[00:00:00] Nina: You have these potential connections that you don’t even know are around if you’re not open to them. And we oftentimes do feel good chemistry, but we don’t always do anything about it because it takes effort. That’s awkward— those first couple of months of does the person really want me to be in touch this much? Am I liking their Instagram post too much? I mean, we do, it doesn’t matter how old we are. We have a self consciousness about kind of overdoing it.

I want this episode to be permission for people to overdo it. And if the person isn’t responding, you’ll know.

[00:00:26] Rachel: Overdo it, baby.

[00:00:27] Stephanie: You know, where’s Casey Kasem with a long distance dedication when we need him?

[00:00:37] Nina: Welcome to Dear Nina conversations about friendship. I am so glad you’re here. I am your host, Nina Badzin.

Today’s friendship that we are focusing on is between Rachel Levy Lesser and Stephanie Goldstein. They are newer friends. They don’t even live in the same place, and they became friends anyway, because the chemistry was that good.

So we talk a lot in this episode about what do you do when you feel that chemistry with someone? How do you take it to the next level of friendship because just having good chemistry is not enough to be friends. That’s just called acquaintances, really friendly acquaintances.

I have plenty of those. Maybe you do too. And I appreciate those people. I should do a whole episode about my appreciation for the friendly acquaintance. I have written about it before. I’ve been writing about friendships since 2014 and I’ve definitely covered that topic. that is not a no big deal thing.

There are lots of studies out there about the importance of what they call in the research weak ties such a negative way of saying it weak ties the word weak has a negative connotation It’s not that the research is negative . In fact, the research is quite positive and saying that those people that we run into that we maybe do some sort of like exercise activity with but we don’t see outside of that or you know other times you, run into somebody on a regular basis, but you don’t see them by choice outside of those run ins.

Those people are actually really important to our happiness, our sense of satisfaction with our lives. And I wish there was a different word besides weak ties. I guess you could just call it… Loose connections, but I like the word connection because that is what it is. You’re genuinely happy to have run into this person and then you go about your separate ways and there’s no worrying about, did this person text me back or is this person asking for plans more than I’m asking for plans?

Am I reaching out more than they’re reaching out? All of that is off the table with those kinds of friendships. Of course, that’s a different episode altogether. Really I guess I just did a mini one right there.

This episode with Rachel and Stephanie is about– you do feel that chemistry and you want it to be more than the loose connection. Even though you live in a different city, you want it to be a deeper connection. So what do you do to go from being like, Hey, it was so nice meeting you and realizing you have so much in common to really becoming friends. How do you make room for a person like that in your life?

Who doesn’t even live in your same town? Rachel and Stephanie have a podcast together called Life’s Accessories. I’ve been a guest on it almost a year ago when they first started. each episode focuses on an accessory that the guest is bringing to the table to talk about. I talked about my tennis racket.

It was a little closer to when my dad had passed away, who had passed on his love of tennis to me. I didn’t have his tennis racket or anything dark like that, but he used to be the one to really encourage me to take lessons and was a big lover of tennis.

And I didn’t play for a very long time. And then I started again a couple years ago, and it’s the love of my life. I’m going to have lots of information about who Rachel is, who Stephanie is, all the different work that they do. They do so much interesting stuff.

So Rachel and Stephanie, welcome to Dear Nina. And Rachel, welcome back!

[00:03:53] Rachel: Thank you. I’m happy to be back and I’m happy to be here with Stephanie.

[00:03:56] Nina: You guys have had a lot of friendship time together since I was last on your podcast because you were just getting started when we recorded I want to hear just your story. How did you two meet?

[00:04:07] Stephanie: you start, Rachel, because you you start

[00:04:10] Rachel: I’m just smiling because I just love talking about friendship. I love Stephanie. I first heard the famous Stephanie Goldstein’s name, I think it was in like the fall of 2021 when I was at an event in New York City, actually a book event on the Upper East Side with my friend, Amy Blumenfeld, who’s also an author, who was

[00:04:31] Stephanie: and my friend

[00:04:32] Rachel: And at the time I was really into doing this baking show where I interviewed bakers and cookbook authors and talked with them online as we bake something. Amy looked at me in a mask cause we were still masking in this auditorium. And she was like, I know who you’re having on.

You’re having on Stephanie Goldstein and you guys are going to be best friends. First of all, I knew a Stephanie Goldstein from high school. different one who lives on the Upper West Side and owns a store. And I, I thought that was her for a couple minutes.

[00:04:55] Nina: I’m just laughing because what Jewish girl didn’t know a Stephanie Goldstein?

[00:04:59] Rachel: not even

[00:04:59] Stephanie: Yeah. No, no exactly, but it’s alright. I’m married in.

[00:05:03] Rachel: I tell everybody that Stephanie Goldstein, she’s not Jewish. So, Amy was like, you have to meet Stephanie, just have her on the baking show. She gave me her email address, and I pitched her, very formal, like, Dear Stephanie, hi, my name is Rachel Levy Lesser, I’m a friend of Amy Blumenfeld’s, , here is what I do, I would love to have you on.

And she was like, hi, so nice to hear from you, very

[00:05:23] Stephanie: Dear Rachel,

[00:05:24] Rachel: but I would say we just clicked immediately. We did a baking show together. And after the baking show, it was Stephanie. Really the podcast was, you know, she inspired me to do it. She was like, we have to do something together.

[00:05:37] Stephanie: And I’ll never forget our first conversation we just clicked, I felt like I had known you forever. We knew all these people in common. I was flabbergasted that you’d actually want me to be on your baking show and super honored. And I’m like, are you sure? Is this really the right Stephanie Goldstein?

But we had Amy Blumenfeld to verify that yes, we were talking to the right people. It was so much fun and remember there was a blizzard going on, so we had all sorts of contingency plans, but yes, I was like, we have to do something.

[00:06:09] Nina: One thing I’m trying to capture with this episode is capturing that chemistry. Rachel, starting with you.You’ve had so many guests you have had a lot of different interesting professional roles and writing roles and connecting with people Can you describe it at all? Like what made this particular interaction? Cause you’re a very outgoing, friendly person. You were on my podcast and we, you know, we’ve voice texted a million times since I know you’re just like, you’re just an outgoing person that probably does connect with people.

Stephanie, you too. I’m sure it’s just, I’ve had more interaction with Rachel Do you guys know what I’m getting at? What was different?

[00:06:42] Rachel: my husband, Neil, who’s more of an introvert than I am, says to me, Everyone thinks they’re friends with you because you’re so nice to everyone. but I will say that I am extroverted. I was very shy as a child, by the way.

I didn’t speak until I was 10 years old. you’re right. I do connect with a lot of people professionally because I interview a lot of different people , I will say, first of all, I trust Amy implicitly. I’ve known Amy a long time. She’s a really good judge of character, she’s also really good at setting up people.

She’s famous for that. I remember when I had her on the baking show, it was really like talking to a friend and we laughed so hard and we just had the best time together. When it was over, I was sad because I was like, all right, time to move on to the next guest.

Obviously Stephanie felt something too, because she kind of asked for a second date and she was like, let’s do something else together. So I guess to answer your question, sometimes you feel the chemistry and sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you’re with somebody either in person or online or whatever, even texting, and you’re like, I want to keep talking to this person.

[00:07:43] Nina: And sometimes, you can feel the chemistry, but the timing is off and it’s not personal. You could have a great chemistry with somebody, but if the timing is terrible oftentimes long distance, automatically makes it bad timing, just because you don’t live in the same place. And we all have internet friends. And so to add one more potential kind of texting friend really means it must have been special. So Stephanie, you felt that too.

[00:08:06] Stephanie: Definitely. And I think, on the timing question, right, sometimes there just isn’t time or room to be able to accommodate one more thing or one more person because you might be just having trouble keeping up with the people who you really do need to keep up with in your life, such as family or the people who are.

right in front of you every single day. And so adding this element of someone who’s far away is definitely more of an investment, but I think when you’re on the same wavelength, there’s no real effort, You just know that , they’re probably thinking what you’re thinking. you just have these automatically shared experiences.

[00:08:45] Nina: So you asked Rachel for a second date, as we say. I like that term because it is like dating.

[00:08:50] Stephanie: We initially thought, that we would have a, baking podcast. we had outlined, remember, we were going to talk to bakers, just bakers,

[00:09:00] Nina: very niche.

[00:09:01] Rachel: You’re basically better than me. Very niche. Also, really good idea to do it on an audio where you can’t even see anything.

[00:09:07] Stephanie: We did all our research. We got our fancy equipment. and then we decided, well, over the summer, we’re going to have more time for this. We were good about scheduling calls together. for some reason, that unstructured summertime proved to be really difficult. We kind of fell out of touch for a bit there

[00:09:25] Rachel: We did. That’s interesting you brought up timing, Nina, because a lot of it is timing. We sort of took the summer off from each other.

[00:09:31] Stephanie: Yeah.

[00:09:31] Rachel: with my dad.

[00:09:32] Stephanie: Life was just busy. Yeah. And there was nothing, there was nothing to sort of be like, yeah, I’m going to just ditch her now. Like, no, no, it wasn’t that at all. It was just too much going on. It’s right. It’s like the people in front of you need the attention. And so I think that was happening for both of us. But then the queen died.

[00:09:48] Rachel: My husband texted me from downstairs while I was isolating and was like, the queen died when you have COVID. This is like your, this is like the final four basketball tournament, just like stay in your room and watch the queen coverage. Cause I love the queen. So I wrote an essay about it and it went up like the next day and Stephanie texted me, she’s like. I have COVID too.

[00:10:07] Stephanie: Then we had a conversation and we were both like, okay, we still want to do this, still want to do this. Rachel said to me, do you want to definitely do the baking thing? I’m like, I’m not sure. And it was Rachel who said, well, what about life’s accessories? Now, Rachel wrote. A book called Life’s Accessories. And I was like, I’m in.

[00:10:24] Rachel: Yeah, we were just open to each other and ideas. So I think timing is everything. The summer was behind us. And also there were no hard feelings. About like, we never did this, we never did that. We just kind of jumped into it. And we were also open to We’re not going to do baking.

We’re going to do accessories and let’s see how this goes. I mean, I should say we became quick friends, but we also have a professional relationship it really works. It does.

[00:10:46] Nina: just to be clear, you had only met in person once at this point.

[00:10:50] Rachel: At that point, we’d only met in person once when I came to Boston that spring and we had the best time together.

[00:10:57] Nina: What have you learned from how to be in each other’s lives, but not in the same city?

[00:11:01] Rachel: I think texting is a big deal. I mean, obviously people know this technology I text you all the time. You text me all the time. We Instagram message each other if you don’t text me back right away or vice versa, that’s okay too. I feel like I’m in your brain,

[00:11:15] Stephanie: Likewise.

[00:11:16] Rachel: I think it has something to do with who we are and the stock we come from and just chemistry and also the way we interact with each other.

[00:11:23] Stephanie: I think that’s right.

[00:11:24] Rachel: not trying to be all , it’s so perfect, but I’ll just say this here, I’ve never been mad at you. I’ve never been upset with

[00:11:30] Stephanie: wouldn’t even occur to me. No,

[00:11:33] Rachel: it’s not, it’s very easy.

[00:11:34] Stephanie: and that’s the thing is that we’re doing this project together that we’re really enjoying It’s a break in the day every so often right? It’s not an everyday thing we’re in touch regularly.

And then of course we’re doing the podcast, which is super fun. I think also the distance piece is sometimes you need a break from the local. Sometimes you need to bounce things off of someone who isn’t right in front of you every single day.We also have kids who are around the same age, we’re dealing with some of the same things.

[00:12:04] Rachel: we’re in different communities, but we understand a little bit about our communities. And like Stephanie was saying, it’s good to bounce it off somebody who’s not in your community.

[00:12:12] Nina: back to technology for a second Anyone who listens to this podcast knows that I really should be sponsored by WhatsApp. . I bring them up all the time . WhatsApp is the superior voice text situation. Rachel, you know, I love the voice memo,

[00:12:26] Rachel: well, Nina taught me about the voice memo. So then Stephanie, I’ve done it to you a couple of times and it’s the best. And you have to get it. Cause I tried it with one of my friends from college and she’s like, that’s just called like an answering machine tape. I’m like, no, it’s not.

[00:12:42] Nina: It’s very divisive. Do you guys know who the author is? Jo Piazza. She was on my podcast, hates voice memos. And I was like, Ooh, sorry. I’m a voice memo evangelist.

[00:12:50] Rachel: I don’t do it as much as you do it, Nina, but I love when I get them from you.

[00:12:53] Nina: Sometimes you just cannot with the thumbs and the texting.

[00:12:56] Stephanie: I agree. No, I think that’s right. And sometimes you have to show your emotion,

[00:13:00] Rachel: on the phone. too.

[00:13:01] Stephanie: We do. We do.

[00:13:03] Rachel: We do zooms, we talk on the phone, we send each other Instagram reels.

[00:13:07] Nina: The reason I brought up voice memos one of you said, I think it was Stephanie about, time might go by between texts and that’s fine. Like I like the voice memos for that too. I have a long distance friend. I spend a lot of time talking to through voice memos and texts.

One thing we both do that I think makes our long distance friendship work is a week ago by like somebody will leave something. And one of us will say like, I really need an answer to this. Let’s say if we’re bouncing a work thing off each other and really could use someone’s advice, but if it’s just keeping each other up to date on stuff or venting or whatever, it sort of goes without saying.

That we don’t need to respond immediately that it’s just sitting there That’s kind of why I like whatsapp also it’s just there and you can see it all easier I don’t have that many whatsapp friends, on text it’s just oh my gosh It’s a sea of text. I’ll never get back to one that I didn’t respond to

[00:13:54] Stephanie: but that’s the thing. So if, Rachel doesn’t respond right away, I’m not like, oh, she hates me, right? It’s like, she’s busy. She’s busy.

[00:14:01] Nina: It’s interesting how we can do that with newer friends and maybe long distance is part of it. I have long standing friendships with people in town where if they didn’t text back for like a whole week, I definitely would like, hmm, I would maybe find that kind of rude.

[00:14:17] Rachel: Speaking of the text. So since you are a friendship enthusiast, I’d like to ask you this question. What do you think, for example, this happens to me a lot, where there’s great texting going back and forth between two friends and we’re just in and it’s a great conversation and then I feel like I’m done. So I usually end that by giving the thumbs up on the last text, just the literally thumbs upping the text. My cousin is like, don’t thumbs up me. Don’t shut me

[00:14:41] Stephanie: going into my

[00:14:42] Rachel: I’m not shutting you up.

[00:14:44] Stephanie: done this to me.

[00:14:45] Rachel: No, my thumbs up, I do it like, it’s not mean. It’s just like, I’m done.

[00:14:51] Nina: Rachel, I am a hundred percent with you.

[00:14:54] Rachel: it’s, it’s not ignoring it’s thumbs upping it, but some people don’t like the thumbs up.I’m like, what?

[00:15:00] Stephanie: thumbs up to me is exactly that. It’s like, receive your message. Agree with you. I got stuff to do, but I’ll be back. I’ll be back.

[00:15:07] Rachel: Yeah. I’m not thumbs downing it.

[00:15:09] Nina: No, you’re right. Your cousin’s wrong.

[00:15:11] Rachel: Like never thumbs up me again.

[00:15:13] Nina: No, but sometimes there does need to be kind of like a period at the end of this sentence, Stephanie, I’ll be back.

[00:15:17] Stephanie: Or I have to get in my car and drive somewhere. Yeah.

[00:15:21] Rachel: I got stuff to do.

[00:15:22] Nina: I’ll see your one thumbs up and raise you. I do not like that. I like, I don’t like I’ve done whole episodes on this. . If you’re going. To respond we don’t need the thumbs up then like we don’t need both. I don’t want a thumbs up and a response. Just respond!

[00:15:38] Stephanie: I’m gonna push back on that for one second. What if you thumbs up it because you really want to respond, but you’re indicating to the recipient… I like it, but then you go back and you’re like, I need some time because I got to, I don’t know, go to the market and then you come back to it

[00:15:55] Nina: Oh, that’s different. I’m saying if you are immediately right now about to write a message, I didn’t need two notificationsfFor the same thing. Do you see what I’m saying? That was an extra notification. You were going to respond anyway. If you’re not responding, yes. Use a thumbs up. That that definitely tells me, received it. We’ll deal with it later. Uh, or I agree or whatever, you know, that’s fine, but I don’t need you to write totally 100 percent and thumbs up. No, no need for that.

[00:16:20] Rachel: These are important things to note in long distance friendships because obviously technology is a huge part of it. I mean, I even think about my kids and the relationships they have with their friends who live in different cities, who they know from camp, or now from college. I mean, you guys know, we’re going to sound old, but when I had a long distance friend, I mean, we would write letters and I would be allowed to talk to them on like a Sunday.

[00:16:44] Stephanie: Pen pals.

[00:16:45] Nina: So I wanted to segue us to how there can sometimes be challenges of long distance friendship and how you overcome them. And I’m thinking specifically, Rachel, I know your dad passed away six weeks ago, I can identify with that. My dad passed away December will be two years,

What I’m asking really is for Stephanie. My question actually is for Stephanie, not Rachel. Stephanie, do you find it a challenge? I know I have found it a challenge with long distance friends, so we’re going to help our listeners. When you have a long distance friend who’s gone through something and you want to be there for them. What have you been able to do to make it? It feel like you, not because Rachel needs you necessarily because Rachel has a lot of friends so that you want could show your love for Rachel long distance. That’s

[00:17:29] Stephanie: it is hard because the first thing you want to do is you want to jump in the car or jump on a plane. And then, you know, of course, there are other. Other issues, right? And, funny enough, a year later, exactly. I had COVID. So there was no going to getting on any airplane, right? But I would say, I mean, the first thing was that, I called Amy, our mutual friend, she and I arranged to send something to their house for Shiva, because that was our way of saying, Hey, we’re here, and we love you.

Here we go texting again. It was like don’t call me. I’m here. I’m thinking of you sending love, and it’s just those periodic Check ins and the thing is this when someone passes away close to you you’re smothered in love. Thank goodness, and then what happens when everybody leaves, when the funeral is over, when the memorial, when Shiva, whatever it is, however, you’re remembering someone that’s over and everyone goes home, where are the people who are checking in? To me, that’s almost more important sometimes, having lost a parent. I think a lot about the people who reached out after and we’re constantly like checking in.

How are you doing? How are you doing? Rach, should we tell the story about

[00:18:42] Rachel: About the massage? Wait, before I get to that, I just want to give Stephanie and Amy props because she’s such a good friend. And my dad was sick for a long time, but then it went really quick. And I texted her that weekend and I was like, he’s dying. And I, I almost couldn’t believe it. And I was like, could you please call Amy?

Could you please, reschedule the pods? I heard from you and Amy every day and the texts were, don’t text me back, don’t text me back. And I, I couldn’t, but it made me feel better to know that I didn’t have to. But I do appreciate what you guys are saying about, you know, when everybody goes, because it is overwhelming. Recently I went to get a massage, which to me felt like the most indulgent thing in the world to do. Cause I don’t do stuff like that. And when I walked out of the massage to pay for it, it had turned out that it was already paid for by Stephanie Goldstein because she’s a detective and figured out, and it was amazing. I mean, that’s

[00:19:33] Stephanie: FBI,

[00:19:34] Rachel: know, who does that

[00:19:35] Stephanie: is why next,

[00:19:37] Rachel: Yeah. She figured out where I was going and paid. It was amazing. And then of course I’ll hold discussion with the lady at the spa. Who does this? I’m like, Stephanie. Yeah.

[00:19:46] Stephanie: well, you know what, here’s the thing because we talked a lot about what was going on with your dad and I knew that you were taking care of everybody else except for yourself. And so I had thought about actually sending you something so that you could take care of yourself. And then you mentioned on the phone that this was your plan for, I don’t know, Wednesday. You mentioned you’re going to go to one of those really nice places. So what do I do? Really nice spa near blah, blah, blah. Right. I, how many did I, I have post its everywhere that I like, I like12. I mean, literally 12. I then, I reached out to Rachel’s husband who’s never met me, but I found his work email.

I’m like, Hey, do you happen to know what spa Rachel’s going to? But in the meantime, the genius idea was that I, I checked her Instagram to see if she was following any spas. This was my last ditch. last ditch. And I got it

[00:20:40] Rachel: she got it right.

[00:20:40] Nina: That is next level.

[00:20:42] Rachel: I forgot to tell you, Stephanie, that night I spoke to Neil on the phone and I was like, craziest thing happened when I got out of my massage and he goes, what? Stephanie Goldstein paid for it. And I was like, how did you know? And just like along those lines, I think our spouses, if I can speak for Neil, probably your spouse too, even though he’s actually never met you, Stephanie, which is crazy, he knows how important you are to me.

And I think that’s evident when the people we love know who we have a bond with, who we keep up with long distance, why it’s important to us. I think that that means

[00:21:12] Stephanie: Totally. Totally. No. My husband,

[00:21:13] Nina: That is so true.

[00:21:14] Stephanie: Are you talking to Rachel? You know, so that, yeah,

[00:21:17] Rachel: He’s our director of PR, Speaking of the long distance thing, I have a friend who’s actually flying in from Boston to spend just some quiet time with me because she wasn’t able to come at the funeral and That’s really meaningful to me too You know, it’s important with long distance. You have to make time.

[00:21:30] Stephanie: Totally.

[00:21:31] Nina: these are great ideas of ways to show up. It’s not always the funeral of the course It’s so nice or the Shiva if you’re Jewish or you know other ways That we have those ceremonial things right when a person dies no matter your background . Stephanie that was like I’m very touched by that story of the length you went to

[00:21:49] Stephanie: Thank you.

[00:21:50] Rachel: I will say this too in, light of technology, it is easier to keep up with friends long distance but I will also say you do have to make the effort to pick up the phone and come see them in person because the technology does not replace that. And I realize it’s not always possible, but you have to make the effort.

[00:22:06] Nina: I think a really important point that is true for in town friends too. And people take for granted how easy it is to text. So that’s, it’s funny, we spent a lot of time talking about technology. It has its uses. I do think it can be really overused in town. You could go months Text, text, text, text, text. And, if you could have just like fit in a 45 minute walk, it’s

[00:22:26] Stephanie: Yes. Yes.

[00:22:28] Rachel: or try to arrange a dinner or something. That’s why last minute plans can be

[00:22:32] Stephanie: I find that so often with friends, to plan something out three weeks from now, paralyzes me. But if you say, how’s tomorrow night? Great, let’s go. What time? or it’s a, yeah, no, but what about the next? you don’t know what’s going to pop up and it puts pressure on you, right? You feel like, oh, I’ve let this person down that I’ve had to say no.

[00:22:52] Rachel: Nina, I took some advice from a recent podcast I listened to you on a plane last weekend. You were interviewing, Ruchi, was that her name? Sorry. Yeah. It was a really good episode and something you told a story about how when you were first getting to know someone and you said, how about this date?

How about this date? How about that date? And she kept saying no and so you’re like, I guess she doesn’t want to hang out with me. I had that in the back of my mind because I have a friend who I really love who has been really good to Me especially in in light of losing my dad because she lost both of her parents too And she was trying to make plans with me and I really just couldn’t come to like three dates so then I didn’t want her to think that I was the person who did that to you.

So I texted her, I was like, how about

[00:23:32] Stephanie: Yeah,

[00:23:33] Rachel: you

[00:23:33] Stephanie: do.

You definitely

[00:23:34] Nina: Yes. That makes all the difference to, I call that the reaching back out. So someone reaches to you, you just got to do that, like that little reach back. Cause by the way, that person really did not want to hang out with me. And that’s okay.

[00:23:45] Rachel: you were clear about that.

[00:23:47] Nina: Yeah. She really did not.That story was so embarrassing. I’ve told it a couple of times cause it’s, it’s a good example. We got to put our antennas up and then keep going. All right, ladies, we are nearing the end of our time. I have one last question for you, and then I will give you each an opportunity to say any last thing you would like people to know about making a friendship like yours work.

And my question is, do you have any travel plans coming up to see each other?

[00:24:13] Rachel: Well, the short answer is no. One thing I forgot to, one thing, no. One thing I forgot to say though, is that we talked about our first meeting in Boston. Another one of our really memorable meetings happened. It was probably like six months ago when I took my daughter to tour colleges in Boston, and one of the highlights of that was when we finished one of the tours, Stephanie met us for lunch, and my daughter was there, and I just have to say Stephanie was so cute with my daughter, my daughter Rebecca, who loved Stephanie too, and I think also our kids know when they’re around someone

special in our lives, don’t you

[00:24:49] Stephanie: I think so.

[00:24:50] Rachel: Like,

[00:24:50] Stephanie: definitely

[00:24:51] Nina: you both have a senior. Can’t you make them, go to college together? I mean, that’s reasonable.

[00:24:55] Rachel: they’re gonna marry each other, but

[00:24:57] Nina: Oh,

[00:24:58] Stephanie: Yeah, we’re not we

[00:24:59] Rachel: It’s fine. Yeah,

[00:25:01] Stephanie: we think they should meet afterwards yeah, no

[00:25:05] Rachel: this young, you know what I mean? Too much pressure in their 20s, you know I’m saying like grad

[00:25:10] Stephanie: out first and then you can meet. yeah, You are…

[00:25:12] Rachel: it’sfine. And we are gonna plan the best wedding, right? And I told Stephanie, because I’ll be the mother of the bride, she can wear whatever she wants. I’m not gonna tell her a color. No, like whatever. Long, short, we don’t have to match. We’re not bridesmaids. We’re mothers, right?

[00:25:27] Nina: Okay. Last words of wisdom from each of you. We’ll start with Stephanie.

[00:25:31] Stephanie: The final thing I would want to say is that, you know, when you find someone who’s new in your life that you do take the time and the effort and the energy to get to know them, I think you know, in your core, if these are sort of your people, someone who, you want to invest that time with. you know, we’ve said earlier, you have to, make the investment, But just have fun with new friends, If they’re far away, great. And, just enjoy the fact that new people come into your life for different reasons. You know, that’s that’s one of the blessings of life is that you never know what friend is around the corner.

[00:26:10] Rachel: That was really beautiful, Stephanie. I feel like this is such a love fest. It’s funny that you said you never know when people come into your life. I told Stephanie this, I met her, online before my dad got sick and I feel I’m gonna say two things. So one thing I’ve said this is Stephanie Stephanie just mentioned the you know why and when people come into your lives.

I met Stephanie. I’ve only known her like a year and a half or something. And when I met her, my dad was kind of healthy. And then she’s been my friend through all the, my dad getting sick and my dad declining. And you’ve been a really integral part of that. I’ll say it journey for me because of our professional relationship.

And just because of our friendship, we’re in touch with each other almost every day. My dad was like, Oh, Stephanie from the podcast. You’ve been an important person for me. for the last year and a half, but also through a really fun time in the growth of our, our budding empire, obviously, but also through a really hard time in my life.

And I do appreciate that. And on the heels of that, what I’ll say, I think some advice for long distance friends is it’s hard enough to keep up with friends who you see at the bus stop every day or whatever. It’d be easier to shut people out, but you have to let them in and you have to let them know what’s going on in your world. It’d be much easier to be like, yeah, everything’s fine. But if you let them in, you know you’re never going to know what you’re going to get until you let them in.

[00:27:30] Stephanie: I mentioned Life’s Accessories, but not the podcast the book and so shortly after I met you I got your book. I read it You know, it’s your memoir, Where you, you have different chapters of your life. It’s all about how you’ve moved through the world and different experiences and growing up. A lot of it just resonated with me, right? In terms of the importance of family. In your life and those relationships. Going back to the core, when you learn about someone on that level, that’s where the friendships can resonate, I think, and really fall into place.

[00:28:06] Nina: Both of you, I’m really appreciative of you sharing your particular friendship with us. And I think it speaks to things I see all the time. There are so many articles out there about loneliness and what you’re both speaking to here at the end really gets at that in your cases, you both have very full social lives at home, but not everybody does.

It may be that, like you said, you have these potential connections that you don’t even know are around if you’re not open to them. And we oftentimes do feel good chemistry, we don’t always do anything about it because it takes effort.

It takes, you know, you have to, that’s awkward those first couple of months of like, does the person really want me to be in touch this much? Am I liking their Instagram post too much? I mean, we do, it doesn’t matter how old we are. We have a self consciousness about kind of overdoing it.

I want this episode to be permission for people to overdo it. And if the person isn’t responding, you’ll know.

[00:28:56] Rachel: It’s funny You said that Nina because I just came back from Michigan from my business school reunion and I reconnected with some people and we started texting in a way that i’m texting with people who I text with all the time. It’s really easy and fun and then you know, like okay, we’re going somewhere with this.

[00:29:12] Nina: or you’ll give the thumbs up and it will be, it will die down.

[00:29:17] Rachel: worry I got a life tolive.

[00:29:19] Nina: All right. You too. thank

[00:29:21] Stephanie: thank you for having

[00:29:22] Nina: on the show,

[00:29:23] Stephanie: fun.

[00:29:24] Rachel: pleasure.

[00:29:25] Nina: everyone I will have in the show notes, of course, where to find Rachel and Stephanie, their podcasts and all their social media and come back next week. I say all the time when our friendships are going well in town and long distance, we are happier all around. Bye.