Marisa G. Franco's Blog

7 Phrases You Can Use To Make New Friends

Making new friends can feel more daunting when you’re past the stages of playgrounds, school sports teams, and dorm rooms.

A whopping 58% of American adults report being lonely. Every seven years, people lose half their friends, according to one study. And the average person loses two social ties, including friends, when they get into a romantic relationship. Those with kids lose even more. 

As a psychologist and expert on human connection, I know that the people who are most successful in building and rebuilding their social circles are the ones who don’t wait for new friends to come to them. They initiate and cultivate. 

Here are seven phrases to break the ice and nurture new friendships, no matter how old you are. 

1. ‘I love your _____! Where did you get it?’

Striking up conversations with new people is the first step of any friendship. 

While talking to a stranger may seem nerve-racking, people are more open to conversation than you think. One study found that only 40% of people thought the first stranger they approached would be open to talking to them, and yet in reality, strangers were open to talking 92% of the time. 

Try paying someone a genuine compliment about their shoes, t-shirt, or overall style. It’s sure to make them more open to talking to you. 

2. ‘How do you like _____?’

People like being asked for their opinions. Sharing them activates the brain’s reward centers. 

You can apply this research by using your shared surroundings to strike up a conversation with a stranger. 

If you’re trying to approach another regular at the coffee shop, ask them how they’re liking their drink. If you’re at a new bar, ask how they feel about the music. If you’re visiting a museum, ask what they think of the art. 

3. ‘Do you have any recommendations for _____?’ 

People tend to like people who like them. Asking for recommendations sends the signal that you appreciate someone, value their opinion, and are curious to hear what they have to say. 

Try asking about a book, hobby, or movie they enjoyed recently. 

Their recommendation can inspire you to follow up next time you see them: “Oh, I listened to that podcast! Thanks again for suggesting it. I loved the episode on _____, but I have to know what you thought about ______.”

4. ‘It was great to meet you. I’d love to stay in touch, if you’re open to it. How do you like to stay connected?’

One conversation doesn’t make a friendship, but it’s a start. Try to turn your initial interactions into something more. This is a great line to use at the end of a conversation with a potential new friend that shows interest without overstepping. 

While some people might be open to exchanging numbers right away, others might prefer to connect on social media first. 

Social media allows for repeated, low-stakes interactions that make some people feel more comfortable. You can get a glimpse into their lives through what they share, which can ease the transition from strangers to friends hanging out.

5. ‘I’ve enjoyed getting to know you. Let’s make plans to hang out more often’

Friendship is built on repeated interactions and shared vulnerability, according to sociologist Rebecca G. Adams. 

After you’ve had one or more small, unplanned interactions with someone, you can add some vulnerability by expressing appreciation for the connection you already have, and then asking to make plans to hang out again — on purpose!

People tend to be particularly open to building a connection when some sort of foundation is already in place. 

6. ‘_____ made me think of you. I’ve been meaning to reach out. How have you been?’

One way to pursue a new friendship is by reigniting an old one. Most people lose friends not because there were insurmountable incompatibilities, but because life got busy. 

People tend to underestimate just how much others appreciate hearing from friends out of the blue. When people reach out to old ties, they also have a higher level of trust with them than they do with current acquaintances. 

So if you notice a knickknack or hear a song that reminds of an inside joke with a college housemate, send them a message. Sometimes reminiscing about a pleasant memory is all you need to reconnect. 

7. ‘I’m always looking for new friends to [try/do a particular activity]. Would you be interested?’

People decide how much to invest in a romantic relationship based on how likely they think they are to get rejected, according to a popular theory. The same is often true with friendships. 

By mentioning specific activities you’d be interested in doing, you can gauge whether or not you’d get rejected if you invited someone to join you in the future. You’re also letting people know you won’t reject them if they reach out about these events or hobbies. 

When you do something exciting or unusual with an acquaintance, research has found, you feel closer to them. So go ahead and tell prospective friends you’re looking to join a fantasy book club, go to a goat yoga class, or try glass blowing. 

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Why Distance Can Create Intimacy in Friendship

I used to think the goal in friendship was to get closer—if a relationship wasn’t operating at maximum intimacy, something was wrong. But I’ve come to believe that friendship isn’t about closeness at all costs. It’s about finding the distance at which we feel closest to one another—the optimal level of intimacy.

For example, I wouldn’t travel well with some of my closest friends, and so I don’t. We have different styles. I like to go off the beaten path and they might prefer the resort route. Avoiding shared travel keeps the connection within its healthiest boundaries.

Friendships don’t have to be all-or-none but can exist in the grey. This means that instead of deciding we’ve “outgrown” someone, we can experiment with adjusting the friendships’ settings: seeing each other monthly instead of weekly, staying friends but shifting away from being each other’s confidantes, or spending more time in group settings rather than one-on-one. Some friends are what I call “low-dose friends.” We thrive in small doses, and that’s ok. Ironically, these adjustments can make us feel more connected to the other person, more at peace with the connection.

I’ve also had friendships where I’ve struggled with a lack of reciprocity. But when I’ve backed off, eventually, those friends have reached out. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t reciprocate, but that we were on different timelines for how often we felt the urge to. Perhaps, I realize now, they might have wanted a different level of connection than I did, rather than them not wanting connection at all.

Research finds that the more we customize our relationships, going to one friend, for example, to get pissed with us about the surprise parking ticket, and another to cry with us after a funeral, the greater our well-being. Expecting one person to do it all can harm us and our friendships. It can lead us to expect something from a friend that they can’t give us. Instead of assuming that our friend is withholding, or rejecting us, we can get that need met elsewhere. When we do, we feel lighter, and our friend escapes the pressure-cooker of our expectations.

We lose half our friends every seven years, research shows. I can’t help but wonder if we’d lose fewer if we approached our relationships with more nuance. Instead of ending a friendship that feels strained, we might simply shift it into a new phase.

So the next time a friendship feels misaligned—not just in a one-off way, but chronically—ask yourself: What level of intimacy feels optimal here?

As Edna St. Vincent Millay once wrote,

“The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.”

Reflection Questions:

Do you have an unmet need in a close friendship? Can you shift that expectation to another friend whose in a better place to meet your need, even if you sacrifice the intimacy you might have imagined for the friendship? 

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Why Friendships Naturally End and What to Do About It

Some bad news: Friendship is incredibly vulnerable to decay. If you’re not actively investing in your friendships, you may end up without any. 

Why? Life happens. Our adult lives can become a monsoon of obligations, from children, to partners, to ailing parents, to work hours that trespass on our free time. A study of young adults’ social networks by researchers at the University of Oxford found that those in a romantic relationship had, on average, two fewer close social ties, including friends. Those with kids had lost out even more. Friendships crumble, not because of any deliberate decision to let them go, but because we have other priorities, ones that aren’t quite as voluntary.

The pace and busyness of many people’s adult lives means that they can lose contact with their friends at a rapid rate. For instance, a study by the Dutch sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst found that, over a period of seven years, people had lost touch with half of their closest friends, on average. If we’re not careful, we risk living out our adulthoods friendless. This is a situation that’s worth avoiding. Friends are not only a great source of fun and meaning in life, but studies suggest that, without them, we’re also at greater risk of feeling more depressed.

With the natural decay that happens in friendship, we’ll have to make new ones throughout our lives. Here are some tips.

 

Make a deliberate effort to meet new people

Two types of avoidance inhibit your ability to make friends. First, you might practise ‘overt avoidance’ by not putting yourself in situations where it’s possible to meet new people. Instead of going to your friend’s movie night, with the chance to meet others, you end up staying at home. Second, you might find yourself engaging in ‘covert avoidance’, which means that you show up but don’t engage with people when you arrive. You go to the movie night, but while everyone else is analyzing the film after it’s over, you stay silent in the corner, petting someone’s pet corgi and scrolling through Instagram.

To make friends, you don’t just have to show up (overcoming overt avoidance). You have to say hi when you get there (overcoming covert avoidance). 

Initiate

To embrace the importance of initiating, you must let go of the myth that friendship happens organically. You have to take responsibility rather than waiting passively. Science backs this up. Consider a study of older adults in the Canadian province of Manitoba. The participants who thought friendship was something that just happened based on luck tended to be less socially active and to feel lonelier when the researchers caught up with them five years later. By contrast, those who thought friendship took effort actually made more effort – for example, by showing up at church or at community groups – and this paid dividends in that they felt less lonely at the five-year follow-up.

Although we might fear that other people will turn us down if we initiate with them, the research finds that this is a lot less likely than we might think. When the American psychologists Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder asked research participants to open up conversations with their fellow train commuters, can you guess how many of them were shot down? None! Epley and Schroder concluded that: ‘Commuters appeared to think that talking to a stranger posed a meaningful risk of social rejection. As far as we can tell, it posed no risk at all.’

First, show up. Then, talk to people. And then, invite them to hang out. In sum, the secret to making friends as an adult is that you have to try. 

I’ll share much more on the secrets to making friends in my How to Make Friends virtual workshop on April 30th (a recording will be available if you purchase a ticket).

All proceeds from the workshop are being donated to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. Tickets are available here.

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The Darker Side of Social Connection

I’ve been thrust into thinking about the darker side of social connection lately, primed to do so by our current political rhetoric: things like the baseless claim that Haitian migrants are eating pets, that transgender people have been all out banned from the military, and vitriolic language toward undocumented people, marking them as dangerous and inhuman (‘No, they’re not humans, they’re not humans. They’re animals” according to Trump; In fact, a report found, the more undocumented immigrants in your community, the safer it tends to be).

These examples represent dehumanization, which occurs when we don’t see a group of people as fully human. In fact, one study found that the part of our brains associated with disgust is triggered when we’re exposed to people we’ve dehumanized.

We know we’ve dehumanized a group when:

We see the group as a monolithWe perceive that monolith as threatening and dangerousWe are callous toward members of that group, even willing to commit or endorse the commitment of harm toward them. As Vox reporter Brian Resnick put it, “Dehumanization is a mental loophole that lets us harm other people.”

Dehumanization brings out the worst in us. When we see a group as a monolith, if one person in that group steps out of line, we see their entire group—perhaps millions—as a threat. Police officers who dehumanized Black kids were more likely to preferentially use force against them (doing things like wrist locks, punching with a closed fist, or striking with a blunt object) over kids of other races. Another study found that the more people dehumanized Muslims, the more likely they were to support policies like tapping the phones of all Muslims, denying them visas, and banning Islamic headdresses.

But dehumanization is also dangerous for the people who perpetrate it. Groups who feel dehumanized, one study found, are more likely to support violent actions toward their dehumanizers. As one of the study’s authors, Emile Bruneau put it, “If we use rhetoric and enact policies that make Muslims feel dehumanized, this may lead them to support exactly the types of aggression that reinforce the perception that they are ‘less civilized’ than ‘us.’ In this way, dehumanization can become self-fulfilling in the minds of the dehumanizers, and justify their aggression.”

What helps against dehumanization? Among a variety of factors, friendship. Having quality interactions with people from the group you’re dehumanizing leads you to dehumanize them less than 6 months later, one study found. Another study found that simply imagining a good interaction with a member of a dehumanized group can decrease how much you dehumanize them.

Many have spoken about losing hope in our contentious political climate. I hope you know that making friends, particularly with people who are different from you, is a tiny act of hope and humanization. It means something and it matters.

And I’m here to help you do that. Y’all—I never offer workshops, but seeing this surge in dehumanizing rhetoric and hostility cordoned off to certain groups, I feel compelled. For the next three months, I’ll be hosting a series of workshops to help you become more secure and make friends. ALL proceeds from each of these workshops will be donated to groups under threat of dehumanization, including Black Lives Matter, Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, and The Trans LifeLine.

 

Workshop Dates and Tickets

How to Become a More Securely Attached Friend |  Wednesday, March 26th 8:00-9:30 PM EST

Attachment styles are notoriously hard to change but change is possible. In this workshop, you’ll learn why attachment styles are so persistent and an innovative science-backed technique to change yours. You’ll leave with an exercise to practice at home to continue to work toward security.

If you’ve been to therapy, done meditation, and tried to make secure friends, but have still struggled with insecure attachment, this workshop is for you.

All proceeds are being donated to Black Lives Matter.

Tickets

How to Make Friends Part 1 |  Wednesday April 30th 8:00-9:30 PM EST

Many of us think that friendship happens organically, yet it doesn’t. In this workshop, you’ll learn the science of what makes friendship happen and leave with practical science-backed strategies you can use to make friends.

All proceeds are being donated to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.

Tickets

How to Make Friends Part 2 |  Wednesday May 28th 8:00-9:30 PM EST

Initiating new friendships often feels scary but this workshop will make it far less scary. For example, you’ll learn about studies that find that strangers are open to talking to you ninety percent of the time. You’ll learn scripts and tricks to initiate new conversations and find the community you’ve always wanted.

All proceeds are being donated to the Trans Lifeline.

Tickets

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Is Perfectionism Harming Your Relationships (Part II)

I recently interviewed clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Hendrickson, whose book How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists came out on January 7th. 

You can read Part I of our interview here. Below is Part II, where we discuss more about perfectionism in relationships. 

MF: How does perfectionism hold us back from connection? 

EH: Perfectionism tells you the lie that you have to double down on performance to belong and connect. [So], we double down on competence but what’s more important is warmth and so, we miss out because that leads to [a] perfectionistic self-presentation. 

So [we] only show what’s good, hiding what’s going poorly, put[ing] our best foot forward to be socially safe, not get[ting] rejected or criticized. But what happens is it ends up setting us apart, because then we end up being superhuman, unrelatable, or we set up a dynamic with our friends where we have more of a coach, teacher-student, or mentor-mentee relationship, as opposed to an equal relationship.

When we disclose, when we don’t do a perfectionistic presentation, when we ask for help, it signals we are equal. If I show you some of my mess, you usually reciprocate Oh, me too. And it shows that it’s not this hierarchical relationship. We are the same. And that also signals I trust you to see the mess and not judge it reject me or criticize me harshly. And that’s the foundation for a closer relationship.

MF: Yes, I trust you. We are equals. Those are powerful. If you’re perfectionistic, if you act in perfectionistic ways the relationships are hollow because you’re not authentic and people don’t really know you. And it reminds me of the loneliness you can experience around people. 

EH: For sure. Perfectionism means having to perform as superbly as possible to be sufficient as a person. Let me show you how good I am. We’re doing that to try not to get rejected. But in the end, when we’re singular, we’re separate. And so if there’s nothing people can relate to, then that’s going to make it hard for us to connect.

MF: I think there’s an assumption about love embedded in there. Like to be loved is to have power, or to have a positive reputation, rather than to be loved, is to be known, to be understood. 

And where do you think that that comes from?

EH: I came across this researcher, Dr. Tom Lynch. He says, if we don’t show much, nobody knows much. 

As for where it comes from, it can be genetic. The cutting edge of science shows that it is a heritable trait. 

But, we do know, it comes from families of origin. Gordon Flett and Paul Hewitt, who are the OG perfectionism researchers, have identified four types of families that make it more likely for you to come out perfectionistic. 

It can come from the classic helicopter or snowplow parents who are overly protective. It can come from perfectionistic families where we see hard-driving, high-achieving, we-are-our-performance behaviors. The third are families where love is contingent upon performance, where love and pride get confused because pride is earned through performance, but love is a freely given emotion. It can be easy to come out of families where you feel like the only thing that got you noticed was getting good grades and accomplishments and that your parents might not have noticed your personality, or when you felt deeply, or when you cared about something. The last type of family is a more unstable, chaotic environment: the parent with substance abuse or chronic mental illness can make kids feel like they have to double down on performance to gain a sense of control and stability.

MF: So if we’re perfectionistic in our relationships, always need to be strong and poised and on top of everything, and it feels petrifying to not be… what advice would you give us? 

EH: In perfectionism, evaluation is very all or nothing. It’s either I’m strong or I’m weak, or I’m smart, or, I’m so stupid, or like, I’m capable, or I can’t do anything. I think the advice around perfectionism, of “you have to lower your standards or stop when things are good enough”, does not go over well. So I try to not lower people’s standards. But instead of all or nothing, we’re trying to bring it together and have both. I’m a smart person who sometimes gets a wrong answer. I’m a strong partner who sometimes needs help. I am a capable person who sometimes screws things up. To keep one’s good ideas of themselves and allow room for the inevitable blips and bloops of life. 

MF: I’m competent-ish. I’m wondering does it feel too radical, or might it feel too destabilizing for someone perfectionistic to think “I don’t have to be competent to be worthy or valuable.”

EH: That’s the North Star. I think if we can get to “I’m valuable just as I am, and I don’t need to perform and prove myself to earn love or belonging”, that would be ideal. However, I think living in 2024, we’re in this optimization-focused, ratings-oriented, capitalistic, consumeristic society that makes us feel like we have to perform and achieve and consume to ever higher levels. And so we, if we’re put in a situation like that, of course, we’re going to respond with some perfectionism. 

So yes, ideal to think that we all have inherent worth, and yes, existentially, I 100% believe that, but it’s hard in a society like we have.

MF: I imagine some people are thinking, “I always wanted to get close to this friend, but it always seems like they have a wall up. When I ask them what’s going on, they just pretend everything’s going so sparkly.” 

People who want to get close to a friend that they might recognize as perfectionistic. So is there anything you can do as a friend [to get past that?]

EH: Yeah, in the responsibility pie there, it’s mostly on the friend to be willing to show vulnerability, to say, oh my gosh, that terrible thing happened to me too, as opposed to, the knee-jerk reaction of a perfectionistic friend to give advice, coach or show that they know what they’re doing. 

I think of the smaller part of the pie, what the friend who wants to get closer to the perfectionistic friend can do [is] you can model being the friend that you want to have. You can do some disclosures and [ask] has anything like that happened to you? 

MF: I have friends that are like this, and when they’re at a breaking point, they’ll finally be like, everything’s not okay. And then I’ll be like , Oh my god, I love this side of you . I feel so close to you . I try to affirm when the perfectionism goes down a little bit.

EH: I see a little bit of perfectionism in my kids, and I will say over and over again, I will love you, even if you get straight F’s and get put in jail. I will still love you. It doesn’t matter. And so with a friend, if they’re beating those themselves up over something, you could say, like, I still care about you. I don’t care that you fell skiing.  Or you can make fun of them a little bit. Well you know, our relationship is built on how well this dinner turns out. 

MF: Can you tell me more about the idea of “doorknobs”? 

EH: This is from the psychologist Adam Mastroianni. He talks about how good conversations have doorknobs. They open a door into ever deeper sanctums. There’s this huge Venn Diagram of overlap between folks with social anxiety and folks with perfectionism. So in a chapter that talks about how to get closer to people, and tries to coach folks through not just giving advice or doing the perfectionistic self-presentation, [I advise] offering conversational doorknobs to allow people to get to know us better and more deeply. 

MF: That’s beautiful.

Any other tips for people that might realize that they are more perfectionistic in their relationships, or even towards other people?

EH: If we find that we’re controlling the people around us and driving people away, we can essentially stop pretending that we’re not doing it. Try to speak it out loud and say, oh I’m sorry, I’m being controlling again. I’m trying to stop, sorry. 

And there’s a technique in the book from Dr. Thomas Lynch, who has done some excellent work with people with over control [over regulating your emotions]. He has a technique called self-inquiry, where he asks you to find the thing you did or the reaction you had that you’re a little bit ashamed of—that you were happy to hear about the misfortune of a friend, or you felt superior when you performed a household task better than your partner. If there’s a sense of superiority or shame that’s getting in between you and your relationship with other people, name that, and then ask, is there something here for me to learn?

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Is perfectionism harming your relationships?

I recently interviewed clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Hendrickson, whose book How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists comes out tomorrow January 7th. 

We talked about perfectionism and how it impacts our relationships. I’ll release Part 1 of the interview today, and next week, I’ll release Part 2. 

Dr. Marisa G Franco (MF): What are some hidden signs that people might exhibit perfectionistic tendencies? 

Dr. Ellen Hendrickson (EH): Perfectionism is a misnomer. At the anxiety specialty center where I work, nobody has ever come in and said, “You know, Ellen, I’m a perfectionist. I need everything to be perfect.” People come in and say, “‘I feel like I’m failing.’ ‘I feel like I’m falling behind.’ ‘I have a million things on my plate, and I’m not doing any of it well’”. Sometimes you’ll get a little narcissistic flavor of, “‘I’m not reaching my full potential’ or ‘I’m not optimizing my life,’” but it’s the sense of not being good enough. And I think that’s something that many of us can relate to. 

In fact, I would say the majority of my clients have perfectionism, at the overlapping Venn diagram center of their problems, but almost never do they self-identify as perfectionists. 

MF: It sounds like there’s this rigidity of self that I have to be a certain way to be valuable, so I therefore, cannot fully express all these different parts of me and the result is a narrowed way of being, or a decrease in overall expressiveness. 

EH: For sure. It’s the idea that worth is contingent upon performance.

MF: Something I deal with in the realm of friendship for worth being so attached to performance, [relates to] romance and marital status. Oh, I need to have a romantic partner to be acceptable in modern society , and even if I have these friends, they don’t count as, a legitimate community, because, they’re not what monopolizes the definition of what’s perfect. 

EH: Absolutely,  I mean in perfectionism, we orient to rules. That doesn’t mean that the rules have to make sense or have to be even within our values.  So I think it’s easy to absorb this message from society that, romantic love is the ideal, and to not see all the platonic love around us. 

I once had this potential client email me and say that she wanted help with perfectionism so we set up a first appointment, and that morning, she emailed again, and she said, “Ellen, I’ve looked at my schedule and I’ve thought about my bandwidth, and I really want to wait until I have time to work on this really hard.” 

There’s a sense that rolling back perfectionism has to be a total overhaul. And I want to emphasize that, if we do roll back perfectionism, we might not do anything differently at all. We don’t have to change anything. It might be just that we start following our values, as opposed to the rules, what is really important to me? What does make me feel connected or loved or accepted, or what do I enjoy? 

We might enjoy hanging out with our friends, but be chasing that romantic relationship, because we think that’s the rule. But, when we move from rules to values, we might still love hanging out with our friends. What we do day to day might not change at all. 

It’s just a different mindset driving it. You don’t have to do anything different. 

MF: It sounds like, as you’re describing it, being perfectionistic is, antithetical to being attuned to yourself, what you value or find important, and that’s a loss. 

In the society that we live in, it’s easy to be vulnerable to assimilating to things that may not be good in the first place. But by doing so, you lose out on the ability to critically evaluate, like, Hmm, is this something I want to take on as a value or not ? And you might just get caught in, well, I have to be the best at this thing, because there is status to it.  

EH: Exactly. In the book, I tell the story about a client of mine, who I call Carter. He was in his first year of college, and all his life, he had been told by his parents and his teachers that he was smart, so he said, “Okay, if I’m smart, there are certain things I have to do; like I need to study for a long time. I need to not ask stupid questions. I need to memorize the study guide so I don’t get any questions wrong.” And it was this exhausting treadmill of proving himself–every exam, every quiz– his label of smart was always on the table, and if he did poorly, then it went from all to nothing. 

We worked hard to try to reorient to the value of learning and choosing the thing that’s meaningful or important and running towards that, rather than kind of mindlessly doing all this stuff to maintain the label, and again, to the point of you don’t have to do anything differently. He still studied for a long time. 

On the surface, nothing really changed, but running towards learning, lowered the pressure, and lowered the fraughtness of trying to maintain this label of smart. 

MF: It sounds like, as you’re describing it, too, that perfectionism is about avoiding certain emotions, such as shame, or feeling bad or wrong. There’s the inability to metabolize those emotions, so you just have to consistently run from them. That sounds tiring. 

EH: There is a term called emotional perfectionism, and that is, either feeling or demonstrating, only the good stuff. So I only allow myself to feel happy. If sadness or shame comes along, you squish those to only demonstrate certain emotions—no matter what we have to put on a happy face or be excited or perform the positive emotions, regardless of what we feel. I think a lot of us are raised that emotions are dictated by the situation at hand as opposed to how we truly feel.

MF: Yeah, that sounds counter to vulnerability. 

I think about perfectionism as something that goes on within you, but is there also perfectionism that people apply to others— thinking people around me have to be perfect or I don’t [like them]? 

EH: 100%. Yeah. So there’s, there are three types of perfectionism. There’s self-oriented perfectionism, and that’s what we think of when we say the word perfectionism. So that’s being hard on ourselves. 

But then there’s other-oriented perfectionism, which is when we’re hard on the people around us, and ironically, is usually the people closest to us, like a partner or kids, you know, our direct reports at work. It’s the people we think reflect on us. 

And then the third type is socially prescribed perfectionism, and that is assuming that others will be hard on us. In a demanding society, that is the one that is increasing exponentially. 

MF: When you become this other prescribed perfectionism, you see people as a reflection of you? And you can’t see people in some ways then.

EH: Both self-oriented and socially prescribed [perfectionism] have a healthy heart of conscientiousness, which is doing things well and thoroughly, being responsible, and being diligent. My line is that it’s the least sexy superpower. But as far as personality traits go, [it is] the one to choose for a good life. 

But other-oriented perfectionism, which is being hard on others, is the only one not rooted in conscientiousness. It’s dubbed a dark form of perfectionism because it’s rooted in dominance and control and a little bit of narcissism. We all have controlling moments, nobody’s exempt from this, but it is driven by a sense of, I know the right way. And that could be from how to load the dishwasher to how to raise a child, and that other people have to do it my way, and that can get in the way of relationships.

MF: Yeah. I mean, it sounds like those are the people that are judging you. 

EH: Well, the people are trying to control you and tell you that you have to do it this way, or that’s wrong. I have a client who trusted me enough to admit that she controlled how her husband made mac and cheese. And she’s like, You don’t put the pasta back in and then put the cheese packet and the milk in. You have to make the sauce in the pot first after you drain it, and then put the pasta in. And she was like, “Oh, my, I can’t believe I did that.”  I think people have a sense that this is not who they want to be. 

Another tagline is the opposite of control isn’t being out of control. The opposite of control is trust. It’s like being able to trust the people around us, to be competent, to be capable. 

MF: It sounds like you’re asking us to head towards complexity, to head towards variability, to head towards, the messiness of multiple ways of being right? And being more okay with it.

It seems like wherever there are high levels of control, there’s potential for perfectionism. If you’re trying to really control something what is the perfectionism that might be underlying that?

EH: Yeah. And that could be self-control, control of others, or it could be putting our best foot forward so others can’t control us.

MF: Well, are there any other things that you feel are important to share that we haven’t gotten to 

EH: We haven’t talked about self-criticism. 

We don’t have to stop criticizing ourselves. In fact, we probably won’t, because self-criticism is the heart of human regulation. We criticize ourselves, to better ourselves, to keep ourselves in line with the tribe, and not get kicked out. If we try to stop criticizing ourselves, we’re fighting biology and evolution. 

Instead, what we can do, is to try to change our relationship to our self-criticism. And, you know, some brains are more optimistic or pessimistic, some are more introverted or extroverted, and some are just wired to be a little more self-critical, mine included. I have learned that this is just what my brain does. Whenever I do something involving a microphone, or if I’m sending my writing out into the world, I’m just going to think it sucks, and that’s just what my brain does. But I don’t have to listen to that. I can take it less seriously and less literally and approach it like the music in a coffee shop or the music that’s in the background at a grocery store. You can hear it, but you don’t have to dance along. I don’t have to change myself or talk to myself differently. I can just let it go by, you know, like sushi at a revolving restaurant. That’s just what my brain does, and that’s all. 

When you know [self-criticism] is part of the process, it helps you not fold to it because you’re like this is another wave in the process.

MF: Wow. So it’s like, self-acceptance isn’t about cheerleading yourself all the time, but having enough distance from your critical thoughts so you’re not constantly internalizing them. 

EH: A lot of people with perfectionism won’t try new things, and won’t take a risk because they don’t want to struggle or be bad at something. 

If you think oh this is how it works—I am supposed to fall on the bunny slope. I am supposed to stare at the blank page, having no idea what to write—[you’ll feel better]. Negative emotions are only a problem if we think they shouldn’t be happening. 

MF: On a podcast, you mentioned something about more Beatles less Frozen…

EH: I have a little bit of beef with [the idea that] you have to let your bad feelings go. That implies an unwillingness to have them. You need to make them go away. And so, yeah, the tagline is, less Frozen—you don’t have to let it go. More Beatles—let it be. It can just sit there. It can just be there. You don’t have to shove it down, because it’s just going to pop up like a beach ball pushed underwater. 

Let it be there and go run towards what’s important, meaningful, and purposeful for you.

MF: That sounds so anti-perfectionistic like you gotta live with it.

EH: Yeah.

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4 Friendship Based (and Science Backed) Resolutions for 2025

The start of a new year is always buzzing with talk of resolutions—commitments to eat healthier, exercise more, or finally tackle that big goal we’ve been putting off. But, resolutions don’t have to be limited to personal achievements; they can also focus on strengthening the relationships that enrich our lives. If one of your hopes for the year ahead is to maintain or deepen your friendships, why not set a few friendship resolutions? 

Here are 4 science-backed friendship resolutions you can consider setting for the new year.

 1. Reach Out More Regularly 

One study found that believing friendship happens based on luck was related to more loneliness five years later, whereas thinking that friendship takes effort was related to less loneliness. If you want to maintain or deepen your friendships this year try reaching out more regularly. 

When we’re kids organized atmospheres like school and extracurriculars provide the perfect place for making friends because they allow for continuous unplanned interaction and shared vulnerability. These are two things sociologist Rebecca G. Adams say help create the basis of friendship. As adults, however, we likely need to create these scenarios to maintain and deepen our friendships. 

Friendship Resolution: Commit to checking in with your friends more, whether it’s through a quick text, call, coffee date, or monthly dinner. 

Or sign up for a course that gives you continuous unplanned interaction and shared vulnerability with others, like improv or writing courses.

2. Celebrate Friends’ Wins 

Being there as a support when friends are going through difficult times is an important part of friendship. And, research shows that when people celebrate our good news it is even more important for our relationship satisfaction than just them supporting us through the bad times. So this year, when friends experience success, celebrate with them– take them out to lunch, send a card, or even just call to tell them congratulations can go a long way.

Friendship Resolution: Do one thing to celebrate your friends’ achievement. 

3. Get More Comfortable with Conflict 

Conflict with friends happens and in itself, it isn’t a bad thing. How we navigate conflict can lead us to strengthen our relationships, as one study found: when betrayal occurred, confronting the perpetrator in an open non-blaming way is linked to a deepening in the relationship. Another study found that those who were good at conflict (e.g. admitting fault, de-escalating, listening, and taking the other person’s perspective), were more popular, less depressed, and less lonely. 

Friendship Resolution: Have a difficult conversation with a friend that you’ve been putting off. Bring the tools of empathy, honesty, and perspective-taking.

 

4. Express More Gratitude 

Finding things every day that make you feel thankful can positively impact how socially connected you feel, even if you’re alone. In one study, researchers had individuals self-report experiencing gratefulness and appreciation in daily life as well as feelings of isolation. The more gratitude they reported, the less isolated they were. Additionally, other research suggests that when we express gratitude in relationships it increases the motivation of the other person to stay engaged in that relationship. Having a regular gratitude practice whether by acknowledging things in your life that you’re grateful for, or telling your friends how much they mean to you makes you feel more connected.

Friendship Resolution: Tell your friends how much they mean to you with small gestures like handwritten notes, thoughtful gifts, or heartfelt compliments.

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Should You Mix Your Friends?

Jamais vu is the opposite of déjà vu. It’s the feeling that something familiar is suddenly strange, unusual. It’s the feeling I get when I mix friends. A friend of 15 years, Heather, revealed her history of being in the marching band only when I introduced her to my friend Stephanie, a former band member. On a boat tour, my friend Vanessa holds out a fish on a stick for a gator to chomp on. My friend Zaria encourages her, who calls her “queen Nessa” and fans her confidence. My friend Harbani reveals her encyclopedic knowledge of Bollywood when she brings me around her other Indian friends. Mixing friends can make a well-worn friendship exhilarating.

Jamais vu is perhaps one of the reasons I’ve been craving more friend group time and less one-on-one friend time. But this year I’ve witnessed other reasons to mix friends: to better care for one another. A friend got sick and her friends had an easier time organizing dinners to send and coordinating babysitting when her friends were friends. A friend went through surgery, and a mutual friend mobilized us all to send a care package, something we’d all have wanted to do already but may have neglected without that extra push. Disability scholars have taught me that ableism has pushed us to see sickness as temporary, and thus care as temporary too. But, sometimes it’s not. And in those moments, it’s helpful to have a friend group, with each one pitching in to get you the care you need.

Mixing friends is also good for us. One study found that the more the people we know, know one another, the better our life satisfaction. I could speculate as to why. A friend that rarely checks in, reaches out regularly now that we’ve set up a Love is Blind group chat. When you’re in a group, if any one friend makes an effort to reach out, all the friendships are maintained. Our friendships become more sustainable. 

Of course, sometimes integrating friends can fail. When friends end up not gelling, it can make us feel nervous that everyone is blaming this catastrophe on us. But as one friend has reassured me, “They’re all adults. They’re responsible for their own good time.” And then there have been times when I’ve mixed a new friend into the fold only to realize that I don’t vibe with that friend. Then, I’m seeing this new friend at all our events, stuck in a grave I dug for myself. This can be easily avoided by vetting a friend before you mix them.

If I’ve sold you on some of its benefits, here are some tips for creating a community of friends. My advice here is to invite the same people to hang out a couple of times.

Next time you hang out with a friend, ask if you can invite another friend you think they might like. If they’re ok with it, add them all to a group chat so everyone can follow up with each other. Next time you do a similar activity as you did with them – say go on a hike again – invite them both. Also, ask them to reach out next time they’re going on a hike.Think of an activity you enjoy – watching movies, cooking dinner, crocheting and invite all your friends who enjoy the same activity to hang out. If it goes well, suggest doing it again before everyone departs. Put a date in the calendar.Go on a trip (day trip or longer) with friends who don’t know each other well. Sustained interaction creates a shared group identity.

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Inside the Minds of Ghosters

For Jaelyn, now 28, it happened overnight. One day she was graduating high school with a tight-knit group of friends she grew up with. The next day all, except one, cut off communication. In Morgan’s case it happened two years ago, right after her best friend’s wedding. Chloe, 25, still feels a bit of the sting. She had a friend who she talked to almost every day, then suddenly, radio silence. Texts went unanswered, she was out of the close friends list on Instagram, and then unfollowed all together.

These women, and all of us who have been ghosted, have been left to wonder: Why do people ghost? And are ghosts as cold as they seem?

Why Do People Ghost?

Annah, 24, remembers “feeling overwhelmed with the issues that [her friend] was facing.” Today, Annah acknowledges that she, herself was depressed but at the time, “I had my own problems, and issues and I felt as though I wasn’t able to express that to her because I didn’t want to put more on her plate. I didn’t want her to think that she’s too much, because I’ve been in that position before. Instead, I just put her and our friendship on the back burner.”

Wait, what? Annah ghosted out of a desire to be kind?

And she’s not the only one. When people wrote about being ghosted on or ghosting someone, ghosters endorsed that they ghosted because they did not want to hurt the ghostees feelings or make them feel rejected (Experiment 4). They even reported moderate levels of care for the ghostee. And yet, ghostees, reflecting on being ghosted, underestimated ghoster’s care, and underestimated the degree to which ghosters ghosted them to protect them from feeling rejected. In another part of the study (Experiment 7), ghosters imagined wanting to reject a new friend because they were fundamentally incompatible. In this situation, the more reluctant ghosters were to hurt feelings, the more likely they reported being to ghost.

Ambiguous Loss

Even as ghosters think it’s kinder to ghost than it is to share why they’re pulling away, ghostees don’t feel better when ghosted. In fact, ghostees felt more cared for when they imagined getting directly rejected (i.e., we aren’t compatible) than when they were ghosted upon (Experiment 8).

Ghosting triggers ambiguous loss, a complicated form of grief that occurs when we don’t get closure as to why a relationship ended. Even two years later, Morgan still has this grief. “I’m still very confused and I don’t really know what happened. I’m racking my brain trying to figure out what happened.” Chloe also found herself looking for answers afterwards sharing that, “I feel like you’re not going to ghost somebody for no reason, so what hurt was realizing [she] would rather terminate ties with me than address whatever it was that you were feeling. It made me feel like I wasn’t important enough to you. This relationship wasn’t important enough.”

Getting Over Ghosting

Ask for Clarity
If ghosters care about us more than we think, then they also may be more likely to offer clarity than we think they are. Try:

“Hey. I haven’t heard from you in a while and I’m feeling bummed. Just wanted to check in. If there’s something on your mind you’ve been wanting to communicate, I’d love to hear it.”

Reframe the Experience
What if ghosting is more about the ghoster’s comfort level with conflict than anything you did wrong? Remember that they may be struggling with their own emotions or trying to avoid a tough conversation. Ask yourself, “what if this experience has nothing to do with me?”

Find the Offering
Ask yourself what you learned from the friendship. If you’ve ever felt the ambiguous loss that comes with ghosting, you may now know, for example, how much you value good communication. Thus, you now know what to prioritize in a friend.

Grieve without Closure
While knowing why a relationship ended soothes the grieving process, you can still grieve without closure. Instead of revisiting the relationship and wondering what you did to get ghosted, accept that you will never know—and that you can be ok not knowing. Sometimes, grieving involves getting answers. Sometimes it involves accepting that there’ll never be any.

This post was co-authored by Victoria Gillison

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