Thank You for Being a Friend
12/21/18 - We asked for your meet-cute stories, the platonic version of a rom-com whirlwind friend romance. From love at first eyeroll to the bestie you initially hated, to staying friends through the rough patches, we listen to your voicemails and talk about the early days of friendship.
Transcript below.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Spotify.
CREDITS
Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Associate Producer: Destry Maria Sibley
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci
Ad sales: Midroll
TRANSCRIPT: Thank You for Being a Friend
[Ads]
(1:13)
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman. Months ago we asked listeners to leave us voicemails about how you met your bestie and they are like -- they are the very best and the very cutest.
[Theme Song]
Lily: I'm Lily.
Diana: And I'm Diana.
Lily: Both black girls in, you know, a school with not many blacks.
Diana: Yes. [Laughs]
Lily: We are at a private Christian school and so, you know, there wasn't many of us and we knew we had to stick together.
Aminatou: Hi Ann Friedman!
Ann: Hi, I'm kind of froggy over here. It's like early morning. It's not that early morning. I'm just froggy. [Laughs]
(2:30)
Aminatou: I'm like early morning? [Laughs]
Ann: You know, when you're the first person that I talk to, I'm just like you can hear in my voice that I've been sitting quietly hunched over a computer.
Aminatou: Oh my gosh, I'm excited about today's episode.
Ann: Okay, so I don't remember who . . . I think it might've been your genius idea. It was definitely yours or Gina's, it was not my genius idea, but months ago we asked listeners to send us -- leave us voicemails about how you met your bestie. And they are like -- they are the very best and the very cutest.
Aminatou: The thing that I love about these is that there is an element that is familiar in al of these to a lot of relationships that I've had and I suspect that it's the same for a lot of people who are listening.
Ann: Meeting someone and clicking as a friend is a mysterious thing. It happens in lots of different ways for different people. And when it comes to falling in romantic love we have this whole body of culture, like we've got like books and movies and whole TV shows that are built around the idea of what does it really look like when two people feel some kind of spark romantically? And we're sort of asking the question as we're working on our book and then actually put the question to all of our listeners of what did it look like when you felt that in a platonic context? And what would it look like to make that more a part of the cultural conversation too?
(3:55)
Aminatou: So let's listen to the first voicemail and this one is definitely a friend love at first site.
Kaitlyn: Hello. My name is Kaitlyn. I'm calling from Arlington, Virginia just outside DC and I met my bestie at the Whole Foods bar. I was just trying to eat a simple meal by myself after running a half-marathon. I was super exhausted. Some other bar goers were talking about Hillary Clinton and one man in particular was just saying the nastiest sexist bullshit I've ever heard close to me in my life. I was just trying to eat quietly and really didn't have the energy to engage with him but I locked eyes with this woman a few feet down and we just shared this incredible moment of eye rolling, I just can't believe this man is saying this out loud and no one's doing anything about it.
And finally he left and we both heaved a big sign of relief and I went and sat closer to her and was like wow, what an asshole. [Laughs] We just started talking and now two years later we're besties. I can't thank that disgusting man enough for saying the nasty disgusting things he did.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: I love that this is a real make some lemonades out of lemon literally in the produce aisle kind of situation. [Laughs]
Aminatou: This is truly the kind of -- you know, it's the kismet that in a rom-com you feel it and it's euphoric or whatever then there's a montage. And I was like the same thing happens in friendship. The same thing kind of happened with us.
Ann: It is true. I mean I like to refer to this, especially when you see someone in public but also maybe when you're at a party or a friend's house, as a who's that lady moment. You know what feeling?
(6:00)
Aminatou: Yes. Yes.
Ann: Which is definitely the feeling I had when I met you for the first time. I was like who's that lady in the homemade Gossip Girl t-shirt? [Laughs]
Aminatou: Yeah. So we met. Everybody is sick of hearing this but you're going to hear it so much because we're going to have to talk about it during the book tour so get ready. We met at at mutual friend's Gossip Girl viewing party, our mutual friend Dia Olapadik who we are both still incredibly good friends with because, you know, there's the body of work of somebody introduces two people and then they cut out the middle man. That's not what's going on here.
Ann: We are not cutting out the middle woman.
Aminatou: Yeah, no. The middle woman is amazing. The middle woman is amazing and truly makes genius connections happen. And, you know, it was the kind of thing where in this interconnected friend group we just hadn't met yet. Like we had heard about each other, we had not met, and then when we did it -- you know, sometimes you're like oh, we're on the same antenna frequency. Like what's going on here?
Ann: Yeah. I mean this was an era of our lives when there was a lot of group television watching going on.
Aminatou: Mm-hmm.
Ann: And I think that part of that was not having any money. Part of that was seeking respite from the kind of more overtly work and career-oriented social opportunities that both of us were full up on So one way to signal that you're not doing a work thing is to sit on a couch in a group watching television. But also it wasn't just Dia. I feel like we knew several of the same people. And so what's funny is I have . . .
Aminatou: Yeah, Dia is just the one that was blessed with cable television which was also crucial.
Ann: Dia's the one -- well Dia is also the one who thought to actually go out of her way and invite us both, because there are some Gchat receipts between me and Dia where we're scheduling. You know, Gossip Girl was a show I had watched with Dia for at least a season leading up to this. And she's like "Look, I think I want to host this time because I want to invite this girl Aminatou." And I was like "I've heard about her." So, you know, the myth had been building.
(8:05)
Aminatou: Yeah, and I had just met Dia. And I had just met Dia because we were connected through this weird work thing and people had called me Dia at work multiple times. And I was like first of all rude. Second of all, who is Dia? What? Beautiful name. [Laughs]
Ann: Also talk about making lemonade out of lemons. You turned a microaggression into a lifelong friendship.
Aminatou: Yeah, 100%. I was like god bless the white people who did this. And so, you know, and I was talking to her about Gossip Girl and I was like I don't really -- I watch alone. And she was like "That's nonsense, come over," and she made it happen.
Ann: Ugh, yeah. And so I think that the point about our story is it definitely had a little bit of that "Who's that lady?" like bonding with a stranger feeling of oh my god, I really want to get to know this person. And that feeling was mutual for us which it does not always work that way. But when you really kind of peel back the layers of our story you realize that we had this pretty connected I would say friend and social group already which is what enabled us to be in the same space and then kind of easily see each other again and again after that. Which is really different I think than like you meeting someone who lives far away or comes from a different social world. You know, it was easy for us to get close fast in part because we had people like Dia in common.
Aminatou: I know. But you know the reason I like this kind of thing, like the interconnected friend group thing, is because I used to feel this a lot when I was younger at least -- I definitely still feel it -- when everybody that you know knows somebody that you don't know yet, you know? They're always like "And then this person did," or whatever. And you're like "We get it. You know so-and-so." And it used to give me a little bit of stress when I was younger and now I've just realized. I was like oh, you are actually eventually going to meet most of the people that your friends know. It's just going to happen in a completely different way than you anticipated.
Ann: Yes.
Aminatou: And so there is just that element of give it some time. A little bit of magic and time always works so it's great.
Ann: Have you ever had a situation like this listener voicemail at the Whole Foods where you actually met someone in public and became their friend?
(10:20)
Aminatou: I think maybe the closest thing to this that I had was meeting my friend Cecile at work where we were both in the copy room and we both looked like we shouldn't work at this place. She looked incredibly cool and chic and I was black. [Laughs] It just tells you the kind of place we worked at. And I just remember we did not work on the same thing. We did not work in the same department. I had been working there for a while and our paths hadn't crossed so it was truly the first time I saw her was in this copy room. And I remember looking at her and I was like I want to be her friend and we ended up living together less than a year later.
Ann: Ugh, I love that. Again not 100% strangers because obviously you worked together but that's the kind of thing that if you don't have some kind of friend spark it's literally just a coworker that you passed for two seconds in the copy room and you would never have a memory of that. Your brain would never even hang on. How many millions of almost strangers has everyone passed at work or on the street or whatever?
Aminatou: I know. In San Francisco I did make a friend at a bar. It was hilarious. I was on a date that was going not well at all and I don't even know how this happened. She sat down next to us and then next thing you know the date turned into a three person drinks and I'm still friends with that woman. I have not talked to that man since that night so it's perfect.
Ann: I love that. I love that. I feel like that is the stuff that friendship rom-coms are made of. I have another extremely serendipitous like no connection to my friend group story which is I was working at a coffee shop years ago at this point.
Aminatou: Ann you worked at a coffee shop? I did not know that.
(12:00)
Ann: Early days of freelancing when I was transitioning out of office life, I know. So anyway I was laptoping near these two women and something happened, I forget what, like there was some kind of thing in the coffee shop and so we started chatting. We made eye contact about it very similar to this listener voicemail. And after we had talked for like 20 minutes or so, we're clearly getting along, they're like "This is going to sound really weird but you need to meet our friend Drea. You would love her." And I was like that's very strange. It's very strange to get talking to two strangers really comfortably but it's even more strange that they're like "You need to meet this specific friend of ours." And so these two near strangers organized a friend hang between me and their other friend who was not even there.
Aminatou: What?
Ann: And I met her and I did in fact love her. And here's the spookiest thing: we have the same birthday, Drea and I.
Aminatou: That is so sneaky. I love it.
Ann: I know. And you know here's the thing, because we have no -- we have zero social overlap really. She and I see each other maybe twice a year even though we both live in LA. But I truly love her. It is one of those things where I'm like oh, I would see you every week if we had some social overlap. Instead I see you when we both really make a concerted effort, and how weird is it that these friends of hers identified that she and I would really get along? True magic. True magic at work.
Aminatou: Obviously there's the serendipity and magic aspect of friendship which is great but also not all friendships are instant connections and here is a voicemail from someone who didn't like their bestie when they first met.
Meredith: Hi, my name is Meredith and I live in Texas. I met Shawna at college, we both went to Emerson College, and we both did speech and debate together. And I was really aggressively competitive and I have to say for a while, ah, she wasn't my favorite person. I really liked her but I didn't like how smart she was and how good she was which isn't shine theory but I've definitely improved -- thank god -- since my college years. But anyway after college we sort of were in touch on Facebook a bit but then after I had my second child she started sending me books. And I know in this family that we love to read and it was just like the most beautiful thing to receive books about everything. It just opened up my world.
(14:28)
And having young kids and just the day in and day out and being able to escape with a book at the end of the day, I still don't know to this day of she really understands the impact of her doing that for me. It was just so thoughtful and she sent books every couple of weeks. I couldn't have lived without it and now we're both into activism in our own corners of the world. We have supported each other's candidates. We're working on campaigning. We share ideas. And she actually just sent me another book today and it's On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. And that feels really, really appropriate given the world today. She's just thoughtful, she's amazing, she's strong, and she inspires me. Just someone I really, really appreciate having in my life.
Ann: Ugh, people change.
Aminatou: People change. I actually love this because one of my closest friends that you are now also very close to is somebody that in college we -- I wouldn't say that we actively did not like . . . there was no hatred but there was no love there, you know what I mean? And it was very awkward because we were in the same social group. We were in two big social groups together. Also we had a lot of friends together. And it wasn't until junior year of college, and I literally met this person the first week of college, it wasn't until junior year of college where we both had some significant amount of personal growth that we finally connected and she was in study abroad in London and we wrote the whole time that she was gone. And when she came back we had dumped one of the social activities that we did, a.k.a. church. [Laughs] I don't like to talk about my church years here so you know this is a moment of personal tremendous growth for me. We'll talk about that one day. But I remember so well just the feeling of finally being close to this person and thinking why? Why did we not like each other for so long?
(16:30)
And truly based on nothing. I had never seen her do a shitty thing. It was just this acute feeling of like I don't like her which I think is, you know, it's very immature but it's also very common. And for us . . .
Ann: Yeah. Like where do you think that came from for you? Of just not liking her at a gut level.
Aminatou: You know, and the reason that that friendship was challenging for me is I actually had never had that before. Like there are not women that I'm like ugh, I just don't like them. And I think in this case it was we obviously had very similar personalities, you know? And so there wasn't room for like . . . I won't speak for her but like I felt there probably wasn't room for both of us. And also church is like a very heteropatriarchial space also where women compete with each other even when you think you're not competing with each other. I truly don't know. But I know that the smallest thing -- like we just didn't get along. And now it's crazy because she is truly one of the great loves of my life and I'm so glad that we left that toxic space behind and that we found each other. But I'm also glad that we found each other in our own way because I do think that the other thing that was at play there is when you do large group things with people, whether it's church or it's just the coworker friends or even you and I had some deep hangs with a lot of friends that we were not related to in any kind of activity, there is just this pressure that all women should get along.
(17:55)
We actually all chafe at that and it manifests in different ways. And so in a lot of ways I'm grateful that we didn't do the pretend to like each other for years and instead we found our own way to each other. So, you know, it's good times.
Ann: Wow. I'm thinking about what you just said about the pressure for women to pretend to like each other in the context of a lot of what we talk about with Shine Theory which is that simultaneously -- and I'm trying to reconcile these two things which I believe both are true -- simultaneously we're kind of given messages that like you said there can only be one social star of this group. Or there can only be one as per the voicemail really smart person on the speech and debate team or whatever. Or only one really smart woman on speech and debate coupled with the you have to pretend to get along with all women. So this idea of like the layers -- the layahs -- Mary Berry voice . . .
Aminatou: Layahs. Layahs. [Laughs]
Ann: Happening in the background of group dynamics with women of like okay, I don't like this woman. Maybe I don't like her because we're being taught tacitly to compete for this role that's not a real role of smartest person on speech and debate, and also I have to pretend that things are okay because open hostility is not great. And I'm just like wow, the cocktail of emotions that patriarchy forces us to sip is very complicated. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Yeah, and it's really poisonous. If we had not gotten over that I think my life would be less rich because this woman is somebody who I love so much and there are so many things that could've kept us apart and they were all dumb.
Ann: [Laughs] And they were all dumb things. Like the moral of this story. And also I feel like this idea of not having an instant connection when you meet someone is really just about timing, you know?
Aminatou: Yeah.
Ann: I mean that's a part of it as well. It can be about a group dynamic but sometimes it's like I wasn't really in a place where I had time to form a deep friendship or I was feeling really insecure about this particular thing that you totally unwittingly triggered in me, right? And then I got over that thing and of course we were great friends. So some of it is just like everyone's on their own journey and you can meet someone and not have a click moment and then slowly grow into it or re-meet them years later and then have the friendship really take off. That brings me a lot of hope actually.
(20:25)
Aminatou: No, I love this a lot. You're so right about the timing. Sometimes the timing is just not . . . the timing is not right. But also there is something about being grown women. You and I talk about this a lot where we always say we're low-drama mamas or whatever.
Ann: What does that mean? You have to define that. [Laughs]
Aminatou: You know, like we . . . Ann and I, you and I have always identified as people who we don't have drama in our lives. Mary J. Blige, no more drama in our lives.
Ann: [Laughs]
Aminatou: And it's always been a point of pride and now that we are unpeeling the layers we realize that 1) it's not true and also it's foolish and also that drama is not a thing that is unique to teenage girls. And it just makes me think a lot about how we're socialized to think about conflict and how it's hard. It's complicated for women where as if you are allowed to just be fully self-expressed and say all your emotions you can turn around like a bad situation with someone in something that is good and real because you realize the thing that you're . . . whatever is the thing that is triggering you to be mad sometimes is nothing at all. It's just you needing to say who you are or understand where somebody else is coming from. Because you know when you don't . . . you don't know the full experience of how every different person can be, right? And I think that even for people like us who have I would say like, you know, a beautiful Benneton like diverse group of people in our lives, and I don't mean that by race, I mean that emotionally, there are also times when you meet somebody and you're like "I've never net somebody like this." And sometimes you're like "I love it" and other times you're like "I've never met somebody like this. This person is defective." And truly you just have to get to know them.
(22:12)
It's hard to wrap your mind around the fact that every single person can be a unique snowflake in their own way and that sometimes you're just not equipped to deal with how somebody presents themselves and it just takes time to figure out.
Ann: It's true. And I think also one thing I think about with this example of not having an instant connection is sometimes you do have one kind of connection. Like I think about, you know, both of our good friend Beth Pickens as someone who I met her in college and she's older than me enough that I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, you are so together. I met her at an age where -- like an age gap of a couple of years and it really felt like something. And so I really look to her as a role-model and a mentor but I don't think that we were really friends. Like we were certainly friendly. And then it took her moving to LA probably five years ago and us spending a lot of time together that I'm like oh, we are friends friends now. And so I think that's part of it too is you can have people in your orbit and you need some kind of circumstance or timing to shift for it to become a true and deep friendship. And so that's another part of this voicemail or the counter-example to friend love at first sight that I really love thinking about. I'm like hmm, who do I love now in an acquaintance way who is going to be my BFF when I'm 45 or 55? I love thinking about that.
Aminatou: Oh my gosh, I love it.
Liz: Hi, my name is Liz. We were complete strangers sitting next to each other and I looked over at her Twitter background and it was a bunch of Waka Flocka -- a bunch of the rapper Waka Flocka's heads on some eagles flying kind of across the sky. And I just turned to her, I was like A) who are you? B) I love your background. She says "Yes, that's my flock of Wakas." And I was like oh my god you are the best person ever. We're going to be friends.
[Music and Ads]
(26:22)
Harris: Hey CYG, my name is Harris and I might be a little tardy to the party but I wanted to leave you a message about how I met my bestie Emily. For a while I thought I had a crush on her but turns out that I was a little gayby who just wanted a strong, smart, beautiful, talented lady friend.
Aminatou: Oh my god, we have a voicemail that makes us very happy. Gina's calling this the catfishing BFF category. [Laughter] But to be clear there's not any actual catfishing happening. You know, it's just about people who aggressively lean into new friendship with so much gusto. So this one is great.
Emma: Hi Ann and Amina, this is Emma calling from Washington, D.C. and you can use this on the show. I met my bestie in the first period of the first day of high school. We were in a PE locker room. We had gone to different middle schools so I guess the locker room was mostly full of people from my middle school and she was feeling some social anxiety from not knowing many people. But she overheard people saying my name and asking how my summer was. So when I walked over to my locker which was next to hers she turned and said "Hey Emma, how was your summer girl? It's been so long." And I just started blankly at her before leaning into it. I probably would've handled this differently now 12 years later, but at the time I had some social anxiety of my own. So I just went with it and pretended I knew her. And I was wracking my brain for literally a year before I asked her where we had met before and she admitted that we didn't and she just needed a best friend. And so basically she gas-lighted me into us being friends but it's okay. This is clearly the stuff of lasting friendships.
(28:00)
Ann: Okay, vaguely catfishing but also I would say this is just sheer determination. Like have you ever tried to make a friendship happen out of sheer force of will? [Laughs]
Aminatou: I mean isn't that what all friendships are? [Laughs]
Ann: They are but some require a little bit more one-sided at the beginning for sure.
Aminatou: It's true. So my friend Mandy who you know, I was friends with her I want to say at the time fiance. Again we were living in D.C. in a big friend group situation but Mandy and I had not connected yet on a one-to-one level. And one day had finally had enough of it. I was like uh, this is dumb. We know everybody here and I don't know you. Oh yeah, and I guess they had gotten married or they were getting married and we weren't close enough that I was going to the wedding, but that wasn't an issue. It was just like this is dumb. I see you all the time. And I pulled a Friday Night Lights line on her and I just like eyed her at a party and I was like "Listen Mandy, I'm coming for you. I'm coming for you. We're going to make time for each other."
Ann: Oh my god, stop.
Aminatou: Yeah, some real Tim Riggins shit.
Ann: You declared your intentions. [Laughs]
Aminatou: I did. You know, but I love declaring my intentions to people. They teach you in church you have to do it when you start dating people. I think that you should do it when you're friend-dating also.
Ann: Wait, they teach you in church to . . . this is our churchiest episode.
Aminatou: I know, this is the churchiest -- so at church, at the church that we went to, we being like me and the mutual friends.
Ann: I'm like speak for yourself, I have never been a wilful church resident.
Aminatou: You know, like college churchship. 50% of college church is just like people who want to bone each other but are not allowed to and so they have to learn how to be fake friends until they can bone each other. And then the other 50% of it is just raising money to go on mission trips. That's just what's going on.
Ann: I thought some of it was indie rock versions of Jesus songs.
(29:58)
Aminatou: Yeah, yeah, that's just the background, the OST to the whole thing. But the two things are literally people who want to bone but aren't allowed to and then people who are like do I really have to raise $5,000 to go to Indonesia? Why can't we just help the poor people in America? The thing is you talk a lot about dating because the whole point of men and women being together is marriage, Ann. But some of the advice was actually very good, but I remember this where they're like you do have to be very intentional about when you want to date someone because you know these church boys, otherwise they just ask you out on dates all the time and don't tell you that they're dates and then you're just gas-lighting each other all day.
Back to friend-dating, I think it's very hot to tell people that you do want to be their friend and I do it a lot now. You know, because sometimes you just go to the drinks where you're like ah, fine, we're trying to get to know each other. This is whatever. Then if you don't both do something about it it's just like that one time you went to drinks or you went to a yoga class or whatever. And I find that especially at our age you have to be intentional about wanting people in your life so just tell them. You're like "I'm coming for you."
Ann: Especially the way most friendships are formed you have something in common often that is not just social. So you are out at drinks, that is also about talking about a work thing, or you also share a hobby or you are whatever it might be. And I think that one reason why it's so nice to kind of be like oh, I actually want to be friends is I have had a lot of people in my life who I maybe have some kind of peripheral professional connection to and when one of us has made a declaration of friendship that has made it really clear that we're not in work mode. Like we are both here because we want to be here as people. And I think that is really, really nice to say okay, we're here on a voluntary basis. This is not about networking. Yeah.
Aminatou: Right, it's not networking. It's not like, I don't know, our mutual friend from out of town said we should check in. It's truly just say what's on your heart. Earnestness is back and earnestness is great. Just do it.
(32:00)
Ann: Yeah. And I also love the feeling -- I love both being the person to say "Let's be friends" and also the feeling of . . . because you know people don't always say like "Look, I really want to be friends." But when you put the pieces together you're like oh, they want to be friends.
Aminatou: Right.
Ann: That's why she's texting me every week to setup a hang.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: That feeling feels so great too. It's like so being able to be both the person who receives that, like oh, this person's really making an effort to get to know me, but also being the person who has at times put that forth and been like "You know what? I am seriously making time for this person and I'm not going to feel self-conscious about that fact. I'm going to be very open about yeah, I do want you to be the kind of person I see every week."
Aminatou: Yeah, friend consent is hot. Talk about it.
Ann: Friend consent. [Laughs]
Aminatou: It's true! It's true. Because otherwise, you know, the older you get, it's not that you're busy. Everybody's busy. But your worlds just start getting smaller and closing on each other. That's just the reality. It's easier to make friends in college than it is after college. It is probably easier to make friends in high school than it is in college because you're stuck in the same boat as a lot of people and you're forced to do friendly activities all the time. And also you are exercising that muscle. But the older you get the more staying home every single Friday night on the couch, that's a beautiful reality you can have. I love that shit. But you've got to step out and meet people.
And people always tell you in a romantic context you've got to put yourself out there and that's a thing to aspire to, but with friends it's the same thing. You've got to fucking put yourself out there. And telling somebody that you want to be their friend is putting yourself out there.
Ann: Yeah, and I also think about this as it's like skills building for when things get hard in the friendship. Or, you know, any kind of threat that your friendship faces whether it is someone getting -- one of you getting a new job that's really intense and so suddenly you have less time, or one of you having a kid, or caring for someone in your family who you're suddenly in a caregiver role. Or moving away. This is a big one for us is that intentionality really, really helps then once things get potentially rocky where you're like okay, how do I intentionally signal to you that I still want to be in this friendship through this moment? Even on a level of how are we scheduling our FaceTime check-ins now that we're long-distance which is a thing that you and I definitely did.
(34:30)
Aminatou: 100%. We have so many good GIFs from that, whew.
Ann: I know. And also I think all the time about Dia -- yes, I'm going to mention Dia again -- Dia told me . . .
Aminatou: Dia is the glue that holds a lot of our friendships together, let's be real. Let's give credit where credit is due. [Laughs]
Ann: And because speaking of intentional people she was telling -- I don't know if I'm outting her. [Laughs] She was telling me that she actually does keep track on a spreadsheet of how long has it been since I checked in with this person who's important to me? Like she's someone who has a far-flung global friend network and is like you know, I'm just going to make a note because months can slide by without doing a really meaningful check-in. And it's so funny because I noticed on my end wow, it seems like every six months or so I get a voicemail from Dia being like "Just wanted to check in with you." And I thanked her for that when I saw her recently and she was like "Oh girl, you're on the spreadsheet." [Laughs]
Aminatou: You're on the list. Yeah, no, my version of that is the calendar check-in where you just put names in a calendar. But the thing is people who have friends who live all over the world, or some of us who grew up all over the world, you know that that's the only way your friendships will survive. Otherwise you're just a kid who goes from place to place to place to place. And we were doing this before FaceTime, before spreadsheets, before the Internet. You know, before like . . .
Ann: Tell us Elder Amina. [Laughs]
Aminatou: I know, but I don't know, there is . . . like a lot of third culture kids like me are . . .
Ann: What's a third culture kid?
(36:00)
Aminatou: A third culture kid is a kid who grew up not in the culture their family is from. The thing about it is there are kids who grew up like me that once they're their own adults they really hate a lot of how they grew up because you don't get to form deep bonds. You're always moving around. You never remember. You're banking a prompt for street you grew up on. Shit like that. Super stressful. And then there are the people like me who are like yeah, that was really stressful, but also it taught me a lot about how you keep people close and how I like to do it but also how I like to receive that kind of love. And, you know, not to say that everybody should be toted around as a child or be a globetrotting person but there is really something to be said about the fact that keeping in touch now is actually technically easier because of technology. But if you don't actually use the technology or actually make a concerted effort to do it people will just slide in and out of your life.
Ann: Yeah. And so just to bring it all around to that catfishing BFF I'm like okay . . .
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: That was maybe a creepy move in the sixth grade but I am confident she's got the stuff to have lasting and really good friendships based on her friend-making techniques.
Aminatou: Have you ever done this though where there's somebody you see all the time, or somebody that you're aware of because of Instagram or because of something, and so obviously you know who they are and you just say "Oh, I think we have a lot of friends in common." You know, you just have an opening line that's not like "Hi, I really like you. I have a crush on you. Please be my friend." And you say something dumb to cover it up. I feel like I do that all the time.
(37:50)
Ann: The "I think we have friends in common" is like the modern, polite, IRL-coded way of being like I have definitely clicked through a tag on Instagram and seen your vacation. [Laughter]
Aminatou: Totally. Totally. It's like a non-creepy way of doing that, but you do it in such a sheepish way, you know?
Ann: Yeah. We both know what's happening here. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Right. I super appreciate all of these voicemails because there are so many different ways to be a friend.
Ann: Okay, do you want to listen to one more?
Aminatou: Okay, tell me about the next one.
Ann: The next one is really . . . we played this one on tour and I got a little emotional every time I heard it because it is about, you know, what sounds to me like a very deep friendship where it's not about making a friend even though they mentioned that; it's kind of about keeping a friend. And I know that wasn't the directive we made when we asked for voicemails, but I don't know, I felt emotional about it. I think the question is what happens when you don't stay close and you have some big stuff to work through?
Julia: Hi Call Your Girlfriend. We are Julia . . .
Female: And I'm [0:39:02].
Julia: Hi. We're calling to you from San Francisco, California.
Female: I'm driving Julia to the airport right now.
Julia: In true long-distance besties form.
Female: Yeah, exactly.
Julia: I'm a white woman and . . .
Female: I'm a mixed-race Chinese and white woman. You know, privilege is something that's so structural and systematic and it's like this abstract thing. But I think for us it shows how it manifests really concretely when emotions and loving someone but also feeling challenged in real time in a friendship, it was really hard for us to talk about it.
Julia: We've been really lucky to spend the last few days reconvening and enjoying some real face time in person and discussing our rough patch and moving forward.
Aminatou: Aww, these ladies!
(39:52)
Ann: Our rough patch.
Aminatou: On the ride to the airport. If that is not true love I don't even know.
Ann: I know. I know this is not part of their story but I definitely picture a running through the airport like Love Actually style. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Listen, I still have a note where you wrote my name from when you came to pick me up at the airport and you made a sign. And I was like oh my god, this actually happens? People really do this? This is amazing.
Ann: [Laughs] I mean opposite of working through our rough patch but . . .
Aminatou: I know, but you know the reason I really like this is because it touches on so many things, you know? You can really love somebody and want to be their friends but life sets in. And so I love that they're able to talk about their privilege. I love that they're able to talk about the fact that they're in an interracial friendship. And, you know, sometimes it is like -- you know, even in our friendship there are things that it's easy to distinguish between the things that you actively do to each other to hurt each other, which that's its own thing you can work on, then there are just things that you're just like oh, this is the system. It is both wonderful and sometimes incredibly hard to be in an interracial friendship. It is hard to be in a friendship where the power dynamic feels different. It's hard to be in a friendship where there are clear class/race/whatever lines that are drawn because some of it is personal and some of it is just like truly systemic fuck-ups. And you're just trying to be like two people who love each other and you're not immune to systemic issues.
Ann: 100%. And it's worth noting here that it's pretty much only white people who don't have interracial friendships. I'm talking statistically here.
Aminatou: Oh yeah, it's something like white people only have -- they have less than one friend of color.
Ann: So the statistic is three quarters of white people don't have any friends who aren't white.
Aminatou: Ahh. [Laughs]
Ann: I know.
(41:50)
Aminatou: The statistic is scarier than I thought.
Ann: I know. It is also bigger than I remembered.
Aminatou: But also if you're a person of color and let's say, hmm, I don't know, you went to a predominantly white institution for a school, that tracks.
Ann: Yeah.
Aminatou: I used to be in a Facebook group at the dawn of Facebook, like literally when Facebook came to colleges. That was called -- I'm the black friend people tell you about. And, you know, shout-out to that group. I miss it. But that is very real. People of color have friends of every race and white people have at best one friend of color.
Ann: Right. And so one thing that we're finding as we do research for various aspects of our book is navigating race -- which to be fair this voicemail, you know, really distills perfectly, and also what you said about you can kind of share big picture ideals when it comes to politics and activism and race and privilege. And when it comes to really working through those things in your own friendship there is not a lot of support and not a lot of tools. I mean looking for . . .
Aminatou: And it's scary. It's actually scary.
Ann: Right. And so it just feels worth saying again that if the research is to be believed interracial friendship is a niche issue. And I'm like wow, who is editing the journals and doing the research?
Aminatou: I know.
Ann: Because it is only a niche issue if you're white.
Aminatou: Sidebar -- sorry, sidebar, white people are wild. You need people of color in your life. You're going to have better spiced food. You're going to have better skin products. What is going on here?
Ann: I mean I do not think we want to go down the road of me making the case to white people for why you need, you know, many, many people of different flavors in your life.
(43:45)
Aminatou: Niche interests. [Laughs]
Ann: But 100% agree. And I think the difficulties of working in your friendship as a site -- basically friendship as a site of trying to get free and of decolonization and a place where you have the hard conversations that, you know, are not just about some big issue that doesn't touch you but about how you are in contact with each other and really part of each other's lives. Like having those conversations and working through those things with you, that's been some of the most meaningful work of my whole life, you know? And not to say I don't do it with other friends in different ways because I do but that is really something where I'm like how -- if you kind of espouse a certain value set it's one thing to know and it's another thing to live it and work on it in conjunction with people you love. So yeah, I feel very emotional about that. [Laughs]
(44:35)
Aminatou: Aww. Friendship is a site of political work, man. Like real.
Ann: I know. For me it has extended to friendships where there are all kinds of big identity gaps. I mean it is how I feel like I have any kind of gut-level knowledge of what it's like to live with chronic illness. It's like how it's like I have any kind of first-person empathetic -- you know what I mean? In a real way. Not just like oh, yes, I obviously am for these issues but in a kind of in my bones I feel this way approach to certain issues and things that don't affect me or people who share my identity directly. It's like it is just a different way of being in the world, and I think this voicemail, like these friends on the way to the airport recognizing both the difficulty and the beauty in that and being like yeah, we had a rough patch we had to talk about. I'm like oh my god, this is just -- this is gold. People do not talk about this.
Aminatou: I know, I love it. Here's to everybody discussing their rough patches because it's great.
Ann: Or here's to everybody who is thinking a lot about the rough patch or being like are we in a rough patch? And here's a permission -- you know, nudge -- to maybe acknowledge that that's what it is with your friend more openly.
Aminatou: Yeah.
(46:00)
Ann: I feel like, look, it's so funny. I was about to be like we can talk about this for days and days. And I'm like oh, right, we're writing a book about this. We are talking about this for days and days. [Laughs]
Aminatou: We are talking about this for days and days. I know. I'm like this all sounds repetitive. What? Deja vu, what? Big Friendship coming at you, spring 2020. [Laughs]
Ann: Oh my god, it is true. Bigfriendship.com where there are no resources about this stuff yet but one day goddess willing.
Aminatou: Goddess willing. Goddess willing. Okay. Ann, I've got to go because I'm going to church so I'll talk to you soon.
Ann: Oh my god. Thank you for being a friend.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Can you imagine? I am not going to church but please pray for me. Thanks for being a friend boo-boo. You are the best.
Ann: See you on the Internet.
Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet, on our website callyourgirlfriend.com, you can download the show anywhere you listen to your favs, or on Apple Podcasts where we would love it if you left us a review. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. We're on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at @callyrgf. You can even leave us a short and sweet voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music is composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs, our logos are by Kenesha Sneed, our associate producer is Destry Maria Sibley. This podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.
Female: Thanks for making us reminisce about how we became friends. It took us back in time for sure.
Female: Yes, and now we're still the best of friends. Cheers.