Can Our College Friendship Survive Adulthood?

You know in college we'd show up somewhere like this is my wife like here's how we met We're in love and people would just assume we actually met we were in love and I think we kind of were at the time Mm-hmm, but just not in a romantic. I mean yes in a romantic way not in a sexual way. No None of the voices in this series are ongoing patients of Esther Perel Each episode of where should we begin is a one-time counseling session for the purposes of maintaining? Sociality names and some identifiable characteristics have been removed but their voices and their stories are real In this following session we Discuss assault and I want you to know this before you listen The story of a friendship two girls from very different backgrounds become Confidants they experience a love story together a platonic love story, but the love story nevertheless and They become each other's besties for four years the entire college duration being able to ask for help and Receive help I think is really foundational to our relationship and our friendship and the caretaking that happens Yeah between the two of us They're there for each other They're like the foundation for each of them to then go into the world and do their own explorations And so then the question becomes how does a friendship like that evolve after college when their lives changes? when partners enter into this story or when they start to make choices that take them away from each other and It becomes a friendship where the expectations Doesn't match the reality anymore It's true that we have been experiencing different realities of our friendship in the last year and maybe a little more But I don't want to just fill in the empty space that you have I want you to text me and say hey, I haven't seen you my boyfriend's out tonight I would love to watch a movie. Do you want to come over right, but I haven't wanted to do that we used to be everything for each other and Now we barely talk Is it that other people have replaced us? That we've basically completely grown apart Was I really that important? I didn't always feel like valued or like fully respected and Because I don't say things in the moment. I will start to weave, you know, start to crochet a little narrative And so are we here to mourn our relationship to say goodbye to each other? To realize that we will have accompanied each other in a most important phase of our life one that we will never forget or do we have a chance to continue be part of each other's lives and That is a question that many of us have had to confront I'm pretty confident talking into a mic. Hey, I'm doing it right now, but home projects I second-guess everything is that noise normal is that water damage and who should I even call? That's where thumbtack comes in upload a photo or voice note and their AI powered search helps diagnose the issue and match you with the right Top rated local pro instead of second guessing or searching for hours You get clarity and can hire the right pro with confidence for your next home project. Try thumbtack. They know homes Hire the right pro today Follow us on Instagram @pumpkinspicelatte Follow us on Instagram @pumpkinspicelatte Follow us on Instagram @pumpkinspicelatte it really satisfied my craving for being an international student, being around other international students, being in a city, living independently. Are you the first one of the generations to leave? Yeah, both of my parents went to college, but both stayed local. I think my leaving my hometown was feeding that urge and that desire for distance and change and diversity in a way that I did not have growing up in very wealthy white suburbs. And then in our freshman year dorm, on our floor, there were people from maybe seven or eight different countries. British, French, Canadian. American. Exactly. And I loved it. I felt. Stimulated. I felt stimulated. I felt challenged and stretched without being competitive. Is it because in high school, you somewhat walked around with the idea of, I'm not like you. Yeah. I have other aspirations. I want more. I want to expand. I'm curious. Whereas when you arrive to college, you watch and see all these people from all these different parts of the world, and you say, my people, I am like you. You too are the seekers. You too are the travelers. You too wanted more. And therefore, there's less of a need to say, I'm better, I'm different. I want something else than all of you. Exactly. I wouldn't put myself in that bucket. Mm-hmm. I got to school, and all that freedom that you loved and craved, I was so terrified and overwhelmed by. Mm-hmm. And I think that's why we became. We had very different experiences in our first year, and so knew each other, technically lived on the same floor, but. Never really spoke. We became close because we both decided to live with our mutual friend, and the three of us then were going to look for an apartment, and the first time you and I ever hung out one-on-one was to tour apartments together. Mm-hmm. It really wasn't until living together that we became friends and developed our. And like a little into living together. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that first month being like. Who is this girl? I was like, who is this girl? She doesn't like me, and our third roommate is a nightmare, and I have to move out, and like, what did I do? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then. The night. Oh, the night. Yeah. Emily had something happen while I was back home. I was sleeping. And she was out with her friends and came home and woke me up, and she was, like, weeping. She had gotten really triggered by something that a friend had said, and I got up out of bed. It was, like, probably 2 in the morning. And you had your first friendship interaction. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting retelling this story. So the thing that happened is the summer after my first year, we had moved into our apartment, and I was walking home. One night, after going out with friends, it was warm, and about a block and a half from our apartment, a man had been following me and jumped me and started beating me. And I hadn't known he was following me, and I didn't know who he was, and I didn't really know what was happening. And some stranger happened to be walking by and sort of shooed him off and grabbed my hand, and we ran to my apartment and called the police. And. You know, part of the story is that this man happened to call the police on himself after it happened. He is on the spectrum and had been at a strip club or something and was upset that he never got women, and so went out looking, and I just happened to walk by. And so, referring to this night, I had been out at a party, and something about someone leaving felt. Like they shouldn't be walking home alone. It triggered that, like, there's danger and I can't control it feeling for me. And I came home and was really tearful and couldn't stop crying and knew I needed help. And so, woke you up, and you were like, "Here's what we're gonna do. You're gonna smoke some weed. We're gonna watch TV. We're gonna hang out. And then you're gonna go to bed." And having someone take care of the situation, being able to ask for help and receive that kind of help, I think is really foundational to our relationship and our friendship and the caretaking that happens between the two of us. Very beautiful. And I'm thinking also about how. Just before, you talked about how much you value structure. And she basically offered you structure, clarity, and calmness. Yeah. Which is probably one of the most important things to do in a moment of crisis. Yeah. I understood immediately that this was a friendship on standby. And that it wasn't clear if it was going to have a second wind or if it was going to continue to wither. But I also wanted to learn about the friendship first, before I would listen about the friendship crisis. And I meet two women, and they could have just been roommates. But then there is, as they say, together in unison that night. The night that kind of sealed the. The friendship. Those of us who have met that person and who have had that experience, it's unique. And it is a kind of a coup de foudre, a falling in love instantly. And they have a complementarity. It's not just one taking care of the other. In fact, they each have their strengths. They each lift the other. They're the safe haven that you come home to in the evening and you go back out into the world. We'll be back with a session right after this. And while we love our sponsors, if you want to listen to this session ad-free, click the try-free button to subscribe to Astaire's Office Hours on Apple Podcasts. And it's August, that means summer is almost over. For some of you, that might be a relief. Autumn means cooler weather, which also means it might be time to find some cozy cold weather staples. Enter Quince. Quince specializes in effortless, high-quality essentials, like ultra-soft organic cotton and premium Mongolian cashmere sweaters. They're beautifully tailored, built to last, and transition seamlessly from morning meetings to a nice dinner out. This is. This summer, I've been wearing quite a bit of Quince linen. I love the European linen tank because it's light, comfortable, and goes with just about everything. And when the weather cools down, I'm looking forward to pulling my cashmere sweaters back out. They're the pieces I reach for year after year. 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Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast. Same-day delivery. It's on Prime. Available in select areas. Terms apply. I wouldn't say that the caregiving is, like, all in one direction. I think, like, part of what we would, like, joke about when we became friends, because we became, like. After that night, like, we were up together every night, like, talking, we were having dinner together, we were watching shows together, we basically started dating, but not in a romantic. I mean, yes, in a romantic way. Not in a sexual way. Like, we never, like, slept together, and that wasn't an element of. of our relationship, but very quickly we were like, all right. So you're like, and I think being in a different country was part of that, right? Like you are my person, like you're my emergency contact. You are my roommate. You are my built-in plus one date to whatever. You are my sounding board, but like both ways. And I think like I struggled with like some depression and feeling really lonely and isolated. And that manifested in like not going to school a lot, which I don't know if my parents know about that, but I often didn't go to school in my first year and really, really. Interesting. You just got closer to the night. Sorry, mom and dad. Well, I'm addressing them. That one's for them. I learned a lot at school and it wasn't all in school. And that's what I'll say. Emily was someone who was structured, did her readings. Always went to class. Always went to class, like knew how to get things done. And I was like, hey, come and learn how to smoke out of this bong. And I'm going to make you some cookies and we're going to watch TV. And I think that at the time, that's like what we both needed. We needed someone else to help us with our, the thing we weren't so good at. Yeah. And then when you ended college, you stayed in touch. Well, this is sort of where the trouble begins because I begin to have a lot of feelings and can't figure out how to share them. And so then I like hold onto them. And I would say the end of college, we experienced very differently. And I was very angry with her. And I did not know. I had made other friends. Meaning that she continues to make you cookies and to roll the bong and to. Kind of. I mean, I was also busier. I mean, it's that invisible? Well, to the same extent that we had always had different interests and different friend groups and different hobbies. And activities. We both became more involved in our separate worlds. And so I didn't necessarily notice your distance as being about me so much as you were busy with your own things and I was busy with my own things. Okay. And so we graduated, we moved out, you know, we left Montreal, which was heartbreaking for me, at least. I was happy to leave. I also think I should mention, and I don't actually think that this was. So crucial. But Emily did have a boyfriend that final year, which we had not had before, either of us. That hadn't been part of the dynamic. Yeah. So I think a lot of the like quiet, like chilling of like smoking or watching TV or whatever, you were now doing somewhere else. With other people. Yeah. Yeah. So I ended up moving to Chicago and I moved at the same time as a gaggle of Olivia's best friends from high school also moved. And so I'd met some of these people through you and they quickly became my community in Chicago. And you look from afar in New York where it's really expensive and you don't have a lot of friends or community and you're saying, wait, all my friends are hanging out without me. So you come and move to Chicago and move in with me. So that's my, I guess, two-year arc. Yeah. Together in Chicago and you. With a third roommate. But the main idea is you reestablish your domestic life. Yes. And at this point, I have a new boyfriend and you arrive. Like my boyfriend and I broke up in the car an hour outside of Chicago. So I was like fresh. Fresh, fresh. Off a breakup. Yeah. It's interesting, right? This friendship, I mean, this is probably true for many, right? It's the two of us, the three. The three of us, the four of us, us with the gang, me with your gang, me looking at you with my gang. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the number of different constellations here and every time it changes the dynamic. Oh, and it keeps. It's gone. That keeps happening. The plot thickens, you're going to tell me. Okay, more years. Well, so those two years, I sort of saw a little bit differently. I graduated college and I was really mad at you. The most like salient of which. For what? I started to feel the inklings of something that I think I still feel to this day and is probably the main thing I want to talk to you about because it's the thing I've never been able to talk to you about. I didn't always feel like valued or like fully respected. And again, because I don't say things in the moment, I will start to take like little pieces and I like start to weave, you know, I'll start to crochet a little bit. It's a little narrative for myself with all these different like small events, little thing you said, other tiny thing you didn't do or, you know, whatever. Beading. Yeah. Taking all the beads. Right. So at the end of college, you graduate the day before me and leave with your family. And that night I had a big party at our apartment with a bunch of our friends. We stayed up super late, got super drunk. And the next day I was like very hungover and had to move out of this apartment and she was already gone. And when my parents got there and I was like throwing up, they were like, okay, I guess we have to do all of this. And as they like started doing it, I was like, oh, there's actually so much to be done. Like it was two years of an apartment that then like my hungover ass and like my parents had to like clean up. And that felt very frustrating. That felt like I was not valued, right? Like we didn't do that together. We didn't like plan ahead of time, but it was graduation. So whatever. We then go on a trip to Argentina together. Together. And at the time I was feeling mad and frustrated that the first time I was like bringing someone to this place that is so personal to me, I was like not excited to do so at the time. We ended up going on like honestly a really cool trip that we both remember fondly. And then from my recollection, we didn't really talk after that trip. You had your New York era. I had my Chicago era. You were dating this guy who. Sucked. Well, Existed in this completely separate world for me. But I just want to go back to something because there is tracking the events and then there is tracking the relationship. And they don't seem to necessarily always coincide for both of you. What happened to the feelings? They're just acute. They may have just, you know, numbed themselves because of the distance. I mean, I can tell you what happened to the feelings. Yeah. I had worked myself up so much and I basically decided that I could either confront her and tell her about all of these feelings or I could let it go. Those were the only options. I couldn't stay as upset as I was and also not say anything. In my head, I was like so many of these problems came from like us living together and like sort of taking each other for granted. It's like, I don't foresee that happening again. So I'm just going to let them go. And I really thought that I had let them go until I started feeling similar things when we started living together again. And I would say it was good for like a little while. Mm-hmm. I can't stop noticing the attention to details, layer upon layer, shift upon shift. Every detail matters. It's a very careful tending to the relationship. To the closeness, the distance, the coming toward, the moving away from, the sharing, the keeping to oneself, the expressing the feelings, the trying to distance oneself from one's own feelings because how to be close to you if I feel all of this? So I either stay with my feelings and I separate from you or I stay close to you and I separate from my feelings. I think there was a little bit of contextual distance in that you were fresh off of a breakup and I was fresh into a new relationship. And so we were both aware that like that's different than it had been in the past. Well, and I was like, Emily has like obligations and, you know, priorities. Basically, she has another partner. Right. Exactly. But at the time I was like, it's fine. Like Emily's got another partner. I'm single. Like I can kind of do whatever. I start dating everyone with a pulse and it felt fine. And I think the rub started to come when like I pulled away from my expectations of you because you had obligations with someone else. But I think sometimes I felt like you still had those expectations of me and that didn't feel fair because just because I didn't have my own partner to prioritize, I was like, I'm not going to prioritize you if you are prioritizing someone else. Like that doesn't feel fair. And so I was like pouring all my time and energy. So now we enter into the triangle dynamic. Yeah. Yeah. So we need to define friendship is one of the things is what what is friendship that isn't we live together. We are partners. We each have our own lives, but we anchor each other, you know, in the way that you described so beautifully before. And so now you are four. Now we are two partners, right? And I would say like you don't really know my partner and I don't like super know your partner. more because he's been around longer but um yeah i don't know maybe it was a fantasy and you never meet alone again who us yes do you i mean never it's a form of speech well but you tend to not meet the two of you i would say primarily with with others i would say that's the case you're part of the same circle but you don't have that little loop around the two of you anymore i would say so well i think it wasn't until we moved to chicago that you were like so i've secretly been very angry at you for the last two years and i said news to me right right right that's that's fair to say um yes i felt i felt mad and i felt like in the time that we had lived together there had been a time where we were each other's partners and everything was shared good or bad and then suddenly there was this other person that you would share all the good stuff with and because you hadn't been dating that long you weren't sharing all the bad stuff and so you would bring that to me and i felt taken advantage of because i was like i don't get her in a good mood i don't get her excited to go out i don't get her like wanting to do something i get her like after work whenever you're in a bad mood and like don't want to see your boyfriend like that's what i would get meaning the leftovers right right i think my memory of the feelings that you brought up were you saying i've been harboring so much anger and resentment towards you and now i have to talk about it and feeling a little like thanks for telling me now but also i can't really do anything about those last few years and it has planted this seed of worry that you are secretly harboring a lot of anger and resentment towards me and not naming it which has persisted well but then i would ask you something which is that you know that i need hey are you okay you seem weird what's up things aren't you know just as an opening right like i struggled to just like hey i um have something that i wanted to you know like and and and so then i start to get frustrated when i'm like clearly you know that i might be harboring resentments and so why wouldn't you just ask me for that very reason well yeah but if but if you ask like hey are you mad at me i would have just been like yeah actually this thing made me mad versus then like a year and a half goes by and i'm like emily must know that i'm upset and the things just keep stacking and she doesn't say anything to me so they talk about resentment they talk about anger there's a lot of feelings here mixed in jealousy and there is the you broke up with me and there is the i'm upset with you and it's hard for me to tell you you should notice that and you should be the one to help me say what i have to say by reaching out to me and now it becomes if you would help me if you were different then i could do what i want to do and i would be the one to help you and i would be the one to help you and i would want to do and so slowly we identified our stalemate we are in the midst of our session there is still so much to talk about we need to take a brief break so stay with us on any journey using uber it helps to know you're getting into the right car pin verification adds an extra step to your journey to the right car to make sure your ride is your ride before the trip begins your app gives you a unique pin just tell it to your driver and they'll enter it in their app before the ride can start hey what's your pin 2538 that way you know you're in the right car taking the right trip and your driver knows you're the right passenger make sure your ride is your ride with pin verification from uber one more way uber is putting safety at every turn learn more on the uber app right now when you buy more carpet at the home depot you save more during our buy more save more event going on now upgrade your carpeting with the top brands and save up to 15 off installed carpet projects 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or prevent any disease well there are two places that we could go one i think is we deal with conflict and emotions very differently in part due to each of our families definitely where if you were acting some type of way your dad would bust into your room and yell at you to tell him what's going on yes whereas my family gives space back up no no intrusion if she needs something she'll let us know exactly but we're also still sort of hovering around the 2022 conflict and part of the prompt of us being here is the distance that's persisted over the last year or so and i'll add that it's not that i knew you were mad about something and wasn't coming to ask you what's wrong it's more that i was experiencing when we would hang out you would mostly talk about yourself that's so funny because i felt exactly the same about you no yes i'm just watching and thinking you you've just entered into an inner circle we're getting closer yeah you took your time you told the story and uh and now we're in the present yeah and i just watched you and i just thought myself okay now it's starting we've arrived sorry it took so long no no you needed the you needed to meet the people yeah and now we've arrived at the conflict and i think you needed it too yeah because well an hour is shorter than two years you know when a romantic relationship doesn't serve you anymore you get rid of it because for most people you can only have one but a friendship like you don't need first of all you don't need any and second of all you can have as many as you want and so you know i think some some friendship sort of skeptics might be like well so why are you guys still friends or like why are you trying to be friends and it's like in telling you the story like i'm getting emotional like thinking about like everything we've been through and like i've just never had um friendship the way i did with emily and it makes me so sad that my boyfriend and like probably the love of my life like doesn't know that and doesn't know you and doesn't know us as friends really he doesn't now that we've arrived i'm very curious to know what your question was to ester for the podcast like what what what did you write in i wrote that i felt like we had very different experiences and realities about our friendship that we experienced it very differently and that there was a huge gap and i didn't know how to bridge the gap i really appreciate that question prompt um it's true that we have been experiencing different realities of our friendship in the last year and maybe a little more but we're very clear on our origin story in part because we've told this story to a lot of people well because we i'd be like this is my wife like here's how we met we're in love and people would just assume we actually meant we were in love and i think we kind of were at the time but just not yeah a sort of but i think that pointing to our really different experiences of the current reality of our friendship something that really caught me when you reached out to tell me that you had written into this podcast was you saying i've been really emotional about this for a long time and thinking about it and journaling about it and talking to my boyfriend and my therapist and our friends about it mostly my parents i tried not to talk to our friends about it okay but your people and i think this is sort of getting to the current triangulation which is you me and everyone else and i think this is sort of i felt so protective of our primary partnership with each other because i hadn't had a long-term relationship before you because you were the most meaningful relationship in my life. And I really resented the idea of anyone finding a partner and then it taking precedent over this really rich partnership that we had built and felt very defensive of the fact that relationships can be multiple and overlapping and you don't have to get everything from one relationship, etc. But it feels like you have been talking to everyone else about what you are feeling and how you are perceiving this before talking to me. And to find out that you had been angry and frustrated but really charged and emotional about it and telling our friends, that was that was that felt like more of the betrayal. Yeah. I mean, and obviously it's like something that I know that I do and I'm trying better. I guess I just felt so our partnership felt dissolved, to be honest. See, you emphasize loss and you emphasize betrayal. I didn't matter to you anymore. You had replaced me. Here came the boyfriend. I was no longer your priority. And there's grief and there's loss. You know, somebody once said every person's autobiography is another person's betrayal. You talk about me, but when you talk about me, that means you talk about things that I may not have chosen to say. And you basically bring everybody else into your orbit in a way that makes me feel like I'm, how do you say, I'm grist for the mill. It makes me feel not so much replaced, but more like left out. But you land in the same spot. She feels left out. You feel left out. The trajectory that brings you there is different. But you land up in I'm not important enough for you to come to me. And she basically has her version of I'm not important enough for you to come to me. On different things. And this is the transition. How do we go from partner to friends when we have new partners? Well, I think that And when you respond, if you allow me, you understand it, but then you were just about to justify it. But I did it because. It's okay. You don't need to justify it. You did it. I did it, yeah. You both have good reasons for what you do, but it's not the good reasons that are going to bring you closer. What's going to help you get closer is to understand the effect that you good reasons have on the other person. And then how much you care about it. Because, you know, the thing about friendship is it's all free given. It's not something you can impose. Well, to be honest, I think at times I felt imposed upon. And that's kind of the crux of like where my distance became really intentional. I started to feel like you would ask these things of me that were like partner level asks, big asks. And again, like not because friendship needs to be 100% perfectly reciprocal. But like if we haven't talked in a while, we haven't hung out in a while, and you ask me a big favor. And I'm terrible. I don't know how to say no, right? Like I will always say yes. And then I'll feel resentful afterwards for doing it and not feeling like properly valued. But the thing is interesting that you're highlighting is that the big things I want to do for you, but they take place in the context of all the little things. If we don't hang, check in, send messages, do pulse checks, then when you come with the big thing, makes me feel like I'm being taken advantage of. If we do all the little things, and then you come with the big thing, then I feel like I'm really important to you and I matter. It's a very interesting reinterpretation. It's like if we have all the little funds, then when you come with the big question, then I feel almost honored. That you rely on me and that I'm your emergency number. When I feel like I have like agency to say yes or no, which I don't often do, I often feel like I'm not good at saying no. Which is my problem. Absolutely. It is your responsibility to say no when. Sure, but like, okay. I have like a very specific example in mind. A year ago you asked me to drive to Springfield with you. Yes. You called me on the phone. I answered the phone. You said, are you working on Monday? And I was unemployed at the time, so I said, no, I'm not working on Monday. And then you said, would you drive to Springfield with me? Like a three and a half hour drive. And I did not want to. I was like, that sounds like a long trip. You're going to get me at 6 a.m. I was like, ugh. But we're on the phone. I already told you I'm not working. What am I going to say? I don't want to. That feels rude. So I say yes. And we go, and like, you bring me breakfast, and it was great. And then we get back to the city. And you're like, I want to go to therapy in person. Can I drop you off at the bus? And I was like, you picked me up at my house at 6 a.m. for me to do this, like, giant favor for you. And you, like, you're not going to drive me home? And so you, like, drop me off at the bus. Bus never came. So I ended up biking the five miles home. And then I got home, and I was, like, furious. And then you didn't text me, like, hey, sorry that was a slog. Like, hope you got home okay. I get a text from you two days later that's, like, these two people we went to college with broke up. And I'm like, what am I to you? Does that make sense? Yeah. It does. Like, I didn't even just feel, like, thanked. Like, bro, I know that was so annoying. And in my head, I was like, why can't she just do therapy from her house? She lives four blocks from me. And if we had the type of dynamic where I felt like I could just be, like, no, drive me home. Yeah. But I didn't feel that way. You were like, is it cool if I do this? And I'm just, like, yeah, I guess. And again, that's on me. Like, I should speak up. But I don't always feel like I can. And to your point, if we had had that rapport, it wouldn't have felt like such a pressured yes. Right. And you might have felt like you had more of a leg to stand on to be like, no, bitch, drive me home. Totally. I think in different years, I would have been like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, drive me home. Yeah. But I just was, like, I didn't feel comfortable around you, frankly. And I was feeling used. And I just was like, I kind of need this to end. And, like, I biked home on Fullerton five miles, like, fucking furious and sweating. Yeah, that sucks. I got up at 6 a.m. I was like, is this a fucking joke? Yeah. And this is the first time you're telling her this? Yes. I think I feel in part mortified and embarrassed for treating you that way. That's not. That's not how I want to behave. And that's not how I want you to feel. And I think there's also a little part of me that's like, if you feel something, it's your responsibility to say so. Like, I can't be always guessing and trying to read between the lines and interpret your silence as being mad that I didn't text you a follow-up. Like, I. No. Wrong? Yeah. No wrong. No wrong. But. I know you're keen to think about whose responsibility is it. But you know enough that if somebody spends their day driving with you, you don't need a school or a degree to tell you, you know, the nice thing to do is to send a mail message afterwards. You don't even have to send a card anymore. It's in the palm of your hand to just say much appreciated or something that acknowledges. So that's not for her to tell you to do. Yeah. This is the product of distance. This is more about the emotional distance than about accountability and responsibility. I think. So it's not why as much as how. How have things unfolded that I would be in a situation where the things that naturally come to me don't? Anyone who you pick up at 6 a.m., it's kind of understood you probably will drop them off. Or you'll check afterwards if they got home okay, given that you dropped them at the bus stop. To then go to say, no, no, this is for you to tell. It's less about the telling. It's more, there's a detachment that allows these thoughts not to be thread together. Yeah. When you have friends, when you start to have a situation where you're reluctant to see your friend because you're beginning to think about what's going to come up this time. what's the thing we haven't addressed or what's the resentment that's been lingering or what fuck up will i be exposed with this time then you start to not want to see the friend you look forward to seeing a friend because it's going to be nice fun interesting deep mischievous whatever but not to belabor you know wrongdoings and criticisms and all of this so i'm watching this because i think if you do that you may get it all out but i'm not sure you want to spend time together it's not inviting so i'm thinking what's the right dosage here of this i think you naming the trip to springfield is a good example of a grievance that is symptomatic of a larger dynamic i think a thing that i sometimes feel is wanting you to ask the favor of me and not anyone like texting in the group chat hey does anyone want to watch a movie tonight my boyfriend's busy i don't want to just fill in the empty space that you have i want you to text me and say hey i haven't seen you my boyfriend's out tonight i would love to watch a movie do you want to come over right but i haven't wanted to do that yes but i'm saying that my experience of you being self-centered is that is is you not asking me to do anything not asking me about myself and then it feels like expecting someone to come in and fill a need for you and i want you to ask me to be burdened i want you to ask me to drive to springfield with you right but i don't because then i'm like emily's gonna ask for something in return like i'm gonna have to you know do another drive to springfield but it's a different request what she wants is for you to make her feel that she's important to you it's not a burden piece here this is more like you see her out it feels very loaded right it feels very loaded and so it's not chill and we love to chill and that's like been so much of our relationship is like relaxing and like unwinding and well i'll add that my experience of us hanging out hasn't felt super loaded i did not know all of the emotional baggage that was happening for you around the trip to springfield and how much weight and meaning there was in it and i understand that that's part of the issue but it's hard for me to know how sensitive it is but then why don't you ask no each of you is saying to the other if you did it differently things would be easier i know you know but i'm just saying she knows me yes and you know her and you have a 10-year friendship and it could just be the next day after she drops you just say listen yesterday was a real bitch and i had you know to bike and this and that and that wasn't cool that's it yeah you have to kind of shorten the distance between action and reaction that's on your part but the other piece is when she says you know invite me to chill is of the same vein as you're putting it out in the cosmos you're checking to see if she's offering herself if she doesn't offer herself you think you're no longer on her priority list but in the same way that you requested she wasn't put on your priority list it was more like a i'm free tonight who's available and the specialness becomes questioned by each of you this is the crochet of the friendship too it's like little things like this and suddenly there's a kind of a cloud yeah so when she says call me i wouldn't explain why you don't call her i would say i'm glad to know you want that because i want that too end of conversation there's it's like the processing but then there's a limit to the processing yeah because if you become too much of a processing relationship it doesn't feel chill and i think you're in your suggestion about calling me to go and do things you need more of that ask me to borrow my car ask to borrow the dog i mean yeah both of you though no i know it's like i something i said to her was that i felt like we were sort of mismatched in like the expectations of each other in our actual level of of current closeness right like i don't want to reach out to you to borrow your car because i'm like that's weird like if i'm not hanging out with emily and then i'm like let me borrow your car and then i'm like let me let me borrow your car that feels transactional you need those hangouts right you need those small things that that you enjoy doing together whatever the things are it doesn't have to be small but you need to do the stuff that gives the cushion right i the only times i end up seeing you is when we need something from each have you ever met the four of you us and our boyfriends like maybe once okay so that you need twos you need fours because your group at a time is going to be this point your group of friends is in a way keeping you together without you being really together yeah that's yeah so in a way it's kind of deflecting yeah the corrective is more things to two of you yeah that you have a huge repertoire of things that you can do together the four of you for that matter yeah because if you're going to continue this at some point if it's not due and if it's not for yeah it won't sustain yeah and it's okay to have had an incredible friendship in college that didn't sustain people will tell you stories upon stories of how things just went in different directions and dissolved gradually but if you want it then it's about creating these new configurations yeah i think that something i said to you when i talked about coming on this thing is this like lazy closeness where you sort of stop performing for the other person obviously when you're like attracted to someone you meet them out right and they're like either trying to impress you or they're like on their best behavior or they're like telling you all their best stories and like after a while they stop doing that because they're comfortable with you and so we're not always our best selves with each other and i suggested i was like i want to feel like we are just new friends because i don't know what music you listen to like i don't know what shows you're watching like i don't know like really small like regular things about you it's like you have the decision to make will we remain childhood friends it's the friends you meet but they're frozen in time and they didn't really evolve with you then you have the ones who travel with you and they are people who are charting the territory with you they're creating the new experiences and then you have the circumstantial ones the ones who you met because you have kids at the same time or you are in the same school but it's circumstantial when that phase ends so does the relationship and the ones that you kind of say they've been in my life 20 30 40 years that's the ones that you create a combination of all of this even if you don't have the same circumstances you manage to remain updated and it's beyond what series are you watching it's kind of who are you now completely and that's what i said to you i was like i don't think you know who i am right now yeah well we're in our boyfriend eras i know nay our live with partner eras i know and i think i have a lot of grief and resentment that because i'm in a partnership i'm not single right and because you're in a partnership you're not single and so we're not each other's primary anchor partners it's time for me to suggest something concrete that they can do together and i'm thinking about my card game where should we begin the game of stories and how people have told me that they play the game by picking one card every day and telling a story about that card and how much it has elicited so many untold stories so many reinterpretations of the other person which they thought they knew but then discover so many new things about but also especially how it's energizing it's playful it doesn't process the problems it generates new cells in the relationship so every day you flip a card you send it and you tell a story and find a way to bring each other back into your lives today. But not only by talking about the things that you're upset about, but by actually creating an energy that makes you want to connect to each other. You won't stay friends by talking about what makes you upset. It doesn't work this way. It's important to do, but it's not what keeps the friendship alive. I also like that as we rebuild and refresh our relationship, that we can invite our partners into this new family system, that there's this new important person in your life who I get to meet and become friends with as well. Yeah. Yeah, I would love for you to know him. It's crazy, we live four blocks from each other. If you took a walk together, you know, a few times a week, half an hour, and you walk the dog. We love dogs. I mean, it's that kind of ritual, fun, simple. And we've found that in group dynamics, but we've lost that on a one-to-one basis. Right, yes. But you're right, I mean, we do have like tons of things. I was just like, we should go antiquing. Like, we love antiquing, and we live in the Midwest. I started knitting. I know. But you didn't even tell me. I've been knitting, but I'm stuck because I fucked it up, and I don't know how to fix it. And I'll help you. Yeah. And you haven't seen my new beading. I'm not beading. Literally. All right, that's the energy you're going to leave with. I'm not going to add anything. Because you'll have a lot of things to discover. What else don't you know about me that has happened in those years? those last few years. - I love you, buddy. - Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with New York Magazine and The Cut. Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Destry Sibley, Sabrina Farhi, Kristen Muller, and Juliannette. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, and Jack Saul. - Fall is here, and that means the pumpkin spice latte is back at Starbucks. It's the one we've been waiting for. So whether you're a fan of the original pumpkin spice latte or ready to mix it up with an iced pumpkin cream chai, the new iced pumpkin cream matcha, or the new iced pumpkin cream shaken espresso, you can find your favorite taste of fall only at Starbucks. - On any journey using Uber, it helps to know you're getting into the right car. Pin verification adds an extra step to make sure your ride is your ride. Before the trip begins, your app gives you a unique pin. Just tell it to your driver and they'll enter it in their app before the ride can start. - Hey, what's your pin? - Mm-hmm, 2538. - That way, you know you're in the right car, taking the right trip, and your driver knows you're the right passenger. Make sure your ride is your ride with pin verification from Uber. 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