[00:00:00] Nina: Welcome to Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship. This is episode 101. This is amazing to me! It’s been almost three years since I started podcasting. And so I wanted to combine the idea of 100 episodes. This is now 101. I wanted to do an ask me anything episode, which in some ways seems kind of strange because the entire concept of the friendship column that I started in 2014 with the Her Stories project with my editors, Jessica Smock and Stephanie Sprenger, was basically an ask anything about friendship.

What I mean is something a little easier to answer as in not as long of a question. So the answer sometimes are still really hard, even if the question is short, I wanted an opportunity to tackle a bunch of questions, short ones, slightly longer ones in an episode. And actually I got a lot. And so I may have to do this in two different episodes. I do answer anonymous questions in my newsletter, which you can find at dearnina.substack.com.

So I’m just going to get right to it in celebration of 100 episodes, although this will be number 101 when I put up the show notes. That is a way you can always look for episodes, although I think it’s really more for my use than anyone else’s. I’m not sure anyone, but the podcaster cares about the number, but it helps me keep track.

So one question I got from my Facebook group, which you can find it, dear Nina, the group is this. Why do you think the subject of friendship has captivated you? When did your interest begin? one thing that.

You may not know if you’re a newer listener. I’ve said it actually more so when I am a guest on other podcasts because this comes up a lot. I have always been captivated by the topic of friendship. Friendship was really important to my parents. They spent a lot of time with friends it was just, Not even an option for me, meaning I never saw a different model.

I have learned a lot through this process, hearing from different people, especially people who parents did not model friendship for them. And so it took. some people in that position a lot longer to figure out really how much work friendship is, that it doesn’t just happen, that you don’t just magically make friends, you don’t just magically keep friends, and that ending a friendship is pretty complicated.

Whether you’re the one who wants to end the friendship, or you are getting the feeling that somebody is losing interest. Those are the three main buckets I cover I started writing about friendship in 2014, but that’s not really what this question is. It’s why has it captivated you? So I would say the interest was forever.

I also had a very, what to me at the time felt like a very shocking friendship breakup where a very close friend ghosted me when we were 18. Something like that had not happened to me quite like that.

And it really did affect me. Got real zeroed in on friendship. And then after college, I moved to Minneapolis and didn’t really know anybody. And it was the first time that I had trouble making friends. I was lucky that I had not had a hard time before. I’m not saying I didn’t have ups and downs with friends.

Certainly I did but I was lonely and I was not single. I had moved here with my now husband, who was my fiance at the time. So even though I was living with him, I still had just a deep loneliness that I had not felt before. And I think that tuned me in as well.

I had kind of gotten back together for a minute with that friend who goes to me, but that, clearly wasn’t going to work out and I kind of let that go pretty quickly. And I’d had a different major friendship breakup with a college friend right around then, and we got back together and has stayed very close.

She was a guest on my podcast. I’ll link it in the show notes. We . Talked on my podcast about our post college friendship breakup and how we reconciled. So this isn’t a really direct answer, but it is just to say that it has always been a huge, huge interest of mine. One other thing I’ll add is that I got married very young. , well, he was 27. I was 23 when we got married. And so I think the relationship that has continued to be sort of the newer ones that has the more interesting ups and downs is friendship so, that’s my answer for that one.

The next, uh, shorter question, and we’ll get to some longer ones are what qualities do you look for in a friend now versus when you were younger? I would say it’s more like, what do I not look for? It’s like the opposite because the basics are always going to be true. I’m always going to look for somebody I can trust and somebody who, is kind of makes me laugh and doesn’t tease me too much. I really don’t end up staying close to people who are constantly teasing me. I it’s not fun for me. It’s not something I enjoy.

That does not mean teasing is wrong for everyone. Definitely had people, respond to me when I’ve said stuff like that on the podcast or in the column to be like, Oh, well, I love teasing. Then that’s good. if you like it and your friend likes it, that’s not an issue. And it definitely, a lot of male friendships have a lot of teasing and that’s not saying there’s anything wrong with it.I personally don’t enjoy it and I don’t do a lot of teasing to other people. And so therefore I don’t feel that I have to take it.

I just don’t like to have to be on the, defense all the time. Like I don’t want to have my guard up. If I feel like I have to have my guard up, that’s not the kind of friendship I’m interested in. What I mean by what do I not look for? What I don’t look for is I don’t look for every friend to have all the things. So not every friend needs to make me laugh. Not every friend needs to be the friend who I talk about books with. I, you know, I’m a big reader. That’s a huge part of my website and everything, but that doesn’t need to be a part of every one of my friendships.

And so some friends I play tennis with Some friends I might talk about recipes with and we both are people who like to host dinners a lot and so we’ll talk about that kind of stuff. I mean it goes on and on but I think when I was younger, I probably expected my friends to meet more of the different things I’m interested in and and the kind of qualities that are important to me and I’ve learned over time you do not need all those things in all of your friends and you can really enjoy different kinds of friendships with all different kinds of people.

Another good short question. This one from Dear Nina, the group on Facebook. Do you have a best friend? That’s a great question. And by the way, the term best friend has very much brought up a lot of feelings and listeners. A lot of people write to me about this term. They hate the term, they feel pressured by the term, they are looking for a best friend or they feel they should, they feel that they’re someone’s best friend, but that they don’t want to be that person’s best friend or they want someone to be closer, but that person doesn’t seem that interested.

There’s a lot of different versions. I think it’s a hard word. So do you have a best friend? Uh, yes, I have a best friend. Her name is Taryn. She has been on the show several times. She’s not my only best friend. I do use the term because someone else asked actually, um, it’s the next question.

What makes someone a best friend versus a regular friend? Like that term. So we’re going to talk about all this at once. Taryn also has other best friends. I definitely have, I would say a handful of best friends, some from my childhood, and that includes Taryn, some from college and some in Minneapolis for sure, where I’ve been living since the year.

I moved here in the year 2000 in June. So 24 years ago. . I guess that makes the term best kind of silly, right? Because best makes it seem like there’s only one. And the reason I always named Taryn is because Taryn and I have been friends, not the longest per se, but so close and solidly.

Probably since we were seniors in high school. We met when we were in fifth grade, but we weren’t connected at the hip in middle school or really in high school until the end. We stayed in touch really closely through college. We visited each other. we had gone on a trip, after high school together abroad and so that really bonded us, but we didn’t get along that whole trip.

Anyway, we stayed very close Taryn’s amazing. Anybody who likes my podcast would love her and she’s been on tons of episodes. Well, not tons, but probably four. I have quoted her in many, many, many, answers on my newsletter and my previous column that the newsletter was born out of, I will link some of that and definitely the episodes.

[00:08:19] Nina: But I do have other people I call, one of my best friends. I’d usually say, Oh, yeah, , this is one of my best friends, but I don’t know. I’m starting to see that that term really is hard for people and it trips you up. A lot of times I just say close friends. That other question was what makes someone a best friend versus a regular friend? maybe it’s that you don’t need to question. I use the word close friend a lot. I’ll say this is one of my closest friends, which really does feel more true to the semantics of the situation.

I think when someone is a very close friend, even a best friend, you don’t have to, wonder, am I texting too much? You never ask yourself, if I call, am I annoying them? am I asking for plans too much? You don’t have to ask yourself those questions. The second you have to start asking yourself those questions, I guess I would recategorize the friendship.

I wouldn’t end the friendship or anything, it’s probably not one of your closest, dearest friends if you are always worried about how you’re coming off to that person, if you’re being. If you’re worrying about annoying your friend, that’s probably just a different kind of friendship.

Okay, another question. What are your thoughts on friendship duos trios and rectangles? Okay So let’s say we’re talking about three people in a friendship or more the best way for those friendships to remain healthy and sane is For everyone to understand that sometimes people within those friendships are going to do stuff without the whole group , if a rectangle is four people and certainly once you get beyond that, which is true for a lot of younger people, it’s almost like I wish people would just say out loud, Hey, sometimes we’re going to get together in smaller groups and we’re not all going to fall apart over it.

I’ve spent many episodes on that, when a couple people get together, sometimes that’s just nice. You can hear better. You can really all get to talk. You can really bond. As the group gets bigger, those times together get a little bit watered down, if everyone’s constantly in a big group. And that might even be true for a trio or a rectangle, like sometimes you just need to get together one on one. So I love a friendship duo.

I would just say it’s important not to expect that you can get every single thing from that person. Everyone just needs to give each other a little room to spend time with other people, whether you’re in a duo, a trio, a rectangle, or more.

so now the questions start to get a little longer. Some from me putting it out on TikTok and Instagram at Dear Nina Friendship. And some from my inbox. And if you’re ever looking for how to ask me a question, whether it’s for a future episode like this, or it is for the newsletter, you can find that on my website, which you can now find it, DearNinaFriendship.com or. NinaBadzin. com. I was unfortunately unable to get DearNina. com. Wouldn’t that have been nice, but somebody owns that already, like a band that has been together for a long time. So nothing I can do about that. Dear Nina, I have a friend who I’ve been with for a year. After a small argument today, I realized our relationship is getting way too toxic.

She is always criticizing me, making fun of me, and calling me stupid. How do I tell her this is not the way I want our relationship to go and maybe break the relationship off? I think you give this person one chance and one chance only and you sit her down, and You just say, it kind of reminds me of what I said about the teasing thing. So maybe this is a little more than just teasing, but you just say, listen, I am not up for being in a friendship where we’re criticizing each other, where you’re making fun of me, where there’s any name calling, I’m willing to give this another chance, you don’t need to give more than one. And I don’t even think you need to explain after that, that you don’t want to be friends if that behavior continues. If you are feeling generous and like helping another person seeing what they’re doing, you could Say it when it’s happening if it happens again, you could certainly say listen This is an example of what I was talking about and I just don’t have it in me to be on guard for this all The time. You don’t have to but if you want to do the direct thing and not just disappear You can give her one chance explain what that is It is that is not working for you.

If it happens again, let her know and then you’re done. I wouldn’t stick around with anyone who was calling me stupid. I mean, I don’t even know that I would give her another chance now that I think about it. But I don’t know how old you are, the person who wrote this. So, you know, people are still learning and growing.

If you’re younger and you maybe give this person another chance. If you are in your 30s or up, I don’t know. know that this person’s going to change. Here is another one dear Nina, I have this friend that I met a year ago and we hit it off and had other friends too.

Then she started to constantly suck up to the popular friendship group and I found she would always choose them over me. Like on the bus ride home. Then she caused a lot of drama and most people used her as someone to make fun of and she was commonly hated. These past months we’ve become closer. We went to a shopping center together and her family put together an amazingly beautiful grief bundle for me. It was very sweet, but my mom, it says mom. So I think this is someone British, but my mum dislikes the girl and her family as the mother is too full on.

And the daughter would ditch me for the other girls in a minute, according to my mom. I tried to tell my mom she has changed now, but my mom doesn’t want me to be best friends with this girl. I’m unsure what to do. Also, I have this very clever, nerdy best friend that my mother likes because she helps me academically focus.

Even my mother thinks this girl is a bit odd and never has fun or wants to joke around, and I’m sick and tired of this friend. Is this a bad thing that I want to ditch this friend for my newer friend that once didn’t value me as much? This is a tough one. I, I hear what you’re saying.

You’re saying that the friend who actually has been stable and a good friend to you is kind of boring you’re not having as much fun with her. And the friend who’s a lot more fun has shown that she is willing to ditch you. Again, this is clearly coming from a younger person. I do think people can change you can even be honest with the friend that ditched you once and say, listen, I am a little wary.

I just want you to know that it didn’t go unnoticed that you used to push me to the side when someone quote unquote, better came along and I just want to you don’t know that I not going to excuse that again. how would a young person say that exactly? It’s hard to say at this point because I’m 47. I would not ditch the quote unquote nerdy or friend. I just really wouldn’t. This is a friend who’s been there for you. You don’t have to be her everything and she doesn’t have to be your everything, . Why can’t you be friends with both? And is there any chance that the two of them would get along?

Could you invite them both over to your house? Or could you plan some sort of shopping trip at the shopping center, as you called it, with both of them so they could get to know each other? Sometimes it’s actually really helpful if you have a couple different people in your life, if they know each other because then you can all hang out as we’re all busy. There isn’t always time to do these one off hangouts. I would try to introduce those two actually and be friends with both of them.

Dear Nina I have a few friends who have known since our kids were babies. We meet for lunch every few months. My husband was laid off nine months ago every time we meet for lunch Sue and that’s in quotes not her real name asks with a huge smile on her face. How are you? Twice, I reminded her that my husband isn’t working, and she immediately complains that her husband may lose his job.

It happened again the other day. I was the first to arrive, and Sue came in and asked how I was, and I replied the same. I reminded her my husband isn’t working, and she said, Oh, really? My husband keeps telling me he’s going to be laid off. Our other friend arrived and that was the end of the conversation.

I was so hurt. I pride myself in reaching out to friends, checking in when things are rough, remembering birthdays, etc. Her indifference is hurtful. What can I do? I think you can tell your friend it feels like she’s being indifferent to something really major in your life and that when you bring it up, you’re bringing it up because you want to talk about it and that you would appreciate it if she would.

Allow you to talk about it for a little bit. And I wanna be able to talk about things that are hard in my life with my friends. And I agree that that sort of dismissive, I know what you mean by that dismissive, thing people do. I mean, sometimes they even like wave it off with their hand, like, Oh yeah, my husband too.

And then, you know, move on and you’re kind of like, wait, can we spend a second on this? You might need to say it in that moment. I think a lot of people discredit the idea of saying something right then. It’s so much easier sometimes to say something on the spot. And I don’t call that calling someone out.

I would actually see that as giving someone the opportunity to turn this moment around. So we’re about to have a bad moment. Sue dismissed what you said, is ready to move on, you are about to walk away upset, and instead I challenge you to say, Oh wait, hang on a second.

Can we spend a couple minutes on this? This is really hard for me right now. This answer would actually help a lot of people to have solutions with friends that are immediate and it gives someone the message.

Oh, hey This is something important to my friend. It’s possible Sue thinks you don’t want to talk about it that she knows it’s hard for you. Maybe she’s assuming that you don’t want to spend any time on it that you’re at this lunch to think about other things because it’s possible that that’s how sue operates.

We all operate very differently. And a lot of us assume people operate just like us. that is very possible, right? That Sue is the kind of person who doesn’t want to talk about the fact that her husband is always on the brink of losing his job. And so she assumes you don’t want to talk about it. And by the way, you need to respect the fact that she might not want to talk about her husband’s situation at all. And maybe talking about your husband’s situation stresses her out. I don’t think we need to lose a friendship over this. Give her a chance to, redirect and rectify the situation.

Dear Nina, Could you please talk about how to support a friend who is clinically depressed? Also, I know you’ve talked about boundaries and ending friendships, but that can be really hard with someone you can’t avoid. Someone you do carpools with, who have kids in the same class, are in the same community, in the same larger friend group, etc.

Okay, this is really two different questions. , how you can support a friend who is clinically depressed, It’s probably the same way you could support a friend in many situations was just to make it very clear they know you are there for them. other than that, unless you are actually a, you know, professional that could give professional advice, which by the way, you probably couldn’t with your friend.

I’m sure there’s all kinds of reasons that you couldn’t, but you could maybe refer them to someone. I don’t think you can do anything magical to help other than to make it really clear that you are here now You are here as time goes on and that you love them and I would check in and I would check in with no expectations and you can even say stuff like Just wanted to say hi and want you to know I’m thinking about you.

You don’t even need to write back I think that lets people off the hook Especially someone who is going through very serious depression. there’s all kinds of ways that manifest, but I know for some friends I’ve had who’ve had to deal with that. I mean, every single thing just weighs on, on somebody and it’s another thing to do.

Another task to complete that you feel you can’t complete and then you feel bad that you can’t complete it. So at least on this one, let them know, like, this is not another task to complete. This is just me thinking of you and wanting you to know, and that’s it. And sending love. in terms of how hard it is to, you know, end friendships or deal with people that you really don’t want to be friends with anymore, but are part of your world, this answer is actually very hard, and it’s very hard for me to do, even though I’m going to give you this advice, which is that Sometimes you have to be in uncomfortable situations.

I think people are often looking for answers that will allow them to have no discomfort and that’s just not possible. So if you genuinely do not want to be friends with someone anymore who is in your carpool, who is part of your community or part of your larger friend group, that is not going to happen without some discomfort.

So there’s no answer I can give that is going to amount to, and then everything will be okay and it will never be awkward. it’s going to be awkward. It’s going to be kind of uncomfortable. The question is sort of, you’re, it says, I know you’ve talked about boundaries and ending friendships, but that can be really hard with someone you can’t avoid. And my answer to that really is you are correct. It is very hard, very uncomfortable at first, and it eventually gets a Less uncomfortable, but only in time and it could be a long time.

And so the only way to really get through that stuff is to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable. And remember, I started this out by saying that I’m not great at that. I’m not, but no one likes to be uncomfortable. Who wants to feel that way? that’s really it. That’s really all we can do is, is learn to get better at it.

Here is another one and this episode is getting long. And so I may. I have to close this out soon, and then I will do a part two. Maybe I’ll do part two when it’s the actual three year anniversary, which is not for another month.  So here we go. Here’s the last one for today. Dear Nina, please help. I have a very introverted daughter who often stays home on the weekends. She has friends at school, and she plays sports. she is not depressed. She just doesn’t like big crowds and isn’t interested in drinking like some of her friends do.

No judgment. It’s just not her thing. Here’s my problem. My friends, we are in a connected adult friend group where our kids are the same age. They are constantly bragging about how busy their kids are on the weekend, how they have to pick them up late from parties, how social their kids are.

Then when they ask me about my kid’s weekend and I say she stayed home, I get pity stares or unsolicited advice. Maybe I’m being oversensitive, but it’s almost like they are excited about how popular and extroverted their kid is.

Plus a lot of them know that she stays home. So why are they even asking me? Any advice for me? Should I be worried about my daughter? And how can I address my friends when they give me a play by play account of their kid’s busy weekend?

It’s so interesting to me. I ended up picking letters that I think a lot of them have some of the same advice. This one reminds me a little bit of the lunch one with Sue who, was dismissive of the letter writer’s husband’s It’s almost like the opposite. that letter writer wanted to discuss the situation.

And what you’re saying here is you really don’t want to discuss the situation, but the advice is the same, which is to be honest with your friends. So next time that comes up and you have a friend who says, Oh, what did your daughter do this weekend? I think it’s totally fine to say very nicely, remember, your friends are probably just trying to be good friends, they’re trying to be supportive of what they think is something you might need support on.

let’s call your daughter, um, Molly. Hopefully that’s not really her name. I think you could say, I really don’t want to talk about Molly’s plans if you don’t mind. Can we just have this topic be off the table for a while? I’ve actually done a whole episode or two about when you don’t want a topic to be something you and your friends talk about. You really just have to say it.

That’s the thing. There’s no way, there’s no look you can give, there’s no sigh you can breathe loud enough to let them know. So if these are your good friends, I would just say, Hey girls, I really appreciate your concern. I know you love Molly too, but this is a situation that I just don’t like to talk about.

You don’t even have to say why, just say, I really just don’t like to talk about it. And listen, they might be relieved that they may be trying to, like I said, just be sensitive to you. What’s coming off to you as, as insensitive is actually them trying and maybe like now everyone could stop trying on this topic.

you asked another question in here, which is, Should you be worried? you know, your daughter best, of course. And if you say she’s not depressed, then there are some people who really just don’t like the social scene. Uh, you mentioned in there kind of quickly, but I think it’s an important point that her friends are really into drinking and she’s not.

I wonder if it’s time for her to make some other friends. you said she’s into sports. Are there some other kids on the team that she could spend a little time with if she’s feeling lonely? I did have, uh, one kid I gave advice to in my house at one point when I felt that she was staying home. What seemed like a lot and I just kind of worried about, maybe the future when she would want to start making plans and it would just get harder as time went on.

so I sort of broke up the weekend into four social opportunities in my mind and in her mind, I figured there was Friday night. We stay home Friday nights and have Shabbat dinner, my kids are allowed to have as many friends as they want. I consider that one social opportunity. There’s Saturday during the day.

They could have a friend over, Saturday night. Obviously can do whatever. And then there’s Sunday day. And so I consider the weekend really four social opportunities, and I would encourage that child of mine. I’m not saying it’s right for yours, but I would, I would encourage that child of mine to at least fill one of those four spots for the weekend.

And if she at least tried to reach out to somebody for one of those four spots, I just completely let her off the hook. Other than that, I didn’t bother her. I didn’t say, what are your plans? What are you doing? Did you reach out to someone? if she let me know so and so’s coming for a Shabbat dinner, I’d say, great.

And then I would not ask her a single other thing about the weekend. Cause I think parents also can pester their kids too much about this and be like, what are you doing? Are you going out? Maybe the way. you feel your friends are doing to you, I think, we sometimes can do to our kids. that seemed to work well because it kind of did what I thought was important, which would gave her some social connection off a screen, at least once a weekend, but it also gave her a lot of, you know, quiet time and Um, time for her not to worry about what her plans were.

So I don’t know if that will help you. I hope it does. Um, whether your friends are proud about their kids socializing, I think you’re assigning a lot of intention to them. I think they’re probably just kind of making conversation And a lot of moms do talk about what their kids are up to for better or worse.

And if that’s what their kids are up to, like they have to go pick up their kid. You know, kind of part of their schedule, part of their kid’s schedule. I don’t think they’re trying to make you feel bad. If you genuinely feel that your friends are trying to make you feel bad, then I think that’s a question you need to be asking yourself about if these are the right friends for you, just like your daughter may kind of be in with the wrong group of all her friends are drinking and she’s not into it. It’s always possible the people that you’ve become close to at this point. aren’t totally right for you, and there may be room for you to branch out a little bit.

Those of you who ask questions, or those of you who have similar types of questions, I hope this helped. I do have a lot more. So if I see that people are listening to this, I can tell on the other side of podcasting. You can sort of see what the downloads are and all that. If it seems like people are interested, I will definitely do another one. If people aren’t interested, I won’t keep doing it, but I’m definitely open to doing more of these.

It does allow me to answer more questions. I get so many and I can’t use them all in the newsletter or on the podcast. an episode like this allows me to use more, which is great. So thank you for being here and I hope I’ll see you again next week with a regular interview. As I always say, when our friendships are going well, we are happier all around. And trust me, I have an inbox full of questions to prove that. Have a great week. Bye.