Latest / Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship / # 160 - From the Cafeteria to the Mahj Table: Friend Group Challenges from Teens to Midlife and Beyond (LIVE!)

Transcript

# 160 - From the Cafeteria to the Mahj Table: Friend Group Challenges from Teens to Midlife and Beyond (LIVE!) · Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship

• 0:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Dier Nina Conversations about friendship.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is an episode I've been so excited to share with you.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is my live episode from Highland Park, Illinois that I did two weeks ago with my sister producer, friend, and just wonderful partner and many ways for lots of things I do with Dier Nina, Rebecca Jacobs.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: She has been on other episodes with me and when it was time to figure out
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: who I wanted to be with me in the live episode.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had no question that I wanted to be with Rebecca.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Both of us are from the area.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm from Highland Hurt.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: She spent a lot of her childhood in Northbrook and her adolescence and we both had old friends there, new friends.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had family there and we had as a stay in the episode.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope also people who did not know us.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: There were a hundred and twenty people in that room.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You will hear their
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: laughter, their applause, you will feel the energy, I think.
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It really is a different kind of episode.
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I loved having a live audience.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was a lot of fun.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rebecca enjoyed it too.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the episode, I name all of the sponsors.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not going to think them again right here, but just do know that all the sponsors of the event, all of the companies that contributed to the SWAD bags that were so fun to give out to the people who bought
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: tickets to the event and all the businesses that gave out raffle prizes at the end will all be in the show notes.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to just tell you about this episode for a moment.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is about friend groups.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is about the hurt and the pain that can come with not having a group about the relief sometimes that comes with getting out of a group that isn't working for you on the invitation when I invited people to this event on social media and through email and
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: all kinds of other marketing.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: The title was from the cafeteria to the mosh table, friend group challenges through the ages.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I really think that spoke to people.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think most people there felt it.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am going to do a live event in Minneapolis next and not exactly sure when I don't have the date yet.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: because it is a big undertaking.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you live in Minneapolis and you are interested in any capacity in sponsoring part of the event and being part of all the marketing and I always add the logo and everything to everything I do if you sponsor the event and I will name you lots one other little house keeping note when you hear the very end of the episode you will hear that after the raffle it just starts to get kind of mayhem and I just have the recording cut off there.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: There really isn't an ending.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will be back again at the end of this episode, just to leave you a note at the end since the live episode just kind of randomly ends.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And before we get to the live episode, I want to remind you to stay in touch with me.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: My newsletter is at dyrnina.substack.com.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: My Instagram and TikTok accounts where I am pretty active are at Dear Nina, Friendship.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you can join my Facebook page, which is really turning into a nice community.
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can find on Facebook at Dear Nina, the group.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here we are going back in time to Chicago two weeks ago.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Dear Nina.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Conversations about Friendship.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am your host, Nina Badsen.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: With me as Rebecca Jacobs, please look out and see your family and friends.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will tell you more about Rebecca soon, but I wanted to tell you that on your chair, you had a postcard with ways to stay in touch, follow on Instagram, get my newsletter, and also there is a blank no card, and you have a pen in your bag that my sister-in-law Toby designed, and you can write any questions you have.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I cannot tell you that we're going to answer them today because we probably aren't, but they will be used in future episodes.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just wanted to tell you a brief moment that I've been writing about friendship for eleven years, and I am not a therapist, I am not a social worker, and I don't call myself a friendship expert, but I started as a friendship enthusiast, I'm a writer.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: and writers land on a beat.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've written about all kinds of things.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've written about every Jewish holiday that you can imagine.
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've written about so many parenting things and eventually through a very long story that you can hear on an episode that I will put in my show notes, which I'll explain in a second.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is the story of how I ended up on this friendship beat.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that's where I've been since, twenty-fourteen, writing an advice column.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I still do the classic advice column stuff in the newsletter.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Rebecca and I, Rebecca's my assistant producer, by the way, but I would, I'll be telling you that too.
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: We, let's say once every six weeks answer questions.
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's why it's called DR Nina.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It came from an advice column.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's what we're up to some of the time, and I interview a lot of guests.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know some of you are listeners, and some of you have not only have you never heard of the podcast, you don't even listen to podcasts, which is totally fine.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you will after this.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Each week, I do a different, very small issue of friendship.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you can believe that I have been writing about friendship for eleven years and have not run out of material.
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because French is complicated, right?
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's ups and downs and friendship groups in particular bring out all the feelings.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: They really do.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: You want in one.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: You want out of one.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: You want your kid in one.
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You want your kid out of one.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: You want in the group chat.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're like, get me out of this group chat.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know.
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: We all have that feeling very painful when you want to be part of something and you're not welcomed in.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's also really tricky when you don't want to do everything with eighteen people.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not realistic.
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So how do we be kind and inclusive?
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: But also have deep relationships that mean so much to us.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is quite impossible to do all of that.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So sometimes we do have to make things smaller.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't have a perfect answer of how you can do that without hurting feelings.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wish I did.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we are going to address some questions that address all of that.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to first before we even go on to the most important thing was think our amazing sponsors.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have, let's do a quick round of applause first.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Twisted Alchemy, represented in the corner at the bar and downstairs at the bar.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: They had amazing cold press juices that were mixed with our next sponsor in Spiro Tequila.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you to Inspiro Tequila.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: They made those drinks extra special.
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Glickman, leave you residential.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did the beautiful dessert bar in the back?
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I want to just tell you what the show notes are.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because if you're not a person who listens to a podcast,
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or even if you are, you might be like, why is that podcast or always talking about show notes?
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you are listening to a podcast on Spotify, Apple, wherever you're listening YouTube, it doesn't matter.
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm on YouTube too.
• 6:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so uncomfortable to look at.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am there.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: On video, you look wherever you are listening to the podcast, there are links that somebody, it's me in this case, took the trouble to put the links in of where you can listen to episodes that were referenced, or in this case, well, that will be the case, but also the sponsors.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So all the sponsors will have links in the show notes and addition to the companies that are in your SWAB bag.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And thank you to my sister and not Toby who filled every one of those SWAB bags at her house in Highland Park.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't live here.
• 7:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Rebecca doesn't live here.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So she received all the items, stuffed all the items and brought them all here and did a beautiful job with my husband, Brian Hook.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: met me here a couple days ago from Minneapolis to be my helper.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's Brian.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's been on the episode last intro before we turn it over to Rebecca.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Will you raise your hand if you're in this room and you've been a guest on the show?
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I know there's or about to be less like that.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: It comes to you.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: We got Deborah.
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Brian's been a tough old guest.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Terrence been on like four times.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: We got my mom.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Kathy up here who is like number one guest.
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hold it all the time.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, when you stand up for a second and just wave, that's Kathy.
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't miss any videos, I guess.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think Leslie Randolph will be on soon and I've been on Leslie's.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Rebecca Jacobs is out all the time.
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Rebecca, we turn it over to you.
• 8:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, we also want to thank Enaz, who donated fifteen percent of your purchases, and I'm looking around ladies and a few brave men, and I see you understood those assignments.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: So great job.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just bought these, and that is going to the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation, and that's a very important charity and cause for Nina's family.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so thank you to everyone here who really did that.
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we so appreciate it.
• 8:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's many special guests.
• 8:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: This room is just filled with people we love.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we're going to thank you at the end.
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: The woman of the hour, it is so nice for us to be in our hometown.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And many of you are familiar with this incredible woman.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now I can say my dear friend, Nina Badson.
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina's the host of Dear Nina Conversations about Friendship, a top one-person charted podcast.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Her friendship work has been recently featured on MPR.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's been in the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the Guardian, Time Magazine, and elsewhere.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what looks like overnight success is actually years and years of hard work.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: As a mom of four, alongside Brian, so shout out to Brian as well.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she's helped so many people with her direct and sensible approach to friendship.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know because I see these letters from women and men who are just grateful for your no-nonsense but empathetic approach.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, thanks Rebecca.
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you can believe Rebecca, this is only the second time we've ever met in person.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's surreal.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: We are very close friends and it is another good example not the topic of this episode but a topic of another episode of having a long distance friendship and a friendship that started online.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rebecca was really a listener.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: We know a ridiculous amount of people in common.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: We did not know each other growing up.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: We just both happened to grow up in different suburbs here.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we Rebecca wrote me lots of different emails with ideas and
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So many ideas and I said finally after a couple of years I'm like can I just hire you to be part of the team?
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Rebecca we work really closely.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: We talk all the time.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: We met once years ago when I was going to a banana in Maryland and we weren't even working together yet.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So this is the second time we have been together in the past couple of days, but we speak a lot.
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: a lot and Rebecca is like I said my assistant producer she's a writing professor in Maryland what suburb do you live in?
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Potomac I always say Bethesda sorry about that okay they're the same yeah okay it's all the same it's like here's the same here field
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: um she's a college essay specialist and you can hire her virtually by the way and she is a mom of three and someone as obsessed with friendship as I am I'd say she was equally a friendship enthusiast she maintains so many friends all over the place she's a wonderful friend and person and I actually have
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: At length, talked about the story of me hiring her in a different episode, and we will put that in the show notes.
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, you know what the show notes are.
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we talked already about why we chose friend groups a little bit.
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I told you that people have a lot of feelings, but we get a lot of letters about it.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So just to refresh, if I didn't say it, people write me anonymous letters.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I actually have a form on my website that doesn't require an email address.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you've ever written into a website before, usually you have to fill in something or it won't send it.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It has an asterisk next to it and you have to.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can make up an email address.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: People do that.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I made a form that doesn't require that so that people really would write to me and they've been doing it for eleven years.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's crazy.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of them are about friend groups in one way or another.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, being left out, your kid being left out, or wanting to go.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just women.
• 12:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to be clear.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's ageless and timeless.
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of my topics I like to think are ageless and timeless because we have our friends with us, God willing, for a long time, if we can maintain them.
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: which takes a lot of work, as you all know, it's not so easy, it takes a lot of work.
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: The friend group thing just really is a pain point for so many people, and it affects boys too.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just girls, not just women.
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Boys, men, I have to shut up, Brian, one more time, he was listening to every single episode.
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every so often, just every so often he goes, this one's just for women.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he can relate to a lot of them.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I do think that I know from my stats that most of my listeners are women.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So thank you to the men who are here.
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And part of what I've always hoped that Tierney not the podcast, the writing, beyond me as a person achieves is making you feel less alone in the things you feel about friendship.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And giving you practical ways to solve the problems you're having, although there's never one correct answer, which is a challenge, right?
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wish I could answer every question and say, do this.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then you will have no issues and you will always be included and you will never hurt anyone's feelings and your feelings will never be hurt.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is just not reality, but we do the best we can.
• 13:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have three questions we chose today.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: We compiled different questions into three questions and Rebecca's going to read them.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are we ready for that?
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have one other thing to do to get you ready.
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Originally, we were going to call this friendship groups, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: But actually, they're not inherently bad.
• 13:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're just complicated.
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: We all gravitate towards groups because we want that sense of belonging.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when we were years, millions of years, I don't know how many years ago in the Savannah, if you were to group, you wouldn't get eaten by a lion.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's why when you are excluded,
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like biological pain you actually feel unsafe and you want that safety of a group But we hope that part of this idea is that you you need people it may come as a group, but it also might not and so before we get started I wanted to call it ventrip groups the good the bad and the ugly and Rebecca goes like
• 14:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: and to be so negative.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like she brings a little more positivity.
• 14:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, it's terrible, it's always a problem.
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, yeah, that could bring a nice, nice and lightness.
• 14:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, but we want to have a little fun just to get us, you know, like stretching, like loosening up, because we could, you know, we could be fun, but we could be serious.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to loosen up.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this is just, we've never done this on the podcast.
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's rapid fire.
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Never done it.
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just going to ask you, and it's like top of mind.
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Friendship group red flags.
• 14:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: A friendship group red flag would be if nobody is allowed to go off and choose and threes and threes and threes and do anything.
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like everything has to be ten people all the time.
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: That to me is a red flag of a friendship group that is dysfunctional at any age.
• 15:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 15:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Great.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Green flags.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess a green flag might be the opposite of that.
• 15:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: If three people go do something, it's not a crisis.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, those three went out to dinner.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's terrible.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have no friends.
• 15:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: A green flag would be that you feel confident enough and supported enough in those friendships that you can see that not everybody wants to do everything, like I said earlier, with fifteen people, therefore, if other people want that, or if you want that, of course, other people want that too.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you have to give that to other people.
• 15:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a green flag to allow your friends to get together without you, is the shorter way of saying that.
• 15:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: One friendship fact you wish you knew when you were younger.
• 15:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you've ever listened to my podcast before, I say often, if you could redefine reciprocity and what reciprocity means, it would change your life.
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: What I mean is, I do this thing for you.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to do that exact thing for me.
• 15:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't mean like gifts and things like that.
• 15:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm a fast tech star.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're friends with me, you know, I'm laser.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so fast.
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: But maybe you're not like that.
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're not attached to your phone, like I said, extra lin and good for you.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't mean that we're not close.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It means I'm a really fast texture and you're not.
• 16:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's all it means.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I reach out a ton more because I'm that kind of person, but when we're together, you listen so well and you ask incredible questions and you are tuned in and locked in and you say, yes, every time I ask you for plans, that is reciprocity.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: reciprocity doesn't mean I texted you for a plant you texted me the next time I texted you you texted me but a lot of people are defining it that way and it's not necessary so if I know that earlier I would have been a lot happier and if I could have given that over earlier other people would have been happier this might be the same but it might be different the hill you'll die on
• 16:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's true.
• 16:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is the hell I'll die on.
• 16:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, is there another hell I would die on?
• 16:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
• 16:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I say that's your big one.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do I hate a lot.
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it's true.
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot of the letters that they're not about friend groups.
• 16:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're about nobody uses the word reciprocity.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: They are saying if I never reached out, we wouldn't be friends.
• 17:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm always the one who reaches out.
• 17:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm always the one who texts first.
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a really like I use the word pain point before.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Same thing.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a real big pain point for people.
• 17:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't mean to make light of it.
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a big thing.
• 17:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you could just learn to unlock what you think of as reciprocity and find other ways.
• 17:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying you should be a door mat.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a different thing.
• 17:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I'll link an episode of the show notes where I really hammer that for the three-minute straight.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Last two, best friend group on TV.
• 17:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not going to say this is the most functional friend group, but the friend group I grew up with and a lot of people here.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know two and a no.
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, so dysfunctional.
• 17:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But those are my people.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: What would you have one for that?
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm also nano to a no and O.C.
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: but my favorite current friend group would be never have I ever.
• 17:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Never have I ever such it.
• 17:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're good.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: They really get each other.
• 18:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will tell you one thing I love when I see on TV our friends who get an argument or a big one, like a really big issue and then reconcile.
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think it happens as much in real life as I would like to see.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you can have conflict with a friend.
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when it happens on TV, I'm so happy.
• 18:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, yeah, see, people can make up.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Brenda and Kelly.
• 18:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Did they make up?
• 18:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like some episode.
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a tangent, but I think they made up.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Donna was always in there.
• 18:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's true.
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, last one before we dive into the letters, worse TikTok, friendship advice.
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, this is another thing I harp on.
• 18:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a little old to be on TikTok, but I do it anyway, because I have a podcast and that's the thing to do.
• 18:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes I'm really brave.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll get in there and other people's comments.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have to really be in the right mood for that.
• 18:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of younger people really, really are upset when their friends don't like their posts.
• 18:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm a real social media person.
• 18:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I've been on the internet for a long time.
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I know to do that and I do that.
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I really get in there and I lecture people, like I put my forty-eight-year-old, you know, I've been writing about friendship for eleven years, had on.
• 19:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I say that is a horrific way to measure a friendship.
• 19:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: People use social media totally differently.
• 19:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some people use it very passively.
• 19:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do not measure your friendships that way.
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a hell I'll die on too.
• 19:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 19:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right.
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Should we dive into this later?
• 19:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ready for our three questions.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 19:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, remember, guys, if you have the pens, you have the nope for future episodes.
• 19:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't forget.
• 19:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dear Nina, I move to the Chicago suburbs in my mid-thirties when my husband was transferred.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: My kids were in preschool at the time.
• 19:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone said I'd make friends through the school and kids activities.
• 19:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Fast forward ten years.
• 19:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm in my mid-forties and I still feel like I'm a fringe friend.
• 19:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's this one group of women that seemed really fun when I moved here and I immediately latched on to them.
• 19:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: But even after all these years, I still feel like I'm annoying by asking people for plans or if they want to get together.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm included in the stuff on the big group text.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I always feel like there's things happening that I don't know about.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just feel like this junior high mean girls and bullies never go away.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nina doesn't ever end.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we're talking about does the feeling that there's mean girl behavior ever end.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are letter writers in her thirties, but she could have been in her forties.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: She moved in the thirties.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's in her forties now, moved in her thirties.
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: been in, did she say, I know I've read this a hundred times, but we're here for this.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: She thought she could be here.
• 20:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's in the North Shore, ladies and gentlemen, does it ever end?
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: She could write this in her twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties.
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that it really matters.
• 20:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to flip this a little bit.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would like to challenge someone in this position who feels like they are a fringe friend trying to be in a certain group.
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to zoom out and ask that person, why do you feel you have to be in that group?
• 21:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's a fair question that we talk a lot about the group who's not letting somebody in.
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think there is some individual agency and responsibility that you have to take for asking yourself, why is this one particular group so important to you?
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had that experience when I moved to Minneapolis, and you know, I'm from here, as we've said a million times, and I went to college in St.
• 21:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Louis, and I moved to Minneapolis with Brian.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: We were engaged, and he'd been gone ten years.
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was the first time that I really had to really try hard to make friends, because part of how we make friends a lot is you're in the vicinity with people.
• 21:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I grew up in the same house forever that my mom just sold last year.
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, that's a long time to be in that area.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then college is so easy, camps easy.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I thought easy for everyone.
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to be clear.
• 21:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is easy, you're, though, if you're in proximity of people your age, who have some of the same interests you do, who are very easy to go eat meals with them, and you build friendships quite easily.
• 22:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It takes around two hundred hours with somebody to make a close connection.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, if you live on the same hall or you live down the street or you work together, even those hours add up really, really, really quickly.
• 22:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, once you're now living with your fiance and you, I was going to grad school at the time.
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: People were a little bit, I mean, I first had to take some classes.
• 22:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: People were younger, I had to take some English classes.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just wasn't with people.
• 22:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was going to naturally be friends with.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it took a long time.
• 22:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't used to that.
• 22:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: But in hindsight, I can see now that I was trying to be friends with certain people.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if I had known earlier, OK, back up, hold on.
• 22:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why are you trying so hard?
• 22:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: If it's that much work, there's a lot of people out there who are looking for friends.
• 22:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you might be barking up the wrong tree.
• 22:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it sounds a little insensitive, but I feel like I can say it because I was that person.
• 22:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I almost wish someone had said to be back then, we're talking the year, two thousand.
• 23:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why these women?
• 23:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a whole city out here.
• 23:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do other things, join other things.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can be friends with other people.
• 23:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had a similar experience.
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: My husband was in the Navy and we moved to Maryland.
• 23:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm from Northbrook, so shout out to your Northbrook people.
• 23:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I moved in my thirties.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had no friends.
• 23:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: My family's here.
• 23:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had two kids under two.
• 23:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was desperate for friends.
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I knew I needed friends.
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really took matters into my own hands, Nina, because I switched preschools three times.
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that sounds like I see the moms being like, oh my god.
• 23:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: What about I was like, this is your school.
• 23:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then I wasn't meeting people and I'm like, oh, here's your new school.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then again, and I wasn't trying to find a group.
• 23:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just wanted a friend.
• 23:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, oh, here's where you go when you're four.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was your three-year-old school.
• 24:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I have to say it worked.
• 24:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I did meet people, but it was very, you know, God bless my husband who's like, oh, what?
• 24:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm like, don't even do the forms.
• 24:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Don't worry about it.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll do all the forms.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Those are the people.
• 24:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Again, I wasn't looking for a group just one person and then met another person that I've raised my kids alongside with because if you live in a city like this person moved here, you have to depend on your friends and so you have to find a connection.
• 24:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I would say if you're feeling like a fringe friend and it's been ten years, that's not a great feeling.
• 24:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think you said it.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: You might be barking up the wrong tree or whatever the, you know,
• 24:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had a guest back.
• 24:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was episode sixty-five.
• 24:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Her name's Dr. Lisa Demore.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's wonderful.
• 24:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some of you might know her work.
• 24:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's great.
• 24:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, she said in that episode something I quote a lot.
• 24:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she's quoting other research that you really only need two to three close friends to feel a sense of belonging to feel happy.
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't need a group.
• 24:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: TV and social media would make us feel otherwise.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: The brunches and the trip.
• 25:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't actually need a group.
• 25:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying there isn't safety, security, just an ease of having a group, and then you know what you're doing on the weekend, and you know a lot of things about your life, whether you're a kid or an adult.
• 25:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I acknowledge it makes it easier.
• 25:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think we have to get away from the idea that you have to have a group.
• 25:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You really don't.
• 25:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And another thing about Dr. Lisa that I love, she's a clinical psychologist.
• 25:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: She had an episode maybe six months ago.
• 25:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was episode one, fifty, six.
• 25:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it was called, how do I, I can't remember the exact title.
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it was something, it was from the point of view of a fourteen year old who wrote into her from this other point of view.
• 25:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was almost like the writer was writing from the other point of view of this letter.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So just to review the letter for a second, somebody is feeling like a fringe friend and trying to get into a group.
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the letter was from the other point of view, somebody who was in the group, and sort of feels like, and there was a younger person, for a teenager's old, the person writing is like, there's this person who sits with us at lunch.
• 26:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: We like her, but we, and we don't want to hurt her feelings.
• 26:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was actually an empathetic letter.
• 26:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: We know that she doesn't have a lot of other friends, and we really like her, but the chemistry, well, they must not really like her.
• 26:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: They like her enough for lunch.
• 26:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's not a mean girl.
• 26:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's nice girl.
• 26:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: But they don't want to have her do everything with them on the weekend.
• 26:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she said, we're very careful.
• 26:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: We don't talk about our weekend plans.
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't a jerk of a kid.
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: This person was totally aware that it would be cruel to talk about our weekend plans at lunch.
• 26:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the letter writer says, we don't do that.
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're very careful.
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do I gently
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: or how do we, as the group, gently let her know that lunch is fine, but there's another group text going on.
• 26:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Dr. Lisa actually said, it would be very cruel to have her sit somewhere else for lunch.
• 26:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Lisa is very sensitive and she works with teenagers.
• 26:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: She said, but you actually don't need to include her in all your weekend plans.
• 27:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's why this friend group stuff is tricky.
• 27:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're on the other end of it, you do get to have some agency and who your friends with.
• 27:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if there isn't chemistry and you're not getting the message like our letterwriter here, it's been ten years.
• 27:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you're kid, it's a little harder.
• 27:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you're a parent in that situation, you may need to help.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You may need to help interpret the messages of my kid has someone to sit with at lunch, but they're always home on the weekend.
• 27:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then why?
• 27:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And lastly, we talked about this a lot on your episode.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Lastly, Randolph has a wonderful podcast that I will put in the show notes and I was on her episode and we talked about
• 27:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: School might not be the number one place that this kid is making friends.
• 27:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: What else is this kid into?
• 27:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can we get this kid into other things?
• 27:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can we introduce this kid to other things?
• 27:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there a faith community that maybe as a family you've never considered before?
• 27:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: But now we're in this situation.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now we got to look for other things.
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Leslie brought up Girl Scouts.
• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I loved that idea.
• 27:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember that.
• 27:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't remember that.
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I know it is, so it can be so tricky.
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes you do want twenty people, but sometimes you really do want three.
• 28:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I know you talk about, in defense of exclusivity, but it sounds, it's not really, actually intimacy.
• 28:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes you want things to be intimate and small.
• 28:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I know when I go to a large dinner, I'm just really facing the person next to me, because I can't hear anymore these days.
• 28:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I can't be an allowed crowded restaurant.
• 28:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: But and sometimes I want a friend just to go out with me and sometimes you want it to be big.
• 28:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it can't always.
• 28:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: It can't always be fourteen people.
• 28:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: But you also are trying not to be cruel.
• 28:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
• 28:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Kathy has good.
• 28:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's right.
• 28:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have some advice from Kathy.
• 28:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll link Dr. Lee's his episode because the kid one I know touches.
• 28:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Me too.
• 28:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It touches a lot of sensitive points.
• 28:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I want to focus mostly on adults here.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you'll hear her episode and it was great.
• 28:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I did quote my mom, Kathy Sakheim, which I quote often.
• 28:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I only gave her this letter because we're not going to quote her every letter.
• 29:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But she said, and I quote directly, your letter writer needs to look for new friends.
• 29:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Kathy just says it like it is.
• 29:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I try to, but it takes me longer to get there.
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: If she has specific interest, she should join those groups and look for women who share her interests, perhaps a church sisterhood, so funny you said church.
• 29:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess it's a church.
• 29:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps a church sisterhood would be a good place to start.
• 29:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: If religion is on an interest that a charity group might work for her and that that's often stuff I would advise to.
• 29:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's time, now we're talking about the adult.
• 29:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're away from the kid example.
• 29:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: time to lean into your interest and join other things.
• 29:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is not the group for you.
• 29:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing wrong with this group necessarily.
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's though.
• 29:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not the group for you.
• 29:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: The chemistry is not there.
• 29:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Time to move on.
• 29:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Great.
• 29:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I love Kathy.
• 29:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: You just nailed it in one line that we just keep talking about.
• 29:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, this is letter number two.
• 30:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dior Nina.
• 30:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm in my fifties, an empty nester, and I never put all that much work and thought into friendship to be honest.
• 30:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like between work, raising athletic kids who kept us very busy with their travel sports and my big extended family.
• 30:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really didn't notice that I wasn't building deep friendships.
• 30:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now that things are a bit quieter, no weekend tournaments, I'm feeling, maybe it's lonely.
• 30:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: For the first time in a long time, I could see why it would be nice and maybe a little easier to have a friend group and always have something to do with people or start to make plans with.
• 30:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: The problem is, I don't even know where to start.
• 30:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, just to, I feel like sometimes I like to reiterate.
• 30:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Woman in our fifties, lots of time on the travel sports.
• 30:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you have kids in travel sports, I don't, right?
• 30:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we're not doing that.
• 30:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: But they do other sports.
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: They do sports, but not travel sports anyway.
• 30:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hear from a lot of people who, those were their friends for a while and there's nothing wrong with that.
• 30:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to be very clear and she also prioritized work a lot.
• 31:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: This woman said, the women that you sat with on the bleachers all through your thirties and forties, those are friends.
• 31:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will never say those aren't friends.
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: What she's feeling is that it lacked depth and she didn't maybe know that until the kids graduated and the sports ended.
• 31:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it doesn't mean that the ten years that you sat really getting to know those people, those people got you through a decade.
• 31:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they were a huge part of your life.
• 31:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And a huge part of what we missed during COVID times were those friends.
• 31:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those were the people you were going to zoom with probably.
• 31:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we missed those friends.
• 31:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So those friends made our life richer and more interesting and you meet people to those people.
• 31:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So no shade is the kid say to those friends.
• 31:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: But now we have an opportunity.
• 31:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am actually very optimistic about this question.
• 31:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now we have an opportunity in your fifties.
• 31:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: You get to make new friends based on things that you are passionate about.
• 31:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And again, it's kind of the same answer to the first person.
• 32:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is time to focus on this.
• 32:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's an opportunity.
• 32:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's wise because
• 32:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every developmental study in the big one, everyone quotes as the Harvard developmental study.
• 32:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It has a more official name that will be linked in the show notes says that social connections are the thing.
• 32:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: They are the thing that is connected to longevity and happiness.
• 32:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I love that you're so optimistic, because I think sometimes I try to, you know, bring in that optimism, but this is really, it's hard.
• 32:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's also, we're so optimistic, but we do acknowledge, friendship making is hard.
• 32:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we have a mutual friend, Rebecca Kotak, who really tried to get here on time, but her flight was delayed.
• 32:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: But she was talking to me about Grandma Ethel.
• 32:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And her grandma, Ethel, survived Auschwitz.
• 32:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's an amazing story.
• 32:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And years go by.
• 32:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Ethel moves to an assisted living.
• 32:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Ethel, who sits down, the woman next to her goes, that's Francine's seat.
• 33:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, you survived Nazi Germany.
• 33:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can't sit in Francine's seat.
• 33:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are you kidding me?
• 33:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: But so it's hard at any age.
• 33:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she never went, by the way, she went upstairs.
• 33:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: She never came back to us.
• 33:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know.
• 33:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know.
• 33:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to give Ethel some love.
• 33:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's hard.
• 33:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we all have that opportunity to pull up another seat.
• 33:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it doesn't have to be every single time.
• 33:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's no other table.
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: at the home.
• 33:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's where my mind is.
• 33:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why that table?
• 33:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why do we have to sit with Francine's friends?
• 33:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's all their tables.
• 33:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's all their tables.
• 33:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's all right.
• 33:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it is hard, but you do have these amazing opportunities.
• 33:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know you made new friends playing tennis or something.
• 33:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even give the positive part of the Minnesota story.
• 33:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've lived there for twenty-five years.
• 33:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do have friends.
• 33:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It just took a minute.
• 33:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: It took more than a minute.
• 33:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it did happen slowly one thing at a time.
• 34:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I did tend to maybe it's advice for the first letterwriter actually.
• 34:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I think about a lot of the people I'm friends with and we have a couple of friends, the two of us were blessed to have.
• 34:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And almost every case, one person in the couple isn't from Minnesota.
• 34:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean?
• 34:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have no issue with people from Minnesota.
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: One person in every couple is from Minnesota.
• 34:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love my kids are men's, my husband is Minnesota.
• 34:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I had to go where there was openness.
• 34:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had to go where somebody had a space for a friend and oftentimes was somebody also who did not grow up there, go to camp with all the same people.
• 34:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I had to bark up a different tree.
• 34:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what Rebecca is also getting at is I've made a lot of new friends too in the past five years because I took up tennis.
• 34:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Actually, I was on the Highland Park tennis team, freshman year.
• 34:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just freshman year.
• 34:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I really wanted to be on Palm Palm.
• 34:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you know, how the Palm Palm is in Highland Park.
• 34:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Really wanted to be on it and Kathy, my mom said, really?
• 35:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what you want to do.
• 35:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Desperate to do it.
• 35:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I did do it.
• 35:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It really didn't like it.
• 35:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I stayed on it because they also said I couldn't quit.
• 35:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wrote my college essay on that, so that worked.
• 35:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I bring that up to say I hadn't picked up a racket since when we were refreshmen, ladies like who I had in nineteen ninety one nineteen ninety two.
• 35:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had not picked up a racket since that era and I kept wanting to and I was like, oh, but I just like I four kids, they play sports, I don't play sports.
• 35:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even want to go by a racket or shoes that just seemed like such a hassle.
• 35:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: But eventually, some of my friends were playing and I was like, a little jealous.
• 35:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, well, they're playing tennis.
• 35:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to play tennis.
• 35:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And finally, a little voice said, you're a grown-up person.
• 35:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have a credit card and a car.
• 35:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: You could go buy a tennis racket and choose.
• 35:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I did.
• 35:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I started with one lesson.
• 35:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I felt like the sky opened up.
• 35:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I felt like a sense of joy and childhood in a good way.
• 35:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there was muscle memory because I took a lot of lessons, many, many years of lessons.
• 36:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Jennifer, remember we went to tennis camp in Philadelphia.
• 36:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what are we doing?
• 36:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: We went to tennis camp, and Jill, wait, Jill, weren't you a tennis camp with us?
• 36:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Jill boss, you're over there, is that?
• 36:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did you not go?
• 36:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, fine.
• 36:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Somehow you got out of there.
• 36:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: We went to tennis camp and thought, I mean, I don't like serious when I was a kid.
• 36:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there was muscle memory.
• 36:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was joy and happiness, but more importantly, sorry to get jwell on that.
• 36:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I met so many younger friends.
• 36:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was kind of like the older lady on the tennis court.
• 36:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have lots of new friends who are in their thirties.
• 36:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some of them are early thirties.
• 36:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, I'm forty eight.
• 36:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when they're talking about day camp and you know, what should we do for that?
• 36:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm always like, gather around ladies.
• 36:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let your wise friend Nina tell you, you know, not this camp, that camp, not this preschool, that preschool, you know.
• 36:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, my information is very dated, but they listen, they're very polite.
• 36:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, we have a similar good friend.
• 36:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: We listen to a lot of podcasts together, and our good friend Gueneth has a small podcast called Goop.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Gueneth's Bachelors.
• 37:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're not actually, we're not really friends with her.
• 37:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's just friends in my mind.
• 37:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: She doesn't know where friends.
• 37:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it reminded me of that story because she had a mom group text podcast episode and I was listening to it and Gwen F is an empty nester like this letter and she made a friend and the friend had a two-year-old and so Gwen F has to wait to go out because the friend has to put the two-year-old to bed and I was like you wouldn't just like get a sitter and go run to Gwen F but fine
• 37:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: but I thought it was really cool because she has a friend who's younger and in this woman and I love that you have friends who are younger and older so this woman's fifty so I guess don't just only look for the empty nesters who are look for them because they're going to be feeling similar things but don't limit yourself another an old school old G best friend Donna one of her best friends is eighty six I'm not kidding Donna's my age and Jane like tells her about Tinder for seniors and they are
• 38:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a thing and it's in there.
• 38:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're really truly they have a really great friendship.
• 38:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that actually that's a good plug for next week's episode once I edit it is about intergenerational friendships and Linda I know I should have interviewed for that my friend Linda is over here or her daughter to ever hear they came from Minneapolis and I consider us friends so that we play mage together I'm value our friendship so much and I'm gonna talk to you for the newsletter.
• 38:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 38:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: We'll do it that later.
• 38:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't forget.
• 38:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 38:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Remember that.
• 38:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 38:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Remembering.
• 38:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it is being brave.
• 38:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's taking that first step.
• 38:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's getting out of your comfort zone.
• 38:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: You had an episode one, fifty five where this girl Lisa was like, I'm done with New Jersey and she packed up her stuff and went to Austin.
• 38:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she had no very single.
• 38:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Single, thirty two.
• 38:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
• 38:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she met a friend at the post office.
• 38:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: My sister told me she met a friend because she was on the phone and the girl goes, I like your conversation.
• 38:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not kidding.
• 38:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they became friends.
• 39:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you just have to be open at TJ Maxx.
• 39:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
• 39:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's good.
• 39:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: The most important thing there that though, you cannot meet someone at the post up and then just say hi.
• 39:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or I like your shirt.
• 39:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Something has to happen next.
• 39:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: There always has to be a next step.
• 39:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so, so, so important.
• 39:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: You gotta ask for a number.
• 39:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: It never stops being awkward.
• 39:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have to follow up with that number, right?
• 39:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: As we talked about before, reciprocity.
• 39:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some people are just really not good at using that number, reaching out.
• 39:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you might have to do it if you're the one in need, again and again.
• 39:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when we both move to our cities, we were the ones in need.
• 39:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we had to be the ones to reach out, which took a little while to figure out.
• 39:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: But once we did,
• 39:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Deborah, you're a young friend too.
• 39:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just realized that.
• 39:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Young friends of all ages, but I didn't always.
• 39:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think I used to be much more narrow and what it meant to have a friend.
• 39:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: It can be different ages if you're thinking about your interests.
• 39:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not your age, not your stage, but your interests when you're in adults.
• 40:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: I lived in Europe for a little bit of time, and they have piacas.
• 40:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: They have squares, and their cities are designed to meet and talk.
• 40:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we just don't have that here.
• 40:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you have to find your inner piaca.
• 40:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I heard this other random fact that women in the eighties got bicycles, and that's when they were able to start dating, like not the guy next door.
• 40:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you can bike to Buffalo Grove from Northbrook or something.
• 40:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was the first dating app, but we are women and some, you know, the few men here, we can get on our bicycles.
• 40:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like the world is so open to us.
• 40:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's such an incredible thing to find a yoga club.
• 40:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a scream club in Chicago at seven p.m.
• 40:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like screamers.
• 40:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I bet there's a lot of moms.
• 40:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's my house at seven p.m.
• 40:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't need to join a club.
• 40:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: for that, but if you like that, I think I'll end on this one with another former guest, Gretchen Rubin.
• 40:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: She wrote the Happiness Projects.
• 41:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've always been a big fan of hers a long time.
• 41:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: She has a lot of matters that she goes by.
• 41:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of her matters is Be Gretchen.
• 41:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which I love, like know yourself.
• 41:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're not someone who ever wants to play tennis, then like don't do that.
• 41:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's not going to be a pleasure going to make friends.
• 41:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, B. Gretchen is a big motto.
• 41:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I try to think about that.
• 41:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: B. Nina, B. Rebecca, but she has another motto, which is, accept myself.
• 41:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: but expect more from myself.
• 41:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: How push yourself a little bit.
• 41:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe it's not tennis.
• 41:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But maybe it's something else that you a little bit interested in, but you're a little nervous because you're going alone.
• 41:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's where you go a little bit beyond be yourself, but expect more of yourself.
• 41:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Push yourself a little bit.
• 41:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: You have to, and then we'll switch.
• 41:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: You have to know yourself.
• 41:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: My mom, Vicki, is here.
• 41:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shout out to Vicki, and she will befriend the Burista at Starbucks, and I could come home, and they'll be in my house.
• 41:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or like, and she'll invite them to like, our kids' permits for something.
• 41:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't like.
• 42:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, Mom, and I just won't do that.
• 42:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a mobile order.
• 42:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just want to go in.
• 42:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to, I mean, I'm friendly, but like, in a different way.
• 42:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so again, that's how Vicki is going to meet her random friends.
• 42:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: But she also has her OG friends here.
• 42:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're like, seventy plus years.
• 42:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so you have to know yourself and push yourself.
• 42:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And push yourself a little bit.
• 42:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: We did save the hardest question for last.
• 42:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a hard one.
• 42:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not looking forward to it.
• 42:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dear Nina, I was so excited to hear the topic of your podcast.
• 42:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: My daughter is in middle school and feels stuck in her friend group, but doesn't know how to shift to a different one.
• 42:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I give her the typical mom advice.
• 42:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Simply text someone in a different friend group and ask her for plans.
• 42:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Go to Starbucks, go to Old Orcher, go to a mall, and she looks at me like I'm an alien.
• 42:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Apparently it's not allowed.
• 42:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: to hang out with other groups, unless it's one-on-one, or your very old family friends.
• 42:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, wouldn't it be amazing if I could tell her to renounce these arbitrary rules?
• 43:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's not even striving for an elite group.
• 43:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina, whatever happened to spreading your wings, trying new things.
• 43:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is it even possible anymore?
• 43:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Does she really need to wait till college to find a new group?
• 43:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we both were like, I don't enjoy this question, but I thought I've had other ones like it, and I thought it was important to address it.
• 43:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And really, we talk about it, or I talk about adults mostly.
• 43:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I still think this is addressed to the adult in a way, because we're trying to help the mom, the mom's trying to help her child.
• 43:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did she say daughter?
• 43:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's trying to help her daughter switch friends groups.
• 43:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: She wants to sit with other people at lunch.
• 43:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now one thing we don't know, does she, is this like a social climbing situation?
• 43:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is she, I don't know, or does it, she's not being treated nicely and wants to switch?
• 43:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would think that would be easier.
• 43:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or they're faster than her.
• 43:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes you feel stuck, like that's not your, so this is different.
• 43:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because this is not somebody wants to get in, which is really more of the first question.
• 44:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is somebody wants to get out.
• 44:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: You would think that would be easier, because you're trying to get out.
• 44:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you go to a school, if your kid's at a school and it's so touchy, I mean, you don't want to create a whole drama that kid has to keep going to school there.
• 44:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: We struggled with this one because I think like the person who wrote the letter, my feeling is also just get up and sit somewhere else.
• 44:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just know it's not that simple.
• 44:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And just of a nods of heads, I'm curious.
• 44:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Does that feel like a thing that's true in schools?
• 44:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you can't just leave a group and just be like, okay, no, I'm friends with you guys.
• 44:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, okay.
• 44:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: So our listeners who are going to listen to it.
• 44:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lots of head nodding.
• 44:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 44:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: You do have to deal with the reality of your kids school stuff.
• 44:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think we can say to our kids, that's silly.
• 44:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Back in the day, we just knocked on someone's door and we had a new friend.
• 44:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So kind of similar to the first question, again, when we talked about how Dr. Lisa Demore had the one where the fourteen-year-old said we kind of don't want to hang out, but this is the opposite situation.
• 45:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: School lunch might not be.
• 45:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: where the best socializing happens for this kid.
• 45:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe this kid doesn't need to stay put for a bit.
• 45:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe once a week they go sit with someone else.
• 45:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that kid once a week does something with a teacher and just gets a break from these kids.
• 45:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because again, we don't know if this kid's being mistreated or is just trying to get into another group.
• 45:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those are two different issues.
• 45:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we talk about really sort of being humbled by what our kids are sharing so that we try to hear what they're saying and maybe just sit alongside of them and try and understand what it was like.
• 45:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's different, but any shector moms here, where are my shector moms?
• 45:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yay!
• 45:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I switched from Shekter to Wood Oaks, and he would Oaks moms.
• 45:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: I see Amy in the back.
• 45:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 45:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wait, Wood Oaks is in Let's Hubby for our listeners.
• 45:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's in North Brook, Illinois.
• 45:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I switched in eighth grade, and I'm coming from Shekter, and on the first day I'm pretty sure I'm in a mini-mouse shirt.
• 46:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, just, you could get the image.
• 46:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: What year was this?
• 46:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: What year is it in?
• 46:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ninety-oh.
• 46:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: True.
• 46:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ninety-two.
• 46:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ninety-two.
• 46:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was a period of time in Shekter.
• 46:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember this.
• 46:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: when like Disney it wasn't then I know you're about to say oh it wasn't like Cody on Peloton with a Disney tag it was me coming from Salmon Shector in Camperman and Mickey Shirts but I know I know what you're saying it wasn't it wasn't it was like a store downtown we used to go to invite let's stitch down did it wasn't that fancy story no we were your TJ Maxx no
• 46:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I walk in and it's like a sea of girls and they're in umbrows.
• 46:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I remember Amy, I remember you.
• 46:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: They were so tall on my friends.
• 46:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're five one.
• 46:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, who I didn't know that people are like this and they were all in purple ribbons.
• 46:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously I remember this north face umbrow and I was like an army of them and I'm just like by sure my been in Hebrew Mickey Mouse.
• 46:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I don't even know and I just was like
• 47:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember walking, I really didn't know where to sit.
• 47:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: My stomach dropped, and it was, I was trying to make it easier to switch to GBN.
• 47:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the truth is, it would have been hard then, it was hard.
• 47:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And again, slowly, one friend at a time, one friend of her time.
• 47:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I found people, but I do remember walking, and it was a legit cafeteria at that time, I think, Shector was probably a hallway.
• 47:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: But this was an actual cafeteria like that saved by the bell.
• 47:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was so hard.
• 47:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: My mom, I probably didn't tell you it was hard, but it was really hard.
• 47:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I wrote, oh, you're good.
• 47:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's okay.
• 47:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's fine now.
• 47:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: But she has a lot of friends.
• 47:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it is actually training for
• 47:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: life, which is always hard.
• 47:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I went to school in the south.
• 47:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was very different from here.
• 47:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I moved to Los Angeles.
• 47:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I moved to Sicily.
• 47:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I moved to Maryland.
• 47:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you're someone who's had this experience, it's just an opportunity.
• 47:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: You get better.
• 47:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: It does not get less hard to walk into a room.
• 47:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: My outfit might be a little better now, but that feeling of what Oaks can still come.
• 48:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, even when I landed over here, you're like, oh God.
• 48:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my goodness.
• 48:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I don't
• 48:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is a life skill.
• 48:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you've never, ever, are challenged to have to make new friends and meet new people with, when will you learn it?
• 48:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you don't have to do it, when you're younger, you will have to do it later and you get better at it.
• 48:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I said earlier, it's always a little awkward, you always have to do a brave new step.
• 48:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rebecca said something, I really like to push a lot, which is never to look for a group.
• 48:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I really feel like people should not be looking for a group.
• 48:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're looking for a friend.
• 48:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then maybe two friends.
• 48:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then maybe three friends.
• 48:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then maybe that's enough a friend, not a group.
• 48:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And a group might form over time.
• 48:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I wish this girl who wrote in or the mom would tell her daughter or help her to see that school might be the place where she sits at that lunch table.
• 48:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And kind of like we've been saying, because it's repetitive, but it's the answer for every single one.
• 48:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Joining other things, finding things outside of school where you can feel really confident, enjoy yourself.
• 49:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: You might not make a friend there at first, but you might have fun.
• 49:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: You might learn something new and like it.
• 49:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Terran and I, when Terran was doing our beautiful makeup, she goes, you know, friendship takes time.
• 49:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not a revolutionary, but it's so true.
• 49:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm like, you're in middle school.
• 49:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like it does.
• 49:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: It takes time.
• 49:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have to build and it's, we want to, I think, so instantly.
• 49:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And with social media, it almost just feels like it should be so fast, but it's really showing up time and time again and to see the little moments that build a lifelong friendship or a seasonal friendship.
• 49:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: As parents, we may have to, we can't force our kids to be friends with someone at some point.
• 49:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I lose my ability to do that as a parent, but I do have an ability as a parent to be inclusive myself.
• 49:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I could drive the kid who lives thirty minutes away and not complain about it.
• 49:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: because otherwise you can't come.
• 49:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I can't force my children to do maybe invite someone, but I could be the person who's like, yeah, of course, I'll take them.
• 49:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: It will show them that's what we do in our house, which is something I try to show through empathy and my life.
• 50:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: The best you can, but I mean, it is true that you cannot force.
• 50:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can't for us.
• 50:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: People get to choose who they're friends with.
• 50:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean adults adults and kids.
• 50:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's uncomfortable.
• 50:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can I add one more to anything?
• 50:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 50:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sorry.
• 50:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't even know where you are, but she's like, I'm going to, and I'm going to give her the work cited and you go all can bring it.
• 50:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to not use the word floater anymore.
• 50:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to use
• 50:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Multi-grouper.
• 50:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, is this Taren?
• 50:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Taren, where are you?
• 50:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
• 50:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so I just love that because like the idea of floating your little like not tethered, but if you're a multi-grouper, you're just in a lot of groups, which is actually the best thing because it means you just have this ability to the key in different areas, which is like the best thing ever.
• 50:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I want to encourage this girl to be a multi-grouper, but I think she's gonna say
• 50:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: You don't know, you know, it's not possible.
• 50:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's cool.
• 50:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: They can't be a multi-grouper, but we've got to get this kid to do other things.
• 50:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Brian and I say all the time, not to put all your eggs in one basket.
• 51:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a very common expression, but we use it a lot.
• 51:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: You've got to have whether you're adult or a child.
• 51:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have maybe the friends you walk with, and you have the friends that you do more serious things with.
• 51:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was, again, Tara, and I think you said foreign films earlier, there was such a random example.
• 51:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have the friend that you might go see for in films with, not all your friends like that.
• 51:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Different friends for different things.
• 51:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of us have that as adults, but maybe we were taught that or was modeled for us.
• 51:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think my mom modeled that very well.
• 51:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of her friends are here who I love very much.
• 51:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Different friends who do different things with.
• 51:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sandy might play mage.
• 51:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: My mom's not going to play mage with you.
• 51:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're going to go to my mage either.
• 51:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: My mom goes to the zoo.
• 51:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: They went to Florida and she's like, can we go to the zoo instead of playing mage?
• 51:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you did.
• 51:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's true.
• 51:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: So again, another former guest, her name's Amy Weatherley.
• 51:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: She and her writing partner Jessica have beautiful things they write about friendship.
• 51:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she shared one recently that I think is a great place to end before we have a couple other announcements after.
• 52:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It speaks to the pain point.
• 52:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we talked about this friend group stuff.
• 52:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no one right answer.
• 52:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no magical way to yourself.
• 52:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Always feel included to feel like you're never excluding people because if again, if you want your friendships to be deep and meaningful,
• 52:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: you can't do everything with fifteen people but if you're feeling more of the feeling that's where my empathy is with right now with the person who is not being included she had this to say it's really a poem I just think it's a good message for human connection and general this is the message that I want to leave you with which is go where the love is go where the friendship flows both ways go where you appreciate and where you are appreciated
• 52:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go where the door is open.
• 52:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go where the communication is good and authentic and honest.
• 52:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go where the energy is uplifting.
• 52:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go where you see and where you are also seen so important.
• 52:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go where there is health.
• 53:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go where the intentions are pure.
• 53:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go where the expectations are simply that everyone is just themselves.
• 53:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go where the spotlight shines on everyone equally.
• 53:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go where you forgive and where you are forgiven.
• 53:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go where you want and where you are wanted.
• 53:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go where you choose and where you are chosen.
• 53:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go where you value your time and where your time is valued.
• 53:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go where the love is.
• 53:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And unashamedly, bravely and kindly step away from everything else.
• 53:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Life is too short to stay in rooms not made for you.
• 53:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go where the love is.
• 53:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope that rings true.
• 53:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now for a little fun.
• 53:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 53:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, we can more fun.
• 53:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: We did think Amy and Dara.
• 53:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want Amy and Dara to please their back there.
• 53:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Amy and Dara, back there.
• 53:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Amy and Dara, I've never met before today.
• 53:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Amy is an old friend of Rebecca's from Wood Oaks.
• 54:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: She eventually, you know, got over the Mickey Mouse thing and let Rebecca hang with her.
• 54:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Amy and Dara helped plan this event because we don't live here.
• 54:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So thank you to Amy and Dara.
• 54:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do a beautiful, beautiful job.
• 54:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't go name my name because it's getting long and I get really crazy about time.
• 54:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I just want to say there are girls here from Brayside who I've known since I was five.
• 54:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are girls here from Edgewood.
• 54:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are girls here from Chippewa, Ranch Camp for Girls, CRC, whatever.
• 54:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can sing all the songs.
• 54:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are girls here from Washington who I don't always get to see when I come into Chicago and I really appreciate you being here.
• 54:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are people from the Dear Founder Network community who I really just met recently and mostly online who have really shown up a lot of you are here and I'm so appreciative.
• 54:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my family, my mom, who I wouldn't, you know, this, the whole friendship thing is always based on the lessons I learned from my mom and her wonderful friends who are here.
• 54:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my sister and my niece Lindsay, thank you for being here.
• 55:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I can't name everybody, but I'd love that some of my friends here.
• 55:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: They brought their moms.
• 55:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
• 55:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: We got Scott and Toby and Brian, and I know I'm missing people.
• 55:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So family, new family, old family.
• 55:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, same, my mom, my sister, her old friends, my shector friends, my GBN friends, my wood oaks friends, my study abroad friends, my T friends.
• 55:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love you guys so much.
• 55:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And hopefully some new listeners who had never
• 55:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, don't know either of us.
• 55:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: That would be great too.
• 55:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna be your friends.
• 55:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And family, only got this other family got fern and broken Tracy.
• 55:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So many people and I know I miss people.
• 55:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's very dangerous to do that.
• 55:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: You really shouldn't name people out of that.
• 55:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a terrible thing to do.
• 55:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't do that.
• 55:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm stressed.
• 55:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't ever do that.
• 55:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You could add it in.
• 55:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's true.
• 55:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I might edit it in later.
• 55:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, apologize.
• 55:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have, to think, we're not, we don't have to.
• 55:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: We are so excited to thank everybody who contributed to the swag bag.
• 55:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just going to name them.
• 55:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then we have a happy surprise after.
• 55:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you to Ascetic Medicine.
• 56:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, then leave your residential, work flows with Rana, people, work out studio, lane two, Rosses, which I was still calling Ross Discount two minutes ago.
• 56:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: We don't say that, I guess.
• 56:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Ross's.
• 56:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 56:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you to Ross's.
• 56:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's happens when you leave in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in,
• 56:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: The seven prizes, if you could reach under your chair, this is my most open and kale moment.
• 56:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: You got a car, you got a car.
• 56:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are seven of you who have a piece of paper under your chair.
• 56:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you have it, rave it in the air.
• 56:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we've got a woman over there.
• 56:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Who else?
• 56:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: We hold it up high.
• 57:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is the only time I'll be like Oprah Gale, someone back there.
• 57:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, come on up because Nina's gonna describe our prizes Okay, okay, should we have them line up if you want you have to come up here.
• 57:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay line up over here.
• 57:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
• 57:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I won't be on video.
• 57:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, we have another prize winner.
• 57:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do we have do we have our
• 57:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Should they get in line?
• 57:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is it like if you're number one, you get to go pick?
• 57:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: We just give it to them.
• 57:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hold on, I've got notes.
• 57:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you got this far in the live episode, thank you for listening to the whole thing.
• 57:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope you thought the energy was really cool to be part of a live episode.
• 57:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, I hope to do it in Minneapolis and one other place haven't decided all the details yet.
• 57:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: But stay in touch on my newsletter at dernina.subsack.com.
• 57:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have a Facebook group, dernina, the group.
• 58:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: and Instagram and TikTok at your name or friendship.
• 58:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: One thing I forgot to say in the live episode I can't believe I forgot to say this, I say it every single week in every single episode.
• 58:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think I was just overwhelmed by the excitement of it all.
• 58:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: The raffles, the prizes, making sure that I'll keep doing this with generous and donated the prizes.
• 58:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I forgot to say, come back next week when our friendships are going well, you're happier all around.