437 - Relationships Can Save Your Life (Even if You’re an Introvert)
Leading a happy life
Inspired by a TED YouTube video called The Secret to a Happy Life — Lessons from 8 Decades of Research | Robert Waldinger, we’re discussing how your non-romantic relationships can improve your health, mentally, emotionally, and even physically.
A Zen priest, Robert Waldinger is also the director of the Harvard Study for Adult Development, the longest running longitudinal study of the same people and their families/descendants. For over 80 years, the study has tracked participants and their children.
Its key findings have been:
Having what they call “warm connections” has a large impact on not only mental/emotional health but also physical health, regardless of fame, success, or money. This includes physical health (less inflammation and stronger immune systems).
They found there to be health benefits to connecting to strangers. Though relationships that can help you talk through something important are best, even a warm, friendly conversation with a barista, hair stylist, or stranger in line at the grocery store has a positive impact.
Different people have different social needs. Many people in the study were introverts and were healthy having one or two close relationships while others thrived with much more social activity.
The ability to connect with others is not fixed and can be learned and developed later in life.
So how do we strengthen our relationships?
Some suggestions for strengthening current non-romantic relationships are:
Be proactive in reaching out and scheduling regular catch-ups with people important to you. Make it routine.
Liven up long-standing relationships with new, out-of-the-ordinary activities. Go beyond your normal routine.
Bond through shared interests by joining groups, classes or volunteering for causes you care about.
Reconnect with old friends or family you've lost touch with but felt close to before. Rebuilding established connections is easier than new ones.
Try opening up a little more with your current friends and contacts. Go a bit deeper in existing relationships before seeking brand new ones.
Try befriending colleagues you relate to. Workplace friends can become real confidants.
Remember to focus on authenticity and meaning:
Evaluate whether you can be your authentic self in a relationship. Do you feel truly known?
Don't overshare too fast. Build intimacy slowly by taking emotional risks over time with people who respond supportively.
Make sure to have at least one person who "has your back" when times are tough.
Remember relationships are mutually built over time. Be the kind of friend you want to have too. Listen, support, and be trustworthy.
Focus on shared meaning, not just shared fun (though fun is good, too!). Support each other's growth.
And if you’re a true introvert, or maybe just less social than others, consider:
If you want more connections, take small steps out of your comfort zone to be around people more. It gets easier.
Consider counseling if isolation is involuntary and troubling for you. Humans need some degree of relationships.
Find just one person you can be yourself with. Focus on quality over quantity.
Connect with people online about shared interests before attempting in-person interactions.
Practice social skills in small increments within your comfort zone.
Join groups for people with similar dispositions or challenges. Find your tribe.
Consider a therapy animal if you relate better to pets than people. Animals can reduce stress.
Identify aspects of relationships that do provide comfort, like sending memes or chatting online.
Remind yourself that being different is OK. You don't have to fit the extrovert ideal.
Set boundaries and give yourself permission to opt out of overwhelming social situations.
It's never too late to strengthen relationships and reap benefits! If it seems overwhelming, try just one new social activity per week, even if it's online groups for now. One step at a time.
Our Discord server is an amazing resource for people to connect. Self-compassion is key - be patient and don't judge yourself. Note that everyone needs different levels of interaction. Don't compare yourself to super social extroverts.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are talking about how the quality of your relationships, and by this we don't mean romantic relationships, but any relationships, friends, family, even strangers, can have significant effects on your mental, emotional and even physical health throughout your life. We're going to discuss some research findings about this and get deeper into some practical ways that we can make positive change in all our relationships, whether we have a lot of them or whether we find that to be a struggle. For this episode, I was inspired by a YouTube video that came out earlier this year, published by TED, the talks people.
Dedeker: Not just your friend TED of the talks.
Jase: Yes, my buddy TED posted this video, it's called The Secret to a Happy Life, Lessons from 8 Decades of Research. What this was was a short little presentation and then a Q&A with TED members and Dr. Robert Waldinger. He is the current director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which is the longest-running longitudinal study of the same people over time ever done that we're aware of. He also happens to be a Zen priest, which is just a fun aside, that was not discussed in this video, but when I was looking him up, I found out about that. Basically what this study is, it's very possible that some of you out there have heard of it before, but this was started in 1938 and originally was a cohort of 724 men from Harvard University. It was all men because only men went to Harvard at the time.
Dedeker: Only men existed back then-- .
Emily: It only matters what men do and think and how they grow up.
Dedeker: Only Harvard graduates existed. We counted on the roster.
Jase: Right. Women were not invented yet, so it started off with 724 men and after a little while they added also a group of boys from inner-city elementary and middle schools. Basically, the whole point of this was just to study them over the course of their lives, getting various data over the course of their lives to see if they could tell what sorts of things tended to relate to success or happiness or health or anything like that. It was this overall comprehensive study of the lifetime of adult development. What's interesting is of those initial participants, last article I found was from 2017, I think, and it said only 19 of them are still alive.
Emily: Well, I mean 1938.
Dedeker: Yes, that's true.
Jase: They would all be over 100 now. The study has since gone on to study the children of those initial participants as well as, get this. They've added women to this study now.
Dedeker: Wow. Upgrade.
Jase: That's pretty cool. How dare they?
Dedeker: Is it all still Harvard undergrads or have they expanded beyond the Harvard ecosystem, do you know?
Jase: They've expanded because it's the families of those people. I guess there's still maybe a Harvard connection in there somewhere.
Dedeker: Sure. The Harvard connection we all know and love.
Jase: Right. Now the current day number is over 2,000 participants, including, like I said, children from the original. Actually, they did say that in that Q&A episode, he said that the study is actually now more women than men. It's actually more than 50% women, but that's been a gradual change over time. I guess this super duper longitudinal data of checking with people over their lives, we wouldn't have as much of that for the women in the study yet. As far as I understood, there wasn't anything that was like, "Oh my God, they're completely the opposite of what we had observed", in this particular study, at least.
Emily: Do you happen to know what they were looking for in terms of the study or how they conducted their research? Did they go and say, "Okay, write down things that mattered to you in your life and what you think has helped you over certain years?" What exactly, how did they find their findings?
Jase: My understanding of it is that it was mostly checking in with them periodically. I don't actually know if this was every year, and I think it's varied a little bit over the course of the 80-plus years that they've been doing this study, but filling out questionnaires, surveys, type of thing. Checking back in, asking about their health, asking about their relationships. They were saying that they're actually working on making more of this data public, like publicly available so that other researchers can look at the same data and try to ask different questions of the data, as well as submitting future questions for them to start including in the research moving forward. I think it has changed over time based on they start to see something and they go, "Ooh, let's ask some questions about that." For example, as the participants were getting much older, one of the questions that they asked them was, "What's something that you're most proud of in your life?"
That was one, so this is where we're tying back to the topic of today's episode. That was one where very notably, basically nobody, or almost nobody said how much money they made, what their job was, how many books they wrote, those sorts of things. Maybe a little bit of that was in there, but it was about, "I raised healthy kids", or, "I had good friendships", or, "I was there for people in my family." Talking about the importance of relationships for people in terms of feeling rewarded later in their life was just one example of something that I'm sure they didn't ask that question in the same way earlier on when the participants were undergrads or elementary school students. Maybe they did, I don't know.
Dedeker: You know what I've been proud of as an elementary school student? That's a question.
Emily: I think your friends are what you're proud of as an elementary school student and just learning new things and finding--
Dedeker: Not me.
Emily: Oh, okay.
Dedeker: . I would've been proud of the A that I got on my last report card.
Emily: Of course, you would.
Jase: I do feel like as a young-
Dedeker: I'm still a slut for accomplishment even to this day.
Emily: There you go. I get that. I do. I do. .
Jase: I think as a young kid, your scope of what you would even consider when thinking what you're proudest of is stuff that happened in the last week or maybe even in the last couple days. It's not going to be quite as life-extensive. The topic for today's episode is focused on some of their findings that were the ones that I think were most surprising to researchers and has been the trend that they've noticed over time is about the importance of relationships in our lives. Again, in this Q&A, something that I was very glad that Dr. Waldinger acknowledged is that one single study, even if it is an 80-year-plus study, doesn't prove anything or doesn't even really conclusively show us anything. The point is then trying to reproduce those results, doing different tests, trying to disprove things, and check things. Over the time of this study, there have been a lot of other studies that have replicated a lot of these results too.
In this episode we're mostly focusing on things that they've found and things that they've written about in books and stuff about this study, some of those findings, but that a lot of this has been replicated and confirmed in other research as well. Some of which I think take more of negative spin to it as well as some that are a little more holistic and positive. Either way, we're going to get into what were some of these findings that were significant to relationships, and then also how can we take that information and apply it in our lives.
Emily: We wanted to focus on particular key findings that were about relationships because this podcast and this show are about relationships and that's what we care about the most.
Jase: That's what attracted me to this study is the fact that they didn't set out to study relationships specifically, but they found this is the thing that actually mattered more than a lot of other stuff that we expected to in terms of health. Exercise or money or success that they expected those things, I think, to have more more of an impact than they did, and no one saw relationships coming.
Emily: I love that. That's great. Their key finding was that having what they called warm connections which is just so sweet. It makes me feel like, "Oh, I'm getting a hug or I'm giving a hug to someone and I'm getting that warm connection." That has a large impact on not only the mental and emotional health of a person but also the physical health, like Jase said, regardless of whether or not that person is super famous or super "successful" or money. That all is really interesting. I do wonder if because a person is potentially a Harvard graduate or the offspring of a Harvard person, that it's easy for them to be like, "Yes, I am just happy." Or, "Just because I am a person who has had that success in my life that I even am around Harvard people," for example. I would like to think that relationships would contribute to people's lives and their happiness regardless of where they come from.
Jase: That's, again, to go back to the idea that a lot of these findings have been replicated in other studies as well, that we're not just looking at Harvard graduates. We're not just taking the same data set.
Emily: Totally. They found that physical health was something that was really affected by relationships as well. Things like less inflammation, healthier immune systems, that was all amplified by having these warm connections. Then, a person's mental and physical decline that comes with aging that tended to happen later and a person stayed healthier longer if they had connections with a lot of people or with just important people in their lives. That I think is really interesting, and it ties back to something that I heard a lot during the pandemic, is that when people were isolated from one another, that caused, especially in places like old folks homes and stuff like that, that it caused a quicker, more rapid decline in health and cognitive function just because they weren't able to be around people as readily and as much as they used to be. I think that's really telling here.
Jase: That makes so much sense. That really fits with what they found here. The original Ted Talk that Robert Waldinger did was actually in 2017 about these findings before the pandemic even. I didn't even think to look for what data might have been updated and found during that.
Emily: Absolutely. Sadly, a lot of people were dying faster during that time just simply because they didn't have that social connection that they used to. That hopefully now people are getting a lot more of now that the pandemic is in a different phase than what it used to be.
Dedeker: I would hope so. I think we covered this on an earlier episode, that there was some research that found that over the course of the pandemic, on average, everybody lost at least one social connection. Not as in an acquaintance or a coworker that you barely speak to, but that there was this phenomenon of people really having to batten down the hatches and not just physically, literally being stuck in your home, but energetically as well, that there was just something about people really not having the energy to maintain as many social connections.
People lost friends, not because there was a falling out necessarily, but just through this attrition. I don't know. What I've seen, at least with some of the people in my life, I don't think I've seen people necessarily bounce back from that. People who have lost connections or maybe fell out of their routine where they were more connected to community that I think it's been harder for everyone to get back into that afterwards.
Emily: I think the positive side of that would be you keep the connections in your life that are really meaningful to you or you continue to build and strengthen the connections that you already have, that matter the most to you in your life. I think a lot of people during the pandemic said, "This has shown me what does matter in life, are my connections and are the people around me," because you can't take it with you. Those are the things that are really going to matter in the end.
Jase: This study was not specifically looking at why these warm connections have this effect, although lots of people have theorized about it and tried to come up with explanations. One of the potential ones is the stress-buffering effects. Essentially, how having people in our lives that we have this warm connection with.
I love that throughout he kept emphasizing the fact that this is not a romantic relationship. It could be, but it doesn't have to be. That's not the point here. This could be family. This could be friends.
This warm connection meaning someone that you can come to if you're worried about something or you're stressed about something or you're scared or you just need someone to talk something through with that you have that connection in your life.
He gave that example of if something is going on in your life that's really stressful at work, for example, or maybe a family member is ill, or you've gotten sick, something where there's a lot of extra stress that if you're just stuck trying to process that on your own, it's hard for us to go through that process of feeling stress and then getting back to equilibrium.
If we have someone that we're able to talk that through with, we're more likely to get back to that state of equilibrium faster. Staying in that heightened form of stress is bad for us. Lots of research has shown that as well. That's one of the explanations they gave for why this could be is just that there's this stress-mitigating fact of having-- You could call it a support network, I guess, even though I don't think he used those words exactly.
Emily: Yes, I know for myself when I'm going through something or finding myself in a constant emotion that is not great or something stressful or just anger, I'll maybe talk to one of you or call my mom or something to just get it outside of me. That's super helpful in allowing me to go back to, as you said, that equilibrium state or just feeling more like myself or deal with the emotion better than I was previously.
Jase: Getting perspective from someone who you feel like understands you and cares about you rather than perspective from some stranger on the internet who tells you you're wrong.
Dedeker: These warm connections, I think that-- Okay, someone like me who's a little more introverted and we will address the introverts more directly later. Hang tight on that.
Jase: Stay tuned.
Dedeker: Yes, stay tuned. All this talk always makes me a little stressed out because I think of-
Emily: Oh, really?
Dedeker: It does, because I think of someone, for instance, like my older sister is an extrovert, has always been, as long as I've known her and has always had this really, really wide circle of friends and that's the model that I grew up with and then always felt like, "Oh, maybe there's something wrong with me or because I'm just too shy and I don't have this huge wide circle of friends." What's really great about this is that a warm connection, it doesn't need to be someone that you talk to every single day. Even it doesn't have to be somebody that you live with.
It also doesn't even have to be 6 billion warm connections as well. I think that what we're gleaning here is it's really about the quality of your connections more so than the quantity of your connections. In the Ted Talk video, he gave this example of thinking about who in your life could you call in the middle of the night if you were sick. I want to go ahead and put a caveat on this question because where my brain goes is like, "Who's local that I could call if I'm sick?" I think that's not quite the point of the exercise.
It's just like, "Let's say you're sick, but you don't need someone to take you to the doctor. You're just miserable and need to share that with somebody or need some comfort."
Jase: Poor baby.
Dedeker: Yes, you just need a little bit of "Poor baby." in the middle of the night. Who could you call? Something to think about is also who might you be that person for? Who in your life would feel comfortable and safe enough to reach out to you if they were sick in the middle of the night? To quote Waldinger, he says, "When we looked at the dozens of relationships, those who were happiest and healthiest had the common theme was that these relationships brought them a sense of belonging and made them feel valued." It seems like that's really the bare minimum, less about how geographically proximal they are, about how many friends you can invite to your birthday party or whatever, but do you have this sense of belonging and feeling valued?
Additionally, they found that there's also health benefits to connecting with strangers as well which also as the introvert, stresses me out and makes me sweat even more.
Of course, a relationship where you can actually talk through something deep is probably the best and probably carries the most benefits, but even having a warm and friendly conversation with your barista or your hairstylist or someone in line at the grocery store can have a positive impact. This is something I'm slowly learning in my life. Weirdly, once I started working with clients more one-on-one, I do think that helped me to become a little less afraid of listening to a stranger ramble because that's literally what I'm paid to do you know.
Emily: You have to.
Dedeker: Because I have to. Not just sit there and listen and roll my eyes, but sit there and find things to listen to and find questions to ask and find ways to get engaged. Of course, I have days where I'm just like, "No, I don't want to talk to the Uber driver for sure." I think this is a skill that at least I've learned to develop, I think that can be developed to be a little more open to some of those random interactions with a stranger or acquaintance.
Emily: I do appreciate how Waldinger is talking about finding connections that are outside of maybe just like your little insular group of one or two people, which is fine if that's who it is, but people outside of maybe just your spouse for instance, or the person that you are romantically connected to. I do see so many people, especially more in monogamous communities, who tend to simply go to only that person for all of their needs and all of their connection. That's a really hard place to be, I think as that person who is being leaned upon and just for lack of, I guess, experience and ideas that you glean from all of the different people in your life. I love the opportunity to meet people that maybe are strangers or acquaintances or are in a spin class or something else that you're doing that's not just the person that maybe you live with or the couple people that you live with and that's it.
Jase: This was one that when he talked about this in the video, he talked about a study they did where people were taking the subway in New York and basically one group was just go about your day like normal. The other group was given the assignment of talk to a stranger, like strike up a conversation. Basically, everyone going in was like, "That sucks, I don't want to do that. That's really stressful." but that basically everyone afterward reported having more fun during their journey, like that they did find it to be rewarding. He brought that one up as a, "Even if it doesn't feel like this is super natural and easy for me, there still can be some benefits. It is an exercise that you can work at. I will also say, I'm not great at this.
I think I'm okay, but I'm not the kind who just strikes up conversations with strangers that often. I have some friends that are like that and every time I hang out with them, I'm just amazed at their ability to just chat with random people. What's funny though is watching them do it, it's generally a really positive interaction. It's generally nice and at the very least it's neutral or like, "Whoa, that person didn't really talk to us." It's not as scary as I feel like my mind tends to go when thinking about that interaction. Then the other thing that I was just thinking about, I know we made a lot of jokes about how this study is all just men, or at least early on at least was just men.
I do think this whole warm connection thing is interesting because a lot of research has shown that that's one of the problems for men is not having a lot of social connections besides their spouse.
Emily: Exactly.
Jase: I think it's actually maybe was a good demographic for some of this because you get to see the other extreme too and go, "Oh, yes, these people who didn't foster any other connections didn't do as well." Just something to throw out there to maybe, I don't know, help mediate how biased the sample was at the beginning at least.
Emily: We all are different people and we are going to have different sets of social needs and if you are an introvert out there and are thinking, "Hey, I really do only have one or two people that I could really call", having a warm connection with, that is totally okay. Many people in this study did only have like one or two really close relationships while other people in the study had huge amounts of close relationships and thrived with a lot of social skills and social ability, but both are fine. If you fall more into one camp than the other, that's totally okay, and also the ability to connect with others. That's not just something that's fixed throughout the course of your life, that can be learned and developed later in life. I know my mom who always has said that she's more of an introvert. She walks with a bunch of older seniors now.
Dedeker: Oh, she's one those walking seniors?
Emily: Yes. Well, she walks like seven miles. She's pretty intense. She goes to Sabino Canyon and now just like has this hoard of older seniors that she walks with and gets to talk to.
Jase: That's great.
Dedeker: I love that because in my brain, I always have an image of your mom just being this literal lone wolf walking by herself in the desert.
Emily: I think she used to do that a little bit more, but now more people have come up to her and so she has been able to grow her social skills as well and now has just a huge group of friends there, and people who she texts with and talks to and they call each other to get up early and walk together and stuff. I think that's really great. My mom's in her seventies and that goes to show that maybe somebody who felt like they were more a lone wolf at one point in their life, that that doesn't have to be the case always.
Jase: Awesome. We're going to go on now to talk about how we can strengthen some of our existing relationships as well as building new ones and building ones that are meaningful. As Dedeker teased, we're going to get into what if everything we've just talked about so far seems terrifying and horrible. We also want to talk to that as well because it's a little terrifying to us. The good news is that all hope is not lost. There's ways for us to connect no matter how socially anxious or anything like that, that we are. We're going to have a little extra challenge at the end for you as well, but first, we want to take a quick break to talk about how you can support this show. If you appreciate getting this information that we hope is helpful and informative to you every week, that you can share with anyone out there for free, the best way that you can do that is to just take a moment, listen to our ads, if any seem interesting to you, go check them out.
It does directly support our show. If you want to support us directly, you can go to multiamory.com/join and learn how you can support us there. We're back. Let's dive in first to ways to strengthen existing relationships that we have. One of the things that came up with this is this doesn't necessarily mean you've got to go out and get this big group of friends or join some community and get really close to them. Maybe you could do that. Maybe you could be like Emily's mom and suddenly have a whole group of people you go on walks with.
You might also be listening to this thinking, "Yes, I do have a few people like that, but maybe I don't spend as much time on those connections as I would like. Maybe I've drifted a little bit far from some of those." First thing here is just being proactive and reaching out, scheduling regular checkups with those people that are important to you. Make that a routine. We talk a lot on this show about the importance of things like scheduling a date night with your partner or partners to make sure that you're not just saying, "Oh well we watch TV together, so whatever. That's it." Maybe think, okay, with this friend once a month, I want to give them a call if I haven't talked to them that often. I have a friend who I generally only talk to like once a year on the phone, but I was thinking it'd be nice to reach out to him a little bit more often.
We have the same birthday, so we usually talk just once a year on our shared birthday, things like that. Then also thinking about those relationships again, like the date night kind of thing. If you have a partner or a friend that you do see regularly and you always do the same thing, look at how you might be able to change that up. Do something that's out of your ordinary routine. If going for a walk together is not part of your normal routine, give that a try or maybe this is a friend where you just go out and drink together or you just play a certain video game together, change it up, say, "Oh, let's try this other thing this week."
It doesn't have to be like, "Oh, let's never do that old thing anymore", but just to get some novelty to shake things up, increase that engagement. I always find with some of my long-term friends that when we'll occasionally hang out and just do something different, we'll often have different conversations that get deeper in certain subjects. I don't know what it is, but maybe subconsciously something just gets shaken up a little bit. I don't know, have you two noticed anything like that?
Emily: I recently went out with a friend who I did a play with and he moved recently and is getting divorced and now lives alone. It was really cool just like making dinner together and having a long conversation with him because all of the things that we talked about weren't things that I necessarily talked to other people about. It was about the actor strike. It massaged a different part of my brain than I usually get massaged. I love that. That is a good way, I think, to have different people in your life bring up different experiences and different fun parts of you just by getting the opportunity to meet up and speak to people that maybe you don't necessarily do on a regular basis. Like you said, that guy that you talk to once a year, Jase.
Jase: Then if you're thinking, okay, but how do I build more connections too? Maybe I do want to have some more of these in my life. One of the ways you can do that is something we've also talked about when it comes to finding partners as well, which is joining groups, taking classes, or volunteering for causes that you care about or groups that share an interest that you're passionate about, or maybe even just curious about. Something where you have more in common than just, "I want a friend or I want a partner, or I just need someone to talk to."
I think there's value in those things as well, but if you have a shared interest, it just makes it a little bit easier to have something, like Emily said, it's like, oh, we have a thing that we have in common, so we get to talk about that. You get to explore that part of yourself, learn from each other, as well as developing a connection with this person, a warm connection ideally.
Emily: As it were . Another thing you can do is reconnect with old friends or family that you've lost touch with but you at one point felt really close to. I know as we age, and as people grow up, they move, they go to different locations and sometimes because you don't have that proximity with a person, it's really easy to fall out of touch. I think it's super important to, when they come up on an Instagram story, for instance, sometimes I'm like, "Oh, I should call that person, or I should text that person and just see how they're doing." It is easier to rebuild those established connections than just make new ones from scratch because you have a foundation that's already built. I love that idea.
Also, you could try opening up a little bit more with your current friends and contacts. That means kind of go deeper in terms of the things that you're talking about with them. Maybe even people like work connections, because I just had a pretty close friend move to Chicago. I really feel like I want to figure out someone to fill that gap in my life a bit. That either could mean that I go look to those connections that are already established, but maybe not as deep as the friend who just left was, someone at work or someone in a class or something like that. Try to cultivate that further.
Also, the friend who left, she wrote me a handwritten note with a little triforce on it, which I thought, I was like, that's so cool for so many reasons, but especially because of our triforce of communication. It was really sweet. I'm not that artistically good like she is at making things. I just bought a card and I'm going to send something back to her, but I like that idea of having a pen pal or connecting in a way that perhaps you wouldn't otherwise, because if you're close to someone in proximity, then you can connect just over the phone or texting. If you're far away from someone, it's nice to maybe send a little gift once in a while or a little care package or even just a handwritten note.
Dedeker: This one is tricky. I think I am inclined to say, at least the way that I've approached these things in more recent years is under this assumption that no one really knows how to make friends when they're adults. Most likely, everyone is seeking more friendship and more connection, more of these warm connections most likely. If I choose to be a little bit vulnerable to go a little bit deeper, talk about more personal things with someone, chances are high that it's going to be received well and be reciprocated. However, that's not 100% across the board. I think there's a certain amount of, you need to figure out like when is it appropriate to do this? I think we struggle with a lot. To be honest, I think that women don't struggle with this as much as men do.
Jase: For sure.
Dedeker: That's my perception, as the resident man, what say you. Jase?
Emily: Tell us, man.
Dedeker: I just have a hard time like yes. Because I have these really wonderful, particularly female friendships that I've developed in my 30s that I didn't really have as much of in my 20s. We send each other cards or like little gifts or leave each other voice notes, and I don't see any of the men in my life doing that. I see them creating connection in their own way, but I can't imagine any of my male friends being like, "I'm just going to send you a little handwritten note", even though I'm sure that'd be nice and would make someone's day right. Am I off-base on that? Is that weird?
Emily: No, I don't think you are. I think it really varies, but I think the point of it though is not that it looks one particular way, that it is a handwritten note or a present or something like that, but that it's something that feels that's different from the normal. It's a little bit of an extra special thing like the fact that it's handwritten or the fact that it had a gift or for you, Dedeker, I know it's been a lot of audio messages that's been kind of a novel new way that you've been communicating more. I think it could look a lot of other ways as well. It could be like suggesting a new game to play together. I know that's a way that I connect with a lot of my friends is, "Oh, let's play this game that we can play online together while we chat."
Always looking for what are the games that strike that balance of, doesn't take too much of our attention so we can actually have a real conversation with each other. Even just sharing something like that or hosting a different type of thing, like, "Hey, let's actually play a board game. I want to put this thing together, host this for you," or, "Hey, I was working on this project, I want you to get involved with it." There's lots of different ways that could look just to speak quickly to the gender thing. I find with men the same thing's true though, that if you open up a little and show that you are someone who they're able to open up to, I think there's that same, everyone's looking for it. Everyone wants it, even if they might not name that out loud if you ask them what they're looking for. I think that's a universal thing. It might just look a little bit different.
Emily: To go back to the audio message thing, Dedeker, which you actually taught me that there's some importance in that and it can be a little bit more intimate than just like a text. My friend James, he's a big Star Trek nerd, nerd in general, but a Big Star Trek nerd. My partner and I are watching Star Trek Voyager right now, but he's been roped into it because during the episode when we're watching, I'll audio message him something about the episode and then he audio messages me back and my partner and I will like stop the episode to listen to it. It's almost as though he's a part of the experience as well, which is really cool.
I think that can be another sort of weird novel, fun way to include a person who's not sitting right next to you or who may not even live in the same state as you, but can be a part of your interaction with something that the two of you enjoy doing or enjoy consuming, for instance, in this case,
Dedeker: We took a deep dive into this not too long ago in episode 379, which was titled Relationship Science for Your Friendships and Vice Versa, where we looked at this more specifically about creating these warm connections from a research perspective and gave many, many more suggestions for the ways that you can build these connections. We definitely recommend you go check out episode 379.
Jase: Now as you're building these relationships, whether they're new ones or rekindling existing ones, or deepening existing ones, something to be thinking about is this someone where I can be my authentic self in this relationship, and do I feel like this person really knows me? Now this one is worth talking about a little bit because I think for those of us who are doing something not normative, whether that has to do with the way we do relationships, if we're non-monogamous for example, or if we're some type of queer or gender non-conforming or something that there's always a little bit of extra caution I would say, or maybe fear of, I don't know for sure that this person's going to accept this and be comfortable with it and not have that be the only focus of our relationship.
I guess that the thing to bring up here is to acknowledge that's an extra challenge that I know that I face. I think we've all faced that in different ways at different times, but taking little risks to see where you might be able to find that in your relationships is really important of, that feeling of belonging and being understood at that deeper level is a really important part of these warm connections. Again, it doesn't have to be everybody in your life knows everything, but being able to share at least on this deeper level parts of your life with multiple different people can help fill that. Just having a couple who really understand that is why at least coming out within your smaller circle of people you trust can be really important because that's how you can get to that really important feeling of belonging and being known. I just want to just throw that out there, that that is really important.
Emily: Something that I will often do when I'm kind of cultivating a new connection is oversharing or telling my life story super, super quickly. That's just the person that I am. I'll tell everybody everything, I don't care who you are . Maybe that's not the best tactic, especially when creating lasting relationships. Sometimes that can get into maybe love bombing territory and it may not exactly be something that's so sustainable. Perhaps focus instead on building intimacy slowly by taking emotional risks with that person over time and see who responds in a supportive manner as opposed to just doing it all at once. Telling everyone your deepest, darkest secrets immediately because that may not go over as well as you wanted to. Truly, that person may not be somebody ultimately who you want to share that stuff with. Guard your heart a little bit.
Dedeker: I'm sorry if it feels like we're giving impossible advice. It is a balancing act of you need to find what are those little baby steps towards someone that's not just steamrolling them with literally everything that's inside your heart and just spewing all over them in that particular way. I really like this focus on not just being authentic with someone, but also focusing on shared meaning together. Shared fun is great, we want to have shared fun experiences with the people in our lives, but I think there is something about supporting each other's personal growth and I think that in order to support each other's personal growth, you have to be honest about what your personal growth is.
Honest about what it is that you're working on in your life right now or where it is that you're struggling or where it is that you're winning in particular ways that you're really happy to share. This could be also not just personal growth, but if you're connected with someone where you're both fired up about a shared cause, for instance or you're really interested in activism around a shared cause, that's another form of shared meaning. This is the reason why having religious practices or spiritual practices for some people also creates a really wonderful sense of community. Again, the sense of shared meaning and that doesn't mean you have to run out and go to church or anything like that, but just to pay attention to that too. Do you feel like you have a sense of shared meaning with the people around you?
Jase: Now we come to the portion of this episode, for all of you out there who perhaps are a little bit more on the introverted side or who feel like you're just generally a less social person than maybe some of your friends are and that, as we have said before, is totally okay. Now, if you out there do want to find more connections or make more connections in your community or just get a slightly larger group of friends or strengthen the connections you already have, then you can, it's okay to take some small steps outside of your comfort zone and maybe be around some more people. It does get easier over time and that is a muscle that you can flex and work on and get better at over time. Just like my mom, maybe it took one person initially that she started walking with, and then more and more, that person had friends and then she got to meet their friends and then the social circle got bigger and bigger, and now she's the life of the fricking party.
Dedeker: I think the struggle with all of us who are more introverted is trying to find that balance of what amount of alone time is recharging and healthy and when does that needle crossover into a not a healthy point? I know for myself, I often feel chronically like, "Oh, I'm not having enough alone time, I'm not having enough alone time." That gets me to really overestimate how much alone time I actually need. That's when I explode and I'm like, I need to go spend a month by myself in a cave, goodbye and then I'm in the cave for two days and I'm like, "Oh, I'm good now. I want to come back to society." I think especially the more time you either feel you're deprived of it or the more time that you spend isolated, it can really mess with your sense of what is actually good for you.
There's a certain amount of isolation and alone time that can be good for you and there's a certain amount that may not be good for you. That's a question that's really good to take to a counselor or to someone that you trust that can help you take an inventory to see where is this helping me and where might this be hurting me?
Emily: If you do feel you're super isolated and there's really no one in your life or very few people in your life that you can be yourself with or around or that you feel as though you have those warm connections with, focus on that first. Just even finding one person in your life or cultivating one connection because quality is more important than quantity, than just having a huge group of friends who you can do that with. I think it's really important to at least find somebody and that may not necessarily be somebody that you are in a romantic relationship with or a family member. It may be a mentor or something. I think a lot of people who are young for instance, and maybe have a difficult time finding a lot of friends, they can find mentors or teachers or somebody that really instills a great feeling of connection and worthiness in them.
That can look a variety of different ways. It doesn't just have to look one way. You can also connect with people online about your shared interests before attempting in-person interactions. That's something that's so great about today and about, I guess the last 20, 30 years of our lifetime at least is that the internet made available now all of these different places for community that we at one point didn't have. This huge longitudinal study now has only really had the internet for a very, very short period of time. Some people probably feel more isolated today in a lot of ways, but I'm sure that there's less isolation with others just because they have access to communities in a way that they didn't use to.
Jase: With all of this practicing these social skills and building connections, it's also okay to do that in small increments and to only go outside of your comfort zone a little bit. This is it to say, throw yourself off the deep end and try to be social and make a bunch of best friends all at once. That sounds horrible, don't need to do that. It's okay to stay within your comfort zone or within the window of tolerance, we could say. Joining groups of people with similar dispositions or challenges too.
We talked before about having common interests with a discussion group or a meetup group or something. There are also groups specifically of introverts. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but that thing of, yes, let me connect with other people who get me, let me find people who have social anxiety or something like that so that we can relate and not feel so alone in going through that.
We've talked about that in a lot of different areas. That's a really important one. Another option is a therapy animal. This is not quite the same as these warm connections we've been talking about, but animals have been shown to reduce stress as well. In certain cases, actually having a service dog can be incredibly helpful when it comes to panic attacks or things like that as well.
Dedeker: It can be helpful to identify the aspects of connecting with people that do provide comfort to you. Remember, it may not look the same way as somebody else. For you having a friend where 90% of your interaction is sending memes to each other and you absolutely love that, lean into that or if you really do prefer chatting online with someone while you're playing a game together, more so than getting lunch with them, lean into that. It's okay to be different. It's okay for the ways that you connect to be different. It doesn't have to fit this particular extrovert ideal. I do think that there's a lot of American culture that really is built for extroverts. Maybe I'm biased because I'm on the other side of that, but especially compared to other cultures I've spent time in, I think that our culture really encourages people to fit a particular extrovert shape that not everybody could fit.
Again, remember the ways that you connect are wholly unique to you and that's okay. It's okay to give yourself permission to opt out of a type of social interaction that doesn't fit for you or is overwhelming for you.
Jase: When I was putting this episode together, I found myself wondering about online relationships because like Emily mentioned, that's a relatively new phenomenon, at least over the term of this longitudinal study. I went digging around to try to see if there was any research about relationships that people have through online games, specifically massively multiplayer online games where there is a little bit more of a long-term relationships that happen in the game. I'm thinking as opposed to something where you play around with people that maybe lasts 20, 30 minutes and then you move on and you're playing with somebody else or maybe you just have a small team, but a game where the pace is a little slower, I guess. You might have these relationships that you develop without ever meeting these people in person. I, for example, know quite a few people in my life who have made really important lifelong connections through online games, whether that's through a World of Warcraft.
I know people who met their guild mates for the first time when they invited them to their wedding, but they had known these people for years online or people who have started relationships across the country through connecting through various MMOs and things like that. I was curious, I looked into this and I found one--
Jase: That was a little bit old, but I thought was interesting. It was a meta-analysis from 2010, so again, a little bit old. That was by Victoria Anne Sublette and Barbara Mullan called Consequences of Play: A Systematic Review of the Effects of Online Gaming.
Dedeker: Consequences of play makes it sound really scary.
Jase: It does--
Emily: The consequences of play.
Jase: I think that's part of what they were going for because they looked at 16 different studies about the health effects of massively multiplayer online games, which, if you remember back to 2010, all the talk was about video game addiction and people losing their jobs or failing out of school because of World of Warcraft, stuff like that. That was all the rage. That's what I think maybe made them title it that way. I don't know if they were looking for this to prove or disprove those sorts of things, but basically what they found is that with the exception of the rare cases of actual video game addiction, that for the most part the health effects and social effects of online gaming were positive.
Contrary to I think what was culturally believed at the time. They found that online games provide opportunities for social interaction in a less intimidating format than face-to-face for introverts. They found that players reported feeling that conversations were easier to conduct in these games online than they were in other situations.
Emily: Introverts appreciated the ability to socialize and make friends online while also maintaining privacy and controlling the interaction. It's happening on their terms. It's nice to be able to create the interaction that you want and then be able to have it end when you want as well. Also, multiplayer online games allow for collaboration and teamwork with others in a semi-anonymous way that might be more comfortable for introverts. This could help you build social skills over time as well.
Dedeker: There's also the phenomenon that we see with whether it's an online game like World of Warcraft or something like Second Life, it's not only do you get a little bit of this separation that maybe makes it ironically easier to connect with people, but often you're putting on a different persona in a different setting that enables you to, I know for myself, makes you feel a little less vulnerable perhaps, that it's not just you with all your flaws. It's like you're putting on this different hat in a manner of speaking that maybe makes it easier to make social connections more so than when you're saddled with your real-world identity that is not as easy to change or is not as easy to control the ways that people perceive you perhaps.
Jase: Now, surprise, I have a challenge for all of you. By all of you, I mean not only you listening, but also you, Emily and Dedeker, and myself right now. This actually came from that Ted Q & A video that I watched, and I did it when I watched that, and I'll do it again here with you. Here it is. Right now, take a moment and think about someone that you miss. Some friend, family member, whoever, that you haven't talked to in a while, but you would like to. Now, take out your phone or your email device, whether that's your computer or your phone or whatever. Take that out and send that person a note, a quick message, something like, "Hey, I just thought of you and want to see how you're doing."
"You know, the other day I was just remembering this joke that we used to make with each other and thought of you. What's up? Long time, no see." Anything like that. It could also be, "Hey, you know what? I was just thinking about how nice it was that time you did this thing for me and I realized I never thanked you for it and just wanted to let you know I appreciate you," make it feel natural to your relationship. The point of this isn't to force something weird, but just to throw out a little connection to someone out there that you haven't talked to in a little bit, and then see what comes back. If they respond, take a little moment to connect. Let's all do that right now.
Emily: Yay.
Jase: I actually wrote to that friend of mine that I mentioned, that I only talk to once a year normally, I was like, "Hey, was just thinking about the fact that we don't talk that often. How's it going?" How about you, Em?
Emily: I talked to my friend who moved away recently because she's a teacher and I'm pretty sure that today is the first day of school for her. She moved to a new town, a new state, and therefore also is teaching at a brand new school. I just wanted to text and see how it went, and hopefully, I'll hear back and hear all about it.
Jase: I found I've been trying to exercise that muscle more of when I have that random thing of, "Oh, yes, such and such friend I have mentioned a little while ago that they were going to be moving, or that they were changing jobs, or maybe they told me a few months ago that they changed jobs". When I have that just it randomly pops into my head to actually take a moment to write them a message and just say, "Hey, how's the new job going?" I find that every single time it's, "Oh my gosh, thank you so much for thinking of me and for asking." All right, it's that, "Oh, wow, that felt great that you asked me about that."
Emily: Totally. That's lovely. Just to close things out here, remember, it's never too late to strengthen relationships and reap the benefits of those relationships. People make friends in their 70s. They make friends in places like nursing homes. They make friends when they're young, they make friends at work, they make friends all over the place and all the time. It is possible, regardless of your age, where you live, any of the above, how introverted or extroverted you are as well. If all of this seemed pretty overwhelming to you, just baby steps, as we said, maybe try one new social activity per week, even if it's an online group, just take one step at a time and see what happens.
Dedeker: Speaking of online groups, I have to give a shout-out to our Discord server. That's really been amazing to see people connect around this podcast. When we started these communities, our private Facebook group, and eventually our Discord way back in the day, we thought that, "Oh, this will be a great way for us to connect with people in our audience," but actually people are finding the real value is connecting with each other. They don't really need us. Sometimes they don't even really want us in there. I love those communities. I love the stories that people share with us of the friends that they've made, or sometimes partners that they've met, or even just family that they've created through the podcast has been really wonderful.
Again, remember that self-compassion is key here. Be patient, don't judge yourself. Everyone has different needs, they need different levels of interaction. Don't compare yourself to someone who's a super social extrovert. Just connect in the way that makes sense for you to connect.