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“We’re still the same people we were in the 10th grade,” Carrie Coon’s character, Laurie, on the hit HBO series “The White Lotus,” tells her two friends. “It’s just funny,” she adds.
What she’s referring to isn’t literally funny, nor is it nostalgic. The comment reflects an undercurrent of tension that runs through their relationships. The three women, who have been friends since elementary school and are vacationing together at a luxury resort in Thailand, fawn over one another for being “too generous” and looking “incredible.” But they also pair up and gossip about each other — for drinking too much, needing male attention and for maybe being Republican. They are in their 40s, but their dynamics recall that of a high school clique.
To many viewers, these details spotlight a common experience: Sometimes you regress when you’re with the people you’ve known the longest. Being reminded of a long-tucked-away facet of your personality can be one of the upsides of long-term friendship. But old friends can also bring back long-abandoned self-doubt and unhealthy patterns that can leave you with “that ick feeling,” said Kelly Campbell, a professor of psychology at California State University, San Bernardino, who studies friendships.
The “White Lotus” creator, Mike White, wanted to explore this regressive behavior among friends, especially when one has seemingly achieved more success than the others have. (Jaclyn, played by Michelle Monaghan, is a famous TV actor; Kate, played by Leslie Bibb, is a stay-at-home mom; and Laurie is a corporate lawyer.) “Just being around those people scratches certain wounds, even if they don’t mean to,” Mr. White said in an interview in February with HBO. As a result, you feel compelled, he said, to “justify your life to certain types of people that you have that history with.”
The competitive tension flares up when the three women meet the resort’s attractive and flirtatious “health mentor,” Valentin, and a tangle ensues over his attention. “Why did you keep pushing him on me when it was always your plan to hook up with him yourself?” Laurie demands of Jaclyn, pouting when she gets no satisfying answer. “It’s like nobody ever changes,” she says.
Insecurity is the jet fuel that drives this kind of dynamic, Dr. Campbell said. Childhood friends are formed at a time when individuals, particularly young girls, generally have lower self-esteem. At that age, we might compare ourselves with our friends and seek more external validation, she said. “Hopefully, by the time you get to adulthood, you work through that insecurity.”
But hanging out with your old friends, who may or may not have resolved their own self-esteem issues, can pull you back into that unhealthy comparative mind-set, she said, and you suddenly find yourself “trying to get one up to make yourself feel better.”
As viewers get to know the group, they learn that Jaclyn was the ring leader in school. On this vacation, she assumes that role again, paying for the trip and deciding when the group goes out to party and who should hook up with whom. The other two fall in step. Long-term friend groups often contain these kinds of inflexible roles, said Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University and the director of the university’s Social Connection and Health Lab. Maybe “someone’s more of the leader or the comedian,” she said. This isn’t always a bad thing, but it’s hard to evolve in the eyes of those who know you in one specific role.
This is how it feels to Sacha Piscuskas, 28, an assistant film set decorator in New York, every time she hangs out with three close friends she has known since she was 4. Those friends, she said, were always more “dominant,” while she was more introverted. In her adult life, she has learned to open up, but when she’s with those friends, she reverts to being the quieter one.
When she watched this season of “The White Lotus,” a moment at a wedding last summer came rushing back to her. Her close friends were telling some of the guests the story of how Ms. Piscuskas’s boyfriend had to amputate a toe. “So, like, my boyfriend had lost a body part, and they were telling the story,” she said. “And my boyfriend and I were just standing there.”
For long-term friendships to be deep and meaningful, they need maintenance — texts, calls and visits. If friends don’t stay abreast of the details of your current life, “it’s pretty natural to regress” when you reconnect, Dr. Campbell said. “Because, what else do you have in common?”
There are two options for dealing with friends with whom you return to uncomfortable old habits: Talk it out or ditch them, Dr. Campbell said. If you value those people and your shared history, tell them how you’re feeling about your relationship now and “give them the opportunity to do right by you.”
Or, “if you don’t care enough about them,” she added, “then you say, ‘Yeah, I deserve better than this.’”
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