Latest / Friendship IRL: Real Talk About Friendship, Community, and What It Actually Takes / The Urge to Tell Your Life Story on the First Friend Date (And What to Do Instead)

Transcript

The Urge to Tell Your Life Story on the First Friend Date (And What to Do Instead) · Friendship IRL: Real Talk About Friendship, Community, and What It Actually Takes

• 0:00
  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
• 0:58
  Alex Alexander: Have you ever come home from hanging out with someone new, someone you were maybe genuinely excited about the possibility of this friendship, and instead of feeling good, you feel weird, a little anxious. Maybe go to bed and you're just laying there, like replaying over and over and over again, the things that you said, the conversation, their kind of weird reactions to the things you said.
• 1:29
  Alex Alexander: You're wondering if you shared too much. Wondering if they're going to text you back or want to hang out again. I think we have all been here at least once, but for some people, I think that this happens regularly, like this is a pattern, and by that I mean I got some of you in my DMs telling me that this is a pattern, so that's why I think that. Now, I would call this like a new friend hangover, and I think you can have kind of a friendship hangover at any stage in friendship. This one specifically, if you've ever felt it, you're in the right place. Because what I want to talk about today is kind of rushing in to a friendship. This pattern of meeting someone new, getting super excited, feeling like this could be an amazing new friend in your life, going all in fast, sharing a lot, investing early, treating this new acquaintance or familiar friend like they are a best friend before the relationship ever has a chance to progress to the level where this type of sharing actually makes sense and feels normal, and then when you do that, the pattern tends to be that maybe this friendship fizzles. All that potential you saw quietly dissipates.
• 2:57
  Alex Alexander: There's no big fight, no dramatic ending. Just a person who maybe isn't returning your phone calls, doesn't text back as much, and kind of keeps their distance at a group function. A lot of silence. And if this has happened to you more than once, you might start to wonder to yourself, like, is it me? Do people not want to be friends with me? Am I too much? Is there something about the way I show up that pushes people away, and if you feel that way about yourself, that is only going to add fuel to this fire. It's going to make you probably feel a little more desperate to break the pattern, to show up differently, and I'll tell you why. That desperation is part of the problem in a little bit, because today I want to offer you a different diagnosis.
• 3:45
  Alex Alexander: Here's why I think this pattern happens.
• 3:50
  Alex Alexander: I don't think it's about being reckless or not being able to read a room. I think that this happens often to a person who is very, very hungry for connection. You really, really want this, and that could be for any reason. It could be that you feel like you just don't really have any friends. It could be that maybe you have friends, but you have moved across the country, and you really want some local friends-people you can call up to hang out with, to go to a last-minute show, to just come over and sit on your couch with you. Maybe friendship has not been a priority for you for a few decades, and you have decided-you know-you're an overachiever, maybe-and you have decided friendship is now a priority, and you are going to make up for lost time. You're going to get yourself some really good friends. Maybe you meet someone and it just feels like an instant connection. You go all in because you really want this friendship to work. It just feels natural. I've been there. I have a friend. I say that she's the fastest friend I ever made, because it felt really natural. And looking back, honestly, we probably went a little hard in sharing. And that's not a character flaw.
• 5:11
  Alex Alexander: It's excitement. It's possibility. It's, you know, maybe some desperation.
• 5:18
  Alex Alexander: Whether you want to admit it or not, that's okay. It's okay to feel desperate. It's okay to have moved to a new city and feel like everyone around you has their people to call, and you don't. And you want to fix that problem. You do not want to feel this way anymore. I get it.
• 5:37
  Alex Alexander: The problem is that the societal script that has told you how to get from "I need friends" to"This is my good friend." I think there's a problem in there because a lot of the conversation about friendship as adults really centers on disclosure, opening up, sharing, letting people in, being vulnerable. You can't tell me you haven't heard endless talk about this, and I have episodes about this. Don't get me wrong, but I think that what you have been told, what we all have been told to do, the sharing, opening up, it's really putting pressure on. Like, okay, I want friends, so I'm gonna be the best at opening up. I'm gonna let the floodgates go, tell them everything about me, share my deepest, darkest stuff, and if they don't like me, well, then they're not meant for me.
• 6:37
  Alex Alexander: So if that's what you've done, I think honestly, sometimes you have done everything quote unquote right based on what we are told about how to make friends. The problem isn't that you're not doing what people are telling you to do. The problem is when I look at it, I'm like something is missing. The script is missing something, and here's what I think is missing: there are a lot of stages between somebody just being a face in the crowd, you don't really know them, right? They're a stranger, to somebody becoming a close friend, and those stages matter, and the ways that we act in those stages matter. If this is your first episode here, you probably haven't heard me talk about this, and if you're a regular listener, you hear me talk about this all the time.
• 7:26
  Alex Alexander: But I created something called the Wheel of Connection. It is a framework I use to describe all the types of connection in your life, everything from family to community to friends to past relationships in your life-it's a map of your entire social landscape. And when you look at this Wheel of Connection, which, by the way, you can go back and listen to Episode 100.
• 7:52
  Alex Alexander: You can also check out my book where I have a deep dive. But if you go look at this, you're going to find formal community, then acquaintances, then familiar friends, then defined friends, then present friends.
• 8:04
  Alex Alexander: Present friends are what a lot of people would consider like their closest friends, maybe historic, but that's all to say there are four. Is that right?
• 8:17
  Alex Alexander: Four phases before we get to a present friend: community, acquaintance, familiar, defined.
• 8:21
  Alex Alexander: Yeah, four. So if you're trying to go from I just met you, here's our first friend hangout, and skip four phases. Number one, no wonder this is not going very well for you. Number two, you're missing out on so much joy in your friendships. There is so much to appreciate about a friendship before you become quote unquote real friends, whatever that means, before you reach that present friendship stage, all that stuff that comes before the familiar friends, defined friends, acquaintances, that is like your lore as a friend.
• 8:59
  Alex Alexander: That's the stuff that now, when I look at my historic friends or even my present friends, like that is our origin story. That's what we tell people. Those are the funny stories we hold dear to our hearts. You don't want to skip over that. Just because we're adults doesn't mean we can't make some lore. So if you rush in and you try and skip over those stages because you want to feel, quite frankly, probably some security in your friendship,I would challenge you to say, you're missing out on the good stuff. You don't want to do that. Allow it to go slow.
• 9:36
  Alex Alexander: Allow it to unpeel. You know, it's like peeling back every layer of an onion. Soak that in, take the pressure off to reach some milestone to be a certain type of friend, and stop trying to fast forward your way there.
• 9:49
  Alex Alexander: Even if you're in a city with what feels like nobody to call, this is like part of the journey.
• 9:57
  Alex Alexander: You're gonna go back 10.years from now, and you're going to tell the story of when you moved to Chicago and how you made all these friends. And it isn't it so funny? You met this one person in a comic book store, and you met this one person because they were your barista, and you met this one person because they were your neighbor, and you all got together and you hung out this way, right? Or you're going to tell the lore of like, all your kids were in the same soccer team, and you had to travel for select soccer every weekend, so you're in a house together.
• 10:30
  Alex Alexander: Wow! Like, what a crazy way to make friends as adults. We don't do that very often. We're just like all packed into a house. So my number one tip, if you rush in, is to go check out the Wheel of Connection one way or another, so that you can believe that those in between stages are worth having. They're worth appreciating, and you don't want to bypass them. So then another problem with this societal script, this like cultural script that everything centers on disclosure, is that I think it's incomplete. It's not wrong exactly. It's just that something really, really big is missing. I want you to go back and I want you to think about how you made friends when you were kids, not friends you've made deliberately as an adult. I want you to think about like the friends you made because you were in the same class in high school, elementary school doesn't matter. How did that friendship form? Because I bet it wasn't because you sat across from each other at your little desk clusters, and you were like, "Sorry, can't do my homework right now.
• 11:40
  Alex Alexander: Can't focus on this lesson. I need to have a deep conversation about my feelings and my past and what my home life is. That's not how you made friends." You made friends because you were in the same class and you did the same lessons and you talked about those lessons. You went to soccer practice together. You learned some new skills. You messed up. You got in trouble from your coach. You went to each other's houses where you got to meet each other's parents and learn the rules of each other's houses. You played. You were just in the same place doing the same thing over and over and over. And somewhere in all of that, you became close.
• 12:22
  Alex Alexander: So in a world today where a lot of adult friendship is about sharing, opening up, disclosure, vulnerability, I want to remind you that there is actually so much vulnerability in things that are never said, in just purely doing things together or existing together, and as adults we get so focused on the telling that we forget about the doing.
• 12:47
  Alex Alexander: The doing when you are making a new friend, I think, is so important. It's where so much initial foundational intimacy gets built, especially early on.
• 12:55
  Alex Alexander: Now, I have a concept called small intimacies. I want to say it's Episode 74. I think that's right.
• 13:04
  Alex Alexander: Doesn't matter. I will link it in the show notes. You can go find it. This is a just a really important topic to everything in my universe of talking about friendship in my frameworks. So much of small intimacies is in noticing actions, in noticing small details about your friends, in like letting people in by actually being there and being present, and not just sitting across from each other and telling each other about your lives, it could be trying something new together, going to let's say a pottery class, which you both have never done before, so it's kind of vulnerable to be trying something new to like laugh about how bad your pottery is. Well, maybe your friend's really good at it. To notice that there's a disparity here, it could be driving this new friend in your car. I know that sounds super small, but it's actually not. This is like a pretty low-risk physical space for a lot of people, and people do feel uncomfortable, right?
• 15:13
  Alex Alexander: Think of all the times you've gotten in somebody's car and they apologize for how it's so messy or how, oh, sorry, there's stuff on my seat. That is letting someone in. You could teach someone something, a skill. Offer them a recipe.
• 15:30
  Alex Alexander: That's a great one. You don't have to teach them just by offering them a recipe. Do they like it? Do they like those types of foods? Maybe they message you back and they're like, "Oh, thank you so much for sending this, but I just really don't have time for a recipe that takes me over 20 minutes right now in this stage of life." That is you learning something and them letting you in. Another great one I love is just like suggesting a restaurant instead of going back and forth and being so focused on like, oh well, what do you like? What do you like? What do you like? Be like, this is one of my favorite restaurants. Do you want to meet here? They may not like it. That's the point.
• 16:08
  Alex Alexander: That's the point. Is you're taking a small risk. You're telling them I like this thing.
• 16:15
  Alex Alexander: They may not like it, and that's okay. But they're learning something about you. It could be as simple as that initial friend date where you hang out, going to a coffee shop and ordering something you've never tried before, and telling them like I don't know if I'm going to like this, letting them try it, giving their opinion. These are all really small moments of vulnerability. Vulnerability does not have to be sitting across from each other and sharing your deepest, darkest secrets, your most intense moments, vulnerability is just taking a small risk in the presence of another person, doing something new or uncertain, or my favorite, doing something a little goofy or silly, especially as an adult, is a risk, and that is connection, and it's building roots without either of you having to monitor what you're saying. So, what is the takeaway here? My takeaway would be instead of putting your focus so much on like trying to share enough to feel close, be present. Notice the little things. Remember those for the next time you hang out.
• 17:28
  Alex Alexander: You know, tell them like, hey, I picked a different coffee shop because, well, when we hung out last time, I learned you don't really like coffee, so this one has tea and matcha and other options for you. Now, if you are going to open up and share, you are sitting across from each other at that coffee table. You are on a walk talking. You are, I don't know sitting around a campfire at that soccer tournament weekend in the backyard with a quiet moment where you are sharing. We are leaning into the disclosure. I'm not saying never share anything.
• 18:01
  Alex Alexander: Of course, you're going to share things. That is part of friendships as well. So when I go into that situation, if you feel like you are commonly an oversharer, I want to offer you this distinction. It's something I think about.
• 18:15
  Alex Alexander: Think about sharing from a scar, not a wound, with your new friends. This does not apply to your closer friends, but with your new friends, a scar versus a wound, a scar is something that has happened to you that you have processed, you have talked through enough for it to just now honestly be a fact. A wound is something that you are still in the middle of; it's raw. So, an example I've used in the past of this is: I might meet a new friend, and we might be talking, and they might be like, "Oh, are you going to, you know, you said you're going to visit family this weekend? You going to visit your parents?" I might say, "Like, oh, I'm going to visit my dad, but my mom passed away when I was 13." That is a scar. That's just a fact about me at this point. It does let somebody in a little bit, but that is very, very different than me talking about how losing my mom is still. I'm just making something up here.
• 19:16
  Alex Alexander: Like, is still stuck with me, and it impacts all my relationships with all the women in my life. And here's why, and like this and that and the other thing. That's a wound. That is something that I am still working through, and I think that belongs in a friendship where the roots are a little more established than somebody I just met.
• 19:40
  Alex Alexander: I do have a caveat here, which is that I do think context of how you're connecting does change what you should do here.
• 19:48
  Alex Alexander: If I was going to a group meeting, like a support group that is specifically for people who have lost a parent, I might share not only that my mom passed away, but how I'm feeling about it, how it's impacting my life, how it's impacting choices I'm making. Like I might get really, really deep into the nitty gritty. That I think is fair. Another context that would change it is if I had met my new friend, and I've done this a few times, where I've met a new friend and I have learned very early on that they also lost their mom at a young age or their dad, like a parent, that might lead to me having some deeper conversations. That might lead to me talking about what the loss was like, how it's impacted me today, how it feels on Mother's Day when everybody else is out to brunch with their mom and I'm not.
• 20:42
  Alex Alexander: But I'm not leading with that in a new friendship situation. I am leading with the scar, with the things that feel like a fact, and I'm only leaning into the wounds if the context makes sense. And that's not because I'm hiding myself; it's because I'm giving the friendship a chance to build the roots it needs before I ask it to carry something really heavy that is maybe too heavy for the type of friendship it is, and I've been talking a lot about roots. I'm realizing because I feel like you've all been here forever.
• 21:11
  Alex Alexander: But if it's your first time here, you're like, "What are you talking about, Alex?" I have another framework. They are connected, so if you learn about one, it's probably going to lead you to learn about the other one. The Roots of Friendship framework is Episode 12. It's also in my book, and it gives you this way to see these three types of roots you're building with people, and I think kind of dissect what's holding your friendship together. So those newer friendships are not going to have very many roots, and if you go do this exercise around a new friendship, you're gonna, I think, look at what you've written down as far as the roots this new friendship has, and you're going to understand maybe why this new friendship can't carry something super heavy and deep. You don't have that many connection points yet, so go check that out. So, what are you supposed to do with all this?
• 22:06
  Alex Alexander: I want to leave you with something really tangible that you can action. If you are a person who feels like you lean in, overshare too hard in the beginning, and it kind of costs you some friendships because it's too heavy for that friendship to carry. I think that telling you just slow down, just don't share, isn't actually that helpful. You already know this. You probably told yourself to stop 100 times, and it hasn't worked, because I often think that restricting is honestly just hard. It's hard to restrict ourselves. It requires so much self-monitoring that we end up way more in our heads than we ever would have been, and then we're kind of putting on this weird front.
• 22:53
  Alex Alexander: There's this weird air to our connection. People can sense that you're so focused on what not to say that you kind of stop being yourself. So I don't want to restrict you and tell you like don't say these things.
• 23:05
  Alex Alexander: Instead, I want to offer you this redirect, and I've kind of already covered this, but I want to be really clear about it.
• 23:13
  Alex Alexander: When you're making a new friend, I would highly suggest shifting your focus to doing something together, checking out a new art gallery, trying paddleboarding.
• 23:25
  Alex Alexander: You both love board games.
• 23:25
  Alex Alexander: Great, go to a board game shop.
• 23:29
  Alex Alexander: This is a work friend connected a networking event, and make sure you spend some extra time at the beginning or the end, just kind of chatting with them about life. How is your week?
• 23:40
  Alex Alexander: What's going on? Learning some new facts. Choose an activity because then you can focus on all those small intimacies.
• 23:48
  Alex Alexander: When you feel like you want to really dive in and start sharing the wound, it's a lot easier to pivot, and instead maybe redirect your conversation back to what you're doing together.
• 24:01
  Alex Alexander: And when you do that, when you are present, you can maybe be a little silly or order the weird thing on the menu, try something new. Offer those small intimacies, and let the closeness build from the experience you're having together instead of just telling each other about your life, like you're living life together in this small moment, even if it's 20 minutes, versus just kind of like talking at each other about your lives, it doesn't even sound that interesting to me when I put it that way. The feeling you're trying to create, the closeness, being known, belonging-I think it's actually more likely to happen when you stop trying so hard to make it happen, and instead are just in the moment appreciating how it is happening. Somebody noticed you didn't like something on the menu. Somebody considered you when they got up and they got you a glass of water.
• 25:00
  Alex Alexander: Somebody acknowledged that you are really good at this new thing you're both learning.
• 25:04
  Alex Alexander: Somebody saw you be silly or struggle, and when you're busy laughing about something or joking or acknowledging the moment you're in, that is connection. You're actually having a moment of connection.
• 25:21
  Alex Alexander: You're not just performing it.
• 25:21
  Alex Alexander: So that's what I have for you today. I hope that these tips are helpful. If you're somebody who feels like you have been struggling with kind of rushing into your friendships. I want you to remember that all those beginning stages where the lore is built-they are worth it.
• 25:43
  Alex Alexander: Don't try and skip over them.
• 25:43
  Alex Alexander: Savor them. Ugh! I wish I could go back. That small intimacies, little ways of letting each other in-they matter and they add up. That we can share from our scars, and that still is enough. We don't have to go all the way deepest that we possibly can in the beginning. And finally, that we can redirect.
• 26:05
  Alex Alexander: We can. Really focus ourselves on being present and in the moment, and taking in these small details instead of feeling like we have to unearth the deepest parts of ourselves when we're making a new friend. And with that, I'll see you next week.
• 26:25
  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.