing that stuck with me almost reluctantly because I thought it was super hokey when I read it was, I think it was from the book why good things happen to good people, where the author recommend you play the glad game, where you just list things you’re glad for along with another person. And I was in a horrible mood, and I was like, I’ll do this with my husband while we walk the dog. And I was like, this is bullshit, whatever. And then by the end, I was, like, smiling and laughing and reluctantly having a good time. So that’s always stuck with me, that you can shift your focus and your mood a little bit with some effort.

00:13:29 – Eric Zimmer
Have your partners been largely excited to be involved in these adventures with you, or have they been like, oh, for crying out loud, not another one?

00:13:40 – Jolenta Greenberg
I’d say they, at least for mine, started excited, got a little rundown at certain points, especially books that have to do with relationships or how I’m interacting with my partner. Like, he got confused when we were living by why men love bitches. And I would, like, ask him for a favor and then remind him, like, I don’t need you, you know?

00:14:05 – Kristen Meinzer
Yeah, I’d say that for my husband, it’s pretty much the same. There have been times where he’s been really excited about it, and other times like, oh, God, are you recording this? Yes, I am recording it.

00:14:17 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah. You guys are always recording little audio diaries of things. I’m always impressed when people remember to actually do that. I guess that’s just part of your job, though. You kind of get used to it.

00:14:27 – Jolenta Greenberg
Get used to it. And our husbands are almost trained at this point where sometimes they’ll be like, you might want to get your phone out for this combo.

00:14:34 – Eric Zimmer
Is there a again, I’m asking you to pick one out of. I’m sure you could give me a very long list. But, like, the worst advice that you’ve come across, like, I mean, what? I mean, I’m sure you’ve read, oh, there’s so much of mountains of garbage. Mountains of it. But maybe we could phrase it as, like, what is something that most people might think is good advice that you guys have read and learned? Like, hang on a second. Like, everybody sort of accepts that at face value, but that’s really a dumb idea.

00:15:05 – Jolenta Greenberg
Yeah.

00:15:06 – Kristen Meinzer
Well, one thing that is the case for me at least, is everyone should meditate and the idea that if it works for me, it should work for everyone. So almost every self help author that we’ve read, whether they’re an expert with a PhD or whether they’re speaking experientially from their lives, one of the most popular phrases is, if it worked for me, it can work for you. And it’s like, first of all, that’s not true. And a lot of the people saying that are very pro meditation, and not everybody likes to meditate, and not everybody gets a sense of enlightenment out of laying still in one spot or sitting in one uncomfortable position for 30 minutes. Or in the case of one of our authors, I think it was 4 hours a day. Maybe he did it. And we don’t think that everybody should sit still and be quiet for 4 hours a day. We don’t think that works for everyone. I think we’re all wired differently. We all have different things that can help us feel happy and in the moment, but it doesn’t have to be meditation that does that for us. For some of us, it’s just going on a nice walk every day or spending a half hour in the kitchen making a beautiful dinner. There are a lot of different ways to feel in the moment, and it doesn’t have to be sitting still and being quiet. And as a woman of color, I particularly feel uncomfortable when so many of the authors are white men telling me a woman of color to sit down and shut up. It just does not feel good to me. And so, yeah, that’s one example from me. The list is much longer, but that’s just one.

00:16:37 – Jolenta Greenberg
Yeah, that’s a good one. Another thing we encountered, not a ton, but a surprising amount of times, is the idea that you can forego sleep for productivity’s sake, or you don’t need as much as you think. And for some people, it just doesn’t work. I always would get sick when we lived by books that, like, told you to limit sleep. Turns out I had an autoimmune disease and it was egging it on. And it is surprising that so many people are like, yeah, I’m no expert in this, but also deprioritize sleeping.

00:17:09 – Kristen Meinzer
Wake up 4 hours earlier each day and start the following twelve steps, which.

00:17:13 – Jolenta Greenberg
Or, like Randy Zuckerberg, her book pick three is just like, have a certain number of categories in your life, and only pick three to focus on each day. And one of them is sleep or, like, rest. And I’m like, you need that daily. So I don’t know how we’re like, not prioritizing it on some days.

00:17:31 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah, I have been guilty of the probably overly pushing meditation thing in my life. I think it was really helpful to me. But over time, I’ve certainly come to believe it’s not helpful for everybody. And I’ve even gone back and really questioned myself on it, like, okay, is this true? Is it just that you were influenced strongly by people who believe this is true? And it turns out by having times where I did and didn’t, it actually turns out, I think, to be a useful practice for me. But, yeah, I think you’re right. It’s certainly not for everybody. And it’s interesting because maybe you guys have noticed this trend. I think there was a period of time where sleep was sort of deprioritized, and then it has felt like the last couple years, the sleep police have come to town. Whereas, like, if you’re not given 8 hours of sleep, you will die in three days, which, I don’t know, that’s.

00:18:26 – Jolenta Greenberg
As good as smoking a pack a day or something.

00:18:29 – Eric Zimmer
And I’m always, you know, I get what you’re saying, but what about people who are, like, having trouble sleeping and now you’re making them so stressed about getting enough sleep, putting that pressure on you now? Yeah, I always think things like that are interesting. It’s the same thing as with loneliness. And you guys are tackling loneliness and friendship in your new series, and, you know, that’s the new one. Like, it’s the new terrible thing. And I’m like, I think that’s useful to know that being isolated is not great. And there are a lot of people who are isolated, and it’s not necessarily for want of trying. And I feel like we stress those people out. And so it’s always this strange thing, I think of, like, pointing out, like, whoever it is, here’s a healthy thing and here’s the data that supports it. It’s healthy, but how do we also not then turn it into something that you freak out about?

00:19:21 – Jolenta Greenberg
Right. And we encounter that, too with, like, books that talk about going into nature. Like, there are so many studies that say it’s good for you, but then they also go so far as to be like, yeah, like, kids don’t need ADHD meds. If you, like, make sure they hike enough where it’s like, that may not be the case, and, like, you no longer need. You’re not gonna be depressed anymore. It’s like someone with clinical depression could still be depressed after spending much time outside.

00:19:45 – Eric Zimmer
Like, 100%. I mean, I think all of these things are. This is a personal. It’s a wiring in me. But when anybody is too certain of anything, I want to rebel against it. I can even agree with you. But if you’re too certain, I’m going to feel inclined to argue with you, because life isn’t that simple.

00:20:06 – Kristen Meinzer
And that’s one reason why Jolenta and I try to be the guinea pigs for everybody out there to show. Like, Jolenta and I are just a sample size of two people. And just between the two of us, we don’t always agree on is a book or is advice helpful for us? You know, one book, even if it looks like Malarkey, might help one of us quite a bit and then not help the other. And you can actually hear the audio diaries of us fighting with our husbands over one thing, that the other person is getting closer with their husband over or with our current season. You mentioned our current season of how to be fine, which is about loneliness. We have guests on, and every other episode we have the guest on. And then the next episode, Jolenta and I do the same thing as by the book. We try that advice on for size. We record ourselves trying to make friends. We record ourselves trying to grapple with solitude and loneliness and all of these things. And in some cases, a piece of advice might work really well for Jolenta, but not for me and vice versa. And we think it’s important for listeners to hear, like, there’s no such thing as one size fits all advice. Just because it works for this one person doesn’t mean it’s gonna work for everybody.

00:21:12 – Eric Zimmer
That is such an important idea. Yeah, I think there are some things, principles that are useful that we can look at and go in general, these things are, you know, like nature. It seems to be probably a good idea that if you can, to get a little bit of time in nature. But my partner and I are very different on this. Like, I get a lot out of it. And she’s like, I don’t know. I mean, I guess fine, I went, but, like. Right. It’s just, you know, I love the way you guys sort of. You can see that just in a sample size of two.

00:21:41 – Jolenta Greenberg
Right.

00:21:42 – Eric Zimmer
And two people that are different, but also a lot of similarities, too. Right. So even within, like, two women who live in New York who are in a similar age range, even in that, there’s these big differences. So what about the difference between somebody who’s 30 and lives in a small town in Iowa and somebody who’s 70 who lives in Seattle, Washington, like, very different, right?

00:22:06 – Kristen Meinzer
Exactly. Yes.

00:22:32 – Eric Zimmer
So let’s turn our attention to the latest work that you guys are doing around friendship. But before we get into the tips that you have gotten around different areas, I’d first like to just explore your friendship with each other.

00:22:47 – Jolenta Greenberg
All right.

00:22:48 – Eric Zimmer
Were you guys friends before you guys started by the book?

00:22:53 – Jolenta Greenberg
Yeah.

00:22:54 – Eric Zimmer
Tell me kind of how you guys got into doing this.

00:22:57 – Jolenta Greenberg
We were work friends. We were both working for a news radio show. Kristen was a producer, and I was, like, the administrative assistant, catch all person on the show, and Kristen was the person that reported on most of the sort of pop culture, books, movies, things I was interested in, because I have a background in theater. I’m a comedian. And so, you know, Kristen’s the only person who’d seen, like, the latest blockbuster that had came out or, like, she knew who the Real housewives were, so I could talk to her about them. And we just sort of slowly bonded at work. And actually, at that job, one of my duties was to get all the mail for the news show, and I’m sure you probably get a lot of press mail at this point. We used to get sent lots of books to cover, and for the most part, a hard news show is not going to cover, like, the latest self help book. So I would hoard all of those self help books and be like, someday I’m going to get my shit together and change my life. Because I was also working, like, three other part time jobs at that point. I was a struggling actor. I had no idea what I was doing with my life. And Kristen was always a friend I had who, like, had her shit together. You know, she has a retirement plan. She, like, owns property, she knows lawyers. And because I’m an exhibitionist and, you know, performer by trade, I was like, what if I recorded myself trying to change my life, living by these books? And then I brought it up with Kristen, because I’m like, you could be someone fun to do this with. Also, you’re the opposite of me. You’re gonna be like, this advice is B’s where I’m like, I don’t know, maybe it’ll change my whole life. So that’s how this all sort of came about.

00:24:39 – Eric Zimmer
So I assume. I mean, it sounds like you guys get along well, so it sounds like you have a good chemistry on air, I assume that is sort of off air. Have there been challenges? Working together is a challenge in its own, and then friendship can be a challenge in its own. Have there been periods that were difficult where you felt like the friendship was challenged by work or work adversity or things like that.

00:25:07 – Kristen Meinzer
Yeah, we have an episode of how to be fine where we actually talk about the challenge of the work wife relationship. And we have two work wives on who we adore, Liz Kraft and Sarah Fane. They host a show called Happier in Hollywood. They’ve been best friends since high school, but they also work together. They are screenwriters, they’re co authors of novels. They co host this podcast together. And we talked with them about, you know, sometimes things can be stressful, sometimes when work is tough. How does that come out between you and your work wife and so on? And how do you talk about things? And Jalanta and I have definitely had times where we’re working on a project that’s different or new to us, and it means that we have to rejigger how we schedule things, how we talk to each other. If we’re getting frustrated with something, what is the best way to express that frustration? And, you know, I can say for myself, I’ve definitely had to learn to put the brakes on sometimes where I’m, like, sending late night emails at two in the morning about something that’s making me tense. And I think, oh, I can vent to Jolenta. And Jolenta’s receiving those emails, and she’s like, oh, my God, is everything burning down? Is it okay?

00:26:14 – Jolenta Greenberg
What do I need to do to fix this?

00:26:15 – Kristen Meinzer
And I just feel like, oh, thank goodness. I can just go to Jolenta for comfort and just dump all of this on her. And Jolenta’s not accepting my dumping on her as comfort. She’s feeling like she just got drowned in an avalanche. And, holy crap, what are we supposed to do now? Oh, my God. Is Kristen having a nervous breakdown? And so that’s just one example of, you know, what we’ve had to learn at different points to communicate about things in a different way or approach different projects in different ways and so on. Because at the end of the day, no matter what Jalanta and I make together, it’s going to be fine. But I don’t want it to result in Jalanta and I resenting each other over it. I don’t want it to result in. The shows we make together should be collaborative and cooperative, just as our friendship is.

00:27:02 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense as listeners know. Chris is the editor of this show, so we’ve been working together for, you know, a decade, and our roles are very clear. Like, I mean, I do this part, he does that part where you guys are kind of, you know, far more like, both sitting in the same seat to some extent.

00:27:21 – Jolenta Greenberg
Yeah, we are.

00:27:23 – Eric Zimmer
So let’s explore some of what you’re learning about friendships. Why did you guys choose to dedicate? I don’t know what to call it. It’s more than a season, but probably not the rest of your life, of dealing with topics of friendship and connection and loneliness. What was the impetus that sort of made you guys decide, we really want to focus on this for a while?

00:27:52 – Kristen Meinzer
Well, our listeners really came to us with this topic because Jalanta and I, we lived by self help books for ten seasons. We still do, by the way, on our Patreon feed. But in our regular feed, we were living by self help books for ten seasons. And then new topics were coming out faster than books were through social media, through TikTok, and so on. And so we’re like, we’re going to be behind the times if we only live by self help books forever. We want to talk about the topics while they’re hot. So we started shifting to, what are our listeners bringing to us? And over the past year, it would range from, what is Ilaria Baldwin’s story? She is a yoga wellness mommy influencer. What’s the deal? Why are people mad about that? From that all the way to simpler things like ice baths. And we would explore these topics. Cause our listeners would ask us to. And one topic that they kept on asking us again and again and again to discuss was the surgeon general’s loneliness epidemic and their own challenges making friends as adults and feeling lonely, especially since COVID loneliness went through the roof and dealing with socializing with people in the current social media age. And question after question after question about friendships. And we just collected so many questions that eventually, Jolent and I are like, we just need to do a whole season about friendship. And we have hundreds of questions piled up from listeners about this topic in particular. That means a lot to them, and there are so many directions to go with it. So we’re just trying to honor what our listeners want, and we are trying to, once again, as I said, be the guinea pigs we talk to people, get their expertise, their advice, their experiences, and then Jolental and I try their advice on for size so people can hear us out in the world, trying to make friends and in some cases, not doing very good at it. In some cases, doing great.

00:29:50 – Jolenta Greenberg
And I’d also have to add, like, our own lives played a major part in this, too, where we both are at a point where we feel like we are losing friends left and right as people move out of the city. Or have babies and have to reprioritize or get new super demanding jobs. And we just feel like we’re at sort of a time in our lives where friends are sort of falling away. So it’s like, how do I either work on upkeeping these relationships better or, like, get some more people in my life? I guess we were going through the same thing as our listeners.

00:30:19 – Eric Zimmer
Yes, you’ve talked about a variety of different things, geographic friendships, you know, how to maintain friendships over a distance. You’ve explored what does it even mean to have a social network? What is a social network? How do you grow it? You’ve talked about best friend breakups. You’ve talked about tips in general for loneliness. So we’re not going to walk through every one of those individually and get the tips from each of them. But let’s start by thinking around in general. I’m not connected enough. I’ve noticed that either a friends have moved away and I don’t have as many or I noticed in my own life, and it’s been a few years now, but when I had two boys that were growing up in high school, that took a lot of attention, and I also had a full time job, and I was doing the podcast. So basically I just was kind of heads down for a long time. And then I was fortunate enough to sort of do the podcast full time. So the full time job went away, the other full time job went away.

00:31:22 – Jolenta Greenberg
Right.

00:31:23 – Eric Zimmer
And the kids went off to school, and all of a sudden I was like, oh, well, then now there’s space. And you know what? There’s not a whole lot to do with it around here as far as, like, lots of other people. And so I think there’s a variety of different reasons why we find ourselves in a spot where we’re suddenly like, I don’t have as much connection as I want. I mean, Kristen, you’ve talked a lot about how so many of your friends have left the city and how hard that’s been for you. So by whatever means we find ourselves there, what do we do when we go, hey, I don’t think there’s enough connection in my life, actually. I’m even going to back that question up for a second, and I’m going to ask, how do you know? And you guys address this a little bit, because, as we said, the surgeon general is saying there’s a loneliness epidemic. And we have this tendency, at least many of us do, to always think if it’s good, there should be more of it. I need more, more, more. So how do I know even, do I need more connection? Do I need more friendships? Do I have enough? Like, how do we even start to think about that question?

00:32:25 – Kristen Meinzer
Yeah, well, one of our experts, Doctor Nobel, actually said to maybe sit with yourself and consider, what are you actually going through? Is it some sort of existential loneliness? Is it a loneliness that is predicated on the fact that society is leaving you out in some way due to a minoritized status like disability or race? Or is it that you’re lacking real connection with people? So he urged us to sit down and really look at if we are feeling lonely, what is this loneliness about? And then once we know what kind of loneliness we’re experiencing, it makes it easier to actually address that kind of loneliness. So if it is a sense of being left out of society because of a minoritized status, one way we can work beyond that is to connect with other people who are of the same status as us. People who understand our story, people who live through what we do every day. People who maybe can help us feel less alone and feel a greater sense of hope in life. So it’s not just, I’m alone here, it’s miserable, I have no choices, I’m trapped in this situation. But to connect with other people who can help lift us up and understand us. So that’s an example of that. But let’s say we’re feeling a lack of genuine connection. There are small ways we can go out into the world every day and get more of that connection. One way I loved jolinta has a dog. I love her dog frank. I’m definitely allergic to it. But one thing that Doctor Nobel suggested, be active. Go out into the world and walk your dog. Just walk around the block and smile at people and maybe have tiny little micro conversations. Get to know your neighbors. Maybe the first time you are walking around the block with your dog, you might just nod at a neighbor with a similar breed dog. Maybe the next time you’ll actually say hello to that person. Maybe the time after that, eventually you’ll get to know each other’s dogs and you’ll be like, oh, that’s Fido’s mom. And then you and Fido’s mom might eventually have more connection. But just tiny little things we do every day to interact more with our world can make a big difference. But also relying on the tools that are already there. Most of us know somebody, for example, who is social connector themselves. You know that one person in your life who seems to have a million friends for a lot of us those are the inroads to making more friends is just connecting more with that one person, you know, who’s social hub, you know, that person. Or joining a club or starting a club for something that you’re really interested in. Like Eric, I know you’re a big music buff. Like, if you posted something saying, I want to start a club, will you join me? And the more specific the club, the better. What we’ll do is get together once a week and each of us will bring one record from the late eighties in the alternative or punk rock genre, and we’ll each play records together and talk. And that way it’s not being general like it’s a music club, it’s being as specific as you can be. Like, week one will start with bad brains. Week two, it’ll be bad religion. Week three, you know, whatever you want it to be. But be as specific as you can be. The more specific, the more likely people are to be invested in to show up. So those are just a few examples of tips we’ve gotten.

00:35:42 – Eric Zimmer
That was a deep cut on the eighties punk rock band bad. Wow, look at that.

00:35:47 – Kristen Meinzer
I’ve listened enough to your show. I know what you’re into. And I used to love that music too. So, yeah, in another life, I like.

00:35:56 – Eric Zimmer
To explore this idea a little bit more. The difference between, I think I get what you’re saying by the sort of left out of society feeling. The age group that came to mind for me were older people. Right. I think as you get older, it seems like you can become less and less relevant. Right. So there’s. That’s sort of jumped to mind. I know. Depending on whatever our sort sort of. For you, Jolenta, it might be people who are dealing with autoimmune issues or forced to still wear a mask. Right. Because of autoimmune issues and feeling ostracized because of that. The other was existential loneliness, which is a term that just sounds wonderful to me. What was that? What is a way of knowing whether what I’m feeling is existential loneliness versus I don’t have enough friends?

00:36:44 – Jolenta Greenberg
That’s a tough one. Cause that’s sort of like, yeah, it’s like the human condition versus like, I need more companionship for that issue. Multiple experts have recommended cognitive behavioral therapy. And just talk therapy in general can help you figure out, like, am I lonely or am I dealing with like, an internal loneliness that isn’t being changed by external factors? When I try to make changes, and I think that’s another, like, good litmus test is if I’m trying to put myself out there, if I know, like, I am making new connections, but I’m still feeling that, like, deep angst and loneliness, then that could be a good.

00:37:28 – Eric Zimmer
Indicator at that point, you form a club for existential lonely people and you see what happens.

00:37:35 – Jolenta Greenberg
Who like eighties records, right?

00:37:37 – Eric Zimmer
Who like eighties? Yes. You have to be specific about your.

00:37:40 – Jolenta Greenberg
The kind of existential.

00:37:42 – Eric Zimmer
Exactly like, you feel like you have been turned into a roach, like in Kafka, versus, say, what Camus was going.

00:37:50 – Jolenta Greenberg
Through as an example, versus, like, standing.

00:37:52 – Eric Zimmer
At the edge of an abyssal weirdos. Yes. Okay. So I now I think about a sense of which of these things I might want to do. I think building friendships as adults is really challenging. I found it challenging, and I feel like I’m reasonably adept at that sort of thing. And I think part of what I have found challenging is that it often is a slow or slower process. Right. Like, I want to go to the existential meeting and walk away with a best friend.

00:38:25 – Jolenta Greenberg
Right.

00:38:25 – Eric Zimmer
And oftentimes that doesn’t seem to be how it works. What have you learned about what are reasonable expectations?

00:38:33 – Kristen Meinzer
One expert we recently talked with at the time this episode comes up with you. I don’t know if this episode will be out in our feed yet, but we talked with an expert named Kat Velos, who said that sometimes as we get older, the reason it can feel like it takes longer to gel with people is because as adults, so many of us have gotten lackadaisical because we’re not forced to see you every day at school or in the dorms, or.

00:38:57 – Jolenta Greenberg
We don’t have that, like, proximity and sort of like, repetition of just seeing each other all the time.

00:39:03 – Kristen Meinzer
Yes. And so as a result, we’ll fall into the pattern of just saying, oh, it was great to meet you. I hope we can see each other again sometime without creating a specific way to see them. In the past, we could do that because we would see them the next day in the food hall at the dorm. Right. But we can’t rely on that as adults. Like, okay, I hope I see you again sometime. We need to make plans, and the sooner we make the plans and the more specific the plans are, the more likely we are to have those magic moments where we just gel with somebody quickly. Maybe we’ll meet somebody and say, hey, this has been so fun. I would love to grab coffee with you this week or go on a walk with you this week or do this activity with you this week. I’m free in the afternoons except for Thursday do you have an hour or so to spare? And if you get specific and do that repeatedly with people, that magic thing that seemed to come out of nowhere when we were younger, we can do that as adults. We just have to set it up that way because the world isn’t setting it up for us in the same way that it used to.

00:40:23 – Eric Zimmer
I’ve done a fair amount of research looking at this, and there does seem to be a certain amount of time of spending with people that is indicative of a chance of becoming friendship. It’s why we build friendships with people at work more often, just because there’s the actual amount of time that you’re talking about. I think one of the other things that’s challenging, and I’m curious if you guys have seen this, is that sometimes you will meet another person that you would like to be friends with who is an adult, who is like, let’s just say they were me five, six years ago. Like, I really like you. I enjoyed hanging out with you. But if you ask me to do something with you, I’m probably just gonna be like, I don’t know, I can’t. It’s gonna seem like rejection to me. Cause I have more friend space to fill up. And so I’m trying to put people in, and I’m trying to grab a friend to put in there whose life is already full. Right. With the things that they have. Do you guys encounter that? Have you gotten any tips for how to sort of work with that, how to not take that personally?

00:41:24 – Jolenta Greenberg
Kristen, you’re shaking your head yes. I don’t remember what our tips are.

00:41:29 – Kristen Meinzer
Well, something that our experts have said that we’ve had on the show is that that’s okay. It’s part of life. You’re not, Eric, necessarily gonna want to hang out with everybody who wants to hang out with you, and vice versa. And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean that you are unlovable or that they’re unlovable, but sometimes we’re just going to not necessarily want that. And that is a good thing when people are forthright about it. So if someone says, I don’t really think so, Eric, what’s great about that is you’re not wasting your time with somebody who doesn’t want you. Why would any of us want to spend time with people who don’t want to be with us? That’s a waste of their time. That’s a waste of your time. And in a way, it’s a gift. When somebody makes it clear, like, mm, no, because you’re not wasting your time then, in a one sided courtship trying to make this friendship happen. So in a way, it’s something to be grateful for, because there are a million other people, or on this planet, 1.5 billion other people you can be friends with. With, and why waste your time on that? One person who doesn’t want to go to the other 1.5 billion, they’re out there. And there are so many people who want to be friends, people who you could potentially click with that you could laugh with, that you could connect with over music or anything else. Don’t bother with the one who doesn’t want to be with you.

00:42:43 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah. I think what I found is it’s not that we don’t click or want to be together. It’s that our ability to spend time together is very different. Like, they have a very busy life, and so it’s like, well, you know, yeah, once in a. A while, they could get together, whereas I’m looking for friendships, you know, and I find those harder to sort out. The people that there’s just, like, we don’t connect, or I try and connect and I don’t receive it back is one thing. It’s. I found it. It’s harder with the people that you actually do kind of click with. And yet the contours of their life are very different than the contours of your life, and it ends up sort of being this weird sort of dance of who’s more busy or less busy or that kind of thing.

00:43:24 – Jolenta Greenberg
Yeah. And I think a good thing to remember in situations like that is, like, you don’t need to write the person off entirely. Like, it is just like a timing issue. In time, perhaps things will be better. And it’s sort of, you know, relationships ebb and flow depending on, like, the phases of life that we’re in. That’s one thing we’re definitely learning. And you probably aren’t gonna be as tight with your friend who just had a baby, but, like, in five years, you could be just as tight again once that kid’s in kindergarten. So being able to sort of wait and, like, let things shift is hard, but it’s something that can pay off.

00:44:01 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah. I think that’s such an other interesting challenge of adults that we don’t have necessarily as children or college age. Like, when you’re in college, your lives basically look the same, more or less.

00:44:13 – Jolenta Greenberg
Yeah. You’re all juggling, like, a college workload, maybe a job, and then hanging out.

00:44:18 – Eric Zimmer
When you get to be an adult, our lives can look very, very different. Right. You know, you could have a very demanding job and be a single mother. Your ability to take on friendship is very different than, say, you know, somebody who has no kids and has a pretty easy job.

00:44:33 – Jolenta Greenberg
Right?

00:44:34 – Eric Zimmer
So let’s talk about geographic friendship tips. You know, Kristen, you’ve talked a lot about how many of your friends have left Brooklyn or New York. And so what did you learn and what’s working for you in keeping these friendships alive where people are sort. Sort of geographically dispersed?

00:44:53 – Jolenta Greenberg
One thing that has worked great that, you know, it’s sort of like, duh, when you hear it, but it’s harder to, like, remember to do is try to recreate things that you would do if you were together. Like, Kristen did this, where she, like, had a movie night with a friend who lives far away, but they, you know, sync up the movie, watch it at the same time, and can talk to each other. And I know people that, like, go shopping on the phone with their mom when their mom lives across the country. You know, you can find ways with technology to include people that are far away. It’s not always the same level of interaction and excitement, but, like, it keeps that tie connected.

00:45:37 – Kristen Meinzer
Yeah, yeah. And Jolenta just gave some great examples. There I go on a weekly walking date with one of my friends who no longer lives here. The movie date thing that I do with my one friend, it’s now turned into something we do every three weeks together. It was initially like, oh, let’s try to do this thing that we tried to do once at the beginning of COVID but now we do it every three weeks. And it’s always a bad eighties movie, or it stars somebody who was a big star back in the eighties and is now, like, 70 years old, and it’s just a little club of two people, and we love it. And something else that some of our experts have suggested is to just make sure you’re using technology to keep the conversation going. Instead of every once in a blue moon texting, like, how are you? You know, send them a meme of something that reminds you of the last time you talked with each other. Like, oh, this is just like that thing with your boss. You know, keep the conversation going so it doesn’t feel like every time, it’s a fresh start, even if it’s two months passing since you last texted each other. Send something that keeps that conversation going.

00:46:38 – Eric Zimmer
You guys know about my friend Chris, but I’ve also got a friend, Jolenta, who lives in San Francisco, and Steve, who lives in Los Angeles. And we were all friends when we were young, and we have had a text thread going between the four of us for, I mean, probably at least a decade now. And rarely does a day go by where somebody’s not putting something in there and no one of those things is particularly important. But it’s an accumulation over time that just keeps, like, some level of currency between the four of us that I have just found to be really effective. And I’ve heard this from lots of other people that something like that with their family, like, four people in their family or, I mean, I think those sort of things. The other thing that I’ve been doing, I try and remember to do more often is occasionally I’ll sit down with my phone and I’ll just start scrolling back through all my texts because it’s amazing what gets buried, right? And I’m like, oh, wait a minute. We started a conversation with so and so three weeks ago and I’ve completely forgotten about it because there are currently 875 fundraising requests from whatever your political party happens to be at the top of my text queue at the current moment. But down underneath all that are some friendships that I’m trying to continue to sort of keep alive that way.

00:47:57 – Jolenta Greenberg
Yeah, I think that’s a really good thing to do. I literally have a list in a notebook in my day planner of people I should be keeping in touch with. Because it’s easy to forget how many people you have in your life, too.

00:48:11 – Eric Zimmer
Yeah. Yeah. After listening to your geographic friendship episode, I think the main thing that I would like to ask is, Jolenta, will you crochet me a teddy bear? That’s kind of what I want to know.

00:48:23 – Jolenta Greenberg
Oh, for sure.

00:48:25 – Eric Zimmer
I was amazed. You were like, oh, I thought of my friend and I thought I would send her new booties for her baby, which you then whipped up in, like, an hour. And then the next thing I know, you’re working on a teddy bear that it’s. By the time the episode hits, you.

00:48:38 – Jolenta Greenberg
Know, it’s only like a few inches. It’s like five inches high.

00:48:41 – Eric Zimmer
But did you stuff it or is it just the sort of a limp teddy bear?

00:48:44 – Jolenta Greenberg
Stuffed it? Yeah.

00:48:46 – Eric Zimmer
Okay.

00:48:46 – Jolenta Greenberg
So it’s proper teddy bears. Just, you know, that’s kind of a.

00:48:49 – Eric Zimmer
Cool skill to have to be able to just make things for your friends like that. Like, if I made something for my friends, they would be like, why did you send me a teddy bear that looks like it was genetically crossed with a turkey? You know, or something? I’m not going to give that to my child. That would be terrifying and confuse them about the nature of animals for the next 30 years, they’ll be confused. So all of your episodes are sort of two parters, right? You interview the expert, and then you have your own conversation. And one was about best friend breakups, and I thought this was a good one to do because friendships do end, and they can be really painful when they happen.

00:49:30 – Jolenta Greenberg
Yeah.

00:49:31 – Eric Zimmer
What did you sort of learn from sort of going into that experience about the nature of friendships ending, and how do we work through that? 

00:49:41 – Jolenta Greenberg
Well, I think it’s super interesting because we don’t really treat them this way, but they act this way where, you know, friendships are our relationships almost like romantic ones. And one thing we’ve just sort of realized is, like, there is some stigma around friend breakups. You know, you feel like a failure. You don’t necessarily want to talk about, like, how someone rejected you or is just, like, out in the world not liking you anymore and just remembering that everyone goes through this, even though it feels like you’re totally alone and, like, no one talks about. This is something that I’ve really taken away from our conversations about friendship breakups, where usually they’re always done, like, in silence or not in silence. Usually they’re always sort of done in solitude. And you’re not getting calls from your friends about their girlfriend breaking their heart as much. I’m not gonna say girlfriend. That sounds confusing.

00:50:36 – Eric Zimmer
Girlfriend, boyfriend, partner.

00:50:38 – Jolenta Greenberg
I would say you’re not getting calls from friends saying as much as being like, my friend, I think, ended it. But you will hear a call being like, my romantic partner ended it. And just giving yourself time to be upset and grieve is okay, and it’s normal, and you’re not alone in going through that. It’s just something good to remember about friendship breakups is they happen a lot, and they’re super impactful. You know, a lot of times, if you’re not in a romantic relationship, your best friend, at least in my experience, is your plus one, is your in case of emergency contact. Like, they act as a romantic partner, and then they get sort of, like, replaced sometimes with a real romantic partner. And, you know, it’s difficult terrain that we don’t always talk about.

00:51:27 – Kristen Meinzer
Yeah. Yeah. Chelsea Devantes, who was the guest we had on to talk about that, she did some research on it and found that over 80% of people have gone through a best friend breakup. That’s not even friend breakups more broadly, but a best friend breakup. Over 80% of us have gone through that, and on top of that, a lot of us have friends that we’ve just drifted from or that we felt ghosted by, and we don’t necessarily know why things ended. Or maybe we drifted apart. And we do kind of know why things ended, but it still is painful for us, and we shouldn’t have to suffer alone. Just to echo what Jolental said there, it’s like we’re not alone in this. Most of us have gone through this. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It’s part of life, and it’s something that gets stigmatized a lot. What happened to BFF? What happened to the second f? I thought best friends were forever, and now you’re not able to even sustain a friendship. What’s wrong with you? And it’s like, nothing’s wrong with you. Sometimes friendships end, and sometimes they were not healthy to begin with. Maybe the roles we played within those friendships weren’t necessarily the best roles for us to play long term. Maybe they were a good role for us at that moment when we first met. But, you know, maybe that role is something that we grew out of, and let’s make room for other friendships that are meeting us where we’re at now. And one other thing about the best friend breakup episode that other guests have elaborated on is that we sometimes tend to really worship and valorize the lifelong friend, the best friend, the friend we’ve had since childhood. And we shouldn’t necessarily do that because the new friends in our life are loving us for who we are now, not for the history, not because we’ve done certain things together, but they’re loving us because they’re meeting us as the fully formed human we are at this moment. And maybe we should be celebrating that a little bit more rather than constantly going back to, what about your best friend? What about the BFF? That new friend could be just as beautiful and important and life changing in a different way. And let’s celebrate that, too.

00:53:32 – Eric Zimmer
That’s a really interesting perspective that I had not thought of, which is, you know, have friends from way back. But I find this, a lot of times my friendships from way back are, we are friends because of that, not because of who we are today, to your point. Like, if we were to meet today, I’m not certain that we would be friends. Right? Like, I’m not really sure I’d be like, ah, you know, no, but we’ve got a history that is valuable and means something and is good. But you’re right. Like, the friends we make today or the people we connect with today are a better reflection in many ways of who we are today versus who we were when we were 18, which hopefully we’re very different than then

00:54:11 – Jolenta Greenberg
One would like to think.

00:54:15 – Eric Zimmer
So any last sort of thoughts on friendship or connection that we haven’t hit? Any last thing we’d like to leave walking away, whether that be a tip or an experience that you’ve had as you’ve gone through this experiment over the last period time.

00:54:33 – Jolenta Greenberg
I think one thing that we heard from a lot of experts that was reassuring was the fact that, like, I know a lot of us are, like, afraid to reach out or make that first step of, like, hey, we should reconnect or hang out again, or, like, sorry, I dropped the ball, but most people, like, want to hear from you, you know, if they’re friends in your life. And that’s something I think we forget or we’re too ashamed because we dropped the ball. So, like, we don’t want to, like, pop back up on their phone when it’s like, most people who are in your life do value you and do want to hear from you. You. So you’re not, like, putting them out when you reach out.

00:55:07 – Eric Zimmer
Wonderful. Well, I think that is a great place to wrap up, and that’s a great last tip, which is, you know, reach out even when in doubt. So thank you both so much. I’ve enjoyed listening to the show. There’s a part of me I’m like, I want to go back and listen to every episode of by the book now because there’s so many great books that you guys tried to live by. So all that stuff is in your feed as well as, as the new episodes around friendship, which are also really excellent. We’ll have links in the show notes for how to do that. And do you want to tell people where they can find you?

00:55:39 – Kristen Meinzer
The name of our show is how to be fine. This season. It’s how to be fine with friends. We’re available wherever you get your favorite podcasts. And in that feed, in our main feed, you’ll hear all ten original seasons of by the book as well. If you want new episodes of by the book, those are on our Patreon, which is patreon.com dot included. There is the artist’s way, which all twelve weeks Jolental and I lived by. If you want to hear us doing that, and you can also always find us on social media. We’re on Instagram. How to be fine pod.

00:56:13 – Eric Zimmer
Wonderful. Well, thank you both so much for coming on. I’ve really enjoyed this.

00:56:16 – Jolenta Greenberg
Thank you. This was a delight.

00:56:18 – Kristen Meinzer
Thank you so much Eric. This has been great.