{"id":15635,"date":"2023-05-01T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-01T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/?p=15635"},"modified":"2023-05-01T09:05:12","modified_gmt":"2023-05-01T13:05:12","slug":"episode-61-platonic-longing-make-the-friends-you-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/episode-61-platonic-longing-make-the-friends-you-want\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 61: Platonic Longing: Make the Friends You Want"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Platonic Longing: Make the Friends You Want\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/3Fju4r3huAoCLq8dG7d3tJ?si=c029bcec677243ea&#038;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/weshouldgettogether.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kat Vellos<\/a> is a certified connections coach and the author (plus illustrator!) of <em><a href=\"https:\/\/weshouldgettogether.com\/book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships<\/a><\/em>. She and David sit down to discuss why platonic relationships between adults are so important, why they\u2019ve become difficult to maintain in the modern social landscape, and how to buck that trend through intentionality. Their conversation includes everything from the growing fear of awkwardness and online parasocial relationships to original ideas for replacing the old small talk and overlaying friend time with your other commitments.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Show Notes<\/h2>\n<p><strong>In this episode, we are talking to Kat Vellos. She is an amazing speaker, facilitator, connections coach, and author of the award-winning, <a href=\"https:\/\/weshouldgettogether.com\/book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em> Amazing person. Many positive tangible actions that you could take to be a better friend and to grow your adult friendships.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong>&#8212;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/weshouldgettogether.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Kat<\/strong><\/a><strong>, welcome to the show.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thank you so much for having me here. I\u2019m so excited to be here with you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You\u2019re an adult friendship expert, certified connection coach, author of <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/weshouldgettogether.com\/book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><em>We Should Get Together<\/em><\/strong><\/a><strong><em>,<\/em> and also a very successful Meetup organizer. Let\u2019s start with you. User experience designers, Pandora and Slack, do not typically become sought-after adult friendship experts, but you did. How in the world did that happen?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>By using the exact same skillset that I used as a user experience researcher and designer. Research, inquiry, and design thinking are the exact same things. You can use them for anything. Instead of saying, \u201cI can only use these skills to make apps and websites more usable,\u201d I was like, \u201cWhat if I use the exact same skills to solve a problem I observe in the real world? That is, adult friendship is way too freaking hard, too many people struggle with it, and it doesn\u2019t need to be that way.\u201d I use those exact same skills to answer the question, \u201cHow might we make adult friendship easier?\u201d rather than just, \u201cHow might we make it easier to play music or have fun at work collaborating?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve also been a facilitator for twenty years, so it is not new to me to be attuned to the needs of people who want community and connection, and ways to do that. Combining everything I knew as a facilitator with everything I knew as a user experience, researcher, and designer to say, \u201cLet\u2019s have a better experience of adult friendship. Let\u2019s see how that goes.\u201d That\u2019s how. I spent about five years researching and writing the book. It\u2019s not like I woke up one day and was like, \u201cI know everything about friendship.\u201d I\u2019ve studied this for a long time and I tried to create something useful for people, which is the book so they can have an easier time with it too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>One of the things that I read was that when you first started, you were not writing the book, <em>We Should Get Together<\/em>. What were you writing originally? Are they stuff for yourself or<\/strong> <strong>others?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was doing user research with people who were struggling with adult friendships and writing up just like I would for any other user research, like a case study. What am I learning? What are the pain points? What are the friction points? What\u2019s working well for people? All of those things that we could learn. I was writing a lot of essays. At one point, I was like, \u201cWhat am I going to do with these?\u201d I had a blog.<\/p>\n<p>At one point, I was sharing these community interviews I was doing, and then I was like, \u201cIt\u2019s fun doing these portraits and these blogs,\u201d but then I was like, \u201cThis is too long for a blog post. This is too long for a medium post.\u201d It was getting longer. After about 10,000 words, a friend was like, \u201cIt sounds like you\u2019re writing a book.\u201d I was like, \u201cAm I writing a book?\u201d She\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, maybe you have a book in you.\u201d I was like, \u201cI do.\u201d It\u2019s lovely because when you don\u2019t know you\u2019re writing a book, you never have to open a blank Google Doc and stare at the screen sweating like, \u201cWhat am I going to say?\u201d It\u2019s like you\u2019re already 25% done. Just finish.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Were you personally a good adult friend? Were you not great at building adult friendships? Talk about that a little bit.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I never had any trouble making friends before I moved to the Bay Area. I will not say that I necessarily had trouble making friends in terms of meeting people, having a nice conversation saying, \u201cI\u2019d love to stay in touch with you.\u201d That\u2019s not hard for me. I\u2019m an introvert, but I\u2019m not shy. I like people. I just need lots of recharge time after being with people. That\u2019s my introverted part. The difficulty that I observed in my life was, especially once I got into my 30s, keeping people around was getting much harder. There was one year living here in the Bay where I went to more going away parties than birthday parties. People were moving all the time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s so transient.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That made it hard. I got to start over. I got to make a new friend because my friends keep moving away and I\u2019m trying to stay here. That was a big part of it. I also found that for a lot of the people I was interviewing, it\u2019s not that they had trouble being friends. It was the keeping and feeling the sense of continuity, getting as close as you want, not just having small talk all the time. The quality, depth, and continuation of high-quality friendships were the trouble. It\u2019s not meeting people. Meeting people is easy. Keeping and making strong friends is different.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Meeting people is easy. Keeping and making strong friends is different.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s similar to when you\u2019re running a company. Getting new customers is not easy, but less difficult than keeping those customers engaged, going, returning, and referring people to go back to you. It\u2019s a similar kind of thing. You don\u2019t want to be this \u201cleaky bucket of friendship.\u201d You got this great bucket, lots of friends coming in, but it\u2019s all leaky, and they keep moving and leaving. That\u2019s never healthy. It sounds like there\u2019d probably be very different strategies that people may need to take to keep in touch with remote friends who have moved out to different cities than ones in the same city.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think they\u2019re different levels of effort, attention, and intention. It\u2019s something I talk about a lot in the book. What\u2019s your intention? What are you going for here? Realizing that you might need different strategies for different situations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I was just in Israel, which was great. I\u2019ve been to Israel because I have 2 of my 3 there right now. I go to Israel every six months. There are people whom I will see more often in Israel because every time I come in, I have my list of 7 or 8 people I\u2019m going to always reach out to. They could be 15 to 20 minutes away and I\u2019ll see them every couple of years, but because I travel to a place, I\u2019ll make the intention of always trying to get together with them. That\u2019s unfortunate because I should make just as much of a level of effort for my close friends who are nearby as I do when I happen to be visiting the city. That\u2019s a challenge for me.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s part of human nature. We tend to take things for granted when we feel like we\u2019ll always have access to it. When something feels special, rare, and novel, we\u2019re like, \u201cOf course, I\u2019m going to make that a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>I love the term platonic longing. I have never heard of the term before. Longing is an interesting one because it implies this emotional anguish type of experience. Talk to us about platonic longing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This was a term I coined in the book because it was the most succinct way to describe this exact experience that I was hearing from a lot of the people I was interviewing. It was this longing and craving for a certain type of relationship that was missing in their life, and it wasn\u2019t romance. We talk about longing typically in the romantic sense, but what they were craving was platonic. It\u2019s that friendship longing, that craving, that unmet need, that hunger for, \u201cI want these deep close platonic relationships and I don\u2019t know how to get them. I don\u2019t know how to make them. It\u2019s hard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is important for us to have words to describe the experiences that we have as human beings. Without a name for it, it almost increases the suffering. It increases the pain of it when you don\u2019t even have a name for it, which is similar to why it\u2019s hard when people are dealing with a medical or physical illness, but have no name for it. There\u2019s no diagnosis. It is so hard. It makes you feel like, \u201cAm I the only one who feels like this? Naming it and saying, \u201cThis is platonic longing. This is what it is. You are not alone. This is what it feels like,\u201d it is real. You deserve to have that need.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What you said is so important because one of the greatest sources of pain and sadness for people is the feeling that you\u2019re not going to get out of it. The reason why you\u2019re not going to get out of it is because you\u2019re unique. It\u2019s a unique situation that you\u2019re facing. The world\u2019s a big place. People aren\u2019t as public about their challenges. They\u2019re very public on social about the wonderful things going on in their life. They\u2019re not as public about their challenges. Though, increasingly they\u2019re more so.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Naming something allows you to talk about it very effectively with other people and have people say, \u201cI feel the same way.\u201d That\u2019s incredibly important. Let\u2019s talk about the four big challenges that you\u2019ve written about around adult friendships. I\u2019m asking for this because I think so many people will be able to identify it with multiple of those challenges.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For anyone who\u2019s tuning in, make a note for yourself if you think this is something you might be dealing with. It\u2019s real. It\u2019s a thing. It\u2019s not just you. The first one is what I call hypermobility in the book. This is a good example of this is how I described it. I went to more going away parties than birthday parties in a year because people keep moving.<\/p>\n<p>People move at a faster rate. Whether it\u2019s in and out of jobs, cities, apartments, neighborhoods states, and countries even. People always being on the go. Including this are people who talked about having long commutes. We had a lot of that before the pandemic, not so much during the pandemic, but now it\u2019s back. If you have to commute two hours a day to somewhere, that\u2019s the time you don\u2019t have for friends. Hypermobility is the first one.<\/p>\n<p>The second is busyness. Feeling generally not having enough time to connect with friends even though you want to, not having enough space in your calendar. The third challenge is relationships and family. That doesn\u2019t mean that relationships and family are a bad thing, but it is a real commitment of time and attention. Often in our society, these relationships are rated at a higher priority than making time for your friends. When you\u2019re committed to getting into your first grownup, real-life, serious, deep relationship, or you\u2019re having a newborn, your ability to spend time with friends is going to shrink.<\/p>\n<p>The fourth challenge is what I call difficulty establishing intimacy. This is what I\u2019m talking about. It\u2019s easy to meet people, but then how do you go from a stranger to a best friend? How do you get a crew of ride-or-die homies? How does that happen if you\u2019re just talking about the weather and getting coffee every 72 days? Is that going to be enough momentum to establish the depth, trust, intimacy, vulnerability, reliability, and all of the things that go into having a committed friendship? Those are the four big challenges. I don\u2019t know. Do you identify with any of those, David?<\/p>\n<p><strong>I identify with probably all of them, but the one in particular that resonates for me is, I tend to believe that \u201cfocus drives success.\u201d Just because family is so important, I have three kids, it\u2019s very easy to become overly binary and be 100% to 0% type of thing in terms of family versus friends. When you\u2019re too extreme, generally in life and pretty much anything, almost always, it\u2019s not a good thing. It doesn\u2019t have to be 50\/50 or 80\/20, it could be 90\/10, but it shouldn\u2019t be zero. There was a period in my life where I was like, \u201cI can\u2019t deal with any friends right now. I\u2019m overwhelmed. I got a 1, 3, and 7-year-old. I\u2019m dying.\u201d You still could find some time, so that one particularly resonated for me.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes when we think we don\u2019t have time for friends, it\u2019s because we are believing something we don\u2019t need to believe. For example, there\u2019s a thing that often happens in adulthood where we put the time in our calendar to see our friends in a box that\u2019s separate from the rest of our life. That\u2019s a behavior that we don\u2019t have to believe that time with friends must happen in a box separate from the rest of our life.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15847\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15847\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15847\" src=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Graphics-Caption-1-KCM-61-Kat-Vellos.jpg\" alt=\"KCM 61 | Platonic Longing\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Graphics-Caption-1-KCM-61-Kat-Vellos.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Graphics-Caption-1-KCM-61-Kat-Vellos-473x315.jpg 473w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15847\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Platonic Longing: Sometimes, when we think we don\u2019t have time for friends, it\u2019s because we are believing something we don\u2019t need to believe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What happens if that box is translucent, transparent, or laid over the top of something else that is already a part of your life? It\u2019s like spending time with your kids. You have to get groceries. I have to get groceries. What if we went to the grocery store together? We can overlay the adult responsibilities and commitments that we have with our friendships. We don\u2019t always have to compartmentalize everything and keep it separate, and then feel like we don\u2019t have time for it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I like that. I enjoy running a lot. A bunch of friends and I all run together. It\u2019s very efficient to be able to run, exercise, and also maintain those friendships together at the exact same time. I remember I did this with shopping and kids. I had time for my young kids. At one point in time, I had to shop, so I would take my kids with me for shopping. You can take friends with you for shopping.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Finding ways to almost go through as many tasks as you can and see how you could do some of those with friends could make it an even more wonderful experience. It\u2019s a beautiful idea. You had so many different things in the book. I\u2019m going to go with the first one that hit me, and then you\u2019ll hopefully add some more. Social media unshare, I like that concept because I had never heard of it before. Explain what it is, and then what should we be doing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is a concept also that I came up with and gave a name to in the book because one of the things I write about in the book is parasocial relationships and how social media can sometimes create parasocial relationships between friends. Simply by observing each other\u2019s lives, we think we\u2019re close, but we\u2019re not interacting at all.<\/p>\n<p>The social media unshare is a way to say, \u201cHow might we disrupt a social media behavior just a little bit so that it gets us a little bit closer to the friends that we want in our life?\u201d One version of it is to say, if you took a beautiful photo during your day, or something funny happened, or something interesting happened. You would typically post it on social media.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of posting on social media, pause and think, \u201cWho might the 1, 2, or 3 people that I know appreciate this the most? Let me send it to them directly.\u201d Let me send it to them either as a personal message, a text message, an email, a voice memo, or whatever it might be. You\u2019re like, \u201cThis thing happened. I would love to share it with you. Check this out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>See what happens if you have a one-to-one relationship or one-to-one communication around that, or with a small group. The thinking behind this is, if the thing that you\u2019re sharing is good enough to share with many people or everybody who follows you, then why isn\u2019t it good enough to share directly with the people who are the highest impact on receiving?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Before you go to the next one if you send a message of something like, \u201cI\u2019m just thinking of you.\u201d When I get those from people, I\u2019m like, \u201cThey were thinking of me, little old me? I feel so special. I haven\u2019t spoken to them in six months. Thank you for thinking of me.\u201d It\u2019s so meaningful to get those. I like what you said. It\u2019s all about intentionality. These things don\u2019t take a lot of time.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It doesn\u2019t. Another way to do this is if you see that a friend has shared something on social media, instead of writing a little comment underneath or dropping your emojis, thumbs up, heart, and moving on, follow up with them directly to ask a follow-up question, get a little bit behind the scenes, or to say, \u201cI would love to hear about your trip to Turkey. Do you want to tell me about it? I have time this weekend all Saturday morning.\u201d See if you can take it deeper than just a comment on social media. See if you can create a moment of connection for yourself and that friend with a conversation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>When I first launched my show, I interviewed someone. A person whom I barely ever talked to, a wonderful person I haven\u2019t stayed in touch with, out of the blue called me up and said, \u201cI tuned in to your show. I want you to know I loved it.\u201d There might have been other people that maybe liked the post or whatever it is, but to call up and say, \u201cIt was so great for the following reasons, 1, 2, 3.\u201d I felt so happy and it felt so special. That story reinvigorated our relationship.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>We started talking, and now we talk more often. He made that first effort of reaching out, rather than just shooting a note to call me or hitting a like button. It had an impact on me. I try to do it more often, which is very easy since I did it zero before, so more often is like once in a lifetime. Those are two extremely practical actions that people can take, and so much of it involves that pause.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the pausing, the thinking, and as you mentioned, making the other person feel special, seen, thought of, and noticed. Being like, \u201cI thought of you. I want to connect with you about this specific thing.\u201d Thank you. It\u2019s beautiful.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The next one that I also liked and it\u2019s related to is the phone dependency issue and how people can decrease their phone dependency. Riff on that a little bit vis-a-vis friendship, please.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This came up in the chapter about getting past awkwardness, which is so relatable for so many people. They\u2019re like, \u201cI don\u2019t want to have an awkward conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Let\u2019s do the awkward thing. I got a 15-year-old daughter. She and her friends, every time I hear them talking, they\u2019re, \u201cAwkward this, awkward that. This is awkward.\u201d How has awkwardness become such a big thing in this world?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Everyone\u2019s so afraid of awkwardness. Why? What\u2019s so bad about awkwardness?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are a lot of different reasons, but I think part of it is that there\u2019s a little bit of fear underneath this. I interviewed a therapist in this chapter about the awkwardness to talk about this. Part of it is a little bit of fear of, \u201cWhat will happen if I don\u2019t know what to say or do?\u201d You will survive. You will figure out what to say or do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why is it such a bigger phenomenon today than it was years ago?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s because we spend so much of our life not improvising. We spend so much of our life having the opportunity to draft what we\u2019re going to text before we text it. Write out what we\u2019re going to say before we say it. We have fewer options to spontaneously improvise and discover that it will be okay if you need to spontaneously improvise in a phone call, in a conversation, in a social situation, whatever it might be.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15848\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15848\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15848\" src=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Graphics-Caption-2-KCM-61-Kat-Vellos.jpg\" alt=\"KCM 61 | Platonic Longing\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Graphics-Caption-2-KCM-61-Kat-Vellos.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Graphics-Caption-2-KCM-61-Kat-Vellos-473x315.jpg 473w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15848\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Platonic Longing: We have fewer options to spontaneously improvise and discover that it will be okay if you need to spontaneously improvise in a phone call, conversation, or social situation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The more that we rely on devices to mediate, create a barrier, create a buffer, create a zone of practice, even a zone of delay and procrastination, there is safety and comfort there. That\u2019s part of the phone dependency. I believe that is also part of the awkwardness in this game as well, from the therapist I interviewed who said he hears this over and over with his clients. People are afraid of awkwardness.<\/p>\n<p>We talk about the exposure hierarchy and we talk about ways to reduce your fear of awkwardness. In little baby steps, give yourself a chance to try the thing that seems like it\u2019s going to be awkward. When you discover that you survived and it\u2019s okay, you get a little bit stronger. Just like lifting weights. You start with a low weight, then you move up to a higher one. Eventually, you discover that you can do something you didn\u2019t think you could do before.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The analogy I typically like with the weights is that the way in which your muscles increase is by tearing your muscles. Little muscle fibers are tearing, they\u2019re in pain, and then they come back stronger every single time. It\u2019s that practice that\u2019s so important. First of all, super interesting. I never heard that theory before and I totally buy it around why awkwardness is such a more meaningful phenomenon. It has to do with spontaneity and the ability to do something quickly and to practice around that. More people should be taking acting classes. That might help.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Improv is a wonderful tool to get over the fear.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Every teenager should be taking improv. Let\u2019s go back to phone dependency.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Part of this is related to that. If someone\u2019s dealing with awkwardness and it\u2019s related to this phone dependency, realizing like, \u201cI noticed that I\u2019d rather type out everything rather than speak extemporaneously at the moment.\u201d Practicing that more frequently can be great, even if it\u2019s in a small way. Chatting with your barista, chatting with the person at the grocery store, chatting with a neighbor on the street who has a cute dog. See if you can build up those muscles. With friends, try to get into more real-time conversations instead of always communicating via your device.<\/p>\n<p>The device I believe is there as a bridge to help you get closer to that real-time conversation. Same thing with apps where you can meet people, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Meetup<\/a>. The device is there to help you see like, \u201cYou both want to meet. You both have something in common. You want to connect. Now, get off the device and hang out.\u201d Now, with COVID for the last few years, we\u2019ve had a lot of virtual events. I do a lot of virtual events. I get it. The point is to get into a real-time interaction, not to spend time chatting and hypothetically you getting together one day. No, really do it. Do the thing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Two thoughts. One is, Meetup\u2019s mantra, \u201cWe use technology to get people off of technology,\u201d which is exactly what you said that I love. The second is, more people I\u2019m talking to, and they\u2019ll say something like, \u201cWe were chatting.\u201d Chatting used to be talking, but now chatting could be texting. Somehow chatting includes texting and they haven\u2019t talked, but they consider that fully chatting.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Identifying quality connections versus less quality. Also, you wrote about it in your book. It\u2019s hard. You don\u2019t want to put people on some high-low hierarchy because it\u2019s not about the person. It\u2019s about the connection. Talk a little bit about what is a high-quality connection, what\u2019s a low-quality connection. How do we identify? How do we move from low quality to high quality? I know that\u2019s a great concept in your book. Please share as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is very personal. There isn\u2019t one answer for everybody because what I think is a high-quality connection and what you think is a high-quality connection might be different. That might be a place of friction or frustration in a friendship if we are matched, but we\u2019re not very well matched because we have different ideas of what we\u2019re each looking for. It\u2019s like dating. Somebody might consider a high-quality connection in a dating situation to be different from somebody else.<\/p>\n<p>In a friendship, it\u2019s very much the same. It requires some self-reflection to say, \u201cWhat are the experiences that you have in a friendship that allow you to feel seen, heard, alive, inspired, and connected? What are the things that you also want to commit to your friendships and hope to receive? Is it being there for each other in a time of need? Is it helping each other out with life stuff or helping each other out with career stuff?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Being clear with yourself about what you would define as a high-quality connection, and then how can you be more clear with yourself and with others as you try to cultivate those relationships? How can you put yourself in these environments or with groups where that type of connection is more likely to occur so that you make it easier for yourself?<\/p>\n<p><strong>You turned the tables on me, so now I get to turn the tables back on you on this one. For you, what does a high-quality connection look like?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Personally, a high-quality friend connection looks like a high degree of willingness to have open-hearted conversations. That is a big one. People who want to go to new places in the conversational landscape. We\u2019re not going to walk down the same seven streets with the same seven questions every time. We\u2019re going to switch it up and try new things.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>A high-quality friend connection looks like a high degree of willingness to have open-hearted conversations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Let\u2019s talk about the weather.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s important. It\u2019s a part of life. The reason I made the <a href=\"https:\/\/weshouldgettogether.com\/better-conversations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Better Conversations Calendar<\/a> is so we could have 300 alternatives to our most common small talk questions. Let\u2019s talk about something new. Let\u2019s play. Let\u2019s experiment with that. Also, sometimes it\u2019s play and sometimes it\u2019s deep in sharing hard stuff. I don\u2019t think this is unique to me, but I think people want to have stuff in common. Whether it\u2019s stuff in common from your life experiences, your identity, the kind of work or things that you think about, or the kinds of hobbies that you like. We get along well with the birds that we\u2019re of a feather with. Those are things that feel like high-quality connections.<\/p>\n<p>Something else I\u2019ve noticed particularly as I\u2019m getting older is, flexibility is part of a high-quality connection for me. I\u2019ve become more flexible with my friends and I want my friends to also be flexible too. I\u2019m not the kind of person who\u2019s going to get mad if you need to reschedule or cancel. I also hope that if life stuff happens, somebody\u2019s not going to hold a grudge against me for six months if I need to reschedule or cancel. Life is too short to be upset about stuff like that. That\u2019s part of a high-quality connection to me. It\u2019s forgiveness and flexibility and being like, \u201cCool. Life is happening. I trust I will see you again. I trust we still like each other, so I\u2019m not even going to stress about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u2019m thinking of someone that I\u2019m close with. Their priority for high-quality friendship is someone who will be there for them in challenging times. For me, I don\u2019t want people to be there for challenging times. It\u2019s fine to have that. It\u2019s wonderful to have that, but for me, I\u2019d rather have people I can have fun and meaningful life experiences, grow, and do things together. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>I have enough of a small core group of people that I could go to for challenging times. I don\u2019t want each of my conversations to be, \u201cWhat\u2019s your challenge?\u201d and spend our time talking about challenges. That doesn\u2019t make me feel closer. It\u2019s the doing of the things that makes me tend to feel closer. It\u2019s about knowing what works for you. I\u2019m different than most people, and that\u2019s okay too.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s okay. This is exactly what we\u2019re talking about. It\u2019s different for different people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You mentioned 300-plus different topics. I have to ask because you mentioned it. Don\u2019t say all 300 or else we\u2019ll go for a little longer than usual. Just give me 1 or 2.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the Better Conversations Calendar, one of the pages is alternatives to what\u2019s new. I have two that are pretty light, and then I\u2019ll share one that\u2019s a little bit deeper, maybe not the meaning of life deep, but okay. Two that are new but specific are, \u201cTell me about a good meal that you had lately, and also what kinds of stuff have you been googling lately?\u201d That will tell you a lot about what\u2019s new and relevant in someone\u2019s life and where their mind has been. It tells you a lot about what might not otherwise come up. One that\u2019s a little bit deeper is, \u201cWhat\u2019s an idea that you\u2019ve walked away from that you want to revive? How do you feel about the stuff you own?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>I should throw away half of it, probably. There\u2019s way too much stuff in my life. Talk about some activities, like relationship building that you would suggest.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I talk about this in the book because one of the most interesting pieces of research that I found and got so excited about had to do with a study that showed that, when we do novel experiences with people that we don\u2019t know that well, it bonds us much more quickly than doing a state or a run-of-the-mill generic experience.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s because when we\u2019re in an extraordinary situation, we are distracted from our feelings of awkwardness and we are mutually side-to-side looking and observing this extraordinary experience rather than looking at each other and feeling awkward and nervous. Novelty is like the inoculation against awkwardness. It gives you a shared memory and it gives you something to do, look at, or speak about together at that moment. Novelty is something that I think about a lot when you ask this question.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15849\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15849\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15849\" src=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Graphics-Caption-3-KCM-61-Kat-Vellos.jpg\" alt=\"KCM 61 | Platonic Longing\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Graphics-Caption-3-KCM-61-Kat-Vellos.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Graphics-Caption-3-KCM-61-Kat-Vellos-473x315.jpg 473w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15849\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Platonic Longing: Novelty is like the inoculation against awkwardness. It gives you a shared memory and it gives you something to do, look at, or speak about together at that moment.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are some novel things? What\u2019s novelty?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It needs to be novel to each person. If I\u2019m very used to doing improv and you\u2019re not, it\u2019s not going to feel as novel for me, but it\u2019s going to feel super novel for you. Improv is a wonderful experience to do with friends, especially if neither of you is particularly familiar with it because of all of the things it does. It opens up your mind and creativity. It shows you that you can survive an unexpected experience at the moment, it will be okay, no matter what, everyone\u2019s going to clap, and you\u2019re going to move on to the next thing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That\u2019s how crazy everyone\u2019s actual mind is because you have no time to think, so these crazy wacky things come out. I did an improv with people I didn\u2019t know, and the exact thing happened to me. One of my closest friends now is the one I did an improv thing I barely knew before.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You also laugh together a ton when you do improv. Laughing together is also one of the things that help people bond very quickly together. It\u2019s doing something novel like that. I would also say one of the things, and this takes a little bit more courage, but it was a wonderful strategy that came from the moment I interviewed. She said that when she has a new friend that she wants to cement that bond quickly, she will try to do a mini vacation together, even if it\u2019s just a one-day road trip or, \u201cLet\u2019s get out of town for one night and go see this music or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Laughing together is one of the things that help people bond very quickly together.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It creates this time outside of time where neither of you is distracted by your dishes or your errands. You have this concentrated experience of closeness with each other. You have a memory from doing this little mini getaway together. It creates this nice foundation for connecting because then it\u2019s not just like starting over from scratch with another cup of coffee. It\u2019s like you\u2019re starting over from this place of real closeness. You can have so many more conversations that go to a different place when you\u2019re spending 12 hours or 24 hours with somebody than when you\u2019re only hanging out for 1.5 hours.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s funny is, I had a conversation the other day with a guy who read the book. He got in touch with me and said, \u201cWhen I read this thing about spending the weekend with a friend, I\u2019m a guy. A lot of guys aren\u2019t going to do that with their guy friend, but I noticed that with this new guy friend that I made, we hung out Friday night, and then we hung out Saturday night, and then we hung out on Sunday. I didn\u2019t even think about it, but we spent the whole weekend together. We just had breaks in between. We didn\u2019t stay overnight. We just hung out three consecutive days.\u201d I was like, \u201cAwesome. That works too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>One night, and then one early morning, and you go back. The depth of a friendship that could be built is very strong. I\u2019m happy to say there\u2019s a bunch of guys that I have done that with and it\u2019s deeply meaningful. I got to do that more. I\u2019m super intrigued. Please share a little more about the Connection Club as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/weshouldgettogether.com\/connection-club\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Connection Club<\/a> is a group I run. It\u2019s a community for connection geeks. It\u2019s a cross between an accountability group and a community of practice. The people who are in Connection Club are people who want to be intentional about cultivating connection in their life in some way. That looks different for different people. Some folks in the group want to get more comfortable hosting gatherings and hosting a dinner party. That might be something super new for them. For somebody else, it\u2019s like learning to be a facilitator. They want to practice facilitation skills.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s very personal whatever your goal is. We meet every month. We go over our accountability and our goals. How did it go last month? What\u2019s up for you next? What\u2019s going to potentially get in the way? What ideas do you need? What support do you need to carry this out? We also have discussion circles in mini-workshops. If there are things that people want to learn more about or discuss in a group, this is a safe closed-door space where you can do that. It\u2019s wonderful. I love it. We have wonderful people in the group because everyone values connection or they would not be there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The people that are there must be so unique and special because maybe they have challenges with connections, but they have awareness of that and they want to change. They could see other people who share that. They don\u2019t have challenges. They just enjoy making more connections. It must be a special group of people.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It really is. If anybody wants to join, head to my website, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.WeShouldGetTogether.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WeShouldGetTogether.com<\/a>. Come on over to Connection Club.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Not just head to the website, but also buy the book.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes, and get the book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Connection Club sounds a little bit like a Meetup, which is great. The more Meetup world, the better. You are a Meetup organizer. Share a little bit about your Meetup experience before we wrap it up.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been a member of Meetup for so long, definitely over fifteen years. I\u2019ve started and run two Meetups as well. One was called <a href=\"https:\/\/weshouldgettogether.com\/better-than-small-talk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Better than Small Talk<\/a>, which is something I started before I knew I was writing a book, but I was doing these events and gatherings about connection. Better than Small Talk is one. Also, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.katvellos.com\/bay-area-black-designers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bay Area Black Designers<\/a>, which I started in 2015 and ran every month until 2022.<\/p>\n<p>That was exactly what it sounds like, Bay Area Black Designers. We were designers in the Bay Area who were Black. It was the largest company-agnostic employee research group because we had designers from all over the region, from all different companies who were a professional supportive community for each other, and who felt isolated at work. Those are two of the Meetups that I\u2019ve run. I\u2019ve been to countless others as a guest<\/p>\n<p><strong>We\u2019re so appreciative of your engagement with Meetup, your focus on making the world a better place and helping people to build connections. One of the things we say at Meetup is this. We did a little analysis around this. On average, we build 30 million connections a year between people. Some companies\u2019 KPIs are revenue and profit, etc. Our KPI is the number of connections that we\u2019re able to engender.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s the most important thing because when you have connections, hence the name of our show, Keep Connected, it helps do so many very important things, which are decreasing racism in the world, decreasing ignorance in the world, decreasing ages in the world, decreasing all these things. Just because people don\u2019t have exposure to people who are different from them and the support that it\u2019s able to provide. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>We\u2019re both doing the same thing, two sides of a coin. I read in your bio that you are a lover of puns. We won\u2019t go into tacos. I have heard you love tacos and you love puns. You love puns about tacos and tacos about puns. You got a pun for us or you can\u2019t do puns spontaneously. It doesn\u2019t where it has to be ad-lib.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t have a favorite pun, but we can taco about it. We could chat about it over lunch, but if they don\u2019t have tacos, I\u2019m walking out the door.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That\u2019s a way to make a lot of friends.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Puns are very polarizing. People either love them or hate them. People who like puns are my people. In fact, one of my goals is to go to the Punderdome or the Pun-Off. There\u2019s this pun competition and I want to do it one ear. I\u2019m going to go. Not to compete, I just want to laugh my face off.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I just thought of something related to puns and something that we just talked about. I get this email every day. It\u2019s called Nice News. I\u2019m tired of the news always being horrible about terrible things. In nice news, one of the things they shared was that stupid dad puns help children specifically to get over awkwardness because they\u2019re in more awkward situations when the \u201cdad\u201d or a friend makes the terrible pun. They\u2019re able to handle awkwardness more often. Apparently, there are actual signs and research behind the value of puns.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I love that. I do love a good dad joke. It\u2019s great.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rapid fire questions. Quick question, quick answer. Here we go. When was the first time you saw yourself as a leader?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When I started poetry reading after college because I wanted to.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That is possibly the best reason to do something because you have a passion for it. If you could access a time machine and go anywhere in the world, any place, any time, where are you going and when?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Life wasn\u2019t too awesome for Black people in the past, so I\u2019m probably going to go back to when I was 21 because the first year out of college was super fun feeling free and adult for the first time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is one thing on your bucket list that you have not done and you would love to do?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I would like to get a massage every day for ten days straight.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That\u2019s great. Aren\u2019t massages wonderful? They\u2019re so healthy.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s so great. That\u2019s a thing I\u2019ve never experienced. I don\u2019t know if anybody gets to experience that, but it sounds like it would be amazing. It feels like a bucket list thing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That\u2019s a great bucket list thing. I\u2019m in.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You can tell I\u2019m a Taurus.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15850\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15850\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/weshouldgettogether.com\/book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-15850\" src=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Graphics-Caption-4-KCM-61-Kat-Vellos-236x315.jpg\" alt=\"KCM 61 | Platonic Longing\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15850\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Last one. You\u2019re many years ahead, what do you most want to be remembered by?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The legacy of being a person who champions connection, friendship, and community.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You are definitely that now. You are no doubt going to be remembered by it.<em> We Should Get Together<\/em>, get the book and learn more about all the amazing things that Kat is doing. I wanted to thank you for taking the time. You\u2019re an awesome person. I do look forward to hopefully next time I am in the Bay Area, we could spend some time and get together in person and chat in real life.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We should. I have a favorite taco spot. I\u2019ll meet you there, David, anytime.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Let\u2019s taco it up. I\u2019m looking forward.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thank you so much for having me. It was such a delight to share this conversation with you and I would be happy to reconnect anytime.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">&#8212;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thanks for tuning in to this show with Kat Vellos. Many takeaways. Here are a few. The labeling of platonic longing is something that resonated for me, probably with so many others. The social media pause. Before you\u2019re about to hit, before you\u2019re about to share, find other people you could share one-on-one with. Having flexibility as a friend and the importance of that for others. Finally, understanding that high-quality friendships vary depending on what you most need. Everyone needs something different and understanding that. If you enjoyed this show, then subscribe, and leave a review. Remember, let\u2019s keep connected because life is better together.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Important Links<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/weshouldgettogether.com\/book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/weshouldgettogether.com\/better-conversations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Better Conversations Calendar<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/weshouldgettogether.com\/connection-club\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Connection Club<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.WeShouldGetTogether.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WeShouldGetTogether.com<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/weshouldgettogether.com\/better-than-small-talk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Better than Small Talk<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.katvellos.com\/bay-area-black-designers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bay Area Black Designers<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:180px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-excerpt\"><p>A certified connections coach explains why it&#8217;s so difficult to make adult friendships and shares strategies for getting social on the Keep Connected podcast. <\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":15674,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[426,300,279,427,425,403],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Episode 61: Platonic Longing: Make the Friends You Want<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Certified connections coach Kat Vellos dives deep into platonic longing and why platonic relationships between adults are so important.\" \/>\n<meta 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