Jazzmyn: [00:00:00] history is beautiful to have with people. I think history, says a lot of that grace aspect. It says a lot about you’ve been able to allow this person space to grow and evolve.

You have been with them on the journey. And it is sometimes so refreshing to not have history with someone. To be able to build a friendship from an authentic place of the present and what’s happening right now and where you are right now. You’re not dismantling old patterns. You don’t have to process anything. You’re just meeting the person where they are and they’re meeting you and your growth and that that’s unmatched.

Nina: Welcome to Dear Nina, conversations about friendship. I’m your host, Nina Badzin. I’ve been writing about friendship for 10 years, podcasting about it for about four years, and every so often I like to have a therapist on. Therapists, often connect with my work a lot, even though I am not a therapist.

And I [00:01:00] work very hard to make it clear I’m not a therapist. That’s not what this podcast is for. This should never take the place of therapy. But still, it’s cool to have a therapist on to hear about things from that point of view and what they’re hearing in general from clients about friendship. I have Jazzmyn Proctor on today. We’re talking about misconceptions around adult friendships, specifically that she sees in her work.

Jazzmyn is a therapist and the host of a podcast called All Our Parts. That’s OUR, like all Our Parts. Both in her work and on her podcast, Jazzmyn helps navigate the highs and lows of love and relationships to embrace self-discovery and smash through obstacles. She is here in her words, and I love this to hype you up every step of the way, and it’s her mission to help people unlock their full potential and level up their mental health game.

She is really wonderful and warm and just great to talk to. I think [00:02:00] you will enjoy her a lot.

Nina: Hi Jazzmyn. Welcome to Dear Nina.

Jazzmyn: Hello. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Nina: I always like to have a therapist because first of all, then it feels like I get a therapy session, even though that’s never the intention, but I can’t help it. I end up talking about myself. And it’s just good to have real official therapy information. I’m very careful In episodes. I try at least not to use therapy talk

and so when I actually have a therapist, it’s nice to be able to go down that road. So we are gonna talk about the misconceptions around adult friendship, especially that you see in your work. And of course you’re gonna have to generalize. I know you’re not gonna talk about specific clients or anything, let’s just dive right in.

What is the first thing that came to your mind when we decided this is what we’re talking about?

Jazzmyn: Yeah, the first one that. really spoke to me was depth does not equal frequency. And so a lot of times when we believe we need to cultivate depth with people and how that happens, we think it means we need to talk to them every day, or it means we need to [00:03:00] hang out all the time. When that doesn’t necessarily mean there is a secure base in that friendship.

Nina: Oh, that’s so important. I can’t tell you how often I hear that from people. So what I mean is it’s probably the same thing you’re hearing in a different way. So for me it’s through anonymous letters and comments and different things, but it is a anxiety around not getting together with certain friends or certain friends being too busy.

So what are other ways that would show depth, if not frequency?

Jazzmyn: One of my other points is allowing quality time to evolve. And Especially as we grow jobs change, we move. It might be a FaceTime call, it might be texting, especially if you’re like long distance. I think sometimes we can put a lot of pressure on ourselves, especially if a friend is visiting. To want to entertain, to want to give them this really grand fun experience. At least for myself. I’m like, I’m just really happy to be able to spend time with you. So if we’re sitting on the couch watching a movie, that is equally as fulfilling as us going and [00:04:00] watching a movie or like going to grab dinner because depth is, is really built from trust, from understanding one another to be seen by one another and seen with their authenticity. It’s not necessarily about, oh, because we talk every day and because I see this person all the time. That means nothing. When you were in school, you saw people all the time there and you, it was probably a superficial relationship, and so really just focusing on values, morals, what you believe in, that’s where depth is really built.

Nina: I love your point about too, about the visits and how even a visit doesn’t have to be every second together and, and still is creating a memory. And it’s important to see people in person, especially long distance friends, but it doesn’t have to be every second. We have an event. I had a friend visit me last summer and we were trying to figure out where could we go together.

We hadn’t seen each other in a long time. Years in person. And this was a college friend, Alyssa. I’m gonna give her a shout out. And it’s [00:05:00] also my daughter’s name’s kind of confusing, so Alyssa, college, Alyssa, we were like, where can we go? What can we do? That’s exciting. And finally we decided, wait. I’m gonna have all my kids at camp.

She had kids at camp. Let’s just go to one of each other’s houses. We don’t need to go somewhere. So she came to Minneapolis, which I really appreciate becuase people do not tend to come visit me in Minneapolis. She lives in dc, she came here. It was very quiet, it was lovely here in the summer. We did some stuff like walked around town and stuff, but we also did a lot of nothing sitting around the house. And we didn’t even always talk in those times. And that reminded me in a, such a beautiful way of being in college together. And it’s not like every second we were talking in college, we would study in the same room or just live in the same apartment. It was great. That’s a good reminder And yeah.

Jazzmyn: college really brings it back to like that communal aspect. in college, you’re not always talking, you’re not always able to engage in activity. Sometimes you’re sitting there studying together. You’re sitting there maybe watching a show together, you’re dropping by your friend’s dorm and you’re like, Hey, like, want to go eat?

I’m gonna go you by myself. [00:06:00] Then if you can’t make it, I recently visited my friend Becca over in Utah. I was like, you don’t need to entertain me. We had a full weekend planned, but I was like, it’s okay if we literally just sit on the couch and hang out. I’m just really happy to see you because that’s what I’m focusing on is focusing on the connection of the relationship.

a lot of those external factors, they really just are noise sometimes. Because you have these events in place, sometimes you have this set time. Sometimes that’s all you have with that person and there isn’t much depth. But we, we put so much emphasis on the external factors that we can sometimes really miss what’s going on inside.

Nina: That’s a great point. I think social media obviously gets in our way with that, right? Like we see all these events and brunches and just all kinds of things where people look adorable and they’re dressed up. And it can be easy to get jealous when you see those things, but you probably have to remind clients that that isn’t necessarily a translation of closeness.

Jazzmyn: Yeah, it’s, I mean, social media, you see the big friend groups, you see [00:07:00] them rent out a boat. You see them going to like a hotel. You see them traveling together and we get fomo. We’re like, oh man. I don’t have a huge friend group where I can go to on vacations with them. And we do these fun things and wear matching outfits, and it’s like. Sometimes half of them might honestly hate each other, and they’re doing it because out of history, out of sometimes there’s a an obligation that comes with it and, or sometimes it looks good. It looks good to feel like somebody that has a lot of friends, that gets to do a lot of things. But from my work and my own experience, sometimes the more friends that I had, I actually felt the loneliest. Because I wasn’t able to invest in the connection with every single person because I was spreading myself so thin. And so it was just a lot of superficial relationships that were existing. But when I really, really allowed myself to believe in quality over quantity, [00:08:00] that’s actually when I felt the most fulfilled.

Nina: That’s so wise. So we talked about one of the misconceptions, a big one you hear being, Kind of a lack of definition on what depth really is and people confusing it with frequency. And then we moved to another one of yours, which was allowing the quality time to evolve. Do you feel that we covered that? Was there more you wanted to say on that?

Jazzmyn: No, I think that goes back, I mean, back to the frequency is that the quality time may be a FaceTime call. the quality time may be a phone call and one person’s running to pick their kid up from school and the other person’s running to the grocery store, and that’s the time you want to use to connect.

And all of that is, is equally as valuable.

Nina: I was speaking to my aunt this morning actually, who I had not talked to in a while, and she’s been wanting to do a FaceTime call with me, and you can understand this as a fellow podcaster also in your work. We, we sit a lot. . So I mean, sitting, sitting, sitting I felt like, becuase we were recording today and I had a bunch of editing I need to do today.

I had to say to her, I cannot FaceTime [00:09:00] today. I’d love to talk to you and I want to catch up. It’s going to have to be while I’m on a walk or while I’m cooking. And she was like a little annoyed becuase she could hear the water sometimes. And she’s like, are you cooking? I said, I, I told you this is my one hour

to go on a walk. I talked to her while I walked. We talked for a long time and while I was cooking and it sort of me was me kind of having to tell her like, yes, you’re important to me, but I also need to do these other things. And maybe her having to evolve that she wanted it to be a FaceTime call and I couldn’t really do that, but I still wanted to connect.

So what was another one on your list of misconceptions?

Jazzmyn: My favorite one is a lot of times as a society, we value history over allowing ourselves to really meet people and connect with people who are in a similar season, or who could really understand us better than people we might have grown up with. The amount of times that I’ve had conversations with people where they’re like, I’ve known them for 20 years, so, you know, I, I want to keep ’em around. I’m like, it doesn’t sound like you want to [00:10:00] keep them around. It sounds like you’re allowing history to dictate what your friendship, should look like. Even the saying no new friends, well, then you’re not, you’re not giving yourself the opportunity to evolve, to grow, to, to gain new perspectives and experiences by limiting yourself to this very specific friend group that you had when you were 12.

Nina: I totally agree about not being overly married to your old friends, to the point that you don’t make new friends.

Oh my gosh. If we had to stick to everything we thought about ourselves and about the world from adolescence, that it would just not be a full picture of ourselves. That said, it’s, I think, nice to have some old friends who have seen you through different life stages, and if you have no old friends ever, I wonder what you think about that as a therapist.

People feel bad about that sometimes that they have no friends, like not a single one that they haven’t been able to maintain. It doesn’t just have to be childhood. It could be, you know, maybe you’re in your forties or fifties and you know, every five years it’s like a new batch of friends and you haven’t been [00:11:00] able to maintain.

Do you see that as a little bit of a red flag?

Jazzmyn: No, honestly, and it’s taken a lot of unlearning and even with my own experiences, I think that it’s amazing when people can truly allow themselves to evolve and say, this space no longer fits me, and I’m open to new experiences, new opportunities, because I a lot of times think that’s harder than sticking to the same friend group the most dated, I guess, friends that I have are from undergrad. So we’ve been friends for 10 years. Have seen each other through so many different evolutions of one another. And that is not easy to go from seeing the person all the time having similar classes, being being able to create a structure where you’re able to spend a lot of time together to people getting into relationships, people changing jobs, moving.

There’s so much that happens to keep in touch and [00:12:00] to allow that person to have the space to grow without it feeling threatening to the relationship. Is really hard. It’s not something that can be maintained with everyone.

Nina: For sure. Yeah, I agree. Not every friendship’s gonna make it, uh, out of that. I think one thing that helps people maintain old friendships is a skill that would also help with developing new friendships, which is, giving people a break. We talked about some of this on your podcast, and I don’t know if which is coming before or after, so, which doesn’t matter.

But that that counts for a lot. And I think if you can learn that skill to give other people space to mess up a little bit, to not be perfect, not always show up in exactly the way, you have defined what showing up means, you probably could keep some old friends and make new friends. This is just like good life skills to have.

Jazzmyn: Two of my friends from undergrad, one of them lives literally 20 minutes away from me. We have this running joke where we see each other when the weather’s nice. We love patios, so we love the spring. We love summer. We love being able to go to brunch [00:13:00] outside if it’s raining.

She has literally texted me before and is like, Jazzmyn, it’s raining. I’m not gonna be able to make it to your house. I’m like that’s okay. The fact that we can be so honest

Nina: I love that.

Jazzmyn: it doesn’t threaten whether or not, oh, does she like me? Oh, is she like, is she acting weird? but we show up for the important moments.

And, and so I went to her house warming. She’s come to my birthday, we’ve celebrated milestones together. and we get to say, you know what? Weather’s not doing it for me. I’m gonna sit on my couch and I’m

Nina: Yes. And you don’t read into it? No, it’s a gift. It’s such a gift. Let’s talk more about the Overvaluing history, just because I do talk about old friendship sometimes, and I think that’s a good challenge to me as the podcast host and someone who’s written, talked about friendship a lot.

I would like to hear more about your thoughts on overvaluing history. That’s really interesting angle.

Jazzmyn: Well, a lot of times when people even come into the therapy space wanting to explore their relational dynamics, there’s a lot of shame and guilt that comes up with not [00:14:00] having older relationships. So not having a friend group from elementary school or, or not carrying 12 bridesmaids in their wedding or, or not even being able to maintain contact with people in that manner.

And it, it really like breaks my heart because it’s, a lot of it is societal standards. you haven’t been able to keep these friends, so you are a bad communicator. You don’t follow up with your friends. . We place labels so often on people who aren’t able to maintain history with people when it might not be for the best.

it actually can be stifling if we stay in environments for too long that aren’t truly meant for us. And that middle period that typically exists is okay. I don’t have this friend group, but I don’t know what a new friend group is going to look like. and a lot of people are uncomfortable with loneliness.

A lot of people are [00:15:00] uncomfortable with sitting with with just themselves. Then we fill it with, other people, with other superficial friendships. When we get back to that space of, let me cast a wide net and see what sticks, versus truly fostering intentional relationships with two or three people.

Nina: I share your belief that, you know, just a couple of close friends is the thing to work on as opposed to a friend group. This search for a group is pretty dangerous and probably just based on watching TV shows and social media, like we mentioned already, and there’s a lot of strife within a friend group.

is just reality. Not everybody can get along all the time equally. That’s just not possible. And then there’s just a lot of problems that can happen. A couple people are closer becuase that’s human nature and the other people get upset.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t have a friend group, but it’s not always what it seems to be is all that’s what I’d like people to know.

Jazzmyn: I would say make sure there’s an even number of people in your friend group. I have, been in a couple trios where [00:16:00] one person always gets closer to the other person and then there’s another person that feels left out, then it becomes two versus one can happen. It. I now try to steer clear from groups of three.

Nina: So funny.

Jazzmyn: four, I need six. I need, I need, if we’re gonna go that.

Nina: You’ll appreciate that we were just planning a family trip. I have four kids and, and the older two are getting older and starting to go do their own things . We were planning a trip for next fall and it started to look like, well first it was just two of the kids. Great, no problem. Two kids. Then the third one was able to come.

exactly what you’re saying, even though sometimes I do defend a trio, I have defended a trio on here before, but I know it can be, it definitely can be hard. There’s a reason that stereotype exists. becuase of course it’s an odd number. I even felt it within the family unit. I said, we can have two or four on this trip.

We cannot have three. becuase of the dynamics of the kids. We could have any two. It didn’t matter which two, but I just didn’t want to have three because for sure it would be an issue. the one who’s in college, I looked on the college calendar. I’m like, that’s fall [00:17:00] break.

you’re coming. And he was like, well, I kind of wanted to. I said, mm, don’t even finish the sentence. You need to come on the trip. Otherwise you’re gonna ruin the trip for your brother, who the trip’s really for. So I’m like, you need to come to save him from your sisters, basically.

He’s like, fine.

Jazzmyn: unequal, it just, it just doesn’t, I haven’t seen it work perfectly. If there is a trio out there, please contact me. I love to chat and see how you all have made it work for so long. but history is beautiful to have with people. I think history, says a lot of that grace aspect. It says a lot about you’ve been able to allow this person space to grow and evolve.

You have been with them on the journey. And it is sometimes so refreshing to not have history with someone. To be able to build a friendship from an authentic place of the present and what’s happening right now and where you are right now. You’re not dismantling old patterns. You don’t have to process [00:18:00] anything. You’re just meeting the person where they are and they’re meeting you and your growth and that that’s unmatched.

Nina: Oh my gosh. I love that. And I’m gonna add one more to our list. I’m not sure how I want to title this, bullet point. I’ll think about it, but it’s related to this and maybe the misconception that I would like to bring to the table is the idea that friendship takes a ton of work. People say that a lot.

Friendship takes work. I agree that it takes work. It shouldn’t be pushing a boulder up a hill work. And I think this history piece is a part of it, Jazzmyn it’s like, oh, right, like you’re saying, we’ve been friends so long, so we have to make it work. And it’s like, well. Do you it, it does take work.

But my gosh, it’s not a marriage. That’s sort of the joy of friendship is we get to choose and choose and choose and keep choosing and it shouldn’t be impossible work. And I often answer that when people write me anonymous letters and they, they’re listing all the reasons. And you’re probably hearing this in your sessions too.

All the reasons why this person is a problem and they don’t enjoy their time together. And this person, they list all the things the person has done. And I sometimes will ask like, well. What is it you’re asking exactly how to [00:19:00] make this friendship work? I don’t think it’s, it’s going to, you obviously don’t enjoy this person.

Life is short. Not saying you have to have a big dramatic breakup. becuase I actually really try to advise against a big, dramatic breakup. I don’t like burn bridges and you never quite know. But it is okay to shift, pivot a friendship into something different. It shouldn’t be that much work.

So it’s work but not that much work.

Jazzmyn: I think a lot of people are again, uncomfortable with loneliness, but also uncomfortable with the grief that comes with ending friendships, relationships that have history because they saw a version of you that, you were probably really happy with and like really excited. And you, you just build that nostalgia with that person.

So when you think about that person, you’re like, oh, but we’ve been through so much. But when it gets to a point where like you said, pulling a boulder up a hill you are literally trying to move a mountain with your two hands. It is not supposed to feel that way, and it doesn’t have to feel that way.

I think as a society [00:20:00] we like to place this value on like giving relationships and honest effort. I think we’ve confused that with believing that relationships have to feel hard. They have to feel like this tug of war with the person. When you get to feel a sense of ease in your relationships.

You get to feel like the hardest part about it is not taking it personally when the person might not text you back immediately, or they may forget to respond to you. That can be the hardest part,

The hardest part gets to be like not taking it personally when the other person has a lot to do when the person is working, or forgets to text you back.

and it’s not personal. That person may just really need some alone time or be really busy with their schedule. schedule. But when we’re getting to a place where you’re spending time together and it feels like a forced conversation, you get to assess and say, Hmm, I don’t know if this is for me anymore.

Nina: That’s right, and I think what we’re talking about is a difference between inner work that you do on yourself so that you don’t [00:21:00] take everything personally, people do, and make all your friendships difficult. And relationships, family relationships too, and the work that it takes to keep up a relationship with a specific other person.

I. There’s some work to showing up and responding to someone’s text when you don’t feel like it, so they don’t feel bad. I mean, those are the pieces of work too. There are some work that you do with all friends that sometimes we have to be inconvenienced to be a good friend. That’s the kind of work I think is normal when people say relationships take work.

But then, yeah, forcing something, there’s, there’s just no need. I have a question for you. Can people work with you remotely? or do they have to live in your state?

Jazzmyn: So I do offer coaching as well. Uh, if people are seeking therapy, if they live in the state of Maryland or Virginia or in the District of Columbia, I am happy to work with them in that capacity as well.

Nina: I think you would be just so wonderful to work with. becuase now we’ve talked a few times, I’ve been on your podcast such a nice way about you. I I will have all the ways you can find Jazzmyn in the show notes. All right, Jazzmyn, thank you so much for being here. I [00:22:00] can’t wait to share this episode and hopefully they’ll, be able to think a little differently after hearing your point of view, because you, you speak about things differently than I do and I think that’s important.

Jazzmyn: Well, thank you so much for having me.

Nina: Everybody come back next week when our friendships are going well, we are happier all around. And I feel like you probably agree with that, Jazzmyn.

Jazzmyn: Absolutely.

Nina: Yay. Thank you. All right. Bye everyone.