Why Having friends is so important in your divorce recovery - LeeAnn Blanchard || DPTSP #103 || David M. Webb

[00:00:01] Welcome to Don't Pick the Scab Podcast. Welcome to Don't Pick the Scab Podcast, the podcast designed to help men over 40 navigate the journey of recovery after divorce. Joining us today is LeeAnn Blanchard, a natural networker with over 15 years of experience as a meetup organizer. LeeAnn understands the challenges of building community in adulthood, especially after significant life changes.

[00:00:26] She will share her passion for creating deep and meaningful relationships through curated events, travel experiences, and engaging conversations. With her vibrant personality and insightful approach, LeeAnn helps clients overcome social anxiety, explore adult friendships, and discover the joy of belonging. She teaches and shows them how to connect, laugh, and learn how to forge lasting bonds in their new chapter of life.

[00:00:53] Welcome to the show, LeeAnn. Tell us a little about yourself. I've got some questions for you. Welcome to the Don't Pick the Scab Podcast with the premise of connecting men over 40 with the tools and community to thrive in their divorce recovery either before, during, or after a divorce. Check it out. Thank you for having me. My name is LeeAnn Blanchard. I'm in Baltimore, Maryland. And as you mentioned, I've been a meetup organizer for over 15 years and have just founded a new company called Adventure.

[00:01:23] And our purpose is to help adults make lasting long-term friendships. Why do you believe that community and connection are crucial for emotional healing, even something like divorce? I think why is fairly obvious. I think that after a breach of that magnitude, that depth, the thing that men in particular need more than anything is to feel connected again.

[00:01:52] Their nuclear family is now broken apart. Their extended family is now separated. Often, their actual community is also fractured. Maybe their church group needs to change because they've moved. Maybe they are now in a different neighborhood because they've had to move.

[00:02:14] All of the social structures that underpin men's mental health and well-being can be entirely fractured by divorce. And so they're particularly vulnerable also because society rewards men for being individuals and not for forming community.

[00:02:33] And so often it's more difficult for men to form community after they've lost their sort of crutch. Often men's social networks are somewhat reliant on their wives and their partners. And when that disappears, they just don't have the wherewithal to recreate it. Wow. What inspired you to start Adventurous and how has it evolved over the years from the beginning?

[00:03:02] So, as was mentioned, I've been a meetup organizer for over 15 years, and this is an outgrowth of my entire childhood. My parents loved to throw parties and we had parties all the time when I was a kid. We had, I have, there are four kids in my family and each of us had birthday parties and graduation parties, just end of the year parties, summer sleepovers for no reason.

[00:03:24] We partied a lot. We hung out with lots of people and my parents would host their book club and their ham radio club and their department club from work and like all of these parties all the time. So, I grew up in a very social environment. So, as an adult, it was very natural for me to be the instigator, to be the organizer of things. And when I discovered meetup, I was like, oh my gosh, this is the best thing ever. I'm going to meet all my people.

[00:03:54] Everything that I love to do, I'm going to gather a group around every single one of those things. But, meetup has some limitations and it's hard as an organizer because the thing that you want out of meetup isn't always what's given back to you. And so, out of those dissatisfactions, I thought about it for a long time.

[00:04:18] In fact, this was years in the making, deciding what it was that I wasn't getting and how do I need to restructure things so that I can get what I need as an organizer. And what I really needed was a more cohesive community. Meetup is great for meeting people. It's not necessarily great for nurturing friendships.

[00:04:41] It's too random. The people who participate do so at no cost and they join every type of group out there. And so, if they like Ultimate Frisbee, they are in an Ultimate Frisbee group. If they are Republican, they'll join a Republican group. If they are interested in kayaking, even if they've never been, they'll join a kayaking group. If they like to go to the theater, it's a theater group. But none of those groups have the same membership.

[00:05:10] So, they end up with very siloed groups of friends or single purpose friendships, not a community. And what I was looking for was real friends, actual friends. The type of friend that you would call on your way to the hospital. The type of friend that you would call if you needed a ride to the airport. And that's not going to be your Ultimate Frisbee buddy. So, how do I flip the script? How do I change what it is that I'm doing?

[00:05:37] How do I attract the kind of people that are interested in that level of connection? And what do I do to nurture those relationships going forward? So, that was the origin. Wow, interesting. What are common mistakes people make when trying to form new friendships as adults? Because most of the people have been divorced. They've had friendships forever, but now they're trying to forge new friendships.

[00:06:03] And with me, most of my friends are divorced because I met them at Divorce Recovery. Like-minded people. Go ahead. So, interesting that you should mention that. So, you now have this group of friends that originated out of some shared characteristics, some affinity that you all had, right?

[00:06:26] But the affinity that you have is recovering from something traumatic, something hard and difficult, right? That's the thing that you have in common. So, what happens when somebody actually recovers? Are they still welcome in the group? So, what happens when everybody recovers? What then is the thing that you do together?

[00:06:55] Because it's no longer focused on this past event. You now need to think to the future. And what are the other things that you have in common? And what are the other activities that you're going to do? Instead of getting together through the support group. How does that group evolve? So, I think one of the common mistakes that people make is when they're looking for new friendships,

[00:07:23] they are looking in places that are based on that single affinity. Again, the ultimate Frisbee club. The problem is there's not a lot of room to grow when that's the basis of your friendship. It's very siloed single purpose. It's not to say that it can't happen and that you can't form best friends from those groups.

[00:07:45] But that single activity or that single purpose needs to be added on to, particularly with a sports team like baseball. You're not going to have deep conversations while you are playing second base, right? So, if you want to make those people actual friends, you can't just play baseball together.

[00:08:07] Because there won't be an opportunity for you to casually mention other things or make other plans or share a meal together or talk about what's really going on at work. Those types of conversations are bonding activities. And typically, that's more how women bond is through conversation. But men need it too. Men are attracted to sports teams and things like that because they also bond through vasopressin.

[00:08:35] Overcoming something, a shared endeavor, achieving something together. Those are the types of things that men bond over. But they also need the conversation to support it. It can't just be we've accomplished something together. It also needs to be this is the person that I trust with my secrets. Or this is the person that I trust with my emotions. Because when the partner is gone, who else is there for you to be vulnerable with?

[00:09:04] So, I think men in particular need to be looking to not only do something that is enjoyable, but also finding a way to add more to those interactions to make them more holistic and more complete.

[00:09:20] Another classic mistake that people make, probably the first classic mistake is that they don't get other people's contact information or they are engaged in some sort of activity, which makes it difficult to get back in front of those same people again. So, we talked about meetup. Meetup activities are free-for-alls, right? If you can come, you sign up, great. But a lot of people sign up and then never show up.

[00:09:49] And even if you do meet someone that you like, being able to talk to them again is highly unlikely unless you ask for their number, get an email address, some other way that you can get together. There is a way to message on the platform, but people don't really use it as a messaging platform and people don't check it very often. And so, even when you find a connection, if there's no way to nurture it, you've wasted your time.

[00:10:20] You've missed an opportunity. So, I would say that's another classic issue or classic mistake. And then I would say maybe the third classic mistake is that people don't give it enough time. They'll try something once and if they don't see somebody immediately that strikes their fancy as somebody that they could hang out with, they abandon the endeavor.

[00:10:45] They don't ever go back to that same group again or they try something different and they jump from thing to thing. And six months goes by and they're completely discouraged because they've tried eight different things and nothing worked. When they would have been better served to try one thing eight times and then have gotten in front of some people, built some familiarity, maybe found some other likely prospects for friendship.

[00:11:13] So, it's almost meetup starts with the subset, but the adventure starts with the set and then breaks down to the subsets where the set rules and the subsets do not rule. Does that make sense a little bit? So, you're right in that Adventure Us is about bringing together all of the people who are interested in making friends. So, Mel Robbins puts it this way.

[00:11:44] You need three things to develop new friendships. She says that it's proximity, time, and energy. And I like to say it's propinquity, which is similar but maybe not quite the same thing. It isn't just about physical closeness. It's about the opportunity to be in front of one another. However, that manifests. It could be online. It could be in person. In person is obviously preferred, but it doesn't always have to be in person.

[00:12:13] So, you need to be in a group where you can get together often, somehow, some way. They say that it takes 200 hours to make someone a best friend. And 100 hours, on average, 100 hours to make someone a friend. Someone who's a friend, but maybe not your intimate confidant. 50 hours to get from, I know that person's face, to maybe what you'd call friendly.

[00:12:41] Someone who you can have a conversation with, but you don't seek each other out to spend time with. You're just maybe like church friends or work friends. You're friendly to one another when you encounter one another, but you're not seeking each other out. So, when you start looking at those statistics, like how many hours does it really take to feel like you get to know somebody? Are you going to be accumulating enough hours in a reasonable period of time?

[00:13:08] If the thing that you are doing is, again, softball is the example. You are playing a game together for, call it, two hours, one day a week. Maybe you also have practices for another two hours, a different day of the week. So, that's four hours a week. But if you want that person to be your best friend, it's going to take 200 hours to do that. At four hours a week, that's 50 weeks, and the season just isn't that long.

[00:13:35] So, you need something that is either more frequent, better quality time, so that it shrinks that 200 into something shorter. And then we get to that idea of timing. The timing has to be right for both of you. Both of you have to be in a place where you're actually looking to make a new connection or a friendship. Because if you're targeting someone who is essentially emotionally unavailable, it's not going to work out.

[00:14:02] This happens a lot when people, when divorce men in particular, are now onto their next relationship. Right? They fall into the pattern of, now I have someone in my life again. And now I'm really focused on that person. And so, these friends that they've made kind of fall by the wayside because now their timing has shifted. I'm now focused on this other thing, and I'm no longer interested in nurturing these relationships anymore.

[00:14:31] So, you get this mismatch in timing and a mismatch in energy. I'm not putting, not prioritizing these friendships because I'm prioritizing the partnership. And then some of the equity that they've built over the time that they've been in recovery is lost because they're now focused on the new partner, maybe getting married again, maybe starting a new family. It can be really, it can be really challenging on both sides.

[00:14:57] So, if you need those three things to make new friendships, what can you do to, I guess, minimize the resistance, minimize the friction? So, Adventure Us is specifically designed to make it easier. So, one of the things that we do is we have eight different in-person activities per month and four virtual activities per month.

[00:15:24] Because it just, it simply isn't feasible for everybody to be in front of everybody all the time. So, having that balance is helpful. And that enables us to be in front of one another two or three times per week. Now, not everybody does everything, of course, but you've got enough propinquity.

[00:15:45] You've got enough opportunities to see one another that you're accumulating hours faster and you're building familiarity in all of these different ways. These eight different activities that we have are in various categories. So, there's a performance and a game night and a cocktail party and there's different things because each of those different activities provides slightly different social utility.

[00:16:10] There's something different that you're getting, let's say, a performance that's very passive. You're just sitting and being entertained. That's great for people who are socially awkward or uncertain about trying to make conversation. Performances are great. Cocktail parties seem very daunting. But game nights, maybe that's the next step up because the game itself is your conversation piece.

[00:16:35] You don't have to think of things to say because it's your turn is your thing to say. So, it can build with these various activities. And then the issues of timing and energy are solved because this is a group where people are opting in with a paid subscription. People have put some money behind being included. That means that they are actively seeking new friendships.

[00:17:03] That means that they have evaluated whether they have time to do this, whether they have energy. Exactly. They are self-selecting. So, when you go to these activities, then you already have this baseline assumption that these people want to know you. They want to be friends with you. And that really reduces the kind of intestinal fortitude that it takes in order to put yourself out there. Wow.

[00:17:35] So, even on the Adventurous side, can you share examples of how Adventurous has helped people from lasting form, lasting connections? Absolutely. One of our members is a little bit younger than many of the others. And he's a little less socially savvy than others, I would say. I don't know why. I don't know his history. And it's not really any of my business.

[00:18:01] But when I first got to know him, I noticed that his conversation sometimes did not go over well. Things that he would choose to talk about or ways that he chose to phrase himself went over like a lead balloon. And over time, he's gotten better at picking up on the social clues.

[00:18:25] Also, I've been able to curtail some of those conversation starters that were not great. And over time, I've seen the evolution of someone who is less worried about what it is that he's going to say and more curious about what other people are going to say. And that endears him to people more. I've also seen that he is a lot more. First of all, he's one of our most attentive members.

[00:18:54] He's the one who signs up for everything and comes to everything. And I think that's because he's finding real value in this. This is his friend group. And it's, again, mostly people who are older than he is. But it doesn't matter. It's all about who's got, again, the energy and the right timing and the right, the desire to go and do things. That is the thing that we all have in common.

[00:19:23] And separately, there are two other members, women, who within a week of one another, both of them had conversations with me where they literally cried about how being involved with me and the groups and the activities that we're doing had changed their lives. Wow.

[00:19:47] That they had become more themselves because in one case, she was recovering from divorce and getting to know me and doing more things with us. Getting exposed to different things. She found out that she really loves taking improv classes. And so she's now formed. Not only has she taken more classes, but she's formed a group.

[00:20:12] Now she has this interest that has spawned other activities, other friendships. Her confidence is amazing. And she's become more herself. Another woman had been sick for a really long time. Chronic illness where she just was not able to be social. And she said, she told me specifically that she felt like a tourist in her own city, that I had helped her discover things that she didn't know existed.

[00:20:39] And how that brought her out of her shell. Now she has since moved away from Baltimore. So she's voluntarily started a new life in a new city. And the skills that she fostered, she strengthened while she was in our group, have helped her form new relationships and have the confidence to move and start over again. Because now she's got the tools.

[00:21:03] And because she's still involved in Adventure Us, she doesn't lose all the friendships that she had back in Baltimore. She's, in fact, she participated with us just last weekend when we did our virtual murder mystery. She was not the killer, but she was very suspicious. Wow, that's cool. What advice would you give to men over 40 who feel lonely after divorce? We talked about lonely in the interview. That is big for men. Yes. How can they handle that?

[00:21:31] I would say, first of all, it's okay to feel that way and give yourself permission to feel that way. You have earned it. You are right to feel that way. So you don't have to be ashamed of it. You don't have to try to fix it in the sense that you need to shut it down and not feel it. It's okay.

[00:21:57] It's fair and right and just that you mourn the losses that you're mourning. You went through something big and it is hard. It is very hard. So acknowledge and accept that loneliness as part of your human experience and feel those feelings. Don't just repress them. Don't just stuff them down. Give yourself room to breathe and grieve.

[00:22:28] And with that, also do things that feed your soul. Do something to help you to feel less alone and be strategic about it. During the pre-call, we were discussing a little bit about strategies that men can employ to feel less lonely. And I think you really do need a little bit of reflection within yourself. What is it that you are feeling? What's the source of it?

[00:22:58] What are the things that are contributing to it? And what is it that you can do? I had one divorced man tell me that in particular, he just had a difficult time being alone in his house. And so what is it that you can do to make your home less lonely? Is it that you can get a pet? Maybe that's helpful. Is it that you can invite people over to your home?

[00:23:25] Is that something that could help to fill the space with other bodies, other souls instead of just dwelling there alone? Is it something that is one of the things that you could go to somebody else's house? And how do you build those relationships? Is the source of your loneliness that you're no longer getting sex on the regular? Okay. Different problem with different solutions, right? Is the loneliness that you're feeling physical? Is it mental? Is it emotional?

[00:23:55] What is really going on? And delve into that. And then let's come up with some strategies that actually work for those things. Is it that you miss the intimacy of being able to talk about your day to someone who's nonjudgmental, who's on your side, who knows all the players, understands the drama from the past and how it's playing out into the future? Is that part of your loneliness? Yes.

[00:24:21] Then let's develop some friendships where you feel comfortable sharing those kinds of details and the people that you're telling want to hear it. So what's your brand of loneliness? And address that issue. Don't just fill your life with activities and people that aren't going to actually help, if that makes sense. Yep. It does. I got a doozy for you that you probably never heard. Okay. I got a guy.

[00:24:49] I got a guy who's starting to date again. Okay. He's been divorced a couple of years. He's back out there. And I've heard this too. More than one case where the woman will say, you have too many friends. That is a true story more than once. How does a guy handle that? Item number one, there is no such thing. All right. Okay.

[00:25:16] So I would say that the, I think the reaction of you have too many friends, there's something underneath that. That statement means something else. It doesn't mean that you have too many friends because that's ridiculous. What she might be saying is I don't feel prioritized.

[00:25:39] What she might be saying is the amount of time that you're spending with your friends or the particular days that you're spending with your friends or the types of activities that you're doing with your friends. Don't fit into my vision of our life together. So for instance, you have too many friends could mean that you are spending time with too many different groups of friends. Like you've got your bowling league on Tuesdays all the time.

[00:26:07] You're golfing on Saturdays all the time. Friday nights, you're meeting friends at the bar like three nights a week. You are unavailable to her because you are spending time with friends, not with her. Okay. Let's talk about it. Let's figure something out. Is it because she's missing you? Is it because she doesn't have friends to hang out with on Tuesdays and Fridays and Saturdays? Is it because when you're spending time together, when you are present,

[00:26:38] you're not present. So what's the underlying reason that she's making that kind of statement? Is it that your friends are not also my friends and maybe that's the solution? She's feeling left out. There's lots of different ways that could go. But I would say my advice is to challenge your assumptions, challenge her assumptions in a kind and loving way, of course. But get to whatever is the root of that.

[00:27:06] Because statements like that that are thrown out, there's always something vulnerable underneath it, maybe two or three layers. And I think you can come to some agreement. Good recovery. Leanne, you like jammed that one, sweetheart. Oh, yeah. Because I said, man, I need to ask for that question. Because I've heard that twice in relationships.

[00:27:35] And thinking back, that was probably it. And also, too, there's also sometimes a disconnect and or insecurity, if you will. It can happen. Awesome. Good job. Good job. So let me give you an example. So Adventure Us is for anyone. There is no age restriction. There is no relationship status. There is nothing that precludes people from joining. You just have to have good conversation, really, is what I tell people.

[00:28:05] That's our metric. Like, so we have members who are married. We have members who are single. We have members of all ages. We have gay. We have straight. We have all sorts of stuff. And what I've told several of our members who are married, in fact, when they were looking at the club or thinking about the club, I said, actually, Adventure Us is good for you. Because couple friends are really hard to find. Both of you have to like both of them.

[00:28:33] And that's hard. Tough. Very hard. But what if you were both friends with everybody? What if something came up that your partner wants to do? And they can just go do it. And there's something that comes up that you want to do. And you can just do it. And then there's something that you both do together. And it's with all the same people.

[00:28:58] So if you go do something by yourself and come home and say, oh, so-and-so asked about you or, oh, we talked about this thing. Even when your partner isn't there, they're part of the conversation. They're part of the group. They're part of the thing. And so they don't feel excluded when you are spending time away from them because they're self-excluded. I don't want to go fishing. That's not my thing. So you go fishing with all of our friends.

[00:29:24] I'm going to stay home and write that book I've always been wanting to write. And then when we go see ballet, I'm going to go to the ballet and you're going to stay home and tie flies for fishing or whatever you do. And then we are both going to come to game night. Perfect. Bring it together. Why is it harder for adults to form deep relationships compared to when you were younger? It's tough when you're older.

[00:29:54] No, this is easy. It is tough. You're right. But this is an easy question. I will tell you it is because all of the social structures that we had in the past that supported making friends are fewer and far between as we get older. So, for instance, when you were little, the people that you knew, your friends were probably people in your neighborhood that you met out riding bikes or making mud pies with. Cool beans.

[00:30:20] Then you went to school and you saw those people six hours a day, five days a week, and you made friends. And then after school, I mean, after you graduated, then your friends became coworkers. The people that you spend eight hours a day with, five days a week or more, because you're around each other all of the time. You're engaged in a shared endeavor. You're doing things that are important to you. You're learning things. It's work, right?

[00:30:48] If you are religious, that church attendance, church membership, you'll see each other at least once a week and often more because there might be a Bible study or an activity or something going on, maybe volunteering. So a couple times a week for a couple hours each time on the regular.

[00:31:05] Your last choice, your last method of making friends is affinities like the baseball team that you were in ninth grade or the Boy Scouts or whatever it was that you engaged in as kids. Those were probably less tight friendships. But as adults, we probably moved and we don't know our neighbors. We are well past school, hopefully.

[00:31:36] We're still working, but often alone, often from home, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, that kind of thing. And maybe we're going to church and maybe not. But other clubs and affiliations are also on the decline. Elks Club, Lions Club, all of those types of things that are the adult equivalent of Boy Scouts or whatever. Those are on the decline. People aren't joining those types of things. So you may still have a sports club.

[00:32:04] You may still have some other things, but they are not as available to you. And you're relying mostly on the weakest source of potential friends because to engage in an affinity, it takes a lot of extra work. It's out of routine most of the time. Church is very much a routine. Work and school and just hanging out with your neighbors and mowing the lawn. Very routine based.

[00:32:32] So you're accumulating hours unconsciously. You are. What I'm telling what I tell people is your friends came from the sources because all of those people were already in your life when the celebrations or when the sorrows came. When your dad got sick, the people that you turned to were people who were already in your life.

[00:33:00] You bonded over those crises or those celebrations. Yes, you did. But the real bonding happened before then over the course of time. So these big important moments, these peak experiences, that's your quality time. Bless you. But they are supported by all of this quantity time.

[00:33:24] So if you are going out and trying to make new friends, you need to recognize that just having peak experiences isn't going to do it. You also need to incorporate the quantity time.

[00:33:37] So, again, when I was forming Adventure Us, I thought one of the things that's really missing from social clubs in the area and meetups in particular is that it's these kind of activities where maybe it's trivia night once a month or even once a week. And it's just going along. But we're missing some peak experiences like traveling together.

[00:34:02] Let's take a trip because if it takes 50 hours to make somebody a close friend, shoot, you can accumulate 50 hours in a weekend. Let's take a cruise together. Let's Adventure Us is planning to go to Iceland in January. So we're going to go to a foreign country. And in the course of that travel, not only will there be these amazing experiences, the hope is that we see the northern lights from the hot tub. Okay.

[00:34:32] But there's also that travel time, that conversation on the plane, that quantity time where you're having an opportunity to shoot the breeze and maybe get into some deeper stuff. And then that whole cohesive experience, you'll come home best friends. Wow. All right. Got another question for you. I just, man, you're making me think today. Do you think? That is the objective. Yeah.

[00:35:00] Do you think that social media is going to be a good one, has either helped or fractured or not helped the friendship? I want to call it the friendship entity. Because that's a, I think it's done a little bit of both from my standpoint. What do you think? I think that social media has always been a tool.

[00:35:26] It is not a substitution for real connection, right? Updates and posts are not the same as having a chat with your friend. There's no back and forth or very little. There's, hey, here's a picture of us making cookies or whatever. And that looks great. That's not a conversation. That's not a meaningful interaction. It's helpful in that there are some things that are easy, like information is easier to disseminate that way.

[00:35:55] Hey, I finally got my new job or my son graduated or whatever is the news. It's okay for news, but it's not okay for connection. It's never a substitute for real conversation. So I think there's room for it, but it needs to be underpinned by ongoing nurturing of relationships. Gotcha. Man, Leanne, off the cuff, baby. That's what I'm talking about. Knock it out.

[00:36:25] Knock it out of the park. So my friends, my men probably have a half hour attention span. So give me the three, one of your three most important tips of making friendships or getting friendships to continue. There we go. Getting friendships to continue. That's a different question. Nurture, nurture your friendship. Yeah. Yes. Okay.

[00:36:50] So like my three best tips, if people want to have more friends, make more friends, keep more friends. So item number one is create a system for nurturing your friends. So this is going to sound ridiculous, but for business and for my personal life, I have a CRM that all my email addresses feed into and it's AI based. And I can actually categorize people in different ways.

[00:37:18] And the people that I have tagged as family or friends or various categories, my CRM system actually prompts me. Hey, you said that you want to call your mother once a week. And it's been a week. And because my CRM system syncs up with my phone, it monitors calls and texts and sees my email from every account.

[00:37:46] If I haven't done one of those things with my mom within the last week, it reminds me, Hey, you need to call your mom. Same thing with friends. You said that you wanted to keep in touch with your friends every week or every two weeks or every quarter or whatever it is. It says, Hey, it's time to reach out to so-and-so. I'm prompted to do that. I'm not, I've created a system. So I don't have to remember because maintenance is often very difficult for men. That's, that's something that they offload to a partner a lot of the time.

[00:38:15] And it's just necessary, but your system doesn't have to be magic CRM. It could just be, Hey, the maintenance I'm going to do is I'm going to join a group that just regularly meets, right? If I'm going to join the local Elks Lodge, they meet every week. That's my system for staying in front of those people. So it doesn't have to be elaborate. It just needs to be a way for you to continuously be in front of your people so that you can nurture those relationships.

[00:38:44] So that's number one is systematize. Number two, in terms of making friends is I would say it's vitally important that you are curious about other people and share with other people.

[00:39:03] That, that you identify the quality of relationship that you want to have and approach it, approach whatever that relationship is, approach that person that you want to have that kind of relationship with right intentionality and the right energy. So if you've identified somebody like, Hey, that guy seemed cool. I had a really great conversation with that guy. I would like to talk to him again.

[00:39:28] Then you need to compliment him on the thing. You had really good insights. You had a really good idea for me, or you solved that problem or, Hey, I bought that tool. You recommended or whatever it is that you are intentional in your follow-up because you are trying to build a relationship. It isn't just getting in front of people.

[00:39:51] You actually have to do a little bit of work because if you want someone to feed you, you also need to feed them. Correct. Right. And so maybe my third bit of advice for people who are trying to make more friends and keep more friends is that you need to be actively engaged in meeting new people all the time.

[00:40:16] Because as we go back to the propinquity and timing and energy, you have to expect some level of attrition as time goes on. The friends that you are making right now may not always be in your life to the degree that they are now. So if you are not continuously replenishing and adding more people to your group and meeting some other people, then you will find that your social life craters.

[00:40:44] When those one or two people move on, move away, get married, whatever is their thing. You don't want to be in this position again. So your defense is to keep replenishing your prospects and your friends supply. And again, it doesn't have to be this elaborate hard thing. Maybe what you do is you join an organization that is always recruiting or always has a little bit of turnover or something like that.

[00:41:12] Maybe it is something like once a year, I'm going to take a class or but building in a little bit of variety and meeting new people is going to help keep you at a level where you can continuously have new friends. There you go, Leanne. Thank you very much. This was very delightful. This went a little bit different than what I thought because I was thinking that how much can you say about friends?

[00:41:40] Your friends are your friends and keep your friends and meet new people. But you have expanded this profusely. I hope that people find it helpful because I've done a lot of deep thinking on the topic and I have a lot of experience. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to revisit this because I probably got to 10 out of my 30 questions. But you might be thinking about the social media and then the too many friends because I was thinking like, man, that's, there it is. Where can the people find you on the internet?

[00:42:08] Adventure Us is at adventure-us.club. And obviously we're Baltimore based, but the plan is to expand into other cities as time goes on. And certainly people are welcome to join our virtual and travel membership where you'd still get access to all of our virtual events and our big trips. So in July, we're going to Luray, Virginia for a murder mystery weekend. In August, we're doing a quick overnighter to New York to see Wicked and Hamilton.

[00:42:38] And then again, in January, we're going to Iceland. So the plan is two domestic trips, two international trips per year, and then all of these fun opportunities to just get in front of people. And one of the things that I'm encouraging people to do is let Adventure Us be the thing that you do to keep in front of your friends. I have friends in Seattle who I don't see very often, but I love them and I would love for them to be more involved in my life. And I want to keep having fun experiences with them.

[00:43:06] So for instance, at the virtual murder mystery, my friend Cheryl was absolutely hilarious as the psychic medium. And by doing these things together, we stay close. Wow. Leanne, thank you very much. Thank you for your time. That was fun. I really appreciate it. I'm so glad. Thank you for having me. And I'd be more than happy to come back. Oh, definitely.