The friend ship recession. Are we in a friend ship recession? If so, is it a problem? And if it's a problem, what's the right way to solve it? What's the right way to build from scratch a robust series of friendships in your life? This seems really tightly connected to our broader vision and living a deeper life in a distracted world, especially in a world where we have these social apps and text messaging tools that give us the illusion of being connected to people.

But don't trick our brain into thinking that we're actually being social. Real friends matter now than they ever have before. So in order to talk about this, I'm going to bring on a special guest. That's a long time, a friend of mine and a long time friend of the show.

It's a comedian and podcaster, Jamie Kilstein. I'm bringing him on because he recently went through a process of building up. A robust group of male friendships in his forties. So I figured he would have a lot to teach us about what worked and what didn't. So let's get Jamie on the line now to talk about the friendship recession.

Jamie, I brought you on because, you know, we were actually just talking about this topic offline and I was thinking, wait a second, save it. Let's do this in public because I guess that's what we do these days. Everything is in public. So anyways, thanks for coming on and helping me figure out this topic.

Now, is that term though, friendship recession, is that one you had heard, or is that just us being geeky? Yeah, I was going to say, I haven't heard it because I have friends that I'm hanging out with and not reading your dorky newspapers. Uh, no, it, uh, uh, it makes, it's something that I haven't heard that term, but when you said it, it hit me so hard in my heart that I was like, oh yeah, that.

I mean, I think about, it just automatically made me think about the years I was just drowning and didn't even think about the fact that I had like. No male friends and that I was just trying to fill the void with everything else, you know, girls career, you know, whatever.

Um, and yeah, so I mean, it, it, it makes total sense. Um, but I also think there's some easy fixes we can get into. Um, but yeah, I'm here for it. And I'm also glad you introduced me as your friend, because that would have been a real sad turn to this segment.

Or, or my, or just my only friend, maybe that would have set the segment up better. Although dude, I do feel like podcasters, I don't want to get too, uh, too esoteric, but I do feel like we make our friends. I mean, this will tie into actually social. I mean, I think a lot of people have convinced themselves that if they talk to a lot of people on Twitter or social media, that they're actual friends and it's like, or I mean, even like girls on only fans and it's like, no, that is not a real connection, it's artificial.

And even for us, for podcasters, you know, I consider guys friends. And then I realized I've just podcasted with them. Right. Frequent guest on your podcast does not equate to a male, male friendship. Like I've been on your show like four times, like, come on, we're best friends. Um, let me show you, I'll show you, let me show you the actual article that coined this term.

We'll look at a couple of the claims here and see if we're all on the same page. All right. So as far as I can tell, this Daniel Cox article from a couple of years ago from the national review is where the term friendship recession was introduced. It was then supercharged by Richard Reeves doing a big think interview more recently, but I think this was the original source.

It just didn't spread as much back then. I guess we were still thinking about pandemics and such. Uh, so here's a couple of quotes from this article just to put us on the same page, um, as Americans try to rebuild and reconnect a new survey conducted by the survey center on American life finds that the social landscape is far less favorable.

Then it once was over the past three decades, the number of close friends Americans have has plummeted. This friendship recession first use of that term in print, I believe is particularly bad for men. The percentage of men with at least six close friends fell by half since 1990. From 55% to 27%.

The study also found the percentage of men without any close friends jumped from 3% to 15%, a five fold increase. Single men have fared worse. Uh, I also heard the author Richard Reeves, when he was talking about this more recently cite a study that said loneliness is equivalent from a health perspective to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

All right. So we've got a couple of things. When you smoke a cigarette, you look cool when you're just lonely. What a bummer. Well, and also you, you're going to get friends if you smoke cigarettes because they're going to think you're awesome. Go smoke cigarettes. What are you doing?

What was that on a podcast? Um, yeah, man, that, uh, you know, I mean, geez, I'm even thinking about. I think I have really healthy male friendships now for the first time in my life, it's helped me a lot, but as you were reading that, I started to think like how rare it is, so like my brother is still friends with like his best friends from high school and my reaction to that is like, what's wrong with you guys when that probably is like, it's so healthy, it's so good.

And yeah, how that ties into loneliness. I really think that a huge part of it is we're getting these false senses of friendship from the internet. You know, Oh, me and all these people are mad at Ted Cruz on Twitter. That's, that's my posse, right. Or, or again, I mean, only family I've never, I have girlfriends who have only fan pages.

I've never talked to them about it, but I've never subscribed, but apparently it is, uh, you know, you're, you're talking back and forth to them. Like you're in a relationship or like you're, you know, whatever. And so if you're already lonely and nervous about the real world or nervous to date or whatever, and then you just have these tools like, Hey, here's a sense of it.

Um, I can just see how that would just like spiral into utter despair. Right, right. There's a technological element also explaining this. I cited some of these studies in my book, digital minimalism. These at the time, they seemed paradoxical, but these studies that showed when social media use went up, so did loneliness, and then the social psychologist followed up and said, what's going on here?

And they introduced this term, social snacking, where they said, as you use social media more, you convince yourself that you're getting your daily dose of social interaction. So you do less of the analog social interaction, but our brain does not recognize digital interaction, especially just text-based interaction, like on a text message screen or leaving comments on Instagram, our brain doesn't recognize that as interacting.

So you think you're social deeper in your brain. They're saying we haven't interacted with a human in weeks and you feel sort of paradoxically lonely. So technology, it made this worse is what it, what it sounds. Well, I mean, you know, you eat a, you eat two buckets of KFC chicken and you're like, all right, I'm really full and feel sick.

And I guess I got my protein intake, but it's just like, are you actually getting like substance? You know, it's that's why, you know, when friends of mine or me even would like really poor and younger, you just eat a bunch of fast food because you're like, well, this is cheap and I'm getting so much.

And it's like, yeah, but you're not, you're getting so much like, and you're getting all these empty calories. You're not getting real, you know, nutrition. And so really similar. Now, let me, before we get to, I want to get to the specifics of your transformation, because it's very interesting to me, your friend transformation, but just because you're, you're more in touch with the culture around us than I am, because, you know, I'm married with a bunch of kids and I'm too busy and don't know what's going on.

And I'm a nerd. That was kind of a nice way of being like, you're, uh, you're sad and, uh, don't have a family. Yeah. So when it comes to sad family list people, I think number one person. Yeah. You and Jennifer Aniston, like these are the two, um, no, but when you just look around, you're, you're, you're out in the world more than I am.

Do you buy that? It's, this is worse in general. Like when you're talking to other men, when you see other men, uh, you know, in your social circles, are people, are you seeing this? Are people lonely? Are people talking about it? What's the word from the street, Jamie? Yeah.

Men are desperate for connection and it is. You know, it's, it's hard, man. It's weird. Uh, because it's hard enough to find a girlfriend, to find someone to date, to ask someone out, let alone, you're kind of doing the same thing, but like with a dude, you know what I mean?

Like I even noticed that, and I'm sure the guys listening to this can like cop to this as I remember, I just became really good friends with my, uh, my trainer, the dude who trains me at the gym. And you know, I would come home and I would like light up to my girlfriend about him just like you would when you met a girl.

I was like, Oh my God, Travis, like he's so sweet. And like, he's like really pushing me harder. And like, I felt like I, like I PR today and then we got in the sauna and like, man, we were talking about like spirituality and suddenly like, as I'm describing him, I'm like, Oh, this is how I would describe, Oh my God, I just met this girl.

She's so cute. Like we vibe on the same things. We have the same goals, blah, blah, blah. And, uh, but it, it, it, it takes a little bit of like security, you know? I mean, Cal, when we grew up, everything was called gay. It's like, Oh, you're showing emotion.

Oh, you're, you know, in touch with your feelings. Like, Oh, you're hanging out with that. And so like, I really do think there's this weird part in men where it's like, we want so desperately that male connection. Like jujitsu so popular. Um, you know, we, we, we, we've, we've gone from handshakes to like bro hug, but like full hug is only for like really good.

Like there is, uh, we crave that camaraderie, but it's also like, we don't want to be weird. Um, especially as you get older, I mean, making friends in general is super hard. What, I mean, do you think something has changed about that? So in other words, in 1990, that was the end point of that article that like in 1990 compared to now there's been this five fold increase in not having close friends, et cetera.

Was there, I mean, there must be a pathway to male friendships that existed in the dozen now, because of course it's not that in 1990, we were much more comfortable, you know, expressing feel that's when we grew up, right. As you were saying, this was where, uh, yeah, if you were in touch with your feelings, that was gay.

But if you used a phrase, you're in touch with your feelings, that too was gay. And so it all sort of recursively piled up on itself. So what was it? There must've been, maybe it's just the, the, the, the role of work maybe was more stability and location. You didn't move so much.

Maybe it was church. Maybe it was family earlier. There's gotta be something that was a cheat code for male friendships. Then when that was removed, it was suddenly to use a metaphor from our childhood. You couldn't beat the boss and Contra because you no longer had the, you no longer had the super gun or whatever.

I don't really know what that would be. I don't know if you have any thoughts about 1990 versus now. No. So I think that it definitely has to do with the internet and it just has to do with like less social gatherings in general. Right. So I was always a girlfriend guy.

I believe the term is codependent and I would always just, my relationship was everything. And when I broke up, that's why this breakup going through now is super weird. And actually I'm leaning on male friendships for the first time because usually I lose a girlfriend and I go, ah, I gotta go to the next girlfriend.

Right? Like that's the only option for connection. And so I think like, if you look at 1990, there were just more gatherings, right? More people went to church. There were, if you were a liberal, you were unions, you, you know, you, you weren't working from home as much. Yeah.

You went to an office, you went to an office every day. The last time I had friends was like my football team in high school. And I've been like getting out of shape. It's like, go to a gym, join a CrossFit, do jujitsu. I mean, if I didn't do jujitsu, I'd probably still have zero male friends.

That was the thing for me. So you do something cool and challenging with guys who, you know, you. All like most of my male friends I look up to. Yeah. And I don't know if people think, you know, when they're, when, when, when they're looking for friends that like, they have to be the cool one.

And it's like, no, you don't want a bunch of little like mean girl underlings. Like you will be good enough. People love helping other people. You know? I mean, the fighters I hang out with are the best fighters in the world. And they're not like, you can't hang out with us until you become the best fighter in the world.

I give something else to that circle and then they build me up and make me a better fighter. Um, and so literally just like, again, this, it sounds like they didn't advise shoot your shot. Yeah. Well, okay. And it's like, uh, when you're talking about hanging out with the best fighters in the world, uh, I can't help, but think about the, the guy from blood sport.

Whose main fighting style was the just boom, the guy with the beard and the, and the American with the Harley Davidson shirt, but him hanging out with John Claude Van Damme or David Dukes as the character's name was probably, uh, really life affirming for him until, uh, he was put into a coma by being too cocky about knocking out the guy with the giant pecs.

But I think this is, it's very apt, right? It, it raised his element, but okay. So this is what I want to get to now. So we're gonna talk about be friended, all of those drug locks Jamaican instead of killing them. Would he have, would he have found a healthier inner life balance?

I think so. I just read a book about Steven Seagal, by the way, this is a different story, but okay. We'll talk about that afterwards. Cause I became friends with his daughter. Who's very nice. Uh, but I have so many questions for her that I'm just like, like sitting on.

Oh my God. It was such a weird, it was a whole, it was a whole book about 1980s action films and all of those actors. Um, weird, interesting, fantastical, terrible. It's just, okay. Anyways. Uh, we'll put that aside. I mean, I think what we're trying to build towards is we would like a Steven Seagal to be our friend.

All right, but let's go back to, let's go to your life though. Right? Because my, my understanding is, um, you recently added, you made male friendships really for the first time in a long time, a big part of your life. My understanding of your timeline, tell me if I have this wrong, but here's my, here's my Jamie Kilstein timeline.

All right. This always makes me nervous. You're living in LA more or less just hanging out with Moby. Yeah. Then you move to Arizona. And as far as I can tell, you were living in a retirement community. So you're essentially hanging out with, with, uh, um, old ladies. Yeah.

And like elderly Mexican men, then you moved to Austin and it's somehow, once you got to Austin, you now seem to have a lot of friends that you do things with. All right. So give us the story here. How did you get friends? Like what as a 40 year old male at the time in Austin, Texas, what happened?

Okay. So here's what I think happened. And again, this is very similar to dating advice that time in Arizona, when I was like kind of a hermit. Um, so I moved to Arizona with an ex-girlfriend of mine because we were in LA and we were clearly settling for each other, but we were both nice enough.

We were just, it was my only dating app, uh, relationship. And we were just like, she was tired of creepy guys. I was tired of like LA girls on the internet. And, um, we just so desperately wanted to make it work that we were like, you know what, this it's probably LA's fault.

It's probably not us. We should just leave LA. And so I end up in, so we go to air, we literally picked a place randomly on the map and so we were outside of Tucson, Arizona and not surprisingly, um, we broke up, um, I think probably like a year after living in Arizona, like right before COVID happened.

So my first time as being a single adult male was over COVID. Um, which is, Oh boy. Um, it's a really like a do or die situation, which is like, am I going to kill myself or am I going to do what I probably should have done a long time ago, which is like figure out who I am.

The year that I spent by myself was the first time that I figured out who I really was and I couldn't try to fill that gap with, so now I have this breakup. It was a loving breakup. It was a sad breakup. I had this breakup with, with my girlfriend and I have to fight the urge to be like, okay, just find a new girlfriend because usually we're so used to kind of like adapting, um, to whoever, like the next person is COVID did not allow me to do, there was no other option.

I couldn't date. I couldn't have friends. I couldn't do any of this stuff. And so for your listeners who are really lonely right now and are struggling, I can say that the first thing you should do before you date, before you even make male friends is figure out like, who are you?

Because that year I was reading books. I was finally watching the movies I wanted to watch. I was like taking walks in nature. I started meditating. I was doing all these things on my own. Yeah. So, so what you're saying is, so you got, uh, familiar with yourself. Yep.

Took the time to actually be with yourself. And I, and I would add the addendum to that, which you're not going to do by spending more time on screen. So we'll just add in that caveat. Notice every example, Jamie gave walks, meditation, getting back into activities he had enjoyed before reading books, watching movies, none of this was, um, fight on Twitter with your crew.

Yeah. Yeah. Get your Instagram follower. Yeah. Yeah. Bus only fan. Like, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. Yeah. All right. So then you, so you, you got to know yourself and then it sounds like what happened was you use that to identify meaningful analog activity. Now that you had the self-reflection, you could identify, uh, like for you, for example, you got back in the jujitsu, which is something you had done very seriously, um, earlier in your life.

Yeah. And then, uh, then church after that, which again was coming out of self-reflection. You were now very familiar. You were familiar enough with yourself that when you were sort of looking around and hanging out with the sort of spiritual, not religious types, like this isn't quite right, I think a church, but this church that required self.

Knowledge, right. Yeah. You actually, I think of the church and was like, do I hate Moby? Um, but yeah, no, I mean like, dude, the, my superpower and the reason I'm not dead is like being able to like be self analytical, it started as self hate, which sometimes can backfire.

Um, but yeah, just being like, why am I here? What? Because I also want to add that if you're looking for friends or a girl going to a bar every night, just like screens also isn't the answer, right? Because you feel like, well, I'm surrounded by people, but you're numbing yourself out, you're having vapid conversations.

If you can even have a conversation over the music. Like, I always joke that I want to meet my next girlfriend, just like at a bookstore. Yeah. Um, like, I just want to like, we accidentally both reach for like the same, the graphic novel, the same Calvin and Hobbes book or something.

Um, and, but I think that, and when we, when we were talking, you know, right before we went on air, um, about this, I did not think that this is where this was nowhere in my head that I was going to veer in this direction. Um, but as I talk about it, I realize, oh my God, this is the most important thing you can do, which sounds, um, uh, counterintuitive because we're talking about being lonely.

So it's like, why would you want to spend more time with yourself? There is such a difference between, you know, if I stayed at home all day and just scrolled on Instagram and watched porn and, you know, texted my ex like, yeah, dude, that's a real lonely day by myself.

But if I write and I go to the gym and maybe instead of having coffee here, I go to Starbucks and I asked the, the, the barista how they're doing, and I have that interaction and then I meditate and then I journal what I've. Like I'm waking up early, not sleep at the, I wake up at five 15.

I don't have a job. I'm an artist. I'm a comic. I wake up at five 15 every day so that I can have that time to myself. Um, man, when I'm around people, that's how I can be my authentic self. And then when you're being your authentic self, you will attract, um, people who are like, oh, I like that guy.

And you will also be able to walk away from, um, a circle of friends that maybe that's just, you know, whatever, whatever the hookup version is of, of friends. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then there's one final step here to get out the, the, the touch on. So we have the self-reflection leads to activities that are deeply meaningful.

You're meeting people through those activities. So you're, you're now surrounded by people who are on the same wavelength. So this is clearly going to be a source of, uh, high quality friendships. I guess the final piece then is there's still a little bit of trigger polling that requires a little strategizing.

We hinted at this earlier, but now it's like, I really like these guys. And we're on the same wavelength and, uh, they make me better. And I really like hanging out with them. So then there's that final piece, right? Okay. Now I have to just have the courage to say, and this is the dating analogy, but.

Hey, you want to come watch the fight or do you want to come do whatever? So, so what did you discover about that? Is that as bad as men fear or is it just something you got to just go for? Yeah. I'm like, I'm running through because I'm also, um, I'm an introvert and so I'm not good at it.

I seem very like bubbly and social in social settings. It's just cause I'm projecting and I'm terrified. Yeah. Um, so I definitely haven't been like, you know, Hey, do you want to go get coffee? I mean, I have my pastors, but that's like their job. Um, I feel like when my pastor's hanging out with me, that's like, if I was like, I had sex, but like I paid an escort, it's like, what is she supposed to do that?

Um, my pastor see him sad, but like, okay. So be someone you would want to hang out with is number one, right? So if I go to jujitsu and I sit in the corner and scowl at everybody, um, I'm probably not going to get an invite to hang out.

But if every time I go to spar with someone, I go, Hey man, what's your name? Great. And then we roll and I go, Hey, when you did this, that was really good. You know, blah, blah, blah. And then maybe they start coming and asking me for advice, you know, whatever.

Um, maybe everyone, maybe you're the funny person. Maybe you're the person who just asked people how their day is. Maybe you just, you know, my, uh, my main jujitsu coach is this guy, Marcelo Garcia, who is the best in the world. So his gym was like packed, but every day he would go up and he would walk around while people were chatting and he would shake everyone's hand.

Um, and so I try to do that when I go to a gym, I try to like, you know, if I'm teaching the kids class, I'll shake the parents hand, stuff like that. Um, and then through that, people just feel comfortable around you and maybe they start asking you questions and maybe they just become your gym buddy.

I have dozens of gym buddies who I've never hung out with, but there are also people that if I show up and they go, Hey, how are you doing? I can tell them, Hey man, I'm struggling. I got this breakup and they will give me amazing advice before class.

Um, then usually in these places, there are like group activities. So if you're going to a CrossFit gym or a jujitsu place, chances are, yeah, when there's a big pay-per-view, they're going to watch the fights and. You know, you can be so likable that they invite you. There have definitely been times where I'm like, I just have a good enough sense that I'm like, these guys like me, like they follow me on Instagram.

Even if I don't follow them, like, I think they like me that I'll even be like, Hey guys, if there's ever room, like I'd love to watch the fights with you. You don't have to say, can I come and watch Izzy fight this Saturday? But you can go like, Hey, if there's ever, or if you're ever going out, um, one of my church friends, uh, this girl, AJ.

The day after the breakup I go, Hey man, I gotta be more social. I know. Like, I usually say no when you guys like invite me out, but like, if there's ever anything going on, can you at least like float it to me? And she goes, Oh my God, I'm having a birthday dinner tonight.

I was like, didn't want to invite. I figured you wouldn't want to go. Do you want to go? And I went and then I met a bunch of different church friends and now they've hit me up, um, the one piece of advice I really want to give, cause I know you won't give it on another piece, uh, on another episode is this is where social media can actually be kind of good.

Um, and maybe I don't know if it's this, I think it's for normie people. Cause I have a bit of like an audience. So people think it's in my real life. If they don't know what I do, they think it's cool. And they follow me. But, um, I have had a couple people that I've met from jujitsu or church or whatever, that they'll find me on Instagram.

And that kind of tells me, Oh, this person like likes me. And maybe when they write me on Instagram, you know, I can't write like every like random person back, but like when they write me, I go, Oh shit. Nehemiah from church is hitting me up. Like about my story.

Like maybe I actually have more in common with him than I thought. And that will kind of like, um, that'll be an icebreaker for, cause I don't want to just, I have very low self-confidence. Um, so I don't assume people like me. Um, but if I see someone's like followed me on Instagram, I'm like, Oh, okay.

But then where you will agree is then it's your job to not keep that relationship in Instagram. Right. I mean, you're describing like 2010 social media where it really was. Okay. My, my friends follow this. We keep up with each other. And sometimes I get a second order connection, like a friend of a friend who I sort of know is a way for them to interact with me.

And that was the heyday of social media. It was just, yeah. Yes. That's different than being like, I'm friends with Tucker Carlson because we both hate the same people on Twitter. It was like, yeah, yeah. He liked a tweet of mine. Uh, all right. This is excellent. So I'm going to do what I do, which is try to reduce this all down to, uh, step-by-step advice for my listeners.

So this is the Jamie Kilstein prescription. Um, well, first of all, the, the setup here is that especially for males, uh, friendships are really important, especially, uh, as you're getting to your thirties and forties, as we, as Jamie was talking about, it is, if anything, like a buffer against hard things that happen in your life, a, a, a source of motivation, et cetera.

So you need them. Don't, don't just have, uh, don't just keep in touch with your high school buddies or just know like, I don't want to mess up your list, but I didn't go into nearly as much detail on that I was trying to get to the how to, but like, it has saved my life.

A hundred percent. I have been going through so much for the last decade, 15 years of my life. That having strong male friends who I look up to be able to like, when I'm struggling, like this sounds so cheesy, but like put a hand on my shoulder and be like, dude, I see how hard you're working.

You are going to be like, so good. You have no idea how far you've come since even the first day I met you and having another man tell you that you just go, Oh, like that's so much different than even like your wife being like, babe, you got this.

It's just, it's different. Um, yeah, it's, it's, it's been. Yeah. Right. So, uh, fundamental, it's saved Jamie's life. Fundamental. Okay. Um, so, so how do we do this? Well, if we're going to, if we're going to make a prescription here, one, I would say go back to, you know, my digital declutter is a good starting place.

The thing we talk about in digital minimalism, where you take 30 days away from all this optional technology, do self-reflection experimentation. We usually talk about the digital declutter just as a way of figuring out how to update your technology use. But now let's add that on as the first step towards upgrading your friendship situation, because during that 30 days of reflection experimentation, you get to know yourself better.

Now, typically we say at the end of that 30 days, I look at your tech use fine, but let's add a new obligation here at the end of that 30 days, join something. Yeah. Join something based on what you discovered during that 30 day declutter that is going to surround you with other people who are on the same wavelength with your values.

Um, and I would add to that. Being around those people will probably also bring other things into your radar to join. I mean, Jamie, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's, there's a synergy between uh, you getting back in the jujitsu and the church because there's, there's crossovers, right?

Some of the people that the fighters you were meeting were also religious. And so these things cross pollinate, they weren't two separate thoughts. It was like, once you're in the world of people you admire and like to be around other meaningful things emerge. I mean, I got that right.

Right. It was all these things sort of mixed together. Yeah. And that actually, that, that, that's another great tip, which is like, once you know yourself and you have these interests and these things that you love that are kind of different or whatever, you're going to be able to connect with these people and then you're going to be able to like, you know, like, you're going to be able to connect with these people.

You know, like, you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people.

And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people.

And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people.

And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people.

And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people. And then you're going to be able to connect with these people.

And let me know. I mean, I have like this civilian commando gear. I've got this bear shaman, you know, mask helmet. Look, I have it, you know, whatever. You're raiding a building. Just let me know. Just going to collect dust. Just going to collect. I'm not using it, you know.

I'm not using it. Let me know what could go wrong. I think everyone will forgive us. Yeah, that's a good turn. Yeah, good turn. Okay, so that, but here's what's cool about that advice though. Is like right now, if you're listening to this and you're thinking, you know what, this is me, I'm lonely.

I'm online all the time and I'm feeling lonely. I have no backstop. This plan we're talking about, this is six months from right now, potentially to a very upgraded friend relationship. A month or so of self-reflection, you join things, get involved for a few months. That's it. Yeah, you do that.

You're going to have at least a few new friends and then it's going to snowball from there, you know, and then like, well, this and some, you're going to tighten some friendships and others will loose. But that's it like six months from now. Uh, because it went fast for you, Jamie.

So like give, give our listeners hope like six months from now, you really could be in a, a very positive social situation. Friendlines everything else, you know, it's like that builds you up. Um, so you become a more confident person. You being a more confident person leads to other things in your life.

You know, I, this is very hard for me to say because I've been flamed by a lot of like constantly online people. But what I will say is like, while it is not healthy to only have these relationships online, clearly you're in, if you're listening to this, like you're intelligent, you're funny, right?

Like, um, you make people laugh on Twitter or Reddit or whatever. Um, those skills that you have online, it's going to be nerve wracking at first, but they do translate, they do tra like if you can make people laugh online, you can make people laugh, um, in real life.

It's just about building up that confidence and that's going to be a, you know, a step by step process and then show yourself grace. You know, um, if you do get nervous and you're like, oh, this is so stupid, you know, ever since I started reading, they were listening to self development podcasts or even with religion, um, the worst you can feel sometimes is before the breakthrough where you go, I'm doing the right stuff.

Like I go to church now, why would I have a breakup? You know? Um, or I'm trying to make friends. I did everything Cal said and I showed up at the fights and I was too nervous and didn't say anything. I guess there's no hope. Nope. That's just the first step.

And then the next time you're like, I'm going to talk a little more. And then the next time and you just keep piling on wins. Yep. And you look back and say, I'm glad I started right. Exactly. We did there. All right. Well, excellent. Well, this was great, Jamie.

Um, just reminder for the audience, your podcast is the back row with Jamie Kilstein. What's that website, Jamie? Yeah, you can go to back row pod.com. Um, and there's the, the YouTube channel and I have a, I have a newsletter I do every week now where I'm writing about mental health and stuff like that.

And, uh, yeah, we're talking about like the mental health spiritual journey, but also, um, they're getting a little more into like culture politics and trying to bring people together and laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Yeah. Sounds, uh, with something to do with friends. All right, Jamie. Well, thanks for joining me.

I look forward to talking to you again in four months. That's the way we do it. Bye old friend. Hey, if you liked this video, I think you'll really like this one as well.