Frientimacy

Paywalls make great teachers

A few months ago for the Reframeables podcast

Rebecca Davey

and I interviewed a friendship expert. Beyond hitting home with our regular listeners, that episode with Shasta Nelson also found its way into the podcast playlists of some friendship-querying strangers. It was all thanks to the comment section of a Stylist Magazine post that I randomly found my way into.

The online magazine had drawn me in with a clickbait-ish title, something like “how to deal with friendship failures.” We had just taped our episode so I thought it was a timely find, but then I was paywalled.¹ So I took that closed-door opportunity to share our Frientimacy episde link with the other frustrated Stylist readers who couldn’t access the article in their comment section.

And then I moved on with my day.

It was only when the irritating pinging of phone notifications started at a pace that I remembered my link drop. Later that evening when we looked at our download numbers for the Frientimacy episode Becca and I landed on two key takeaways:

1. People want to talk about the challenges of friendship.

2. Paywalls can (inadvertently!) act as a uniting force.

Regarding friendship — Big ideas shared in our podcast episode are that quality friendships are necessary to our health and well-being, that it’s about quality over quantity when it comes to how many friends you surround yourself with, and that you have to be proactive in your frientimacy maintenance. Nelson’s infographic is helpful (especially if you listen to her explain it).

Essentially it means the pinnacle of a healthy friendship is reached when both sides of the mountain are climbed consistently and with vulnerability. Without a strong base built on positivity the friendship will not hold up under its own weight.

As for the uniting power of paywalls — I’m being a little facetious BUT I do think there’s a metaphor here. Getting blocked from the thing you’re after might prompt some healthy collegial action. I’ve written about unions here and I’m seeing a link. Maybe what we understand about friendship can add to our thinking around the importance of collegiality.

I take it a little further when I write about radical collegiality. Some of us spend more time with our work colleagues than we do with our friends. And because work isn’t always our happy place (though I hope it can be for you sometimes), the consistent and vulnerable effort required to facilitate positive interactions throughout a 9-5 is hard! Michael Fielding, who I borrow from in Finding Joy, suggests that we expand our collegium; Nelson suggests we do something similar in our efforts with friends. Widen our circles of care.

I’m pondering both of their ideas as I head into teaching a course on mentorship where I have a feeling new links will show up in my own comment section.

No paywall just yet 😉

1. I am totally willing to pay for good online material, but I’d much rather support an indie writer. I’m pretty confident that Stylist doesn’t need my money.