Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. To end today's show, we're going to take your calls for our last 15 minutes or so. On a simple question, do you live near your friends and does it matter? 212433 WNYC. By live near your friends, I don't just mean in the same town or borough or county, but actually near, I'm talking about borrow a cup of flour near, or can you come help fix my WiFi near walking distance? Call in or text us at 212433, WNYC 4339692 on the question, do you live near your friends, and does it matter? Why do we ask? Because there's been a lot of talk recently about the loneliness epidemic, "among Americans." The US Surgeon General, you probably know, issued a statement last year describing loneliness as an actual epidemic. Came on the show that rivals smoking tobacco in terms of its impact on health. That's a jarring comparison, right? Data is showing that Americans spend less time with friends than at nearly any other point in history, family too, but we're talking for the moment about friends. There was a piece on Vox recently with a headline, "It shouldn't be so hard to live near your friends." It suggests that seeing friends on a very regular impromptu basis offer something of a cure to this loneliness epidemic. It's probably not surprising to hear the people who live near their friends end up spending more time with them. Listeners, let us know. Do you live near your friends, and does it matter? It's not a main deciding factor, I think, in most people's decisions about where to live these days, but what about for you? What about if you don't live near your friends and you used to? Does it matter? Let's take your calls on this. There's more I could say, but because we went long with Will Leach because we were having so much fun talking with all of you about the Olympics. I want to get right to the calls and people are calling in. We'll do that right after the break. I'm talking about borrow a cup of flour near, or can you come help fix my WiFi near, walking distance? Do you live near your friends or do you no longer live near your friends, and how does it affect your life?

212433 WNYC call or text. We'll take your calls right after this. Brian Leer on WNYC, and now to your calls and texts on whether you live near your friends and whether it matters. Terry in West Milford, you're on WNYC. Hi Terry.

Terry: Hi Brian. How are you doing today?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What you got?

Terry: Good. I've lived in a neighborhood for 30 years and 20 of us have been friends for 30 years together. I'm about to retire and move down south to Delaware. My best friend Sharon, who lives catty-corner from me, we have decided we are moving to the same community wherever that may be. Like, we're never going to be separated, so we've become like one family. It's wonderful. It really is. I'm so blessed to be in this neighborhood.

Brian Lehrer: Was it hard to come to a-- Because it sounds like you want to go south in retirement and you want to be with this particular friend. Did the two of you have to negotiate like where in Florida could we both be happy or something like that?

Terry: [laughs] Yes, because our kids live all over, so it's a matter of, well, who are we going to be near? We do have requirements like, you have to be an hour from an airport, we want to be an hour from a beach. Tthat's how we dealt with it.

Brian Lehrer: Terry, thank you. Good luck. Venita in Skillman, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi Venita.

Venita: Hi. Thank you for taking the call. Yes, I think being close to your friends is one of the best things you could do. I have to say, whenever I have a couple of friends who are in very walking distance and yes, like that, we are, like you said, we borrow, we get a cup of sugar, we have eggs, milk, all the exchanges happen frequently, and we have tea parties in the evenings, but more than anything, I think whenever we are down, we see each other, we go for a walk and talk it over. It is the best thing to have friends close by and very informal meetings, which are the great things to have.

Brian Lehrer: Venita, thank you. Thank you very much. Phil in Williamsburg, you're on WNYC. Hi Phil.

Phil: Hi Brian. Well, my story is that I've lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for 36 years, and I now know fewer people than I knew 20 years ago. When I first moved here, I moved here because one of my best friends that I grew up with in Ohio lived around the corner. Then I had all of these friends in the neighborhood. We each had keys to each other's apartment and keys we needed to take care of something while someone was away. We just simply drop by and have impromptu therapy sessions in the backyard or on the front stoops.

Now I don't know anyone. I just have this crazy story about how recently right before the first heat wave hit, I had one goal and that was to get my air conditioner in the window. I didn't know anyone that could help me do it. What I did was, I literally walked up to some young guy walking down the street and I said, listen, I've lived in this neighborhood forever. I don't know anyone anymore and I need a little bit of help putting this air conditioning unit in. I said, could you help me? He sort of stammered a little bit and he said, okay. Then he came over, he helped me put in my air conditioner, and it was so amazing because it was like the old school meets the new school and he was asking me about the history of the neighborhood, and I was asking him, who are these people that now live here? He broke it down into three interesting categories. That's my story.

Brian Lehrer: That's a great piece of contact. Did you keep up a friendship? Did you strike up an ongoing intergenerational old Williamsburg, versus new Williamsburg friendship, or just for that one encounter, but that was satisfying?

Phil: You know what? [laughs] So far it was only in June that he helped me do that, but we're meant to get together. I said, listen, anytime you want to get together and have a beer and hear about what this place was like, I'd be more than happy to tell you. Now that we're hopefully past the heat waves and I'm all settled in, I think I'm actually going to give him a ring or a text and say, look, let's get together for that beer.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe he will say, I was expecting your call. I heard you on the radio. Phil, thank you very much. Nicole in Ridgewood, Queens, Ridgewood, not New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi Nicole.

Nicole: Hi Brian. I love the show so much. Thank you for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Do you live near your friends?

Nicole: I don't and it's a real problem. During the pandemic, I moved over here with my partner and we got a really good deal on a rental. We have a driveway, a backyard, a basement kind of thing. All my friends live in South Brooklyn and Park Slope and those places, and I'm in my mid-30s, so it's difficult to sort of make new friends at this point. The people who I need to talk to or be with more often, they're all down there.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, it could be a follow-up call in how do you make new friends or stories of making new friends in a neighborhood after you've moved. Was moving away from your friends in the South Slope, I think you said. Was it even on your mind when you decided to move to Ridgewood or was it something that hit you like a ton of bricks afterwards?

Nicole: Definitely afterwards, especially the pandemic. My life hasn't changed much since then. I'm home alone a lot listening to the radio and things. Yes, we actually all were in Greenpoint at that point. Then people moved on. A lot of people moved to South Brooklyn and started families and yes, that's the point we're at.

Brian Lehrer: Nicole, thank you. Maybe we'll do that follow-up call in for you and others benefit. Brandy in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi Brandy.

Brandy: Hey Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Yes, I have a huge group of friends that we used to live all in the same building in Flatbush, Brooklyn. We all had babies like me and three other women all in 2017. All of our kids are about like six months apart. We obviously kind of obviously bonded having all these kids at the same time and being able to borrow out some diapers or like give away baby clothes or things whenever someone needed it. Then the pandemic, obviously it was a huge asset because we-- Our kids were like two and they couldn't do anything or go anywhere, and so we created our own little pod of toddlers who got to actually socialize.

I feel really lucky that we weren't one of those parents who felt like their kids didn't have any socialization over the pandemic. It came in really handy and one by one, like now where I think I was like the second person to move out of the building, but now one of those friends is moving to my neighborhood, so her daughter and my two daughters will get to play together again and do pickups after school and go to the same after school centers and stuff like that again. It's been nice to keep those connections and I'm really glad that we're going to have someone in the neighborhood who we can pick back up with again.

Brian Lehrer: It's one of the perennial ways that people make some of their best friends, right? When you have babies around the same time and you live near each other and such an intense bonding takes place around that.

Brandy: Oh yes. I wouldn't have had any friends, especially through the pandemic had it not been for these women. I think all of us probably feel the same way. Like we've been bonded for life in that way. It's been great.

Brian Lehrer: Brandy, thank you. Thanks for calling. Text message that we're going to end with, listener to writes, "I am 11 years old and was listening to your show today. I would like to say how happy I am to have friends around the corner from me and my parents. Don't have to drive me to their house to see my friends. I love just walking over to my friend's houses and I get so much freedom. Interesting that the 11-year-old and it makes total sense, associates it with freedom. You don't have to depend on your parents if your friends live near you in order to get together with them, right?

Thanks everybody for your calls and your texts. That's the Brian Lehrer show for today. Produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen edits our National Politics podcast. Our interns this summer are Sasha Lyndon Cohen, and Lucinda Emson Speeden, Juliana Fonda, and Milton Ruiz at the audio controls. I'm Brian Lehrer. Stay tuned for Allison.

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