[00:00:00] Welcome to Dear Nina, conversations about Friendship. I am your host, Nina Badin. If you are joining me because you discovered this podcast from N P’S Life Kit episode about. Holding on to childhood friendships or maintaining old friendships. I am thrilled to welcome new listeners to the show.

Nina: I’ve been writing about friendship for over a decade. Podcasting about it for just about four years. It will be four years in a month or two.

Today’s episode will not be directly about the NPR episode I was just on because I want you to listen to that to hear some very practical tips for holding onto your old friendships. I defined old friendships on there not exactly how you might expect. So that’s worth a listen, and I think the tips are very practical.

I love how they edit their episodes. We spoke for about 45 minutes and the episode is under 20 minutes when you take away the ads, that is some excellent editing.

[00:01:00] Onto what I wanna talk about today, which is indirectly related to the NPR episode, and that is sharing good news with friends. It can be awkward. It definitely can be awkward to tell friends oh, I have something exciting to tell you, but I want to remind you that a big part of getting closer with people is vulnerability. Being vulnerable does not always have to be about heavy difficult and dark things. Although certainly that is one avenue, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t do that.

Sharing good news is another way to get closer to somebody. It is harder than you think. So that’s why I tried to model that today I’m sharing with you previous listeners, former listeners, dedicated listeners, some of whom are my friends and family,

I am trying to model, sharing good news. And I actually do try to do this in my friendships a lot, my personal friendships. It’s awkward though. I’ve only started really in the past handful of years to try to share more things. We all know what it feels like on the receiving end when you hear secondhand or third hand even

that’s something great has happened to your friend or maybe your friend’s kid or something like [00:02:00] that. You hear good news and a little twinge comes. I feel it a little bit when it’s like, oh. I’m kind of surprised I didn’t hear that directly from the person. If we’re good friends. Do you ever feel that way?

Have you ever gotten good news from a family member or a friend and you’re like, Hmm, Sort of noted that they didn’t tell you themselves? Now. I would never advocate anyone read too much into that kind of thing.

Last week’s episode number 1 46 with Dr. Jackie Henry was about ruminating and overthinking and not reading too much into our friends’ silences, or times that they aren’t communicating in the way we would like. So I, of course not gonna go back on all that and say you should read a lot into it. However, if you are someone who, a friend never shares anything good with, of course it could be that that friend isn’t comfortable sharing good news and maybe doesn’t tell almost anybody good news. Because a lot of us are trained to see that as bragging or, I don’t know, somehow bringing bad luck upon ourselves if we boast about something. I hate to use the word boast. I don’t even mean boast. Sharing good news isn’t bragging if you don’t do it constantly.

I [00:03:00] mean, if you’re constantly filling everybody’s inbox and text streams with your good news and not asking about other people yeah, that would be tiresome. But to never share anything good is a different kind of tiresome, I think. We don’t wanna only share bad news. We don’t wanna only share mundane, ordinary, nothing special news.

It is okay to share something special that has happened to you. So when I even got this interview all set up, I did tell my friends I, couched it in lots of, and I wanna hear what’s going on with you. And not everybody shares with me. I, I wish they would, but not everybody does. But I, all I can do, I guess, is model sharing something exciting that is happening.

And I think more and more in my life, people are starting to share with me as well, because I share with them. You have to be less shy about sharing it if you want people to share with you. But back to a thought, I think I started and didn’t finish. If you find that you’re constantly hearing good news secondhand thirdhand, it might be time for a little reflection on are you asking your friends questions?

Are you making it clear that you want to know what’s [00:04:00] going on in their life? And it doesn’t just have to be career stuff. I’m talking about all aspects of life.

It’s important when your friend does share a piece of good news occasionally if they do that, you act excited about it, that you don’t treat them like they’re bragging, that you don’t kind of sigh and roll your eyes. It’s also important to receive it graciously, to receive it with curiosity and ask some follow up questions and be genuinely excited. It’s not a time to just heart or thumbs up the message if it was on text.

It’s not a time to ignore the email if it came on an email. If they say it in conversation, don’t change the subject right away. Those are the kind of actions that would make it seem to your friend, like you are not interested or you think that they are telling you something that they shouldn’t be telling you.

Again, if it’s constant and if all your friend is ever doing is sending you links of stuff they’re doing, then yeah, that would be annoying. I mean, I personally, as someone who has a lot of content out, have to be really selective about the things I send my personal friends and family, because how annoying would it be if I sent a text every single week?

Oh, this week I have an [00:05:00] episode about this, and this week I’m on this podcast. I mean, I would have no friends. But I think. If I never, ever, ever share the bigger ones, the ones I’m super excited about, that would be its own kind of strange thing. Like I’d be living this parallel life that I don’t let any of my good friends in on.

So I hope that you will take away from this episode that it is okay and even encouraged to share something positive going on in your life, any aspect of your life. Your personal life, and in your job. it makes your friends feel closer to you. They are part of your inner circle who you want to share good news with. And if you wanna be part of other people’s inner circle that they share good news with, then you need to receive that news with excitement and curiosity and follow up questions. Share the joy with your friend and that joy can be contagious and it will make you really feel close.

This is such a short episode, I’m going to take the opportunity to remind you that if you have found something useful, one useful colonel, I would so appreciate it if you would leave a review [00:06:00] on Apple. It makes a big difference. The most recent reviews on there as I air this episode in May are from April. I would love to see a couple from May. I know you are out there. I know you’re listening ’cause I see it in the numbers just a little reflection of that on the reviews shows other people when they are searching for shows about friendship, that this does have an active audience.

I know it does ’cause I see the numbers, but when people are looking for podcasts to listen to, they don’t always know that there’s a robust community here. And speaking of a robust community, I welcome you into my Facebook group. Dear Nina, the group, we have so many great discussions there. We talk about episodes sometimes before I do the interview.

After and things that don’t come from my episodes. A lot of the posts, most of the posts are from other people in the community who are dealing with their own friendship conundrums that they would like other people’s opinions on. You’re welcome to post in there anonymously if you would like.

We do talk about the books we’re reading, the shows we’re watching once in a while the recipes we’re using It’s just a great place. I love it there. It’s where I spend a lot of my online time talking [00:07:00] to real listeners and I show up there as a real person, not just a podcast person, but as a real person with my own issues too.

Thank you for joining me, I will see you next week with an interview. I’m really, really excited about this one. I’m excited about all of them, but just to give you a little tease, it’s with Emily Post’s grandson. That is what’s coming Next week. We talk about etiquette and friendship,

and I will see you then because when our friendships are going well, we are happier all around. Bye.