xanyland Episode 11: Leslie Liao wants your friendships to be less crusty
This week, I welcomed comedian Leslie Liao, a deep-voiced, funny lady who is searching for an anti-crusty life. Originally from Orange County, Leslie is a local Los Angeleno through and through. She was a 2023 Just For Laughs New Face and former Netflix HR employee, and she’s currently recording an hour-long special for YouTube. Like currently, as in mid-August at UCB here in LA…so if you’re local, get your ass to UCB and laugh at her jokes!
Leslie and I met at a show produced by Michael, my husband, called Sit Down Comedy, where we kind of bring this podcast to life with stand-up comedians doing sets and then sitting with me for a live interview. She stole the show and was easy to talk to. I had to have her on. And I’m so happy I did, we discussed something that is so important to me and I think is rarely talked about: FRIENDSHIP.
I will say this a million times…friendships are like prozac. I truly believe solid friendships can be medication for all of us. The problem is figuring out if the friendships you have are working for you. My conversation with Leslie gave such effective examples of the frustrations in modern friendships, especially as you age, and I hope I gave her some solutions to those frustrations.
Friendship is extremely urgent. Sometimes it can feel like a burden. The conditions might stay the same, but time can change a friendship…for good or bad. If you feel a layer of crust (complacency, burn-out, routine) creep over your life, you might want to listen up!
Are you struggling to feel like your friendships are “real” or “intimate”? Do you seem to have a lot of “catch-up” friends with no depth? Is every hang driven around a purpose or reason? Try some of these solutions and see if they work for you!
I brought up a few books — yes, even I do research:
“How to Do Nothing” by Jenny Odell
”Alone Together” by Sherry Turkle
“Can’t Even” by Anne Helen Peterson
“Mating in Captivity” by Esther Perel
All of these books provided a different outlook on friendships that I felt were applicable to Leslie’s exact issues.
Jenny Odell talks about “time sanctuaries” and “reclaiming time from optimization culture”.
So, what does that mean? Every call, every connection, every hang doesn't need to have a purpose! Why do we schedule lunch dates with friends? Is it so we can actually nurture our friendship, or because we physically need to eat, so let’s kill two birds?
What happens if you call a friend without a plan, without a reason, without information? Just a “Hey, what’s up? I was thinking about you. Wanna chat?”
Leslie brought up some vocabulary, which you know I always love…what is parallel play?
My family and I do it all the time. It’s truly just people existing in the same space but doing other things. We like to call it “potatoing”. Less formal vocabulary, but it gets the point across. If you can sit in your living room with your partner or kids and participate in your own activity and feel nourished, why can’t you do that with your friends? Even if you’re just sending each other memes, just do it in person!
Speaking of memes, that leads me to the second book.
From Sherry Turkle, we got the quote:
“We are mistaking digital contact for real intimacy.”
Leslie expressed having some friends who were deeper in-person catch-up friends and some who sent memes and funny texts. So, how do we get the two to cross over? In Leslie’s case, she asked important life questions to her “meme” friend and got a VOICE MEMO BACK! A cringey, embarrassing, vulnerable voice memo. I for one LOVE a voice memo, and I don’t care if it’s awkward. It’s a way to connect with a friend in a more intimate way while still allowing them to be on their own time. (Also, a fun app that seems to be making a comeback with millennials and the like is Marco Polo. IMO a better Snapchat.
Understandably, life is busy. You add a career, a partner, and kids in the mix, and it’s non-stop. In our third book,
Anne Helen Petersen, in Can’t Even, reminds us:
“Burnout ruins our social energy.”
So if you feel like being social is too much work, you’re not broken. You’re tired. Sometimes it can feel like we’re “performing” in our friendships, being perfect in bursts, and then ghosting when we’re drained. Transactional networking relationships can make them low-maintenance, but can also make them emotionally distant. Maintaining friendships has been commodified, which adds extra pressure to a relationship that should be nourishing. We need more community structures, third spaces, and a mutual understanding that we’re all tired and we’re all not perfect.
Our final book isn’t directly about friendships, but the sentiment applies.
Esther Perel (from Mating in Captivity) drops this mic:
“We expect too much from too few people.”
One reason marriages implode? We dump every emotional need on one person. But here’s the fix: Deep, intimate friendships take pressure off your romantic relationship. Your friendships can and should be as intimate as your romantic relationships. Just leave the one thing out. 😘 Yes, your partner should be your best friend and all those clichés, but if you dump all your needs on one person, they are gonna be looking for the exit sooner than you think.
Friendships nourish you. They make you laugh. They can be there when things are hard. Some are gonna be deeper than others. But the phrase chosen family doesn’t exist for nothing. We are drawn to certain people for a reason, now it’s up to you to put in the work and see if those reasons you became friends in the first place still hold true.
Friendships make you feel seen, soothed, and alive. They evolve with you, not outgrow you.
If it’s working, keep watering it. If it’s not, you’re allowed to move on.
And if all else fails, please… talk to a real human. Not an app. Not a bot. Not a self-help meme. A real human. A real friend. Or a really good therapist.
Watch the episode below, or find xanyland on your favorite podcast platform.