We all need smart friends. We just don’t know how to locate them.
During his toast at my wedding, my brother denounced the fact that he wasn’t my most productive man. To prove his superiority, he gave a surprise test to the guy who had gotten the job. What’s my favorite movie? (Notting Hill. ) Who is my best school friend?(Trick question: it didn’t exist. ) How did I lose peripheral vision in my left eye?(BB Gun). Finally, my brother uttered the punchline: how many friends?Had? That answer is easy. A. The most productive man.
I thought it was a soft speech. Behind all this humiliation was a subliminal declaration of love, for me, but also for my most productive friend and the vital role he played in my life. And I didn’t feel embarrassed at all. Sure, I only had one close friend, but my circle of relatives was tight-knit, I was living with new co-workers in Denver, and I now had a wife who was legally obligated to spend time with me. He was rich in satisfying relationships.
Eight years later, the scenario wouldn’t be so fun. My most productive guy and I live in other states, the work-from-home revolution means I rarely see my colleagues in person, and while my wife is wonderful, I can feel her give in under the weight of all my attention. (We have this common joke when I leave the house: She asks me where I’m going. I say, “Hang out with the kids. ” Or we laugh because there are no Children. )
Is my scenario sad? Of course. Is this weird? Absolutely. According to a 2022 data study from the Chamber of Commerce, a national real estate and small business research firm, Denver ranks 27th out of 170 on the list of most remote cities in the United States, in its percentage of households of single people. They have extensive networks of friends who meet their social needs, but studies suggest otherwise: In 1990, 33% of American adults surveyed through Gallup reported having 10 or more close friends. Only 3% do not. In 2021, only 13% had 10 or more and 12% could not call a close friend who was single.
These figures are heartbreaking, but also inadequate. Earlier this year, Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz published The Good Life, a book based on their work as directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the world’s oldest happiness studies project. Founded in 1938, the company followed more than 2,000 participants for eight decades, and Waldinger and Schulz summarized their findings in a single deduction, which they shared with Atlantic last January: “Good relationships lead to fitness and happiness. “
Good relationships surround all kinds of dynamics. The family, of course, you were born with, as well as romantic partners, who are just a dating app away. However, it’s hard to find friends once we’re adults, when unplanned interactions, shared vulnerability, and time (the ultimate vital ingredients for making friends) are scarce. This is especially true in Denver, where 38. 9 percent of families have a single user (compared to a national average of 29 percent), and Colorado as a whole, where more than a fraction of citizens are transplant recipients.
“You asked if it was exciting or worrying or whatever [making new friends],” says Rachel Greenwald, Denver celebrity matchmaker and New York Times bestseller of Find a Husband After 35 (Using What I Learned At Harvard Business School). . , who also researches and teaches topics similar to non-romantic work relationships at Harvard Business School. “I would say it’s just difficult because, on the one hand, most older people have made friendships, lives and families. The opportunities where it’s very rare that other people have the space to bring someone new into their lives.
But it happens. I’ve seen friends laughing together at the edge of my community’s playground, gathered at the trailhead before an organization run, erupting in a collective ovation when Nikola Jokić throws a pass between the legs to his (friend) Aaron Gordon. What’s their secret? To find out, we burst into their bubbles to find out how the locals establish and maintain platonic relationships. What we’ve found is that making friends is scary, nerve-wracking, and awkward (basically, dating someone with no sexual potential). When an attack ends, when two souls finally come together, the praise is even higher and lasts much, much longer than with most of the clowns you encounter in Hinge.
After attending the University of Knoxville, Tennessee, where I grew up, I was looking forward to exploring the world after graduation. Some might say he’s too enthusiastic: I moved on to six places over the next 12 years. Forced to do it for a part A dozen times, I’ve developed some foolproof techniques for gathering friends if you, like most Coloradans, find yourself living in a place, desperate to meet new people. Here’s what I learned in each city.
The company loves misery
There wasn’t much to do in Bethlehem, a quiet working-class town, so I joined a colleague I thought I’d like to meet as I smoked cigarettes on my back porch with her. Unfortunately, we look at the metal factory on the horizon as we wish to live in the trendy community of Brooklyn two hours away.
FOMO is real
After arranging a drinks date with a school acquaintance and a friend of his in Washington, D. C. , the former renounced his shares. His friend and I stuck around anyway to infect our mutual acquaintance with a case of FOMO that was spreading from the bar to a space party, sending him photos along the way. My friend from school never gave up on me (although, interestingly, I didn’t hang out with this friend much after that).
Always make friends with the waiters.
They probably can’t socialize much (their work schedules clash with fulfilled hours, overdue nights, and the like), but they communicate with a lot of people, so they’re above-average matchmakers. In Little Rock, for example, the bartender at my local craft brewery set me up on a motorcycle ride with another regular.
You can be whoever you want to be
Returning from a solo ATV trip in Santa Fe, I discovered that the Little Rock transplant was waiting through my car because it had spied on my Arkansas license plate. Even though I graduated from the University of Tennessee, I pretended to be an Arkansas football fan for a few weeks to cement our budding friendship.
everything is love and friendship
The ex-girlfriend of a colleague of mine from Santa Fe had also recently moved to Seattle, so I sent her a personal message on Instagram. I casually asked her what ski pass she and her new spouse were going to receive, bought the same one and sent her a message. them every time the forecast called for snow. We ski all winter and our bond has become so strong (platonically speaking) that we spend the summer combining hiking and tubing on the lake.
Prepare your resume
A member of my D. C. se team moved to Mile High City around the same time I did, and in an hour of satisfaction that was more like a job interview, she told me about my biking and skiing skills. Luckily, I was impressed: she introduced me to the task of her husband’s new adventure companion.
The two Olympic long-distance runners, Kara Goucher and Des Linden, have traveled in the same circles for years, but they didn’t know each other until last January, when they introduced Nobody Asked Us with Des
1. Unplanned interactions
In 2020, Goucher, who had retired as a professional runner, attended the U. S. Olympic Marathon Trials. In the U. S. , Goucher finished fourth. After the race, Goucher and Linden, who lives in Michigan, met in the hotel lobby where they were staying. The couple turned this potential encounter into an after-party, heading to a bar for a late-night cocktail. “It was the first time we had a genuine verbal exchange that wasn’t at a start line, a finish line or a press conference,” Goucher says.
2. Shared vulnerability
Goucher once trained with the Oregon Project, a running team funded by Nike and coached by standout Alberto Salazar. To outsiders it seemed like an ideal environment. But in Goucher’s 2023 book, The Longest Race: Inside the Secret World of Abuse, Doping and Cheating on Nike’s Elite Racing Team, she claims Salazar stressed her into taking weight-loss medication. Array oversaw doping activities within the team and sexually assaulted her. during massages. (Salazar denies the accusations). In 2013, Goucher began talking to the U. S. Anti-Doping Agency, which banned Salazar in 2019, but his cooperation came at a cost. “There were other people in the game who weren’t good to me, who didn’t need to be around me,” Goucher says. “And Des never did that. ” During the 2020 Olympic trials, Linden asked about Goucher’s experiences. “I said to myself, ‘Everything is on the table,'” Goucher says. “I just trusted him. I had a lot of respect for him. I knew she believed me and I don’t feel that way.
3. Spend Time Together
Goucher thought that asking Linden to be true friends would have been embarrassing. So the idea for a live podcast (from sports business to fan recommendations) was partly his way of finding out if Linden was interested in continuing to date. A little awkward to be my friend? Since the release of Nobody Asked Us in January 2023, Goucher and Linden have spent more than 20 hours together in the studio, from the first episode’s nervous first-date questions (“How are you looking to run?”) to the familiar 18-factor catch-up on family dynamics. (“How’s your logo, new bearded dragon?”). ” It’s two other people who think they need to be friends,” Goucher says, “really dive in and figure out if they do. “
My parents divorced 15 years ago. So why are they still there all the time?
With yellowed floral wallpaper in the kitchen and faux wood paneling in the living room, the Lakewooden ranch I grew up on looked like the setting of a ’70s sitcom. The inner life is also similar to this. My dad, the fun, laid-back dad who helped me with my math homework and let me, then just 10 years old, watch PG-13 movies. My mother, on the other hand, is strict: a Chilean immigrant with a thick accessory and a stern gaze. They were Sam and Diane, Lucy and Ricky, Uncle Jesse and Aunt Becky: opposites that, combined, made up the best whole.
Then, probably out of nowhere, my mother had me sit one night in our gigantic La-Z-Boy recliner and told me that after a decade of marriage, my father would be moving out. Would I spend my formative years in the parking lot of a McDonald’s, switching from my mother’s car to my father’s?Would I unwrap my mother’s presents in front of the faux wood paneling before heading to my father’s sterilized studio to buy Chinese takeout?
My questions were answered soon after, when my dad stopped by the space for dinner and Monopoly so I could catch up with him about the new fifth-grade drama. The three of us spent Christmas together. My mother even helped him choose the furniture for his new home. And the friendship continued in the years after their breakup: Every Sunday morning in high school, my mother, father, and I had lunch at the Village Inn down the street.
After moving in, I thought that would be it. My parents had done an admirable job of keeping their dates cordial on my behalf, but the seams would actually begin to come apart without their daughter’s presence to hold them together. But six years later, their friendship has never wavered. Now, when I stop over at my mom’s house, she ignores me and laughs at a (not so funny) Facebook meme my dad sent her. Every once in a while, I take a selfie of them. in combination in the cinema. They still share our Village Inn, regularly without me.
A few weeks ago, I asked them why they remained friends after the divorce. “I think we’re kindred spirits,” my father said, “even if we’re not romantics. “My mother’s reaction was less enthusiastic: “He’s a great guy. “. My friends are sure they have a secret love story, but I don’t think so. They’re both still single, and the friendship they’ve had for 15 years has taught me that relationships change. The actors change, new plots emerge, the ensembles are remade. But if there’s chemistry, the exhibit goes on.
It may seem unfair, but first impressions determine the fate of a friendship, says Rachel Greenwald, a Denver celebrity matchmaker. Here are some tips that might help you get a playdate.
We all have that friend. The one who abandons you for the coolest kids, says things that make you cringe and pretends to be an uncontrollable teenager so he can appear in Maury. Okay, so this last example is exclusive to Eric Cartman from South Park. Thanks to Cartman’s cunning, Colorado’s favorite sons, Kyle Broflovski, Stan Marsh and Kenny McCormick, continue to include the fourth-grade villain in their social circle. For what? To find out, 5280 (with ChatGPT) asked Kyle, Stan, and Kenny for information about the dynamics of their infamous quartet.
5280: Why are you friends with Cartman after everything he’s doing?
Kyle Broflovski: (Sighs) You know, it’s rarely a mystery even to us. Cartman can be infuriating, offensive, and just plain mean. But at the end of the day, there’s a story to it. We know each other and I guess we’ve been through so much together that it’s hard to completely let go.
Stan Marsh: yes, no matter how bad things go, Cartman is still part of our group. He’s been with us since the beginning, and even though he’s an idiot most of the time, there are times when he is. It’s not that bad.
Kenny McCormick: (choked) Mph.
Stan Marsh: Yeah, it’s just that no matter how bad things go, Cartman is still part of our group. He’s been with us from the beginning, and even though he’s a jerk most of the time, there are times when he is. He’s not that bad.
Kenny McCormick: (choked) Mph.
Kyle: Kenny’s right. Despite his flaws, Cartman has his moments, and there are times when he helped us in his own way.
Stan: Like when he saved us from that evil at the amusement park.
Kyle: And the time he helped us spread this conspiracy with the cows.
Kenny: (choked) Mph.
Kyle: Of course, there’s also the fact that we’ve tried to let it go before, but it always manages to come back.
Stan: yes, like when we tried to update it with Token.
Kyle: But ultimately, I think that’s just one component of the dynamic. We all have our roles, and even though Cartman drives us crazy, he’s still our friend in a twisted and messy way.
Kenny: (choked) Mph.
Stan: And you know what? Even if things get crazy, we know we can count on each other. Cartman is like that annoying family circle member that you can’t cut ties with.
We may not understand it, but it’s our own weird version of friendship.
Kenny: (choked) Mph.
Stan: yes, Kenny, you’re right. It’s like it’s an obligatory evil in our lives.
Kyle: And who knows? Maybe one day it will change. But in the meantime, we’re stuck with it, for better or worse.
Kenny: (choked) Mph.
*The campfire is a metaphor for friendship.
Like many older men, Brian Carroll and Tyson Williams find it difficult to communicate candidly about their relationship. “I don’t like it at all,” Carroll says. I don’t know why we’re having this conversation. “Williams claims to have dreamed about Carroll’s murder. There are times when he’s lighting a bonfire and I’m like, ‘Ahhhhhh,'” Williams says, imitating him pushing his friend into the fire. “But I don’t do it because. . . prison. “
The fact is, Carroll and Williams became adventure buddies shortly after meeting in Boulder in 2010, forging an intimate partnership based on the exploration and survival of some of the most remote and rugged wilderness in the West. During those excursions, the two men came up with three rules for a campfire, which they say are a metaphorical support to foster their friendship. (Note: Don’t push your friend into the fireplace – it’s an unwritten rule. )
1. Don’t add fuel to the fire
This is vital in the literal sense of the word because of wildfires. This is vital figuratively, because too intense an adventure can lead to you being suspended on the edge of volatile scree in the Frank Church River in the Idaho wilderness. No return. ” This is the closest time to dying with Brian,” says Williams. “We put too much effort into that. ” The two Army veterans, Carroll and Williams, now see themselves as each other’s fighting partners, the fellow soldier you team up with to help keep you safe. “It’s their job to get you back,” Carroll says.
2. Stoke the spark
Just like a fire, you need to take care of a friendship to keep it from going out. “What we started doing years ago,” Carroll said, “is making vacation plans every month. Maybe it didn’t take place every month, but there was something on the calendar. Although Williams moved to Durango in 2020, the couple continues to plan quarterly Zoom Hours of Satisfaction excursions. However, maintaining your relationship rarely requires staying out of the way. When Carroll visited Williams’ home in Durango, for example, he discovered that his friend was bent over and suffering from severe abdominal disease. “Brian says, ‘Don’t worry, they turned you in,'” Williams says. Brian started cooking for the next 3 or 4 days while I tried not to throw up my own son. “
3. Don’t give up in the rain
If you’re camping without a tent in the wilds of Pecos, New Mexico, and it’s 40 degrees and it’s raining like God on a cleaning device, “don’t let the fireplace go out,” says Williams, “because your life literally relies on it. The same can be said of the importance of their friendship to his intellectual health. In 2022, Williams suspended her forays into the field after the birth of her first child, but getting away from nature took a toll on her well-being. -be. At his wife’s request, Williams called Carroll for a motorcycle vacation to the Wheeler Geologic Zone (and its 28-million-year-old volcanic fields) near Creede. The holidays were an emotional reset for Williams and proof that even though he felt isolated and alone, Carroll was there to help him. “In the end,” Williams says, “I was able to stop by and see my family. “
Platonic relationships don’t just praise those who are involved; The company is also making a profit on candy. Here are three examples of friendships that have benefited Coloradans and many others.
Henry O. Wagoner and Barney Ford
The Meet-Cute: Henry O. Waggoner met Barney Ford in the 1840s in Chicago after the latter arrived in the city with the Underground Railroad and soon married Waggoner’s sister.
The relationship: After moving to Denver, Waggoner and Ford have become two of the most successful salespeople in the Colorado territory. Both focused primarily on hospitality (Ford operated the sublime Inter-Ocean Hotel in Denver) and were among the wealthiest black citizens in the state.
The benefits: The friends were passionate about politics, and they added lobbying in Congress opposed to statehood in 1862 over whether black men had the right to vote and the good fortune of the 1867 law that prevented restrictions on male suffrage in U. S. territories. Advocates for educational equality, Ford and Waggoner also opened a school for black youth in Denver in the 1870s.
Sheryl McCallum and David Nehls
The Meet-Cute: In the late 1990s, Denver resident Sheryl McCallum led some readings by then-developing composer David Nehls, The Great American Trailer Park Musical in New York City. More than a decade later, a stopover in Mile High City, McCallum attended an audition at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, where he was surprised to see Nehls, who had moved to the state and was running for music director, behind the piano.
The relationship: When McCallum returned to Denver in 2014, Nehls, then music director of the Arvada Center, cast her in a production of I’ll Be Home for Christmas. “I thank David for introducing me to Denver’s broader theater scene,” McCallum says. “Denver is tough. But since David was already there and we had a bit of history in New York, every time he did something, he let me know. I went into the room because of Mr. Nehls.
The perks: McCallum and Nehls co-wrote Miss Rhythm—The Legend of Ruth Brown, a DCPA in which McCallum tells the story and plays the songs of singer R.
Edward White Jr. and Jack Kerouac
The Meet-Cute: During the 1940s, Edward White Jr. , a Denver local, attended Columbia University in New York City, where he befriended Beat Generation pioneer Jack Kerouac.
The relationship: In 1947, Kerouac traveled by bus and then hitchhiked to Denver’s White, a place that became the basis for the author’s seminal book, On the Road; White is portrayed through the character of Tim Gray in the book. White, who died in 2017 at the age of 92, became a famous architect who designed some of Denver’s most iconic buildings, adding the Boettcher Memorial Tropical Conservancy in Denver. Botanical gardens.
The advantages: Despite his architectural accomplishments, White’s greatest contribution to art arguably would have been to motivate Kerouac’s signature style. “By the way,” Kerouac wrote to White before the writer’s death in 1969, “you are a totally new movement in American literature (spontaneous prose and poetry) when one night, in that Chinese restaurant on 125th Street, you told me to start DRAWING the streets in 1969. . . “
You can send a text message, Rex. Mail it, Gail. You don’t want to linger, Mary.
Katherine Sleadd has lost many friends. There was the wife of the high school lip sync contest who, along with another woman who was listening to the trio, told Sleadd that her mother had forced her to be friends with her out of pity for her. As an adult, Sleadd broke up with someone as a result of a dispute over a rental car (which, as it turns out, was not actually about the rental car) in the United Kingdom. A friend got too close to Sleadd’s husband for Sleadd’s liking.
At this point in the story, you might be thinking, “Wow, she seems like a bad friend. “Sleadd thought the same thing, so the Denver-based trauma-informed life coach wrote How to Be a Bad Friend: The Hidden Life. of Failed Relationships, published in April of this year. In the book, Sleadd describes 10 archetypes, from “clueless friend” to “jealous friend,” using their stories as anecdotes. But instead of training readers to be malicious, Sleadd asks them to think about why we harm those we love. ” “To what extent are we aware of our own desires and dreams when it comes to friendship,” he says, “or to what extent do we function according to what we’ve been told we need when it comes to secure relationships?”
For example, the last thing we need is to be a cheating friend. That’s what Sleadd likes, though, in the U. K. , where car rental situations turned out to be more confusing than she and her two partners had imagined. When his friends hesitated and begged for a bus, Sleadd refused to budge. In fact, she told them they could leave, but that she was going to “rent that damn car. “Sleadd was given the keys after hours of arguing at the company while her friends were boiling, with one of them later telling Sleadd that she was “just a kid who had to prove it. “
In a way, the friend was right. After the embarrassment of the lip-syncing contest, Sleadd internalized that all he needed to do to maintain the links was to avoid upsetting others. “The fact is that cheating women are hooked on their bodies and themselves,” Sled writes. The only explanation why we have learned to call them difficult is because conformity demands of women. . . Let them give up all their desires in exchange for “love” and security. But Sleadd couldn’t turn down the UK because he knew how to travel. It would be a rare occasion in his life. She was willing to let her friendship die on that hill.
And that’s what happened. After being called a girl, Sleadd responded by saying that maybe her friend was just angry that her own children weren’t listening to her. She’s not proud of the punch, nor of being picky, but, Sled writes, “I was as true to who I was at the time as best I could, resentment included, after spending many years committing myself to reassure others. It was complicated. I was demanding. This is a complicated story. But she had to be a bad friend, she believes. , to a more complete person.
Strangers one day, traveling or dying the next, children seem to know the mystical secrets to lock up their friends, which is why we asked Leila Parsons and Anna Skavish, nine-year friends of Front Range, to give us a glimpse into building relationships.
Making Friends:
Leila: “It’s easier for friends when you have something to talk about. Anna and I regularly start a verbal exchange talking about a wheel in gymnastics.
Anna: “Yes, if you don’t share a lot of interests, you have to look for even the smallest topic that you can communicate about. Maybe the other user likes pasta? »
With friends:
Anna: “You can’t hold on to anything that’s happened. You have to throw it in the trash and let the dumpster take it away.
Leila: “We had a lot of fights. But two seconds later, we’re friends. Classic Girl Code.
Why Adults Have a Hard Time Keeping Friends:
Anna: “Probably because they want to be nicer to others. When you’re with your friends, you want to make sure you let the rest of your life go by and try to do something smart for them.
Leila: “So Anna could say that my outfit looks wonderful when she thinks it’s awful. It’s just so I don’t feel bad for her.
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