Love Letters

In September, Love Letters joined a Boston-area indie movie theater – the Coolidge Corner Theatre – for a special “Science on Screen” presentation of the comedy “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.”Meredith introduced the movie with Brown University’s Oriel FeldmanHall, whose lab studies real-life social networks, and how we make maps of our communities without even knowing it. They talked about the 1997 film, and then everybody watched together, with science in mind.Before the screening, Meredith and Oriel met for an interview in an upstairs room at the theater. They talked about making friends, first impressions, who gets to be the center of social circles, and what it means to gossip.Enjoy this conversation – and then watch “Romy and Michele” if you feel like it.Oriel FeldmanHall’s research can be found at www.feldmanhalllab.com.Remember, Love Letters has a Friends With Benefits Club with a free extra episodes, an ad-free experience, and swag. Sign up at Globe.com/loveletters/friendswithbenefits. We are grateful for support. If you sign up, you'll be able to hear a new episode about recent letters to the advice column.Also, you can write in to the Love Letters advice column about what’s happening in your relationship life. Submit anonymous questions to https://www.boston.com/question-for-meredith.
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When was the last time you went to a house party – or threw one? Do you love to be invited to parties, but then, day of, feel like it’s hard to motivate yourself to get out the door?

Whether you’re a party person or not, this episode will give you perspective.

Our storyteller is Jazmin, our own Love Letters podcast producer, who LOVES throwing parties, but has found that others have trouble actually showing up and participating. She spills the details about a particular party this summer that left her in tears.

Who saved the day? The answer is … unexpected – and includes lessons about how, why, and with WHOM we gather.

Remember, Love Letters has a Friends With Benefits Club with a free extra episodes, an ad-free experience, and swag. Sign up at Globe.com/loveletters/friendswithbenefits. We are grateful for support. If you sign up you'll be able to hear the outtakes from this episode where Jazmin and I discuss structured fun, anxiety at parties, and when to trust your own instincts on stranger danger.

Also, we are an advice column! Please send a letter about what’s happening in your relationship life. You can submit anonymous questions to https://www.boston.com/question-for-meredith. When you ask a question, you help others wondering the same thing.

Love Letters is a production of The Boston Globe. This short series about All Kinds of Love is brought to you in partnership with the Greater Good Science Center’s "Spreading Love Through the Media" initiative, funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
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Zachary Reese is a social psychologist who studies close relationships. He also focuses on self-disclosure – meaning, what we share with others. Do you feel like you don’t know how to make friends at work? Do you wonder whether you should turn a professional experience into a more personal bond? Are you constantly wondering, “Did I say too much about myself?” and second-guessing what you tell people you just met? Listen as Meredith and Zachary talk about sharing … while sharing with each other. So meta.

Remember, Love Letters has a Friends With Benefits Club with a free extra episodes, an ad-free experience, and swag. Sign up at Globe.com/loveletters/friendswithbenefits. We are grateful for all support.

Also, please send a letter about what’s happening in your relationship life to our long-running advice column. You can submit anonymous questions through our anonymous form. When you ask a question, you help others feel less alone.

Studies, books, and research Zachary and I mention in this episode:

“Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves by Allison Wood Brooks.

Nick Epley’s work on shallowness in conversation.

Ethan Cross’s research on self-disclosure.

Work about in-person vs. written communication in Nature Communications.

Micaela Rodriguez’s work about how being single makes it possible to grow.

Reporting by Jonathan Woodward at Religion News Service.

Love Letters is a production of The Boston Globe. This short series about All Kinds of Love is brought to you in partnership with the Greater Good Science Center’s "Spreading Love Through the Media" initiative, funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

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In an exploration of all kinds of love, Meredith investigates love at work.She tries to figure out whether she loves her longtime coworker, Caffrey. Is Caffrey family? Is he simply a colleague? Does her relationship with Caffrey help her maintain strong connections in other parts of her life? Join this awkward discussion between two Globe employees who are not used to talking about their feelings for each other.We also hear a story from a Love Letters listener whose experience proves that love at work – among medical residents, specifically – isn’t like “Grey’s Anatomy” … but it is big and important.Remember, Love Letters has a Friends With Benefits Club with a free extra episodes, an ad-free experience, and swag. Sign up at Globe.com/loveletters/friendswithbenefits. We are grateful for all support.Also, please send a letter about what’s happening in your relationship life to our long-running advice column. You can submit anonymous questions to https://www.boston.com/question-for-meredith/. When you ask a question, you help others feel less alone.Love Letters is a production of The Boston Globe. This short series about All Kinds of Love is brought to you in partnership with the Greater Good Science Center’s "Spreading Love Through the Media" initiative, funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
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In our last episode, we learned how loving a boy band can help us love each other.

We told the story of Theresa, a 50-something New Kids on the Block fan, who got a life-saving medical assist from Christina, another fan, who stepped up for a stranger simply because they both love NKOTB.In this follow-up episode, Bryant University assistant professor Melanie Maimon – who studies the psychology of belonging – explains how being part of a community of fans can help us develop relationships. If we love something (music, art, books, etc.) and are around likeminded others, we might be on our way to forming important platonic and romantic connections.

Maimon herself is a Fall Out Boy fan. When she’s at a concert, she assumes the best of people around her – like she’s may have found her group As Fall Out Boy might put it, “I was just an only child of the universe … and then I found you.” (If you know that lyric, you're a real one.)Meredith and Maimon also get into how lonely it can feel when fans of the same artist don’t agree with each other about everything. (A timely conversation with news about Ed Sheeran, Macklemore, etc.)This episode is part of a special Love Letters series about all kinds of love. We wanted to tell these stories because without our platonic and community connections, romance is less healthy and fun. This “All Kinds of Love” series is supported by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, as part of its "Spreading Love Through the Media" initiative, supported by the John Templeton Foundation.

Remember, Love Letters is an advice column. You can send anonymous questions about friendship, dating, marriage, divorce, messy breakups, dating fatigue, situationships, etc. through our anonymous form.Also remember: we now have a Friends With Benefits program. You can get ad-free episodes, a bonus episode a month, extended cuts of episodes, and Love Letters swag by signing up at loveletters.supportingcast.fm.

INCOGNI Deal: To get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan, go to incogni.com/LOVELETTERS

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