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0:08

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0:10

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0:29

Julie, tell me about your relationship with your

0:31

neighbors. In our apartment building,

0:34

it's a huge apartment building, it's basically the

0:36

size of a whole city block, and there

0:38

are tons of people in there. The

0:40

only people whose names I

0:43

even know are

0:46

my immediate neighbors because we

0:48

share a roof patio,

0:50

like I can see them over the fence. And

0:53

when they first moved in, I remember

0:56

my partner and I were like gardening on the

0:58

roof and I was like,

1:00

Joe, we need to introduce ourselves to them. And he was like,

1:02

nope, we're not going to. He's

1:04

like, I don't want to, you can do that. You know,

1:06

we did exchange names and say hi,

1:09

and that felt like a big victory. However,

1:11

we immediately thereafter went back

1:14

to ignoring each other

1:15

every time we see each other on the roof. Maybe

1:17

there's a small way, but like that's

1:19

it.

1:25

Hi, I'm Julie Beck, a senior editor at

1:27

The Atlantic. And I'm Becca Rasheed,

1:29

producer of the How To series. This

1:32

is How to Talk to People. It's

1:38

really strange to think that neighbors are

1:40

the people who are literally closest

1:42

to you and yet so many of

1:44

us don't know them at all. You know, I'd

1:46

walk around town and I'd walk around the neighborhood

1:48

and I'd be grumpy that everyone was

1:50

so cold and what are people like

1:52

these days? They weren't like this when I lived here 10 years

1:55

ago. But then I started

1:57

practicing, you know, well, I'm

1:59

kind of like them too, because I'm not reaching out

2:02

to them. Yeah. Pete

2:04

Davis, who is a civic advocate

2:06

and the author of this book dedicated the

2:08

case for commitment in an age of infinite browsing.

2:12

He thinks one reason that neighbors don't always

2:14

bother to get to know one another is he thinks

2:16

our society has commitment

2:17

issues. And what I noticed

2:19

that all the people that were giving me hope had in

2:21

common and given my peers hope had in common

2:24

was they were all people

2:27

who decided to forego

2:29

a life of keeping their options open

2:32

and instead make a commitment

2:34

to a particular thing over the long

2:36

haul.

2:37

So what does keeping our options

2:40

open have to do with our sense

2:42

of feeling like we're connected to our community?

2:45

What exactly about committing helps

2:47

us feel connected? You

2:49

know, I moved back to my hometown after school

2:53

and I was gliding on the surface

2:56

of everything when I moved back, just trying

2:58

to like get a sense of the place again.

3:01

And I was feeling down on the

3:03

place. I'm like, why did we move back? Maybe we shouldn't have moved

3:05

back. Am I just moving back because I have this nostalgia,

3:07

you know, all these things. You know, when

3:10

you think about becoming friends

3:12

with a neighbor, those fears that

3:14

I mentioned of commitment are fears that are

3:16

present with you. If I have to commit

3:18

to every Thursday at 7 p.m. to go to

3:21

this meeting, who knows what I'll miss out on? And

3:23

then I surprised myself when I got to know

3:25

all these people and that every time I started passing

3:27

by their house, I'm like, oh, I know what

3:30

goes on inside that house. I know who lives there.

3:31

I do feel like there is a common

3:34

refrain these days that people

3:36

just don't know their neighbors like they

3:38

used to. Is that

3:40

true? Was there ever a time when

3:42

Americans were really good at getting to know their

3:44

neighbors? Yeah, I think

3:47

it is true. I think, you know, there's always

3:49

been a spirit of nostalgia, but we actually

3:51

have data show that this

3:53

type of nostalgia might be correct.

3:56

The great site here is Bowling

3:58

Alone by Robert Putnam.

3:59

book that kind of was famous in the early

4:03

2000s about the decline of community in America.

4:05

And he has data set after data

4:08

set graph after graph that shows that

4:10

this is the case. So, you know, neighbors

4:12

in the broad sense of the term, you know, people in your

4:14

town, you look at any

4:16

angle on it and we're seeing a decline. So

4:19

between the 1970s and the 1990s,

4:22

the amount of club meetings that we went to per

4:25

year was cut in half. The amount of

4:27

people serving as an officer in a club, the

4:29

amount of people attending public meetings, all

4:31

major declines, membership and religious

4:33

congregations. It was 75% of

4:36

Americans at the mid century

4:38

mark. And now in the last few

4:40

years, it crossed under 50%. You know,

4:43

you look at informal socializing, Putnam

4:46

was able to find the national picnic

4:48

data set where, you know, in the mid

4:50

70s we went on an average of five picnics

4:52

a year with our neighbors. Oh my. And that

4:55

was down to two by the 90s. So... Bring

4:57

back picnics. Oh my God. Bring back picnics,

4:59

you

4:59

know, amount of people doing dinner parties,

5:02

the amount of people that say they have

5:04

no friends, you know, in 1990, that was only 3% of Americans.

5:08

In 2021, it was 12%. And

5:11

so, you know, we do have numbers

5:13

that show we're in a neighboring crisis.

5:16

And well, I know we've already been talking about

5:18

this with the spicy picnic data, but

5:21

can you give us kind of an overview

5:23

of how Americans' relationship with

5:25

their neighbors has evolved in, let's

5:27

say like the last 50 years?

5:30

Yeah, you know, there was a famous essay,

5:33

even written back in the 70s about the early rise

5:36

of back patios. It was by

5:39

Richard Thomas. And, you know,

5:41

the front porch used to be the iconic,

5:43

you know, appendage to a house. And

5:46

starting in the 70s and 80s, interests

5:49

in back patios started growing and then exploded

5:52

in the 90s and 2000s. And

5:55

now when you're

5:56

watching HGTV or being

5:59

toured in a new house.

5:59

or a new build by a realtor, they're

6:02

going to talk more about the back patio than the front

6:04

porch. And both of those

6:06

are socializing. The difference

6:09

is the back patio is friends you

6:11

already know, whereas the front porch is

6:13

an opportunity to meet the people

6:15

that start as strangers who live around

6:17

you and turn them into friends that you know,

6:19

which is much less likely

6:22

if the main socializing area is in

6:24

the back of your house than in the front of your house.

6:26

Yeah, I'm trying to think if I can even remember

6:28

like an episode of House Hunters where

6:31

they were really excited about a front porch

6:33

and nothing is coming to mind.

6:35

Think about sitting on a front porch. This sounds really

6:38

old fogey like, but just think about it. You know, you

6:41

sit on the front porch and someone walking by

6:43

with their dog waves at

6:45

you and then you notice that they're wearing

6:48

a Led Zeppelin

6:50

t-shirt and you like Led Zeppelin too. And then

6:52

you can say, oh my gosh, nice shirt. And then they

6:54

start talking and they say they went to the concert

6:57

and then you say, oh, you know, come on over and sit

6:59

on the porch for a second. I have a you know, I have I have ice

7:01

tea out here. And because it's a

7:03

front porch, maybe you don't know this person yet.

7:05

You don't feel comfortable to have them into your

7:07

house. But we used to design our

7:09

houses in a way that had this

7:12

liminal space between kind of stranger

7:14

and intimate privacy where

7:17

community is built.

7:18

So what we've learned is we should have more picnics

7:21

and we should holler at people from our front porch

7:23

as they pass by. OK,

7:25

great, great, great.

7:32

Maybe also part

7:34

of the barrier to talking

7:37

to our neighbors is that we don't

7:40

have a lot of context for

7:42

them beyond their geographical

7:44

proximity. Maybe we know

7:47

that they walk their dog at eight o'clock

7:49

every morning, but we don't know what

7:51

kind of person they are a lot of the time.

7:54

One thing that's not given me a great

7:56

ton of faith in my

7:58

neighbors is I I joined Nextdoor,

8:01

perhaps misguidedly, just looking

8:03

for, I don't know, clothing swaps or

8:05

something. And it's

8:07

a really tough space of just

8:09

like,

8:11

people's fears and

8:13

like worst side really being on display.

8:15

It's just like post after post about like, crime

8:19

and I'm afraid of this. Watch

8:21

out for these two like young boys

8:24

that were looking at my house the other

8:26

day. And I think

8:28

people are often like very reasonably

8:31

wary of interacting

8:33

with their neighbors in the sense that like, those

8:36

people might be coming to

8:38

those interactions with a lot of

8:40

biases, unwarranted

8:42

fears and assumptions and racism

8:45

or sexism or any of the like

8:48

things that can make our interactions

8:50

with strangers in public, ranging from extremely

8:52

uncomfortable to dangerous. And so

8:54

like, I do wanna acknowledge if people

8:57

have that wariness of like, their

8:59

neighbors not treating them as fully human,

9:02

like that is very

9:03

fair. Simply

9:05

getting better at talking

9:08

to people is not going to dissolve

9:11

racism or sexism or street

9:14

harassment or any of those deep

9:17

rooted societal problems that

9:20

infect our relationships

9:22

with our neighbors. That's

9:25

a much bigger problem than

9:27

just like, do I know my neighbor's name?

9:30

I don't wanna be naive with all this messaging

9:33

that every neighbor is going to be nice.

9:36

And even among nice neighbors,

9:39

there's gonna be this layer just because of the culture

9:41

that we're living in of seeing more, I

9:43

call it the ring camera culture

9:45

of 2020s America, where

9:48

everyone outside your door is like someone

9:50

who's out to get you, whether it's like a politician trying

9:53

to get your vote or a door to door salesperson.

9:55

If that's your experience of the outside world

9:58

because we live in such a low community. community time.

10:01

It's harder to form community now than it is

10:03

in a higher trust society

10:05

or a higher trust era. I don't think

10:07

it's something we all have to do alone. If

10:10

you're the type or person that knows three

10:12

other people in the apartment complex and you're all friends,

10:15

you've been there a long time and you're more confident and you're

10:17

more outgoing and you have less to lose and

10:20

you're less scared of this thing, which doesn't

10:22

make you any better, but it's just like a quality you have.

10:25

You need to give a little bit that to everyone

10:27

else by being the person who has a little bit

10:29

more

10:29

wiggle room to have the vulnerability

10:32

to lead in breaking the ice. Yeah.

10:36

As it becomes less common

10:38

for anyone even to knock on your door,

10:40

then it's like more alarming when someone

10:42

does, or you're just expecting that when

10:44

you're at home, you're going to be left alone. So

10:47

how can you build relationships

10:49

with your neighbors that are respectfully

10:52

distant as they need to be, but also can

10:54

be intimate enough to provide some

10:56

support? There's a lot

10:58

of ways to invite people to

11:00

come be part of your life. So, you know, one of them isn't

11:03

knocking. It could be leaving an invitation that'll

11:06

make them feel comfortable to kind of receive this

11:08

message and then make an affirmative choice

11:10

to join or not. No one wants

11:13

that person who immediately is way too

11:15

vulnerable and intimate with you.

11:25

You know, Becca, sometimes I feel like there's

11:27

this sort of invisible barrier that

11:29

it feels almost physically

11:32

effortful to push through before

11:35

you can just say something to a neighbor.

11:38

There was a sociologist named Irving Goffman

11:40

who called that barrier civil

11:42

inattention. And it's essentially,

11:44

you know, the default polite

11:47

posture that we have towards strangers

11:49

in public. It's like essentially

11:52

saying, I see that you exist. And then you

11:54

completely withdraw your attention

11:55

from them and look away and look at

11:57

your phone and leave them alone. So

11:59

this is like what always happens in the bathroom when

12:01

you're both washing your hands. Yes,

12:03

that's right. The brief eye contact in the mirror,

12:06

the tight smile, and then you look down and you're

12:08

washing your hands like very, very,

12:11

solitarily. That

12:13

is exactly what happens in

12:16

my building, right? You know, we're walking

12:18

down the hall towards each other, we're

12:20

looking down, looking down, and then there's like a little

12:22

smile, and then we pass each

12:24

other and we don't speak. That

12:27

makes me feel like it would be invasive

12:29

to try to strike up a conversation

12:31

with them. Like we're both signaling that

12:33

we want to be left alone. I'm going to

12:35

tell you a little story about my neighbor

12:37

who did invade my space. Okay. I'm

12:40

safe, I'm fine. I

12:43

was getting into one

12:45

of two elevators in my building. We have

12:47

our big moving your couch from

12:50

floor to floor elevator and then the small elevator

12:53

that not more than one person should be getting

12:55

into at a time. And it was the small

12:57

one, I'm sure. It was of course the small one. And

13:01

he lives next door to

13:01

me and squeezed into the small elevator

13:03

with me and he just

13:06

slightly turned his body and said, so you're

13:09

a singer.

13:12

And I turned.

13:15

Which you are, for the record. I

13:17

think I am. And I just started

13:19

profusely apologizing. I was like, I'm so

13:22

sorry. I had no idea

13:25

that my YouTube karaoke was playing

13:27

that loud and I was singing over it, but

13:30

it made me extremely

13:32

self-aware. As you said, someone

13:34

popped that invisible bubble between us

13:36

of never acknowledging

13:39

that we have this relationship,

13:41

whatever it may be. So do you wish

13:43

he had just never said anything and continued

13:46

the

13:46

sort of fiction that you were just

13:48

two strangers who know nothing about each other?

13:50

I mean, as much as it was

13:53

a bit jarring, in the end

13:55

it was actually kind of nice.

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15:19

Becca, I do feel like Pete Davis would

15:21

approve of your neighbor's move

15:23

in the elevator. They might have revealed

15:25

that they were eavesdropping a little

15:27

bit on you, but it's also

15:29

like a perfect example of the sort

15:31

of small step that neighbors

15:34

can take to kind of make

15:36

the most of a moment and connect, but not,

15:38

you know, get too intimate too fast.

15:41

Pete is a big fan of the practical steps.

15:44

So yes. You

15:46

know, my direct neighbor, we kind

15:48

of exchanged pleasantries for like a

15:50

year. And I had formed

15:53

an opinion of him because I knew he was like... What

15:55

was the opinion?

15:57

I had formed some, oh, he's, you know, he's

15:59

like a classic...

15:59

I'm an sexy bureaucrat and I'm a little weird

16:02

and we're not like each other at all. And

16:05

then one day just in passing, I had

16:07

played music too loud and

16:09

he said, oh, I heard you were playing Jason

16:12

Isbell and I love

16:14

Americana music and I'm

16:16

actually in an Americana band. And

16:18

my dad was this famous bluegrass banjo

16:20

player and we play at JV's restaurant, which

16:22

is like the coolest venue in our town.

16:25

And then he led me inside his house and showed

16:27

me his guitar, classic dude, show me your

16:29

guitar room

16:32

or something. But intergenerational

16:35

dude connection. And because

16:38

of that one moment of happenstance

16:40

where we had this connection, we think completely

16:42

differently about each other.

16:44

There is a weird intimacy

16:46

that we do have with our neighbors. Like he

16:48

can hear what you're playing through the

16:50

wall. You share a wall. If

16:53

we pass each other, we sort of don't acknowledge

16:55

that weird intimacy or we just pretend that

16:57

we're complete strangers with no context

16:59

of each other.

17:01

Totally. And in some ways, sometimes

17:03

people are relieved when the intimacy

17:06

is admitted to because it pops

17:08

the tension of it all. I can hear you, I can

17:11

see you. I saw that you didn't bring

17:13

your trash out or something without

17:15

being nosy. There's always that we don't

17:17

want Uber conformity and we don't want invasions

17:20

of privacy, but there's something in the middle.

17:23

Yeah. My building, God

17:25

bless them, they're always trying to host these like

17:27

community events. So, you know,

17:29

it'll be like, it's Valentine's Day, like come down

17:31

and get some like free drinks and cookies and

17:34

people will go and then

17:35

they'll just take the food and leave.

17:37

Or they'll just talk to kind of whoever

17:39

they live with that they already came down there with.

17:42

There's no mixing. They're not getting people to mix.

17:44

What are they doing wrong?

17:47

Yeah. You know, we need to have

17:49

some of these events run by the people themselves.

17:52

And if kind of a faceless developer or property

17:54

manager does it, if they personalized

17:56

it by saying the real person that was hosting it, it

17:59

might have more of an effect.

18:00

You know, you also have to have an aggressive host, even

18:02

though it seems like it's really annoying to be the host that

18:05

says, hey, I got to know you and

18:07

I got to know you. And so you should talk because you're both

18:09

nurses and you two both have third graders, you guys

18:11

should talk. You know, that is the

18:13

type of thing that brings people together. It's not just

18:15

automatic of, you know, you

18:18

lay out Valentine's Day cookies and everyone's gonna talk

18:20

because you have to have someone that

18:23

breaks the ice and brings people together. Well,

18:25

this is where I

18:25

struggle, right? Because

18:28

I can see how when you find out that

18:30

you first move somewhere, that

18:31

seems like a natural opportunity to

18:34

introduce yourself to the people who live next

18:36

to you or something. But I've lived in my building for

18:39

two and a half years now. I've lived in my neighborhood

18:42

for almost 10 years. And like, I feel like it's

18:44

too late. I don't have that excuse

18:46

of being new anymore. Now so much

18:49

time has passed that it just feels really

18:52

weird to randomly try

18:56

to get something going now.

18:57

Yeah, you know, it is nice when you

18:59

just move somewhere that you have this excuse like, hi,

19:01

I just moved here and people are gonna give

19:03

you the honeymoon period of that's not a weird thing to

19:06

say. That get out of awkwardness

19:08

free card is gone when you're not new here.

19:11

But you know, I've always believed

19:14

that this isn't something that we need to overthink.

19:16

You know, you have to just walk

19:19

up to a neighbor in some way

19:21

and invite them to be closer

19:24

to you, which is obviously really

19:26

awkward. It's so awkward that it's the reason we're

19:28

all not neighborly with each other. But

19:31

everyone is waiting for someone to

19:33

do that to them. You know, that's the

19:35

funny thing. And in some ways

19:38

we're all playing a prisoner's dilemma with each other,

19:40

where it's like, I don't trust them or

19:42

I don't trust them to trust me. And they're thinking

19:45

in their head, I don't trust them or I don't trust them to trust

19:47

me or maybe they don't trust me or whatever.

19:49

And the way to break that prisoner's dilemma with

19:51

each other is for someone to

19:54

go a little bit above and beyond to have an act

19:56

of vulnerability. And so a gift

19:58

is one example of that.

19:59

which is I went out of my way

20:02

to show you an act of goodwill,

20:05

to show you not only that I'm trustworthy

20:08

a little bit more, but also that I think

20:10

you're trustworthy a little bit more. Mention

20:13

the concert you went to last weekend when you're passing

20:15

in the hallway. Mention something about your

20:17

family. It doesn't need to be totally too much information.

20:20

It could just be the next level of

20:23

personality.

20:29

You know, Becca, even at the most sort

20:31

of super benign and cliched

20:34

neighbor interaction of going over to borrow

20:36

something, I've actually had a negative

20:38

experience with that myself.

20:40

Can you tell me what happened with that neighbor? Yeah,

20:43

I mean, it was a really simple interaction. I

20:45

had moved into my current apartment building. We

20:47

had all of our taped up boxes from

20:49

moving, but I realized that I had packed

20:51

the scissors inside one of the taped up

20:53

boxes, and I needed scissors to

20:56

open up the taped up box

20:57

to get the scissors. I thought, you know,

20:59

that's fine. I'll just go ask a neighbor. Everybody

21:01

has scissors. That's opportunity to introduce

21:04

myself and also get something that

21:06

I need. So I went down the hall and I knocked

21:08

on the door that had like a light on under it or

21:10

something where it seemed like somebody was home. And

21:13

this very harried woman came to the door and she had

21:15

her phone at her ear and she was like, what?

21:18

What do you need? And I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry.

21:20

Like I just moved in. I just needed to borrow some scissors.

21:22

Like I didn't mean to interrupt you, but do you have scissors?

21:25

And she kind of like huffed and then like went

21:28

off and got the scissors. And she did give them

21:30

to me, but in like a very annoyed way. She

21:32

probably wasn't expecting a rando to like knock

21:34

on her door in the middle of the day when she was on

21:36

a phone call. I just like went and used

21:39

her scissors and then silently returned them. And

21:41

then we never spoke again. Did she apologize

21:43

when you returned the scissors? No, she

21:45

just like took them back and just was like, thanks.

21:48

I think she probably felt sort of interrupted

21:51

and having her privacy impeded upon.

21:53

But also I had like a very benign request

21:56

and was met with open hostility. So

21:59

it did not.

21:59

What make me want

22:02

to knock on more doors? That's

22:05

for sure. It was just a reminder,

22:07

like, just because somebody lives near you doesn't

22:09

mean they're going to be neighborly.

22:11

["Ave Maria"] How

22:18

can you ask a next-door neighbor

22:20

for help without feeling like you're an

22:22

inconvenience? Well,

22:25

the amazing thing is that,

22:26

you know, with relationships, it

22:29

all works the opposite of what

22:31

our fears are telling us the way that they work.

22:34

So, you know, you think

22:36

giving something away means you lose something,

22:39

but actually giving something is a gain. You

22:41

think that when you reveal something about yourself,

22:44

it'll make you hated because people will

22:46

disagree with the particularities of you, but it

22:48

actually makes you loved more, and being generic

22:50

is what alienates you from people.

22:53

One of the things that's been relieving

22:55

but also tough is that, like,

22:57

on the one hand, the idea that having

22:59

that kind of community you want feels

23:02

so hard is not

23:03

just your fault for not trying

23:05

hard enough because there's a lot of institutional

23:07

things that work, but then it also feels

23:10

discouraging because there's only so much I,

23:12

as one person, can do to

23:14

change any of that.

23:16

It is none of our faults, and we shouldn't

23:18

be accountable. This is not

23:20

a finger-wagging at individuals to

23:23

solve this alone. Like, the answer is just going to

23:25

be all of us decide to be nicer and reach out more.

23:27

It needs to be a mix of us individually

23:30

doing that and rebuilding the civic infrastructure

23:32

that helps us do it. You know, it's not

23:35

just reaching out to your neighbors. It's reaching out to your

23:37

neighbors to talk about how we can reach out to

23:39

our neighbors.

23:40

And what are some things that you've done

23:43

in your life to

23:45

be committed and stay committed

23:46

to your neighbors? Do you bring

23:48

them cookies? What do you do? Yeah,

23:50

you know, we are increasing our gift game. Okay.

23:53

What's your best gift?

23:55

We're mostly doing baked goods and flowers

23:57

now, and actually the flowers is a double-

23:59

commitment, which is our local farmers

24:02

market. We've become friends with the florist there,

24:04

and we're going to go visit the florist at their flower

24:06

farm soon because we've decided to not just like

24:09

treat them as, you know, the person we

24:11

buy flowers from. And then we bring

24:13

those flowers to our neighbors and try to have a connection

24:15

there.

24:16

Yeah. Okay. I just have one

24:18

last question for you. It's very philosophical.

24:20

What does community

24:23

mean to you?

24:25

The book that changed my life more

24:28

than any other, it's called I Am

24:30

Thou by Martin Buber, who

24:32

is a Jewish theologian from early 20th

24:34

century. He lays out

24:36

these two ways of relating to the world. He calls

24:39

it I Am It and I Am Thou or

24:41

I Am You. And

24:43

what I Am It is, is

24:45

you see everything

24:48

around you. You see other people, but also

24:50

the whole world. You see them as

24:53

objects. It's that

24:55

have

24:56

served purposes in your life, only

24:59

reflecting what they are to you, how they

25:01

bother you or how they help you, how they're different

25:03

from you, how they're similar to you. I Am

25:05

You relates to all the rest

25:07

of the world as you.

25:09

They are fellow subjects. They are also players

25:11

in the video game of life. They are full

25:14

of life. They have a depth that you can understand

25:16

when you really are engaging

25:18

with them and you let all

25:20

of the ways that they measure up or help you or

25:22

facilitate you or bother you or compare

25:25

with everything else. When you let that fall away,

25:27

you're like bathed in the light

25:29

of their shared reality with you. They're

25:31

also there. And even just a small

25:34

victory in that fight by building a tiny

25:36

relationship with one other person isn't

25:38

a small thing. It's everything.

25:41

That's amazing. Pete,

25:44

thank you so much. It was really, really great

25:46

talking to you and having you on the show.

25:47

Thank you so much. So appreciate what

25:50

you're doing with

25:50

us.

25:59

Pete talking about, like, tiny

26:02

steps and the importance of

26:04

small relationships. I

26:06

think I can get stuck in black and

26:08

white thinking sometimes where I'm like, oh,

26:10

the stakes are really high because either my neighbor's

26:12

gonna hate me, like the scissor lady,

26:15

or if I just do all the right things, then

26:17

we're gonna be best buds and we'll share beers on

26:19

the roof in the evening. And, like, as

26:22

with most things, I think the truth is

26:24

often somewhere more in the middle. And

26:27

there's this concept called Dunbar's number. The

26:29

psychologist

26:29

Robin Dunbar has theorized that people are

26:33

only able to actually cognitively handle

26:36

maintaining so many relationships at once.

26:38

About five

26:40

deep intimate friendships at a time,

26:42

but you can actually handle about 150

26:44

or so friendships total

26:47

in your sort of larger web of the

26:50

friends of friends and the college friends. So

26:52

I feel like neighbors maybe fall

26:54

into one of those outer rings where it's okay

26:56

that you just sort of know

26:59

their name and the name

27:01

of their dog. And, you

27:04

know, that

27:05

type of relationship is enough.

27:07

So my very small update on my own

27:09

neighbor relationship is the other day I

27:12

saw those same roof neighbors who

27:14

we introduced ourselves to like a year

27:16

ago and then never spoke to again. And

27:19

I sort of made myself go over there and

27:21

say like, hey, you're so and so

27:23

and so and so, right? Like I remember your names.

27:26

I just said, you know, I just wanted to offer

27:28

like, since we share a roof and it would be really

27:30

easy if you're ever out of town and you need

27:32

us to water your plants, like we would be happy to. And

27:35

they were like, oh great, like same. We

27:37

would be happy to do that too. So

27:40

we did make that tiny step

27:42

towards a very small plant

27:45

watering relationship. I hope

27:47

you're proud of me. I'm very proud of you. And

27:49

that may soon segue

27:51

into rooftop drinks. Ooh,

27:54

well, we'll see.

27:59

It's actually... a lot more

28:01

than nothing to have

28:03

someone right next door who's a little

28:06

something more than a stringer. I

28:08

mean, now every time I sing, I know someone

28:11

is listening. Hahahaha!

28:25

That's all for this episode of How to Talk to People.

28:27

This episode was produced by me, Becca Rashid,

28:30

and hosted by Julie Beck. Editing

28:32

by Jocelyn Frank. Fact check

28:35

by Anna Alvarado. Engineering

28:37

by Rob Smersiak. Special thanks

28:39

to A.C. Valdez. The executive

28:42

producer of audio is Claudina Bathe. The

28:44

managing editor of audio is Andrea

28:46

Valdez.