Nina: [00:00:00] Welcome to Dear Nina, conversations about friendship. You have reached the final friendship challenge of the year, which you can do anytime of the year. You can do it anytime in the next year or the year after whenever you discover this. But it is not the final episode. I don’t want to confuse you. First of all, I’ve been writing about friendship for over 10 years. I am not stopping anytime soon.
I’ve been podcasting about friendship for about four and a half years now, and I will not be stopping anytime soon. In some ways, I feel like we’re just getting going. There’s been so many exciting episodes, so many great ones to come that I already have planned for 2026, and I think you are going to really get a lot out of it even if you have been here all along.
If you are new. I am really, really just looking forward to more to come. However, doing a challenge once a month has been wonderful and I’ve loved the conversations that it [00:01:00] has fostered in the Facebook group, but I also feel like I have been doing the challenges for a long time. Really over a year. They started
before 2025 in a more casual way. I would do them every month and a half or so in the Facebook group. And that group is, dear Nina, the group, you just go into Facebook where there’s a little search button or magnifying glass, I don’t remember what it looks like. You type in Dear Nina, the group, and it will come up and it will ask you a few questions about how you found the group.
It’s not that it’s a stringent process to be accepted into the Facebook community for the podcast, but I do wanna make sure that there are not any bots, or trolls or people who just randomly researched the word friendship and found it. I want it to be that you know what this group is, that you are aware of the podcast, that you are aware of the newsletter, which is at Dear Nina Substack.
Dot com. Those seem to be the two ways that people find the group through the newsletter. Where I do the anonymous questions and where I also just update on the podcast and [00:02:00] through obviously the podcast, ’cause I do bring it up a lot. I oftentimes preview questions, preview guests in the Facebook group. It’s an opportunity to get the conversation started and for me to see what people are thinking about this topic to get your point of view into the episode. If there’s questions for a specific guest, sometimes I’m able to get those in. My point is I have been doing the challenges in that group long before 2025.
I made it more formal in 2025 by doing one a month, and I really loved each one. I’ve done them myself too. I think it has improved friendships in my life. That’s the point of them. That’s the point of this whole show. The show is for me only in that I’m exactly like you, the listeners, knowing that friendships are so important and just always trying to be a better friend and have better friends.
It’s really the goal. The goal is be a better friend. I mean, I think that comes first, by the way. You have to be a better friend, to have better friends, but it’s learning to recognize what you’re looking for in a friendship and seeing are you doing those things yourself. And we all are works in progress, are we not? And we [00:03:00] change through time. What I wanted at 16 is very different than what I maybe wanted at 25 different than what I wanted at 35. I am turning 49 soon. If you are catching up on these episodes, you’re gonna hear a bunch of other episodes where I say I’m 46, I’m 47, I’m 48.
I am turning 49 at the end of the month. So I am obviously starting to think about that last year of my forties, and I’m sure there’ll be all kinds of thoughts throughout the year in the episodes. I do have some big birthday thoughts coming up. Not for this birthday, not for 49, but for everyone’s birthdays.
For your birthdays, and that will be a fun episode coming up in the early part of 2026. So I am retiring the challenges after this final one, just to keep my mind and keep the show evolving. I think it’s nice for listeners who have been here a long time to
change it up. Switch it up. So you’ll be seeing some other things coming up in the year now that the challenges will not be taking one episode a month. I hope you will try them. I hope you’ll continue [00:04:00] them. There is a very easy place to see all 12 at.
Dear nina.substack.com. There is a menu tab at the top that just says friendship challenges. And I’m gonna leave that up there for a long time. You just go to dear nina.substack.com and there is a menu tab right at the middle and there top that says Friendship Challenges.
And they’re just listed 12 of them for every month of the year. I am going to go through really quickly.
I was inspired and episode 1 72, where my assistant producer, Rebecca, and I spoke to the two professors of the Love actually podcast, we really did a deep dive on beaches. Paul Westwick and Eli Finkel, who were their professors.
They begin every episode by going really quickly through the plot of whatever movie it is that they’re analyzing. They normally do rom-coms, and they did beaches with us for very obvious reasons of friendship. They just really race through.
I’m going to tell you the first 11 very quickly and then we’ll spend more time on number 12. And number 12 was very much inspired by the book I am in the middle of right now and [00:05:00] Loving, which is The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. I know a lot of you have read it because so many people have recommended it to me.
I love novels that are in the form of letters, and I also love novels that tend to feature women in their sixties or older. I have no idea why. And by the way, that’s been true for the past few decades for me. So even though I am. It’s getting closer, right? I’m turning 49. I’ve loved that 60, 70-year-old protagonist, Okay, here we go. January was see a friend in person, prioritizing face-to-face connections in this digital world. February, I said start a friendship ritual. Didn’t have to occur in February, but it was to put the plans in place, which I did do, and that ritual happens every December now, and this will be the second year in a row that I’ve already planned it for this December. March plan, a hyper-local hangout, because proximity, this comes up in almost every episode. Proximity is the number one key to getting closer to people because you can see them more often.
It is just logical. And so March was to focus on someone who lives really [00:06:00] close. Same building, same block. April, put friends’ birthdays in your calendar. This was easy. This was easy. There was no reason not to do it. And I did that one because I was really getting a sense that people are spending less time on social media, which is fantastic.
I think that’s healthy. But if you are using social media to remember your friends’ birthdays, you are going to forget your friends’ birthdays. Put them in your calendar. May. Change the venue for how you connect. It really refreshes stagnant friendships. If you only ever walk with someone, go out to dinner. If you only ever do a meal with someone, go for a walk. Go to a museum, run errands together. Change how you hang out. Doesn’t have to be constantly, I just meant one time. In May. June, ask a friend for a favor. This really does make you practice being vulnerable, and it gives your friend an opportunity to support you, and that does create closeness. Actually hard, lot harder than putting your friend’s birthdays in your calendar, which is completely under your control.
July was just a mid-year friendship review. The challenge was to think about your friendships, where [00:07:00] they are so far for the year. Are you satisfied with how they’re going? How are you showing up as a friend? You will notice the theme in this show is putting the focus on us as individuals. What are we doing to help and not putting a lot of blame on other people.
August was to befriend someone older or younger to expand your generational connections. I have been very lucky to really already have that in my life. I have younger friends, 10 years younger or more. I have older friends, 10 years older or more, although technically intergenerational is considered 15 years.
September was to stop listening to your bully brain. This was more of a psychological one. This wasn’t something particular that you had to do. It was to flip the script and stop telling yourself, this person won’t like me. This person doesn’t wanna hear from me. And to just assume People do like you and people do wanna hear from you. And we covered this a little bit with Dr. Ben Rein in last week’s episode about the neuroscience of Friendship. So I might actually link those two episodes. I haven’t done that and I should do that. The October challenge was to ask [00:08:00] your friends many more questions than you were asking now, and I talked about research that shows we are not asking as many questions as we think on average.
So that’s actually promising. It really means you could ask more questions than you think is appropriate. People like to be attended to. They like it when someone engages with their life and remembers things about their lives. An obvious follow up to that is to remember the things people tell you and bring it up the next time you’re together.
November friendship challenge was to brighten a friend’s day with one simple gesture. this kind of ties in with the December one too . If you haven’t done the November challenge, you could actually do the December one and check two boxes.
But some examples were if you are making soup, let’s say make extra, bring some to a friend who didn’t even ask for it. The point of the November challenge was to do something just really nice for no reason, not a birthday. Not because someone asked you a favor, just for no reason whatsoever.
And I gave a lot of examples in the actual episode. We are now at December. Yay. So December’s challenge. It’s a little more work than some of the other [00:09:00] ones. But you don’t have to leave your house to do it.
So that’s something what I am challenging all of us to do,
is to write a letter. It can be handwritten. I personally would be doing an email because my, well, not an email. I would be writing a letter. I would be typing it and printing it. But you can do an email. I’m not saying you can’t, so it’s a handwritten note. It’s an email or a typed out letter to one friend. The goal is simply to say thank you to a friend who has been there for you in some capacity. I’m gonna give you some prompts, and by prompts, I mean, it’s funny, I’m a writing teacher as well, and I, we use writing prompts a lot.
It’s not exactly what I mean in this case. I mean, prompts like ideas of people you could write to. It could be the friend you don’t talk to often, but is extremely important to you, and you wanna use this opportunity to let that person know and maybe even acknowledge, Hey, I know we don’t talk that often.
It’s not about blame. It’s not about busy. It’s not about they’re too busy. Listen, everybody knows that you cannot speak to everybody all the time. Maybe that is the friend you’re writing to, not the person that you text with constantly, but someone you don’t keep up with [00:10:00] as often, but you appreciate that person.
Here’s an opportunity to let them know. It could be a friend that you had a weird patch with at some point, and you want to. Apologize, perhaps, or just open that door again. Maybe you already have apologized. Maybe they already have forgiven you, but the reconnection hasn’t happened the way you wanted to.
This is probably not appropriate for a deep, deep hurt. , Episode 1 66 from late September of this year was a much deeper dive into apologies, accepting them, giving them, and so I’m not gonna go deep into that here, but if you are interested in that topic, 1 66 is the episode you are looking for. It could be a letter to the friend you do talk to all the time.
So opposite of what I said originally, the one you don’t talk to as often, this could be the letter just to say how much you appreciate the friend who is a constant in your life, who you really wouldn’t get through the week without. That friend maybe would really love to hear how much you appreciate that, how much you love the reels and the memes [00:11:00] they send you that they think of you all the time that they are around, that they answer the phone, that when.
When you ask for a last minute walk, they’re available. So that friend, even though you see them a lot maybe was maybe is deserving of a very personal note to say Thank you.
And a final idea just to throw out there is a childhood friend. It could be someone you’re in touch with a lot, could be someone you’re not in touch with a lot, but just to share a memory that still makes you smile about this friend, or a moment that you remember from your past that you still appreciate to this day that has made a difference in your life.
Still today, at this point, wherever you are in your life. I know people listen to this show in their teens, twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties.
So we are coming at this from different points in our lives, there’s no right answer. I can’t give you the person to write to. I am just giving you the idea that whoever receives this letter is going to appreciate it so much. You’re planting a seed into the next year of strength in that friendship, even if it’s a friendship that is already [00:12:00] strong, People still need to hear from us how much we appreciate them. And the reason I say this is connected to the November one. The goal of that was really similar actually. It was to just reach out to someone to let them know in some way through a gesture. So that wasn’t a letter, that was more, I guess a little gift, or it could have been a note.
It could have been a couple funny memes. I just was pushing. To brighten someone’s day. This certainly would do that, right? This would fulfill that concept as well. So I grant you permission, not that you’re looking for it to do two birds with one stone and write a letter as a very wonderful, beautiful gesture to brighten someone’s day, someone’s year.
A letter like that could make someone’s year. It could be one paragraph. And final point about this challenge, I challenge you to please not use AI for this, It’s just not necessary because we’re not looking for perfection. We’re not looking for the grandest idea. We’re looking for a heartfelt couple of sentences to say, I appreciate this friendship.
My life wouldn’t be the same without it [00:13:00] because of something that happened in the past or something that’s current. It doesn’t matter. The point is your life is better because this person is in it. Everyone, I have had such a wonderful year with you, in this community of people who care about friendships, who are trying to have better friendships, who are trying to be better friends and have better friends.
I hope that if you’ve listened to any episodes this year, that it has helped you in some way. If it has, the only thing I ask of you is that you share it with a friend. You share an episode, share it on social media is wonderful, of course. ’cause then several people will see it. But even if you just put it in your text group, put it to one or two people in your life and say this
podcast has helped me in my friendships, and I think that you would enjoy it. That is my ask of you. It’s sort of like back to the June, asking a favor. I’m asking you a favor. Can’t wait to see you in the next couple episodes of this year. I have some really fun episodes i’m going to play also where I was the guest and I have the chance to play it for you on my feed. Come back next week when our friendships are going well.
We are happier all [00:14:00] around. Bye.
