Dr. Marisa Franco
Appearances
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And so when you share affection with someone, when you say, oh, I've just really enjoyed your company, or you really made me think when we've hung out together, or I just really appreciate this, like, thank you so much. When we do things like that, we tell people, hey, you're not going to get rejected. And remember how I said fear of rejection is one of the biggest barriers to friendship.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
So the more that we can make people feel like they won't be rejected, the more they'll want to be friends with us. And so the implications of this is if you want to belong, make other people feel like they've they'll belong.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Well, one of the big factors I would say is vulnerability. Are you able to feel comfortable being vulnerable with each other, sharing your struggles, sharing what's really going on?
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
There's this study on, it's called like the 36 questions to fall in love that was covered in the New York Times, but it's based on the study that when this researcher gave people questions of increasing intimacy to do together, they found that at the end of just a short period of time for people answering these questions, they reported being Pretty close to each other, just within an hour.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And so that research really finds and other research that finds that actually when we're vulnerable, people like us more, where I think a lot of us have the misconception that people like us less. But in fact, when we're vulnerable, we show to people that we trust them and that we like them.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And so when we can really, really be vulnerable with each other, that's when we see the friendship really deepening.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
It means to share something that you fear is risky or exposing.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Like me sharing what I'm struggling with, me sharing my relationship issues, me sharing even what has put me in a bad mood today. It's me sharing information that... It's me sharing information that we're in. I might feel like you can use it against me or I might feel like if you don't respond positively to this information, I'm going to be particularly affected by that.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And that's why when people do respond positively, it really builds our sense of trust with them.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Absolutely. And I wanted to share that it's absolutely normal to go through these breakups with friends. And actually every seven years we lose about half our friends. Interestingly, also about half of our friends don't consider us their friends. So that's technically not a friendship because friendship is founded on reciprocity.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And so because of that, I think generally we can think that friendships are going to fall away. What we do know from the research is that the longer a friendship has lasted, the more likely it is to continue to last. But in general, we will be losing friends throughout our lifespan.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Yeah, yeah. Half our friends don't reciprocate the friendship. Isn't that sad?
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
You know, it just happens. I guess people have different definitions of what they might consider a friend. And so it's hard, I think, for us to put our finger on. And that's one of the, I would say, the difficulties of friendship. It's so ambiguous, right?
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
We don't have the sort of proof that someone's invested in us like we might have with someone who's married or we share blood with, which is why I think friendship can really bring out some of our insecurities.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Yeah, so it's a really mixed bag in the research, I would say, because social media's link with loneliness really depends on how you use it. If you're someone who uses social media to facilitate in-person interaction, you're sliding in someone's DMs on Instagram to be like, let's hang out, you're gonna be less lonely. But if you use it to replace in-person interaction,
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
If you're just interacting with people over social media and you're not seeing people in real life, then it's going to make you more lonely. You know, interestingly, I would say when we take a step back and look at the larger research on this topic, that social media has been a net negative for our connections, because actually in 2012, there was a stark increase in loneliness.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
especially for people between the ages of 18 and 24. In 2012, people between the ages of 18 and 24 had the best mental health of any age group, and now they have the worst. And what happened in 2012? That was the popularization of the smartphone.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Yeah, it's really fascinating. These smartphone usage, especially for the younger generations, have been found to decrease their level of empathy because we develop empathy through looking into someone's eyes. And so when we're not doing that, we can't really read other people's feelings, which is so key to being able to connect with people.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
I kind of mentioned this, but I wanted to just sort of bring out this theme. And my read of the research is that in general, the world is a lot safer than what we assume and what we predict. I already talked about the liking gap, wherein researchers found that when strangers interact, they underestimate how much the other person is to like them.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
There's also a phenomenon called the beautiful mess effect, which basically finds that when When we're vulnerable, we think people are judging us more than they actually are, and we underestimate how positively they're perceiving us when we're vulnerable.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Similarly, when we share affection, we assume it'll come off as more awkward than it will, and we discount how much other people will appreciate it and be thankful for it. And so in general, I think making friends feels like a risk. And it is a risk. Intimacy is a risk. We might be rejected. But it's actually far less likely. It's far less risky than we think it is.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And so I want to encourage anybody who's listening today and is scared to ask someone to hang out who they think is really cool that, hey, they actually might be a lot more likely to be open to it than you think, particularly at a time like now when so many of us have lost friends in the pandemic and are even more open to wanting to connect with you.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
It's absolutely normal to go through these breakups with friends and actually every seven years we lose about half our friends. Also, about half of our friends don't consider us their friends. What we do know is that the longer a friendship has lasted, the more likely it is to continue to last.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Yeah, and that's real. I think when you're making friends, inevitably you face the risk of rejection, right? And I see rejection as a friendship expert. I really see rejection as a good thing because if you're curating the life that you really want, if you're going for the people that you really want to be part of your social network, inevitably rejection is a consolation prize for that.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
So if you're getting rejected, that means you're initiating. That means you're going for the people that you really want relationship with. that means you're really curating your life.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
So at the end of the day, like if you're building the skill of initiating, if you're putting yourself out there, if you're living up to your values, I see it as a success, even if the outcome isn't what you hoped for.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Thank you so much for having me, Mike. Looking forward to listening to the episode.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Thank you so much for having me.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
So many reasons. I mean, connection is related to our mental health and wellbeing. Research finds that loneliness is as toxic as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And that our level of connection actually predicts how long we live even more so than our diet and our exercise, for example.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
So I think just like we can consider like food, oxygen, water as central to our wellbeing and our homeostasis, so is human connection.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
That's absolutely true. And we've also been finding that people are spending more time with their romantic partners and alone over the past few decades and less time with their friends and everybody else.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
So we tend to think of loneliness as just a feeling, but it's actually a way of perceiving the world. So because historically, when we were lonely, we were separated from our tribes. We were in danger. That led to loneliness kind of leading to a bunch of ways of viewing the world and relating to others. So when we're lonely, according to the research, we actually think that people like us less.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
We actually like other people less. We actually report having less faith in humanity. All of this is so that we can protect ourselves at times of loneliness. But obviously, this can also be very self-sabotaging, such that loneliness can become a self-perpetuating cycle because of how it affects how we perceive and relate to others.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Exactly, Mike. And actually, the most successful interventions against loneliness are not the ones that have focused on connecting people with others, but actually on changing people's maladaptive thought patterns that are triggered when they're lonely.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Which means that if you think people don't like you, or if you're very cynical about not liking other people, reframing those beliefs, trying to think differently so that you can be more open to connecting with people.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Yeah, so I don't think it's as much about being kids as much as it is about the settings that we're in when we're kids, which provide for factors that sociologists really consider central for making connections, such as continuous unplanned interaction, so I'm seeing you consistently without planning it, and shared vulnerability.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And when we have these factors in place, friendship tends to happen more or less organically. But as adults, we tend to no longer have these environments because at work, sure, we're seeing each other every day. Well, maybe less so now with everybody working from home, but we're not necessarily having that vulnerability in the workplace where people may only know one side of us.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And so because of that, I think, unfortunately, a lot of us might rely on this script from childhood where we just need to wait for friendships to come into our lives organically, not realizing that as adults, it no longer works that way.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
I can see that too, that adults may be a little bit more afraid of initiating with other people. And that's honestly one of the biggest barriers that I see when it comes to making friends. We're all so, so afraid of rejection. But the truth is, Mike, that we're actually a lot less likely to be rejected than we think.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
There's research on a phenomenon called the liking gap, where when strangers interact and they predict how much the other person likes them, they tend to underestimate how much the other person likes them. which is why one of my biggest tips for making friends as an adult is to assume people like you. So you'll actually initiate with people.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And now the research also finds that when researchers sort of manipulated people to think that they would be liked, even though that wasn't true, people actually became more likable because they were more open, more agreeable, more friendly. It's called the acceptance prophecy. Whereas people that think they'll be rejected suffer from something called rejection sensitivity.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And what happens is when these people are exposed to ambiguous circumstances, like someone's quieter, they tend to escalate by shutting down, being withdrawn, and they sort of will and manifest the same rejection that they fear.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Yeah. And you know what? I will say, surprisingly from my read of the research, who's most likely to reject you is the person that fears rejection the most because they're engaging in self-protective behaviors to protect themselves against rejection, which tend to manifest as rejection of other people.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Exactly. Yeah, there was a really interesting study of networking events that found that 95% of people wanted to meet new people, and yet most people interacted with people they already know.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
But I think it's really helpful to know this information, because now if I go into a social event, I know everybody's just waiting for me to introduce myself, and they're more than likely going to be very open to it if I do.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Yeah, so one thing that I suggest to people is to build social infrastructure, which to me means recreating environments that give you continuous unplanned interaction and shared vulnerability. So that means joining an improv club, joining a language group.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Don't join something that's one-off because when you just go to something that happens once, you don't capitalize on something called the mere exposure effect, which is our tendency to like people the more familiar that they are. So it's normal and natural when we first meet someone for us to be uncomfortable, for it to be awkward, for us to be weary.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
But according to the research, if we can stick with it for a few months, what will happen over time is that not only will they like us more, but we'll also like them more. And this happens completely unconsciously. We don't even have to talk to each other. But if we've been exposed to each other's faces over time, we'll come to like each other more and more.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
So we all tend to have something called disregard criteria, which are snap judgments we might make as to whether someone will be our friend. And this might be based on someone's age, someone's gender, someone's race, these sort of criteria that we use, very shallow criteria to determine whether someone can be our friend.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And so we'll be more interested and open if someone doesn't violate our unconscious disregard criteria. Other than that, I would say commonality, if we hear that people have things in common, and why commonality leads to friendship is because, you know, people have asked me what's the secret to being more likable, and it's actually to like people.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
There's a theory called the theory of inferred attraction, which basically indicates that people like people that they think like them. And when someone has something in common with us, we assume that they'll like us more, which makes us more comfortable continuing on with the friendship.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
I would say friendship absolutely does not happen organically. In fact, people that see it as something that happens without effort are more lonely over time, according to the research. So if I had to talk to someone who has no friends and wants to make a new friend, I would say find a hobby or interest that you can engage in with a community over time, right?
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
So you can capitalize on that mere exposure effect. You have to attend to overcoming something called overt avoidance, which is our tendency to avoid interacting with people generally because they scare us, but also covert avoidance, which is our tendency to, when we show up to interact with other people, we actually close ourselves off mentally. We're on our phone.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
We're talking to the one person we already know. We're not introducing ourselves to others. So you also have to overcome covert avoidance by saying to someone at that book club you join, hey, my name's Marissa. How did you like this book? How long have you been coming here?
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
after you've been going for a few times, pick the person that you feel like you connect with the most so far, and then ask them like, hey, I'd love for us to keep connecting. Would it be okay with you if we exchange contact information? And then reach out to them to meet up either before or after the next book club event.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And importantly, you'll still have that social infrastructure of the book club, which will continue to nurture the friendship over time, even if you're not consistently reaching out to them. But it's a good idea to also consistently reach out to them to build the friendship.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Yeah, there's a researcher, Jeffrey Hall, who has his study on how many hours does it take and he finds about 150 hours. But I guess part of me is a little bit skeptical because I know that making a friend also depends on how we interact and there are certain ways we can interact that make us more likely to become friends with one another.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
So there is a study that followed basically new friends over 12 weeks to predict Who would stay friends over time? For whom would the friendship intensify? And one of the most important factors was whether people shared affection towards each other, you know, compliment each other, praise each other.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And that's, I think, is really, really important for solidifying connection according to a theory called risk regulation theory. Risk regulation theory argues that basically we decide how much to invest in a relationship based on our perception of how likely we are to get rejected. If we think we won't get rejected, we invest more.