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Too Many Friends? How to Stop Burning Out in Your Relationships · 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: What do you do when you feel like you have too many friends. And I know, I know that sounds like the most privileged problem in the world, especially from someone who spends most of her time talking about how to get out of loneliness, how to build the support you need, how to not feel like you're going through life alone. And on the flip side here I am today being like, what if you have too much but hear me out. Because if you have ever felt resentful opening a text message, or exhausted thinking about maintaining all of your relationships, or you felt guilty because you just can't keep up with all the connections in your life. You're not alone, and you're not doing anything wrong. You see this last week, I was at a networking event, and I was so lucky to run into one of you. By the way, if you ever see me in-person, please come say hello, pretty please. So I was approached like, Hey, listen to your podcast. And it's so exciting that we get to talk in-person, because there has been something I've wanted you to cover. And she said, You know, I feel like as I have gotten older, I have amassed too many friends. She was like, especially as I have tried to grow my business, we were at a networking event. That's how we met. And as I've moved and as my friends have gotten new jobs and met new people, and like their connections have grown, and I've met cool people there. She's like, but I'm starting to feel resentful every time someone invites me to do something fun or messages me or asks for help with something, she's like, I just feel like I can't keep up.
• 2:57
  Alex Alexander: This is so real, and it's not talked about enough, so you know who you are when you're listening. Thank you for this question. And she said to me, what advice would you give? Now I gave her a short, I don't know, two minute little blurb, but I'm gonna expand on that today, because the advice that I gave is not the advice that you might expect. I think a lot of people would expect me to talk about how to tighten your circle, choose the friendships that matter, talk about which ones to leave behind, how to kind of rank your friendships, how to close in. But that's not my message, that's not my platform, that's not my belief, that's not how I live my life.
• 3:46
  Alex Alexander: So we have to push past that. We have to challenge that, and we have to challenge a belief that I feel is so deeply rooted for so many people, and I get it you didn't know anything else until you examined this belief like we're going to do today, and that belief is that we always need to show up in the same way in all of our friendships. We need to prioritize being the same person. Is that really the best way to handle your friendships? Is it okay if you give something different to one friend than you do to another?
• 4:24
  Alex Alexander: Because my preview for the thesis of this episode is that part of the reason that we feel burnt out is because we feel like as we add connections to our lives, we need to keep showing up the exact same way, like if we did one nice thing for one friend, we should be prepared to do that for everyone, but everyone may not need that. So in today's episode, we're going to talk about a framework to think differently about our friendships and show up.
• 4:58
  Alex Alexander: Differently. Now, you know, I love to talk about this idea of kind of the all or nothing friendship model. I have multiple episodes about this.
• 5:10
  Alex Alexander: Episode 13, Episode 33 there are probably many more that I can't think of, but we're at episode 161 today. So pardon me, but so often we kind of have this all or nothing mindset, right? And I get why, when we were younger, when we were in what society tells us is our prime friendship era, right, all the way from elementary school to high school to college, maybe our young 20s, friendship was kind of this all or nothing thing. I think we were taught that the way we showed up for one friend, it was only kind to show up that way for another friend. But the problem was that our worlds were really small, right? We went to high school, we went home to our parents, we maybe went to a place of worship or a community group. We saw our parents, family, friends, we saw our friends, but our friends normally were also the people we went to school with or we were in clubs with. We had very limited choice in our connections. We also didn't have a lot of responsibility, right?
• 6:19
  Alex Alexander: You were a daughter or son or child of somebody. You were a high school student, maybe you were like soccer captain or head of the robotics team or just another face in your high school, but you didn't have the number of roles you have now as an adult. I mean, if I think of my roles, right, I am a wife, I am a friend, I am a daughter, I am an auntie, I'm a business owner, I am a community member, I am a author, I am a podcaster.
• 7:03
  Alex Alexander: I am a friend. And I mean, I could probably go on and on and on if I really sat down and wrote it out. I have all of these titles. I have way more roles that I am filling than I did when I was in high school.
• 7:17
  Alex Alexander: My world as an adult is so much bigger. I have so many more responsibilities. I have more people that I have to interact with because of those responsibilities. So therefore, I am connecting with more and more people naturally, and that is a good and necessary thing when I go into these spaces in one role or another, it's positive that I walk in and I feel a sense of belonging, because I know people, even if they aren't my closest people, I still want to know them. I want to feel welcomed and safe and like, understand who those people are and have some sense of belonging in those spaces.
• 8:03
  Alex Alexander: But if I try and go into every community space that I am in, every networking group, and treat it like my friendships in high school, don't you see how we're getting burnt out right back then, I maybe had three roles and five close friends, and I had basically one, I guess maybe two, because I had a sports community. I had, like my high school community and my sports community. Now I have, let's call it, 15 roles, and in each of those spaces, I have a variety of people. They're not all my close friends, but you know, even when I go to, let's say, a Toastmasters group, I do have some people I'm closer with in that group than in other spaces, right? And then the rest of the room, people in the room, I have, like, four close friends, maybe not close friends, we'll call them defined friends. I have four defined friends in my Toastmasters group, and then I have another 40 people that are acquaintances, faces in the crowd, people who make me feel familiar. They make me feel welcome. They make it feel like a space where they are like the color in the room, if I tried to show up the same way for those four defined friends and those 30 acquaintances in the same way that I am showing up for my very present friends. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, go listen to episode 12, which is my wheel of connection.
• 9:38
  Alex Alexander: No wonder I'm getting burnt out.
• 9:38
  Alex Alexander: So the reframe is that we do need variety in our connections.
• 9:42
  Alex Alexander: We can't just have three or four people the way we did in high school, because we have so many roles. We deserve people who support us in all the areas of our life, and some of those people will be our closest, most present friends, and others will be the color in the spaces that we go. They will be the reason.
• 10:02
  Alex Alexander: In that a meeting at work feels familiar, they will be the reason that a community event feels welcoming. And we know these people, but we don't need to treat them the exact same way that we do as the people in our inner circle. So if you are somebody who is equalizing all your relationships and trying to treat them the same way, right?
• 10:27
  Alex Alexander: You're going to a networking group, and you're meeting some friends, and you're like, Well, I enjoy hanging out with them, so I'm going to treat them the exact same way as these other friendships I've had for decades. No wonder you're burning out. Our goal today is to talk about not necessarily having fewer connections, but how to be more discerning about how we show up in our connections. I'm going to give you two main ways to do that.
• 10:54
  Alex Alexander: The first way is to get really clear on your strengths and natural rhythms. Spend a little time this is so underutilized by people, but so impactful in your life. Spend a little time. Go on a walk, sit down with your favorite beverage. Enjoy a nice sunset. I don't wherever you do your best thinking. Go to the bathtub, stand in the shower, I don't care. Spend a little time thinking about, what are you really good at, and how do you enjoy showing up for people. Be proactive about understanding the ways that you help other people, and what are some things that you could do, like in a very easy way, right? I've talked about this before, this idea that, like, I enjoy cooking, so if somebody is out there needing a meal, it's very easy for me to like double a recipe I'm already cooking, because I'm probably already cooking, and then share that with them versus I have friends who don't enjoy cooking, right?
• 11:54
  Alex Alexander: They should not sign up for that task. My husband Michael, who I've talked about on this podcast, his job is in accounting. He's a tax accountant, right? If somebody in our life has just like, a really simple, basic question about something tax related, it probably takes him 60 seconds to answer that, versus somebody spending an hour googling. Now, I personally should not answer a single one of your tax questions. Do not come to me with your tax questions. I cannot help you. I'll probably give you the wrong answer, and it would require me an hour of googling things I don't understand to answer your question in the first place. But if somebody comes to me with a tax question, then I'm like, Hey, I do know a person who could probably answer that in 60 seconds, right? I know where I show up and where I don't.
• 12:49
  Alex Alexander: Another example of this is I used to be a wedding planner for over 10 years. The other day, a old friend of mine, like I've seen her a couple times in the last five years. We do not talk all the time. We are very aware of how simple our relationship has become, but we were really close a decade ago. She texted me because she recently got engaged, and she said, Hey, I'm thinking of doing X, Y and Z for my wedding. What do you think it took me 60 seconds to answer her question, or her question was about wedding photographers, like, is this a normal price.
• 13:25
  Alex Alexander: Here's their package. It took me 60 seconds to be like, that's actually a really good deal. And you do actually want that many hours of coverage. It would have taken her hours of research.
• 13:38
  Alex Alexander: These are things that I am very good at, right? I enjoy cooking.
• 13:42
  Alex Alexander: I don't know if I enjoy wedding planning that much. Just don't make me do it, but I'm happy to answer questions. It's kind of fun to flex my knowledge muscle.
• 13:55
  Alex Alexander: They don't feel like that much extra work. Now, the takeaway here is to think about what your wheelhouse is. It doesn't need to be the same as mine, and when you can do that, it makes it easier to not force yourself to be everything to everyone. It makes it easier to see where you might be able to show up for someone. And I personally think that when we get really clear and we know what we offer to people, it makes it easier when we feel like, oh, maybe like, oh, that friend asked me for help in some area that is not your wheelhouse, right? My friend asked me about a tax thing. I don't feel guilty when I'm like, Hey, I don't I can't really help you with that, because I know all the places that I would show up for, them in an instant, and maybe in the past month, six months year, the places I have shown up because there was something that was in my wheelhouse. So today, tomorrow, this week, this month, take a second and get clear on what your strengths are, know them and then share them. Let other people know, like tell people hey, I know a lot. Lot about how to repair cars. I think it's kind of fun to do that puzzle. If you ever have questions about repairing your car, let me know. Offer it up, put it out there. Give yourself permission to not be good at everything and to not feel like you have to show up for everyone in the exact same way, play to your strengths. And for some people, they may need my wedding planning knowledge. And for some people, it may be that they need a meal every once in a while, or they need help with planning a recipe, like a menu for a party they're throwing. It might be that they need to know between two expensive purchases for their kitchen which one I would make, because they know I love kitchen tools, right? Because I love cooking, what somebody leans into you for is probably going to be different, and it's easier to show up when you are proactive and know what your strengths are. Now to take this a step further, other than your like blanket wheelhouse, right?
• 17:16
  Alex Alexander: Those kind of like things for everybody, I also think that it is helpful to understand the ways that you show up for certain friends and the ways that they show up for you start with your closest people. When you do this, you can't really like do every relationship at once, but as you start to do this with your closest friends, maybe you think about it with certain communities you're a part of, or family members or acquaintances, people who are new friends that you would like to be closer to.
• 17:50
  Alex Alexander: But to start pick just your few closest friends and then do this two part exercise. The first one is, what role do you fill for them? So I'm gonna give you a couple examples. I have talked on this podcast before about my friend who lost her husband last year, and we live a few hours apart, like I do not live within driving distance of her. Now, I would love to be able to take so much stuff off of her plate and fix everything, but that is not possible. So I've had to really think about, what can I do for her, and the way that I show up for her is not necessarily how I show up for my other closest friends. What I have decided is that the best thing I can do for her is actually to change the settings on my phone so that she always rings through always, and when she does call, no matter what I am doing, I will walk out of the room and I will answer the phone. So I told her, I was like, Hey, I obviously can't be the person who always just like, shows up at your house or helps pick up your kids because I don't live near you. But what I can do is everybody deserves to have a person they can call and know that it will ring through like you bypass all. Do not disturb. If you call me at 330 in the morning, my phone will ring. If I am in the middle of podcast recording right now, my phone will ring even though it's on. Do not disturb. She can always get a hold of me, and I can be that person for her, since she has lost that main person. And then to take it a step further right, I will answer whenever. So last month, I was at a holiday party, and I'm in this room full of people.
• 19:42
  Alex Alexander: And normally this is like, if somebody was calling me, I would have let it go to message, and I would call them back the next day. But because it was her calling me, I walked into another room, and I answered the phone, and I said, Hey, what's up? I'm at a party, but talk to me. And we talked for 1015, minutes while I just sat in this bedroom all by myself, and I came back out. My friends who were at the party were like, what was that? Right? Because normally I would not walk out of the room and I told them, like, Hey, this is the role I can currently fill for my friend. I will always answer the phone for her, but I probably wouldn't do that for them, those friends in that room, I don't have them set to bypass my Do Not Disturb. I also was out to lunch this past week, I was at a work lunch, and this friend who can bypass my Do Not Disturb I got a FaceTime call. I am sitting at a table at a work lunch, and I answer the FaceTime like I looked at it and I thought, Oh, I'll call her back later. But then I thought, nope, it could be an emergency.
• 20:44
  Alex Alexander: So I answered, and I held it really close to my face, because I don't love being a public face timer. And I said, Hey, I'm at a work lunch, but I Is everything okay? She goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just wanted to talk about, like, Okay, I'll call you as soon as I'm done.
• 20:59
  Alex Alexander: Now, the people at the table were like, Alex is a public face timer. And I got off the phone and I told them, I said, Hey, you. This is my friend who lost her spouse, and the role that I can fill for her right now is, if she needs somebody, she can always call me and I will always answer. And if she had said, it's an emergency, I need to talk, I would have gotten up and I would have walked out of that restaurant and I would have talked to her instead of my business meeting. That is a role I can fill for her, but not necessarily for everyone else.
• 21:31
  Alex Alexander: Now this could be that you are doesn't need to be as intense as this role I just told you about.
• 21:36
  Alex Alexander: It could just be that you know that you are the person that your friend always calls with parenting questions, right?
• 21:43
  Alex Alexander: You're their main like parent friend. It could be that this is a really old friend you've had forever, and they know a lot about your family, so this is the one that they always come to you about their family drama, and you always listen. This could be your friend who's pretty spontaneous, and they call you to go do something spontaneous. Now, maybe you can't always drop everything and go do their spontaneous idea, but you will try your hardest.
• 22:10
  Alex Alexander: Maybe this is a person who you are their biggest supporter in their health journey. And so that means that if they are going to race, you will do your best to be at that race and cheer them on. What role do you fill for that friend that is like the most impactful, and then it probably change over time. And it's not to say you do nothing else, but you do try and prioritize that role. If nothing else, you trust you are doing that role to the best of your ability. And then the second part of this exercise is, what role do they fill for you? I have another friend. She's good work friend of mine. Jokingly, I call her my work wife, and I have known her for a really long time. I know her spouse. I know her children. She knows Michael.
• 23:06
  Alex Alexander: She's met some of my other friends. I've met some of her other friends, but I wouldn't really call us, you know, like these kind of all consuming friends. We don't invite each other to, like, Go, necessarily, on joint family trips or things like that. We fill a very specific work role. That's what she fills for me if I have a work problem, or I need somebody to go to a networking event with me, I call her and I know that, but I don't necessarily like call her for every friends giving and every weekend Hangout, and that's okay. We have accepted that we are very much each other's work person.
• 23:45
  Alex Alexander: That's where we lean on each other. Now the next level to this is once you've kind of realized what the roles are that they feel for you and you feel for them. If you want to take it another level, have a conversation about it, right?
• 23:59
  Alex Alexander: Chat with your friend and be like, Hey, I've been really thinking about like, the ways I show up best for you and you show up best for me. These are my thoughts. What do you think?
• 24:07
  Alex Alexander: Do you feel like that is correct from your side? Are there other things I'm not thinking about?
• 24:13
  Alex Alexander: What are our biggest priorities?
• 24:17
  Alex Alexander: Like, if we were going to do the most to show up in very specific ways for each other that made the biggest impact? What are those ways? And then, you know, and that might change over time.
• 24:29
  Alex Alexander: Like, it's probably 100% likely it will change over time, and then you've created a space where it is okay to have conversations when it does change. You know, hey, you used to be my person that I went to for work things. Now I've changed jobs. Now I just want to hang out with you for fun. Like, things might shift in your friendships, that's okay, but right now, if you feel overwhelmed, what are the top things? You can prioritize this framework, getting clear on the top one or two ways that you show up for your people, and committing to those core things, but also being okay if they change over time. What that should do is let you trust that you are showing up for your people in the ways that matter most, and give you some relief when you do have to say no. If I was going to give you an analogy, it would be like when I go to do my work here, right there are tasks that move the needle, right needle moving tasks, or money making tasks, maybe, whichever one they are, those are very different than kind of busy work tasks.
• 25:35
  Alex Alexander: And every day I have to spend some time thinking about what my move the project forward, tasks are and I need to prioritize doing those. Everything else is just a bonus. That's what you're trying to do. But with your friendships, you're trying to think about what are the most important, impactful things I can do for this person, and they can do for me and. Everything else is just a bonus. Now I do think that you can, once you kind of narrowed this in with your closest friends, you can expand this, you can apply this to all of your relationships.
• 26:10
  Alex Alexander: Think about your work relationships. What areas of work is it that you're teammates on a project and you really need to work well together? Is it just someone you bounce ideas off of? Is it somebody who's you've committed to networking together and that's how you support each other? Is like, you don't have to walk into these networking events alone. Is it a community group? What role do you fill? Are you the person who is like PR and out in the community talking about it? Are you the behind the scenes organizer? Are you the advocate?
• 26:45
  Alex Alexander: What are you in the community group? Are you the safe space that everyone can come talk to and you always listen? But maybe if you're the listener, you don't also need to be the person who's behind the scenes doing all the admin work for the group, for your networking connections. If you go to a networking group, is it just that you show up every week? Is it that you help people make connections? Are you the person who just is very welcoming to everybody you know? Are you kind of the person who takes the new people in under your wing? What about your family connections?
• 27:24
  Alex Alexander: What are the top things you can do for each other? What about your neighbors, acquaintances.
• 27:28
  Alex Alexander: Now, amongst all those different connections in your life, there are some different levels, right? Like, not everyone needs the same level of investment.
• 27:39
  Alex Alexander: Your acquaintances don't necessarily need the same level of investment as your neighbors or your closest friends. You might be a little more okay saying, like, Hey, I try my best at showing up for you in this way, but it's probably gonna slip through the cracks. Versus maybe your closest neighbor, you really prioritize, like, when they ask you for a ride or to borrow something or to grab their mail, you're gonna do everything you can to make that happen. Right? Some people are kind of that inner circle closest. You're going to spend the most time, you're going to give that the most priority, and you're going to maybe have a variety of roles that you fill and prioritize. Then you kind of have your, like, regular supporter people. You have specific roles, regular contact.
• 28:29
  Alex Alexander: You're going to do your absolute best, but maybe you wouldn't, like wake up at 3am and answer their phone call, but you would definitely call them back within an hour or two the same day.
• 28:41
  Alex Alexander: That's how you're going to prioritize. And then you have, you know, like contextual friends or familiar faces people where, because they create a sense of belonging, you're always going to show up and be that listening ear or do your best to be that admin person, but this is your permission to let some relationships be lighter. Not every relationship needs to have that must do the thing be the role, right? You're just going to do your best to do it sometimes. So if you have listened to this episode today and you have been operating under this assumption that you need to show up for all the people in all the ways as you add more connections to your life, and that you must be doing something wrong because you have collected too many connections.
• 29:27
  Alex Alexander: I want to remind you that we all deserve support from a variety of places that support our various roles and interests and beliefs and values, and I'm really proud of you for building that variety into your connections. And that if you have reached a burnout, it may not be the number of connections, it might be your approach to those connections.
• 29:50
  Alex Alexander: Your world is getting bigger, and that's a good thing. More connections means more support, more belonging, more color and richness in your life, but only if you show up in a way that feels sustainable. So you get to decide how you show up, and different relationships will get different versions of you, and that's okay with that. I'll see you next week.
• 30:14
  Alex Alexander: 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.
• 30:22
  Alex Alexander: 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.