Latest / The Habit Lab / Friendship Files #4- Different Flavors of Friendship

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Friendship Files #4- Different Flavors of Friendship · The Habit Lab

• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: We all have areas in our life we might feel stuck or overwhelmed.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So join me, Jenna Zint, habit coach, teacher, and follower of Jesus, as we go after little bits of better by building offensively small habits that create big impact.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Habit Lab Podcast.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hello.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Habit Lab.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I am Jenna Marie Zint.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I am doing, I'm in the a long, slow series called The Friendship Files.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is episode four.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I wanna call it friendship, different friendships, sorry, different flavors of friendship.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um and fun fact, bits of it, there's some parts where I was like, this kind of sounds like the love languages, you know, like Gary Chapman Chapman.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: In my opinion, it is different.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, there's probably some similarities um in here, but fun fact about Gary Chapman is Aaron and I are actually gonna get to be a part of a local relationship conference.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Our friends are the pastors of a church.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh shout out to Risen King, and they're having a um relationship conference, and Gary Chapman is the keynote speaker.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And Aaron and I got invited to be kind of like the resource.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways, I just was like, how cool is that?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get to meet him.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Huh.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways, okay, so friendship files number four, different flavor flavors of friendship.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And what I want you to imagine is going into your ice cream, like an ice cream store wherever you get ice cream, we have a local place called Taste and See.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out to my friend Emory and her husband Jake, who own it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's delicious, it's so good.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It comes from that scripture, like, you know, taste and see that the Lord is good, and all their ice cream is handmade and uh it's just so good.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't I I used to be a medium ice cream person until taste and see.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways, I digress.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: But when you go into your favorite ice cream place, all the different flavors, and um this one that I was talking about in our town, you're allowed to sample the flavors and they have these little spoons, and you get to do a few, and they're really generous, and they don't make you they don't limit you.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I have to self-impose some limits around my children, or they would taste all 30 flavors probably every time, and then still get the same flavor, which is cookies and cream.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel bad for the like teenager behind, anyways.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm digressing more.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: The idea is like when you go to when someone says like I want ice cream, there is this expectation that yes, lots of different varieties of ice cream.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have your preference, does it, but it doesn't mean one flavor of ice cream is bad.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or if that's your preference, me liking this one over here is wrong.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Though, not gonna lie, I don't quite get fruit ice cream.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I can I can handle uh chocolate, peanut butter, you know, all those things, but fruit ice cream feels a little bit like a dichotomy to me.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, my husband thinks that mint should be reserved only for the flavoring toothpaste and gum.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So he does not touch any desserts that are mint flavored.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, I guess we have a little bit of judgment in some of our ice cream preferences, but that's what I want you to think of when we're talking about this podcast episode is like different flavors of friendship.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And what I found is how often pain or values, like perceived does this person value me, or I'm not as important, or I don't matter, or they don't care about the friendship, me, the friendship, whatever.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: So many of those pain points can be traced back to a different flavor of friendship.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like again, like me saying mint chocolate chip is the best ice cream, and Aaron saying strawberry is the best ice cream.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I if you loved me, you would know, or if you were smarter, if you were a healthier, if you were a wiser Aaron, you would know that mint chocolate chip is the way, the truth, and the light.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I am sounding a little joking, but I actually do the reason I wanted to really do this episode, and I feel like it's actually probably almost I was thinking about it the first time this concept and pain point arose in some of my friendships.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I was in my early 20s.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: So this feels like two decades in the making, and I've just been slowly noticing differences and noticing pain points, and um, yeah.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the main idea though is to remember that the different flavors of friendships aren't failures, they're flavors, they're preferences.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: There can be personality preferences.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's like such an assortment of ways to think about them.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: But when we think of them as kind of like black or white, this is how you do friendship, this is not how you do friendship, this is being a good friend, this is being a bad friend, this is caring for your friends well, this is caring, like neglecting your friends.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: When we add the morality to it, that's where so much pain comes from.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we almost can't work through it and even a lot of times like disconnect because of it.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, so that's the point of this episode.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Friendship is not one size fits all, and people truly connect in different flavors.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when we treat our preferences like the standard, we turn our differences into disappointment.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the work that I want you to walk away with is to notice your flavor, your preference of flavor, how you operate, even like with like subconsciously operate, and then maybe what you're aware of you do, and then notice the other friends and honor theirs and stop moralizing one style over the other.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, backstory of why I say the first time I started noticing this was in my early 20s, um, is because I actually in my 20s got confronted so many times for being a bad friend.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's funny now, it was not funny then.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a season where it would, it would almost like be like a pattern.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: I would jokingly say it would come in threes because for so many years, probably once a year, I would have three different friends confront me within a matter of like two weeks, you know?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was like bizarre.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: That actually has not happened in probably like five plus years.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think partly be I realized how much I've kind of played into it because my triggered mechanism, like I'm a people pleaser and I want people to be okay.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I would almost ask for feedback or assume I had hurt them that I would, it was like I was digging for stuff that wasn't there until something was there.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it was interesting actually realizing how much I, my fawn and my my triggered responses fawn, so making sure they're okay and kind of like overly apologizing or checking in created these uh confrontations in a way that I didn't realize it.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: For it for a while I was like, wow, these people confronting me.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was like, oh, I'm contributing to this.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but one of the first times I remember sitting on my friend's porch.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: We had been friends for I think two years at this point and pretty good friends, maybe three years, and pretty good friends.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: We'd done school ministry together, which is almost like doing a Christian college together.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And she had called me over and asked me to talk, and she started telling me all the ways that I was a bad friend, and um obviously didn't use eye statements or you know, just told me, and she just almost just kind of gave me a re like a what is it called?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like a report card of how I had missed it and graded me in these areas.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll I'll never forget was like the most painful sentence, but her summary of her synopsis of how I was a bad friend was that she told me that she thinks Jesus does friendships like Aaron does, and he would be, Jesus would be disappointed, and it wasn't biblical how he showed up compared to how I showed up.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm one of those people, like right now, I'm not I'm not mad at her or anything.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's been so many years, but it just really marked me because I don't want to hurt my friends and I don't want to be a bad friend, and these are people I truly care about, so it was not cavalier when I get feedback like that.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what I realized over time in processing, like when I get these feedbacks, be like, okay, what led to this?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is there heart posture?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, Holy Spirit, tell me where I'm like missed it, where like what's mine, what's theirs, you know, and sorting it out.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it started um clicking for me how often some of the pain these friends experienced, and then would say I was a bad friend or neglecting them, was like a difference in our flavors of friendship.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, so I started getting acutely aware and kind of developing this concept for a while, and I kind of tease about it, but I was like, oh, it'd be so fun to do an actual episode.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it's simple, like flavors of friendship, it's simple.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's not super scientific, though.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: There is some tie-ins to attachment style.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'll like get in at the end of the episode.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I'm just gonna give you like I decided to do like this is not an all-encompassing list, these are just a few differences that I've noticed in like preferences on how they people prefer to do friendship um in a variety of areas.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I was gonna say, what else was I gonna bring up too?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, just I think the important thing is to become aware because so many times people maybe would put a lid on the friendship because people don't show up this way, or again, like taking a value statement, like that I must not matter because this is what they do, and how often it's actually a them personality thing and a preference thing versus anything to do with you.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: So when we can take that out of it, when it becomes not personal, it becomes personality, offense is gone, judgment can be off the table, and maybe you express momentarily momentary pain and then try to seek some maybe like compromises on different things, it is not a deal breaker, or you have to walk away from the friendship.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope this helps in that sense.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: But some examples of kind of simple differences and flavors of friendship.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: There are the long, long time want connection that's long friends or want and slow friends.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I said that wrong.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Long and slow connection, people who that's their preference.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that would be like a whole afternoon with me.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want a a rush start.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want a fat a dead, like you know, a really firm and I no agenda.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna be together.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's how you communicate value, that's how you show people that they have your undivided attention.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that would be one example.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Another example would be like someone who really, really prefers deep and focused.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe it's not a whole afternoon noon, maybe it's an hour, an hour and a half, but it is heart talks.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's deep connection, it's processing pain.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's usually like I think of it like open heart surgery.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when I was younger, I was like, oh, I don't, I don't want to go to coffee because whenever I go to coffee, friends end up like telling me all the hardest things.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I, yes, they feel known, but I feel like heavy leaving and it feels like I don't know, like a chore.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I love these people, but that version of connection is so taxing to me, you know?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other like another example would be life overlap friends, which is kind of more my wheelhouse, like my preference.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: This would be doing errands together or realizing you're both free for dinner and instead of planning something, you're like, hey, just do you want to come over for like dinner?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or you're at a park, maybe it's the end of soccer practice and you're chatting and you realize her husband's out of town and yours, but like, why don't we just do dinner together?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then they bring whatever's in your fridge, or you bring whatever's in your fridge.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just simple, not planned our Orlily walks because that's the 45-minute window that we have before we have to get our kids ready.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or I think I've told you guys, sometimes I I have some friends that some of our connection is we we find out windows that we could eat our lunch together and we bring our lunch places.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it's after that meeting that we both have.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like we're going out to eat.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like, but I'm like, oh, this is a 45-minute window we have before we have to go pick up our kids.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you bring your lunch, I'll bring my lunch.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: But there's something, it's funny because sometimes what I've experienced is people when they experience my flavor, and again, there's a collaboration, there's a compromise.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think one person wins and their other person's flavor has no room.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: But the idea of the morality, like I don't care if I'm just giving sometimes some of the feedback I used to get before I really understood why I prefer this way or my version of friendship, um, is because I like that there's no show.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: I like that I'm not having to present myself.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: I like that you would be in the nitty, the realness of my life versus like a pause moment of my life.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I also um I like, gosh, I was trying to think, not polished.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: I like that we have things that align.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: It almost feels like I think I do get a little bit of a hit in general from efficiency.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: So probably it's like that.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I like being known.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like I like in the mess, like I don't have to present a dinner like when a couple months or sorry, right before Christmas.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: We had a a girlfriend was doing a play date, and then it just I found out her husband wasn't in town.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron was going straight to this meeting, so I was gonna be solo and I was like, Do you want to stay for dinner?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I made us all like maybe I think she and I even ate chicken nuggets and macaroni with the kids, so it was not glamorous, but I think I feel so loved and be able to be seen as I am, and we both break share something simple, and there's like a camaraderie in it that really blesses my heart, where I have found other people think that uh it's not worth they're not worth more from me, or this is all I'm willing to give to them.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's so interesting.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, oh, nothing in my heart is saying that, but that could be the the statement they take out, or I could think with the long slow friends, I feel judged.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're like, uh you're not worth my time unless you give me a perfect blank canvas, you know, which again, adding morality to these flavors of friendships is where disappointment, offense, and judgment come in and spoil things versus just letting there be room for differences.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: None are better, they're just different.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I made a list of some common flavor differences in friendship.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Again, not right or wrong, just different.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: One would be an example of how uh frequent texters versus periodic connectors.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: One friend is gonna text you daily, the other one checks in every few weeks, but maybe shows up when it matters.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's funny.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you hear some of your friendship dynamics in these because these are some of my life ones that I'm I'm not thinking, don't worry, any of my friends who are listening.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: I did not single out any single person.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: I just was trying to think through some of the dynamics I've experienced, you know?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: So um I feel overwhelmed texting people daily or checking in, or yeah, like it feels frivolous and maybe kind of like doesn't make sense.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: I tend to be the more periodic connector.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I remember one of the pain confrontations with friends once was that I they didn't see me enough.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I say I'm one of their closest people, how could that be every three weeks?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt so bad and so much shame.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: This was when I was younger.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now maybe I'd be able to take the feedback and not not spiral shame spiral as much as I'm failing.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: But then I I finally had this like light bulb moment with Jesus being like, Am I terrible?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, Do you realize that you talk to your mom once every three weeks?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, and he was like, and your dad who you're even closer with is maybe once every two weeks.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is like a a life system thing.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a value, like she's actually getting the most piece of the pie that you have to give.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe her perspective of how often she talks to her parents is different, but it's not you giving her the shorter than the sticker failing her.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's like a style difference here.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, you're so right.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: So the pain point is that maybe the frequent texter who doesn't get responses feels forgotten or left out of the loop because they don't know almost like in real time what's happening.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then maybe the periodic connector in response to the frequency feels pressured.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, this is so me.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth is, frequency is not the same.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like how the frequency of connection is not the same as faithfulness.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm totally your show up big what it matters kind of friend and not going to be your consistent friend.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, like when friends are going through things, I'm gonna be the one that drops off flowers or a sympathy card or soup, but probably maybe you only hear from me once a month.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I remember and see you again, I'm like, I love you.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes people can equate that to be like, it must be faker, like an artifice to it, or you would follow up, like the periodic text or the frequent texter would think, or you follow up, you would put your money where your mouth is.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Where I'm like, oh no, actually, this is this is congruent for who I am with my affection and uh frequency of text or frequency of connection.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, the next version of friendship flavor I've noticed that can cause pain is those who live fast-paced life and those who live slow-paced life.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the one friend that runs fast, that has a full schedule, that has tight small windows that of time, you know, in between things that's constantly in motion, which is kind of me and not me at the same point.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have things dialed because I'm very intentional.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe I won't, maybe I don't, we don't do sports, we only do a few things.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're pretty strategic, but I'm not gonna give up that window for connection with my kids or the Lord or Aaron for a friend sometimes.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like maybe I'm not busy, but the real estate in my life is spoken for, if that makes sense.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: So there's less to be given.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so one friend that runs fast, full, constant motion, the other one has intentionally slowed their life down.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: They have margin, they're unhurried, there's space, there's availability.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the pain point here is often that the slow-paced friend will reach out to see if they could connect or get coffee.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the response they get is either I don't have time or I'm super busy, but I want to try again.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it starts to feel like rejection instead of a difference in life rhythms.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then, too, maybe you have noticed that there's a difference that they live fast and they're slow judgment, like their life's out of control, and I don't think they're living right.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: I just I think it's just to bring awareness.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the last two years the Lord has just been really calling me out and noticing these little judgments and releasing them, not just in friendships, but how often even with speakers, like I don't like how they blank blank blank.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, does it matter?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do you get to be?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Are you the are you the judge that's sitting there who's gonna hold up a one through ten scorecard to see how they did with motherhood or sermon prep or friendship?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, ah, you're right, I am doing that.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: So um the truth is that whether one person lives fast, one person lives slow, it isn't a value statement, it's a difference in velocity.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I like that.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love alliteration, so it's not a value, it's a different about value statement about you.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a velocity difference.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Different speeds don't equal different love.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll get to the point because I'm sure as you're reading these, you're like, what do you do though with the incongruity of flavors?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you process that?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's some real impact on actual connection.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll get to that in a second.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I'm not giving you a magic solution, but I will address it.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the next difference in flavors of friendship is the one-on-one friend versus the group friend.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm laughing because I'm like, oh my gosh, those of you who know me listening to this, these are true pages from my journal.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one friend feels closest and deep private connection.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Another person feels alive and group energy, shared meals, and big tables.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: I am the group friend.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I have had so many friends have pain, which I totally think is valid, who are the one-on-one friends.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: But in the idea of me living, you know, like maybe Jenna personally has lived a little fast paced, doesn't have as many things to give away.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that means that if they're gonna choose to be one-on-one, which this is kind of my compromise, they can totally do that.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: It'll probably be double or triple far out.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of maybe like, hey, I have a group, let's do this, you know, in two weeks.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: If they're only interested in one-on-one, they might have some, they might have to wait four weeks.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I used to feel bad about that, but then I let almost feel mad at them because it was like I I was in a double bind.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: I either blew through my schedule intentionality, you know, like some of it were were windows of purposeful rest or Sabbath, which I wasn't doing friend things, or I disappointed them and they felt like they didn't matter to me, but then being Okay with offering, like, hey, okay, so you're not interested in group friends.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: No problem.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: That will mean it almost like going to your closet.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, I don't want to wear someone's looking to borrow a dress and they won't wear black and half your wardrobe or two-thirds of your wardrobe is black.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, no problem.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: I can show you the options of color that I have, but you will have a quarter of the options.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's no judgment, there's no punitive nature.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's just if you are going to have that preference, you will have less options.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the heart posture of being okay with that.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then sometimes with those friends, I do share like, like, man, a month.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, if you'd like to join, it reminds me of like choices, but again, not in condescension, not in, I told you so, not, you know, none of those.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: It has to be so hard.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Your heart.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's shocking to me how many things, the same words or the same actions with a different, like a subtly different heart posture could be love and softness or done in aloof, punitive or defensive nature.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like, wow, it's such a subtle degree, and only you really are gonna know.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: But um, for me, then being like realizing that they can, and it's okay if they're disappointed if it's a month, if they're willing to do group things, they could have more options in their life, but because they're choosing not to be willing, they're gonna have less.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: They might be disappointed.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: And some of those friends, when they do, will we counter that disappointment?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'll go circle back and invite them to the group things.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And usually what happens is they were they say the same thing and they're like, I don't, I don't really love group things, I don't feel connected, or I feel awkward.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, no problem.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: We can wait till February to connect.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not sassy, you know, it sounds so sassy, but I'm like, I'm okay with their disappointment, and I'm reminding them they could choose different, but if they don't want to choose different, then like these are their options.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the truth is that even like with one-on-one friends versus group friends, depth doesn't just live in the quiet solitude spaces of friendship and connection for me, connection or lightheartedness or joy doesn't just grow in crowds.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that was like kind of a pivot for me realizing how sometimes, because like I said, those deep heart moments, coffee dates where everyone was crying.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I felt like in my 20s.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, don't tell me to coffee one-on-one because you're just gonna cry and tell me are the hard things of your life.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that sounds like a lot of weight.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, does not sound yes, sign me up for that.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, one of the things I found is a lot of times I find joy as accessible as connection in groups, where maybe one-on-one you don't bounce so much because the conversation doesn't, you know, there's not like a levity to it.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I think just remembering that both both are okay, even if you have a preference for one or the other.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, next one kind of brings me to the same point.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: The next flavor, flavor number four for friendships, the differences are the heart update friends versus the life update friends.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think of it more of sometimes maybe the more emotive person versus the more logistical person.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny because, oh man, I'm just thinking all of these come from if you're recognizing these and feeling maybe a little like shame because you've had judgment, they're all from my very honest list of, yeah, I used to judge people like that.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny for this one, I almost think I've been on both ends of being like, this is the way, the truth and the light.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, this is the way, the truth and the light.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: But um, heart update friends, like it is wonderful and good that you want to talk about your feelings and your fears in your inner world.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it is okay for you, life update preference people that when you're talking about logistics and schedules and plans, you feel known, you feel seen, you feel like they get your world.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I honestly I'm kind of a middle girl here.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: I like both.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: I like to know the emotions behind it, but if I have no context for what your life actually looks like, I don't have nails to hook, yeah, to yeah, I don't have nails to hang your emotions on.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, like for me, people will tell me how they're feeling in this world, and then I'll be like, what does your life look like right now?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like I ask that question all the time.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or I'll ask some people when they're explaining to me their lives, I'm like, who are your friends?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny because I've had to learn to ask it better because a lot of times people with my questions will hear like maybe an accusation where I'm just trying to logistically frame what I'm understanding their life to be.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, the pain point is that the heart update friend could feel lonely in their emotions and then maybe judge the logistic update friend for being shallow.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of some of the kickback that I got or have felt.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then the the logistic friend could feel fatigued by the depth that they go to every time.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and really they're both just misunderstood.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth is that some people process through words and they're feel big feelings, and then other people process through maybe like more movement and logistics.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and if you're like me, I actually want both.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes with Aaron, when he's telling me, and I actually this is what I want, his heart about his day.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: I need to understand if this was a five-minute conversation or a two-hour conversation, because I almost can't even this might be a little bit more of my ADHD.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: I can't understand how how big of an impact this was, if it was like a long confrontation or a quick offhanded mark.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, those are that is number four.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Number five, the talker versus the doer.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, different flavors.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: One connects through conversation, the other connects through action, which I would say that I am I'm kind of both.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the reasons I like walking.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny when people ask me for coffee.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't do coffee, but you want to go out on a walk?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, for me, it's because with my movement and this pace that my mind goes at, I actually feel like I can use, I can listen to them better and I'm more present in my body at a certain speed.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm seated, oh my gosh, coffee shops are the worst for me.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny because sometimes when I haven't explained this well, new people or friends could feel dejected.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm saying, I won't, they're not worth me going out of my way to go to a coffee shop or give them my undivided attention that I'm trying to multitask getting my steps in while we talk.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm only, I've actually heard people um express, I would say judgment or assumptions about the motives when people are like, I don't want to be their walk friend.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: If they're not willing to like, you know, do dinner with me or get coffee, like I'm not just gonna be used to get their steps in.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I just feel sad because that'd be a great example of assuming the story you're telling yourself about their motives, reading their heart, judging the outcome, and um then choosing offense and disconnection based on the story you're telling yourself.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Where for me it's really like, oh, I actually love you enough that I know you'll get a three times less good ability for me to listen if we're in a coffee shop.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: I actually just never go to coffee shops because they're so overstimulating that I can't, I feel like I can't even think in them.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, I think that was just an example of assuming moralizing one or the other, assuming the story behind why they their preferences the way it is, and then getting offended or making a judgment call based on it.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: The pain point with the talker versus the doer is the talker feels emotionally starved if we're just running errands, or if they're dropping off soup, they actually don't want your soup.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: They want to tell you about their emotions on, you know, maybe they had a hard day at work and you drop off soup or whatever.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Getting very specific to my real life here, but they actually because you know you can't, you know, the doer either that's not your preference, or that's not how you typically show up in friendship, or maybe you don't have the time in your schedule, and the talker feels unemotion or emotionally unmet and starved, where the doer feels unappreciated because there was a gesture towards uh friendship or connection.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: The truth is words and works are both languages of love.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Gary Jackman.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And even talker versus doer could be um a bit of a, you know, like right brain, left brain.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um what was the other thing I thought?
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Fast pace, slow pace.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: There could be obviously again, these are just made-up noticings that I've had of flavors.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, number six, I would say long, the friends, I kind of expounded upon this in the beginning, but the friends who like a long period of time or want life overlap.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the one who want like long time, they want a whole afternoon, they want a weekend, they want a slow Saturday, you know, let's come over, let's do dinner Saturday night, and they're like, oh, wait, can we come over at three?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, clearly, I'm the life overlap friend.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: If I feel like, oh my gosh, that's a really long time.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one loves connection inside of every day, errands, walks, meals from the fridge.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the other one loves connection and feels seen and yeah, known when you get unsolicited length of time that just accrues.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then I would say the pain point, one, the longtime friend in the overlap, let's let's do life together friend, maybe feels rushed.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the overlap friend feels like pressure and like they never have enough, and they're disappointing the other person constantly.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Where the awareness of like, what if both are true?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what if you do some?
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: I love it's funny, I'm thinking about this, even just not just even flavors of friendship, but flavors of connection.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Cause I remember early in our marriage, I would just beg Erin to do errands with me.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm laughing because I used to call them Eren's Erens, and he never found that funny, but I still do, and I still bring it back up sometimes, and he's like, it's not been funny for the last 16 years, and it won't be.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, and it'll always be funny to me.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Eren's Erns.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go on Aaron's Erns.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like a small child who finds out that it's fun to like go just keep doing it.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's where I'm at right now, anyways.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I felt loved when he would come with my my errands with me because it was something that was like a chore.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was like he loved me enough to like add his um connection and there'd be fun little jokes.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was just there's such a withness that I can't describe that people just hear so many friends who are not life overlap friends who are maybe like quality time, unsolicited, you know, nothing else involved.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they hear, I'm rushed efficient, you're using me, whatever.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Where I'm like, I feel so loved when I make a meal from a it's it's bizarre.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: I wish you could experience like if someone were to make me a fancy meal, most of the time I don't feel as loved as I do if I was trying to think my friend and I, um, like after cross country and it's a meet, and you're like, you wanna just do you wanna just go to In N Out to see, or do you I have we have pizza leftover from last night?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to just bring your kids over and we'll throw them in the pool?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, not actually throw the kids.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: They can get in the pool where we while we eat leftover pizza.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yes, yes, that is what I want to do.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Versus they made like a whole meal for our family.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny, but there's something about the shared life not being perfect that you'll let me in and you'll trust me with the everyday moments that I feel so much more close to people.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, um, pain point one feels rushed, one feels pressured.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the truth is the length of time and what the time actually looks like is not universally the same of depth of presence.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it can be a different preference, you guys.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the next one kind of the do the life overlap friend.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: I always call it that.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like actually, you guys nowadays, I don't do put my kids in a lesson or do a class or sign up to volunteer.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to think without making sure I have at least one friend, a buddy.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: The layer, not just accountability, but it's a double layer of connection where I'm like, oh, I'm not just um like I coach cross country, but I do it with my friend.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I would not do it without my friend.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I also invite all of our friends who have kids at the school to put their kids in cross country because even though maybe I'm not we're not getting deep connection, I love seeing their kid for, you know, twice a week for six weeks.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I've built an affinity and a bit of a relationship, even if it's just cheering them on at this, you know, like getting them ready, lined up at the start line, and then giving them their ribbon at the finish line, like that that does something to me where I get other people it doesn't.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: But don't think overlap friends are just trying to efficiently make you fit, give you the leftover scraps or the crust of their life.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, the next uh flavor of friendship is the spontaneous friend versus the planned friend.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny because um I did a whole episode on Habit Lab that I call the uh structure spectrum.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this came out of teaching Habit Lab um my mastery course.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: I it's a 10-week course, and I've taught like, man, I can't remember.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's over 450 people have gone through the class.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that many people, you start to see trends and notice data, and I realize how much we live on a structure spectrum.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of like think about extrovert, introvert spectrum.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're familiar, one, you know, 10 extrovert or on the other end, negative 10 would be introvert.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, thinking of like a number line, you know.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, think of us the structure spectrum, I think of in a similar way, where like no structure would be chaos, hot mess would be one side of the number line, and so structured your type A anal, like drill sergeant would be worship structure would be on the other end.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: And like the healthy medium would be most of the people who live in chaos, usually it's because they want flexibility and they want to choose they a lot of times connection trumps structure and the people not not universal, obviously, and the ones who are more structured, they they they see and feel safest almost in structure where that those of us who are more chaotic in nature could feel suffocated by more structure.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously both have growth to do towards the middle, it's not like one's better other.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: But in this, it totally shows up in friendships, like it shows up in marriage all the time.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: We so many marital, um, when we worked with couples for a bit, maybe a couple sessions, the how structured they are, the difference here shows up in pain points frequently because it's kind of like it's almost like a dialect with how you do life.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're someone is from Germany and that even though they're in America and they've lived here for years and they speak English, you still hear their accent.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that to be true with married couples who still hear whether their preferences for unplanned, like you know, more chaotic or more structured.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then even how they get to church, how they approach bedtime with the kids, how they approach chores, there's this preference that creates some differences.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I see this with friendship too.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the spontaneous friend, uh, which was me, I have grown to be more actually, I would say I'm identify a little like more towards the planned structure side of things now.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I used to love last minute invites.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, you want to go grab dinner tonight?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's probably how some of the life overlap shows up still in me.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we they thrive on flexibility, truly.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like when friends move things around, they maybe I can move this meeting, and then yes, I can do it.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go to the park with our kids after school.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, and actually feel loved by that.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then they find the spontaneous friends find momentum.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let's like, let's do this, let's make this thing.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe um also what I find is spontaneous friends usually don't plan.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is more last minute.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then the planned, structured friends, they need calendars, they need notice, advanced notice, they need margin, they want consistent maybe predictability, and they're actually not bad.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now I really am more of a planned friend and I have it's funny flipping teams because I have some friends who are more spontaneous and they'll invite us over to play pickleball.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like the fourth time in a row that they had invited us, like day before or day of, which there's nothing wrong with that.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like maybe my past self would have been judgmental, but becoming becoming more planned and once being on that team, I understand that, you know, I'm not judging them.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's how they live their life, so that's how they show up in friendship too.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it works for their their life mainly.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: So who am I to say?
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I've I there it causes this tension because then you reject when the ones are more planned, there's this rejection because uh when they're asking me to do something day of, we've planned our day, you know, at least days ago, sometimes even weeks ago, depending on the day.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it can feel like rejection when really it's just a difference of how you live.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I remember the first time when I was more spontaneous, the first time I agreed to do a playdate with a friend and they sent me a calendar invite.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: I literally felt like it was a noose around my neck and I was like, You're trying to, you're trying to trap me.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or the friends back in the day when they'd be like, Hey, can we just consistently do a play date?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like every Friday morning.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I cannot commit to that.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be like runaway bread situation.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the point of these two flavors of friendship is to not make them personal, know that they're personality, and there is some happy medium where like that one friend who invited us.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: I had a a DTR at one point, and I was sorry, I had a conversation where I defined the what we were encountering and wanted to assure them that it was not of not a value or we didn't want their invite.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think we actually planned something that was like a week ahead.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, what about next weekend, Saturday afternoon?
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we did it, and it was wonderful.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like again an example of compromising.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of times the planned friends feel safe when things are planned, but then maybe the spontaneous friend feels trapped if they're too planned.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: So spontaneous friend can feel rejected when when they ask, throw out last-minute invites, feeling like, why are they never free?
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the plan friend could feel like, why do they always spring things on me?
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or the plann friend sometimes when they try to get the spontaneous friend to plan something and they won't commit because maybe they feel like I don't know what next week's gonna look like.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, totally, but generally, and they're like, nope, nope, I can't.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, what?
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: So there's pain points both ways in this flavor of friendship.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth isn't about desire, it's about wiring.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, on this structure spectrum, some people organize life by instinct, and other people tend to organize it by intention.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: And spontaneity doesn't mean carelessness, they're just different ways, it's different ways of being being human.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not judging either.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the seven flavors.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there's more that you could say.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that this is an all-encompassing list, but these are ones that I could think of that I've noticed so much.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: And again, the idea of this whole episode is having different flavors or preferences is not a bad thing.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: What is the problem is when the preferences, sorry, the the area where pain and disconnect happens in friendship is when these preferences are turned into problems.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: So um trouble starts when we move from this is how I prefer friendship or this is my natural flavor of friendship, or if I could design a friendship, this would be it.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: Which is funny, I was like thinking through it.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, if I could design my own perfect flavor of friendship, I'd want a friend who has planned, but have, oh, I I didn't even talk about the friends that like a lot of friends or friends who have small circles.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: I am a friend that I like a lot of friends.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Not even that I like to have a lot of friends, that's not it.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: People misunderstood my intention, like friends that have, you know, maybe only they have their two people and they've been they're two, they've the same two or three people have been in their inner circle for a decade.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or there's people like me who have, I mean, I have maybe 30 friends who are good friends and who have up-to-date information on my life, and I probably, yeah, hang out with once or twice a month.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's a big circle.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: What it does not mean is that I am better or worse than the people who have three, and what it doesn't mean for them is they're better or worse if that they have three.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like again, taking some of this morality out of it.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: But what it does mean, if I'm dividing my time, so there's you know, 24 hours in a day by 30 people, and they're dividing their time by three people, there's gonna be a natural huge difference on what it means to be one of my good friends.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I've encountered this, this was a lot of the pain point initially.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then um what it doesn't mean though is the people with a lot of friends are purposely like collecting friends.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: At one point, that was uh presented to me that maybe.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to be well liked or or what's up, like climbing a social ladder, or some accusation like that, which it doesn't no one currently in my life is saying that.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: But um, and I just really looked at my heart, I was like, why do I have so many friends?
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality of like, oh, I just actually really love people.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm the kind I know some people who like Aaron's actually more three-person kind of friend.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: So what he what happens on his end, you know, like people see that, like, oh, you have so many friends, you don't have time for me, and they feel pain for that.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: The flip side of the people who usually have three friends, they're like not interested in making more friends.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there's like no room for you in my in your life.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like Aaron's more on that end, and maybe he met someone, and I'm like, oh, are you gonna be friends?
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, No, I don't have any more room in my life for friends.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, wait, what?
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then, or like they really want to be friends, but I got my people, and like there's almost like a no vacancy at the hotel that lights on, you know, where I'm like, there's room for everybody.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you might be sleeping on the floor, but like, sure, we'll find a spot for you.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're amazing.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: So again, there's not like a wrong, it isn't wrong for Aaron to have three friends.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: His friends have been with him for a long time.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: They, you know, they get more of him than my 30 people in my inner circle.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's just a difference that can create a rub when you experience it.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I've gotten to the spot where like I don't actually have people in my inner circle that have really small friend groups because I just know it's too painful.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I disappe disappoint them because of what my availability is.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll have them in my like outer, like a step out where it's like the time I have to give matches what they would attribute the title with.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, like maybe it'd be like best friends are seen two hours, get two hours of your time every week.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: That would be Aaron or people with small inner circles.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's the difference I'm trying to unpack here.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe I say best friends get two hours a month.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: So people, acquaintances, maybe in Aaron's half of it, like people with small inner circles, get um one hour a month.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then maybe my version of it of acquaintances, they get one hour every six months.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: So do you see how the attention of like, oh, this is this is we're saying the same thing.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: We give it the same label, but the what it actually looks like in the walking out of the friendship is different.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: So um I would I did want to add that that's one more flavor differences that I notice in friendship.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um again, going back to why these flavors can turn into problems, um, when it goes from this is how I prefer friendship to this is how friendship should be, or or liking it back to the beginning of the episode where I was saying that the friend said um Jesus does friendship like Aaron, not you, Jenna.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when we start labeling, you know, the friends, the people that prefer long, you know, like long, slow connections, saying that, oh, those you're more loving if you do it this, if you do it my way, or I love deep talks.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you're more people who do friendships in deep talks are more mature than the friendships who I don't know, do do stuff more, or people who maybe it'd be easy to um what is the word not moralize?
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: Moralize when you have frequent contact, you are a more committed friend.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: Just taking off a value statement or morality or a hierarchy for the flavors.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: You can want chocolate ice cream and have coffee off ice cream, and that person could say strawberry is the way, the truth, and the light, and neither of you are bad or better or wrong.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the truth that's not truth.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: This way is more loving, this way is more mature, this preference is more committed.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just your tastes pretending to be theology.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: And where it breaks down a lot of times in friendship is when we experience pain and then we make a story about it, like again, like that example of less text, so that's painful, and less text means the story I'm telling myself is you don't care, which then means the judgment of your uh thoughtless friend or something like that.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: First, I guess in friendship, it really like that pain can become disappointment, and then loneliness.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: The pain turns to loneliness, and instead of staying curious and asking what's happening or why this pattern, you know, what what I'm experiencing, can you tell me more?
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: We start interpreting uh these flavors of friendship as they don't care, they're bad at friendship, they're shallow, they value other things more than me, they are looking, they only want fun friends or popular friends, um, and just examples of how pain could slowly turn into judgment.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, that's where the enemy loves to work, is when he can spoil your pain into judgment or offense.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, big picture is just remembering personality versus taking it personal, which I would say offense.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of the biggest breakthroughs in friendship is learning to be able to separate someone's personality, so their their makeup, how they're wired from it being a personal attack about you.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like it's a them thing, it's not a me thing.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: We often turn the differences into like a value statement.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: They don't call me that much, so I don't matter.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or they're too busy, I'm not important.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: They plan differently, they don't care like I do.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Again, all of these are just taking differences and personalities and how you're wired and make them making them, turning them, interpreting them as offenses or you know, because of judgments.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the most freeing sentence that you could say is, and I say this all the time, this is not a me thing, this is a them thing.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the caveat here is not saying I'm not bad, they're bad.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what we're saying.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're saying again, the tip may recognizing it as a personality trend versus a personal value statement.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: So they don't call me because I'm not worth it.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: That is making it a me thing.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: They don't call very often because they're not callers.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: That would be an example of a them thing without a judgment.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, no judgment, no bitterness, just clarity.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when I zoom out, I can often see that.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: So the friends that maybe cancel a ton at the last minute, it's not, and I could take make it into a me thing and say they don't care about me, I don't matter to them.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: When really, if I zoom out, they actually are canceling their doctor's appointments all the time at the last minute, and they are frequently missing meetings and they're getting called out from school because their kids have all these tardiness.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, this is actually not a me thing, this is a them thing.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna stop being offended or taking personal their where they're at on the structure spectrum.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's how they do life with their spouses, it's how they do life with they show up at church, it's how they parent, this is how they structure their world, which means it's not about your worth, it's about their wiring.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it is okay.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is okay that we have different flavors.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: It is okay that you have a different personality, that you're wiring.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: I almost think of it like the motherboard.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you were to open, I actually don't know computers at all.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was about to say open up a laptop and the mothering board.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I actually don't know what you'd find there.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, but if you were to open up and it'd be so different, like I'm imagining, yeah, I don't actually, I should have thought this analogy through.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: But, anyways, realization that it is like a personality, how they're made internally versus about me or personal attack removes so much unnecessary pain.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, even then, it helps me when this is a them thing.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: I change my expectations instead of hoping or wishing they won't cancel.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually more realistic about who they are, if that makes sense.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the hurt comes, like for me, I would say, with like a quiet hope of eventually they'll like me enough, I don't know, to call me more often, or they'll grow up to be more planned so our friendship won't have pain.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or they'll change um and become heart conversation people instead of logistic conversations when I matter enough to them.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like they'll ask about my heart instead of telling me, asking me about my schedule or my logistics of my day.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, like, what if the invitation isn't for them to change?
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: But what if it's for you to just your expectation of them?
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I think like, oh my gosh, they have shown me enough evidence that this is who they are.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I surprised by it?
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: Not judgmentally, why don't I let them be that way?
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, wow, it just it's so freeing to name what's realistic.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes I like literally tell myself, this isn't rejection.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is a rhythm thing.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is how they do rhythms in their life.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't a lack of care.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is a difference of flavor of how they express care.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when I stop, honestly, when I stop making it personal, it stops being so painful.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I can receive love in the flavor that it's actually being offered.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: One, you know, if they're handing me a strawberry ice cream cone, like one scoop, you know, like, yeah, if I'd been asked, I would have probably ordered mint chocolate chip or cookies and cream, but I'll take a strawberry ice cream cone.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's um, yeah, so if I could receive love in the way that's actually being offered, not just the way I wish it could come.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought of this too in the idea of like being okay with people being wired differently, just like pulling it back into the analogy of like, you know, how Christ actually, I don't know if it's Christ or one of the apostles.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: I should check, but they talk about we're all parts of the body, you know, as the church, it's different people, we're different parts of the body.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when I'm when I was thinking about like the different flavors of friendship, it almost reminds me when the knee is acting like a knee and we're getting mad at it because it's a foot, like saying, gosh, like why don't you why can't I put weight on you?
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you bend forward?
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you bend your knee forward, you're actually probably breaking something in your knee.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you why can't I run on you?
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, why don't you stabilize me better?
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and then he's like, dude, I am a terrible foot.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do any of those things.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: But if you let me be a knee and you let me show up in my function, I will support you awesome as a knee.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, just reminding, like almost like thinking about like a body, oh, all those friendships.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a difference in the body, it isn't dysfunction.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: There is a design to it, and allowing, not allowing the pain or disappointment you're feeling to label it dysfunction.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I think to end this flavors of friendship episode, I would say that a lot of friends, I think a takeaway is a lot of friendship pain doesn't come from straight up a lack of love or purposely sending you a message that you're not valuable or worth it.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: It comes from more often, friendship pain comes from misinterpreting differences, turning preferences into judgments of this is my expectation or this is the right way to do it.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, I would say turning preferences into expectations, like this is what I like, so you should do it this way.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other one would be letting pain become judgment.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: So in the flavors of friendships, there are different paces of life, there are different styles of planning, there are different rhythms of how they live.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: There are different flavors.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: They are not wrong, they are not careless, they are not unloving, they're just not exactly you.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: And learning to be, let them be, is one of the most freeing things you could like ever do in friendship.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it really has been so freeing to me when I encounter a pounder that I'm like, ouch, ouch.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, this is a personality thing.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a me thing.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I keep making it into me thing.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm gonna change my expectation.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've told you some like the idea of maybe friends who live so fast-paced, um, they're kind of out of control of their schedule.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they have to cancel a lot versus like maybe I live a little slower with intentionality, so I don't really bail on friends unless I'm sick.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I it would be easy to be offended that they cancel and flake on me.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: But one of my edits, instead of changing my expectations, instead of just uh sorry, changing my expectations instead of expecting them to change, adjusting my expectations, I guess, I don't do one-on-one things with that friend.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: I will have if we're doing a walk, I'll have two other friends, so it'll be like a group because when they bail 70% of the time, I it's too painful for me to be have a wasted window in my day.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: I feel it too acutely, like the difference.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: But if they bail and there's two other women that I like and I'm excited to catch up with, and we're getting on the walk, it's okay.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, oh, so just changing your expectation.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's one last thought I had.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, interestingly, I did a little digging after I wrote this about some of the signs because I was like, man, some of these, I know these are just Jenna's list of different flavors, and they're not like biblical or there's no book, psychology book about it.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was wondering to see, and I was I actually asked ChatGBD after I threw my list.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, hey, here is what I've noticed.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: Are there any like um therapeutic research or studies that like kind of back any of these up?
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it was cool because um they looking at some of the human wiring, there are a few similarities.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: Humans say, you know, scientists say things in some different languages.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: They say people don't connect differently because they don't care, but they connect differently.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: One of it was how they regulate life differently.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: So people who maybe want one-on-one, maybe that's regulating, but sometimes crowds are regulating for other people.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people are over sensory loaded.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe that would be the people who want quiet, maybe like um, and the ones who are underloaded want to go with a crowd and want to do more.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_00: So just actually looking like, oh, some of us find regulation differently.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us find we process differently.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like there are actually real things that then we experience in friendship that sometimes I call them splash on us.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_00: Even though it's a them thing, sometimes we get splashed with their themness.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_00: Very, very well said sentence there.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: Splash with them, with their themness.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_00: But it's helpful to see, like, oh, okay, they regulate differently.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: Some people regulate in closeness, some people through space, some people regulate through routine, some people regulate through flexibility, some people get overstimulated um by long talking, some people get oversticulate stimulated by too much doing, and just looking at, oh, some of these styles, like actual things that come into play here that we talked about in real simple terms are attachment styles, social rhythms, personality traits, life season shifts.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: They all land kind of in a similar place though.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, oftentimes, like most often, friendship pain isn't coming from a lack of love, it's coming from misunderstanding our differences.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't just feel hurt, we tell ourselves a story about what where what it means, where it came from, what was in their heart.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're not careful, that story becomes judgment.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't want you to leave this episode asking which one of my friends is doing their has the bad flavor of friendship.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: But asking, like, what flavor do I bring?
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_00: What flavor do they bring?
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do I like this?
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do I not like this?
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do I need to change my expectation?
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is who they are and this is them.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of me giving chronically disappointed or offended, I'll just change who I'm expecting them to show up on.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: And difference, being different is not careless.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: Being different doesn't mean distance necessarily, even though you might code it that way.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: Being different is not unloving.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it just means that they have a different flavor of friendship.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I pray that this episode, my heart for it, was honestly to see it as them being coded different versus not caring or a value statement about you, and to help interrupt some of those stories we tell as we experience pain and friendship from some of these differences and actually change our expectations and take out judgment so that we can be in friendship with people who have different flavors than us, rather than such a simple black or white, this is a good friend, this is a bad friend.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, man, the older we get, don't we just realize that those that level of simplicity just does not exist specifically with humans and in relationships?
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: But like, wow, there's so much nuance and variation.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_00: Can you let go enough of your preference of flavor to let and try and have room for different flavors in your life?
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_00: If this was a helpful episode, I would love it if you shared um this episode with friends or family.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is the fourth episode of my friendship file.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to share all four, there's two more coming.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_00: But thank you for being with me and I hope you have a great day.