Latest / All About Friendships / Setting Boundaries Without Losing Friends

Transcript

Setting Boundaries Without Losing Friends · All About Friendships

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Us studious.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, real question before we start anything, and I want
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: an honest answer, not a polite answer.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: That is a dangerous way to open a show. But okay, go.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Last weekend I texted you Saturday, like two in the afternoon.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I said, bro, come through. We are firing up the grill.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Nothing fancy, just us and maybe a couple of the guys.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And you left me on red for six hours. And
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: then you replied with and I quote, can't recharging recharging.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: That was the whole message.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I remember six hours, man, I bought extra ribs.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: First of all, the ribs are a separate issue, and
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: I will reimburse you emotionally at a later date. Second
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: of all, that was not me blowing you off. That
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: was ME doing the thing we are talking about today.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: I set a boundary. I had a brutal week. My
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: social battery was at zero, and the old me would
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: have shown up anyway, been a zombie for four hours,
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: and then been weirdly resentful about it for two weeks. KNU,
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: me just told you the truth.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: And see that is the thing.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: It did not even sting, really, it was almost refreshing, like, Okay,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the man is recharging.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Respect But I need you to understand.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: If you had done that to me in like twenty nineteen,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I would have written a whole speech in my head
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: about how our friendship was dying. You did write speeches
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: in your head back then out loud at me.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: I was passionate.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: You were exhausting. But this is exactly it. Welcome to
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: all about friendships, everybody. I am etsel and I'm app.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: And today we are getting into something that took me
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: personally way too long to learn, setting boundaries without losing friends.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: How do you say no without blowing up the friendship?
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: How do you stop being the person who always says
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: yes and then quietly hates everyone? And here's our promise
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: for this one. By the end of this episode, you
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: will have actual words, actual sentences you can say out
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: loud to your friends when you need space, when you
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: need them to stop doing something, when you need to
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: protect your time, or your money or your peace. Not
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: theory scripts. Because I was a chronic guest man for
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: years bro years, and it nearly cost me some of
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: the best friendships I have ever had, not because people
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: were using me, because I never told anybody where my
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: lines were, and then I would explode about stuff they
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: did not even know was a problem, and I was
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: the opposite. I had walls, not boundaries. There is a difference,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and we are going to get into that too, So
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: stay with us. This one is going to be practical.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: But first commost to Hanan, how is your weak, mister recharge?
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Besides apparently becoming a hermit?
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: It was genuinely good.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I worked a lot, slept a lot, read about half
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: a book, saw exactly three humans.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: It was great. How was yours, mister extra ribs? Busy man?
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Busy in a way I am not proud of, And
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: honestly it ties into the topic I counted. Okay, last
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: week I said yes to eleven different things. Eleven dinner
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: invites a favor for a coworker, helping somebody move a call.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I did not want to take a fantasy basketball league.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I do not even care about eleven yes is and
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: you know how many of those I actually wanted to do?
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Three two two of eleven. And the moving thing bro,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the guy who asked me to help him move. I've
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: talked to this guy maybe four times since college. Four
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: and there I was on a Sunday morning carrying a
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: couch down three flights of stairs, smiling like an idiot
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: dying inside. Wait wait, wait, hold on, you helped the
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: near stranger move a couch voluntarily in this economy, yeahs
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: so nicely.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: That is not a reason, Paul. That is not a
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: reason you cannot just carry furniture for people because they
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: ask nicely.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: That is how they get you.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: I know, I know.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, that is why we are doing this episode because
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I have a problem. And the problem is I cannot
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: say no to people without feeling like I am omitting
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: a crime against them. Okay, so let me ask you
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the therapist question. What did you think would happen if
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: you said no? That he would think I am a
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: bad person, and that he would tell people I am
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: a bad person, and that there would be this whole
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: thing where I am the guy who would not help
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: him move and it becomes my reputation, and then nobody
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: invites me anywhere anymore, and then I die alone.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Well, I know how it sounds.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: No.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: No, I am glad you said it out loud, because
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: that is the whole disease right there.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: You skip six steps. You went from I say no
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: to a couch to I die alone in one breath.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: That is the people. Please your brain. It is not rational,
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: but it is so common, and I guarantee you half
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: the people listening just felt that in their chest.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: The dying alone part or the couch.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Part, both both parts. Everybody has a couch they carried
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: that they did not want to carry. Could be an
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: actual couch, could be a project at work, could be
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: a friendship they have been maintaining out of pure guilt
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: for six years. Everybody has a couch.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: That is deep. Put that on a mug.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: I will and I will not help you move when
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: you buy forty of them.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: See that right there.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: You just said no to me casually, without even hesitating.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: How do you do that practice? And also, and this
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: is important, I knew you would not take it personally.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: That is the whole foundation of boundary setting between friends.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: It only works when both people trust that a no
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: is just a no, not a rejection of the person,
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: not the start of a feud, just information. I cannot
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: do this thing, that is all it means.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: But how do you get there? Because that trust does
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: not just exist, You have to build it. And I
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: think a lot of people are stuck in friendships where
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: the trust is not there. We're saying no feels like
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: pulling a pin on a grenade. You are exactly right,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: and that is where we should start, because before we
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: give anybody the scripts, we have to talk about why
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: it feels so dangerous in the first place. Why just
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: saying no to a friend feel like a threat to
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the whole relationship.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Because sometimes it is.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it is, and we are going to talk about
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: that too, because that is actually the most important part
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: of this whole conversation. Sometimes a friendship cannot survive a boundary,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and what that tells you is not that you set
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: the boundary wrong. It tells you the friendship was running
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: on your compliance, not on mutual respect. And that is
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: a friendship that was already broken. You just did not
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: know it yet.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Oh man, you came out swimming today.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: I recharged all weekend. I have energy.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Let us go okay, okay, So let us set this
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: up properly. We are going to walk through the whole thing,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: why saying no feels impossible, the difference between a boundary
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: and a wall, the guilt trips, the people who push back,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: the friends who make everything about them when you try
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: to have one honest conversation and then the scripts, the
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: actual words, because that is what I needed ten years
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: ago and nobody gave me.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: And we should say upfront, this is not about becoming
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: a cold person. This is not cut everyone off energy.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: The whole point of a boundary is to protect the friendship,
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: not to end it. The goal is more honesty, not
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: less connection.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Say that again for the people in the back.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: The coin of a boundary is to protect the friendship,
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: not to end it.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: If you take nothing else from this episode, take that
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: all right. So where do we start? Where does this
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: whole thing begin?
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: It begins with understanding why you cannot say no, And
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: for most people, that started a long long time before
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: the couch childhood.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: You were going to say childhood, are you not?
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I am going to say childhood.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Yes. But stay with me, because this is not abstract.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: Think about how most of us grew up. You were
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: a good kid, when you were agreeable, You were polite,
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: when you shared, when you hugged the relative you did
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: not want to hug, when you ate the food you
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: did not want to eat, when you smiled in the photo.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: Being easy to be around got praised. Having needs got
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: called difficult.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Oh man, the stop being dramatic era exactly, stop being dramatic,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: do not be selfish. They are your family, they are
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: your friend.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: Just let it go. And so a whole generation of
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: us learned this equation. Keeping the piece equals being loved,
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: and then we grew up and carried that equation into
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: every friendship we have.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: And the wild part is it kind of works for
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: a while being the easy friend, the reliable one, the
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: one who always says yes.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: People do like you for that.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: They do, and that is the trap, because they do
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: not like you, they like the service, and you cannot
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: feel the difference for a long time because the attention
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: feels the same, the invites feel the same. You are
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: the best texts feel the same. But it is conditional
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: in a way you cannot see until you test it.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: And the only way to test it is to say no.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: That is uncomfortably accurate because the first time I really
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: said no to this one friend group I had back
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: in the day, it was like watching a machine glitch.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: They did not know what to do with me.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: The guy who always drove, always hosted, always paid for
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the first round suddenly said I actually cannot this weekend,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: and the group chat went weird cold, and I remember thinking, oh,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: oh no, was that all I was to them?
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: And what was the answer?
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Honestly mixed.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: A couple of them reached out privately and we're like,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: all good, we will catch you next time, and those
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: guys are still my people. But a couple of them
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: just kind of faded and it hurt, but it was
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: also clarifying, Like cleaning a foggy window, you finally see
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: what was actually there.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: That is the part nobody tells you about boundaries. They
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: are not just about protecting your time. They are diagnostic.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: They show you the actual structure of the friendship. A
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: real friend adjusts. A real friend might be surprised the
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: first time, might even be a little annoyed, and then
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: they recalibrate and the friendship keeps going, usually stronger. A
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: person who was keeping you around for what you provide
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: cannot adjust because the thing they valued was the compliance itself.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, but let me push back, because I know what
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: some people are thinking right now. They thinking, okay, but
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: what if my no actually is hurtful? What if I
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: am the one being a bad friend? Like where is
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the line between a healthy boundary and just being selfish?
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: That is the right question, and there is a line.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Here is how I think about it. A boundary is
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: about your behavior and your capacity. I cannot lend you money,
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: I cannot talk right now. I am not comfortable when
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: you joke about that. Those are about you selfishness, the
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: bad kind is about controlling their behavior for your comfort.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: You cannot hang out with her. You have to answer
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: my text within an hour. You are not allowed to
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: be upset about this. See the difference.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Boundary is my line. Selfish is me drawing lines around you.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Precisely. A boundary says here's what I will and will
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: not do. Control says here is what you will and
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: will not do. And friends do get confused about this.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: In both directions, people set controlling rules and call them boundaries,
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: and people hear a genuine boundary and accuse the other
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: person of being controlling. Both of those are red flags.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Honestly, give me an example of a fake boundary, a
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: controlling one dressed up a self care I need you
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: to not be friends with anyone I do not like,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: because that is my boundary. That is not a boundary.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: That is a leash with a wellness sticker on it,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: or the reverse, You setting a boundary with me is
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: a betrayal because real friends do not have boundaries with
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: each other. Oh, that one is lethal. Real friends do
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: not keep score. Real friends do not say no after
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: everything I have done for you. That is not friendship language.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: That is manipulation language. Wearing a friendship costume after everything
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: I have done for Who say the thing about gil
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: trips because that is the one that gets me every time.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: Guilt trips work because they weaponize your own goodness. The
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: guilt tripper does not argue with your boundary. They argue
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: with your character. They do not say I disagree. They
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: say you are a bad friend for even having this line.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: And if you are a people pleaser, that is your
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: deepest fear right that underneath all the yes's, you are
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: secretly a bad person. So the guilt trip hits the
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: exact bruise. So what do you do when.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Someone hits you with the after everything I am done
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: for you?
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: You separate the two things.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: What they did for you is real and you can
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: honor it, and your boundary is also real and it
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: is not up for a vote.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: You can say you have.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Done a lot for me, and I am genuinely grateful,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: and I still cannot do this both things at once.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: The moment you let them merge gratitude and obedience into
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: one thing, you have lost. Gratitude and obedience are not
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the same thing. There is your second mug.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: I am going to be rich.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we have the why, the childhood stuff, the conditioning,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: the guilt trips. Now give me the cost, because I
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: think people here just set boundaries and it sounds like
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: a self help slogan. What actually happens to you when
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: you do not long term resentment?
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: That is the cost. It is always resentment. Say yes
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: when you mean no, and the friendship does not break
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: right away, it does something worse. It rots slowly. You
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: start screening their calls, you start being fake. You start
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: keeping a secret ledger of everything you have done for them,
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: and the ledger gets longer and uglier, and they have
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: no idea because you never told them anything was wrong.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: And then one day they ask you for one small thing,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: one tiny, normal thing, and you explode at them like
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: they asked you for a kidney. And they are standing
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: there like what just happened exactly? And from their side
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: it is insane. From their side, you were fine for
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: three years and then you screamed at them over a
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: ride to the airport. But from your side, that ride
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: was the four hundred thing, not the first. The explosion
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: was never about the airport. It was about three years
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: of upspoken nose.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: That is, I have been that guy. I have absolutely
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: been the guy who exploded over the four hundred thing
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: and confused everybody. And then you feel crazy because they
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: genuinely do not understand why you were upset, and you
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: cannot explain it without admitting you have been fake for
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: three years. And that is the point I want to land.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: The boundary you do not set does not disappear. It
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: goes into storage, and it collects interest. You will pay
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: it eventually, with interest in a much uglier way. The
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: honest no today is cheap. The unspoken no costs you
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the whole friendship later. Okay, I am convinced, The listeners
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: are convinced. So how do you actually do it? Because
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: knowing why is not the same as knowing how. Talk
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: me through the actual mechanics. Somebody asks me for the
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: thing I do not want to do. What happens next?
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: First thing you do not answer immediately.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: The people pleaser's worst.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Enemy is the instant yes, somebody asks you something and
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: your mouth is already moving before your brain is even
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: checked in.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: So you build in a pause. Let me check my
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: week and get back to you. That is a complete sentence.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: You are allowed to say that. It buys you time
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: to figure out what you actually want.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Let me get back to you.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I can do that second. When you answer, you keep
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: it short. This is where everyone messes up. They think
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: a no needs a lawyer. They write a whole legal defense.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I cannot make it because my cousin is in tow,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: and also my car is making a noise, and also
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I have this thing at work. Every excuse you add
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: is a handle for the other person to grab and negotiate.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Oh your car, I can pick you up. Oh your cousin.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Bring them You gave them three ways to fix your excuse.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: A clean no gives them nothing to grab.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: So what does a clean no sound like?
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: I cannot make this one, but I hope it goes well.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: That is it. I am not able to do that,
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: but thank you for thinking of me. Warm short done,
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: no over explaining. And this is the part that feels
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: wrong to people at first, because we are trained to
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: believe that a short no is a rude no. It
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: is not a short no. Is a respectful no. You
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: are respecting their time and yours. It feels so cold,
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: though I would feel like I was being a robot.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: Then add warmth not excuses. There is a difference. Warmth
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: is I love that you asked me. An excuse is
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: a fake reason. They can solve. You can be warm
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: and firm at the same time. I love that you
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: asked me, and I cannot do it this time. Ask
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: me again next time, seriously. That is a whole boundary,
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: and it is kind.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Ask me again next time seriously. I like that because
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: it tells them the door is still open. The gnome
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: is about this one thing, not about them.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: That is it. You are closing a tab, not the
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: whole browser.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, rapid fire. Then give me the scripts for the
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: classic situations. Situation one money. The friend who keeps asking
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: the ball money.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Money is a friendship killer, so this one matters. The
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: script is I have a rule that I do not
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: lend money to friends. It is nothing personal. I have
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: just seen it wreck too many friendships, and ours matters
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: more to me than the loan.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: The rule framing. I like that it is not about them.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: It is a policy.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: It is a policy. People argue with decisions, but they
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: accept policies. I decided I cannot lend you this money
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: invites a debate. I have a rule about lending money
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: to friends. Is just a fact about you. And if
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: they push, if they say, but I am good for it,
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: you know me. You do not relitigate the rule. You
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: just repeat it kindly. I know, and I still do
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: not lend to friends. Ever, it is not about you.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: And if they get mad, then they cared about the
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: money more than the friendship and you just saved yourself
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: a much bigger loss later. But most of the time, honestly,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: they accept it, especially if.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: You offer something else you can do. I cannot lend
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: you money, but I can help you look at your
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: budget if you want. You gave them help without giving
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: them the thing that would poison the friendship situation too.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: The friend who ventsent you for two hours every single night.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: The emotional labor friend and you love them but you
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: are drowning. This one is so common, and it is
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: delicate because you do not want to tell a struggling
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: friend to stop struggling. The script is about capacity, not
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: about their pain. I want to be there for you,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: and I am hitting my limit tonight. Can we pick
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: this up tomorrow. I will be a much better listener tomorrow.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I will be a better listener tomorrow. That is honest.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: It is honest, and it is kind, and it does
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: something else important. It models that needing a break is normal.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: You are showing them how a healthy person handles capacity.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: And you can also name the pattern gently when things
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: are calm, not in the middle of event session. I
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: have noticed our calls have been really heavy lately, and
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: I want to keep being someone you can call. Can
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: we also talk about light stuff? Sometimes I miss laughing
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: with you. I miss laughing with you. Oh that is good,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: because it is not you are too much. It is
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: I miss the us that was fun.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: That is the whole trick.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: You are not rejecting them, You are asking for the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: friendship back.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Situation three.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Situation three the friend who is always late, always forty
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: five minutes every time, and they stroll in like nothing happened.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: Okay, this one is different because this is not you
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: saying no to a request. This is you addressing a behavior.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: And the script here is about impact, not character, not
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: you are so disrespectful. Instead, when you show up forty
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: five minutes late, I end up sitting alone feeling like
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: my time does not matter to you. I know that
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: is not what you intend, but I need us to
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: either plan around your lateness honestly, or I need you
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: to tell me a real time.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Tell me a real time. That is so reasonable, it
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: is almost funny.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Like if you are going to be forty five minutes late,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: just say seven forty five instead of seven, and we
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: are fine.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: That is literally the fix half the time. Just recalibrate together,
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: and if it keeps happening after you have named it calmly,
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: then you adjust your behavior, not your volume. You stop
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: structuring your time around them. You tell them I will
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: order at seven thirty, whether you are here or not,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: and then you actually order at seven thirty. A boundary
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: is not a boundary until you hold it. If you
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: announce it and then abandon it, you have just taught
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: them that your words do not mean anything.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Hold on say that again. That is the part that eated.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: A boundary you do not hold is not a boundary
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: is a complaint. If you say I will leave at
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: nine and then you stay until eleven, you did not
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: set a boundary, you made a speech. The boundary only
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: exists in the holding. And yeah, the first time you
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: hold one, it feels terrible. It feels mean. It is
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: not mean, it is just new. It feels mean because
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: we were trained that being easy equals being good, So
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: holding a line feels like being bad. And here is
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: the reframe that helped me. When you hold a boundary,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: you are not being mean to them. You are being
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: honest with them. You are treating them like an adult
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: who can handle the truth. Letting someone trample your lines
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: while you smile is actually the disrespectful option because it
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: says I do not think you can handle my honesty.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: That is kind of insulting when you think about it. Wait,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: so people pleasing is secretly an insult. Secretly yes, it
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: is low key condescending. You are managing them instead of
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: relating to them. Oh that is going to mess some
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: people up, including me.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: That messed me up.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Good growth, okay, but now the hard one. You set
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the boundary, you were clean, you were kind, You held it,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and the friend blows up, They call you selfish, they
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: say you changed.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: They go cold for two weeks. Now what now?
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: You let them have their feelings. That is the part
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: nobody wants to hear. You do not chase, you do
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: not undo the boundary to stop their discomfort. Their reaction
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: is theirs to process. You can say one time, I
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: get that this surprised you, I am not upset with you,
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: and I am not going anywhere. Take whatever time you need,
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: and then you actually give them the time.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Yet if they never come back, then the friendship was
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: depending on you having no lines. And I know that
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: sounds cold, and I know it does not feel like
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: a win. When it happens, it hurts genuinely. You grieve it,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: but you grieve it the way you grieve anything true.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: You did not kill that friendship with a boundary. You
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: revealed it. The boundary was the x ray. The break
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: was already in the bone.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: The boundary was the x ray.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Man. Okay, And what about the reverse situation, Because we
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: have spent this whole episode on setting boundaries, But somebody
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: listening is realizing they are the friend who never hears no,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: They are the one everybody yes is how do you
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: become the kind of friend people can be honest with.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Oh, that is the best question of the whole episode.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: You become safe to say no to. You practice receiving
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: no like an adult. Somebody cancels on you, you say,
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: thanks for telling me, we will do it another time,
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: and you mean it, and you do not punish them
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: with coldness. For three days every time you receive a
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: no gracefully, you are teaching your friends that honesty is
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: safe with you, and you can ask for it directly.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: If I ever ask too much of you, tell me seriously,
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: I would rather hear and know than have you quietly drowning.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: And then when they finally do tell you no, you
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: cannot flitch. You cannot flinch. You think them thanks for
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: being straight with me. That one sentence will do more
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: for your friendships than one hundred favors, because now you
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: are the person who tells the truth and lets other
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: people tell the truth, and that is the entire foundation.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: I owe you one more thing. From the top of
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the show, you said you used to have walls, not boundary.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: You never explained that what is the difference? Right? Okay?
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: So I was the guy who never said no out
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: loud because I just disappeared instead, somebody asked too much
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of me, I would not push back, I would just fade,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: become busy, become distant, answer texts slower and slower, until
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: the friendship quietly suffocated. And I called that self protection.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: But it was not a boundary. A boundary is stated,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: a wall is silent. A boundary says here's my line,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: and you are still welcome on the other side of it.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: A wall says nothing and just makes the whole relationship
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: colder until the other person gives up guessing that was you.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: That was absolutely me for years, and it cost me
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: good people because from their side there was no problem
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: to fix. There was just a guy who got weird
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: and distant for no reason. They could not respect the line.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: They could not see. That is the thing about walls.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: They do not just keep the bad stuff out. They
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: keep the other person from ever knowing where you actually stand,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and eventually they stopped trying to find out.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: So the wall is the coward's boundary.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: It is, and I say that with love as a
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: former coward. The wall feels safer because you never have
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: to have the uncomfortable conversation, but you pay for it.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: In funerals, nobody attended friendships that just stopped with no explanation,
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: no fight, no closure. At least a boundary gives the
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: friendship a chance, the wall gives it nothing.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: And the ghosting thing ties.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: In episode one, the friend who disappeared might just be
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: the friend with a wall instead of a boundary. One
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: hundred percent half the ghosts out there are not cruel.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: They are just people who never learned to say the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable sentence, so they chose the comfortable disappearance. It is
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: still wrong and it still hurts, but it is usually
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: weakness not malice. Okay, so now the repair side, because
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: we have told everybody how to set the line and
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: how to hold it.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: But what about after you had the hard conversation.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Things were tense for a minute, and now you want
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: the friendship to actually heal.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: What does repair look like?
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Repair is mostly just returning to normal on purpose. People
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: think after a boundary conversation, you need a big talk
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: about the talk you usually do. Not. What you need
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: is one normal, warm interaction to prove the friendship survived.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Send the meme, ask about their mom, show up to
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: the next thing you are demonstrating with your behavior. We
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: are okay. The friendship does not need a debrief, It
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: needs evidence.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: And if it is still awkward.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: Then you name it once lightly with humor if you can,
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: are we good because I am not doing the slow
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: fade thing. I like you too much to be weird
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: about this. And then you let them answer. Most of
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: the time they will laugh and the tension breaks right there.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Naming the awkwardness kills it. It is like turning on
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: the lights in a scary room.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Naming the awkwardness kills it. That has been true of
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: every hard conversation I have ever had. The saying of
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: the thing is always force on your head than.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: In the room.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Always your brain writes a horror movie, reality writes an
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: indie drama with a decent ending every time without fail. Okay,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I want to give the listeners the full picture now,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: because we have covered a lot. Let me try to
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: sum up the whole philosophy and you grade me.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Ready go.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: A boundary is a stated line about your own behavior,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: not a rule about theirs. You set it short, warm,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: and without a legal defense. You hold it because an
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: unheld boundary is just a complaint. You let people have
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: their reaction without chasing them. The friends who adjust are
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: the real ones, and the ones who cannot were renting you,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: not knowing you, and the whole point is not distance,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: It is honesty. The boundary is what lets the friendship breathe.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: That is an A that is honestly an A plus.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: I have nothing to add, really, no notes except maybe one.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: It gets easier.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: The first boundary is the hardest one you will ever set.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: The tenth one takes you ten seconds. It is a muscle,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: and your friendships on the other side of that muscle
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: are so much better because you are actually in them,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: not performing in them.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: In them.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: And for the person listening who has a friend group
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: where any boundary would be treated as a betrayal, what
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: do you say to them? I would say gently that
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: a group where honesty is punished is not a friend group.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: It is an audience, and you deserve friends, not spectators.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Start with one small no and watch what happens. The
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: information you get will tell you everything. Thank Okay, before
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the speed round, I want to do the self audit thing,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: because somebody listening right now is thinking, okay, I get
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the theory, but I do not even know which boundaries
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I need.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: How do you figure out where your lines actually are?
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: That is the right question, and there is a shortcut.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Your body already knows your boundaries. You just have to
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: listen to it. The audit is three questions, and you
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: answer them honestly. Question one, who are you dreading right
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: now in your phone? Who is the person whose name
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: on your screen makes your stomach drop a little? That
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: drop is data? Something about that dynamic is costing you
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: more than it gives.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, that is uncomfortably fast. You did not even let
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: me breathe. The name just pops up.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: It pops up immediately for everybody. That is the point.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Question two, what do you keep complaining about?
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: Not the big stuff, the recurring complaint, the thing you
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: tell your other friends or your partner, or just mutter
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: to yourself in the car. He always does this. She
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: never asks how I am. They only call when they
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: need something. Whatever loops in your head. That is a
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: boundary shaped hole. The complaint is the boundary you have
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: not set.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Wearing a costume, the complaint is the boundary you have
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: not set.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, that one is going on the mug too.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: We are going to need a whole mug line at
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: this rate. Question three, and this is the deepest one,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: where do you feel fake? Where are you performing a
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: version of yourself to keep someone comfortable? Because that is
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: the cruelest boundary violation of all, and it is the
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: one you do to yourself. You laugh at jokes that
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: are not funny, you agree with opinions, you do not hold,
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: you shrink so they can stay comfortable. That is not kindness.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: That is self abandonment with good manners.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Hold on, I need to sit with that one. Because
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I do that. I do the fake laughing. There is
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: a guy in my circle who makes jokes at my expense,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: little dicks, and I laugh every time. And I told
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: myself it was because I am easy going, but it
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: is not. It is because I'm afraid of the silace
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: that would happen if I did not laugh.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: What do you think the silence would mean?
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: That I am difficult, that I cannot take a joke,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: that the whole vibe of the group shifts, and it
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: is my fault. And what does the fake laugh cost? Honestly,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: I leave every hangout a little bit smaller than I arrived,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: and then I am in a bad mood at home,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: and I do not even know why.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: That is the cost, that exact sentence, a little bit
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: smaller than I arrived. Every fake yes, every fake laugh,
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: every swallowed no makes you a little bit smaller, and
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: the friendship looks fine from the outside, but you are
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: disappearing inside it. A real friendship can handle your real
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: tal reaction. If the joke is at your expense and
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: it bothers you, you are allowed to not laugh. You
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: are allowed to say flat not my favorite joke, man.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: You do not have to make it a thing, but
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: you do not have to fund it with your laughter either.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: Not my favorite joke man.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I could actually say that that is not a speech.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: That is six words six words, and it changes the
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: whole dynamic. Because here's what people do not realize about
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the friend who makes the digs. Half the time they
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: have no idea it lands badly. Nobody ever told them
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: because everybody fake logs. You are not starting a war.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: By being honest, you are giving them information they need
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: to be better. And the other half of the time
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: they do know, and your fake laugh is the permission slip.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Either way, the honest reaction.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: Is the fix.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, So the audit is who do I dread? What
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: do I keep complaining about? And where do I feel fake?
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Three questions and by the end you have a list
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: of exactly where your boundaries need to go, and I
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: want to add one instruction. Start with the smallest one.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Do not start with the friendship ending confrontation with the
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: most difficult person in your life. Start with the low
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: stakes one, the tiny no, the six word, honest sentence.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Get a win. Feel what it is like when the
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: world does not end. Because the world does not end,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and you need to feel that once in your body
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: before you will believe it in your brain. The world
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: does not end. That is the whole lesson, is it
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: not every boundary I have ever been scared of. The
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: fear was always everything will collapse, and the reality the
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: one time in ten I actually said the thing was
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: always just fine. Awkward for four seconds and then fine.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Four seconds of awkward. That is the actual price we pay,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: years of resentment to avoid four seconds of awkward. When
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: you say it out loud, it sounds insane, but that
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: is the trade we all make every day until somebody
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: tells us we are allowed to stop.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: You are allowed to stop.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, Now, the speed round because these are the ones
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: that actually happened to me weekly.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Go speed round.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: The friend who volunteers you in front of people, Oh,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Paul can help you with that Paul is great at
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: that he would love to and now I am stuck
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: because saying no in front of everybody makes me the villain.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, the public volunteer. That one is insidious because it
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: weaponizes the audience. The script has two parts. In the moment,
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: you keep it light but firm. I appreciate the confidence,
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: but I actually cannot take that on right now. You
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: say it with a smile and you do not flinch.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: The smile keeps it social. The words keep it a boundary.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: And then later, privately you talk to the volunteer, Hey,
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: please do not sign me up for stuff in front
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: of people.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Ask me first. I will probably say yes half the time,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: but I need it to be my choice. I need
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: it to be my choice. That is the whole thing,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: is it not? Nobody minds being asked, Everybody minds being committed.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: Nail it. The favor is not the problem. The ambush
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: is the problem. Second one, just one drink friend.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: You go all planning to stay an hour, and they
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: keep ordering rounds and subbly, it is one in the
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: morning and you have a meeting at seven.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: This one is a holding problem more than a setting problem.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: You set the line at the start, I am staying
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: for one I have an early one tomorrow. You announce
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: it early, cheerfully, so it is not a surprise later.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: And then at the one hour mark, when they go
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: one more or one more, you do not renegotiate. You
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: stand up, You hug them, you say this was great,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: I am out, text me, and you leave. The leaving
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: is the boundary, not the announcement.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: And they will call you boring.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: They will call you boring, and you will be well rested.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: You can survive being called boring. What you cannot survive
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: is years of one in the mornings you never wanted.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: And honestly, half the group is relieved. When someone leaves first,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: you give everyone else permission to have a limit. Somebody
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: has to go first, be the first one. That is
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: so true. The first person to leave a thing is
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: a hero to everyone who wanted to leave an hour ago.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: The pioneer of going home.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Third one, the group chat, the one that never stops.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Three hundred messages a day, and if you do not
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: reply for six hours, somebody goes, hello, Paul died, and
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: you feel this pressure to perform availability.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: Digital boundaries are the newest frontier, and nobody has the
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: norms figured out yet. So here's the permission slip. You
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: are allowed to mute the chat. You are allowed to
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: check it once a day. You are allowed to say
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: out loud, I am muting this thread. I love you
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: all tag me if it is important that one sentence
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: does everything. It tells them you are not gone, It
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: tells them how to reach you, and it frees you
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: from the performance.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: And nobody has ever actually been mad about that.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Nobody has ever been mad about that because deep down
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: everybody wants to mute it too.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: Again, you are just going first. That is the theme
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: of this whole episode. Honestly, half of friendship maintenance is
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: having the courage to go first first, to say no first,
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: to leave first, to mute first, to say I love you.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: But this is too much. Everybody is waiting for somebody
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: to go first. Okay, one more serious one and then
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: I promise we will move on the friend who got
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: to you about your other friends, because if you set
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: a boundary there, does that not make everything weird in
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: the group.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: It makes it less weird.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Actually, the gossiper is testing whether you are a safe
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: vault for poison. And if you listen silently you have
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: told them yes, you do not have to make it
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: a confrontation. You just decline to play. I am not
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: great at talking about her when she's not here. What
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: is going on with you?
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: Though?
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: You redirect and if they keep pushing you get a
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: little more direct. I would feel weird if someone talked
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: about me like this?
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Can we not?
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: And the beautiful side effect is that people stop bringing
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: you gossip, which means you stop knowing things you do
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: not want to.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: Know, and you become the trusted one. The person who
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: does not pass poison around is the person everybody actually
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: trusts with the real stuff. Boundaries do not shrink your friendships, man,
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: they filter and strengthen them every single time.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Hey, before the shoutout, one last real question. Somebody listening
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: already lost a friend to this. They set the boundary,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the friend walked, and now they are sitting there wondering
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: if they did the wrong thing.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: What do you say to that person tonight?
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: I would say, look at what you actually lost. You
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: did not lose a friend. You lost the arrangement where
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: the price of admission was your silence. And I know
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: it does not feel that way at two in the morning,
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: when you are replaying it, it just feels like loss.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: So let it be lost. Grieve it honestly. Do not
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: pretend you are fine, and do not let anybody rush
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: you with You are better off. You are allowed to
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: miss someone and still know the boundary was right. Those
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: two things live together.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: You are allowed to miss them and still know.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: You were right both things. And I will tell you
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: the thing nobody told me. The space that friendship leaves
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: does not stay empty forever. When you stop pouring yourself
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: into people who require your compliance, you finally have something
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: left to pour into the people who never ask for
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: anything but you. The boundary does not just filter the
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: old friendships. It makes you available for better ones, but
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: you cannot reach the better ones while both hands are
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: busy holding up the ones that were dropping you, both.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Hand busy holding up the ones that we're dropping.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: You man, Okay, I needed this episode as much as
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: anybody listening, maybe more we all needed. That is why
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: we made it one more thing before we wrap the
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: main topic, because I know somebody is asking it at home.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: You set the boundary, It worked, six months pass and
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: this same friend starts sliding back into the old pattern.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Do boundaries expire? Do you have to reset them.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: They do not expire, but they do need maintenance. People
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: are not software. You do not patch them once. A
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: friend who loves you can still drift back into old
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: habits because the old habit was the default for years.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: So you do a gentle reset, not a confrontation, just
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: a reminder. Hey, we talked about this. I am still
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: not the guy for the two hour event calls, but
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: I am still your guy. Light warm, done. And here's
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: the important part. You do not take the slide personally.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: The slide is not disrespect. It is just gravity patterns
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: pull people back. Your job is not to be offended
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: by gravity. Your job is just to keep standing where
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: you stand. The slide is not disrespect, it is gravity,
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: and you just keep standing where you stand. That is
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: the whole maintenance manual. And it works the other way too.
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: When your friend race sets a boundary with you, you do
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: not get defensive. You go you are right, my bad,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: and you adjust. Maintenance is mutual. The friendships that last
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: decades are not the ones without friction. They're the ones
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: where both people keep doing these little tune ups without
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: making it a federal case.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: The decades long friendship is just two people doing tune
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: ups without drama. I actually believe that you look at
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: those old friendships, the thirty year ones, and they have
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: had hundreds of these little corrections. That is not a
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: sign the friendship was broken. That is the maintenance that
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: kept it running. That is exactly what it is. The
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: friendship that never has a tune up is the one
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: that dies on the highway. Okay, before the shout out,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: let us kill some myths, real quick boundary myths, the
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: lies people believe that keep them stuck.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Myth one boundaries are mean, kill it dead.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: A boundary is not mean. What is mean is letting
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: someone believe everything is fine while you quietly resent them.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: The boundary is the kind option. The fake yes is
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: the cruel one, because it lies to somebody who trusts you.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Mid two. If they were real friends, I would not
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: need batteries backwards.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: Real friends are exactly the people you want boundaries with,
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: because boundaries are how the friendship stays real for thirty years.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: You do not need lines with strangers. You need them
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: with the people close enough to bump into you every day.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: The closest relationships need the clearest lines the same way
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: the busiest streets need the clearest lane markings.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: The busiest streets need the clearest lane markings.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: Mid three.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Setting a boundary means the friendship is in trouble.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: No, it means the friendship matters enough to protect you.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: Do not maintain things you do not care about. Nobody
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: changes the oil in a car they are planning to abandon.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: The boundary is the oil change. It is proof you
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: intend to keep driving this friendship for a long time.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Nobody changes the oil in a car they are planning
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: to abandon. You are on fire today. Myth four, and
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: this is the one that kept me stuck for years.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: They should just know. If they really knew me, I
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: would not have to say it. Oh, that is the
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: most expensive myth in any relationship. Nobody just knows. Your
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: friends are not mind readers. They are running on guesswork
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: and their own conditioning, same as you. Every time you
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: think they should know what you really mean is I
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: do not want to do the work of saying it,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: and I get it. Saying it is work, But expecting
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: telepathy is how you end up resentful of people who
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: would have happily adjusted if you had just told them.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Most boundary problems are not bad friends. They are missing information.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Most boundary problems are not bad friends. They are missing information.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: So say the thing, give them the information. Let them
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: be good at loving you.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: Let them be good at loving you.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: That is the whole episode in one sentence. Honestly, boundaries
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: are not you pushing people away. They are you teaching
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: people how to love you properly. And the friends who
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: want to love you properly will be grateful for the
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: manual teach people how to love you properly. All right,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: now the shout out for real this time.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: We should who is it this week?
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: This week we are shouting out the kids Bedtime Stories podcast.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: It is exactly what it sounds like, and it is lovely,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: enchanting bedtime tales that spark imagination and comfort little minds
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: before sleep. If you have kids or nieces and nephews,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: or honestly, if you are just a grown adult who
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: wants something gentle playing while you wind down, it is
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: a really sweet show. Calm stories, warm narration, the kind
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: of thing that makes a kid feel safe at the
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: end of the day. And I will say, as someone
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: who does not have kids but does have a brain
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: that refuses to turn off at night. A good bedtime
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: story is a technology. It works, So go check out
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: the Kids' Bedtime Stories podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: And if you know a parent who is running on
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: three hours of sleep, send it to them. That is
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: a real act of friendship. Honestly, that ties into our
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: whole episode. That is a boundary respecting favor.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: You are not telling them how to parent, You are
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: just handing them twenty minutes of quiet.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: That is friendship, all right, So wrap up time. If
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: this episode hit home, if you are the chronic yes
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: person or the wall person, or the person who just
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: realized they have never heard a real no from their friends,
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: do one thing this week. Set one small boundary, not
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: a huge one. Decline one thing you do not want
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: to do with warmth and without a three paragraph excuse.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: See how it feels. See what happens.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: And if somebody sets a boundary with you this week,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: receive it well. Thank them for the honesty, do not
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: make them pay for it. Be the friend who makes
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: honesty cheap instead off expensive. And if you want to
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: tell us how it went, reach out.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: We read everything.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Tell us your boundary wins, your boundary disasters, your guilt
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: trip horror stories. We might read yours on a future
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: episode before we tease next week, let us do the
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: recap properly, because we do a lot of Everybody tonight edzel,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: give the people the whole playbook in sixty seconds.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: The whole episode.
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: Condensed sixty seconds. Okay, here it is one. Your dread
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: and your complaints are data. They are telling you where
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: the lines need to go. Two.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: A boundary is a stated line about your own behavior,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: never a rule about theirs. Three set it short and
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: warm without a legal defense, because every excuse is a
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: handle they can grab. Four hold it because an unheld
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: boundary is just a complaint. Five Let people react without
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: chasing them, because the ones who adjust were the real
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: ones all along. Six receive other people's boundaries gracefully, because
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: that is how you make honesty cheap. And seven maintain
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: it gently forever because people are not software, and patterns
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: have gravity.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: That is the whole playbook.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Seven moves, seven moves, and the homework is one small
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: no this week, just one, not the friendship bending confrontation,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: the tiny one. The I cannot make this one, but
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: have the best time. Text it to somebody tonight and
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: then come back and tell us how four seconds of
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: awkward compared to the year of resentment you were about
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: to sign up for.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: In the person who has never heard a no from
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: their friends ask for one this week. Seriously tell your
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: closest friend if I ever asked too much, tell me
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: watch their face. The relief you see there will teach
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: you more than this whole episode did.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Growlvulmer of both sides. I love it.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Next week, though we go heavier next episode, we are
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: going somewhere related but darker. The friend breakup, Why it
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: happens to everyone? Why nobody teaches you how to grieve
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: a friendship, the way you grieve a relationship, and how
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: to actually get closure when there was no final conversation.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: If this episode was about saving friendships, that one is
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: about surviving the ones you could not heavy necessary bring
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: tissues and also maybe a snack.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: You have been listening to all about friendships.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: I am Paul and I am at Zil. Go say
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: a kind note to somebody this week and go be
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: the friend who makes it safe to hear one. We
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: will catch you on the next one later.
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: Everybody