Hi, welcome back to Soulgum. Thank you for being here. I'm in my closet recording again,

just like last week. This is the second episode ever. It's actually kind of nice in here. I brought my

yoga mat and pillows, kind of dark. It's sort of like a womb, a cave. So I just edited the first episode

and I realized listening to it that I was sort of subconsciously talking in a phone sex voice

and I think I'm also doing it right now. So I wanted to clarify that I am not trying to sound sexy. I just have a really

crackly voice naturally and I'm trying to minimize the crackles because I feel like they're very

unpleasant to listen to, especially with the microphone. No disrespect to anyone in the phone sex industry, though.

I'm reading hunger by Roxanne Gay right now, and she used to be a phone sex operator. Did you know that?

I also just came back from this group meeting where I was like talking about my feelings to strangers,

and that sort of thing always makes me feel like I'm going to cry, and I still sort of have that feeling in my voice like I'm going to cry.

So sorry if I'm talking funny.

Okay, let's get into it.

So today we're going to be talking about friendship.

I think the cultural norms and social contracts related to friendship are fascinating and so messy and so confusing so

we're going to get into that we are going to dissect three things about friendship

specifically number one why i think friendship can be even more emotionally difficult and messy than dating.

Number two, how to navigate making friends as an adult.

And number three, whether the era we're living in right now,

where we're starting to reject selflessness as a virtue and we are increasingly prioritizing

honoring our own boundaries and emotional limits and social batteries and filling our own cup is

essentially making us bad friends. In other words, we're going to ask, do you have to choose between

being a good, reliable, supportive friend who makes your

...