It turns out that while we may think best friends are people with that magic something we can’t put our finger on, researchers have fairly accurately defined the traits that propel someone from acquaintance to friend to BFF. Journalist Karen Karbo details this ascent up the friendship ladder in Psychology Today. In order for someone to move from girl-date to friend, she says, we need intimacy. Not intimacy in the turn-the-lights-down-low sense. Friendship intimacy starts with self-disclosure—sharing personal information you wouldn’t tell just anyone—and reciprocity, meaning if you tell her your secrets, she better tell you hers. But it’s not just about disclosure. Friendship intimacy calls for whoever is on the receiving end of the information to offer “hefty helpings of emotional expressiveness and unconditional support.” Yet, as Karbo points out, they can’t be too opinionated. So if I’m enraged that Matt canceled our Friday night plans, again, she better huff and puff and agree it was lame of him, but she would never say “He’s such an ass. I’ve never liked him.” Such are the unwritten rules of friendship.
In order to move from a regular friend to a best one, I will need über-intimacy but also what researchers call social identity support. That is to say, my best friend is someone who will reaffirm my social role in society—as a wife, a writer, a pop-culturist—and thereby boost my self-esteem. Sounds a bit self-indulgent, sure, but who am I to argue with science?
Given these criteria, I see why only Hannah so far has been deemed a potential bestie. She’s the only one with whom I felt comfortable mentioning my father’s death and the unfortunate timing of my father-in-law’s lost battle to pancreatic cancer two weeks after my wedding. She listened, said “that’s horrible,” and didn’t harp on it enough to make me feel sad. In turn she told me about her parents’ divorce and the challenges of moving back home. Intimacy and reciprocity. That she invited me to join a Chicago book club told me she respected me as a true reader—social identity support in action.
There are steps I should take to nurture this budding relationship. According to psychologists Debra Oswald and Eddie Clark’s research, there are four necessary behaviors to make a friendship stick. Self-disclosure, supportiveness, interaction, and positivity. I’ve got the first two down. Interaction is pretty self-explanatory. Call, email, and accept invitations to dinner instead of declining so I can watch Modern Family. As for positivity, no one’s going to want to be my best friend if I spend all our time together complaining about having no friends.
These four steps are important. They’re not all that different from what I found on wikiHow—tell secrets, invite her over—but they have the weight of actual research behind them. They are proven friendship guidelines—no matter your age—and will be integral for both building new friendships and maintaining old ones. Now I just need to translate science into action.
I’m meeting University of Chicago professor and psychologist John Cacioppo this morning to discuss my predicament. Now that I’ve started to pinpoint, scientifically, what a best friend is and why I need one, I’d like an expert’s take on just how I should go about finding her. Cacioppo is the coauthor of Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection. Since he’s an authority on people not having friends, he probably has some insight into how to reverse the problem.
Scheduling an appointment with a college professor to ask for help making friends does feel a bit, well, sad. And formal. It’s not like higher educators have a reputation as the most social beings. As I wander the halls searching for Cacioppo’s office, I’m feeling self-conscious. Like my bestfriendlessness is showing on my face, seeping through my pores. I try to adopt the strut of someone with too many friends to count. Confident, head held high, a knowing grin on my face as if I’m remembering an inside joke with my closest pal.
I’m not sure why I’m putting on this show. The building is empty save for one janitor, and I can’t imagine he cares about my social life.
I arrive at Cacioppo’s office at 7 A.M. I’m not usually fit for conversation this early in the morning, but Cacioppo wears a warm smile under his thick mustache that perks me right up. I wonder if studying connectedness all his life has made him especially attuned to friend-seekers like me. His voice is gruff but quiet and, as I jabber on, he’s got that encouraging psychologist’s nod that makes me feel like I could talk forever. I give him my entire I-need-a-local-BFF spiel.
But suddenly I’m wondering if I really do need a local one. I want one, obviously. My lack of nearby buddies has affected me enough to spur this quest. But the research I’ve read seems to indicate that long-distance pals do the trick. The physical and mental health benefits of friendship exist regardless of whether your friend is next door or across the country.
“Full-threaded contact is important,” Cacioppo tells me. “This is why social networking sites can exacerbate loneliness. People use them as a substitute for interaction. The person who hides behind four thousand Facebook friends probably feels very isolated.”
Cacioppo says that when it comes to technology, Skype is better than the phone, and the phone is better than texting. “There’s a lot that goes into personal interaction. You have a much richer understanding of someone when you are physically present with her than if you are talking over the phone or email.”
“So how do I find someone to be physically present with?” I feel like an overeager golden retriever, panting at the feet of my master until he’s ready to throw me a bone. Cacioppo seems to hold the answers to all my life’s problems.
“Well, you’re already doing the first thing right. You’re going out and looking. But selection is critical. You need to find people with similar values, attitudes, and outlooks,” he says. “Think about what’s important to you, then find others in the same boat. Join those activities, troll those sites. Then relax. Be your generous self. You’ll meet others like you.”
Sensing my let’s-get-out-there-right-now attitude, Cacioppo issues a quick warning. “If you are looking too urgently—if you’ve got to find your best friend today—it probably won’t go as well. You may find people who will betray you or disappoint you. A person can tell the difference between someone who desperately wants to be her friend and latches on right away and someone who seems cool and laid back about it.” Was he on my date with Heidi and Michelle? “You have to have the right frame of mind. Give it time.”
Not to worry, I tell him. I’m giving myself a whole year.
Once I find people I connect with, Cacioppo says one of the best ways to upgrade the relationship from friends to best friends is to venture out of our natural habitat. “It’s like marriage,” he says. “Too often we fall into a routine that makes a relationship stale. Research suggests doing things that are ridiculous. Sharing that kind of experience promotes bonding. The same is true for friendship. You might meet friends in the places you enjoy—like a book club—but then you want to get them outside of that safe environment. Go bowling or dancing. Those are the kind of friendship-building activities you need.”
Got it.
As for my master plan, the whole fifty-two-dates-over-a-year thing, Cacioppo is skeptical. “It’s a lot to take on,” he says. “Friendship brings responsibilities and obligations. If you’re tending too many, you may not have time to get really close to any of them.”
Too many friends? That’s what I call a high-class problem.
Cacioppo adds a final thought. One that is apparently supposed to make me feel better. “Finding a best friend is a low probability for anyone. But you only need one or two to ward off loneliness. What you’re doing is smart, but it will be hard.”
Believe me, I know.
Just after my date with Hannah, I somehow landed an invitation to a second book club. Matt’s coworker Natalie, who I met at a wine-tasting fund-raiser, organizes this one. She mentioned it at the benefit and Matt immediately chimed in.
“Rachel’s been looking for a book club,” he said. “She’s obsessed.” Obviously he’d forgotten that I just found one.
>
“You should come,” Natalie told me. “We’re reading Olive Kitteridge.”
Committing to two clubs a month seemed ambitious. My schedule is getting pretty full between the weekly girl-dates, my yoga classes, and, hopefully soon, follow-up dates. Making friends is a full-time job. The problem is that I already have a full-time job. And let’s just forget crazy notions like spending time with my husband during our first year of marriage.
Against my better judgment, I agreed. I can read two books a month, and double the book clubs means twice the potential BFFs.
As I read through people’s responses to the next meeting’s Evite, I get the feeling I’m going to be the youngest person there. By about ten years. “I’ll be there if I am feeling well and Bill can watch the little one,” says one member. “Sorry, we’re taking the kids to meet their great-grandparents,” says another.
I was wrong. I’m the youngest person here by only five years, but they feel like important ones. Three of the members have two children (one woman brought her five-week-old while I brought two bottles of pinot grigio), one is a school principal, another mentions her upcoming tenth anniversary. There’s lots of chatter about breast-feeding, composting, and second children. I chime in when the conversation turns to The Biggest Loser and Twilight.
Eventually one woman, Anne, starts talking about the guy she’s dating, a law student. Much more my territory. They finally had the age talk she says, which had been weighing on her for weeks.
“What do you mean the age talk?” I ask. “How old is he?” I assume she means he’s too old to want kids.
“Well, how old do you think I am?”
Yeah, right. I know this game.
Natalie jumps to my rescue. “Anne looks so young,” she says before directing attention back to the conversation at hand. “How old is this law student?”
Anne explains that he’s 29, six months older than her last boyfriend. That she’s counting his age by months is a tip-off, but if I were to have answered her question I would have guessed 33. Maybe 35. She’s tall, blond, and has a dancer’s body. I’d kill to look like her at 35.
“I’m 41,” she says. “But it’s not like I’m a cougar. I just tend to like younger guys.”
When talk turns to the book, I finally forget I’m the baby of the group. Those of us who’ve read it have a stimulating discussion. Anne is actually quite fabulous—she sews yoga mat bags and has a contagious laugh. The fact that she’s fourteen years my elder is much less an indicator of our friendship potential than is the fact that she owns her own dog-sitting and -walking business. (I’m not an animal person, but three of the women here refer to their dachshunds as their babies. As in, “My baby has a yeast infection in her ear.”) And while allergies alone would never allow me to go to her apartment—she houses up to eight dogs at a time—she seems to have BFF potential. She too loves Les Miz and eighties movies, and clearly she believes age is nothing but a number.
What a cute buddy trio we could be. Twenty-seven-year-old me, Natalie, who’s 32, and Anne. I can see the women’s magazine spread now: Best Friends Span the Decades. There’ll be a Real Simple-esque black-and-white photo of us laughing together about that time when Anne told Rachel she wasn’t a cougar. Ah, the memories.
Natalie’s taking me under her wing. I can feel it. She says she’s going to send me an invitation to her friend’s upcoming cookie party, where each guest must bring three dozen homemade cookies. I laugh to myself at how Suzy Homemaker it sounds, then realize that cookie parties are the kind of thing people in the market for friends can’t laugh at. There was a time when I would’ve scoffed and made some snide remark about cookie parties being for moms in the suburbs, but I guarantee that some of the guests are, in fact, moms in the suburbs. And, I have to keep reminding myself, there’s nothing wrong with that.
I’ve spent much of my life with an us-versus-them mentality. Us: the young, hip urbanites who would never leave the bustling city for the station-wagon lifestyle of the ’burbs, who are too young for kids and would never give up our careers for babies and the stay-at-home life. Them: the family folk who’ve settled down and have two ear-infected dachshunds, composters, and cookie parties. It’s like I always say to Matt, “It’s so weird that we’re married. We’re too young to be married. Marriage is for grown-ups.”
Or, us: the too-old-for-going-out-on-weeknights worker-bees, who laugh at the drunk college kids yelling outside the bar. Them: the just-out-of-college workforce who arrive at the office hungover because, I mean, it was Thursday night.
I’m straddling the line, slowly becoming a grown-up without ever having realized it, while still keeping a foot in the post-grad life. And beggars can’t be choosers. If I limit my best friends to an age or life-stage, I’ll probably be pretty lonely in eleven months.
I tell Natalie to count me in.
The morning after the book club I receive an email subjected “Catch Up.” I see that it’s from Rebecca, the former office intern who my coworkers called a virtual mini-me. Mostly because she has the same brown curly hair as I do and goes to Northwestern. Rebecca is seriously wrapped up in college life, saying things like “It was just me and my sixteen best friends,” or, “If you went to Northwestern now, you would totally be in Kappa.”
Now that she’s a senior, I know Rebecca’s especially eager to stay in touch with those of us who might be able to hire her in six months. I can’t blame her. Six years ago, I was her. In her email, she asks if I’m available to get “dinner or something” before her break. She has no idea what she’s in for.
I hit reply. “Are you free tomorrow night?”
CHAPTER 3
FRIEND-DATE 5. At 7:45, fifteen minutes after Rebecca the intern and I agreed to meet, I get my first indication that this bestfriendship isn’t meant to be. I’m waiting at the bar of a local sushi restaurant and haven’t heard a peep from her about a late arrival. Tardiness is my pet peeve, but tardiness with no phone call or text I’m pretty sure is just rude. Could I be getting stood up? By my intern?
When she finally shows—“my midterm ran, like, so long”—we settle in and catch up on office gossip.
“Dave quit,” I tell her.
“I heard!”
“And Tim,” I say.
“I know, so crazy.”
She’s as informed about my office politics as I am.
Most of the evening is spent going over the finer points of job searching. I give her some insider tips, share a website I found invaluable, and spend half the meal trying to convince her that no matter her qualifications, getting a publishing job six months before you’re available to start working is impossible.
Rebecca’s life, one that still includes those magical words “Spring Break,” is pretty far removed from mine. Probably too far for a true friendship to blossom. It’s not merely that we’re six years apart—at 31 and 37 we could be a perfect fit. It’s that she lives in a college bubble, the same one I happily inhabited myself. I don’t begrudge her the sorority parties and dance marathons, they just don’t interest me anymore. I don’t care which fraternity raised the most money for the charity ball, and though I admire the work she does in her Investigative Journalism class, it doesn’t inspire much conversation between us other than how it can help her get a job. And given that she checks for texts/emails/BlackBerry messages whenever I utter words like “in-laws” and “wedding” and “mortgage,” it’s clear that the life of a married woman is one she’d rather gouge her eyes out than have to hear about all the time. It’s a total lack of social identity support. I don’t validate her role as college student, and she seems to think that being a wife and homeowner makes me something of a sellout.
But the night isn’t a total bust. I promise her that if I ever do start writing full-time, I’ll take her on as a research intern and it’ll come with no pay or benefits. She promises to accept such a position. Everybody wins!
On Friday night, I’m alone in my kitchen with my Empire Red KitchenAid
stand mixer (God bless registries), making the one recipe I swore I never would: two batches of my mother-in-law’s Mandelbrot. It’s Matt’s favorite dessert and his mom has been baking it and sending care packages to his various places of residence since I’ve known him. When he first offered it to me in his freshman dorm room I resisted. Same when it came from the fraternity house or the senior year off-campus dump or the law school apartment. But when I eventually visited his family’s home in Cape Cod, fresh with the smell of just-baked cookies, I caved and never looked back. Mandelbrot, for the gentiles out there, is a Jewish version of biscotti. My mother-in-law’s version has chocolate chips and is covered in enough cinnamon-sugar to kill a diabetic. Delicious.
When I first started dabbling in the kitchen, I warned Matt not to even ask for Mandelbrot. I would never be able to make it as well as his mother does, and I wasn’t interested in hearing my husband whine, “It’s not the way mom makes it.” Just the thought of it gives me flashes of Everybody Loves Raymond, and not in a good way. Still, Natalie has invited me to her friend’s cookie exchange and accepting invitations—interacting—is part of the process. So tomorrow I’m expected at a party, as are three-dozen homemade cookies. Since 1) Mandelbrot are the only cookies I know how to make, 2) I’m fairly certain no one else will bring them, and 3) each one is small enough that thirty-six doesn’t seem like such an undertaking, I am breaking my own vow and baking his beloved dessert. On a Friday night.
I want to believe that this cookie exchange could present me with my new best friend forever, but I don’t. The next day, standing outside my apartment, holding two Lululemon bags full of my mother-in-law’s specialty, I feel like a phony. Cookie exchanges are more her speed; I’m a Law & Order: SVU—marathon kind of girl.
MWF Seeking BFF Page 4