Transcript:
[00:00:05.020] - Oliver (Host)
Welcome back to English and Beyond, a podcast for people who are learning English as a foreign language who already have an intermediate to advanced level of the language. If there's anything you don't understand in today's episode, you can have a look at the transcript, which is available online at www.morethanlanguage.com.
[00:00:28.060] - Oliver (Host)
I recorded this episode a few weeks with a very good friend of mine who lives on the West Coast of the United States. Even though it's 2024, there were a surprising number of technical difficulties in doing so. As a result of that, There are some small differences in audio quality. I hope that they are tolerable: I hope that you can tolerate or bear them, and I hope that you enjoy the episode. Thank you very much.
[00:00:57.090] - Oliver (Host)
I've just moved to Valencia, and I must say I feel very happy in general. It's obviously not been completely smooth sailing. That is to say, there have been some difficult moments as well as nice ones. But overall, it's been a lovely experience to be in Valencia, spending time with César's family and getting to know new people. There are actually also many people here who I normally only get to see once a year because of the significant distance when I'm living in London.
[00:01:27.250] - Oliver (Host)
So it's really nice to be able to actually get to hang with these people quite spontaneously, that is, without planning everything months in advance. César and I have a couple of friends in Valencia called Cristina and Victor. I first met them about seven or eight years ago. César met Cristina in London when they both worked together in a startup, a brand new company, but they've actually spent extremely little time living in the same country since then. I've never lived in the same country as Cristina until now. Despite that, every time I see Cristina and Victor, it's like no time has passed at all since the last time I saw them. I would definitely consider them friends now, especially since I've known them for about a decade. But interestingly, the actual number of occasions, the number of times when I've seen them, is comparatively relatively small. But that does make me think about the nature of friendship. Why is it that someone you see once a year can be a really good friend, but someone from work that you get on well with and you see virtually every day remains just a nice, friendly colleague, but not a friend. What is a friend?
[00:02:45.160] - Oliver (Host)
When you're little, the question of who your friends are feels like a very vital one, a highly important question. In fact, the idea that you should have a best friend seems, in particular, to be a very crucial, significant idea. Millennial Brits may even remember essentially ranking their friends on MySpace. Ranking means putting items in order, perhaps on the basis of quality or some physical characteristic. MySpace, an early example of social networking, encouraged you to choose your top eight friends and include them on your profile for everyone else to see. You can imagine the problems that that caused. And when teenagers fell out with each other, when they actually had an argument, they could physically and publicly demonstrate the strength of their anger by removing a friend from their top eight. Even now, without the literality of MySpace, many arguments take place between young people because they feel worried that the person they consider their closest friend doesn't necessarily return the intensity of this feeling and prefers someone else's friendship. So if, like a child, I now tried to consider who I would describe as my best friend and why, it's unsurprisingly an impossible question to answer.
[00:04:11.950] - Oliver (Host)
As you get older, different friends fill different roles in your life. How and when you engage with a friend as an adult is fundamentally different from when you're a teenager and you see them all every day at school in the same setting for the same length of time. I felt London that I never really got to see any friends as much as I'd have liked. The city was so big that an impromptu meet up, a meeting without considerable planning, was very rare unless you lived in exactly the same neighbourhood. And big city life was so exhausting that I think many people are sometimes secretly relieved if even a very good friend cancels plans. I already featured Federica on this podcast. She and I were very lucky because we to see each other whenever we liked. She only lived a five-minute walk away from my flat, which is incredibly rare in London. She probably wasn't always delighted or very happy about this fact, because it meant that sometimes I did what people in London never, ever do, which is just drop in and knock on her door on my way home. But the good thing about this proximity of location, about how close to each other we lived, is that we saw each other almost every week.
[00:05:30.340] - Oliver (Host)
In comparison to when you're a teenager, that's not very often at all. But as an adult, I don't think I saw any friend more often. As an adult, with my friends, every time we see each other, it's for a particular purpose. Some friends, I've got very specific shared interests with. People have friends from book clubs, they have friends that they go to the gym with, that they always try to go to the cinema with, etc. Sometimes, in the past, the purpose was actually more important than the friendship itself, though it sounds terrible to say that. I used to have, for example, my partying friends. Before I lived in London, I would travel into the city and meet up with them specifically just to go clubbing, to go to parties together. I never really saw them outside of this context. This was a curious type of friendship because we would chat and we would gossip at the pre-drinks, that is what Americans call pre-gaming, drinking at home before going out to a club where the drinks would be too expensive to allow you to afford the same amount. So we would sit there at the pre-drinks and socialise.
[00:06:39.590] - Oliver (Host)
But once at the club, the music was far too loud to actually allow that socialising. Instead, we just kind of danced in a circle while looking around, trying to look out for someone we might like to flirt with. This was a very superficial transactional friendship, and unsurprisingly, none of those friendships really lasted when I moved abroad away from London. And what is it about certain people, certain relationships, that means that you never actually make that transition from friendly acquaintance to an actual friend? This is something I've definitely experienced a lot. I've met people at work or at parties who I've really liked, but the busyness of real life just gets in the way often and prevents you from seeing this new person often enough that you can make the jump into real friendship. Interestingly, on this point, I was talking to a new friend in Valencia about one of the negatives about the British character in comparison to the Spanish. I don't remember exactly what his question was, but essentially, what I came up with was the following. I think it's very common for British people to go out at the weekend and get a little drunk. That won't be a surprise to anyone, I'm sure, but I think that what often happens then is that we, British people, who are normally relatively closed off and reserved, when we become drunk, we become very friendly and we bond extremely quickly with other people.
[00:08:11.670] - Oliver (Host)
We drunkenly tell each other that we absolutely have to meet up next week that this is the beginning of a beautiful new friendship. We exchange numbers, we might even send a very friendly drunk text that night, and then nothing. We never speak to that person ever again, and they don't try to to us either. This is something I'm aware of having done, and it's also something that I hear a lot of foreigners in London complain about when they're looking to make friends and meet locals. They get their hopes up. They get excited that they've made all these lovely new friends that they'll be able to practise their English with and really get to know British culture through. They think to themselves, Everything I've heard back home about British coldness isn't true at all. British people are so welcoming, they're so friendly!" And then, nothing. We ghost them. More evidence of the infamous, treacherous British national character. In contrast, this hasn't been my experience of Spain at all so far. I've already met many people in these first few weeks, and I started to make what feels like proper friendships. They've made a real effort to follow up, to invite me to events and dinners and parties, et cetera.
[00:09:26.310] - Oliver (Host)
This has made it a lot easier for me to make this move to Valencia. However, unsurprisingly, I am, of course, feeling a little bit sad about certain aspects of leaving London. I'm incredibly happy to be here, and I'm surprised by how little I miss London so far, frankly. But of course, the one thing I do miss from London is my friends. Some of them you've already met, Federica, Charlie, and Laura, for example. There is one Londoner who I haven't been missing very much in the last few weeks, though. Christopher is a a very good friend of mine who I originally met at university. The reason I don't miss him is not because he's not important to me. He's one of my favourite people in the world and pretty unique amongst my friends in the role he plays in my life. Instead, it's because he actually left London a long time before me. He's moved to the United States, where he's living his best life. Christopher, or Chris, is the only friend I have where we talk about politics the majority of the times that we chat, and although our political opinions can be quite different, I don't think we've ever actually argued about politics, not even once. I think I appreciate hearing his opinions on most things in life more than any other friend I have. I frequently don't agree with him, but his opinions are so well-argued, so considered, that is, he spent a lot of time thinking about them and so persuasive that it would be very tough not to respect them. So no pressure, Chris, for the chat that we're about to have.
[00:11:00.730] - Chris (Guest)
All right. Well, thank you for those lovely words. And let me just say that you're very special to me, too, Oliver.
[00:11:07.210] - Oliver (Host)
Thank you. Well, that actually is the first question I was going to ask, basically. Not quite that.
[00:11:13.740] - Chris (Guest)
How am I to you?
[00:11:16.350] - Oliver (Host)
Exactly. I was going to say, how would you characterise our friendship? What am I to you, Chris? What makes our friendship different from your friendship with other people? That was literally the first question I had written down.
[00:11:29.740] - Chris (Guest)
Yeah. Well, I think, first of all, we've known each other for about 16 years. So aside from one or two friends that I have from secondary school who I'm still in contact with, you're one of the - our friendship has the greatest longevity of almost any friendship that I have. And so I think that really does matter in friendships, because I think definitely part of friendship are those shared experiences and those connections that you have going back a long time as well, because 16 years ago feels like a completely different era now in our lives. We were essentially still kids, even if we were technically adults at 18. I really enjoy our conversations because I think you're absolutely right in what you said. We don't always agree, but we have, and this seems to be increasingly rare, we have an ability to talk about stuff. And even if we don't agree, it honestly doesn't bother me. I don't think you do either. I don't get angry about it. I'm not like, oh, God, he's got this terrible opinion that I don't agree with. I'm just not fussed.
[00:12:45.470] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, I was going to say there are probably many occasions when I have an opinion that if someone else thought it, you would think, what a terrible opinion. But I think it's true that... I don't know why, I can't explain it, because it does annoy me when other people have some opinions that I feel like I disagree with entirely. But for some reason, there is something about the way that you express your opinions, I guess, that it just doesn't annoy me. It doesn't upset me.
[00:13:12.990] - Chris (Guest)
I wonder if it's because I don't think either of us, and here's a fancy word for you, I don't think either of us are trying to proselytise. We're not trying to convince each other of our views. I'm not fussed if you don't agree with me, and I don't think you are either if I don't agree with you. And there (does seem) to be a reasonable number of people out there who can't really accept when they're talking with somebody if they don't agree with them.
[00:13:43.310] - Oliver (Host)
I think the other thing as well is that even if we're not trying to convince the other person of our views, I always feel like you listen to my view and you actually engage with it, because I think a lot of the time now, particularly in politics, people don't... They'll nod and they'll say, yes, yes, yes, but they're not actually engaging with the substance of it. They're just looking out for buzzwords. They can say, well, that's offensive that you said that, or something along those lines, if that makes sense?
[00:14:11.400] - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, absolutely. It does. Yeah.
[00:14:14.250] - Oliver (Host)
Okay. Well, I have a second question, then, which is obviously linked, and unsurprisingly, all of my questions today are going to be linked. What to you makes a good friend?
[00:14:29.560] - Chris (Guest)
I think somebody who listens, who cares, I actually think someone who's willing to challenge you when they think that what you're doing or saying is, especially if it's not in your own best interest. You might have a problem, if I have a problem or a dilemma or I'm asking a friend their opinion, I think that the best friends are the ones who are willing to say, actually, I think you're going down the wrong path on this, or you should consider something else, or I know why you've come to that opinion, but I have a different one, because that's difficult, right? I think even if you've got, or maybe even more so, if you've got a long-standing relationship with someone, it's hard to challenge them because you ultimately want to preserve that friendship. And I think most people are conflict averse as well.
[00:15:29.890] - Oliver (Host)
I think that's really interesting as a definition, because when you were talking about it, I was thinking, well, that's actually quite ironic for Chris to say that, because I think very, very rarely do you ever express judgement or a recommendation over the things that I do in my life. I am willing to go out on a limb, is to say I am willing to make a bet that that's not because you think that I do everything perfectly, but instead, because you are not someone who will offer unsolicited, that is, unrequested advice. You are someone who will wait for someone to ask for your opinion. I was also thinking about the number of times that I've said to you, I think that you're not doing the right thing. Actually, the only time that I can remember is when you asked me about what I thought about another friend of yours and how you were engaging in the relationship with this person. I think we actually, funnily enough, don't give each other advice very much. I don't think the reason for that is because we want to avoid a conflict. It's more because we kind of accept each other on, or, at face value.
[00:16:47.010] - Oliver (Host)
But I know that if I ask your advice on something, yeah, it will be delivered, that advice, you will give that advice, honestly. I think the definition that you gave there was a sensible one.
[00:17:00.180] - Chris (Guest)
Well, if I may, on that example that you gave, so essentially a couple of years ago, I was not happy with a friend of mine because I felt that I was giving more in that friendship than they were.
[00:17:14.110] - Chris (Guest)
And from memory, I essentially wanted to kind of challenge them about this. And I think that your advice was along the lines of you need to take them as they are and understand where they're coming. And I think that-
[00:17:33.900] - Oliver (Host)
I think, sorry to interrupt. I think that joined with that was, and this is something I think that we humans do a lot, which is that essentially, to me, it seems like you were worried about this friendship no longer being as important to this other person as it was to you. And your, kind of, solution to this, to cut them off, would actually be precipitating - that is speeding up - the process of actually cutting that person out your life and therefore bringing about what you were worried was happening naturally.
[00:18:08.280] - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, I completely forgotten that. Yeah, that's exactly right. And so I think that partly through that... So I didn't do that. That didn't happen, and I'm still friends with that person. And I think that what changed from my perspective, definitely influenced by your advice at the time, was I really do now try to take the view that you just have to meet people where they are. Like you can't - for example, you might want to send messages, and they might take a month to reply. If they take a month to reply, there's not really much you can do about that. And there may be lots of very good reasons why it's taken them a month to reply. Ultimately, what's the point of getting angry or upset about it if you can't change their behaviour? My perspective has changed a lot in the last few years. I think I've come to the view that you essentially just you can't change other people's behaviour and you just need to essentially accept it and accept whatever level of friendship you're getting from them, even if it might be less than what you had before or less than what you might desire.
[00:19:13.210] - Oliver (Host)
And the reality as well is that things go through stages, don't they? So you and I have never fallen out, we've never drifted apart, but in the middle of that 16, 17 years that we've known each other, there were definitely a few years where we were very busy living abroad at different times, and we definitely talked less. But then we've gone through stages since then where we talk a lot, and obviously it would have been very disappointing if one of us had cut off the other one.
[00:19:42.740] - Chris (Guest)
Yeah. I mean, I don't know if this is the right time to mention this, but I did look up the definition of friend, and some of them are, to me, almost hilarious or surprising. This is from Merriam Webster. So the first definition is, one attached to another by affection or esteem. Two, one that is not hostile.
[00:20:10.620] - Oliver (Host)
Well, one of the questions I had was, would you say you have a lot of friends? And I guess by that definition, loads, right?
[00:20:20.550] - Chris (Guest)
Yeah. One that is of the same nation, party, or group. And the example is showbiz friends. then, yeah -
[00:20:29.660] - Oliver (Host)
And that is very... Well, that's a very strange definition of friendship. I think we've already done a better job than that in defining what a friend is.
[00:20:39.520] - Chris (Guest)
Yeah. And then the final one that caught my eye, there are more. There are like six definitions. "A favoured companion." I quite like that one.
[00:20:49.180] - Oliver (Host)
That one is quite nice. Yeah. I mean, I think it shows how difficult it is to put into words the role of friends in someone's life, no? I actually have two more questions for you, both of which are very long. This one about the role of a friend is relevant, the definition. So, you, Chris, you're an only child, which means that you don't have any brothers or sisters, just in case you didn't know. As you know, I have six, so we're definitely at opposite ends of the scale in this respect. One of the episodes that I've written that I've got in the bank to be recorded is, with my sister, when I talk about the very unique relationship that people have with their siblings for both good and bad. Do you think that strong friendships, or perhaps lifelong friendships, are more important to only children if you don't have that sibling relationship? Because you talked about the longevity of this friendship and of only having a couple of other friendships that have gone on for as long. So what do you think about friends versus siblings?
[00:21:55.910] - Chris (Guest)
Yeah, that's really interesting. I had never thought about that, but my instinct is immediately to say yes, that it probably is more important to an only child. I've definitely heard only children say, for example, "Well, I didn't have siblings, but I had lots of cousins," for example, which I didn't really have. I didn't grow up with lots of cousins around me, either. I did have a lot of friends, for example, at primary school, and you'd go around to their house and play, or they'd come to your house. But I am thinking that, yeah, almost certainly that friendship is probably filling... Well, I was about to say it's filling the role of siblings, but as you know, and anyone out there who's got a sibling knows, you can also have horrible sibling relationships, right? Like a sibling isn't a guaranteed friend or someone that you get along with or someone that understands you. But yeah, I think there probably is something in that.
[00:22:51.710] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah. Okay, interesting. I like the way that you say, as you'll know. Almost all of my siblings listen to this, so they'll be like, "Which one is it? Which one does he hate?" Yeah. Okay, so I have one more question, and then you're free, although I'm very grateful for you for dialling in, with all of the technology problems that still exist in 2024. Before the call, we were talking about the fact that now they have driverless Ubers in America, but we still can't record a phone call properly. This is another long question. This question is also maybe a little odd. You know that sometimes people break up with their long-term partners, and one of the things they often complain about is that their relationship is a little bit more like that of friends or siblings, even. What do you think is the difference between a friendship and a well-established romantic relationship? So if sex is the only difference, if you end up in a relationship where you're not having so much sex with your partner, what becomes the difference between a relationship and a friendship?
[00:24:02.930] - Chris (Guest)
Wow, that's a great question. Well, sex is clearly, I think, surely the biggest difference. But also, I suppose, in some cases, and actually, maybe one reason why our friendship is strong is we did actually live in the same house together at one point, and then we also lived in-
[00:24:25.760] - Oliver (Host)
That was an emotionally scarring experience, living together, not because of us, but maybe that brought us together because the rest of the environment was so difficult.
[00:24:38.930] - Chris (Guest)
Well, and we also lived in student halls, and we went through, we didn't study the same thing, but we also did our final exams at the end of university exams that were stressful, to put it mildly, at the same time. The reason why I mentioned that is because I'm wondering if another big difference between a friendship and a relationship is because you live in the same house with your partner in a way that you generally don't with your friends, which obviously has its kind of pluses and its negatives, because if you're arguing, you can't escape them, but then you also have so much - I just think it's quite hard. And actually, I think you told me this, something along the lines of this, 15 years ago when we were living in that house together. And at the time, you were in a relationship with somebody, and I was single at the time. And I definitely remember you saying along the lines of, "Well, it's just going to be different with a partner because you're always in close proximity with them, or you're often in close proximity with them." And I kind of wonder if you ever get to know a friend quite as well as a partner who you live with, because when you're not living with someone, there is that ability to put on a certain face or attitude. Normally, like a happy, everything's great, and then when you're alone, actually be your real self.
[00:26:06.580] - Oliver (Host)
Do you know, even with flatmates who I've lived with, I think I definitely make more of an effort with friends than with partners. Even when I've lived with someone, that kind of like, "Hi, how are you?" In the morning or whatever. Poor César absolutely does not get me at my best most of the time. I think that actually listening to you talking, the other thing that I thought that was different is that I think even if you live with a friend, once you've moved in with a partner, you feel that's in an ideal world, going to be your flatmate forever, whereas it's very unusual for friends to think that way. Actually, I've met a couple of friends here in Valencia, and they've lived together, I think for something like a decade. They've moved countries together. They're just flatmates. There's no romantic element to it. There's no relationship. And apparently, lots of people just assume, regardless of what they say, that they're together.
[00:27:10.240] - Chris (Guest)
Wow.
[00:27:10.970] - Oliver (Host)
Because people find that such an unusual idea that they have that long term planning of being flatmates.
[00:27:18.760] - Chris (Guest)
Yes, so that friendship and living together for 10 years, you say, could well be much longer than a lot of marriages.
[00:27:26.670] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, exactly. And they probably do know each other as well as partners. But I think that what you said, I think, is for the vast majority of people, I think it's true that you... I'm sure there are people out there with friendships where they do know them as well because they really hide nothing. And it's not like I feel like I hide anything from friends, but I think my friends get a better version of me than my boyfriends have suffered.
[00:27:58.940] - Chris (Guest)
Right. I actually, I don't know if you've got time for this, but the only other thought I had about this is, to me, the word friend is so... As you said in your introduction, it encapsulates so many ideas, doesn't it? A friend could literally be the situation you just described there, someone you're living with for 10 years that you've moved around the world for, or someone you've met a couple of times, you've moved to a new country, you've met someone a couple of times you've gone to, I don't know, hiking or the cinema or something together, and they're a friend. I think both of those definitions are fine, but that is such a wide range of relationships to me, for one word to encapsulate.
[00:28:45.940] - Oliver (Host)
Yeah, yeah. Well, exactly that. You need to add a lot of asterisks, don't you? A lot of, "Chris is my friend of almost two decades", or "Chris is my friend who, we went through formative experiences together." Because I think going to university together does give you an opportunity to really get to know someone in a way that if you spend four years with them working, it's not really the same, right? Because you have so much more free time at most universities than in a job. Well, Chris, thank you so much for your time today. It's been a pleasure to talk to you, and I'm very grateful to you for dialling in from the USA. So thank you for talking to me today.
[00:29:28.570] - Chris (Guest)
Well, thank you, Oliver. And like I love the podcast. More power at you.
[00:29:33.010] - Oliver (Host)
Thank you very much.
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