My Friend Application Worked: Meet Ren

Ky and Martine are two DJs who went to the same elementary school. Today, they both live in NYC and run a DJ collective together. They're both thirty now. In this episode, we talk through their friendship.

This episode is about the male loneliness epidemic. I know. I spent about a month talking to men about it and kept noticing the same thing: you can't approach it directly. You have to come at it sideways, usually as a joke, which is both the only way in and the reason no one gets very far. What I kept seeing is that the joke is doing two things at once. It opens a door. But it also keeps that door from opening all the way. You can make it funny, you can build a whole podcast around the irony of the name, and still not quite arrive anywhere.  

Lily Lady, and Maya are two escorts who are friends. I talk with them about the friendships that form when you speak the same language and what you see when you work alongside a friend. Then Jennifer Worley, author of Neon Girls, tells me about the women she met at the Lusty Lady, a San Francisco peep show where the dancers organized the first successful sex worker union in the US and then bought the place. The word that keeps coming up is civilians. As in, everyone else.

Ren found my friend application on Instagram at midnight, answered all 40 questions, went to sleep at 2am, and a few weeks later got an email saying she'd been selected. Now she's back for the first episode of the Lilly Friend Project talk show. We cover how we became friends, having a different personality in a second language, a karmic relationship that hasn't improved despite many talks, and two questions called in by listeners. Call (929) 454-5213 to leave your own.

This is a cozy episode I did in bed during the holidays. I just explain the post-release feeling from the pod. I also call my 90-year-old grandpa to get to the bottom of a mystery about shirts I made for the podcast. I announce a new monthly call-in show where you can confess your friendship crimes or just say whatever.  Call (929) 454-5213 to leave a voicemail or submit at https://www.lillyfriendproject.com/friendship-submission.  

In the final episode, I tried to answer the question she's been avoiding: what is connection? I asked a bunch of people who might: someone who marries hundreds of couples in Vegas, Brad Lander, a barista, a therapist...my mom. After seventy questionnaire responses and twenty-four interviews, I finally let you know I made friends or just performed an elaborate art piece around her own loneliness.

Just funny moments from when I interviewed people who had applied to be my friend :) 

Feeling different from others gives you a unique vantage point into connection, both personally and communally. In this episode, Erica, Marley, and Lucas share their unique vantage points and how they have affected them. We talk about being a black sheep in your family, going to Riot Girl Summer Camp, and having a personal Forrest Gump moment.

This episode is about the questionnaire that I used as my friendship application. I share some fun moments from the applications I received. I also talk about the experience of loving someone's application and then having them not show up for the interview. If you are still out there, Em, I'd love to connect :) 

Conflict doesn't feel good, but maybe it is necessary for true friendship. Ren and Frances talk about conflicts that lead to friend breakups, while I invited a friend I thought had broken up with me onto the pod, only to discover he hadn't. Friedrich Nietzsche had this idea of the highest form of friendship, or "star friendship," which tested us to be better people through friction. He said, "Even if we are earth enemies, we are still star friends." This one is for anyone who has felt the pain of a friend breakup, so everyone.