The Oxytocin, Endorphin Boosting Benefits of Female Friendships with Science Writer Jacqueline Mroz
Show Snapshot:
Women friends rock. None of us would have made it to our fifties without our girlfriends. None. Of. Us. You can love your spouse, adore your kids, appreciate your family, but your female friends get it. On today’s show, we dive into female friendships, friend breakups, and the health benefits of having a girl gang with Jacqueline Mroz, a NYT science writer and author of Girl Talk. Bonus, we talk famous friendships and how different cultures think about friendship bonds.
In This Episode We Cover:
1. What made Jacqueline examine female friendships through the lens of science.
2. How having a girl gang boosts your health.
3. No, you’re not wrong. Male and female friendships do differ.
4. How evolution impacts female relationships.
5. Friend breakups – why they sting. How to recover.
6. Does social media hurt or help our friendships?
7. Famous friendships and how culture shapes how we connect.
Quotable:
Evolution has made us rely on our friends, its like this crucial biological need is being fulfilled when we're with our friends. We actually release oxytocin, which calms us down. And it increases our serotonin, which is a natural mood stabilizer.
It's much harder to connect with friends and form deep intimate bonds on social media. Being on social media actually makes us more depressed, anxious, and socially isolated.
Word of Mouth. Jacqueline Picks:
More Resources:
Jacqueline’s Book
Girl Talk: What Science Can Tell Us About Female Friendship
Follow Jaqueline:
Transcript
Katie Fogarty (00:07):
Welcome to "A Certain Age," a show for women, on life after 50 who are unafraid to age out loud. I'm your host, Katie Fogarty.
Katie Fogarty (00:13):
Women friends rock. None of us would have made it to our fifties without our girlfriends. None. Of. Us. You can love your spouse, adore your kids, appreciate your family, but your female friends get it. They've been in the trenches with you. They remember your first set of eyebrows, your first love, your first apartment. They give us oxygen, endless love, and deep understanding. But female friendships are also complicated. And at times, tumultuous. I'm joined today by a woman who can help us decode the intricacies of female friendships. Jacqueline Mroz is a New York Times science writer and the author of "Girl Talk: What Science Can Tell Us About Female Friendships". She is here to help us better understand friendship from a range of angles. Welcome, Jacqueline.
Jacqueline Mroz (01:01):
Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.
Katie Fogarty (01:03):
I'm so excited. I've got your book and dove into it. I first want to ask: what made you decide to write "Girl Talk"?
Jacqueline Mroz (01:11):
Well, I've been a science writer for the New York Times for many years, and I, like many women, have lots of friends. Some of them are fantastic, most of them are fantastic. But then once in a while, I would have a friend where we would have some kind of conflict or issue, or I would feel this kind of bitchy behavior. And I just couldn't understand where it would come from. One day, I sort of had this epiphany like, "Oh, maybe there's a scientific explanation for the way women behave with their friends?" So, I decided to look into it and ended up writing this book.
Katie Fogarty (01:54):
It's so fascinating. Because I know that instinctually, I crave female friendships. I, personally, feel more energized after being with friends that know me really, really well. But I also feel energized by being in a room full of women I don't know at all. What is the science behind this? Why do we seek out female companionship?
Jacqueline Mroz (02:14):
So, women are actually really good for our health. They can improve our immune system, lower blood pressure. We have less depression with our friends that are healing, and we actually can live longer with our friends.
Katie Fogarty (02:30):
Wow.
Jacqueline Mroz (02:31):
Like many women, like everybody, we're not really seeing people right now because the pandemic. But I managed to get together with some girlfriends last night for somebody's 50th birthday party.
Katie Fogarty (02:46):
Yay!
Jacqueline Mroz (02:46):
Yay! We met at the restaurant that had an outdoor tent and I can tell from everybody's faces that everybody just felt so good being there with each other. It's like, you could just feel the health benefits of being together.
Katie Fogarty (03:02):
Of course, I feel like a moment of envy because I feel like it's been ages and ages since I've been with some of my dearest friends in person. That must've been amazing.
Jacqueline Mroz (03:12):
It was, yeah.
Katie Fogarty (03:12):
So, you talk about the health benefits, you outline some of them. I'm curious do male and female friendships differ? Do men get different benefits from friendships or do they conduct them differently from women? I'm feeling like the answer is yes, but I want to hear more about it from you.
Jacqueline Mroz (03:28):
Well, I think if you ask men, they would say they get a lot out of their friendships too. But they're just very different. I think women are just much more intense, but they're friends and because of that, they're a little bit more fragile. We have higher expectations from our friends then than men do so, we're disappointed more easily and our trust can be betrayed much more. Think about it, if you're divulging your secrets to your friends, then you're more vulnerable. That's something that women do, as a way to have stronger bonds with their friends, is to tell them your secrets. Right. I think our women's brains have the capacity to connect very deeply in a friendship. I'm sure men might dispute that, that we have deeper friendships than men do. But like I said, because of that, they're just much more fragile than men's.
Katie Fogarty (04:32):
Will you talk about-
Jacqueline Mroz (04:32):
One other thing-
Katie Fogarty (04:37):
Yeah, go ahead.
Jacqueline Mroz (04:37):
Go ahead.
Katie Fogarty (04:37):
No, you keep going.
Jacqueline Mroz (04:37):
I always just going to say, like when I would have issues with my friends, I would talk to my husband and say, can you believe this happened? And what should I do? And he would kind of look at me and say, "I don't know, can you talk to your sister? I don't know what to tell you. [Katie laughs] I've never had an issue like that with my friends."
Katie Fogarty (04:54):
He's like, "I'm out of ideas here. You need to go elsewhere."
Jacqueline Mroz (04:57):
Yeah. He just couldn't relate to it.
Katie Fogarty (05:01):
Couldn't wrap his brain around it. You know, when you talked about divulging secrets to your friend, I'm like nodding over here, you know, on the other end of this recording because of course that's what we do. We share our secrets with our friends. But it's not even just sharing secrets, I feel that women communicate differently than men do. Because I will listen to my husband in the other room on the phone with a friend, they'll talk for 40 minutes. He'll come back into the kitchen and I'll say, you know, "What's going on with Justin?" And he's like, "Oh, I dunno. Like not much." And I'm like, "Well, how's Debbie?" [Jacqueline laughs] And he's like, "I have no idea." I'm like, "What's going on with his job?" And he's like, "I don't know." Like, what did you guys talk about for 45-minutes? You know, when you get a bunch of women in the room they're talking about like their sex life, what tampon they're using, you know, why they can't poop. I mean, I don't know. There's just like, much more intimate information being shared. Is that actually, verifiably true by science and data? Or is that just my own experience?
Jacqueline Mroz (05:56):
No, definitely true. And I think women are just more emotionally sensitive than men; we're more attuned to their subtle social messages. And men just connect in different ways. Men connect with their friends by playing sports, or watching a game, or doing an activity together. Whereas women will have tea together and talk and maybe they'll see like knitting, or something like that together, but it is very different.
Katie Fogarty (06:29):
I feel like every woman that I've ever met has shared their like childbirth story with me. You know, that's the kind of thing where you can be like in an elevator with somebody, you'll be talking about kids and they'll tell you about their delivery. Because women are just wired to share that kind of more intimate information quickly, I think. Does this start off when you're young or is it something that evolves? Does your book explore the evolution of friendships from childhood into adulthood?
Jacqueline Mroz (06:56):
It does look at that a little bit. Well, one of the things that I thought was really interesting as just kind of reading over my book is the key behavior that women sometimes get from other women. And what I learned from the science is that really, all humans are aggressive. But women started using this indirect aggression, or bitchy behavior when it becomes socially unacceptable to be outwardly aggressive. That starts around the age of seven.
Jacqueline Mroz (07:33):
If you think about it, girls are taught: don't hit or scream when you're angry, you have to be a good girl and nice. So, instead of just being able to act out the way boys would, it became this indirect aggression. And so, they would be kind of sneaky about it, you know, they could be. Not all girls do this, right. But all humans keep power through aggressive behavior and since women were taught not to hit or scream when they're angry, they had to find another way to deal with that.
Katie Fogarty (08:11):
So, the social mores are sort of set differently.
Jacqueline Mroz (08:14):
Right, right. And actually, our brain circuitry stops women from showing anger and avoiding conflict. So, they're really-
Katie Fogarty (08:27):
Why? Why does it do that?
Jacqueline Mroz (08:32):
Well, it was partly evolution, I believe. Because you're trying to protect yourself and you're young, right. So, if you're showing anger, you know, you're more likely to get attacked.
Katie Fogarty (08:51):
You're getting voted off the island, right. Nobody wants to be with you, you're expelled from the herd.
Jacqueline Mroz (08:58):
Exactly.
Katie Fogarty (08:58):
That's so interesting. I have a 20-year-old daughter and watching her navigate her friendships, probably more in middle school but a little bit in high school, really brought up for me all the memories of what it was like to navigate these waters as a teen and how important it was for her to be part of the group, you know? And at one point she was expressing frustration because they were all trying to decide on the group Halloween costume. And she didn't like what they picked. And I said, "Well, why don't you be something different?" And it was like, you know, I suggested that she jump off a bridge. She was like, "What? I could never do that. I have to be a Disney princess with them." Because you really want to belong to the group. Do you think this changes as women age? Is that something that you cover?
Jacqueline Mroz (09:47):
I don't really get into that, but I definitely think that's true. Actually, a few people have said to me that I should do my next book on teenage friendship. And to that, as you say, it's just so fraught and so interesting.
Jacqueline Mroz (10:04):
I have three boys and my youngest is 15 and he's had some pretty difficult times. He's a very sensitive kid whereas my older son like everything rolls right off him and he never, ever has any issues with his friends. He's just like my husband.
Katie Fogarty (10:29):
He's lucky.
Jacqueline Mroz (10:29):
That's interesting too, how different people can be.
Katie Fogarty (10:32):
Of course.
Katie Fogarty (10:33):
So, tell us a little bit more about the books. I know you break it up into, is eight or nine chapters? And what are, sort of, the range of friendship notions that you cover in this book? Can you give us a topline overview?
Jacqueline Mroz (10:47):
Yeah. So, I started out looking at the history of friendship and actually how and when friendship started. I talk about the science of friendship, or some of the things that we just talked about, like women's brains. One of the things that I thought was really interesting is that women's brains were formed to actually make us mind-readers. We're better at reading emotion in other people's faces than men are. You can say your husband, or partner, comes home one day and he has this, kind of, weird look on his face. You might say, "What happened at work today? I know something happened." And this is actually why they think women cry more than men. Because men are not good mind-readers, they can't read people's faces the way women can. So, women would start to cry to get the attention to men, to show them that something was wrong.
Katie Fogarty (11:44):
Wow. And still, sometimes they don't get it. [both laugh] They're like, "What's happening?" All right. Keep going. So, that's fascinating. What else do you cover?
Jacqueline Mroz (11:56):
So, evolution has made us rely on our friends more and it's like this crucial biological need is being fulfilled when we're with our friends. So, we just talk a little bit more about the science. When we're with our female friends, and this is what you were asking me before, like why we feel so good. We actually release oxytocin, which calms us down. And it increases our serotonin, which is a natural mood stabilizer. So, it really does make you feel better when you're with your friends. And being with our friends actually calms our central nervous system as well.
Katie Fogarty (12:37):
I love that. That's when it's all going well. But you also in your book, talk about friend breakups. Share more with us about that. What did you learn? And is this preventable?
Jacqueline Mroz (12:47):
Sometimes? [both laugh] So, part of the reason I wrote this book is because I had this one friend in particular that I was having, kind of, a difficult time with. After the book we ended up, just not- we had a final breakup. We're not friends anymore. So that, you know, makes me sad and I think about her. Because of the intensity of our friendships, a small thing can tip us over the edge.
Jacqueline Mroz (13:25):
I did a radio show and a woman called into the radio show and she said, "I have a question. When I was 30 years old, I lived with my girlfriend in Boston and she broke up with her boyfriend. And then I started to date him and my friend, we had his big break up and my friend never spoke to me again. And I'm still upset about it. And I really would think about her and I wanna know what to do. What do you think I should do?" And I said, "Well, how long ago did this happen?" She said, "Well, I'm 80 now."
Katie Fogarty (14:04):
Oh! [laughs]
Jacqueline Mroz (14:10):
So, it had been 50 years, and she was still thinking about this friend.
Katie Fogarty (14:10):
Oh my gosh, and it's been bothering her. Ah, that's such a sad story, but also, do not date your friend's ex-boyfriends. [laughs]
Jacqueline Mroz (14:19):
[laughs] That's a good one.
Katie Fogarty (14:19):
That is like, a life lesson to know. Oh my gosh. I actually read an interesting statistic and perhaps I read it in your book. That having a breakup with a friend can often be more painful than the breakup with a romantic partner, which I found to be-
Jacqueline Mroz (14:39):
Yeah that's definitely true. Women said-
Katie Fogarty (14:41):
Astonishing.
Jacqueline Mroz (14:41):
Yeah, they said it was harder to recover from than a divorce.
Katie Fogarty (14:46):
Which is absolutely amazing to me. But I think it speaks to, you know, a marriage is a partnership, right. Where you agree to become partners to become a union. But friendships often feel like identity, you know. So, if somebody is no longer your friend, I think that it really makes you examine yourself. With many friendships, you really feel seen, you know, and to have a very close friend no longer see you can feel very dislocating to your own identity. Which I think is actually why, as I've aged, I've really spread my friendships around. And I've always encouraged my daughter to do that. I have like, the dearest friends since, you know, fifth grade, my sort of core group. But I've got college friends that I love, and women from my town that I adore. I've made sure that I have different networks. What is your take on that?
Jacqueline Mroz (15:45):
No, I think that's really important. Actually my youngest son was having some friend problems, he's in high school. And he kind of learned that on his own, he has really good emotional intelligence, which is really important to being a good friend and having friends as well, I think. He ended up [16:05 Inaudible] like three different friends groups in high school so, it's like he always had somebody to be with or hang out with. I think that's something that women do as well as. Especially, like you were talking about, it's kind of the way to, I dunno, it's almost like insurance. That you'll always have somebody there for you, and if anything goes wrong you'll have somebody else there. I was going to say that research has shown that a woman's self-worth is tied into her friend's opinion of her far more than for men. And so, a woman's self-esteem can really be undermined more easily by a friend as well.
Katie Fogarty (16:44):
Absolutely. I really relate to that. And that's what I was sort of saying about identity. I mean, as you were talking, I was rattling off in my mind-- it's not a very long list, but it's a list of women that have left my life over the years because, you know, our paths diverged, or there was this some sort of disconnect. And there is pain. I don't think I've had like, a massive friend breakup that gave me, you know, agita like a divorce, but there's sadness around things shifting. But I've also added friends. You know, I feel that we can add friends as we age. Did you find that to be true when you researched this and how does one add friends? If someone's listening and thinking, "You know what, I'm kind of like isolated in the pandemic, I need more people in my life."
Jacqueline Mroz (17:29):
Yeah, I definitely did talk about that in the book. My mother is 85, so I was really interested in aging and friendship and how you continue to make friends. She's a little bit lonely right [17.48 Inaudible] widow. One thing I thought that was interesting, she's one of the researchers I talked to, is that you sort of have this like friend...forget what they called it...sort of, caravan. The number of friends that you have in life, and you pretty much carry that throughout your life. So, if you always just have a few friends, that's probably what you're going to have throughout your life. Like, a few, a small group of important friends, you don't have a lot of acquaintances that you hang out with. So, I think that was good to realize, because maybe you're thinking like, why am I only have a few really close friends, because that's just who you are, right. People are just very different. But yeah, if you belong to a gym, obviously things are very different right now, but, if you go to the same class all the time, it's a good way to meet people.
Katie Fogarty (18:49):
I think you need to be intentional as you get older too, because there are friendship, inflection points, right? When you're in elementary school, you're friends with the people you're sitting next to. And then you have high school friends and college, and you make friends at work. New motherhood is a big friend maker, right? Yo add women to your life that your kids are involved with. But once your kids start emptying the nest, you know, if you do want new friends and new relationships, I think you need to bring a level of intentionality around it. Where you put yourself out there, that you're picking up a new sport. Like I added a lot of tennis friends to my life about 10 years ago. And finally about five years ago, I stopped calling them my tennis friends because they were like, actually my friends. I did things besides play tennis with them. But you need to maybe be thoughtful about it.
Katie Fogarty (19:39):
You cover famous friendships in your book too, which, when I think of famous friendships, I think Oprah and Gayle, you know, Lucy and Ethel. Was there was there one particular, or maybe a handful, of friendships that really intrigued you as you did your research?
Jacqueline Mroz (19:56):
Well, I was totally intrigued by the friendship between Marilyn Monroe [20.02 Inaudible] and Ella Fitzgerald.
Katie Fogarty (20:06):
Tell us more about that.
Jacqueline Mroz (20:09):
So, Ella Fitzgerald was singing in a bar, in the club. Well, she wanted to sing and they wouldn't let her because she was black. Marilyn Monroe loved her music and so she went to the club and she said, "If you book her, I will sit in the front row every night that she performs."
Katie Fogarty (20:34):
I love it.
Jacqueline Mroz (20:35):
And they said okay. After that, they became like best friends. And I never knew that.
Katie Fogarty (20:40):
That's a very cool story. That's the power of advocacy that you could have in women's lives. You know, I see that there's like this buzz phrase: empowered women empower women. It always sort of irks me on some level, because I think women empower themselves and don't even need to be empowered. So, I find it a little irksome. But I do really believe in the power of women supporting each other. And I have found that some of my most meaningful friendships are women who have really helped elevate me. You know, it's not that alpha girl where only one person can be dominant. I have really wonderful women in my life who want to see me shine. So, that's been so important to me.
Jacqueline Mroz (21:24):
That's great.
Katie Fogarty (21:25):
You also cover cultural differences and the way different communities approach friendship. We can't cover it all, but was there one surprising lesson that kind of, sticks with you from your research?
Jacqueline Mroz (21:41):
Yeah. I mean, I don't know that much about- I didn't know before about cultural differences, but I thought that difference between the inclusive cultures and exclusive cultures is very interesting. Like, we Americans are part of an inclusive culture, so somebody joins your tennis team and you'll see like, "Oh hey, so great to meet you. We should hang out." And that's kind of like what Americans say. So, when people from other cultures come in, they think, "Oh, I have a new best friend." They don't realize that that's just kind of the way Americans talk.
Katie Fogarty (22:21):
And they don't mean it. [laughs].
Jacqueline Mroz (22:21):
And they don't mean it exactly. So, I thought that was kind of eyeopening.
Katie Fogarty (22:30):
So, what is the culture that means it like? What's a culture where people take friendship very seriously?
Jacqueline Mroz (22:36):
So, if you go to France, they're a very exclusive culture. A friend of mine lived there for many years and she said, it was so difficult to make friends there. When people pass you on the street they won't kind of smile and try to say hi, because they don't know you. Whereas in America, [22:54 Inaudible] do that. But once you get to make a friend there, they're your friend for life. They are just a very exclusive culture there.
Katie Fogarty (23:05):
Interesting. Because I feel that- I lived in Japan, many years ago, for two years after college. There was a little bit of that level of formality. For me it was also probably a language issue. I was very much welcomed as an honored guest, but it was hard, you know, to feel intimate and, sort of, pulled in. Because there were differences. So, that's so fascinating.
Jacqueline Mroz (23:33):
And they're more of a collectivist culture, right. Rather than individualistic.
Katie Fogarty (23:41):
Well, I wanted to know more about that actually. I do remember when I was in Japan that I went on a vacation and I came back, you know, with like, my vacation weight. My boss said to me, "Katie, what happened? Your face got so fat." [Jacqueline laughs] And I thought: we don't say that in America. They were very direct. I thought maybe that they were correcting you as a friend because I definitely experienced that, which is so funny.
Katie Fogarty (24:01):
You also cover technology and the impact that it has on friendship. Do you see technology as a boon for friendship or is it something that interferes and gets in the way?
Jacqueline Mroz (24:13):
Yeah, I think it definitely has made it much harder to have closer friendships. If you think about it, 20 years ago we spent zero hours on social media, and now we spend almost three hours a day. I thought this was so interesting. This researcher I talked to told me that teenagers spend the equivalent of 40 days a year on social media. And I had to get him to repeat that because I couldn't believe it was true.
Katie Fogarty (24:42):
That is a startling statistic. 40 days a year. Okay.
Jacqueline Mroz (24:46):
40 days, like not part of the day is. The equivalent of 40, 24 hour-days.
Katie Fogarty (24:55):
That's a huge chunk of your life. You know, it's interesting that you feel that technology kind of interferes because in some ways, you know, maybe it's an age issue, but I feel that technology helps keep me connected. COVID was so isolating and still remains isolating. And when we were all sheltering in place last March, I was on text threads with my girlfriends from high school and my girlfriends from college. We would sort of text every Friday to check in and see how the week went. It felt like connective tissue in a way that was so important because we weren't getting together in real life. And I look at my 13-year-old and he is doing, you know, it's a little unfortunate, but a lot of his social life now is over, X-Box. He games in order to be connected to friends who he can't see. Do you think this is going to change after COVID? Will we be able to return to nurturing our connections in real life? Or have we jumped the shark? And now we're all going to be tech forever? [both laugh]
Jacqueline Mroz (25:55):
I hope we're going to go back because I think there's no substitute for being with people in person and seeing them in person. The research I did found that it's much harder to connect with friends and form deep intimate bonds on social media and I would think technology is similar to that.
Jacqueline Mroz (26:17):
Being on social media actually makes us more depressed, anxious and socially isolated. And after I wrote that chapter, I [26:26 Inaudible] media, quite a bit. I kinda realized how negative it can be. Especially, you know, you have teenagers too. Watching them go on Instagram and see pictures of their friends hanging out, parties that they weren't invited to. It just makes me feel terrible and it can really make you feel empty.
Katie Fogarty (26:49):
This is a phenomenon that is not just for teenagers. I mean, I've experienced this myself as an adult on both ends of the equation. I remember well, seeing those tennis friends that I talked about; they were all out to dinner one night with their husbands, they had played, couples tennis and I had not been included. You know, part of me intellectually understood this. It was two courts, you can only have eight people, if my husband and I had been there we'd be 10. So, I understood it intellectually, but I felt sad. And then I went and did something similar myself several months later, when I was off at a small birthday party with some friends from high school. Somebody had brought a funny napkin, I took a picture of it, and then I posted it on Instagram and I tagged the four or five women that were in that, you know, dinner celebration. Other friends felt left out and I shared this with my daughter and she was like, "Mom, why would you have done that?" And I thought, "Why did I do that?" You know, it was so stupid, and inadvertently-
Jacqueline Mroz (27:50):
You just thought it was fun.
Katie Fogarty (27:51):
I thought it was fun.
Jacqueline Mroz (27:51):
Yeah, I mean, I try not to do that now. I have to say. Last night we took a picture of our group of friends and I won't post that on social media. I just don't want people to feel bad if left out, even though, you know, you didn't realize that-
Katie Fogarty (28:08):
That they weren't included. And so much of social media is about broadcasting, it's about broadcasting what you're up to. And obviously, you know, I'm a broadcaster. I'm having conversations as a podcaster, I love sharing and putting things out into the universe. But social media does have nuances that can be very negative too and people can feel hurt. And it's interesting. You know, when I had both of those experiences, I instantly felt like I was 13 again, you know, not in a good way.
Jacqueline Mroz (28:43):
Well, that's interesting. The writer Claire Messud wrote the forward to my book. She's an incredible writer. And, she wrote, trying to remember the name of the book she wrote, anyway, you can cut that part out. She told me that whenever she has a new book out that some of her friends just kind of disappear and they stop calling her and they don't show up to her events and things. And I guess it's because there's like some jealousy there. And that just made me feel so sad. She just had a new book come out and I made sure that I emailed her and said, "Congratulations on your great reviews." And I'm not her friend, but people should be supportive of each other when something good happens, you know?
Katie Fogarty (29:37):
Right. That's so interesting. You know, do you think-
Jacqueline Mroz (29:38):
A little off topic.
Katie Fogarty (29:38):
No, it's not off topic at all. We're talking about female friendships and I think that jealousy sometimes is a current, that runs through our relationships. Because we create so much of a sense of identity around who we're with, you know, there's all those quotes about, like your friends are a reflection on you and you really feel like part of a unit. And if somebody else's maybe succeeding in some ways, you know, ideally we want to be happy for them, but sometimes comparison is the thief of joy. When we compare ourselves to others, we can feel less than. Which is so unfortunate. You really need to surround yourself- and I've been mindful about this, I've been mindful about surrounding myself with women who are always excited and happy and supportive of me and the other women in their orbit. Because that's how I want to be and how I want to show up in life. I really try to do that. So, you know, I'm intentional about surrounding myself by people who are doing interesting things and are confident. And you know, everyone shines somewhere and everyone has their moments. We all have ups and we all have downs and it's super tricky.
Katie Fogarty (30:49):
Jacqueline, I'm so appreciative of you coming on today and walking us through some of the intricacies of female friendships. I would encourage anyone who wants to know more about their own relationships, who wants to dive into some of these different elements, to really explore this in a thoughtful, intentional way, to pick up Jacqueline's book, "Girl Talk: What Science Can Tell Us About Female Friendships". Jacqueline, before we say goodbye, is there another resource or tool you want to let our listeners know about?
Jacqueline Mroz (31:18):
I just wanted to tell you the name of the book that Claire Messud wrote is called "The Burning Girl". It's about two teenage girls who are really close friends and then it turns into kind of a toxic friendship. And it's great book.
Katie Fogarty (31:33):
Fabulous. I will link to that in the show notes. How can our listeners keep following you and your work?
Jacqueline Mroz (31:38):
I still write for the science section of the New York Times, so you can follow my work there.
Katie Fogarty (31:44):
Fabulous. I will link to that as well. Jacqueline, thank you so much for your time today.
Jacqueline Mroz (31:48):
Thank you so much. I love being here. Great.
Katie Fogarty (31:51):
This wraps "A Certain Age," a show for women over 50, who are aging without apology. Join me next week when we dive into the biology of love and why we mate and stray, with anthropologist, Dr. Helen Fisher. And bonus, we cover dating and sex during the pandemic. Special thanks to Michael Mancini Productions, who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then: age boldly, beauties.