ALAIN DE BOTTON: WHY MAKING FRIENDS AS AN ADULT FEELS IMPOSSIBLE (BUT ISN'T)
Great Company with Jamie Laing
Jampot
4.6 • 951 Ratings
🗓️ 2 September 2025
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Alain de Botton came on the show one year ago and totally blew me away. We spoke about relationships with parents, partners, attachment styles and so much more. And now he’s back and we’re talking all about a relationships we often overlook but is potentially one of the most important in our lives: friendship.
Alain artfully dissects the issues we run into with deepening our friendships, why it’s so scary to vulnerable but how and why letting people in can lead us to a richer life.
We cover:
- How to open up to having more meaningful friendships
- Sexual anxiety in friendship particularly among men
- How polyamory could be born from a lack of real friendship
- Friendship break-ups and why they can be a good thing
- Why people might be bad friends
- How to argue well in relationships
As expected, my mind was well and truly blown again. This conversation reminded me we can all have richer relationships if we take down our guards and ask the questions we really want to be asked.
If you enjoyed the show, you can also follow us:
Instagram - www.instagram.com/greatcompanypodcast
TikTok - www.tiktok.com/@greatcompanypodcast
And if you've got thoughts, questions and comments, you can email us at greatcompany@jampotproductions.co.uk
If you'd like to get Alain's latest book, 'The Secrets of Successful Friendships', you can find it here: shop.theschooloflife.com/products/the-secrets-of-successful-friendships
You can also hear more about The School Of Life here: www.theschooloflife.com/signup/
And I’m also releasing a book, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ which you can pre-order here: https://boysdontcry.co.uk/
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THE CREDITS
Exec Producer: Jemima Rathbone
Producer: Helen Burke
Video: Jake Ji
Audio: Rafi Amsili
Social Media: Laura Coughlan & Anthony Barter
Great Company is an original podcast from JamPot
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Coming up in this episode of Great Company. |
| 0:02.9 | Being a man is a tricky thing. |
| 0:05.4 | There is such a fear in male friendships of homosexuality. |
| 0:10.0 | You've got two people who are putting up a front, |
| 0:12.5 | terrified of what might happen if that front disappears, |
| 0:14.9 | which is a kind of sexual anxiety that inhibits the development of a good friendship. |
| 0:19.2 | If someone's listening to this right now, who is a man, |
| 0:21.4 | what advice would you give him to try and connect more? |
| 0:26.2 | Hello, I'm Alan de Botton, and I'm back, and I'm in great company. |
| 0:29.9 | Founder of the School of Life and best-selling author, Alan de Botton. |
| 0:34.1 | A good friendship should allow room to let in space for the hut. So to deepen a friendship, |
| 0:39.6 | you have to take a risk that you're going to ruin that friendship. If you're living on the |
| 0:45.6 | surface, you're going to have surface relationships with others. Is it okay to let friends go? |
| 0:49.7 | If you can't be the person they need you to be, that's selfish to pretend that you can be. |
| 0:53.9 | Every minute you spend with a partner where you're not fully invested is a day that you're robbing of them. |
| 1:00.5 | The same thing as true friendship. |
| 1:01.9 | I'm about to become a parent. |
| 1:03.0 | The thing I'm worried about is passing down my sort of inherited behaviours that aren't quite right. |
| 1:08.9 | You were not scared at all. |
| 1:10.3 | You wouldn't be acknowledging the gravity of what you're letting yourself into. |
| 1:13.2 | Giving birth is both wonderful and joyful and is an enormous loss. |
| 1:17.3 | You lose an enormous part of your life. |
... |
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