This American Life producer Nancy Updike talks with a man, Eric Molinsky, about a weirdly heated argument he got into with a good friend, over corporate tax loopholes. Midway through, they both stopped to think: Why were they getting so upset over an issue they didn't really care about that much? And then they realized: Eric's ex-girlfriend was a political activist, and Eric's friend's ex-boyfriend was a hedge fund manager.

It's one thing to wonder what other people really think of you. It's quite another to go out and ask them.

Producer Dana Chivvis picks up the story of Dave and Chris and their show “Dopey.” (27 minutes)

Ira talks to a woman about a childhood friend of hers who mysteriously shows up after decades, for reasons that are only revealed as their correspondence unfolds.

Ira's good friend Mary Ahearn died this week. She was thirty years older than him...so, decidedly more grown-up than he.

Rich Carlson and Tom Swenor, two best friends in Michigan, got so fed up with the political process in the country, they decided to form their own Tea Party chapter in Petoskey, Michigan. But as election season revved up and push came to shove, Rich and Tom had very different ideas about how to advance a conservative agenda.

Scott Carrier documents a group in Manti, Utah, that left the Mormon church and formed its own polygamous church. The members started fighting, broke up, and no longer speak.

Chicago writer/musician Rennie Sparks, a member of the independent band The Handsome Family, reads "Skanks," a story of a girl struggling in a situation where some rules are strict, but other rules are up for grabs.

Ernest Castle and his best friend Clarence tool around the neighborhood where they grew up—the Chicago suburb of Hazelcrest—drinking and running into friends on a Sunday morning.

Jonathan Goldstein interrogates the girls, now grown up, who terrorized him and his classmates years ago in school—and finds they can be just as scary as ever. Jonathan Goldstein is the author of the novel Lenny Bruce is Dead.

Host Ira Glass plays tape of two women who ended up as frenemies.They kept trying to be friends, but couldn't help themselves from fighting. Ira then speaks with psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad who has run scientific studies to answer the question: Why don't we simply end these troubling kinds of friendships? Holt-Lunstad's research also shows that these relationships are much more common than you might think.

Ira speaks with Professor Glenn Loury. Loury failed to stand up for a light-skinned friend at a black unity rally in the sixties.

Ira continues his story.

In this act, we hear from the rowdier, drunker late-night patrons of the Golden Apple. A guy walks in with two young women, hoping to go home with one of them.

This American Life producer Julie Snyder reports on a three-day competition called "Color Days." It's most kids' favorite time at camp — despite the fact that the girls, at least, spend most of the three days crying and screaming. It's thrilling to be part of a team at this level of intensity.

Writer Mike Paterniti tells a story of dogs and a community of dogwalkers that formed on the grounds of an old cemetery at the corner of Vaughn and Clifford in Portland, Maine.

What happens when the kid next door wants to be your new friend...and comes over, tries to talk to you, befriends your dog. Are you a bad person if you don't want to accept the tiny hand of friendship? Cheryl Wagner tells the story of her young, persistent next-door neighbor.

Host Ira Glass talks to Rich Farrell, writer and former addict, about the code of silence he learned as a kid, and the times he took the fall for his friends' misdeeds.

Writer Quincy Troupe talks about how, as a boy, he idolized Miles Davis, and how, as a man, he actually became one of Davis's closest friends. And how his picture of the man changed.

A 17 year old tricks an entire resort town into believing he is someone he is not. By Jack Hitt and Christopher Cerf.

This American Life regular contributor Davy Rothbart talks about the time a friend asked him to make a decision for her that she really had to make for herself: Whether she should have an abortion. Davy is the founder and publisher of Found Magazine and author of a book of short stories, The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas.

A case study in every word from a friend meaning its opposite. An excerpt from the short story "The Underminer." A book based on the story is forthcoming from Bloomsbury USA.

This story wasn't originally made to broadcast on a radio show. It's a tape made by a guy named Jake Warga, who'd never put anything together for radio.