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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Hello, again, everybody. We're going to kick off a new mini-series on the show right now, Considering Friendship and Adulthood. Why that? Well, we're inspired, as we know some of you have already been by a recent piece in The Atlantic, by Jennifer Senior called It's Your Friends Who Break Your Heart. It's a very thought-provoking essay on getting older and the challenges of maintaining, let alone making new friendships. It weaves in anecdotes and personal insights and also dives into some of the science behind friendship.

There are also wisdoms on friendship from people like Esther Perel, and it even compelled the response from Margaret Atwood, which led to a follow-up piece where Atwood offers more musings on the topic for people who are older than middle-aged, like herself. Let you in on a little behind-the-scenes booking detail, Margaret Atwood has been on the show before and we've invited her back for next week, and we're hoping she can do it. The topic of friendship is as timely as it is eternal.

A survey last year by The Survey Center on American Life found that the number of close friendships Americans have had has declined considerably over the past three decades. Just 59% of Americans in 2021 reported having a best friend compared to 75% of Americans. Almost half again or 15 percentage points more, let's say, in 1990. The pandemic has changed our relationship with our friends too, sometimes for the better, not just for the worst. For this first installation of the series, we're going to look at one of the main aspects of the piece, which is friendship in middle age.

As the subtitle of Jennifer Senior's article says, "The older we get, the more we need our friends and the harder it is to keep them." Why? She goes on to write that, "With midlife, comes a number of significant upheavals and changes, one that prove too much for many friendships to withstand." We'll get into some of those. Joining us now is the author of the piece, Jennifer Senior. Staff writer at The Atlantic. Jennifer, welcome back to WNYC.

Jennifer Senior: Thank you so much, and thanks for that beautiful and super comprehensive introduction. That took my breath away. Wow.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. We're going to open the phones for callers who are in whatever you consider middle age to be. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. I said this piece focuses a lot on losing friends, but let's turn it around for the call-in. Brian Lehrer Show listeners, tell us a story of preserving a friendship or making a new friend in middle age, whatever you consider middle age.

212-433-WNYC. Who has one? 212-433-9692. Or ask Jennifer Senior a question, especially if you have read the piece. Who's got a good story or a making a new friend or preserving an old friend in middle-age anecdote, 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Jennifer, I'm struck by the decline in the piece that I cited in the introduction of how many people even consider themselves having a best friend. What do you attribute that to?

Jennifer Senior: I'm not exactly sure I can answer that. I think it's part of the broader pattern that Robert Putnam wrote about so well in Bowling Alone in 2000, that in general, there's been this decline in social capital across all aspects of American life. Church attendance is down, religious attendance is down, unions aren't as strong and we don't belong to the Elks club. A lot of this is just about the acceleration of modern life, that we're very busy, we don't have dinner with our neighbors.

All these things that we used to do, maybe when life was slower and we weren't quite as mobile. I think that plays a role. It might be the price that we pay for the radical individualism that we embrace as Americans. You can move anywhere. I think mobility is a big part, but I don't know. It's a painful question and it has epidemiological consequences because if you don't have that many friends, it could potentially have health consequences. It does things to your health.

Brian Lehrer: You wrote a line that really jumped out at both me and the producer of this segment, Ryan Wilde, who did a lot to contribute to the thinking that you heard in the introduction that you praised. Thanks to producer Ryan Wilde. You write that, "The problem when it comes to friendship is we are ritual-deficient, nearly devoid of rites that force us together." I guess that's different than for family ties.

Jennifer Senior: Yes, there are reunions if you're married or partnered, there are anniversaries. If you've got children, there's lots of rituals in a kid's life, where there's birthdays, there are religious celebrations and there are annual holidays. There's a zillion things. If you look at where the money gets distributed in universities, everybody loves to study families and everybody loves to study romantic partnerships, but friendships, there's so little to hang on to there. Yes, I think we should have more things like friendship anniversaries and dedicated road trips and things like that. They're just hard. They take a backseat.

Brian Lehrer: Friendship anniversaries, regular road trips. These are things that you just said that most people have probably never even thought of trying to institute friendship anniversaries, or regular road trips are great if you can do them. Do you have a friendship anniversary story? Any example?

Jennifer Senior: Well, this is what's so terrible. We don't remember the date that we meet one of our closest friends. We don't mark it down. Yes, I do have one story. There is a woman that I named in the story named Nina. Her name is Nina Teicholz and she's a dear friend of mine. When we first went out to lunch, we liked each other so much that we then went out maybe a night later to dinner and had this night on the town and I blurted out to her in the cab, "I really wish I had a history with you." I was 29 years old.

Now I'm 52, and I do. I have a real history with her. There were things that we did do ritualistically. We went to certain places every year. Then, of course, we had children and life just-- suddenly our priorities were elsewhere. I do remember having that since. I wanted her to have already been my family. I think, on some level, that's the idea, you want to make these people your family. I should have thought right then and there, "If I want a history with her, let's mark this day and every year let's go do something really wonderful on this day."

Brian Lehrer: Really nice. Friendship anniversaries. Let's hear a few listeners' stories. Tiffany in Richfield, you're on WNYC. Hi, Tiffany.

Tiffany: Hi, thanks for having me. I met my friend, Carolyn, just before the pandemic walking my dog in a field and we both had puppies and we were like, "We should be friends because these guys like each other." Then the pandemic hit and the two of us would meet pretty much every day during the pandemic in this field, in rain, in snow, in heat. Her adult children moved in with her, and I was home with my adult child and younger child who came home from college and we commiserated about children moving home and us.

She's a widow. I am not a widow. We said we should write a book because it was like Dharma talk. She got me through the pandemic and she's now-- I'm 58. She's now one of my closest and dearest friends, and I never thought I would make a friend like that. I love this idea of ritual-deficient because we didn't know it, but we were setting up our ritual and she just recently moved closer to the city and I'm ritual-deficient, and I feel it. I'm just so grateful that, at 58, I made a best friend. It was amazing.

Brian Lehrer: That's a wonderful story, Tiffany. Thank you very much. I want to go right onto Beth in New Brunswick next. Beth, you're on WNYC. Thanks so much for calling in on this.

Beth: Hi, Brian, I'm loving this topic. I've been listening to all these other people. I'm 66, and about four years ago when I got divorced, I moved to a whole new place and I was really feeling challenged about how to make new local friends or at least new friends without giving up my old friends, but it got harder to see them regularly. What I did was I tried to join groups. I joined meetup groups and I did walking groups that were both local. I live by the beach so I do a lot of walking groups by the water. I did walk in groups in New York and I met new neighbors and I tried to get involved in local things. I have been so gratified at the new friends in my life. I never thought that I would be able to do that at this age, start over with a whole new batch of friends while still trying to keep in touch with my old friends. It's been a strength, like girlfriends to me have always been important and it's just amazing to me that there's been such a whole new leaf in my book of friends.

Brian Lehrer: Wonderful story, Beth. Oh, go ahead. Do you want to add something? [crosstalk] Go ahead.

Beth: Oh, yes, I do. I just wanted to add that I do are some of my oldest friends and how I met them. It's interesting, we don't celebrate the day we met, but I remember friends through different stages of life and exactly how we met and what the circumstances are, and surprisingly, so do they. Those days are important. They stay in our memories.

Brian Lehrer: Beth, thank you so much. Here's somebody who I think has an actual friendship anniversary story, Sean in Los Angeles. Hi, Sean. You're on WNYC.

Sean: Hi, Brian. I love the show. I love the article, by the way, Jennifer, really great.

Jennifer Senior: Oh, thank you.

Sean: About 11 years ago, I had was married in Block Island. I had several of my good friends at the wedding, but one, in particular, was like, "Hey, we should come up here just maybe a group of us guys every year." It really has morphed into, originally, it was a surfing, fishing thing, but I think we all realize that, now, this for the seven men who are all middle-aged, 50-ish, and a little older, I refer to it as my annual secular retreat for friendship.

It has pulled us through, hey, lots of siblings and some other really tough events, but it really is. Every year, I realize how special it is because so many people, just speaking from male 50-ish, don't have something like that. It's really turned into something unique that we truly cherish.

Brian Lehrer: Sean, thank you so much. Jennifer, we're almost at a time for today's kickoff of this Friendships and Adulthood series. We'll continue it tomorrow. I want to touch two things. One of them is that we just took mostly calls from women. We had that one guy there at the end, Sean in LA. Our board is 80% women. Do you think there are gender differences here?

Jennifer Senior: I do, but I will tell you this as well. Yes, and in fact, there's some data suggesting that, of course, there is, that women tend to expect more from friendships. If you ask men who their best friend is, they will often say their spouse if they're in a straight relationship. Women won't say that as much. There's stuff like that. I will say this. I got the most heartfelt notes in response to this piece from men, not women.

Make of that what you will, that there might be a pent-up desire to talk about this and until it's on the page, you know what I mean? Women think about this, I think, a little bit more maybe, and the data certainly says as much, but we are data-deficient on this question too, I want to stress this. The most research on this is done in little kids and then the elderly, because it's captive audiences, either way, you're in old folks homes or you're in schools. There's almost nothing in the great big stretch from young adulthood right through into your 80s.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. I'm an example of a guy who actually rekindled the closeness of some old friendships during the pandemic. Some college friends that, in a way that I think is going to last, we're going to talk about other people's stories of that, the pandemic and friendships for better as well as for worse later in the series. Last thing for today, your piece quote, psychotherapist and popular writer and podcast host, Esther Perel, who suggest intergenerational friendships.

Perel, 63, she's quoted saying, "I've recently built a whole community of people half my age. It's the most important shift in my life, friendship-wise. They're at my dinner table. I have three friends having babies." I just am curious if you did any follow-up reporting on that, that would suggest that younger adults are even open enough to friendships with older adults to make this a common thing.

Jennifer Senior: I can't answer that question. What I can tell you is that there used to be a whole lot more intergeneration, more socializing. Before there was such a thing as high school, most American kids spent their time in the company of adults. Then once we were all [unintelligible 00:14:51] into high schools, things became very segmented when more and more people started going to coll--

There were structures that conspired against it. It's now considered perfectly fine if you speak to your family only every so often, if you don't see them. It means you don't see your parents as friends. From what I've seen, absolutely, I'm at a new office. One of my favorite new people there is half my age practically, so yes.

Brian Lehrer: It's probably at work where it's most easy to have intergenerational friendships. Whether they continue outside of work is another thing, but we leave it there for today with Jennifer Senior, her piece on friendships in adulthood in The Atlantic kicking off this series. We're going to do a number of related call-ins like this over the coming days. Jennifer, thank you so much for the inspiration. You could tell, from our callers, how much people are moved by what you wrote.

Jennifer Senior: Oh, I'm so excited for this. I'm going to tune in. I do anyway, but I'll tune in again or double-tune in.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

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