The Quiet Car Problem

Enjoy the clip of this episode. 

Welcome back to another episode of the Hella Chisme Podcast! The show where culture, community, and real conversation live.

This is a space where we celebrate and uplift the voices and stories that don’t get told enough, and have honest conversations about the things that actually matter.

Also… maybe sometimes the things that don’t. And depending on the day? I might be getting into some foolishness. And in those moments, you are more than welcome to come check me on it in the comments.

Respectfully!

Whatever it is we’re doing over here, we show up real. And I love that y’all continue to come back each time to listen, laugh, chime in, and be part of this community.

This week, we are reaching into the Hella Chisme vault.

Why do some friendships last decades while others fade without explanation?

Dr. Marcus C. Shepard, tenured professor of communication and host of Off the Data Provided, breaks down his Friendship Formula: investment, emotional closeness, trust, and support. If any one of those is missing, the relationship starts to crumble.

We also get into dating apps and why people stay stuck on them, whether texting and DMs count as real communication (spoiler: they do), and why great communicators actually fight MORE they just know how to resolve it.

🔗 LINKS:

Dr. Marcus Shepard:

Connect with Dr. Marcus Shepard:

"Meet Dr. Marcus C. Shepard a tenured professor in communication who studies communication, identity and diversity as they are heard within soul music, discussed by multiracial communities, and within interpersonal relationships."

https://www.marcusshepard.com/

Julian Winters New Book!

Hella Chisme:

https://linktr.ee/hellachismepodcast

Topics to include: friendship formula, how to keep friends, interpersonal communication, dr marcus shepard, conflict resolution, hard conversations, communication skills, dating apps, ghosting, emotional closeness, active listening, building relationships, queer friendships, setting boundaries, trust and support, hella chisme podcast, queer podcast, communication tips, friendship advice, relationship building

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Talking Or Silence In Ride Shares

SPEAKER_02 0:00

When we talk about like Uber and Lyft, right? Uh, where we're in the car with this stranger, and I feel like, you know, Uber and Lyft have now, or ride share has now been created in a way where we as the customer get the option to talk or not talk, or the driver has the option to talk or not talk. It's it's an interesting dynamic when you're in someone else's car, but you you have been giving the autonomy to be like, well, I don't want to talk to you, or you don't have to talk to me. What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah, I think we were seeing society change. I wouldn't, I don't know if I would use the word evolve because usually evolve or becoming into something greater, right? I think of a butterflies evolve, right? Or a caterpillar evolves into a butterfly. But I think that's a perfect example where I believe on these apps, I don't use them as much, but I believe you do have sometimes the option to say you want a quiet car, right? Which essentially will alert your driver that you don't want them to speak to you whatsoever. And so I know sometimes I'll get in a car and right, and I'm I'm always friendly and pleasant, like, hello, how are you? And depending on their vibe or depending on my energy level and mood, right, I may want to engage further or I may not, or the driver may or may not as well. And so I

Apps Replacing Small Acts Of Community

SPEAKER_00 1:23

think what's fascinating about how we're shifting in this economy is we have farmed out a lot of our community to these apps. So I know when I was doing my PhD in LA, right, Uber and Lyft weren't really a thing yet. And so when people needed rides to go to airports, who would you call? You would call your friends and see if they could take you to the airport because that would be so much easier and way less expensive than a cab. And so clearly now instead of calling up a friend of, oh, I'm coming to visit you, it's like, okay, yeah, you'll just take an Uber here to visit me, right? So a part of community, a part of an interpersonal communication event, right? I remember picking up friends or driving them to the airport, right? What are we doing? We're talking for 30, 40 minutes while I'm driving you to the airport, we're having great dialogue, great FaceTime. So some of these communication events are disappearing because we are relying and using this technology, and so that becomes part of this breakdown where people desire community, but they're not necessarily willing or maybe even potentially able to offer that service, right?

Pandemic Aftershocks And Living Car-Free

SPEAKER_00 2:30

I know during the lockdowns, I ended up selling my car because I wasn't really using it much before the pandemic began. And now, since you know we're no longer on lockdown, though, very much in a pandemic, I believe it's over a million people a day are still getting COVID just in the United States alone. We're in the 11th wave. News isn't really talking about it, but it is here. And if you just do a little research, right, just look under the cap, right? You can see a lot that's happening. But even though we're not in lockdown, right, I'm able. Fortunately, I live in a city, so I can take mass transit. I do have access to a community of people who have cars if I need to go somewhere, or I'm fortunate enough where I can afford an Uber or lift if I need to go to the airport. But clearly I don't have a car, so I'm not someone who would offer now that community service. But also, if we think about it, who really drives their friends to the airport anymore, right? Or loved ones to the airport anymore. I know I drive my parents to the airport, right? They'll pick me up in their car and I'll take they'll drive there, right? And then I'll take their car back to their place or run errands. But that's really just my parents, right? My friends that live around me, none of them have asked me if I could help them with the ride. And I, whenever I go to the airport, I don't ask them either, right? So these aspects that maybe even a decade ago that were part of our fosterings of communities and creating and more so not just creating, but maintaining these bonds, these aspects are kind of disappearing.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, it's definitely not as peop as a people, we're not as consistently connected or wanting to be connected, I feel, as I feel like uh at one point in time society would push us to be connected.

What Actually Builds Real Relationships

SPEAKER_02 4:17

And then when we and when we talk about those things and wanting to connect with people, you know, it kind of brings me to talking about kind of key elements of building those personal relationships or those key elements to communication. Uh, what are some that you mentioned for you uh that you would mention for yourself that you think are key elements of building those uh relationships?

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Sure. So

Investment And The Problem Of Imbalance

SPEAKER_00 4:41

in my book, I talk about like a friendship formula, which has four ingredients, but I think these ingredients are vital to any interpersonal relationship. So, of course, first and foremost, and we've been talking about it, but haven't labeled it, is investment. So, investment is the time, the feelings, the energies, the thoughts that you put into a relationship. So clearly driving a friend to the airport is an investment. You're using your time to take this person. And oh, by the way, once you drop them off, you have to get yourself back home. So it's just not the ride to the airport, it's also now you have to ride maybe in solace. I'm someone if I'm driving, right? I'll either call somebody or I'm listening to music, right? So I'm not because I'm alone. But you know, that's a vital important aspect of any interpersonal relationship is investment. And I think the reason we see a lot of turnover and a lot of relationships is people aren't investing to the degree. And so I know for myself, I'm very much a planner. I'm someone that kind of leads my friend group here where I'm sending, you know, I created a mass text and I'll say, hey, this event's happening, I'm interested in going. Anybody want to go or I'm doing this if you want to come. So I'm a planner, and that doesn't take much investment. But what does take investment is when I host cookouts or kickbacks or movie nights, right? So I have to get have my place prepped, I have to have some food, some drink. And so this is me investing. And so if you have relationships where you feel like the investment is unequally yoked, where I'm always putting in and this other person is just taking out of the bank, that's when usually we see issues with interpersonal relationships, right? And so I've experienced that with familial relationships, where one thing I give to I think the younger generation is, and I appreciate teaching, I teach, I call them learning communities, is the fact that when I we talk about interpersonal communication, we talk about our shall not rules when it comes to friendships and dating. Well, those same things should also apply to familial relationships. And I think older generations and you know was pushed on me, but thank goodness to my students for kind of popping me out of that, where we just suffer. Oh, I wouldn't allow a friend to do that, but oh, that's my cousin, that's my aunt, that's my uncle, that's my brother, that's my mom, that's my dad. So, you know, even though I don't appreciate that or I wouldn't let someone else do it, they get a free pass. Well, no, no, no, they shouldn't get a free pass either. So I think that's one part of the formula, right? I call it friendship formula, but I think in a personal communication formula or interpersonal relationship formula is you have to have investment.

Emotional Closeness Through Talk Or Activities

SPEAKER_00 7:22

And then from that investment, we build emotional closeness, which is through that dialogue or through shared activities. So we know from different research studies that usually women who are forming interpersonal relationships, especially with each other, they do it more so through dialogue. So that self-disclosure opening up. Where usually cis heterostraight men oftentimes do it through shared activities. So they'll join a rec league or they'll join a gym or they'll join something, and through that activity, they'll foster those friendships. But what's dangerous sometimes, where if you're just building that emotional closeness through shared activities, is when those activities go away, what happens?

Subscribe And Catch Up

SPEAKER_01 8:04

I need you to go ahead and subscribe to this channel. Yes, click that subscribe button up there on this YouTube channel and turn on your notifications so you know when the new stuff is coming out. And if you subscribe, you can catch up on all the episodes you done missed, child, because it's a lot here. And you need to stay here because we need you.