Latest / Friendship IRL: Real Talk About Friendship, Community, and What It Actually Takes / When Friendship Doesn’t Look Like You Thought It Would

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When Friendship Doesn’t Look Like You Thought It Would · 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
• 0:55
  Alex Alexander: I was scrolling through social media, maybe two weeks ago now, and my algorithm is so incredibly trained at this point to give me all the friendship, connection, community content. If there is a reel or a TikTok out there, it is probably being served to me because I think that's what the algorithm thinks is my only interest, which is not true, by the way. But I digress. I got served this reel, and it was this gal talking about how she invited all of her friends to meet up at a diner for breakfast. I think at like seven a.m. before they all went to work, and I watched this reel, and I just thought to myself,"Ugh, I want to do that. Why don't my friends and I do that?
• 1:48
  Alex Alexander: That would be so fun." And it just gave me this, like, pang, this feeling in my stomach, and then I also had this thought where I was like, "Man, I have so many really beautiful friendships. Why do I somehow feel like I am missing out because my friends and I aren't having breakfast at a diner on a Tuesday morning before everybody goes to the office?" I do so many cool things with my friends all the time, and still, I am getting hit with this feeling that I think a lot of us get—that somehow we are missing out, or there is like a better version of our friendships, or that this vision that we once had of what our current season of life would look like with friends, it doesn't look that way, or at least maybe it doesn't look that way upon first glance—might be a better way to put it—to give you a little preview of where we're going in this episode. So today, that's what I want to talk about because why is it that I watched a reel about going to breakfast on a Tuesday morning, and suddenly I was transported back to my own childhood? So, growing
• 3:13
  up, fun fact about my mom: my mom loved the show Seinfeld. If you've ever seen the show, then maybe it's starting to make sense to you why the diner thing hit me so hard. But in the show, Jerry and Kramer and Elaine and George—I almost forgot his name for a second—they regularly go to this diner in the morning, and I remember watching this as a kid and thinking, like, "Wow, you have this consistent group of friends that you are seeing not only multiple times a week are they like popping into each other's apartments and doing certain things, but they are so ingrained in each other's lives that they wake up in the morning, and the first thing they do before they go to work, they make time to go sit in a diner." Now, obviously, this is a sitcom, it's a show, and I have talked many times before about how a lot of the shows and movies and books, like media that's portraying friendships, is kind of this dream ideal version, and it is meant to kind of be that like peak dream version where we're like, "Wow, that would be amazing!" And life doesn't always line up that way.
• 4:38
  up, fun fact about my mom: Now, for me, obviously, this diner reel hit so hard. I'm recording an entire episode about it. But for you, you might have some other vision. For a lot of people, I know they watched like the show Friends, and they were always popping into each other's apartments—that's a big one. I know people watch movies where there are girls' trips and trips with multiple couples or groups of friends. You're looking at it, you're being like, "Why is that not my reality?" It could also be, of course, social media. There is so much. Maybe it's just me again, and my algorithm being so trained.
• 5:28
  up, fun fact about my mom: But there's so much content out there about like the girls' trip, the guys' trip, the traveling with family, living next to your friends, and I talk about all this content too. Now, my hope is that when we talk about here on the podcast, we're talking about the good and the bad, what kind of sacrifices you have to make, what choices you're making that lead you there. When you're watching on social media, it is a 30- to 90-second clip that is just giving you, like, look at how amazing it is to go on this girls' trip, on this guys' golf weekend, on this trip with five families. It is not giving you all the conversations that led up to it, the conversations about, you know, finance or boundaries or sleeping arrangements. There's a lot that goes in behind the scenes, and I think what happens sometimes is people take those trips and then they're frustrated. But that's another episode. The point being here, whatever it is that you are seeing in books, shows, movies, social media, where you are looking at it and you're just thinking, "Ugh, I want that. I want that. And why don't I have that? Like, does anybody have that? Is it possible? Is that just not how my life has panned out?" Right? Because I could watch that Seinfeld clip, and I could think to myself,'Well, I don't live in New York where everybody is at like a walkable distance, and if I did, maybe this would happen.' So maybe your life didn't pan out that way. What I want to say is that I don't think those scenes that you have in your mind are bad to want. I think it is great to want them, in fact. But I do think that often we compare those scenes to our real life, and we decide that something in our real life is wrong or lesser than or not what everyone else has, and that may or may not be true. Let me give you an example, because I recently had to figure this out for myself.
• 7:48
  up, fun fact about my mom: Right? The gap between the image I've had of my friendships at this stage and what my actual life looks like isn't a failure, but it is the result of a lot of little choices that my friends and I have made. So here's the
• 8:08
  example: I obviously have chosen a self-employed path, and that gives me a lot of flexibility that my friends with corporate jobs don't have. I have made it a priority, especially in the last few years, to make more in-person entrepreneurial friends. I recorded some episodes about this. I used to have, because my job is like on the internet. I'm a person of the internet. I have all these like business friends that live all over the world, and when you know what, 2020 to like 2023, I had developed this entire network of people who did not live in the same city as me.
• 8:47
  example: Most of which I would call some of my closest business friends, and I've often never met them in person, but I call them when I have a work problem. So in 2023, 2024, I had this moment where I woke up and realized, wow, this is great. But I also want some entrepreneur friends in person, and I have made a lot of choices. I have joined different networking groups. I have prioritized these types of friendships sometimes over established friendships because I really wanted other people.
• 9:19
  example: I'm saying this, and as I'm recording this episode, I just got a text message from a group of like entrepreneurial women friends being like, "Hey, there's this networking event three weeks from now. Does anyone want to go?" And I'm, like, watching notifications pop up of people being like, yeah, I can do that one. I want to go to that one. Do we want to get lunch afterwards? Okay, so I have made all these choices.
• 9:46
  example: That is the point of this. So when I saw that reel where I was like, oh, people are getting up, they're having breakfast before work. Why don't I have that? I had to stop and realize I actually do have that. It just looks a little different. My entrepreneur friends and I do weekday work sessions all the time. It doesn't look like a diner.
• 10:17
  example: It doesn't look like what Seinfeld looks like, but it is that it is very regular that we'll be like, "Hey, do you all want to meet up at nine a.m., have a little coffee, have a little breakfast, chat about our work problems, workshop some things, and then work for an hour, like, focused?" Everybody puts their headphones in. That is very similar to what I gave myself a bunch of grief about when I watched this diner video.
• 10:43
  example: I'm doing this. The difference is the reason I didn't clock it in the moment is because the image doesn't quite match in my mind. When I think of that diner video and Seinfeld, I think of like some of my oldest friends that live in this city, who work corporate jobs, and my thought is, maybe I could get them to meet up with me before work. But a lot of them have workouts or kids they have to get to school or other responsibilities in the morning. I just—it wouldn't. We are not in a season of life where it would be that easy for those friends to get together at a diner for breakfast before they go to the office. However, I have built a group of friends where they drop their kids off at school, and then we meet a couple hours later, and we have a whole coffee shop work session. So why do I feel like I'm not getting what I want? Do you see where I'm going with this? We're all so harsh on ourselves. We are like comparing this vision without even realizing that, like maybe we have parts of this in our lives.
• 11:57
  example: I know I do, and if I take a step back, the reason I have that is because of a bunch of small choices I made, like going to more networking events, prioritizing some of these entrepreneurial friendships, knowing that I really wanted people that I could go to other networking events with, or workshops, or you know, work in the middle of the day. Friends, I could call and be like, "Hey, do you want to come work at my dining room table today? Because I have been a hermit in my house all week, and I would love to see people, but I know we both have really overwhelming to-do lists." Your friendships look like your life; they don't look like the life of somebody else online, in a book, in a movie.
• 12:45
  example: The mix of friends you have right now is the direct result of a thousand small and big decisions you've made: where you live, how you work, what you prioritize, what you value, what you've been through, and the reason I bring that up is because I think often we feel like our friendships are like we're kind of just along for the ride. They're happening to us when, in fact, they are happening because of us, because of so many small things I have chosen, and if we can reframe
• 13:26
  that, then that's a reminder: like we have agency in our friendships. We have built this, and we can build something different. So, if you are somebody who has something you want more of, the good news is you're the one who can start moving forward towards that vision. Now you may not always get what you want because friendships are relationships between, you know, multiple people, but you can try. And even if that other friend, like for example, my friends who currently go to a corporate job, and it just would not make sense to want that morning diner situation. I can build that in another way, and that's not to say I could never have that with those friends. Like those friends, it might be a great thing to do a decade from now, right? It could be something we do when we all retire. Could be something we do when some people are working, maybe like a more part-time schedule, and I can make small choices up until then that add up to lead towards that. I also can kind of like lead by that example. So if I want, you know, I have an episode about if you want couch friends being a couch friend, it's kind of the same idea.
• 14:47
  that, then that's a reminder: If I want people who are down for doing more spontaneous things in our friendship, like me just texting and be like,"Hey, do you guys want to meet up at a diner this week in the morning? Like, why not? Let's do it. Let's go on a tour of diners in the city." I can start leading by example now, by just being willing to be a little more spontaneous, and hoping that that creates more of a friendship culture. That's another episode that I'll link in the show notes. That creates more of a friendship culture where we're all hopefully maybe a little more spontaneous, and I can't control who shows up or who buys into that culture, but I definitely can control like offering that up as something we do in our friendships, where it's okay to send out this invite and be a little vulnerable. And if nobody shows up, at least we tried. As I was thinking about this episode, there's another kind of piece of this, right? I've mentioned maybe we'll do it someday when we retire, or maybe we'll do something I can work towards this someday. One thing I have learned about my friendships, maybe the hard way, but I think we all do learn it the hard way, is that the only constant is change. Whatever season of friendship you are in right now, whatever is easy versus a limitation versus makes sense, that will change. I'd say like every three to five years, I feel like the limitations and the parameters of friendship seem to change. It's not always on purpose, and it's not always how I or you like planned it.
• 17:40
  that, then that's a reminder: But it's just that the shape of our friendships, the season that we're in, the people that we're close to, what is easy and comfortable to do. It shifts, and there's so many factors for that. You know, in my season right now, I have a lot of friends with young kids. So an example of this is that we used to go on so many group trips, and we have done group trips now that all the kiddos have arrived. It's just harder to get everybody to commit to the same weekend. So I would say that at this rate, it's only like every three to five years that we're getting a good group of people to go somewhere versus like every year. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't envision that differently. I thought that when we were here, we would still be doing the annual trips. I thought that those would keep going, and maybe they would taper at some point. It doesn't look like how I thought, but I also know that in five or ten years, these kids are going to be teenagers. They're going to be more independent, and there's going to be like more ease in getting us all in one place. And if it isn't all the families, it'll definitely be easier to do like a girls' weekend. Things that are just more logistically hard right now. I am genuinely hopeful that they will get easier, and if they don't get easier when the kids are teens, then you know what? When the kids are—when my friends are empty nesters, it'll definitely be easier, and I cannot wait to see what returns at that point.
• 19:23
  that, then that's a reminder: And at the same time, I don't want to spend this season that I'm in right now, waiting for the next season because this one is really good too. So even though I wish we could have these bigger trips we used to have and we may never have again, or we might, I'm definitely going to keep throwing them out there and seeing when that feels easy again. What we're doing now is still like so delightful. Now it's just a lot of smaller trips. It's more people coming to visit us. It's like less big groups and more us and like one family, and we tend to do that with a few families every year, and sometimes we skip a family, and it's like two years between when we see them, and that is also beautiful. I get so much one-on-one time that I wouldn't get if all we did every year was like one—I don't know—week-long big group trip with five families.
• 20:26
  that, then that's a reminder: So I think where that's left me is that when we're envisioning our friendships, like I'm here right now, and I want to appreciate what's happening right now, whether it is getting together with my entrepreneurial friends or the trips that we're taking with different friends and their families. As I look forward, I want to have kind of a direction, but not necessarily a blueprint. I want to know what I value. I want to know what I'm hoping for. I want to have conversations with my people to let them know, you know, "When the kids are older, what if we got an annual trip back on the calendar?" But I also want to hold it loosely, because whatever the reality is five, 10, 15 years from now, it's probably not going to match my exact vision right now. Like what I think is going to happen in 10 years, probably only 50% of it, even if I work towards it, is going to become a reality. So I don't want to get too obsessed with what that looks like in the future, for a couple reasons. One, because I want to be present now. There's so many beautiful things happening in my friendships now.
• 21:40
  that, then that's a reminder: But two, I don't want to set myself up for too much disappointment down the line.
• 21:45
  that, then that's a reminder: When I was thinking about this episode, often when I'm talking about this friendship stuff, it kind of feels just very like out there, and I'm giving like general examples because all of our friendships are different.
• 22:01
  that, then that's a reminder: So I really want to think of a more concrete comparison for
• 22:04
  you. So here's what I have: I want you to think about your money and how you manage it. It is very common knowledge to know that you have to look at your current budget and your long-term retirement savings at the same time. You are weighing the choices you make now, how much money you spend, what you're prioritizing. If you, I don't know, buy a new car or buy a boat or go on that vacation versus saving for a down payment, saving for retirement, saving for something else down the line, we are constantly weighing the present against ten years from now. Your friendships work the same way. You need to be making really small decisions for the season that you're in, and being present and enjoying the season that you're in. And you also need to be keeping an eye on the direction that you want to be heading in your friendships, your community, your connection—you got to do both at the same time. And I know that can sound exhausting, and I do think it is a little tiring in the beginning. Just like when you learn anything else, right? When I was learning how to manage my finances, it was a lot. I was looking at that budget all the time. I was running retirement calculations and trying to understand what the heck all this stuff meant all the time, and now it's way more on autopilot. I have a better sense of if I'm on the right track, if I feel comfortable with my budget, if I'm okay pushing here or pulling back, how that aligns with my values. I think it's the same thing for friendship. It's exhausting at first to be this present and to be this mindful, but just like anything else, it becomes a way of life soon enough. And you just kind of do these calculations in the back of your head as you're going through, and every once in a while, maybe you do a bigger check-in, but a lot of it is just small reflections and like micro adjustments. So, if you have been sitting with that feeling, the one that has you saying, "Why don't my friendships look like that?" Here's what I want to leave you with. Number one, you probably have more than you're giving yourself credit for. The image in your head and the life you're actually living might be closer than you think. They may not be exact, but if you start to think about it, you might find that you actually have been making choices that lead you towards what you want, what you envisioned, even if it's not exactly that vision. And if there is a gap, you have more say and influence in this area of your life than you realized.
• 24:56
  you. So here's what I have: You can pick a direction, you can hold it loosely, and you can be present in what's already here, because this season is going to be fleeting, so we might as well find what's enjoyable here while also working towards what we want longer term. As always, I have a couple episodes you can listen to to take this further. They're in the show notes, and I'd love to know what does this season of friendship look like for you.
• 25:24
  you. So here's what I have: Come find me wherever in the DMs, the voice memos, send me an email. I'd love to know if you think there's a gap, and maybe why you think that. With that, I'll see you next week.
• 25:39
  you. So here's what I have: 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.
• 25:47
  you. So here's what I have: 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.