Welcome to the Waves, Slates podcast about gender, feminism, and this week friendship

and all of its complications.

Every episode you get a new pair of feminists to talk about the thing we can't get off our

minds.

And today you've got me, Susan Matthews, Executive Editor of Slate, and later in the

show, Lane Moore, who is a comedian, actor, musician, and writer of multiple books.

Most recently, you will find your people had to make meaningful relationships as an adult.

This is a book that is all about friendships, what can go right, what can go wrong, and

how to make them work for you.

I immediately wanted to read this book when I heard it was coming out for a few different

reasons.

I think first that, as I've grown older, I've gotten strangely more self-conscious about

my friendships and the state of my friendships.

It's something that I think about a lot.

It's not as easy when you're past the school years to really maintain and cultivate meaningful

relationships.

And I think that that really hit me a couple of years ago when I moved out of New York City

where I had lived for more than a decade, and all of a sudden was in a totally new place

kind of without my friends.

This happened to me six months before the pandemic started, so there was a lot more loneliness

and friendship searching and contemplating of all these issues in the years that followed.

But for me, I think that while that time was pretty isolating for many of us, it really

...