‘White Lotus’ Highlights the Way Old Friends Bring Out Our Worst Selves

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.