[00:00:00] Nina: Welcome to Dear Nina, conversations about friendship. happy March. If you are listening to this in order, not everybody listens to dear Nina episodes or anybody’s episodes in order. In some kind of podcast, you need to, it might be something more of a true crime kind of thing where one episode leads into the next. Mine is kind of a combo.

You absolutely do not need to listen to it in order. . Every episode is meant to leave you with something really concrete that you can do to be a better friend, have better friends. Those are the main goals of Dear Nina,

we are having conversations. Either with guests most of the time, or like today’s, I am just talking to you directly which I haven’t done since early January. I really love doing a solo episode. I love being able to just speak from the heart, tell you what’s going on. then when we discuss the episode after the fact, not everybody does, of course, but I do love hearing from people in the Facebook group or on email. I often will have a newsletter post about four or five days after the episode airs. I wait until after the episode airs because ideas percolate or I hear from people and more things about the episode come up.

so people will react to that, in their inbox. My point is, I love having a conversation about these conversations. I named the podcast, Dear Nina conversations about friendship, because that is what it’s meant to be a conversation, not just between me and a guest, but between all of us. what I really hope is that people share episodes with friends.

Sometimes an episode topic could be a way to approach a friend with something you want to discuss. And I don’t always mean a problem. I don’t talk only about friendship problems at all. I would say Some of my episodes for sure are about friendship problems. Definitely when I’m answering an anonymous letter That is what it’s about.

But a lot of the episodes are opportunities to again be a better friend and have better friends and how do we do that. So sharing an episode with a friend isn’t always about saying we’re having this problem. Here’s what Somebody said about it in an episode and let’s discuss it. Although certainly if that is helpful to you on any of the anonymous letters and anything, use it that way.

It’s not a bad idea at all. You can also use these episodes to share with a friend just to say, Hey, this is a great idea. I’m thinking of the February challenge. For example, I did an episode about starting a ritual. that might be a great way for you and a friend to brainstorm like each of you listens to the episode Let’s come up with some ideas where we could come up with a yearly ritual for us.

this is also a great reminder that if you like the podcast and you’re just looking for A small way to help it and be supportive of the time and effort it takes, sharing an episode with a friend is a fantastic way to spread the word. I have officially been writing about friendship for over 10 years. I started in September of 2014 and the podcast started in July of 2021. So this summer it will be four years. I need to do something special for that four year. I’d love to do a giveaway of some kind.

I’ve only ever in the past done book giveaways, I would like to do a giveaway of something else. So if anybody has an idea, I would be really open to hearing ideas to celebrate the four year anniversary. So whether you’re brand new to the podcast, you’ve been here the whole time, you might have a fun idea that you’ve seen on another podcast or just, I don’t know, something that you think would be a fun giveaway for perhaps more than one person.

Today’s episode is your March challenge. It is a friendship challenge that will, what is the theme again? We can all say it together, help you be a better friend and have better friends. All the challenges are for that. I’ve built these challenges based around things I’ve been seeing in the past 10 years. So many patterns come up.

what is a pattern? A pattern is something we see repeated over and over. In the 10 years I’ve been writing about friendship, it’s not like when I get letters, it’s ever anything that new. Each person is special and individual and their issues they’re writing about with friends Of course, it’s particular to them, but when you’ve read enough of these, you will see patterns. one of the main patterns I see has to do with how busy everyone seems, how hard it is to see your friends.

what I want to urge for your March challenge is to have a hyper local focus on your friendships for this month. That does not mean that your long distance friends are less important.

It doesn’t mean that your friends who live a 45 minute drive away, which is. Local, but not hyper local doesn’t mean those friendships aren’t important. It just means that for March, we are putting an extra emphasis on your hyper local friends. And that might mean right in your neighborhood.

We are getting hyper local because proximity is one of the biggest factors in friendship. By the way, I’d say four of you, four of you listeners, and thank you to everybody sent a clip of Mel Robbins talking about proximity. Of course, my reaction in my head was I’ve been talking about that for 10 years, not saying Mel Robbins took it from me at all.

It’s just, this is what happens when someone way more famous than you says stuff that you have said, then people send it back to me. Listen, she didn’t make it up. I didn’t make it up either. That is just research. And it’s also common sense. You don’t actually need research to tell you that people who Live really, really close to you are easier to see and easier to spend time with. And therefore you’re going to spend more time together. Proximity is so powerful that it really can overcome. a lack of chemistry. I’ve spoken about this before, but it is worth repeating. You could have fantastic chemistry with someone. So now what I’m saying is the opposite is also true.

You can have the best chemistry. Maybe you go on a vacation and you meet somebody and you hit it off. really well. You’re both sitting by the pool. You see they’re reading a book that you’ve read and you’re like, Oh, I loved that book. If you finish it while I’m still here, let’s talk about it. And let’s say that person finishes it and you do talk about it and you have lots in common and you exchange numbers, you exchange social media handles and you keep in touch.

That’s great chemistry. But if you don’t live in the same place, That’s probably going to fizzle out or just remain a social media connection and you’ll remain acquaintances and it’s a great memory to have. And I think it’s always wonderful to reach out to strangers who may never even be more than acquaintances.

There’s a lot of room in our lives. It rounds out our lives to have those kind of ties with people locally or long distance. What I am telling you is that you Might not have that kind of chemistry right away with somebody who lives in your neighborhood. Somebody who lives a five minute drive, a one minute walk, a 15 minute drive.

I’m arbitrarily calling hyperlocal within 15 minutes of a drive.

Maybe that’s unfair. Maybe you live in a place where a 30 minute bus ride subway ride, drive is considered very local. So make this applicable to where you live. I would say anything over 20 minutes is now feeling like a bit of a commitment. It is still a local friend, don’t get me wrong, but hyper local really to me means I might even be able to walk there.

It means if I live in an apartment building, I might live in the building or the next building over.

so where are we are so far. The March challenge is going to be hyper local. I’ll get to more about what that is, even more specifically in a moment. It is hyper local because proximity is so important that it could even overcome a lack of chemistry. it has been well established in research by Jeffrey Hall, which every single person who’s ever written a friendship thing, a article, a book, or who has done a podcast, cites this study. done it myself too, because it’s a good one. It gives us something concrete. It says it takes about 200 hours to make a close friendship. Well, when you focus that time in a hyperlocal way, those hours add up much faster. My, example of meeting someone by the pool on vacation, how long would it take to have 200 hours with someone like that?

You would have to text nonstop or FaceTime nonstop for years or you would have to go see each other purposely on other vacations. Well, that’s not that realistic. Somebody who you could see who lives near you and takes no time to get to that person. I mean that time adds up quickly. I also want to add that I’m not necessarily doing this challenge so that you make a new close friend, although it could add to that. All I’m trying to do is to make your social life more robust, more fulfilling with these challenges.

But that doesn’t mean that every single connection and friend is a close, close, close friend.

Now I want to pause for a moment and just review what our other two challenges were because I do always like to remind people that you don’t need to do these Challenges in order and you don’t need to start with January, each one really stands alone. But if you are doing them in order, it might be fun to just remember what we’ve already done.

January was to see a friend in person, which might seem the same as a hyper local connection. But it isn’t necessarily because you could see a long distance friend in person. You could see A friend who lives 45 minutes away in person.

And maybe that’s the only time you are going to see them this quarter is that January time when I push that. Like I’m trying to say 45 minutes is a little bit of a hassle and it is a deterrent to making time. February was to create a friendship ritual and I said it didn’t necessarily need to happen in February, but if you could set the stage for it to happen sometime this year, that would be wonderful.

I will link these episodes that go with the challenges in the show notes, so you can just click right to them and the newsletters that go with them.

Okay, back to March hyper local. One thing I want to read to you is from a guest who will be on the show this month. His name is Seth Kaplan, He wrote a book called Fragile Neighborhoods

he said,

if young people are spending more time scrolling through their smartphones than connecting with friends in the real world or participating in in person activities in their neighborhood,

it’s not because they are naturally lazy. On the contrary. It is because they have been increasingly socialized to act this way. They’ve had little opportunity to experience the benefits that real life interactions can bring. they’ve accepted the reward of placeless virtual life as their horizon of happiness.

There is a lot of talk lately. If you are on social media at all, you’ve probably seen it. And if you’re not on social media as an active choice, then you’re already partaking in this. And that is more and more people leaving social media, spending less time on it. I admire those people.

That is something that I have found a challenge in my life for a long time, When you are an online writer, I started having articles in all kinds of different publications. part of the expectation is you’re going to share those pieces. You want people to read them.

If you didn’t want people to read them, you would be writing in your journal. I wanted to share my words and where do you share them if you are not writing directly for the New York times, who will share it for you? You share it on the internet, you share it on social media. And I did build an audience that way.

So I’m telling you right now that that is a personal challenge of mine. Now, because I value friendship so much. I’m not saying I’m the only one, but I obviously, very focused on it.

I do make sure to see people in person. And I do think that’s something that could help others, whether you’re trying to get off social media or not. But to Seth’s point, it could become extremely comfortable to have your whole social life exist that way. It feels like you are connecting and you are connecting.

I don’t think it’s fake. I think people choose what to put out including myself. I am actually not interested in seeing every person’s every single thought and moment. Of course, we curate, that just natural. You curate in real life too. I’m Sorry to tell you if you think that social media is the only place we curate.

I mean, if you brush your teeth in the morning and brush your hair and go out in the house and something beside your pajamas, you’re curating what you are showing to other people. We all do that to some extent. So I don’t fault people for that. All I’m saying is it is really important to not let that be your entire social life because it can become way, way, way too comfortable.

as we all know, in those early post pandemic times, some people really struggled to go back to real life. That comfortable nature of staying home, being in your pajamas, let’s say, of not having to put a certain face forward, it was more comfortable. So we’re beyond that now, thank goodness.

I think the neighborhood and the hyper, hyper local connection, and again, if for you, that means you still have to drive 20 minutes that’s fine. For me, I like hyper local neighborhood. I think that is such a incredible opportunity for feeling that your social life is well rounded, that all your friends and connections and people who matter to you do not only live far away and only live in your screen on your phone.

What might that look like for the challenge? The challenge is to do one thing this month that is in your neighborhood. You don’t have to host it or plan it. I know that people in my Facebook group, I can read your mind because I know what you’re going to say.

And some of you are going to say, I hate hosting. That’s okay. You do not have to host. You can join something that already exists. Look in your library. See if there are events. Look on nextdoor. Now I know nextdoor. com is also a hotbed of awfulness sometimes, but sometimes it’s also where people post things that are going on, so that’s not always the worst place to start.

I know we have to start it online to go in person, which is sort of funny. Is there a local Facebook group where people are posting events that are happening? Somebody in my Facebook group has been talking about trying to start a book club in her area. It makes sense that she is finding those people first on Facebook, but her purpose is to get this conversation off Facebook, to do it in person, to meet at a cafe.

that’s something you could do. It doesn’t have to be book group. It could be a discussion about a podcast, about a movie. It could be a TV show you’re all watching.

It could just be really as simple as neighborhood hangout. Now, I guess in these examples, I’m sort of implying you’re making new friends, and that’s fine. That could be one way this goes. This also could just be about maintaining connections you already have. So maybe you’re just asking one person you already know in the neighborhood that you run into all the time driving down the street and you always wave.

Maybe you are going to see each other on purpose and not just By coincidence. Can you meet for coffee? Can you meet for a bite to eat? Can you go to something together in the neighborhood? You actually could combine these two ideas, which is look for something that’s already happening in a neighborhood, some sort of discussion, something at the library, a speaker’s coming somewhere.

then reach out to somebody in your neighborhood who you wouldn’t normally do an activity with and say, I really am interested in going to this. Would you like to go?

I’ll tell you something that I am doing this month that is hyperlocal, and it’s not necessarily with people I hang out with all the time. It is something I’m planning and hosting, but it’s because I want to do it. So my rabbi’s wife and my friend, she’s also my friend, is an incredible cook.

every time I go to her house for Shabbat dinner, I say to myself, why is everything she make so much better than everything I make? And I think I’m a good cook, by the way, I’m not self conscious about my cooking. I like to experiment, I’ve gotten better over the years, but she’ll put something simple together.

And I’m like, this is the tastiest thing I’ve ever had. What is happening? I finally said to her, would you do a little class in my house? I really am most focused on, I want to know how she does her salads and dips. Because sometimes when you start getting into the entrees, that just is really overwhelming.

I want to know what she is doing in those dips and salads and why are they so good? And I mentioned it to a few people who live in my neighborhood. They loved that idea. I want to keep it small because a cooking class should not be big because that’s really hard to do in your house.

I’m having them over in March. took a little bit of coordinating. First I sent it to Tzipporah Leah, I had to see what dates worked for her. On those dates, what also works for me? Then I emailed the group and said, okay, here are five dates that work for Tzipporah Leah, that work for me would you like to come? by the way, a little trick I do to make plan making less annoying for people is I say, just email me back. First I do it on email, not text. I know I’m really old fashioned, but I don’t like making plans on texts like that, especially if we’re talking multiple people, multiple dates.

It’s a just email me back and then I will let everybody know what date works for everyone. I like that because there’s three or four other people on this email with me. They don’t all need to hear from each person what date works.

That’s how I’m answering this challenge of doing something hyperlocal with people I don’t see that much, even though they live near me. They are my friends and these are not strangers.

They all are quite a bit younger than me. I’d say, newer friends in the past couple of years because I just moved to this neighborhood five years ago. I didn’t know them all before that.

[00:16:52] Nina: This is about maintaining and building on a friendship. So that’s an example I’m doing. I know that, again, not everyone likes to host and everyone wants to do something so involved.

It can be meet at a coffee shop and just talk. You can reach out to someone and say, Hey, I run into you all the time and we are always in a rush going off to wherever we’re going, work, schools, different things. What if we met on purpose? I know that in my Facebook group, I will put this episode up the day it airs, which I believe will be on March 3rd We’ll hopefully start a conversation. What happens is I leave those posts up there for well, I leave it up forever, but I put it up there and I encourage people to keep writing in under that post, how it’s going, how is the challenge going this month?

And, you know, people are getting used to it. This is a new thing I’ve done for 2025. Like I said, I’ve been doing the podcast almost four years. this is the first time I’m doing consistent monthly challenges. I’ve sort of dabbled in challenges in other years, but not every single month.

I hope this helps. I hope that you will really think about what you can do hyper locally. If I start to get more ideas from listeners, I will put them in the newsletter at the end of the week that this airs, and you can always find that when you come to this podcast late, if you don’t hear this for a year from now, all of those will be in dearnina. substack. com, I have a menu tab that says monthly challenges right on the top.

All right, everyone. Don’t be a stranger to me. I’d love to hear from you. Find me in the Facebook group at Dear Nina, the group, email me, respond to the newsletter. There are so many ways to reach me. They’re all in the show notes.

Conversations about friendship is not meant to just be me talking to myself. I want to talk to you. I want you to talk to me. Come back next week for an interview. When our friendships are going well, we are happier all around. Bye.