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5 Ways to Shake Up a Stale Friendship · Friendship IRL: Real Talk About Friendship, Community, and What It Actually Takes

• 0:02
  Podcast Intro/Outro: All right, gang. Here's to nights that turn into mornings and friends that turn into family. Cheers. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Friendship IRL podcast. I'm your host, Alex Alexander. Each week we talk about what is working(and what is not) in our friendships, community and connections. Have you ever wished you could sit down and have a conversation about what is really going on in your friendships? Well, you found your people. Join us as we dive into real life stories and explore new ways to approach these connections. Together, we're reimagining the rules of friendship
• 0:56
  Alex Alexander: A few months ago, I was hanging out with some friends, some couch friends, just in my living room doing the same old thing like we always do. Had some dinner, laying around chatting, catching up on our weeks, talking about things we want to do, whatever. And then someone said it out loud.
• 1:17
  Alex Alexander: Said, you know, we always just do the same thing." Now, the room could have gotten tense.
• 1:21
  Alex Alexander: Someone could have gotten defensive, but instead, all six of us just kind of nodded because it's true. Most of our hangouts have just defaulted to come over. We'll make some dinner, and let's sit around and chat." And on the surface, there's nothing wrong with that.
• 1:42
  Alex Alexander: In fact, painting on the living room is comfortable. It's quite frankly what a lot of you all message me that you want in your friendship. So, how can this be a bad thing? Well, I think that in our case, comfort had started to feel stale. The friend who said it out loud had made a personal goal at the start of the new year. Again, this happened months ago, and that goal was to get out of the house more on weeknights. A lot of their weeks were, you know work, have dinner, maybe open up their laptop again, or just put on a show. The funny thing is that that was also one of my goals as I've been coming out of this like health haze. I also wanted to get out of the house more on weeknights. Working late into the night has definitely become a problem of mine too, so we have this similar goal, and yet, even though it was getting out of the house more, they would just come to my house. It was the same hangout that we were saying we didn't really want to keep repeating. We wanted to try some new things. Now, when my friend spoke up, I want to note that like somebody could have gotten defensive. Somebody could have said, "What's wrong with hanging out here together? You don't want to be together. You don't want to catch up on our weeks. Like this isn't good enough for you?" Somebody could have done that, but instead, we all got creative because it turns out I think a few of us were showing up to hang out the same way that we always do and thinking, you know, I kind of wish that things felt a little different, but it took a little while for someone to say something because they didn't want to rock the boat. So our solution was, I was like, okay, let's brainstorm some ideas. I grabbed my phone, I opened the notes app, and I was like, what are some things you've been wanting to try that maybe all of us could go do together? So we looked at some different museum nights. We talked about a supper club where we have all these restaurants. We always say we want to try, what if we rotate around local rugby games, the horse racing track, top bakeries, best like soft serve lists, random walks in parts of the city that we've never seen, weekend trips. We just started brain dumping, and we probably ended up with 40, 50, ideas on this list in I don't know, maybe 30 minutes. Since that night, since that conversation, we have not done all of them, and we've definitely defaulted back to the couch sometimes. But that conversation has mixed it up.
• 4:39
  Alex Alexander: It's made us think twice before just falling back into the same pattern. It created an opening, and the biggest change I think is that it created an opening where anyone now feels comfortable floating a new idea, just being like, "Hey, I saw this list. Do you think we should add?" This to the main list. Some of these look like fun.
• 5:03
  Alex Alexander: We should try this." This is what happens when somebody is brave enough to say, "This feels stale." Not that this friendship is bad or I don't like this, but somebody saying like, "Hey, I think maybe some things need to change. We need a refresh." And that's what I hope you take away from this episode. If a friendship is feeling stale, I do believe there are a lot of messages out there that will tell you, like, oh, that friendship's run it's course.
• 5:31
  Alex Alexander: It's a dying friendship. It's time to move on, and that might be true. But before we jump to that conclusion, I want to offer you the idea that a stale friendship is a friendship where you are maintaining roots instead of growing new ones. If you're like, "What do you mean by roots?" Hello, welcome. I'm about to tell you one of my favorite frameworks, which is my roots of connection framework.
• 6:00
  Alex Alexander: You can learn all about it in Episode 12. But I have these three types of roots that hold our friendship together, and part of the roots, just like a plant, is that you grow new roots, you maintain roots. Roots are dying and changing and shifting. It's just a way to look at how you're connected to your friends. So in the case of a stale friendship, it's one where you're watering it, making sure it's got sunlight, you're doing all the basic things. You go through a whole summer. In fact, my fiddle leaf fig in my living room is like this right now. You go through the whole summer. It should have grown, and I don't think it grew a new leaf the entire summer. Even though I was watering it and fertilizing it, it really just maintained, and that's what a stale friendship is. You're maintaining instead of growing new roots. Nothing is wrong, and nothing has necessarily been neglected. It's just that maintenance and growth are very different activities, and it can become very easy to only do the maintenance activities. So in this episode today, what I want to offer you are five ways that you can break out of your routine, try something new, make a shift in your friendship, and breathe some new light into it.
• 7:21
  Alex Alexander: You know, grow two, three, four new leaves, instead of just having it stay stagnant. The first action, like I mentioned in my story, is to name it out loud. Now, the goal is that this is an invitation, not a complaint, which is a big unlock, because if you come in and you're just like, ugh. This friendship just feels stale, and everything is always the same.
• 7:46
  Alex Alexander: That's not going to be received the same way as saying, "I love our time together, and I'd also love to try and mix it up and see if we can try some new things." Feel free to use that line verbatim, because we don't want to seem ungrateful. We don't want to seem like we dislike this friendship or we don't enjoy our time together.
• 8:06
  Alex Alexander: That's not what we're saying here. What we're saying is, we seem to just be repeating the same patterns over and over and over again. And although I do love that we have reached this point of comfort where we do the same things, I also would like to challenge us, stretch us, grow us in this friendship. Now, if you want to do something concrete like what my friends and I did, you can pull up that shared note, brainstorm together, and be just really open to whatever they might have, right? They might throw out a really big idea. Let's go on a big trip, and you might immediately jump to, well, I can't afford that. I can't take off that much time. Just be open. They're not saying you need to take that trip next month. Maybe that's like a 10-year goal for your friendship is to take that trip. Nothing's too small. It could be them saying, "Hey, I just wish we, you know, like what if we texted recipes to each other that we liked?" That might be a great way to mix things up and breathe some new conversation in. Maybe nothing's too silly. Whatever you all want to put on your list, great. Make it a shared note. Make it where people can add more stuff to it. Use another platform. Make a Pinterest board, whatever you like.
• 9:31
  Alex Alexander: Whatever allows you to have one shared space to brainstorm and be creative about how you can stretch and grow your friendship together. The second idea is to add a shared experience root, a new activity, a new interest.
• 9:43
  Alex Alexander: You're not looking for a better version of what you already do.
• 9:47
  Alex Alexander: You're looking for something completely new and different. So if you always are just hanging out at home, maybe it's signing up for a language class together, like Spanish 101, French 101, you could do Duolingo together. Could listen to the same language immersion podcast together and practice.
• 10:07
  Alex Alexander: That could be a new thing you talk about back and forth. It could be that you decide to make a list of all the museums in your city you've never been to, or the art galleries. You decide you're going to try and check a bunch of those off. Restaurants, joining a new club together, whatever it is, pick something that you don't normally do and try it out together. Could also be something you used to do. If this is somebody you've been friends with for a really long time, another fun idea would be to pick something that you really bonded over earlier in your friendship and try and bring a little bit of that back.
• 10:48
  Alex Alexander: Like you used to take dance classes together, but now you're a couple decades into your friendship. You don't really feel like you have time to be dancing all that much. Maybe just do one dance class. It's not even a series. Like, can you go dancing one time together?
• 11:09
  Alex Alexander: How fun would it be to just bring a little bit of that back for one night? Your third option is to add an emotional intimacy root. An emotional intimacy root is the shared history, memories, things you know about each other, overlapping history. So a great way to do this is to ask more questions, things that you genuinely don't know the answer to. It could also be to ask questions about things you do know the answer to. So I'll give you an example of both. Maybe you've been friends for a few years and you've never really asked your friend about their college experience. You didn't know them during those days, or their wedding, or their state soccer run in high school. Try and learn a little bit more about their history. I mean, a simple question is just like,"What kind of car do you drive in high school?" I actually don't know the answer to that.
• 13:13
  Alex Alexander: Help me fill in the pieces of you before I knew you. That would be developing a new emotional intimacy root. Now, you also can update an existing emotional intimacy root, and this is where you ask questions about things you really do know, but maybe you don't know. That's the point. So, for example, if your friend has always loved chocolate, and you know that, and there's this like one chocolate croissant that you know is their favorite, but you haven't like they haven't brought it up in a while. You could say, "Hey, I know that chocolate's your favorite. What is currently your top chocolate treat? "Because what you might find is that that chocolate croissant they had two years ago, they've actually had a chocolate lava cake place, or they made a chocolate lava cake recipe, and that is currently what they dream about all the time. And simply by asking a question about something you thought you already had the answer to, and I'm sure if you brought them that chocolate croissant, they would be so excited. It's still delicious.
• 14:21
  Alex Alexander: It's still amazing. But this is a way that you can grow new roots, right? You are updating information that you thought you knew, and I love doing this because it's a reminder that we're all allowed to grow and change and be different, and that we're all shifting all the time. And some of these really little things, I mean, think about how meaningful it would be to you if somebody paid close enough attention to you that they knew you used to love this chocolate croissant, and now they actually want to know about this other random thing you ate one time six months ago. Talk about feeling known and seen.
• 15:02
  Alex Alexander: And I know that I'm talking about asking your friend, so you can update information about them.
• 15:10
  Alex Alexander: This is another great reminder that those silly little things that you experience and enjoy.
• 15:17
  Alex Alexander: Tell your friends about them. If you're the one who loves chocolate and you used to love the chocolate croissant and now you're obsessed with the lava cake, tell your friend that because what you're doing is allowing them to update their emotional intimacy roots about you. You're giving them new information, and although that might seem silly and trivial in the the day-to-day of everything we're all juggling, those are the little ways we add connection points. The fourth way to shake things up is to update a story root. Your story roots are your beliefs and expectations about your friendship, and you probably have beliefs about like the ways you spend time together. Right?
• 16:30
  Alex Alexander: We are friends who live in the day-to-day life together. We are friends who show up and help each other. Maybe it's very common in your friendship to like go over to your friend's house and organize something in their house or help them with car maintenance or something like that. These are all great things that a lot of people again would want in their friendship. But if you feel like you are in a rut, then it might be a moment to consider if you can add a belief like this is a friend who loves to be spontaneous with me, and I get that life is in the way sometimes, and maybe you can't be spontaneous all the time, but like even if you were spontaneous two times a year for some of us, that would probably be enough. Maybe it could be this is a friend who's always down to try anything with me, right? If you go and try some new activities, things where you really push yourself out of your comfort zone, slowly over time, you're going to start to develop this belief that like this friend is the one that if I messaged them that I wanted to go bungee jumping. They would say I'll try once, and currently that may not be what your friendship is, right? It might be like this is the friend who is really stable, and this is the friend who always listens, and you can be more, you can grow more, is the point of this, and that is a great way to shake this up. Now, to grow a belief, you normally have to have a few pieces of evidence. So don't expect to go do something like fun and spontaneous, maybe one time, and have a new belief develop. You probably need to do something a few times before you both believe and trust that if you message with some crazy idea to try something that you're both going to be really bad at, you would still go and do it together. Now, my fifth and final way to shake up a stale Same group of people, same day of the week, same time, same friendship is to change the container. If you and this cadence. We're just doing something different. So if you friend have a certain way that you hang out, like a recurring want to mix it up, change like one or two small variables in what you already have established. Now, my hope is gathering that happens, can you change the cadence, the format, that in hearing this, you might realize that your friendship the group size, the duration, the time of day? Changing the that feels stale doesn't need to end. It might just need a refresh, and a refresh. There's so many varieties of refreshes.
• 20:02
  Alex Alexander: container sometimes can make the same activity come back to life.
• 20:05
  Alex Alexander: There's different ways to do it, like just bringing it up and So, for example, if what my friends and I do is normally talking about it, suggesting a new activity, changing the container, swapping something out, asking some different come over and hang out and lay around on the couch, a way to questions. Little shifts can make a very, very big impact in slightly change up that container would be come over to the roots of your friendship, especially if you are consciously pushing little shifts again and again and again my house, but everybody bring I don't know like a craft or and again and again. It doesn't need to be some big something you're working on, and we're gonna do it in the transformation of your friendship. It could just be a variety of little questions, little actions, little morning, like Sunday morning craft day. Come on over. That suggestions, trying something new here and there. I mean, it can be enough to breathe some new life into a friendship or a could be a month or two, a couple weeks, depending how often you see each other. You might feel like this is a connection. Maybe you and your friend, it's just always the two completely new and different friendship, all because you put a little effort and energy into growing some new roots, trying of you. A way to change things up could be inviting a friend of some new things, and pushing out of your comfort zone. Now, as a a friend in, inviting someone new that you've met to come hang reminder, if you have not heard or you need a refresher, head to Episode 12, digging into the three types of friendship roots.
• 21:10
  Alex Alexander: out, maybe not always or all the time, but every once in a while, For anyone who wants to think about that entire framework, and just shaking it up and inviting somebody new to join you.
• 21:19
  Alex Alexander: that'll really click these pieces in for you because it'll make you see how you can manipulate, not in a bad way, IInstead of weeknights here in my house in the living room, but just how you can influence, that's a better word. How you choosing to meet up and go on a walk in a neighborhood none of can influence the roots in your friendship, and if you want an even fuller picture of your friendship roots, then head to us have ever been in before.
• 21:36
  Alex Alexander: Could be as simple as that.
• 21:40
  Alex Alexander: the show notes and grab a copy of my book. Are We Friends Yet?
• 21:42
  Alex Alexander: Normally, you come over here on Thursday nights. Now we're One of the biggest comments I'm hearing in the reviews is that meeting up in a neighborhood.
• 21:48
  Alex Alexander: We're going on a walk on transforming established friendships and the ways that I talk about it in the book are one of people's biggest Thursday nights.
• 21:57
  Alex Alexander: takeaways. So, with that, I'll see you next week.
• 22:00
  Podcast Intro/Outro: Thank you for listening to this episode of Friendship IRL. I am so honored to have these conversations with you. But don't let the chat die here. Send me a voice message. I created a special website just to chat with you. You can find it at alexalex.chat. You can also find me on Instagram. My handle, @itsalexalexander. Or go ahead and leave a review wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts. Now if you want to take this conversation a step further, send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting. And use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out. No need for a teary goodbye. I'll be back with a new episode next week.