📘 Part 3: Childhood friends

This episode's vocabulary

Inevitable (adj.) - certain to happen and unable to be avoided or prevented.

It's not rocket science (idiom) - used to say that you do not think that something is very difficult to do or to understand.

Conversely (adverb) - in an opposite way.

To preserve (verb) - to keep something as it is, especially in order to prevent it from decaying or being damaged or destroyed.

Essential (adj.) - necessary or needed.

Ingenuity (noun) - someone's ability to think of smart new ways of doing something.

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Questions and Answers

M: Why do people lose contact with their friends after graduation or with their childhood friends?

R: Well, everything comes to an end at some point, doesn't it? You're no longer held together by the shared space and you have dreams and ambitions of your own to follow. It's just a sad but inevitable part of life.

M: And does it always happen?

R: Probably not always. But it does explain why it happens when it does.

M: Why is it hard to maintain friendship?

R: I'm not sure it is really. You just need to have shared interests and an equally shared interest in continuing to share them. It's not rocket science. However, some things can get in the way of things like differing plans, differing plans for your life and family changes. That can make it difficult to keep the interests shared.

M: What's more important, to keep old friendships or make new friends?

R: How on earth is anyone meant to know the answer to that? Like, I'd imagine if you were fleeing your country, then making new friends will probably be a priority. Conversely, if you were more interested in stability then preserving your friendships might be more important.

M: How does modern technology influence friendship?

R: It influences how it can be made and maintained, but not the essential aspect of the friendship, which is always a shared interest in each other and something you have together.

M: What positive and negative effects do mobile phones have on friendship?

R: Well, I suppose the number of possible distractions increases. So it makes having and holding real-life conversations more difficult, though any reasonable set of people should have the sense to avoid that when talking to people.

M: And do you think there are more positive or negative effects?

R: It depends on the context, because that will depend on the kind of people that you're talking to. If you're talking to really, really needy people, then you'll probably want to invest more time and staying in contact with them. But if you're talking to people who are like quite calm and, you know, well measured, then it's not such, there might be fewer problems with doing that.

M: Does technology unite or move people apart?

R: Well, neither, technology is the application of human ingenuity. It's like money in that way. It's just another way of getting what you want. If you want to use technology to connect to people, or do the opposite, then it's up to you. It doesn't control people's actions.

M: Do you think old friends are more important to the older generation or to the young generation?

R: Well, probably, if you're older than you've been alive longer, so your connections will be stronger and your friends will be more important to you. However, if you're younger, then you've only just started to make friends. And so your older friends will be your older friends because then you don't know anybody else. So it's difficult to say, I don't really understand what's meant by older friends.

M: Thank you, Rory, for your answers!

R: Thank you for the song!

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