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The Friend Breakup Everyone Goes Through · All About Friendships

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hustle studios.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Before we start anything, I have to ask you something.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: And I want the honest answer, not the kind one.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Ready?
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Last month, we were supposed to grab dinner, just the
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: two of us. We had not had a real one-on-one
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: in months. I drove across town. I sat in your
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: favorite spot for 40 minutes. And then you texted, and
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: I quote... I cannot do this tonight, man. That was
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: the whole text. No explanation. No rain check. Just, I
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: cannot do this tonight, man.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: I remember.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: So why could you not do it?
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Because I did not want to.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Just like that?
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Just like that. I sat in my car for an
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: hour before I drove over. I went back and forth
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: and finally I just told you the truth. Because I
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: was tired of lying about it. I was tired of performing,
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: having the energy to see you when I did not
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: have it.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: And what did you do instead?
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: I went home. I sat on my couch. I ate
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: cereal out of the box. I watched a documentary I
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: had already seen. I went to bed at 9.30. Had it.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: It was the best night I had had in three weeks.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: So you cancelled on me to eat cereal alone.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: I cancelled on you to be.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: a person.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: And I know that sounds selfish. I know it sounds
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: like I am the villain of this story, but I
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: am bringing it up today because today is the episode
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: we have been building toward since this show started. And
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: it is the one I have been dreading the most.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the friend breakup. The one nobody gives you a
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: script for. The one nobody even calls a breakup. The
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: one where you just slowly lose the person and nobody
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: sends you a casserole.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Welcome to All About Friendships. I am Edsel.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: And I am Paul. And this is the episode I've
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: been putting off for five weeks. Because we have talked
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: about setting boundaries. And we have talked about who deserves
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: your honesty. And we have talked about the people who
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: fake laugh at jokes they do not find funny. But
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: all of that is the easy stuff. All of that
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: is the friend maintenance. Today is the other stuff. Today
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: is the piece that nobody teaches you. How do you
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: lose a friend on purpose? How do you grieve a
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: friendship that does not get a funeral? How do you
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: get closure when there was no final conversation?
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: Hold on.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Before we go full heavy, kamustahan muna, quick check-in. It
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: has been two days and my life is already a telenovela.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: So you know my gym buddy Raymond, the one who
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: spots me on chest day and never shuts up about protein?
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: He vanished. Midweek. No text, no call, shust, gone. I
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: am standing by the squat rack like an abandoned puppy,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: asking the janitor if he has seen a man with
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: extremely loud opinions about creatine.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Maybe he finally listened to your advice on Z boundaries? Against?
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: That is so rude and so plausible that it hurts.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: But seriously, it messed with my head. We were not
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: even that close, but the silence was loud. I kept
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: replaying our last conversation. Did I say something weird? Was
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: it the protein joke? I make a lot of protein jokes.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: You make a lot of jokes, Paul. Statistically, one of
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: them was bound to end a friendship.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: I hate how calm you are about my pain. Anyway, Raymond,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: if you are listening, the squat rack misses you. I
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: do not. Okay, I do a little. Your turn. What
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: chaos happened in your quiet little life?
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: My week was peaceful until about 90 seconds ago. But fine,
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: since you asked with such grace. A maverick's cat had
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: kittens under my porch. Four of them. I have named
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: them all after your worst traits. There is dramatic, loud, clingy,
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: and one small gray one that screams at nothing. I
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: call him Paul Jr.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: I am honored.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: Truly.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Are you keeping them?
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: I'm keeping the grey one. The rest are going to
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: good homes. The grey one stays because he judges me silently.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: And honestly, that is the healthiest relationship I have right now.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: A cat that judges you silently is just you, Whiskers. Wait,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: back up. You named a kitten Clingy. After me. I
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: am not Clingy. I am attentive. There is a difference.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Clingy is texting twice. Attentive is texting twice with excellent
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: follow-up questions.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: You once called me four times in one afternoon because
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: I didn't react fast enough to your new haircut.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: It was a big change. I went from long to short.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: I needed emotional support and you gave me a thumbs
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: up emoji. A thumbs up. To a haircut crisis.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: And yet here we are. Still fenced.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: That is the nicest mean thing you have ever said
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: to me. But listen, there is something poetic here. You
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: gained a tiny friend this week, and I lost a
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: gym buddy. People coming, people going. Which is exactly what
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: today is about.
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: Smooth.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: Did you rehearse that trance in the mirror?
• 6:21
  Speaker 6: Twice.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: With hand gestures.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Deep breath. Heavy stuff now.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: And I want to lead with this because it is
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: the most important thing I'm going to say all episode.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: If you're listening right now and you have a friend
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: in the last year and you have not really told
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: anyone about it. I want you to know that what
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: you are feeling is real. It is not silly. It
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: is not dramatic. It is not something you should have
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: gotten over by now. And nobody taught you how to
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: carry it because nobody teaches people how to carry this.
• 6:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 6:56
  Speaker 7: We are going to talk about the grief. We are
• 7:00
  Speaker 7: going to talk about the silence. We are going to
• 7:03
  Speaker 7: talk about why it hits different from a romantic breakup
• 7:08
  Speaker 7: and why you almost never talk about it. and why
• 7:12
  Speaker 7: the people around you do not even know it happened.
• 7:16
  Speaker 7: And by the end of this episode, I want you
• 7:18
  Speaker 7: to have something you did not have before, a vocabulary,
• 7:23
  Speaker 7: a permission slip.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: And maybe even a little bit of relief.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: And before we pretend we are experts, let us be
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: honest about why we are qualified to talk about this. Paul,
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: you lost a friend in 2022. You have never said
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: what happened on this show. I have not.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: And I am going to today. Or at least some
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: of it. Because you are right. And I have been
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: carrying it for four years. And I am tired of
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: pretending it is nothing.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: I have lost three friends that I would have called
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: my people a decade ago. Two of them I am
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: still confused about. One of them I know exactly what happened.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: And I am still angry about it.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: So we are walking into this one as... Two guys
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: who have done it badly. Which is the only credential
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: I want for this conversation.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: Stay, okay? So start. We are not going to rush
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: this one. Because the first thing we have to do
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: is name the thing. And the thing is, the friend
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: breakup is a real breakup. It is not a smaller thing.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: It is not a lesser thing. It is not just
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: a friendship. It is a relationship ending. And it deserves
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: the same honesty we give any other one.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: But nobody gives it that. That is the whole problem
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: in one sentence. When a romantic relationship ends, you can
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: tell people. People bring you food. People ask how you
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: are doing. People give you two weeks off. When a
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: friendship ends, you wake up and you go to work.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: And nobody notices. And if you try to mention it,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: you get the awkward head tilt. Oh, I am sorry.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Were you guys close? And you have to decide in
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: that moment whether to explain how close you were, knowing
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: that the explanation will sound exaggerated to anyone who has
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: not been there.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: The were you guys close thing is so real. Because
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: the answer is yes, we were the closest of close.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: I went to your wedding. I held your dad at
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: his funeral. I knew the name of your dog. And now...
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: I do not have your number anymore and I am
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: explaining it to a co-worker at a barbecue and they
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: are nodding politely like I just told them I lost
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: a glove.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the polite nod is the worst part because
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: it tells you what the world thinks of friendship. The
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: world thinks friendship is the amateur league. The world thinks
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: it is the thing you graduate out of when you
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: find a partner and start a family. The world thinks
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: real loss means a marriage, a parent, a child. And
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: friendships are the wall.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: They are not the warm-up. And we're going to spend
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: This episode is between them.
• 10:23
  Speaker 7: Why?
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, so let us start with the obvious. Why does
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: a friend break up hurt in a way that nobody
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: talks about? Like genuinely, what is the mechanism here? Why
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: does this hit the way it does?
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: But it's supposed to tell you things. You pick them.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: Nobody assigns you this friend. You are not related to them.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: You were not raised in the same house. You chose
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: each other. And being chosen is a different kind of
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: bond than being given, which means the end of it
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: shows like a different kind of rejection. A family member
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: rejecting you is sad, but it is also expected in
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: a weird way. A friend rejecting you means you are
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: weighed and found wanting and has a very specific sting.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: Should you have known? Exactly. Again, the friendship was the
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: place where you were allowed to be unaddicted. With your family,
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: you have a role. With your partner, you have a role.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: With your friends, you were supposed to be the version
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: of you that nobody else got to see. The version
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: with all the roof edges. And when that goes away,
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: you lose the only audience you ever had for the
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: evil version of yourself.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: So you lose the room, not just the person.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: You lose the run. And the third, and this is
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: the one that nobody talks about. Friend breakups are almost
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: always ambiguous. Romantic breakups usually have a conversation. Sometimes a
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: private one, sometimes a quiet one. But there is a moment.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: You can usually point to the moment. Friend breakups almost
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: never have a moment. They have a drift. They have
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: a slow fade. They have a series of unanswered texts
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: that nobody ever calls out. And you're left with this
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: cause of a relationship. This place where the friendship used
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: to be. And you do not even know what to
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: call it. The loss of.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Because you cannot announce a breakup that nobody admitted
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: was happening.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: Exactly. And so you walk around with this unprocessed thing. Like,
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: you have a splinter in your heart and you cannot
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: describe where it is and nobody else can see it.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: And you cannot go to the doctor because there is
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: no doctor for this. There is no foster program for
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: the friend who disappeared. There is no therapist who specializes
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: in the group chat that went white in March of 2022.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: And the worst part is, you usually cannot even explain
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: it to yourself. Because if you try to write the
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: story of how the friendship ended, the story will be embarrassing.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: You will say things like, Well, I think things changed
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: when I got married. Or, I think we just drifted
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: apart after she moved. Or, I think we were never
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: really as close as I thought we were. And every
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: one of those sentences makes you sound either bitter or
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: delusional or secretly relieved. And you do not know which
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: one you are.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: All three. Honestly, every friend breakup is a little bit
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: of all three. You are a little bitter. You are
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: a little delusional. And you are a little relieved. And
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: those three things are allowed to be true at the
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: same time. The mistake is thinking you have to pick one.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Let me tell you about my friend, the one I
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: have not talked about on this show. His name is Marco.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: He was my best friend from 2015 to 2020. Five years,
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: we worked together, we traveled together, we had a Tuesday
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: night ramen spot. We were at each other's family stuff.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: He was the first person I called when I got promoted.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: He was the first person I called when my dad
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: got sick. And one day, with no announcement, no final conversation,
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: No fight, no closure. He just became someone I used
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: to know.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: How did it happen?
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I do not know. That is the honest answer. I
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: went back over it for years. I tried to find
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: the cause. I tried to find the moment. We had
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: a couple of weird calls. There was a vacation I
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: think he was upset I missed. There was a wedding
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: I think he was hurt I did not go to.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: But he never said any of that. He just got
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: slower and I got slower. And the text spaced out.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: And then they stopped. And then one of us deleted
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: the thread. I do not even remember which of us
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: did it first.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: That is the closet shape of it. The slow fade.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: The funeral that happens so slowly. Nobody notices it is
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: happening again.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: And I want to say for the record that I
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: am not blameless in this. I have thought about it
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: a lot. There were responses I should have sent. There
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: were calls I should have made. There was a meal
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: I should have driven across town for when I was tired.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: I know that. I have made peace with my part
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: That is the mature read. The not mature read is
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: that you did not do anything wrong, that he was
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: a bad friend, that you deserve better. And that read
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: is also true in a different way. Both can be true.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Both are true. And I held on to the bitter
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: version for two years. And then one day I realized
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: the bitter version was keeping me from finishing the grief
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: because as long as I was furious at him, I
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: did not have to feel the loss. And as long
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: as I did not feel the loss, I could not
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: move on. And the moment I let both be true
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: at the same time, the fury started to fade, and
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: the loss started to be processable, and I felt like
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: a person again.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: That is the work. That is the whole work, letting
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: multiple things be true at the same time, letting yourself
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: be The person who missed the call and the person
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: who was missed. Letting yourself be the friend who should
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: have shown up and the friend who deserved to be
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: shown up for. Letting yourself be furious and grateful and
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: relieved and heartbroken. All in the same week, sometimes in
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: the same hour.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Okay, so let us take this apart. Why does the
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: slow fade happen? Because I think a lot of people
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: listening are in the middle of one right now. They
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: are looking at a friendship that is fading and they
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: do not know what to do. So let us talk
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: about the actual mechanics. What causes a friendship to die?
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: The slow death.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: It is almost always one of four things. And I
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: should say, sometimes it is more than one. The four
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: causes are life got bigger, life got smaller. The friendship
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: ran out. of shared context or the friendship was running
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: on someone keeping it alive let me go through each
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: one yeah life getting bigger two people who were tight
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: in college then one of them gets married has kids
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: moves to a different time zone takes a job that
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: takes 90 hours a week the friendship does not die
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: because of conflict it dies because the container they held
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: it is gone the dawn is gone they shared a
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: parven is gone the friday night they used to be
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: free is now a kids bedtime it is not anyone's
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: fault It is just gravity and the gravity is real
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: and you cannot fight gravity forever.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: And you feel guilty about it alone because you cannot
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: tell your other friends. I lost my best friend to
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: the natural course of events. That sounds like nothing. That
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: sounds like you could not be bothered to text.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Exactly. And the guilt compounds because now you feel bad
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: about the fade. And the bad feeling makes you avoid
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: the friend. And the avoidance makes the friendship fade more.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: And the cycle runs itself. And three years later, you
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: are suddenly aware that you have not talked to someone
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: who knew the entire shape of your 20s. And you
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: cannot even remember the last time you talked about them
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: on purpose.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: That is the worst one. When you have not thought
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: about them on purpose. When you have to actively remember
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: that you are supposed to be missing them. Because the
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: absence has become the default.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: That is the second one. Life getting smaller. The opposite
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: of the first. Something happened. A loss. A depression. A
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: hard season. A financial hit. And you pulled inward. You
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: stopped going to the things. You stopped answering the calls.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: And your friends, to their credit, came by. They checked in,
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: but eventually you stopped. responding to the check-ins and they
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: read that as rejection and they stopped coming by and
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: you read that as abandonment and the whole thing collapses
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: from both sides at once and nobody was ever the villain.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: That is the roughest one because everybody had a reason
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: and everybody was doing the best they could and the
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: friendship still died.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: And that one is the one that wakes you up
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: at two in the morning. Because you cannot point to
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: the cause. You cannot even point to the moment. You
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: can only point to the absence. When the absence is
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: heavier than any specific reason.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Okay, cause three. The friendship ran out of shared context.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: This is the one people do not talk about. Two
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: people were tied because they were in the same place.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: They worked together. They were in the same band. They
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: were in the same volunteer group. They had the same routine.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: The friendship was real, but it was anchored to the routine.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: And when the routine ends, the friendship ends. has nothing
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: to stand on. The two people still like each other.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: They still want a pass for each other. But they
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: have nothing to talk about. They have no shared water
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: to swim in. And they keep trying to manufactured reasons
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: to get together. And the manufactured reasons feel weird. And
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: the weirdness makes them not try anymore. And the friendship
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: quietly suffocates.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: And the worst part of this one is that nobody
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: is wrong. You look at each other across the table.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: You are both thinking the same thing. Did we ever
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: actually have anything in common? Or were we just in
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: the same place? And you do not want to ask
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: the question out loud because the answer might be no.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: That sometimes the answer is no and that it is
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: not a moral failing. It is just a friendship with
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: a foundation that was never deep enough to hold the
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: weight of two adult lives. And it is okay to
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: admit that. It is sad, but it is okay.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: And cause four.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: The structure was running on someone keeping it alive. This
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: is the one I have been in. This is the
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: one I have done badly. And this is the one
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: I want to talk about because it is the most
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: preventable One of you was doing the work. One of
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: you was the one who texted first. One of you
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: was the one who remembered your birthdays. One of you
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: was the one who suggested the trip. And the other
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: one was happy to keep receiving. Because receiving felt like
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: the friendship. But it was not the friendship. It was
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: a service. And the moment the one doing the work stops,
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: the friendship ends. And the one who was doing the
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: work was left to go and wait. I was the
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: whole thing this whole time. And the moment was receiving
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: has no idea that anything changed because for them, nothing changed.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: They were just showing up. They were just receiving. On
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: one day, the receiving stopped and they did not even notice.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: That is the one that makes you the angriest because
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: you realize you were not in a friendship. You were
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: in a job and the job ended. And the employer
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: has no idea that you are ever working.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: I have been on both sides of that. I have
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: been the one keeping it alive. I have been the
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: one benefiting without noticing. And I am not proud of
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: either version. But I am more aware of it now.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: I am more aware of who is doing the work
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: in every friendship I have. And I check in with
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: the people I am relying on. Not because I am
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: doing charity. Because I have learned that the friendship is
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: the work. And the work has to be shared. Or
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: it is not a friendship.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: That is the line. The friendship is the work. And
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: the work has to be shared. We should put that
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: on the mug.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: I am telling you, mugs are a whole revenue stream.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, so those are the four causes. Now the harder part.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: What do you do when you are in the middle
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: of one? Because somebody listening is right now. They are
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: in the slow fade. They are watching the texts get longer.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: They are watching the calls get rarer. They are watching
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: the friendship dissolve in real time. And they do not
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: know what to do.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: Two options. You can intervene or you can let it go.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: And I want to be honest that neither option is comfortable.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: There's no comfortable option here. There's no version of this
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: where you do the right thing and everyone goes home happy.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: So the question is, just which option you're going to
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: live with?
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Walk me through the intervention version. Because that is the
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: one I wish I had done with Marco. The one
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: that I did not know how to do. The one
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: that I chickened out on.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Integration is a conversation and it almost always goes better
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: than you think it will go. Because the other person
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: has been feeling it too. Here is the script. You
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: reach out. You do not text. You cop. And you say, hey,
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: I have been noticing that we have not been talking
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: as much. I don't want to check in. I am
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: not angry. I am not blaming you. I just want
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: to know if we are okay. That is it. That
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: is the whole opening. And the other person will almost
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: always get quiet. And then they will either say, yeah,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: things have been weird. I am sorry. I have been
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: in a rough place. Or they will say, yeah, I
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: have been feeling it too. And I think I need
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: to be honest with you about something. And either way,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: you have just opened a door that was previously locked.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: And the conversation that comes after is not easy, but
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: it is real. And real is better than the slow fade.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: And what if they do not want to open the door?
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Then you let them not open it. You say, okay,
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: I hear you. I'm here if you want to talk.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: I love you.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: The door is open. And then you wait. You do
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: not chase. You do not send the next text. You
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: do not try to force them through the door. You
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: plant the seed and you walk away. And if the
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: seed grows, you find out. And if it does not,
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: you know you tried. And the trying matters, even if
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: the result is the same.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: I wish I had done that with Marco. I really
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: wish I had done that. I kept telling myself I would.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: And then I would chicken out. And then the next
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: time I thought about it, another two months had passed.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: And then it felt too late. And then it was
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: too late. Not because he would not have heard me.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Because I never gave him the chance to hear me.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: And here is the thing about that. The fact that
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: you did not make the call is not a moral failing.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: It is not evidence that you were a bad friend.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: It is just a human response to a hard thing.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: We avoid the hard conversations.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: We do.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: Especially the ones where the answer might be no. Especially
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: the ones where the answer might be, yeah, I am
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: out of this friendship. That is a terrifying answer and
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: it is reasonable to be terrified of it. But the
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: cost of avoiding the conversation is that you get the
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: answer anyway. You just get it without the dignity of
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: being told. Exactly. You get the answer either way. The
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: conversation just lets you get it with your eyes open.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Okay. Now, the other option. The letting go version. Because
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: not every friendship should be saved. We said that last
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: week and we should say it again this week.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: There is a difference between letting go and being let go.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: And you have to grieve both.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: But you have to grieve them differently.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: As being let go feels like a verdict. That somebody
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: looked at you and decided you were not enough. And
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: that is a thing you have to process. It is
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: a thing you have to mourn. And you have to
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: mourn it without letting it become a story about you.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: Because the story about you is not true. The story
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: about you is, I am defective. And the truth is,
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: I was a friend who did not fit this person's
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: life anymore. Those are different stories. And only one of
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: them is yours for me.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: And the letting go version is different. Letting go is
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: the version where you make the call. You decide the
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: friendship is not serving you anymore and you walk away
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: and you do not get to be the hero in
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: that story. You just have to be the person who
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: decided and you have to grieve the friendship you are
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: walking away from because you also loved it, even if
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: it was hurting you.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: That is the part people miss. The friendship that hurt
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: you was also a friendship you loved. Both of those
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: things are true. You can miss someone and be glad
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: you're not in their life anymore. You can be angry
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: at someone and wish them well. You can be hurt
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: by someone and be grateful for what they gave you.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: The binaries are the lie. The whole thing is messy.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: The whole thing is messy.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: So, you have decided. You are letting go. How do
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: you actually do it? Because there is no closing conversation
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: for most of these. There is no final, we are
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: not friends anymore. There is just the moment where you
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: stop reaching out.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: And that is its own kind of grief. That is
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: the moment where you have to feel the weight of
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: your own decision. You have to sit with the fact
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: that you chose this. And you have to accept that
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: you will never see this person again in any meaningful way.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: You might run into them at a wedding. You might
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: see their name on a Facebook post. You will hear
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: the name in a story someone else tells. And you
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: will feel a small flinch. And the flinch will fade.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: But it will never go away completely.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: That is what I want to say to everyone listening.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: The flinch does not go away completely. You just get
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: good at living with it. You get good at hearing
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: their name and not flinching. And then one day, someone
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: tells a story about them at a dinner party. you
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: realize you have not flinched in a long time and
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: that is the day you know you are okay.
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: Wait before we move on you said something at the
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: top of this episode and i have been holding on
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: to it for 40 minutes you said you lost three
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: friends and two of them you are still confused about
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: And one of them, you know exactly what happened and
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: you are still angry about it. I need the angry one.
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: The people need the angry one.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: I was hoping you forgot.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: I never forget when you admit to having emotions. It
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: happens twice a year.
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: Spill.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: Aye, but I am warning you. This one does not
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: have a clean mono. His name was Anton, college friend.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: The kind of friend where you do not even remember
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: becoming friends. You just suddenly have 70 years of history.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: We were grows me at each other's weddings. I was
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: a friend. I kissed her ear apart. And two years ago,
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: I told him something I had not told anyone. Something
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: about my dad. Something I was still processing. And I
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: said the words. I said, do not repeat this. And
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: he said, of course not.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, no.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: We were at my birthday party. And a guy barely
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: comes up to me. Puts his hand on my shoulder
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: and says, man, I heard about your dad. I hope
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: you're holding up okay. And I just stood there smiling
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: while my brain caught fire. Because there was exactly one
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: way he could have known.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: What did you do?
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: Nothing. That night, I smiled. I said, thanks. I went
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: home and I sat down in my car in the
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: driveway for 20 minutes. Same as a serious story, except
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: that this time I was not choosing peace. I was
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: choosing maybe to end a 12-year friendship over one sentence.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: And then I called him. And you know what he said?
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: He said, oh, man, I am sorry. It just slipped out.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: We were drinking. It slipped out.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: It slipped out. 12 years. And your pain just slipped
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: out of his mouth at a party?
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: That is the part I am still angry about. Not
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: the mistake. The smallness of the apology. It slipped out
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: like my trust was a glass he knocked off a table.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: And here's a thing young lover said out loud. I
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: forgave him in a moment. I said, That is not stupid.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: That is the most honest thing you have said on
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: this show. And can I tell you what I hear
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: in that story?
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: You did the intervention on yourself and skipped it. You
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: had the Marco moment in reverse. You were standing there
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: with the phone in your hand and you chose the
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: easy sentence instead of the true one.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: That is uncomfortably accurate. And it is why I wanted
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: to tell it today. Because somebody listening is sitting on
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: their own version. The thing they said was fine when
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: it was not fine. And I want them to know
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: that the anger does not mean you are petty. It
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: means the friendship mattered. You do not grieve what you
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: did not love.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Say that again, but slower. I want to get it tattooed. No, seriously.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: You do not grieve what you did not love. That
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: is the whole episode in one line.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: And that is why the anger is allowed to exist.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: It is Keith's running work boots. It shows up, it
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: does its job, and eventually, if you let it, it
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: clocks out. I am still waiting for mine to clock out.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: But at least now you won't shift. Tech is working, Simpson. Think. Okay, so,
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: the big stuff. We have talked about the brief. We
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: have talked about the four causes. We have talked about
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: the intervention and the letting go. Now, I want to
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: talk about the step that nobody talks about. The reorient
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: the same. Because the friendly breakup is not just the
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: end of a friendship. It is the loss of the
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: version of you. The version of you who was their friend.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: The version of you who had their person in their life.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: And when that is gone, you have to figure out
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: who you are without them.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: And that is harder than it sounds. Because identity is relational.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: You are not just you. You are you as Marco's friend.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: You are you as part of the Tuesday night crew.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: You are you as the person who got the call
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: after the bad breakup. And when those slots are empty,
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: you have to figure out who fills them. And sometimes
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: nobody fills them. And sometimes the slots just stay empty.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: And you learn to live with the empty space.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: And the mistake people make is filling the slot too fast.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: They're panning about the empty space. They find a new
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: best friend in the week. They join a new group.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: They sign up for new things. And the new things
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: are fine. But they are not the same. And the
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: difference is not a failure. It is just the difference.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: You cannot replace a friend. You can only find new friends.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: And the new friends will not have the same vocabulary.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: That is the thing. They will not know the story
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: about the time you and Marco ended up in that
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: weird off-brand karaoke bars in Quezon City. They will not
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: know the inside joke from your first year of working together.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: They will not know the look you gave each other
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: when the boss said something ridiculous. They will not know
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: any of that. They will have their own inside jokes.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: And those will matter too. But they will be different.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: And that is the reorientation. You allow the new friendships
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: to be different. You do not try to make them
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: into the old ship. You do not audition new friends
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: against the ghosts of the old one. You let them
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: be new. You let them be their own thing. And
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: you make peace with the fact that the friendship you
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: lost was specific to that time, that place, that you.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: And the friendships you will have next will be specific.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: To this time, this place, this you. That is a
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: level of acceptance I am still working on. But I
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: am closer to it than I was.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: Okay, so we have talked about the grief. We have
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: talked about the causes. We have talked about the intervention
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: and the letting go. We have talked about the reorientation.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: Now I want to talk about the thing that everyone
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: worries about but does not say. How do you avoid grief?
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: Being the one who ghosted.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, I want to hear this.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: Because a lot of people listening are going to realize
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: that they have been the one who ghosted. They're going
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: to realize that the friend they have been telling themselves
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: they're still close to is actually someone they have been
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: quietly fading on for two years. And they are going
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: to feel a flash of guilt. And the guilt is correct.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: The guilt is the entry point. But the guilt alone
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: does not fix it. You have to do the work.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: What is the work?
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: The work is the call. The actual call that, hey,
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: I have been terrible.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: I am sorry.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: I want to make this right call. And if the
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: call does not land, if the friendship is too far
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: gone to recover, you honor that. You do not push.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: You do not prefer regret. You just acknowledge what you did.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: You let the other person feel whatever they need to feel.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: And you do not chase them into forgiving you. Forgiveness
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: is a gift. You are not entitled to it. You
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: are only entitled to your apology.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: And if you are the one being apologized to, then
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: you have a choice.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: You can accept the apology or you cannot. Both are valid.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: You do not owe anyone forgiveness just because they had
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: the courage to ask. And you do not owe anyone
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: an explanation of why you are not ready to forgive them.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: You just have to be honest about where you are.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: And if you are not ready, you are not ready.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: And that is allowed.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: I have been on both sides of that. The one
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: I have more peace about is the one I apologized for,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: because at least I know I tried. The friendships I
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: left without a word, I have closure about them. But
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: I do not have peace.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: Peace is different from closure. Closure is the understanding that
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: the friendship is over. Peace is the feeling that you
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: did not run. You can have closure without peace. You
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: cannot have peace without closure. That is the whole episode
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: in one sentence. Can I speed around? Question one. The
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: friend who is mad at you. You do not know
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: what for. They will not say, what do you do?
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: You ask a fourth time, in person, with no audience.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: And you give them permission to be specific. I would
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: rather hear the hard thing than keep guessing. Take your time.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: I am not going anywhere. And then you actually do
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: not go anywhere. You sit in the discomfort. You let
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: them struggle with the words. You do not rescue them
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: from it. Because the rescue is the conversation.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: Question two. Afraid. You let go. How long do you grieve?
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: As long as it takes. There is no timeline. There
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: is the fake timeline the world gives you. which is
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: two weeks for a casual friend, two months for a
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: close friend, and there is the real timeline, which is
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: however long it takes for the flinch to stop. And
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: those are not the same length. Do not let anybody
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: tell you that you have been sad too long. You
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: have been sad exactly as long as you have been sad.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: The friendship ended because they died, not because the friendship ended.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: How is that different?
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: That one is different because that one did not have
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: a choice. That one did not run from anything. That
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: one just left. And the grief for that one is
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: its own kind of grief. You do not get angry
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: at them. You do not get to forgive them. You
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: just get to miss them. And the missing is the
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: whole thing. There is no closure for it. There is
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: just the carrying. And the carrying is the love. Holding
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: its shape long after the person is gone.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That one does not have a script. That one
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: is just the breath.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Just the breath.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: Question four. The friend you're scared to reach back out to.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: The friendship that they did. The one you think is
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: too far gone. Should you.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Yes. Always yes. Because the worst they can say is,
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: I am not interested. And I am not interested is information,
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: not a verdict. And you can survive information. You can
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: even grow from it. What you cannot survive is the
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: rest of your life wondering whether you should have called.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: That is the actual worst case. Not the rejection. The wondering.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: Beautiful. Okay. What's his father? The friend you used to
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: pretend everything is fine with. The one you text twice
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: a year at the publication. The one you say we
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: should catch up soon too. Every time. With no intention
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: of catching up. What do you do?
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: You stop pretending. You say, I have been a bad friend.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: I do not want to pretend anymore. If you want
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: to actually get together, I would love that. If you
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: do not, I want you to know I am grateful
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: for what we had. And then you let them answer.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: And whatever the answer is, you have stopped lying. And
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: the lying is the part that was hurting you.
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the lying is the part that was hurting you. Okay,
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: last question. The friend who hurt you? The friend who
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: was genuinely cruel. The friend who betrayed you. The one
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: you cannot forgive and you are not sure you want to.
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: What do you do with that?
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: You let it stay ugly. You do not have to
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: make it a story about growth. You do not have
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: to reframe it. You do not have to find a lesson.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Sometimes the lesson is that some people hurt you and
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: the only thing you owe yourself is the distance. You
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: are allowed to be done. You are allowed to be
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: done without a tidy ending. You are allowed to be
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: done and never speak to them again and never wish
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: them well. That is allowed. The world owes you the
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: right to be done with people who hurt you and
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: you do not have to dress it up.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: You do not have to dress it up.
• 43:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: Some friendships end because life got bigger. Some end because
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: they ran out of context. Some end because someone was cruel.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: And the cruel ones are allowed to just be the
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: cruel ones. You do not have to find the silver lining.
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: You do not have to learn from it. You do
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: not have to grow. You just have to close the door.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: And then you get to live on the other side
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: of the door. And the other side of the door...
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: is mostly fine. The other side of the door is
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: mostly peace. And the peace is not a betrayal of
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: the friendship you lost. The peace is the gift you
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: gave yourself by closing the door.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: That is a trait. The peace is the gift. So
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: we have covered a lot of ground. Let me try
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: to compress the whole thing the way we did last episodes.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: The whole playbook gave me the 60-second version.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Okay, 60 seconds. One, a friend breakup is a real breakup.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: Treat it like one. Two, there are four causes. Life
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: got bigger, life got smaller. The context ran out or
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: the work was not shared. Know which one you are in. Three,
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: two options. Intervene or let go. Both are valid. Do
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: not let anyone shame you for either. Four, the intervention
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: is one call. You do not need a script. You
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: need the courage to say, I have been noticing. Five,
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: the letting go is a decision you make with your
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: eyes open. You grieve what you had. You do not
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: pretend it was nothing. Six, the grief is not on
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: a timeline. It is as long as the flinch. Seven,
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: the reorientation takes longer than you think. New friends are
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: not replacements. They are new. 8. If you were the
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: one who ghosted, you owe the call. If you are
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: the one being apologized to, you do not owe the forgiveness. 9.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: The peace is the gift. The closure is the understanding.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: The peace is the feeling that you did not run. 10.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: You are allowed to be done. You are allowed to
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: be done without the lesson. You are allowed to be
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: done without the silver lining. You are just allowed to
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: be done.
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: That is the playbook, Ten Moves. And the homework?
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: The homework is this. Find the friendship you have been
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: quietly grieving, the one you have not said out loud,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: the one that has been sitting in your chest for
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: a year or two or ten, and say it out
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: loud to a friend, to a therapist, to a journal,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: to anyone. Just say it. I lost a friend. It hurt.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: I am still carrying it. That is the whole homework,
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: the saying. Because the grief that is not spoken is
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: the grief that grows.
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: That is the line. Okay, before the shout out, one
• 46:21
  Speaker 6: last thing. I want to address the.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: Person who's listening and realizing they're the one who ghosted.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: You are not a redeemable. You are not a monster.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: You are a person who got overwhelmed or distracted or
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: scared or lazy and you have a chance to do
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: it differently. You can make the call today. You can
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: send the text. You can say, I have been thinking
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: about you. I have been a bad friend. I am sorry.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: I would love to catch up if you are open
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: to it. And they may say yes and they may
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: say no. And either way, you did the thing. You
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: did not run from it. You didn't grab a small
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: thing you can do. You were picked off a phone.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: And to the person who is listening and realizing they
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: are the one who got ghosted, you are not unlovable.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: You are not the common denominator. You are not the
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: reason everyone leaves. Some people leave. Some people fade. Some
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: people disappear. And you did not cause it. Some of
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: it you might have caused. Some of it you might
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: not have. And you do not have to figure out which.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: You just have to survive it. And you have survived it.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: You are here. You are listening to this. You are
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: still standing. That is the proof.
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: Okay, shout out. We are shouting out Muggle Snuggle, cozy
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: bedtime stories from the wizarding world told by the noisiest
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: neighbor you will ever love or with you of lot
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: of friendship this year. And you have been carrying it
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: hard and tonight feels a little too quiet. Go let
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: them take you in after this. It will not fix Gareth,
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: but it will give you a softer place to land
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: with it.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: And I will say, as someone who has fallen asleep
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: to that show during a hard season, a cozy story
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: is not a cure. But it is a hand on
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: the shoulder. And sometimes, that is enough.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: Sometimes, that is enough. Okay, what is the episode? Fern Breakout.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Why it happens to everyone. How to grieve it. How
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: to survive it. How to come out the other side
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: without losing yourself.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: And to the friend I lost. And you know who
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: you are. I want to say this, even if you
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: never hear it. I am sorry I did not make
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: the call. I am sorry I let the silence win.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: I am sorry I did not give you the chance
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: to come back. I am grateful for the years we had.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: I am carrying them still. And wherever you are, I
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: hope the years have been good to you.
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: That was a lot.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: That was a lot. But it is true. And I
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: needed to say it.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: I'm glad you did.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: Until next time. I am Badzo.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: And I am Paul. And if you are carrying a
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: friendship you lost, set it down for a minute. Just
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: a minute. You can pick it back up, but set
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: it down. See how it feels to not carry it
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: for a breath. If this episode found you, do us
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: one favor. Follow the show, leave us a rating, and
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: send this to one friend you are thinking about right now.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: Maybe it repairs something. Maybe it starts a conversation you
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: have been avoiding for months. Maybe it just tells them
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: you remember the ramen spot, or the karaoke bars, or
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: whatever your version is. Either way, it matters. Send it tonight.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: Do not wait until it feels too late. Because that
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: feeling is usually a lie.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: And next time, we are talking about toxic positivity. You
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: know the type. Good vibes only. Just think happy thoughts.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: Smile through the pain. Turn that frown upside down while
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: your life falls apart. We are going to lovingly dismantle
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: all of it. Face by face with examples that will
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: make you uncomfortable in the best way.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, I have stories. I have so many stories. People
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: telling me to calm down when I am calmly furious.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: People sending me sunrise quotes while I am grieving. Cannot wait.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: genuinely cannot wait. Bring your worst good vibes only screenshots,
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: by the way. We are reading the best ones on
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: air with names withheld to protect the guilty.
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: Sleep well, everyone. Check on your people. And check on yourself, too.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: And Raymond, if you are out there, leg day is Thursday.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: Do not be a stranger. We will catch you Later, everybody.
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: Later.