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You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.

Hey, everybody. You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey everybody, it's Mariel.

On today's show, we're talking about friendship.

One thing I think is amazing about friends is that these are people you choose.

I mean, we don't choose our families.

Generally don't choose our coworkers or the people't choose our co-workers or the people we

interact with at the grocery store. But with friends, it's like you go through your life noticing

other people who you appreciate and admire, people who feel like kindred spirits. And then you say,

hi, can I keep you? That's incredible. We love these people and spend time with them not because we have to, but because we want to.

If you flip that idea on its head, though, the fact that friendships are elective can make them feel fragile.

We kind of know that we don't quote unquote have to be here.

And I wonder if that makes some of us especially tender to bringing up conflict

because we know that this person can opt out the same way they opted in.

Danielle Byard Jackson is a friendship expert, an author of fighting for our friendships,

the science and art of conflict and connection in women's relationships.

People are turning to friendship to offer a sense of ease and recreation and fun.

It can feel risky to ruin that by bringing up something serious and difficult and challenging.

But Danielle wants to encourage us to be more authentic with our friends, to talk about the places we differ.

Because we are all different, but when we communicate openly with each other without judgment,

...