[00:00:00] Nina: welcome to another episode of Dear Nina, conversations about friendship. I missed the podcast. I took a couple weeks off more than a couple weeks because. , it was, , winter break and I was in Florida with my family for kind of a long time, actually . We were gone about 10 days, and I didn’t have all my equipment I had lots of ideas and actually was busy with the podcast in different ways.

Not in the recording way, but scheduling interviews and what’s kind of been a cool. Thing. I’m getting a lot of pitches, which I love, but I especially love when it’s a pitch I can say yes to. So, , if you’re interested in being on the podcast because you have a friendship topic you wanna address, you have something else going on, like a book coming out or something like that, and you wanna get it in front of more people, that’s great.

It has to have a friendship angle though. And so I. Whole page on my website, Nina baden.com. B A D Z I N. You even can just put in Google Nina Baden pitching guidelines and should come up. Or you could go on the podcast tab on the top of my website, so nina baden.com.

There’s a tab that says podcast. And in that tab you’ll see pitching guidelines. And I have a very easy way to pitch an idea one of the most important things I have in there is a link to just the titles of everything I’ve already covered.

So that you don’t pitch an exact idea, I already did. Cuz I do sometimes get pitches that clearly have nothing to do with friendship or even as a stretch wouldn’t, or sometimes they do have to do his friendship, but it’s just too vague.

So that gives you a sense, and that isn’t what I came here to talk about today.

The topic we are talking about today is taking stock in friendships that are working, and I don’t have a guest today. I just wanted to talk to you directly. I wanted to have a frank conversation. The New York Times Well section started the year with a seven day happiness. And you might have seen it. I put it in my Facebook group.

Dear Nina, the group, and it’s no surprise to me that in their happiness challenge, every step is connected to social connections. Why? As mentioned in the time series, which I will link in the show notes so you don’t have to look for it. They made this choice about happiness and social connections because it is based on the longest running study on happiness.

it’s that study covered 85 years and three generations of participants, which is really amazing. And what they found is that, and this is an exact quote now from the article, strong relationships are what make for a happy life more than wealth IQ or social class. It’s the robustness of our bonds that most determines whether we feel.

, does that not just give justification for my whole podcast? I’m gonna read that quote one more time. Strong relationships are what make for a happy life more than wealth IQ or social class. It’s the robustness of our bonds that most determines whether we feel fulfilled. And I really think that’s true.

I’ll take it one step further. It’s how I end every episode. I always say when our friendships are going well, we are happier all around. Because not only do we wanna have friends, we wanna be getting along with our friends and feel good about our friends it might be better to have no friends than to have friends we’re always in conflict with actually.

So I think that’s my extra step to it, is not just to have people in your life, but to have people in your life that you are really getting along well with. the doctors quoted throughout that New York Times. Are the authors of a book that deals with this specific study and all of its insights. The book is called The Good Life Lessons from the World’s Largest Scientific Study on Happiness, and I love the term that they used throughout the series.

For all of this stuff. They call it social fitness, which I think is a really good term. It’s a really clever term because it does imply that you have to make an effort. You have to show up. , this idea of exercising a muscle and making it stronger and it gets better and more comfortable the more you use it.

You think about when you go and lift weights or something, or you take a new class and you’re sore for a while because you’re not used to that stuff. But if you continue to go, you’re not a sore anymore. that’s, Comparison to what it might take sometimes to get you out of your kind of friendship or social rut.

But for today, I wanna think more about taking stock in your current friendships, which is what the Times gave as the day one activity for the seven Day Happiness Challenge. in my Facebook group. Again, it’s called Dear Nina, the group. Anyone’s welcome. I put this out as a January challenge. I try to do monthly challenges and instead of thinking of this as a one day challenge, I took this idea of taking stock in our friendships and stretch it out to a month because I think it’s good to take some time.

Not that it would take you a month, but it might take a few days at least. So sometime this month, I encourage you to take a couple days and really think about the friendships in your lives that are. Because the friendships that aren’t working are kind of like a different category. I can tell you that almost all the letters I get for the podcast and for my ck, which is also called Dear Nina, conversations about friendship are about issues people are having with their friends. And that makes sense. I mean, I write a friendship advice column, so people aren’t really writing to me to tell, tell me how great their friendships are going.

But for this episode and for this month’s challenge, I’m urging everyone to sit down and think about the friendships that are working well. Are there any patterns that you notice?

, I’d love to hear about that because I do think that those positive patterns could help others who are struggling to recognize a good friend or to be a good friend. However, there’s a caveat, and this is really important, something that came up in my episode with Diana Speck about friendship preferences and deal breakers.

That was episode 38. Is that just because one person likes a certain quality in a friendship, it doesn’t mean that it works for the next person. I will discuss some examples from my own. , which I don’t always do. I did a little bit in that episode 38. I mean, obviously I am talking about my own friendships in these episodes sometimes, but you know, not always.

Sometimes I’m just talking about research that’s out there. Or oftentimes we’re dealing with whatever the guest brought to talk about or letters that I get, I don’t necessarily wanna use my own life, but in this episode, it really does make sense. If I’m taking stock in my friendships, I’m gonna tell you about.

So when I think about the friendships in my life that work well, number one, I would say I can feel, and I’m sure most people can, when my friends know me well, including my foibles. , but I don’t like when there’s a tremendous amount of teasing, and now I bring up this example first because it’s connected to something I just brought up about my episode with Diana.

And this idea that just because something doesn’t work for one person doesn’t mean it’s wrong for the next person. So a positive friendship thing. Something that works well for me is when, like I said, I feel somebody knows me really well, including my fo. and they’ve made it clear that they know me well and there might be some teasing, sometimes that is how you know someone knows you well because they use that in a little bit of like a friendly teasing, but not so much that it makes me defensive.

The second I find myself being defensive. I’m probably not looking to spend a lot of time with that person cuz I don’t wanna spend my time. Defending my choices or explaining myself. Now, part of that’s my own issue, like I’m kind of an over explainer, which is perfect for a solo episode like this.

But, , in real life it’s not always great to be an over explainer. Now, Diana happened to mention that teasing for her is more of like a love language. It’s a way that she knows the person’s really comfortable with her and she’s comfortable with the person, so she wouldn’t have. , , as an issue, on her list, although this isn’t meant to be a list of issues, this is meant to be a list of things that work well.

So just spinning that to the positive. . I like when friends know me well and are comfortable enough to let me know that, but not in a way where they’re like making fun of me. Okay, so what else works in my own friendships? Number two, I like to be in.

So the friends I feel closest to are probably the ones I’m in touch with often. Now, that doesn’t have to mean daily, you know, often has a very, vague definition for some people. Often might be once a month. For some people it might be every day. I don’t need to talk to anybody every day, but, you know, within reason.

I will take my best friend, Taran, as an example, who’s been on the podcast a bunch. You can look for her. She gives, even more straightforward advice than I do. I mean, she just drills right down to what a person needs to hear, and that’s why I love having her on the show when we get a bunch of letters and we’ll answer them together.

And I’ve been quoting her in the written version of the column for many, many, many years. So Tary. Is she lives in Chicago. I live in Minneapolis and sometimes we’ll talk every day for like three days because we’re just trying to get to the end of a couple of stories. But then we might not talk for a month.

I’d say after about a month, one of us will reach out and just be like, Hey, you know, everything good. Not everything good in a weird, passive aggressive , are you mad at me way? Cause we are so beyond that. , that’s just a way of saying , let’s catch up. It’s been too long. And so for us that’s like a month.

That might be different, you know, for every friendship. . I also include in touches texts. So there may be people with, I text a bunch, and to me that counts . That’s just reality for. . it’s funny, one of the, it was day three, might have been day two of the New York Times Challenge was to have a phone call with a friend.

It might have specifically said an eight minute phone call. I can’t even remember now, but I, I’ve written about that. I wrote about that years ago,

I. Have long advocated the phone call, I do think it’s worth being in touch on the phone when you can and, but in the meantime, texts are also good. It’s certainly better than nothing. Okay. All that said, and that leads us to number three. I do have a deep appreciation for the types of friendships that are so long standing and deep that it is okay if we’re only in touch a few times.

A. That probably makes the most sense for childhood friends and college friends, and I’d put some family relationships in there too. Like cousins. There may be cousins I feel really close to, but I don’t talk to often. we have a history . You can feel a sense of closeness to someone when you have that history.

It’s a little hard to build a friendship on that. It, it sort of comes with childhood and college and times when you’re spending a tremendous amount of time with a person and that sort of buys you so many hours later in the future where you can feel close without being in constant touch. And so it’s, it’s interesting that I would put that after number two, which is I like to be in touch.

I guess the idea is I like to feel close and. My more adult friendships that aren’t from childhood. I think that does require probably a little more time and current life than the people I’ve known longer. Number four. And when I think about friendships that are really working well, it is that I don’t feel judged.

I don’t feel like I have to explain myself kind of bringing up that explaining thing again. . I have some newer friendships that have blossomed in the past three years or so that were built on this exact foundation of total acceptance and understanding of certain things that were going on in my life at the time that maybe I didn’t feel like I could discuss with other friends.

And even though those friendships are relatively newer, you know, in my 40 some years, I’m 46. I actually had a birthday since my last episode. So those are newer, but the bond of showing up as your full. Is really incredible. Like you don’t need to have been friends for a long time to connect in a way that makes you feel like you can just be your absolute, absolute self.

I have sort of a handful of newer friends that fall into that category. And again, we may not talk all the time, we may more talk when like that issue comes up for one of us, but I so value those women . I hope if they happen to hear this, they, they know who they are.

number five, I’m only doing five, so we’re almost done. I could do more, but you know, I, as a podcast listener, I can only listen so long to a solo episode.

So the final thing I think that is working well for me to feel a sense of, I like how they call it social connectedness and feeling healthy in my social fitness is an appreciation and joy for the people I don’t see all the time, but really like having in my life and really respect. So we may not be in each other’s like birthday dinner list.

There’s people I feel close to who like would probably not invite me if they were having even 10 people for dinner, but by feeling close, I don’t mean that they’re like in my inner, inner inner circle, it’s that I like them a lot. I respect them a lot. For whatever reason, we just aren’t in that inner circle for each other, but it doesn’t.

Mean there isn’t mutual enjoyment of each other’s company, and I really value that category in my life. I’ll give you an example. I have a study group with some women in Minneapolis where we meet with a rabbi or another Jewish educator. We might only do this four times a year, we mean to do it more often, we’ll get on a group tax and we are trying to schedule it and we intend to do it more often, but people travel.

There’s, you know, all kinds. , you know, whatever issues. But I respect and enjoy every , single one of those women. There’s maybe six or seven of us, I would also put in that same category. Some of the parents of my kids’ friends who I don’t necessarily see a lot in person or chit chat with on the phone, on a regular basis.

But when we do interact to handle things for the kids, we’ll , get on a phone call, you know, maybe we need to talk something through like some logistics and then we have a real catch up. I really like them. It’s not, anything personal and, and vice versa. I’m sure that you know, Wouldn’t invite me to their 50th birthday party or something, but that’s just, we can’t have every single person we’ve ever interacted with at every function we have.

But I really like a lot of people in town, and I actually think number five might be one of the most important mindsets for feeling this sense of satisfaction in our social lives, which is recognizing that there are people out there who you probably could get closer to with the right amount of effort if you want.

You might not be at a time in your life when that makes sense. And if that’s the case, you can still feel a sense of pleasure and happiness in those looser connections with people in town and with people out of town, like social media buddies you might have made. Over the years though, I will tell you I have at least four women in my life.

I think four. Yes, I can think, I can think of four off the top of my head who used to be what I would call, you know, just kinda looser social media friends who I now speak to regularly on the phone or through voice. They’re a big part of my life three of the four I’ve never met in person. So that’s also gives me a sense of social connectedness in the world.

The New York Times challenge has you take a quiz that does address this kind of stuff like that helps you get a sense of, do you feel a sense of social connection? And social connection Doesn’t have to mean speaking on the phone every day to a person or going out with a friend every day. I mean, a lot of, for a lot of us, that’s just not realistic.

It’s a broader sense of social connectedness, which adds to our happiness. So, you know, as I thought through this episode, which forced me to take stock in my friendships, I realized there are really a lot of quality people in my life, and that it’s kind of silly and a waste of time to get caught up in the friendships that aren’t working as well.

If you find yourself very focused, Relationships that aren’t going well, it might be because there just aren’t enough that are going well, and I hope that some of my episodes from 20 21, 20 22 and going forward this year will help you with that. That’s what I’m here for. That’s why I love to have all these conversations about friendships.

Sometimes they lean more positive, sometimes they like this, sometimes they lean more. You know, we’re dealing with like a specific issue. You can always write to me anonymously by going to my website, Nina Baden, B A D Z I n.com/dear Nina, and that will take. Directly to the form, which does not require an email address,

Some forms for websites and advice columns do require an email address, and either you have to use your real one, or sometimes people go through the trouble of making a fake one. What I love about my form, it’s just a plugin on WordPress.

It allowed me. Unchecked the box that required an email address, . I think it’s why people feel comfortable writing to me because they really can say what is on their mind without worrying about it being tracked back to anything personal

that’s all I wanted to chat about today. I’ve gotten to know a lot of listeners through the Facebook page, through emails through Instagram, which is at Dear Nina dot b. I couldn’t get Dear Ninas, that’s already taken by someone else, even though they have like no posts, so that’s frustrating.

But anyway, at Dear Nina b on Instagram through the Facebook page. Dear Nina, the group, it’s been a way for me to get to know some of the listeners. And over time now, now that’s been over a year and a half, I, I feel like I’m talking. People I can picture, which is really fun. So thanks for being here with me all this time.

I cannot wait for the rest of this year. I have so many great guests lined up already. I have plenty of room for more though I actually don’t like to plan too, too far ahead cuz it’s overwhelming for me. So I do have some space and just get ready for lots of conversations about friendship.

See you in a few weeks. When our friendships are going well, we are happier all around.