#415 Why Making Friends as an Adult is So Hard (and How I Build Friendships) — Podcast for English Learners
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Ah, yeah, real life first citizens of the world. This is Izzy from Real Life English, where it is our mission to guide you beyond the classroom to speak English with confidence, naturally and connect to the world and to actually use your English as a doorway to the life of your dreams.

So I have with me here today in the global studio, the one and only Xenia. Hey, Izzy. I'm glad to be back. And today we're talking all about friendships in adulthood. Now, why talk about friendships in a podcast about English learning? And I'm not just saying friends, like having friends that speak English so you can practice speaking with them. That's nice. But I talk about friendships in general.

Why is that important? Well, think about it. Cultivating meaningful friendships doesn't just improve your social life, it actually fuels your personal growth. It supports you in tough times and I would even say

Chasing your dreams, it's kind of hard to do it alone, you know, without any support, without any friends to share your journey with. And at RealLife English, we really believe that English is deeply connected with your life's journey. So we don't like to pretend that, you know, it's just English, just study English and that will do it for you because it doesn't. Easy, you just used a really nice collocation, chasing your dreams. It means the same as like following your dreams, right? And that's exactly it, you know?

Somehow, people that were close to me, they enriched my life in so many unexpected ways. Like starting from books recommendation and to job opportunities. Actually, I am working here. I started working here thanks to one of my friends in the Fluency Circle who was always pushing me. So yeah, you see, friends can help.

really, really make a huge difference in your life. Yeah, they can challenge you. They can offer you opportunities and you can offer them opportunities. And it is something that really enriches your life.

So before we get started, you should know that every week we make lessons just like this one to help you speak English with confidence naturally. And we share all these real stories with you, these real examples of how to actually do it. So if you want to get more lessons like this, subscribe, hit the bell down below so you don't miss any of our new lessons. So Ksenia, I know that after you graduated, you got your first job in Kiev. That's correct.

Since then, I think your life has just evolved a lot. And at this stage right now, how do you feel that your social life has evolved? That's a great question, Izzy. So, you know, back in the day, in my younger years, actually, I was this...

timid soul, you know, I was very, very shy and with a limited social circle because attending school in a different neighborhood, it just made things so much harder for me. I mean, I didn't have many friends and at some periods I had no friends at all, right? Answering your question about how I feel now, yeah.

I believe this transformation began for me at the university. And that all happened just because I made this conscious decision to be more proactive in seeking out friendships. And I worked on my confidence because, again, I was very shy because I felt insecure and

At the university, I was learning English. So I should say that it played a pivotal role in building my personality and also expanding my social horizons. Now I could make even international friendships. So yeah, talking about this right now, I'm just I'm more satisfied with my social life than I ever was at school. Now, I want to ask you about an expression you use.

Just to be clear, you said like you were a timid soul. That's a beautiful and somewhat poetic way to refer to a very shy person. So when you are too shy to talk to people and maybe you're a little bit reserved, you are a timid soul. Yeah. So we don't have to always say like, oh, I'm shy, I'm shy, I'm shy. If you feel even like spiritually connected with your shyness, you could say like, I'm a timid soul, meaning maybe that you like it a little bit, you know, to be more reserved.

uh maybe you're like introverted that's that's nice maybe refers more to personality in that sense that i was thinking because i was expecting you to say that life got a little bit harder for you in a social sense after you became a mother but would you say that was the case like because of prioritization you know you prioritize yeah other things yeah i've heard it a lot

That actually, as we get older, it makes it harder to maintain friendships, especially like you mentioned, when we start a family, when we have kids, somehow we're shifting those priorities naturally. Of course, we care more about our families, our kids, our babies, right? And at that period, friendships kind of are put on the back burner,

Maybe, right? What does that mean, by the way? You are deprioritizing it. There are some other things that are more important for you at the moment. So you're caring about your husband or about your baby. And you kind of take your friends for granted thinking, oh, they'll understand. I'm super busy now starting a family. So we kind of catch up later. But eventually you just

ending up losing touch with them. And that sucks because you lose good people in your life, actually those who can support you during that time as well. And it didn't happen to me. I remember I was always taking Mira wherever I would go with my friends. So she was a regular at every cafe we were meeting together. So I'm so helpful, like thankful

for that time and for them to also be understanding when I did need time for my family to prioritize my family time. What about you? I don't know. Did it happen to you when you started building your career? That's another thing. Yeah, one thing is starting a family, but another thing when people are focused more on their careers. That definitely happens. To this day, I think when I'm more focused on work,

It'll just happen that I'm not seeing people and they will even say like, hey, I haven't seen you in a long time. What have you been up to? What are you doing? Are you okay? You know, to get concerned. And I think that's a good thing. But if I don't make an effort, a conscious effort to cultivate the friendships, and I think cultivating is an important word here. Just like plants, you need to cultivate friendships and water it, feed it, prioritize it.

We make a lot of sacrifices in life. And a lot of times the friend is the one who's being sacrificed, the friendships. Because we're in the order of things we're prioritizing. Friends would come last because, you know, you just go to them and say, hey, I have a work meeting. So maybe you can schedule for another time.

that'll happen very often and not the other way around. Very rarely we'll say like, Hey, can we do this work meetings more time? Cause I have this friend that I want to go see them. Exactly. That's so true. And you know what? It reminds me of, um,

This thing that, think of it, we now have so many resources on how to be a better professional or how to nurture, another word for cultivating, yeah, how to nurture our romantic relationships, how to be a better partner. But we never get a chance to learn about how to be a better friend, actually, if you think of it. That's true. I just remember there's a clip I watched on YouTube about this topic.

that maybe I can find it here. I can play it. And it talks about another benefit of friendships and that would justify even for parents, for example, to teach their kids more about friendships that is really going to help their kids be more successful in life. Our understanding of addiction is

largely comes from an experiment that was done, I think, in the 50s or 60s, where they put a rat in a cage, and there was one thing of water where it was plain water, and one thing that was laced with drugs. And in short order, the rat discovered the drug-laced beverage and loved it, drank more and more until it killed itself. And our understanding of addiction largely comes from this study.

There was a guy named, I think his name was Bruce Alexander, who said, "Hold on, it's flawed. The whole study is flawed because rats like us are social animals and we put a rat by itself in solitude. Of course it became an addict, but that's not what you're supposed to do with social animals." So he recreated the experiment where he put, like, first of all he put lots of rats in the cage. No way. So it was social, community.

They put like wheels and mazes and they were having kids and babies and two waters, a plain water and the drug-laced water. And they could see from the data, they knew which ones, and they all tried enough of the drug-laced water to get addicted. Right. But they didn't. Their taking in of the water declined and they only drank the plain water. Which starts to give evidence that if we have close friendships and if we live in community, perhaps we're less susceptible to all addiction.

And I know that there's a lot being talked about, about the addiction of social media, the addiction of cell phones, which is true. Which is true. It is a highly dopamine-producing device. And that it's causing loneliness. And I would argue that if we worked on the friendships, and more important, if we taught our children how to be friends,

that perhaps they are less likely to get addicted.

the interactive transcripts where we prepare flashcards with the most important vocabulary from the lesson and you can learn all these words and expressions

with the flashcards that we prepared for you. For example, easy, like from this, uh, very short clip, uh, have you heard this, um, expression? He used, um, water laced with drugs. So laced is when you add some liquid, usually alcohol to, uh, some sweets or to some beverage to make it like, you know, taste better. Uh, that's the word to use laced. Well,

Well, I remember a few expressions he used that seemed quite advanced and sounded nice, like in short order. Yeah, I had to look it up. What does that mean? In short order means immediately, right away. Yeah, so the experiment, the consequences, you could see it quite immediately, like quite quickly. So in short order, that would happen. I also took note here of...

Flawed. That's an interesting word because maybe people have heard it, you know, flaw, flaw. But the pronunciation of flawed is interesting because you don't say the E-D so much. It's like flaw-ed, flawed. And it means not perfect or with a mistake, with errors.

and all of us are flawed right we're not perfect and he was saying but the experiment was just like largely flawed it was really uh inaccurate in that sense because the first experiment with the rats now let's talk about the clip a little bit because it is interesting how a lot of times these experiments they ignore the condition of the animal there so rats are social animals and we're social animals too if you leave the rats alone like by themselves

They're going to get addicted if you put drugs in front of them because that's all they have to do, right? To do drugs. It's more entertaining than doing nothing, than being bored. But you put them in a social context with families, like families of rats, right? And things to do in the cage, like a large cage. And they're going to ignore the drugs. You know, they're going to ignore the...

the substances and the things that will get them addicted. What fascinated me the most is that at the end of the clip, he says about kids that that's a huge, a big concern of modern life that all the kids are got addicted to

Now they are getting addicted to cell phones, right? To social media. And he says that's just another type of addiction. And probably if we taught our kids how to be better friends, they would avoid this addiction, right? They would rather spend time with their friends, with their peers than on the phones. It is a nice thing to ponder on, another phrase you could say, because it's an addiction that leads to other addictions, right?

Because it leads to isolation. And in the first experiment, the rat was isolated. And what happens when you're isolated? You're more prone. Prone is like you're more susceptible. You are likely to do something. So you're more prone to other addictions.

So it is a gateway addiction, you could say, you know? Exactly. But let me ask you a question here. So he was talking about rats were having their communities, their families there. Again, coming back to humans, to us humans, when we have our partners, isn't it enough to have a partner and not have friends to have all those benefits? That's a common pitfall, isn't it?

It's a common mistake. Pitfall is a mistake, the mistakes that people normally make and that you can see, you know, I had is like, oh yeah, that's a, you're going to make that mistake. You know, you can tell somebody about it. It's a pitfall.

And it is something that people do a lot because I think it solves a lot of problems. It's easier. It's just one person. You're already with them, you know, for just being or dating and everything. You're already with them. Might as well make them your best friend. And that's okay, too. Like, I think it is okay to be your partner's best friend. And I think we all have this social energy that when concentrated on a single person becomes like the laser beam. That's going to damage and hurt them and hurt.

you know, we're really powerful socially, right? We have so much energy, so much to give, so much love. But if that love becomes

concentrate in a single person it's gonna do damage that is true that is true you know what i was thinking about um first of all what you just said is just like it becomes overwhelming for your partner to be listening to be the only person to be listening to all your problems right just like distribute it evenly between your partner and your friend please problems and the love part too right yeah like the only person to be receiving all the love it's like

okay, I understand you love me, but love other people too. And it's like love as a friend. Yeah. And it also may lead to suffocating. Like your relationship becomes, right? Like suffocating. You don't have that free space. And we kind of have to also respect each other's personal spaces. By the way, how do you particularly deal with this personally? Like, do you have ever felt like this? Like you were just relying on a person?

on your partner? - Actually, I remember losing a friend to a partner. So I was too involved in a relationship into a new relationship.

that it cost me a friend. I lost a very good friend because there were a couple of months that I was totally focused, fixated even on a romantic partner. But right now, if you ask me right now, I think I found this balance. Despite our busy lives, we do prioritize meeting at least once a month with my two besties.

And it might sound funny that we have to put it on Google Calendar, all our meetings, you know, and schedule well in advance. But we do work on that. Another thing that we were talking about and didn't mention this is that it's just like friendship is another type of investment. You have to invest time in that.

And I can find so many other things to do over the weekend. But sometimes I stop and think, you know,

I should invest time in my friendship. We should go and hang out together or visit that gallery or go to the theater with my friends because that's something that important to me. Yeah, as we were saying earlier, it's an area of life that it deserves attention to. It's not going to solve by itself. It's not going to be figured out by itself. You need to intentionally do something about it. And you said an expression there that

There was some connected speech in it. I thought it was interesting. Put it on Google Calendar. Put it on. Put it on. So what happened there? Yeah. So again, the verb put ends with T and when followed by a vowel on, put on, T turns into a flap T. Put on. We hear this D sound. Put on a calendar. Yeah.

And in the phrase you said, that happened twice. Put it on. Put it on. Yeah, exactly. Put it on. So about prioritization, I think when we don't have something to actually prioritize, say you don't have a friend right now to prioritize. Like, okay, so what am I going to prioritize? We'll prioritize finding the opportunity. And I think that is the one thing that I would say that we're missing today, just tribes. Having...

tribes that we are a part of, groups that we are a part of. And if you don't have one, find one. Think about what interests you. And it may take some time. The first thing you'll find, second thing, may not be the place where you actually stay, the people who you actually connect with, but you're out there, you're seeking. And I think that matters because

Right now, we're way more isolated. And if we're not proactive, we've been talking a lot about the value of productivity here. If we're not proactive, it's not going to be figured out by itself. Exactly. That's what I did, right? I already mentioned that at the university. It was my conscious choice. I wanted to...

open up for new connections to making friends. I think that's also what distinguishes those people who go on traveling, right? When you travel, that's such an amazing opportunity to make new friends. That's what our video producer, Thiago, was telling us about, right? He now has a friend who he has made, who has met in

in one of his trips and they're working on maintaining this friendship till now, right? Okay, so Ksenia, Thi actually recorded a video here for us that it'll be easier to play it here. So let's check it out. Hello guys. So in 2010, I decided with a couple of friends to create a group to visit different countries. And the first trip that we made here in South America, in Chile, we met a girl called Marion. She's from Switzerland.

And it has 14 years since we met her and we're still in touch. So she came to Brazil a couple of times. She learned Portuguese. We went to Switzerland. We met in China, Portugal. So...

The special thing is that we were able to develop this true friendship because we could have deeper conversations. We never wanted to lose contact. So, of course, the internet helped us to maintain this contact. And we were really interested in each other's culture and experiences. And yeah, this is the special thing about that. Meeting new people and being really interested in their story.

Nice. T didn't emphasize that, but I wanted to remind you all that English was the tool of communication they used because none of them were speaking each other's language, I guess. Right. So guys learn English to make such meaningful connections when you travel. And it is interesting that I think culture changes.

It's something that we can form friendships around, especially when it's people from other places. I think this interest in getting to know their culture and them getting to know your culture is a bond that can be formed of curiosity and love for humanity, for culture. Yeah. And you know what's the best part in it is after you share all these things

reach differences, you come to a realization that there are so many things that you share in common despite being so different from coming from different backgrounds. And I even think this is one missing aspect of people's English and their English skills is that they ignore culture, they ignore the personal aspect, the personal experiences.

And this is something that if we do more often, we share our stories, we share experiences, we be a part of a community so we can do that. That's a great way to develop our communication skills and really start to use and understand real life English. That was an expression that I heard from a learner from one of our students that was just fascinated by use and understand real life English. And they said it in a message that they sent us. And I think that's a great opportunity to actually shout them out in our learner of the week.

Oh yeah, so let me read it for you guys. It comes from Pavel Kaimenets and they wrote us that the app is permanently being developed, gets better and better and adds lots of materials. Great for the people who want to use and understand real-life English.

Thank you so much, Pavel, for this beautiful message. Awesome. And as Pavel is saying, we're permanently developing our app and we never stop improving it. We're always hearing from you guys. We keep interviewing you guys, reading the comments and adding the different functionalities and making improvements that you ask.

And if right now you're watching this on YouTube or listening to us on a streaming platform, you should know that all of our lessons are available on the app with a full transcript and flashcards as Xenia mentioned. And that's a great way for you to understand everything that we are saying here so we never get lost. And you use these lessons to actively learn. You're not just like passively watching this on YouTube, you know, just laid back because that's helpful. You know, learning passively helps.

But it only gets you so far. It only gets you to an intermediate level in my experience. I've had hundreds of students that I personally taught and I would see that trend with all of them. The ones that were just passively learning, laid back.

they would never get too advanced. The ones that are curious, they'll really show that curiosity for all the words, you know, the way we're doing here. Like I'm stopping Xenia a lot of times, she's stopping me to say, huh, what is that word you said? Do that. And the app is great for doing that too, because we help you with that. You know, we show you the advanced words and already give you the definition examples and flashcards so you can review them and never forget them and add them to your active vocabulary. So yeah,

We're leaving the link in the description so you can click and go straight to this lesson on the app and unlock it so you can learn a lot more with it. Beautifully said and guys if you are on YouTube an easy way to support us is to hit the subscribe button, bell down below not to miss a single new video and if you are enjoying this particular lesson please give it a like because it makes YouTube understand that this lesson was valuable for you and it

helps other English learners just like you discover this channel. And if you are listening to us on any streaming platforms like Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any other of your favorites, just give us a five-star review and follow us there as well. Ah, yeah. And as we always say on this podcast, no matter what divides us, that which unites us is far greater. One, two, three. Ah, yeah.

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