Welcome to The Waves, Slate's 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

how 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 like more self-conscious about my friendships and the state of

my friendships. It's something that I think about a lot. It's like 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 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 forced me to take

stock of my friendships and connections

and what I wanted out of them and how I wanted to make sure that they kept growing in a

whole new way. I have since moved back to New York City and I'm back near so many of my friends,

but I still think that what this book made me realize is that friendship requires the same deliberate

action that romantic relationships often require to make sure that it's set up to really serve both

people.

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