In our first full podcast, we dive into the science of friendships. Psychologist Robin Dunbar's 2022 book brought to light the Dunbar number - 150, which represents the maximum number of meaningful relationships a person can effectively manage. This concept really resonated with us and formed the core of our conversation.
We break down the layers of the Dunbar number. The closest circle, 1.5 people, includes an individual and their significant other. Then there's a circle of five close friends, who are those you can always count on for emotional support. The next layer comprises 15 good friends, with whom one might socialize regularly or plan vacations. A broader circle of 50 friends includes acquaintances like party guests or wedding attendees. Finally, the widest circle encompasses 150 people, those whom one would invite for significant life events.
Reflecting on our own friendship, we discussed how we've managed to stay connected despite periods of minimal contact. It's fascinating how shared experiences, values, and similar life stages play such a crucial role in sustaining friendships. We also touched upon the challenges adults face in making and maintaining friendships, especially when dealing with geographical distances or significant life changes like marriage or career shifts.
We also spend on the impact of social media on friendships. How do online interactions fit into Dunbar’s model, considering the often superficial nature of these relationships? We highlight the importance of genuine connection and active engagement beyond just digital interactions.
We also discuss "friendship pruning," where individuals might end or drift away from certain friendships that no longer contribute positively to their lives. Ending friendships can be difficult. We should normalize open conversations about the health of friendships.
Towards the end of our episode, we extended a challenge to you, our listeners. Reach out to someone in your life in a meaningful way, beyond just a quick text or a social media interaction. This challenge underlines the importance of genuine connections and active participation in maintaining friendships.
More:
The Atlantic article on Robin Dunbar's Science of Friendhip (note paywall): https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/05/robin-dunbar-explains-circles-friendship-dunbars-number/618931/
Robin Dunbar's Book on friendship: https://www.amazon.com/Friends-Robin-Dunbar/dp/1408711737
Announcer: Welcome to the Matcha Guardians podcast brought to you by Matcha.com. Here we focus on the biggest trending health topics of our time, featuring the greatest and upcoming wellness advocates. Now, here are the Matcha Guardians, certified nutritionist Diana Weil, and medical journalist Elara Hadjipateras.
Diana Weil: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Matcha Guardians. I am Diana Weil, certified nutritionist.
Elara Hadjipateras: I am medical journalist and bestie friend of Diana Weil, Elara Hadjipateras. Today we thought what better topic to discuss than the science of friendships?
Diana: Elara sent me this very interesting article a couple weeks ago in The Atlantic about friendships, and that there's actually a science of friendships. I was actually hoping, Elara, that you could explain what the science of friendships are, what the Dunbar Number means, give us that scientific background.
Elara: For sure. There is this famous psychologist, as Diana mentioned, named Robin Dunbar. He just came out with a book that was released in 2022, right after the crazy COVID pandemic shutdown that we all experienced, thinking about our relationships and friendships more than ever. One of the things he determined in his research is that, as humans, we have a limited capacity of how many friends we can have.
The magic number, Dunbar's number, that he came up with is 150. Then within his book, which I had a chance to listen on Audible, I'm a big fan of listening to books these days, he comes up with: within that 150 group of people, there's all these layers, these circles, we can call them intimacy circles, that we have. There's yourself and say your significant other. That's defined as 1.5 people. Half of you is your own ego and then you have your partner. Then the next layer is five people. These are your super close friends. These are going to be your friends you call that are your shoulder to cry on. These are probably the people that you speak to day to day. They probably know what you have for breakfast this morning.
Then, after that, is a layer of 15 people. These are the people that you're going to go out with on a Saturday, maybe go on vacation with, plan vacations with them, when you go to have a good time, anything like that. That's the 15 good friends ring. Then there's this ring of 50 people, which I like to think of it as like your barbecue people, or people that you'd invite to a party, or whose party you'd go to, or you'd probably attend their wedding, something like that. Within that group, it changes depending on maybe how close you live to that person. You're probably checking in with them at least every few months.
Then the big ring is 150 people. And I like to consider that the wedding group, or the funeral group. These are the people that are probably only going to be involved in your life when you have these giant life events, like a big wedding party, I don't know. If you're going to have a big baby shower, something like that. It's interesting, right, but obviously, it's not a firm structure. That's one of the things that Dunbar describes in his book. It's not like this is a scientific formula of how many friends you should have, but inevitably, I'm reading this thing, and I send the article over to Diana, and I'm like, what do you think of this? How does this fit into your life and your current relationships?
Diana: Yes, it's so fascinating, especially because both Elara and I are in our early 30s, and I think that one thing, as you age, is that friendships change. When I got married, my husband, or when we were dating, my husband was the person that I spent the most time with, and I evolved as a person. My likes and interests changed, maybe I stopped drinking as much, stopped going to the bars as much. I got up a little bit earlier, and it naturally started to change the people that I wanted to be with. I noticed that circle, without even realizing that this was something that someone was studying, I felt that in my own life.
To be honest, it's been difficult to say maybe these relationships and these friendships that I had when I was 20 don't fit in my life anymore. How does that outer circle look like to me? With the time that I have, who am I going to invest it in? One thing that I think would be really fun for us to talk about, Elara, is just our relationship and our friendship and how it's evolved. Because we've known each other through a lot of stages of life, but our relationship is also totally different. There were a lot of years where we stopped talking, not because anything happened, just because we were in different parts of the world and doing different things. Would you want to start us off by sharing our relationship?
Elara: Yes, yes. I'll start it off. Diana and I have known each other since we were like 12 years old. Does that sound right?
Diana: Yes, that's what I was going to say. 12.
Elara: Yes, 12. Just that peak age of awkwardness. I think I, maybe, was still wearing transition lenses. It was a weird time. We met through our dads. Our dads are good friends. They've done quite a bit of work together. We became close because we would do these family vacations together. That was how it started. What was our first trip? Was it Cortez or was it Spain?
Diana: We used to go up to this island in Canada where it was just a bunch of naked hippies running around and Elara and I were 12 and uncomfortable and awkward. I don't know, it was one of we would just, yes, we would just go traveling together. I remember I was sort of shy and Elara was like, I always feel like you've known who you are as a person and you've stood really strong in that. That was something that little lost 12-year-old Diana just really admired. I would look up to her and be like, she's not afraid to tell her dad no and not afraid to get in trouble, and I loved that about you.
I also feel like growing up and being on these trips, especially in some maybe places that we felt a little bit more uncomfortable, it was so nice to have you to break out of my shell a little bit.
Elara: Yes, I think I may have led the charge in terms of our troublemaking at an early age. Then what was cool is that I went to Phillips Exeter, which is a boarding school. I was actually a day student at that boarding school. My family lived up in the New Hampshire area, so we were about 20 minutes away from the school. Diana, who was originally living in Salt Lake City at the time, she also attended a boarding school nearby, Concord Academy, where she boarded, but then it was fun because she would use our home as a home base.
I'd say probably at least once a month, Diana would come to our house for a long weekend and we'd catch up that way. We also grew up at a time where we weren't constantly connected on social media. We weren't texting. I think we both had phones, but we were not texting each other when we were not together. It was the type of thing where we wouldn't spend every waking moment together, we wouldn't be instant messaging each other. Then whenever we'd see each other on those weekends every month or two, we would just kick off where we left off.
Diana: Yes, exactly. I think Facebook had maybe just come out and every-- It was still a cool thing but we had the old phones where every time you wanted to switch the key, you had to press it like three times. Text messages took a really long time, but then you guys were my family. I would come and hang out with you on the weekends when I was really homesick. Then things started to shift for us a little bit because I left. I left boarding school. I was too homesick. I like I got to go back to Salt Lake City. Then I think we just-- it wasn't even like anything happened, we just drifted.
Again, it was like we weren't texting all the time. It wasn't social media. I think, we were on opposite sides of the country and every now and then, we would check in with each other, but it was just sort of like, how do you maintain a friendship across that many miles? It was really difficult.
Elara: Across the country. I think at the time, I was playing a lot of field hockey. I was playing field hockey seven days a week, so all of my free time outside of school, and by the way, I had school on Saturdays, so it was limited free time, I was playing field hockey. I was going to tournaments. I was going to tournaments on Thanksgiving Day, things like that. That's where we also then lost that ability to spend trips together. Because all summer, I was going to these summer camps, I was going to different colleges already at a really young age 15, 16. I was starting to figure out where am I going to go to college. Where am I going to go to play? That became my life.
I didn't really have any free time and we weren't planning any family trips together at that point. We were in the like, okay, we're in high school. Now, the total focus is on where are we going to college. At least I felt like that's what it was like for me. It was just total focus on the prize, what college, what university am I going to play at and how am I going to get there.
Then, of course, once we ended up going to college, I can't speak for Diana, of course, maybe I know a little bit more now since we're closer, but I went through quite a party stage in my college years. I wouldn't say I would be the most responsive of friends, let alone be touching base with my friend who was halfway across the country, also at a different university. At that point, we were, I would probably say out of all of the years we've known each other, we were the most out of touch during our college years. Once again, it's not because anything bad happened, we were just doing our thing.
Diana: Yes, exactly. We just didn't really talk much and we lost touch. Then I remember maybe a couple of years after we graduated, you ended up in Salt Lake City and you texted me out of the blue and you were like, hey, can I come and stay? We had like two days together. It was one of those, I'm sure that a lot of people listening can relate. You probably have someone in your life that maybe them every 10 years or them every couple of years and you never talk to them between. All of a sudden you're in a room together and you're like, whoa, nothing has changed. We are still family. That was exactly how it was when Elara came to visit.
It was just like, I love this girl. No matter what, like we went through those awkward years together and we're always going to be family. We had this really cool moment of reconnection and we stayed a little closer. Instagram was a thing. We comment on each other's stories. We both started dating our now-husbands around the same time. We would be like, hey, you're getting engaged, you're getting engaged, you know, like what's happening in your life? [chuckles]
Elara: Yes. Yes. You're just making me laugh and think about how I think Diana and I both are big lovers. We're obsessed with our husbands, which we will cover on a whole other podcast. I'm sure we're going to have them on here as guests at some point to talk about that, but that was definitely a shared interest that we had, right? We both were lovers. We both had these really great relationships.
One of the things we often talk about now is that, especially when you've been in a relationship for a long time, for several years, almost a decade, which is where Diana and myself are at, a lot of people, they go through rough patches and maybe they like bad talking their spouse or their significant other instead of celebrating the positive. Diana and I would always reach out and bond over just like, yes, like we're so lucky with these guys. I really, really like them. I wouldn't mind if they didn't stop dragging their feet and maybe proposed a little bit sooner, but besides that, life is good.
Diana: Yes.
Elara: It's funny. Going back to Robin Dunbar's theory, one of the things he says is that when you fall in love, you sacrifice two people in that close five-person circle. Who would you say you sacrificed when you and you and Harley fell in love?
Diana: Oh, that's a really interesting question. I feel like it was, we met when I was 24 and so it was when I was having this transition of friends sort of naturally of maybe drifting away from people that I would party with and started more towards people that like, hey, do you want to go on a hike and wake up at 6:00 AM? I think that meeting Harley, that was a transition of sort of the friends that weren't supportive of this new person that I really wanted to be. I think that was for me. Do you have anyone specific in your life that like, oh, yes, this is what happened when you started dating Peter?
Elara: Yes. Peter, I've known since I was 18 years old, but we didn't get together until my early twenties once I had graduated college. He was one of my brother's best friends from college, which is a little taboo I know, going for the younger sister. My brother at the time when we started seeing each other, was all the way in Chicago in medical school. I was in New York City. Peter was in New York City. I had just started a job before I dated Peter at ABC News. It was, once again, when I go into something just like with field hockey, I go full tilt. It is my life.
I live two blocks away from my office. I eat, sleep, breathe ABC news. It was all I did. Any time I had a chance to pick up an extra live shot or an extra shift or work, I would do it. I became very close with two colleagues that I worked with on my overnight shift there. They were like my family as far as when I lived in the city. I absolutely love them and I got really close with them very fast.
One of the things that Robin Dunbar also talks about in his theory is that there's these seven pillars of friendship. It's not surprising that one of these pillars of the friendship is just close proximity, relatability in terms of suffering. I guess when you're doing this really hard demanding job, and these people are working with you day to day, you're going to have a lot of talking points and you're going to have a lot of things that you relate upon.
When I started dating Peter, I felt this fissure with those two people in particular, where I started thinking, I have my life, I have my work, but my work, maybe it shouldn't be my life. I want to start spending my time outside of work with Peter. Then eventually, it was like, well, I want to do something different that isn't so demanding. That doesn't take up all of me. I shifted away and I stopped working at ABC and I then went to work at a startup and really completely lost touch with those two people. Not that they aren't absolutely wonderful. I still, to this day, when I think of them, I love them to the bones, but those were definitely the two that just popped out into my mind that dropped off when I met Peter.
Diana: I think that work friends are so funny because it's like, these people know you in and out. They know everything about you. They probably know the drama in your family before anyone else does. Yet as work friends, it's like, if you leave that job, that relationship tends to be done. I just find that that's such a fascinating thing of these people probably know you on such an intimate level, and then all of a sudden, boom, it's over.
One thing about the article that really stood out to me, and this is mind-blowing, is that Dunbar said in order to move someone from those outer circles into the inner circle, you have to spend 200 hours in like a pretty close timeframe. That is mind-boggling and it explains a lot. I think about why maybe making friendships and close friends as an adult is really difficult. I'm curious, I just want to hear your thoughts on that.
One of the problems I think in today's world and something that I hear a lot about is how lonely people are, that people really are searching for community. I wonder if this is a barrier and if there's anything that like any advice that you could give someone or how do we navigate having to spend 200 hours with someone?
Elara: I know. It's pretty crazy when you put it that way, but it makes me think back to how easy it was. Think about your friendship cycle you went through when you were in college. Probably the people that you were friends with freshman year were not the people that you were closest with senior year. There was such a quick turnover rate. I think one of the reasons was because the fact that we were all on a campus together, at least for me, we were all on a campus together. We're all living in dorms and we were able to spend this spontaneous time together. We didn't have to over-plan.
Now we have responsibilities, we have commitments and we follow through on our commitments and we have to, right? Because we're financially responsible. We have bills to pay. We didn't have bills to pay when we were in college and we were in high school. We have to show up for work. We can't just skip out on classes like we may have done in our younger years, so it's a little bit different.
I think that as I've aged, and especially when I've experienced living outside of my comfort zone, say like, right, we have our hometown that we grew up in. There's probably a good amount of older friends that you had within that area, but people move away. It changes. One of the things I did recently was I lived abroad. I lived in Copenhagen, Denmark. Besides my husband, I knew one of his work colleagues. That's it. We decided to move there three months before COVID hit. Obviously, we didn't know that at the time.
It was a really big challenge in terms of, how do you navigate making friends in a new place during a pandemic in another country that has a completely different culture than yours that maybe isn't so relatable and is a Viking culture, so maybe it's not the warmest either, as someone who's Mediterranean. I have to say, there were two silver linings. Two main ways that we were able to cultivate friendships, one of those being through our dogs. That was something that we did daily was walking our dogs outside and you would naturally meet other dogs in the park. I guess this only applies to people that have friendly dogs. Maybe it's not so easy if you don't have the friendliest dog, but I have very friendly dogs so that really worked to our advantage.
Then the second way was I was a big, or I still am, I should say, my husband and I were big workout fanatics and we met people through our CrossFit gym. Once again, just spending that time day by day, going back to what Diana was saying as far as the research that Robin Dunbar has done, spending those 200 hours and fitting that into the daily schedule of an adult, it has to fit into something that you're doing for yourself, not necessarily doing with the intention of connecting through friends. It ends up being like a ripple effect, a bonus. I'm going to go work out no matter what. I got to walk my dog no matter what. It's just a nice silver lining that you happen to make friends in the process. What about you?
Diana: I love that. Before we get to me, I remember you, and this is something that I love and I think is also really important for people to hear. You mentioned that you've started playing, is it table tennis?
Elara: Oh, yes. One of the other things I've done is, so I had been saying before, I was a big field hockey player in high school, and that's actually one of the reasons why Diana and I fell out of touch because I just spent so much time doing that. Playing sports with people, like breaking a sweat with another person, getting your endorphins up, is a wonderful way to create a lasting bond.
I recently took up, the last six months, paddle tennis, which I absolutely love. I usually spend around two to four hours a week playing, and I've become really close with the women that I play with. Since I've moved back to the US, it was over in Denmark, which is where I started playing paddle tennis, I still talk to one of the women I played with on a weekly basis. I know a lot about some intimate things going on in her life that she just feels comfortable venting to me about, and vice versa.
There's definitely something to be shared when you're not only doing exercise with someone or an exercise class but working as a team with someone. The girl that I speak with on a weekly basis, we were playing doubles against these other girls every week. it was this rivalry that built up in a really healthy way, in a really great competitive manner. Yes, you just bond with someone over that. It's really fun.
Diana: I actually think that that's really good advice too. What I want to say that trying something new and going to a new class takes a lot of courage. You picking up this new sport, that takes a lot of courage. If someone is maybe listening to this and wondering, how do I make more friends? I think finding a hobby, learning something new, going to a class is a really great way to maybe bring more people about in your life.
To bring our friendship story back into it, I think one of the reasons that you and I reconnected is because we were going through these really major life changes at the same time. We were both buying houses. We were both getting married. We were planning weddings. We were talking about babies. We had very similar career paths and it brought us back together. Now, you're on my favorites list and I call you first thing in the morning and I text you every day and I'm like, hey, this is what I've had for breakfast. I think it's because we've been able to share a lot of big life events together. That I think is why we were able to reconnect, which has me thinking, in this article, he talks about how, and this seems very obvious, but to be friends with someone, you really have to share morals and beliefs, and values. I think our society is so divided. Maybe it's not the most it's ever been divided, but it certainly feels that way right now, I think, to a lot of people. It just makes me wonder. How do we be friends with people who have different beliefs with us? If it's a 200-hour time investment, are we going to give those 200 hours to people who have different beliefs? It's tricky. I think it's a tough thing to broach of, if someone's on the other political aisle than I am I going to be friends with them? How does that work?
Elara: Yes. That's a great question. Especially if you have a longstanding history with a friend, say it's like a friend from back home when you were in middle school, does the 200 hours that you put in expire at some point? Does it have an expiration date if you don't re-up?
Diana: That's such a good question, right?
Elara: Do you have to do a refresher course? Do you need to put in at least 15 hours, 50 hours? What's the magic number? I think at the end of the day, there is no magic number. It's just a general sense, but going back, right? The seven pillars of friendship that Diana was delving into that Dunbar mentions is language, geography, so just close proximity, educational experiences, right? The shared trauma of boarding school, Diana and I share that. Hobbies and interests, moral and spiritual viewpoints, political views, sense of humor, and taste in music, and what's funny enough, Dunbar mentions that one of the easiest ways to connect with a stranger is through music.
Diana: Oh, that is interesting.
Elara: It's funny because I find myself wondering, is that because maybe like for example, you probably have Spotify, a lot of people use Spotify, right? It's a way to listen to music and they get the report at the end of the year of how many hours they spent listening to like, let's just use the example of Taylor Swift because she's everywhere these days. They spent over 500 hours listening to Taylor Swift and maybe someone that I don't know has also spent 500 hours listening to Taylor Swift. Does that go towards our 200 hours together? It almost seems like it has a bit of that cause and effect, which is pretty cool, right? Where it's like you tap into that isolation that that person spent listening to this song, but it's like this shared experience through music.
Diana: Everyone always complains when people throw up their Spotify lists on social media at the end of the year. I love it because I'm like, okay, how many hours did you spend listening to this person? What's your personality like? You can tell a lot about someone based on that Spotify report. [chuckles]
Elara: I like it. Yes, I agree with you. I'm all over the place, especially because Diana and I are both also like on the side, we've taught some yoga, we've done some fitness teaching and so there's like all types of music that's been played on my Spotify. We definitely related on that as well. Going back to the political views, in my experience, I think that, yes, you can, of course, be friends with someone even in today's climate, despite having very drastically different political views, but there being maybe two caveats to that. One, they're a family member.
At least I come from a family where you're not going to necessarily write someone off and stop talking to them over some small disagreement for several years, right? It's an agree to not agree and leave it at that and just avoid the topic. Then the other side of that is maybe it's a friend that you've had for a really long time, an old family friend, and you have a lot of that other shared experiences, educational experiences. You have the same sense of humor. You have the same hobbies, but the politics don't line up. You have a history. You have a solid enough history that allows you to overcome their political views.
Diana: Yes, I think that that's really important. When I think about actually my in-laws, they have a close family friend, family friends, I should say, like another couple who they're extremely close with. They go out to dinner I'd say every month or two together, but they have very different political views. They don't necessarily even avoid talking about it. When they bring up their more extreme political views, the couple that they're friends with, they just listen and they're willing to listen.
One of the things that that couple says is, we just really appreciate you guys listening. Thank you for doing that. Because so many people, the minute we bring it up or this or that, they raise their eyebrows and they're very quick to judge. I think that when you have a shared experience with friends, you don't put as much judgment onto them. I think that that's also a key thing in terms of maintaining friendships is not bestowing too much judgment, right? You just take people at face value. You appreciate them. You appreciate the time that you're able to spend with them.
That also brings up regarding someone with positive intent. if someone, you've invested those hours, maybe it's your partner or whatever, that you're really viewing them with positive intent rather than always jumping to the negative. The power of listening. I think that that's also, that's one of the greatest gifts that we can give our friends.
Elara: Absolutely. Yes. Speaking of one of the greatest gifts we can give our friends is just our attention and our time. I think that now more than ever, it's quite difficult for people based on how much time per day they spend on their phones. I don't know if, Diana, when was the last time you checked your phone usage per day?
Diana: Oh, I immediately get rid of that notification because I don't want to know.
Elara: Yes. I think because I work a lot on my phone, like on Slack and things like that because we work remotely, I'm around three to four hours a day. I don't know about you, but for me, it's a bit of a constant battle. Even with my closest relationship, my friendship with my husband where I'm on my phone. I seem like maybe I'm socializing on my phone, but I'm actually doing a bit of work. What's your whole view on social media and social media friendships? Because I know that Diana, she dabbles a bit in influencer work and that realm of the world. You end up having conversations with people and direct messages. It seems like full-fledged relationships and you've never even met the person or spent time with them. How does that work? How does that fit into this theory do you think?
Diana: Yes. This is really fascinating. I would actually, I want Dunbar back to be like, okay, but what about the social media world? Because it is wild. Also, I don't know about you, but I have certain friendships that are exclusively sending each other memes and we don't communicate in any other way. It's just sending each other memes. I think it's one of those relationships where we would probably be in the same room as each other and it would be amazing and it would feel like no time has passed.
Our relationship, I almost feel like it's the lazy man's relationship and friendship now because rather than having to send someone a text or like, let's, rewind it even further, having to call someone or write someone a letter, it's like, let me double tap your reel that you sent me and put a little heart on it and that's our interaction for the day, but then on the other side of what you asked of like, I get so overwhelmed with my DMs of just having conversations and people messaging me.
In some ways, it's wonderful because there are these people that I've never met, but I feel very close to and I know about their lives because I get to watch their stories and we send each other reels again. It's like, where do they fit in my friendship circle? I don't know. It's very confusing, but I will say, I don't know how that is and where that fits in terms of my 150, but I do feel like the best way to dismiss someone is if you are having a conversation with them and you pick up your phone. It is just, and it's something that I can work on. I think it's something the majority of people can work on, but I do think it's important to mention that when you are with someone, you probably shouldn't be on your phone and it is very dismissive and I think it's one of the best ways to destroy a friendship. What do you think?
Elara: I think it depends on what age you are. I've noticed, especially with, say, my younger cousins or nieces, it's a bit more common or it's accepted to just be picking up your phone and be browsing through Instagram or TikTok or whatever platform they're on, and then be in and out of a conversation. It's very socially acceptable.
Diana: Oh, interesting. Okay.
Elara: Yes. In the younger generation, I'd say versus even our generation, I think we're like at the cusp where I think there are some people our age who are quite phone-obsessed, but I'm the type of person where, at least when I go out to dinner with my husband, nothing makes me happier than when, say, I go to the bathroom or he goes to the bathroom and then we come back to the table and he's just sitting there. He's watching me walk across the room. He's waiting for me to come. He was just taking in the environment, the ambiance. He isn't splitting his time to maybe check email or look at a meme someone sent him or connect with someone else, right? He's completely in the moment.
Because I think, and this isn't a theory of Dunbar but something that I've heard is that when you switch your attention, right, it takes time. It takes time for you to reset. There's a little reboot moment. If I'm on my phone and maybe, right, maybe people that are younger, they're just like the buffering time, it's shorter and they have just a better bandwidth and they can just like switch just like that. I cannot. I'm one of those people that it takes me about 20 to 30 seconds to fully reset and be like, what's up? What are you saying? Yes, I was completely lost in my phone. I did not hear anything that you just said to me. Can you please repeat it?
Versus sometimes I have these conversations with my nieces and I think, oh, they're just ignoring me. They have no idea what I'm saying. I jab at them and then they come back and respond to me four or five minutes later. It's incredible.
Diana: That's one, it's I can't wait to see what this generation does when they grow up, like the ones who have always grown up with social media. I do. I think it's so fascinating talking about friendship through the lens of social media and especially with Dunbar's circles. I feel like I need a whole other circle for just social media friends. Maybe this is where we can finish off in our life cycle of friendship because this is also really interesting is what happens as we age. I know in the article, and I actually thought that this was pretty startling, they said that if you live long enough, your inner circle drops to 1.5. I think that there is such an issue with being isolated as we get older and losing our friends. I don't know, I don't know what the answer is to that but I do think it is really important to be cognizant of our friendships and who is in that circle. How do we nurture them, especially as we get older?
Elara: Yes. How do we create and actively participate in growing that circle constantly and being willing to bring new people into it? This whole saying of like, no new friends, you're just going to be all alone when you're older, unfortunately, if you're not willing to make new friends.
Something interesting that I was reading about the other day is blue zones. Blue zones in the world are often defined as places where people live to be over 100 years old. One of the common trends of all these blue zones throughout the world, whether it's in Japan, whether it was in Italy, whether it was right here in the US, is that people tend to be a part of some sort of community.
Say it's a woman who's 108. She gets together with this social group every day or every few days, right? They have that interaction. They're not alone. I think that that's something that's really important. Just being willing, once again, to maybe try new things, to try new hobbies, to just set aside that time in your day-to-day schedule or your weekly schedule or in some sort of routine way of cultivating relationships. That's something that we as a society don't tend to value enough. It tends to be a lot of work. We live to work versus working to live, which is really sad. It's important to, I think, maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Diana: Yes, especially, when we get older and we retire and we lose, maybe lose those relationships.
Elara: Right? Then work is gone.
Diana: Right. Yes, exactly. Making sure that we still embrace community and find, maybe instead of doing field hockey, you're doing bingo or, not to be like--
Elara: Yes.
Diana: I think you can find different activities as you age, a book club or a walking group or engaging with your friends' kids, or whatever it is. I do think that emphasizing community, especially as we age, it's never going to get any easier to make friends. College, I think, is the peak. You're living around everyone who is the same age as you. I think from there on, it just gets harder and harder and harder. It's something you have to work at. I think knowing that and accepting that and embracing it is really important.
Elara: Absolutely. Absolutely. Then I guess another interesting question this makes me think about is among our different relationships and our different friendships, what does a healthy friendship look like and what does an unhealthy friendship look like? Because I think all of us have experienced maybe what, right, it's a really common word that people love throwing around these days. Oh, it's a toxic relationship. I had to cut that. That was a little bit of health pruning that I did.
I think that COVID was a really hard time, but it was a really good opportunity to do some health pruning in terms of relationships where you're able to have that breather and take a step back and reflect, oh, maybe that person wasn't the best influence on me or wasn't bringing out the better side of me, the side of me that I want to have come out more. Like you mentioned before when you started dating Harley, because Harley doesn't drink. On occasion, we have forced him when we've been in Ireland to have like a pint or something like that, but by no means is it something that he really enjoys, and you stopped spending as much time with your friends, say, that were heavier drinkers.
Diana: To be honest, this just makes me think of like, how do you break up with a friend? To be totally honest, there are friends in my life who I don't really want to be friends with anymore, but how do you break up with a friend? [chuckles]
Elara: Yes. We've been talking a lot about how do you maintain these friendships. How do you grow these circles? Also, in terms of, like you said, social media, how many people do you follow? Are you friends with all those people, even though they're defined as your friends? No, probably not, right? You're not. You're absolutely not. According to Dunbar, we're way over the Richter scale there in terms of being over 150. Most people, I don't know what the average is, but I'd say that a lot of people have over 150 friends on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, all these different platforms. How do you go about cutting out friendships? When do you know?
I think a common terminology that a lot of people use in romantic relationships is ghosting. At this day and age, because we're not all living in dorm rooms next to each other, we're not going to run into someone in our biology class, you can just delete the contact from your phone and just not run into them ever again if you want.
Diana: Yes, it is like, how do we cultivate a good 150 and how do we maybe prune the people that aren't in? Sometimes that can be really painful. I've had friendships that have ended and it's painful. Even if it was a good thing or we just had grown apart, it still is painful. I think it's also important to acknowledge that things change and it can be hard. Maybe, I probably am a ghoster, and I'm not going to say that that's the most emotionally responsible thing to do, but I don't know.
There's a Seinfeld episode of him trying to break up with his childhood friend and the childhood friend just, like, doesn't get the memo. I don't know. I just think it's this funny, like breaking up with a friend is just not the same. It's like, with a boyfriend or girlfriend, you can be like, hey, this isn't working for me. It just doesn't feel like you can do that with a friend so much. Maybe we should be able to. Let's normalize it.
Elara: I think maybe we should be able to normalize it. I agree. I am definitely in the category that you're in where it's you just, you ghost, because I'm the type of person where I'm very much in the moment in my day-to-day what I'm doing. I try to live in the now. It's a pretty easy thing to do, especially at our age when you're not seeing someone on a day-to-day basis or like a monthly basis. It's basically you're running into these people at, once again, the big life events of the group of 150. It's a wedding. It's a baby shower, something like that, but you're not running into them so it's easy to do. Just easy to cut them out.
Diana: Yes. I feel like we can't end this episode about talking about cutting out friendships. We need to end on a more positive note. [laughs]
Elara: Oh, my gosh. I know. Yes. Yes. Yes. Friendship. I guess ending with us, like Diana and myself going back to our friendship journey. We finished college, right? College was the crazy years. We weren't really doing too much talking together. Then we reconnected because we both fell in love. I think that that's really beautiful because it goes against, right? Not everything that Dunbar says applies to every single relationship or different people. I think what's really cool about Diana and I is that we got pulled back into each other's radars because of falling in love and we really bonded over that.
Then from there, right, we had the shared hobbies. We also had the shared work life. We ended up working together. When you work with someone, you end up spending a lot of time with them. Diana became my work wife. She's my partner in crime, which is a really awesome thing. I don't think that everyone necessarily is lucky enough to have that where you have all of this shared history and just a really great understanding with someone else that you're working with, but then also, you really just enjoy who they are outside of work. It's really great.
I know that sometimes that can be a rocky experience for some people, like maybe they create a startup together and things don't work out the way that they wanted it to, but it's a really exciting opportunity, I think, when you end up being able to work with a friend.
Diana: Yes, definitely. Also, I think we talk a lot about how we deserve to be treated in romantic relationships and not so much in friendships. It just made me think about, I'm going to get emotional. Our friendship, I think especially female friendships, can be so pitted against each other, at least that's how they're made out to be. Elara, you came back into my life at a time that I really needed someone to encourage me.
One of the things that I love about our friendship so much is that I feel like we constantly lift each other up and are always there for each other. It doesn't feel competitive. It's like, if there's ever something good in my life, you're one of the first people that I text because I know you're going to be there to celebrate that win and you're never going to make me feel bad about it.
I think that this is so important, that the same way that you deserve to be treated in a romantic relationship, you deserve to be treated in platonic friendships and finding someone in your life who can celebrate your wins and will lift you up and embraces who you are. You call yourself a golden retriever. I feel like we're both we're just two little golden retrievers that found each other and I love that.
Elara: Yes, totally. We just love words of affirmation. We're golden retrievers. If we start covering all four love languages, we're just lovers. We love it all. We just sling it back and forth to each other and are at the same frequency, which is just the best. I feel very lucky to have that. I think it's really important. I think that Diana and I have also, right, we've both been so invested and we still are just as invested from the first day of our relationships with our partners, with our husbands, but I think it's important to be able to fill up your cup in other ways besides just them.
You can't put too much pressure just on your significant other. A lot of people I know, I love the idea that the person that you're with, that you're married to is your best friend, but I think that there is really something to be said for having a community, for having different people to rely on.
For having a friendship where you're able to just speak candidly with them and not necessarily vent about your partner, but just have a shared viewpoint in a really nonjudgmental manner. Maybe, it's a bit easier to discuss certain things going on in your personal life because I don't have skin in the game, Diana doesn't have skin in the game, and I know at the end of the day, she's going to just make me feel good. She's going to make me feel like myself. She's going to give me clarity. It's really wonderful when you have a friendship where after you speak with them, you just feel clear and lighter.
Diana: I love that. How about we end this friendship episode with a challenge? I'm going to challenge you, but I'm going to challenge everyone and myself and everyone listening. Here's my challenge if you choose to accept. My challenge is to reach out to one person in your life in a meaningful way. Not just a reel, but send them a text, give them a phone call, and check in on your people. I think that that's my challenge. Check in on your people. Find someone in your life that maybe you either haven't checked in on in a moment or you want to reconnect with, or someone that you talk to every day, but give them a meaningful check-in. More than just a funny reel. You can send them the reel too, but then give them like, hey, how are you? How are you really doing? That's my challenge.
Elara: How are you feeling? I love that question. That's a question I get asked a lot when I'm pregnant. I've told Diana, I'm like, I don't know why this isn't a common thing that everyone asks everyone all the time. How are you feeling versus just like, how are you? Fine? Good. I'm going to piggyback off Diana's challenge just because this is something I struggle with myself is I tend to be pretty good at just reaching out like that out of the blue. Hey, how's it going? Having that quick catch-up over Instagram, over messaging. Then I say, hey, yes, let's get dinner, and then I don't do it.
Maybe take it a step further. If there's someone that say, you've been messaging and you've been making those like, oh, yes, let's get dinner plans or let's get coffee, get coffee, get dinner, follow through on those plans. I think that you'll feel really good about it. That comes, I guess, back to at the end of the day, you can control the type of friend that you can be. You decide. You're in the catbird seat, so don't forget that.
Diana: Oh, so good. Yes. That's just like Diana and I. We used to go on our trips together when we were younger and the last few years, we were like, hey, let's plan trips. Let's go on trips together. We've made it happen and they've been so much fun. Speaking of, when we get off this call, I think that's next on our list. We got to decide what the next trip is going to be.
Elara: Where we're going. [chuckles]
Diana: Yes. If you guys have any ideas, please let us know. Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Matcha Guardians. We look forward to hearing from you guys soon. If there's any topics you think would be interesting for us to discuss, feel free to message us and we'd love to hear from you and look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you, guys. See you next week.
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