Nina: Welcome to Dear Nina, conversations about Friendship. I’m your host, Nina Badzin. I’ve been writing about friendships since 2014. I lead creative writing groups in Minneapolis, and I’ve been a huge fan of today’s guests since 2009 when The Happiness Project was first published. I cannot believe this, but I have author, speaker, podcaster, and thought leader, Gretchen Rubin, on the show today!

Gretchen was here to talk with me about how awareness of your five senses can improve our friendships. We covered examples such as listening better for what’s being said and not said, making plans to see new sights with friends, paying attention to where our eyes are (not on our phones and Apple watches), hugging friends (a challenge for me!), taste experiments, leaning into nostalgia through discussing memories of smells and tastes, the perfect sense experience of the mixtape, and so much more.

Gretchen Rubin is one of today’s most influential observers of happiness and human nature.

. Her newest book, life in Five Senses is already a New York Times bestseller, which joins her other New York Times bestsellers Outer Order in Her Calm, the Four Tendencies. Better than before. And of course, the aforementioned the Happiness Project, her books have sold more than three and a half million copies, I’m sure more now that, , life in Five Senses is a New York Times bestseller, and that is worldwide and more than 30 languages.

She hosts a top ranking award-winning podcast, happier with Gretchen Rubin, where she explores practical solutions for living a happier life raised in Kansas City. She lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters. So it is with a lot of excitement and a lot of freaking out that I can now say, hi, Gretchen Ruben, welcome to Dear Nina.

Gretchen: thank you so much for having me. I’m very happy to be talking to you today.

Nina: Oh gosh, it’s Really surreal to talk to someone you followed for so long and I just connect with your book a lot. Also, I’m a fellow Midwesterner. I’m from Chicago, but I went to college in St. Louis and I’ve lived in Minneapolis ever since I graduated college. So you went to the East Coast.

Gretchen: I love the Midwest. I love Minneapolis.

Nina: I had to tell you, all your books have made a huge impact on how I think about myself, about my family, about my friends, and I know an organizing theme of your work is happiness, obviously, which, , led to studying habits and order and calm and now exploring the world with each of our senses.

And I see in all of your writing and in your podcast with Elizabeth, that you’re encouraging people to learn about themselves, but to also realize every one of us is different. So we should have more patience and more compassion for others. Does that sound accurate? Would you think that way about your

Gretchen: No, absolutely. And it’s funny because it goes both ways because I think, you know, we need to have more compassion and understanding for other people how they might be different, because maybe I can get up and go for a run before work, and that’s how I get it done. , and so to understand, well, maybe that’s not gonna work for you, but it’s also to show more compassion for ourselves.

Because I talk to a lot of people who are like, nobody else is saying that this sweatshirt is too scratchy to wear. , what’s wrong with me? And instead of just saying , what’s true for one person isn’t necessarily true for another person and what makes me happy may not be the same thing that makes you happy.

And just because something works for me doesn’t mean it’s gonna work for you and vice versa. So I think that understanding ourselves and then understanding that we might be different from other people or like other people, , is really important to keep in mind.

Nina: This comes up so much in friendship, apart from senses, but the same idea that I think of texting’s, a huge one that comes up.

Some version of like, my friend will only text, my friend won’t talk on the phone or my other way around, I don’t wanna talk on the phone. , so a friend won’t stop calling me. And I, answer on text cause I’m trying to cue that this is not me personally, people writing me that I only wanna text, but, neither is right or wrong.

It’s kind of the same idea. It’s just a different way of being

Gretchen: And I think, that’s really important to keep in mind because what happens for a lot of people is they wanna argue about who’s right. So it’s like, I’m right. Here’s the research study, Shay, you should do it my way. , or somebody else is saying that to us. We kind of like to argue about who’s right, who’s wrong, instead of saying it’s just preferences.

Like, for me, I like email because I don’t like texting with my thumbs, but I don’t like phone calls either. I’m getting ready to go to my college reunion and my two college roommates, they just wanna text and it’s kind of driving me bonkers because I would rather do this by email, but it’s not that they’re right and I’m wrong or that we should all be on a group call because calling is a better way to engage.

Sometimes you just have to say, well, there’s two of them and , one of me. Or like maybe it’s in your sweetheart and you’re like, I like to have everything very, very organized and very, very neat, and everything put away and somebody else is like, it just doesn’t matter as much to me.

Knock yourself out if you want. But I don’t feel like spending a ton of time running around, picking things up , it’s not that one person’s right and one person’s wrong. These are different preferences, so let’s work it out on that basis instead of arguing about who’s right.

Nina: Yes, , and like you said, like the two of them, one of you, or sometimes someone feels really strongly and that’s that time you give it up. That time you say, okay,

Gretchen: this is always a negotiation. It’s always something to be figured out, but when somebody says, I’m right, then they’re saying , I should objectively win. And that’s very different from saying like, let’s figure out how to , Deal with these circumstances in the way that’s best for everyone.

Because you’re exactly right. Sometimes you’re like, you know what, I don’t care. You care a lot. Let’s do it your way. That’s fine. But that’s different from saying, I’m wrong. You’re right. And therefore you win the argument. A lot of things are just preferences.

Nina: I’m laughing about the email one cause I also prefer email. I’ve also been planning a summer trip, and there’s three of us. It’s exactly the same. And I keep emailing and then one of them teasing me and she’s like, Nina, are we, 70? Why are we on email?

And I’m like, wait, when did email become

Gretchen: email is so much better

Nina: yes. Thank you Gretchen. But there’s two of them, so we’ve been doing it on

Gretchen: No, but

we’re Right. See, there you go. We wanna say we’re right. Here’s all the reasons why we’re Right. And they’re, like, but we don’t wanna do it. I mean, , it’s hard to keep in mind. But it’s a very helpful thing to keep in mind.

Nina: Yes. Okay. Well let’s get to the book. Will you tell my listeners maybe who haven’t had the chance to read the book yet? What inspired this newest project?

Gretchen: So it was a very inconspicuous moment in my life. I had a bad case of pink eye, so I went to the eye doctor, , as I was leaving, he said to me, very offhandedly, very much like, well, Gretchen, wear your sunscreen or drink enough water. He said, well be sure to come back for your regular checkup because as you know, you’re at greater risk for losing your vision.

And I was like, wait, what are you talking about? I don’t know anything like that. why? He said, oh yeah, you’re very severely nearsighted. That means you’re more at risk for getting a detached retina. And if that happens, it can affect your vision. So we would wanna catch it right away. And the fact is, I have a friend who had just lost some of his vision to a detached retina, so that felt like a very , real possibility to me.

So I walk out on the street, I live in New York City, so it’s getting ready to walk home. I’m in shock. And of course I know that I could have a rich, meaningful life even if I lost one of my senses. And I know , we could lose anything at any time.

Obviously we all intellectually know that, but sometimes it’s when we lose something or we fear we might lose it, that we really become aware of it. And I was thinking, here I am. I didn’t notice one thing about my sense of sight on my way over here. I was completely stuck in my head. I didn’t see one thing.

And here I am feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of losing my sense of sight. And as I was realizing that it was like every knob in my brain got jammed up to 11, and I could see everything with perfect clarity. I could hear everything with perfect clarity. I could smell every smell. And New York City is very smelly.

Everything just was rushing through me. I was that way the whole way. I walked home for 20 minutes. I was in this sort of transcendent, almost psychedelic state of perfect sensory awareness. I just realized like, this is happening all the time. There’s nothing special. I’m just paying attention to it.

and that showed me that, you know, I’d been studying happiness for such a long time, , and , I had begun to realize that something was missing. There was some peace, some puzzle piece had not been put into place. And this showed me it was my five senses that this was the way I could connect to the world, to myself and to other people.

As you say, a huge role at the senses in helping us to connect with other people. , and I just became incredibly excited about how I could harness my five senses to do those things.

Nina: As I was reading the book, I found myself getting excited with you. As you were discovering each sense. It’s like I of course was connecting to a human nature, as you say, is a huge piece of your work, , we all have at different degrees. Like you said, we could lose a sense. You could be born without a sense, you things dull as you get older, but to some degree we could identify with most of them.

this line really spoke to me. You said my environment felt oversaturated and processed, but also virtual and flattened. I wanted to make direct contact. I mean, who cannot relate to that with the way our world is so much on the screen? And that is a part of the friendship puzzle too. I think there are real friendships to be made virtually.

Of course at this point. . There’s kind of no denying that. But those words like the flattened, the oversaturated, even, you know, the process, this is this for every sense, food, everything. Gosh. I was like, yes, that is right.

Gretchen: Yeah, and I think that’s what gives us this hunger to connect and why, if anything is described as immersive, people are like, oh my gosh, I wanna do it. It’s because I think we wanna bring ourselves back into balance. We wanna have that feeling cuz , on the one hand it’s too much, on the other hand it’s not enough.

It just feels unsatisfying. I think that there is this craving. To really, really connect and, and we all know it, talking about relationships. , I have somebody that I have connected with, , virtually for years, and we finally met each other in person. It was one of those things where it’s like, I can’t believe we haven’t met in real life in person, but we definitely knew it.

, both of us realized immediately that we had never actually been in each other’s physical presence. And it did change my perception of her, you know, , as it always does. They’re taller than you think, or shorter than you think. It’s just different.

Your feeling , of someone , is affected by their actual physical presence.

Nina: it really is so true and , you wrote through my senses, I hope to find new ways to build connections with the people I loved. And I think it’s like through that line and we can jump into each sense. I know normally you would start with sight.

The book starts with sight and I’m sure in a lot of interviews you start with sight. I actually wanna start with sound because I find I have such a, personally, a strong relationship to sound both positive and negative. It probably makes sense for people that they feel strongly in both directions on a certain sense.

For me, the negative is something you wrote about and I really feel it strongly. I cannot deal with a loud restaurant. , the relief I feel when I leave a loud restaurant is pal, blah, blah. I mean, I just feel my whole body relaxed. And we were out to dinner a couple weeks ago with just one other couple, and usually two with two is great.

And this was great. This was a quiet restaurant. , I commented, oh, so nice. This restaurant is so quiet. My friend’s husband said, Nina, we are not old enough to be commenting on sound and restaurants.

And I was like, I feel the difference. I felt that in my twenties even, I cannot hear, I think.

Gretchen: right. Well, it’s very interesting that you mentioned that, especially with restaurants, because you know, a lot of times the sound environment that we’re in is meant to manipulate us. So yeah, it’s supposed to make, make us , enjoy it. But one of the things that research shows and restaurants know this is if there’s loud music, you will eat faster.

You will drink faster, , so a table will turn faster. And of course, as a restaurant, they want that. It’s also true that your sense of taste is diminished when you’re in a loud environment. So you’re actually enjoying your food less, but , you’re hurried up. And then also, like if you’re in a store, a lot of times they play music that’s slow , because we tend to move in rhythm with what we’re hearing.

They want you to slow down because the store knows that the longer you’re in a store, the more you’re likely to buy. And so they want you to linger. Sometimes when , you’re experiencing these, sound environments, , they’re very deliberately constructed to help guide your behavior in some way.

, and I’m with you. I mean, I remember even being a teenager and being like, I don’t like this pounding music. , what is up? Yeah. , we’ll start the chain of quiet restaurant and you and I will go, we will go there.

Nina: Quiet restaurant. And emails for communications like so far. Two things.

Gretchen: We sound like a lot of fun. Nina, you know, come party with us as we email an asylum restaurant.

Nina: I think it was on Dax that you said that you were on an airplane trying to read and the music was so loud that, is that a new thing? I noticed that too. I traveled recently and

Gretchen: think it’s new.

Nina: I was just trying to listen to a podcast so I did have, , my earbuds in and I was trying to listen to a podcast and it was so loud.

I couldn’t possibly, I would’ve had to blast the PO podcast to hear why are they doing that? Do you have any

Gretchen: I don’t know. I , it’s interesting cuz it’s one of those things where I’m like, am I only noticing this now? Because now I’m tuned into my five senses and they’ve been doing this since the dawn of time and I just always tuned it out before. So it’s interesting that you feel like it’s a fairly new phenomenon as well.

Now, I don’t know if they think it’ll lower people’s anxiety because often listening to music will help lower anxiety. But I think for something like that, it’s much better if it’s something that you control. You would find it more relaxing to listen to music that you choose than to have music that’s out of your control being piped in generally in a very cacophonous, chaotic environment, which is everybody trying to load into an airplane.

So yeah, I am not a fan of that , I found it very disruptive.

Nina: So another reason sound, I think is such a big one for friendship is listening. , you wrote such , a beautiful, I really found it beautifully written manifesto about listening, and I loved your point about silent and listening, being just the same word, arranged differently.

Gretchen: I thought I might be the first person who had noticed that you just rearranged the letters of silent.

Nina: I’ve never seen that. I’ve never seen

anybody mention that

Gretchen: but no, I wish I could claim that. Darn it. ,

Nina: I learned it from you. So I’m gonna say Gretchen Ruben

Gretchen: Yeah, that’s good. You know, one of the things that’s most important that we do with our sense of hearing is to listen to other people.

, and listening sounds very passive and easy. Yeah. You’re just sitting there listening. But it’s actually very taxing, it’s very active. And for me, I find that if something’s, , difficult or, you know, it’s a, I really wanna get it right. I try to write a manifesto cuz that helps me crystallize my thinking and kind of really distill.

And so I wrote a manifesto for listening to help me improve my own listening.

Nina: Can you share a couple of things that you think would be the most helpful for friends? I want people to read the books. I always hate to give everything away, but just a couple

nuggets.

Gretchen: let’s say you’re in a party environment, , I think one thing that’s very easy to do is you sort of keep yourself half turned away from somebody. So you’re sort of half in the conversation and half looking around. And that does not signal to someone that you’re listening to them intently.

So if you’re listening to somebody, if you can, you wanna turn your body to face them so your shoulders and their shoulders are parallel and really look at them. That shows you, you have my attention. Same thing if they’re talking to you, put down your phone, put down your book, put down the newspaper, put down the remote control, whatever, show that somebody has your intention.

There’s interesting research, now showing that if a phone is visible, even if it’s face down, this is what I would do is I would have my phone up I would like very deliberately put a face down, meaning , I’m not gonna look at it. But people seem distracted even by the physical presence of a phone.

So you wanna put your phone away so no one can see it. That also signals you have my attention. One of my personal, challenges is that if things start to get weighty, if people start to confide things, if it gets difficult, if it gets fraught without realizing it, I would often, before I even knew what I was doing, , I would redirect the conversation onto safer ground.

So I really had to , stop, let awkward pauses fall. Listen for what’s not being said. If someone keeps returning to a subject, allow the subject to come up. Don’t keep redirecting them. And then my own personal thing, this is my quirk cuz I love to read. Often if somebody would start saying something like, oh, you know, I’m really worried because , my son is having, you know, a lot of social problems at school.

I would immediately jump in like, oh, there’s an amazing book you should read. I know just the book for you. Here’s the book. Here’s why it’s so great. So again, this is me getting the conversation onto safer ground. Now we’re talking about a book recommendation instead of talking about you and your worry and your son and like the pain

, of what you’re concerned about. So again, I’m like, I can email my friend later with all my reading recommendations cuz I do think that they’re so helpful, but that’s not what we’re doing right now. Right now I am listening to somebody talk about something that they wanna get off their chest.

Nina: That’s a really good point about when somebody comes back to the same

subject. I have felt myself do that

. I’ve felt myself purposely bring it up. Like I do wanna talk about something and yeah, then the other person changes the subject and then I bring it up again. And I’ve even had someone say to me okay, you keep bringing that up, and it’s , maybe I hadn’t worded it that way, but I guess what I’m trying to do is talk about the

Gretchen: Yes. again, I think this is one of the challenges, which is listen for what’s not being said or , listen for the cues that, if somebody keeps returning to a subject, then allow it to come up, even if you’re kind of bored by it or not that interested.

And then sometimes people wanna avoid something, they don’t wanna talk about something. And so you’re like, oh, have you guys still been looking for a new house? Suddenly the conversation’s moved away. Don’t keep persisting, just cuz I’m curious, for whatever reason, my friend has sent me a clue that maybe this is a subject that’s feeling sensitive or she doesn’t wanna get into it right now.

Let’s move on. And I can just notice that, , sometimes you’re in a very fast paced conversation , and threads get dropped and to say, oh wait, , you never told me about that. That can show love and attention and , Ooh, I’m interested in everything. That can be good, but sometimes that’s somebody that’s really moving us to a different subject.

Let me respect that.

Nina: . I’ve actually done entire episodes, a couple of ’em just about that. I had my husband as the guest, cuz my husband, I think is an absolute genius at changing the subject in a way that’s not awkward. I get very awkward to the point where I almost have to be like, I don’t wanna talk about that.

Which, if you ever have to say that that’s an uncomfortable, please don’t make me have to say that. I want everyone to just listen for what’s not being said, which is, I don’t wanna talk

about it.

Gretchen: Oh, here’s, another thing, um,

on that line , that we’ve talked about on the Happier Podcast, cuz as you say, I have a podcast with my sister, that if you have something that’s very difficult to talk about, , Part of what’s hard is coming up with the words over and over again.

If it’s a sensitive subject, like, my husband and I are getting a divorce, whatever. So instead of making it up every time and struggling through that conversation where somebody’s responding to you and maybe they’re asking questions you don’t wanna answer and getting into this whole push and pull, have your talking points.

Like Really sit down and write exactly what you say. Like my friend said, you know, so and so and so and so, and I have agreed to get a divorce. It wasn’t my idea and my initiative, but now that it’s underway, I realize that it’s the best thing for both of us. Our children know. And, , things are moving forward.

And so people had the information and they needed to know to kind of move forward as friends. They were reassured , and they got the message. She’s not gonna talk about this right now.

And so she said like she had to go to a big holiday party, and it just gave her so much confidence to know that people would be asking questions out of love. But it’s too exhausting to like reframe your answer over and over and then like, oh, I said the wrong thing. , it just takes a lot.

She said this way, she was like a politician with a sub speech, same thing every time. And it just made it so much easier for her. And then also as people who are wanting to listen, it’s very clear , you’ve given me the information and now I know that you don’t wanna talk about it anymore. So, this is gonna help us be good friends to each other.

, I’m not gonna push you. , and , we kind of know where we stand.

And it’s okay for us to now talk about other things. Like You don’t have to feel like you’re insensitive by mentioning, the amazing decorations because , I’ve sent you the signal, now we’re moving on. , it’s helping you draw closer with other people by understanding where boundaries are and how to communicate in a way that feels right for both people.

Because a lot of times you’re like, I just wanna do the right thing, but I’m not sure what the right thing is.

Nina: One other sound thing, the last one , we will talk about in this, category , and this is sort of a nostalgia thing too, making mixtapes like real tapes. And I actually think that this, , covers at least three categories.

I actually think it’s site, I mean, just think the care

that I used to put into making the

cover.

Gretchen: yes. This is such a great point. I

never thought of this.

Nina: third one. There’s a third one and it’s touch, which is funny cuz touch by the way, I took the quiz and we’ll talk about the quiz later and where people can find it, but I took the census quiz to help you know your least,

Gretchen: Your neglected sense.

Nina: , . Mine was touch, which I’m not surprised about and we’ll get to later, but the mixtape had a very satisfying touch to it. Like if you had a collection of them, there was something about putting them away and there was something about holding it, both as the giver and the receiver receiving a

mixtape.

How satisfying

Gretchen: a hundred percent. This is an excellent, excellent point. , and you know what, and this is the thing that I find even as gift giving generally, there’s so many things that are virtual, , what do you actually give to somebody if I wanna wrap something up and hand it to you in a gift bag?

we did this thing, , on the Happier podcast, it was called Gift of Podcast, where somebody could print out a sheet and like tie it up with a ribbon and it’s like I’m giving you the gift of the podcast. Dear Nina, because I know that you love the subject of friendship, and I think you would love this podcast so you could actually give someone a podcast.

Because a podcast, you already have it, you have it for free, it’s in your phone. Nobody needs to hand you anything. And yet that doesn’t feel satisfying as a gift exchange. And the same thing with music. What am I gonna give you like a Spotify gift card or something?

I mean, it’s, it’s the tangibility of things and the ability to decorate them. , I still have the mix tapes of like these artifacts of my friend’s handwriting and how they, , yeah, , that is a great point. It’s funny because people talk about vinyl coming back. I don’t care about vinyl, but the mix tape how do we recreate that for the modern age?

This is our bazillion dollar idea. Nina, , what is the modern way to replicate all the many things that are satisfying the mix tech?

Nina: In Maggie Smith’s memoir, you can make this place beautiful. She wrote about her daughter making her a playlist and then continuing to add to it. So that definitely speaks to the sound piece of what’s satisfying and, and giving someone music, but it doesn’t do the thing that we’re gonna invent,

which is also the sight, also the

feel.

Gretchen: Right. Because I would say if I were that mother, I would love to have something that I could put on a shelf that would remind me of my daughter’s. Love and care that I could look at. I would love to have something in my daughter’s handwriting, or however she might decorate it to give to me.

The playlist is beautiful and the music is beautiful, and the care and consideration that it shows is beautiful. But there’s something about being able to look at something and hold something and give something, and receive something that has special power. Okay, so we

need to pursue this million dollar idea.

Nina: And there’s one other friendship activity that. Connects a lot of the senses and I’m just thinking of it now cause we were talking about the mixtape and the feel of it in my hand. Another similar feel. And it’s funny, like I said, I told you touch was my most neglected. I play Majong with friends and not as often as I would like to, but I do play and I know how to play and I love it.

I love the, what it does to my brain, forcing me to really think. I love being with friends as we talk. There’s a certain point where it gets quiet cuz if, you’re not quiet at a certain point, unless you are an absolute master, I mean you cannot figure out what hand you’re playing. But I actually also like the feel of the tile.

I find it satisfying, but I think I find it satisfying. The same reason I found a mix tape satisfying to hold, which is that I knew that it was given to me or I was giving it to somebody and it was, it was, there was like love attached to it. The maj tiles, it’s not like there’s anything satisfying on their own, it’s just that I connect it to something I enjoy doing and therefore I like the

Gretchen: Mm-hmm. Well, my sis on the ha again on the Happier Podcast. My co-host is my sister Elizabeth, and she plays Majong and she got away from it during the Covid, and now she’s, sort of brought it back in finally, and she said exactly the same thing. She said, it’s like dominoes or puzzles where there is this kind of, it’s, there’s something very satisfying about the tiles and the clicking and the sound , and just the just manipulation of something is very, very satisfying.

And you’re right though. It’s like a way to connect. But again, it’s we’re connecting with friends, but we’re also activating our senses, our senses are involved. It’s not the same thing as just sitting there talking or just sitting there playing a game, in our heads or on a screen where we might be looking at something and responding, there’s something special about the fact that your hand, well, the role of hands, and the brain, the hand is the second brain. And having our hands involved take something to a different level. And so if you’re doing something like that with your friends, um, it’s just gonna be a very exciting way to engage.

Nina: And it’s interesting about the sound of it, the clicking and like what your sister said. If I were not sitting at the table, let’s say I was at a restaurant and the table next to me was playing maj, I would probably find that annoying. Just like when I play tennis and I hear the people playing

pickleball, it sends me into

a rage. But if I were the one playing pickleball, I probably

Gretchen: Well that’s one of the funny things about sound, if you’re making it, if you’re controlling it, it doesn’t seem bothersome at all. If you’re drumming your fingers or you’re running a blender or whatever. But if other people are making that sound, it’s quite annoying.

So it is just one of these things where when we’re in control of something or we’re participating in something, it doesn’t seem burdensome. But then when someone else is doing it and we’re just, the bystanders can be quite annoying.

Nina: ,. Okay. I’m gonna move us on to touch. I’m, purposely doing a different order. , I had a funny experience with Touch on the podcast, which is that I had Will Schwabe on who I know was on your podcast too. , he was great and the book was great, and he talks about. In the book, which I brought up on the episode, we connected right away on the fact that I’m also not a big hugger. He said this in the book and we talked about it in the show. And then after I mentioned it on the show, I had people say to me, , real friends in my life, like, oh, I’m so sorry.

I didn’t realize you’re not a hugger. Like they felt bad that maybe they’d invaded my privacy. It’s not that I don’t like a hug, it’s that I’m so awkward about it. And I think, cuz I didn’t grow up in a house of huggers, , I think you kind of said something similar to that in your book, maybe that’s the Midwestern, , life in us, but I don’t know who starts the hug.

When I’m in the moment I’m like, wait, am I hugging? My parents are more like kiss on the cheek people, which is also so awkward. I find it all

very painful.

Gretchen: me ask you this. How do you feel about petting a cat or dog?

Nina: I’m really not an

animal person. I grew up

with animals and I hated them.

Gretchen: it’s funny because on my book Tour for Life in Five Senses. I did an interview with somebody who said that she, well, cuz she had taken the quiz, we’ll talk about the quiz. She had taken the quiz, she got touches her most neglected.

And I asked her that and it’s like, If you don’t like hugging , and you don’t like petting a cat dog, then I think yes, I would say that you are correct. That touch is probably your most neglected sense because it’s not something that you are turning to for adventure, comfort, or pleasure.

Because you know, even people who are not huggers, a lot of them really do , like touching cats or dogs or, you know, they love beautiful, fabrics and things like that. , so if anybody wants to know their neglected sense, go to gretchen rubbin.com/quiz.

, and it will tell you you’re a neglected sense and this is why it matters. This is why I’m interested. That touches your most neglected sense. With our most appreciated sense. We’re already enjoying it. We have adventures. , we try to learn, we swap recommendations. We reminisce with our friends.

We, , try to learn new things. We turn to it for comfort or pleasure or solace with there a neglected sense. , we don’t seek out new adventures. We don’t use it to connect with friends. We don’t reminisce. We don’t use it to evoke memories. We don’t turn to it for comfort or solace or pleasure. And as a consequence, it’s a great thing to know because this is where you have low hanging fruit.

if you already love music and listening and hearing and silence, you’re probably doing a lot of stuff related to that. But if it’s your neglected sense, well there’s probably a lot that you could do. So it’s a helpful thing to know about yourself. , if you know that your most neglected sense is touched, you can think about, okay, that’s true.

Given my own nature and the reality of what I like and don’t like, are there ways for me to think about how I might get more pleasure from the sense of touch? So maybe I don’t like hugging people and I don’t like cats or dogs and not an animal person. But are there beautiful fabrics that I love to touch?

Do I like to touch moss? , if I’m near the ocean, do I like to run the sand through my fingers or touch the ocean with my hands? Are there more ways for me to have pleasure from the sense of touch than maybe I’ve just been overlooking because I just am not in the habit of turning to that sense?

Nina: I’m gonna push myself. I like your motto of be Gretchen, but also push yourself. That is a good thing to keep in mind, that we wanna like accept ourselves for who we are, but also push ourselves a bit. I’m gonna push myself actually to do the awkward thing, which is to hug my friends more and initiate it because , I hug my kids all the time.

I hug my husband. , it’s not that I cannot stand to be touched. It’s more that social awkwardness of knowing who goes first.

Gretchen: So maybe you’re just like, I always go first. And so the decision fatigue is gone.

Nina: Yes. I’m just gonna do it. Watch out guys. I’m

coming for you

Gretchen: Let two go for it.

Nina: , Okay. Let’s move on to taste. That’s a huge one, I, , relate to that I host a lot of Shabbat dinners, , I think for me, making the food, which is not always enjoyable on its own, but it’s enjoyable only in that I know I’m gonna be

sharing it. I wouldn’t find it enjoyable to cook just for

myself at all. , I know some people

do. I would not. It’s this sharing piece Otherwise, it’s just a lot of work.

I mean, it really is. But your point about food and nostalgia, the taste and nostalgia, , I think you’ll appreciate that. a good friend of mine who’s a listener of yours as well, and a reader of yours, her name’s Rebecca Jacobs. She came to your event at Sidwell

Friends a couple weeks ago

and after reading your book, she sent to her college friend a text that said, send me four foods that you remember from college. And then they just had like a lot of fun texting back and forth about it, which I think is so in the spirit. I mean, I know you encourage that in the book, can you talk a little bit about that, the nostalgia connection?

Gretchen: The senses are sort of famous for this, right? And there’s a word for that. Prussian memories. Prussian memories are strong memories that are inspired , or kind of unleashed by a strong sensory, , moment. , and this takes, its name from PRUs to very famously, , took a bite of a Madeline cookie dipped in lime tea.

And it,, it unleashed all these memories of the past for him. so it is something that we can really dive into, and it can be fun because it can make us feel more connected to ourselves and our own past. But it’s also a great way to connect with other people because reminiscing. About sense experiences, , everything comes back, but everything associated with it.

So , if I were gonna do that with my college roommates, I would say something like that, really sugary sangria that we would drink at Viva’s restaurant. And then it was like, oh my gosh, we would go there every weekend. We would try to eat as many chips as we possibly could. , but it was always before the big party, we would go there, there was a certain group of people that would come , just the taste memory carries with it memories of the whole evening, the whole way we did it.

Or if you said to me, a Greek salad , with feta cheese. It’s like, oh my gosh, I remember that restaurant. I remember the people we went, I remember the conversations we had. I remember we’re crowding into the booth. , and then sometimes you can try it, you can taste it and have those memories, but sometimes you don’t even need to taste it.

You can just talk about it. , remember how we made white Russians as freshman? And everybody like, oh my God. It’s not like you’re gonna go make yourself a white Russian. But it just brings back that feeling of being a freshman in college or, or whatever it might be. And it is so fun to connect with other people through these memories because they’ll remember things you don’t remember.

So it’s like very exciting when you reclaim some, whole new thing you forgot about. It’s a great conversation starter. If there’s somebody where you kind of don’t know what to talk about, it’s a great thing. , cuz bring, to it , their own experiences.

Nina: Will you talk a little bit about the

taste party, because that’s something people

Gretchen: this is so fun. Okay. Cuz if you, if you don’t wanna throw a dinner party, you love to cook for other people, Nina. But I do not like to do that. And I feel kind of intimidated by the idea of a dinner party. , I had done this thing called Flavor University where you go for two days and learn all about flavor.

The thing that we did that I enjoyed the most , in that little adventure was we would do taste comparison. So they had us taste six varieties of milk. So it was like cream half and half whole milk, 2% skim milk, oat milk, soy, , , cuz you never just taste two things in comparison and really register the differences.

I thought this was fascinating. my husband and I had some friends over and , we tested varieties of apples. Potato chips and chocolate and we would just talk about how do you rank them? I picked three of the top, , most popular varieties of apples plus Granny Smith.

And the funny thing is I was like, gala Fuji, they’re the same. No, they’re totally different. You know, when you taste them and really pay attention and, and people had so much fun. We got into these really big debates and you realize that people, like some people care about refreshing this and some people love sour and some people are like me and have really bonker sweet tooth and nothing can be too sweet.

, I had gave them a little. Taste of ketchup, cuz ketchup is magic. It has all five of the big five, tastes. Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, noami. and it was just fun. We all started reminiscing. We started talking about what were the foods that you could only get in my hometown.

. Like, no place in the world makes this the way my hometown does. talking about our childhoods, talking about, you know, just a lot of experiences that we’ve had, I felt like I was getting this insight into these old friends, , in a whole new way.

And it was intimate. , and I think this would work if you were trying to do it with like work friends or something like that too, because it was intimate without being revealing in a way that

might feel. To, unsettling for people because you wanna create a warm feeling of connection, but sometimes you want people to be able to stay private.

You don’t wanna push them to be vulnerable if they’re not ready. But this is what we’re laughing, we’re talking, we’re having fun, we’re reminiscing, but it’s nothing that anybody is gonna feel like , they’re exposed in a way that they don’t wanna be.

Nina: really everyone could participate as much or as little as they would want. I just love that idea. I hope people will, take idea and try it. I think that’s such a

good one.

Gretchen: my, parents did this. They were at a dinner party where they had five different kinds of vanilla ice cream, and it was like, , can we rank them from most expensive to cheapest?

Nina: That’s a great idea. I probably could , at any time, tell anybody which coffee ice creams are

the best,

Gretchen: There you go. But see, that would be really interesting. Right, do people agree with you? Like, no, this one’s too creamy, or this one’s got too much bitterness, or This one’s overly, I mean, what a fun thing to do. You should do that for your birthday cuz you’re like, everybody knows I’m a person who loves coffee ice cream.

Let’s

like, let’s figure it out. Which is the best

be so fun.

Nina: My husband, was trying to recreate the peanut butter and jelly from his youth that he remembered a very particular babysitter making, but it was at the babysitter’s house. So on a group trip, we went away with a bunch of couples, up North Minnesota. , he knew it was Wonder Bread, and then he got three different kinds of peanut butter, three different kinds of jam but he knew it was strawberry, and he made little tiny squares of every combination enough for everybody. And he had everybody rank them.

This was not that long ago. It was a couple years ago. It was a

lot of fun.

Gretchen: so fun. And did he find , his lost, uh,

Nina: he thinks so. And I of course can’t even remember the brand, but he, he’s a very meticulous person. You would really appreciate him. He kept a whole chart. ,

Gretchen: here are two things I would say though. One is his sense of smell and therefore his sense of taste might be affected as being older. So it might taste different cuz he’s older, , and I don’t know if this would be true of something like Jelly, , but a lot of vegetables and fruits taste different than they did when we were young because of breeding.

And so if you’re like, oh, things don’t taste the way that I did when I was little, , yeah, you’re right. They don’t, tomatoes don’t taste the way they did when you were little because they’ve changed over time. And so sometimes it might be, it’s not just memory and brands, it might be that he’s changed or, maybe the ingredients of , those, , even of a brand might have changed over time,

.

Nina: You know, another listening thing I think you would appreciate again about Brian. Brian, you’re like a

star today.

Gretchen: Gold Star Brian.

Nina: We go to a coffee shop every year, and some years we’re harder than others. You know, we have four kids now.

It’s like we can leave them alone all the time, but when we were little, we would get a babysitter and go to do this where I would just talk about my year, the goals that I achieved, didn’t achieve. Why did I not achieve them? Let’s think about it. I would just talk, talk. He would take notes the entire time and he had several pieces of paper.

He still does it. I don’t mean to say in the past tense. It’s every year he takes notes, writes everything I say, kind of sorts it out in his brain while he’s writing it, and then presents me at the end of the hour with, , what am I gonna work on for the next year? My birthday’s December 30th. So it’s very, it works with like the year,

then that’s kind of what I focus on the next year. Anything I’m working on, he just is like, okay, this is what you’re gonna do this year.

Because it’s based on having listened to what didn’t work for

me the year before. What, what did work?

Gretchen: Wait, okay. I have so many, I have so many questions. So did, was this his idea or your idea?

Nina: It was probably a combination cuz he . He’s just a very organized person. He is very good at keeping his own goals. So he keeps his own quarterly, half yearly and yearly goals. He keeps a little sticky note. I’m talking a tiny sticky note. And he checks ’em off as the quarter goes on and then as the half year.

And I just had admired that so much. We didn’t get it that detailed for me. Mine are more yearly, so it was probably me asking him, but it was cuz I could see that he was so good at it. And if one of our kids gets on his list, this is bad news. If you’re one of our kids and

you’re on his quarterly list of

goals, this, this is

not good.

Gretchen: this is gonna be like a total non-sequitur to another book that I wrote about the four Tendencies. And if anybody wants, it’s upholder, questioner, obliger rebel. Sounds like your husband is an upholder. I would guess just based on that, if anybody wants to know about upholds quest’s, ledges rebels, go to gretchen ruben.com/quiz and you can find out what you are.

, I have to say this is classic upholder behavior, but it’s lovely that he’s found a way to turn that energy to you in a way that makes you feel like. You have an audience, somebody’s really thinking about you and trying to help you sort through. Because sometimes in our own, we get so confused by the weeds, we can’t see

Nina: Yeah,

Gretchen: picture.

That’s a beautiful tradition. I love that

Nina: I think so too. And I’m an obliger,

so it works for me to have a

Gretchen: sure. I know

that he’s paying attention. Brian

will say, how did that work out? Yeah,

Nina: Okay. So smell is one that I found. I was surprised it wasn’t my most neglected on the quiz because I really feel like I scored that low on all the questions.

The only time I can remember smell and friendship being a connection is in middle school. It was a really big deal to buy perfume when we all went to Benetton and we all bought colors and it was a huge deal to have perfume. And I feel like this went on for a couple years and then it was just not a

thing anymore

Gretchen: yeah. Well, having a signature scent, if you have a signature scent, that can be like a really important thing. And if a friend has a signature scent to really know about it. Well, you know, this is one of these things where , it’s kind of illicit to talk about other people’s smells.

, but we are very aware of other people’s smells. I live in an apartment building in New York City and a friend of mine walked in and she said to me thoughtfully, The lobby of your building has a very distinctive smell. It’s not a bad smell, and it’s not a good smell. It’s just very distinctive. And I was like, okay. Huh. All right, you’re right. , it was just interesting, this was a smell she associated with me and it was just funny to hear her comment on it.

Cuz a lot of times we don’t really comment on smells that much.

Nina: Distinctive’s a good word. we can identify it, but yeah, it’s not good or bad. It just has a very

Gretchen: But here’s the thing, and maybe you’ve experienced this at a friend’s house, you’re like, I don’t know why my friend lets her house smell like cats. Or , that air freshener. They really need to like turn that down. So we can’t smell our home the way a guest smells it.

Because of something, , called odor fatigue, if something is a very, very, very familiar scent, , the brain will just eliminate it because the brain is looking for change. Because change could mean opportunity or danger. If your house smells so much like air freshener, you might not smell smoke.

So the brain is like, okay, we don’t need the air freshener it just goes away. But to me is a friend who only comes to your house every once in a while. I smell it very strongly. And that’s why, , sometimes you go to a place and you’re really surprised that the people who live there put up with it.

and that’s why they simply do not smell it.

Nina: Okay. Let’s move on to site last, but certainly not least, the book begins after the intro with site, you talk about really throughout every part of the book, going to the museum every single

Gretchen: Yeah.

Nina: and site being a part of that. Tell us a little bit about that, and then we’ll connect side to friendship and then I’ll sadly

say goodbye to you.

Gretchen: Yeah. I decided that I would go to the Metropolitan Museum every day for a year, and the the year is long gone, and I still go every day because I love it so much and I’m very interested in repetition and how things can change over time. So I was curious like, What I see here, smell, tastes touched at the Met.

How would that change? , as I just went so often, it was just absolutely fascinating. , but one of the most fun things that I love to do is , I’ll go with a friend and I’ll say to my friend , well, what’s your favorite thing? Or , you tell me something that we should go see. And then now every time I go, you know, there’s thousands and thousands of objects on display at the Met, but I’m like, oh, that’s Sarah’s favorite piece.

Or this is the piece that, I was with Maggie and we saw the guy reaching out and touching all over that, , stone sarcophagus and the guard yelled at him. I remembered that little moment. It’s full of almost like sight mementos, of times when I’ve gone, almost always I go with myself, but, oh, and then like with, my daughter.

There’s this one funny kind of, we call it toothy cow. It’s this cow that’s got , all these teeth grinning down at the manger and it’s just hilarious. And every time I go by, I think of my daughter. And so it’s fun. You can use these sight cues to remind you, of the people that you love and what they love.

And when somebody says, , you know, I love this particular color of turquoise in this French porcelain, it always looks more beautiful to me after that because just having that one friend point that out, then it just changes the way that I see things forever.

Nina: it’s

Beautiful and you, wrote in the book, tapping into our sense of sight is a way to share and experience. It brings the world into conversation. So beautifully said, and I think it’s really true. One other piece in the site section that really spoke to me was about

faces

Gretchen: Well, one of the interesting things about the brain is the brain is most interested in other people. With our sense of hearing, we’re particularly attuned to sounds that are kind of at the sound of a human voice, with touch, we have a whole system in our body for social touch and with sight.

We have a lot of brain space devoted to faces. , and it’s interesting because you think like faces are pretty much the same, and yet we are so good at telling people’s faces apart , except for people who have like particular issues related to that. Even in profile or weird angles.

It’s like thousands of faces that we know. , and we see faces where they don’t even exist. We’ll see a face on the front of a car in a snowstorm, because our brain is so eager to find faces that it’ll see them even where they don’t exist.

Nina: we are so attuned to whether someone’s

upset, you know, based on their

emotions, right? We’re

Gretchen: it’s a user interface for sure. We’re really, really looking and we can pick up on that so fast.

Nina: The final piece of sight I wanted to bring up with you, we were talking about the phone earlier and putting it on the table , even if you’re not gonna look at it, you turn it around.

It just, there’s an awareness of it makes everybody on

edge a little bit. You’re kind of

waiting for a phone to vibrate or something. I’ve been, you know, aware of that for very long time. I wrote a series many years ago for the, Jewish Daily Forward about, for Passover, trying to, not be a slave to my phone.

I mean, we, a lot of times in the holidays we, you know, we try to make

A metaphor to something bigger

than the literal holiday.

I think a really big issue now, and it’s the reason I don’t own one, is the Apple Watch. I think most people are kind of aware now, okay, I should put my phone away. It is rude to be in the middle of a conversation picking up my phone. It’s like kind of universally acknowledged.

I’m not saying people keep themselves from doing it, but they apologize first. Oh, I’m so sorry. One second. I have a text, you know, they know it’s kind of rude. The watch has sort of slipped in and it’s so close to your face, you don’t have to like take the effort of picking up your phone.

It’s

right there. And I don’t wear one because it’s so distracting. Have you noticed that

Gretchen: a hundred percent. And I’ll tell you, , , so my sister’s a Hollywood showrunner, and she was saying that one of the things , that they were grappling with is they would be in a pitch, , pitching their hearts out, really trying to captivate the audience.

And then she would notice every once in a while somebody would look at the time. And of course that’s incredibly deflating cuz you’re like, , somebody’s trying to figure out , oh my gosh, they’re only 10 minutes into it. And she said it was very distracting. And then they realized it wasn’t that it was, that people were getting texts and so they were just automatically looking at their watches because

they get a haptic alert. So a haptic alert is saying even if you have the sound off, you’re being reminded this is intermittent reinforcement and curiosity, right? Two super powerful human nature, , drives. If you know , there’s a message on your phone, it’s very hard not to be like, oh, I’ll just take one second and look at it.

So I think you’re right, and I think if there’s an important moment, maybe you have to say, take off your watch too.

Nina: The site of someone else,

right across from you looking at

their watch for texts or anything, or looking at their phone for that matter is so

off-putting.

Gretchen: it is a real issue.

And here’s another thing, I am somebody, like if you tell me to read a book, I’ll go read that book. I love doing that. Or you say, oh, you should do this. I’ll go do that. So I’m very suggestible. I. So I often will email myself.

That’s kinda the way I take notes. I’ll email myself. So, but what I’ve learned is that if I pull out my phone, I’m like, I’m gonna write myself a note because I wanna read that book you told me about so that they know that I’m not just randomly checking my phone or emailing it. Because if you know that someone’s intention is , oh, they really care what I said, and they wanna do what I recommended, that really draws me closer to someone.

But if they don’t understand what I’m doing, they might just think, oh, , how rude, like we’re having this nice conversation all of a sudden, Gretchen is just like, oh, I realize that I need to buy more peanut butter.

And she writes a note in her notes app. It’s like you have to be very explicit so that people understand what you’re doing because I agree, it can be very distracting. And then, okay, you pulled out your phone to write yourself that email. Can you resist checking your text really quickly? It’s dangerous.

I have a notebook. A lot of times I’ll write in my notebook, but more and more , it’s hard to go old school we are getting trained on these devices. It’s really something to be aware of, of how it might be inserting itself. I think this was a great reminder about the watch. It feels like this just helpful little tool, but , what role is it really starting to play over time?

Nina: Yeah. And to know yourself. The reason I don’t wear one is not cause like I’m above everyone else. If anything, I have less faith in my ability to not be distracted by it with other people. When I’m trying to do something, I just therefore don’t even tempt myself. , I just don’t even wear one. all right, Gretchen.

I absolutely hate to say goodbye to you because I, I’m not exaggerating. There’s very few writers I can say. I’ve read basically everything. obviously know where to find you and I know that you have the same handle pretty much everywhere, but, and you tell my

Gretchen: Yeah, Gretchen ruben.com and I love to get insights, observations, questions, recommendations, resources from listeners and readers. So hit me up, Gretchen Ruben. Go to my website, gretchen ruben.com, and it’s all there.

Nina: And I wanted to tell you that my tagline every single week is this, and I know you’ll agree.

It is when our friendships are going well, we are happier all around. I say that every week,

Gretchen: It’s so true. On the Happier with Gretchen Ribbon podcast, , our tagline is not that, but it’s absolutely a major theme. , it’s hard to be happy if we don’t have strong relationships. It’s impossible to , be happy if we don’t have strong relationships.

Nina: we obsess about it. This where I

get all my mail from, from people who are obsessing

about something

Gretchen: It matters so much.

Nina: Well, thank you again. I hope you have a great time out there promoting the book,

Gretchen: Thank you. It was so much fun to talk to you.

Nina: All right. Bye everybody. See you next week.