📘 Part 3: Friendship and Relationships

This episode's vocabulary

At (your) ease (phrase) - relaxed.

Desire (noun) - a strong feeling that you want something.

Networking (adj.) - the activity of meeting people who might be useful to know, especially in your job.

High-achieving (adj.) - (of a person) dynamic, ambitious, and successful.

To keep abreast of something (phrase) - to make sure you know all the most recent facts about a subject or situation.

To have something on your plate (idiom) - to have something, usually a large amount of important work, to deal with.

Hard-pressed (adj.) - having a lot of difficulties doing something, especially because there is not enough time or money.

To keep up (phrasal verb) - if you keep up with what is happening, you make sure that you know about it.

To lose touch (with someone) (idiom) - to no longer communicate with someone.

Opportune (adj.) - happening at a time that is likely to produce success or is convenient.

To reconnect (verb) - to join or be joined with something else again after becoming separated.

Cynical (adj.) - believing that people are only interested in themselves and are not sincere.

To grow apart (phrasal verb) - If two people in a close relationship grow apart, or if they grow away from each other, they gradually begin to have a less close relationship, usually because they no longer have the same interests and want the same things.

To string out (phrasal verb) - stretch out into a long line.

Strain (noun) - a force or influence that stretches, pulls, or puts pressure on something, sometimes causing damage.

In contact with someone (collocation) - in communication with someone, especially by speaking or writing to them regularly.

Connected (adj.) - able to communicate or share information because of being joined to a communications system such as the internet.

To get in touch (idiom) - to establish communication with someone.

To isolate (verb) - to separate something from other things, or to keep something separate.

Questions and Answers

M: In what situations are people willing to get to know new people?

R: Oh, imagine ones in which they feel at ease and have a desire to do so. I mean, probably from having some shared purpose, like networking, for example. When the express purpose of being in a place is to meet people and make new connections to your mutual benefit.

M: Is it better to have a lot of friends than just a few friends?

R: I'm not sure that's always true. I mean, surely it depends on what kind of person you are and if you value having a lot of connections or just a few. I mean, more isn't always better.

M: Why is it hard to maintain friendships for some people?

R: Well, good question. I mean, some very high-achieving individuals might have heavy workloads. And that makes it harder to see your friends and keep abreast of everything happening in their lives. I mean, if you're a CEO, for example, you might have a lot on your plate to deal with, which doesn't always leave time to go for a coffee, does it?

M: Do you think you are good at maintaining good relationships with others?

R: Well, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who said they were terrible at that. I think I'm usually pretty good at keeping up with the people in my life, though, if we lose touch, then I don't generally panic about it. It's usually just a case of waiting for an opportune moment to reconnect.

M: Why do people need to make new friends?

R: Well, at certain times in your life it's a very good idea, like, if you move home or start school, then you have to build a new or a wider social network to have fun and look after your mental health. If you're a more cynical person, you might argue that people with more friends have access to more resources, but I'm not sure how true that is.

M: Why do people lose contact with old friends?

R: Oh, all kinds of reasons. We all change as we get older. So it's natural that people don't always share the same ideas and interests and grow apart over time. Our social networks are also increasingly strung out over many countries and long distances. So something like a move to a new country might put too much strain on staying constantly in contact.

M: How has technology affected friendships?

R: Well, in one way, it's made us more connected, because we're able to get in touch with each other at any time of the day. But on the other hand, it's kind of isolated us a little bit because we only really speak to people who have the same shared interests and we only know that because we're constantly talking to those people, as opposed to just ones we speak to less often. So it could be quite isolating as well.

M: Thank you, Rory, for your answers!

R: No worries!