FRIENDSHIP GEMS: Best of Friendship Advice

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Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

Here we are.

It's just the two of us.

We're not the tripod right now.

It's just sister and me.

Abby had to take our youngest to school.

So we are here today with you to introduce a new idea we had.

All right.

So here's why my teacher self has been stressed about the way we have unfolded this glorious podcast.

You know this because I've been talking to you about this ad nauseum.

I was a third grade teacher.

Teaching was my life, was my love.

I loved being in the classroom so much because every day I got to create the truest, most beautiful world.

in one little room with a group of small people.

Which is the only way you can create a true, beautiful world is in one room with very small people.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So here's one thing that we learned as teachers.

The idea with little minds and with all minds, what we're trying to do with this podcast, actually, is that when we introduce new ideas to

brains,

those brains get a little bit discombobulated.

Okay.

New information, when it goes into a brain or is presented to a brain, causes the brain confusion, disequilibrium.

That is good.

I must be always, always receiving new ideas because I am always,

only but always in disequilibrium in my mind.

But actually, it is my deep belief that people who live in confusion, which also could be called awe, are the people who are truly paying attention and taking things in because everything is a freaking miracle.

That Einstein thing, you can either look at the world as if nothing's a miracle or as if everything's a miracle.

And people who look at the world and see it for what it is, which is a bunch of miracles, are often freaking confused constantly.

Yes.

Confusion is a sign of awe or

disequilibrium, constantly taking in new information.

Now, here's the thing:

what we learn in teaching is that you do want to create that disequilibrium with new ideas and cause the scattering in the brain.

But there's a second step, which is that you have to let the scattering happen and then come back, circle back and present that new information again.

And when you present that new information again, the brain settles into a new understanding.

Uh-uh-uh, I get it.

So it's kind of like you're blowing and like

and everything gets unsettled.

Now it's swirling around, but you just don't want it still like scattered all around.

You want to put those pieces back together in a different way.

Exactly.

It's like you're actually building a new thing out of the scatteredness.

Yeah.

You remember that horrible game that was called Perfection and all you'd have like a minute and all of the pieces would explode and then you'd like put them all back together.

It's like when you're teaching, you teach a lesson on a new math lesson or something, and you let everybody have their scattering and go do their homework and whatever.

And then in two weeks, you come back to that exact

idea that you presented.

And the scattering is ready to then gel into a new understanding, and you just keep doing that forever.

So, we're gelling.

That's what we're doing.

We're gelling.

We're gelling.

So,

we are going to do that now because I feel like what we have done well on this podcast is to bring people on to have these conversations that really, if we're taking the feedback of the pod squad seriously, which we do, have created what we wanted, this kind of

like brand new way of thinking about something.

The scattering has happened,

But what we haven't done is come back around to these things and encourage the gelling.

Today, we've decided to start with the concept of friendship, which has been a thread throughout so many of our conversations.

Friendship has been something that Pod Squad wants us to talk about.

It's been something we've talked about in terms of how hard it is for kids to make friends, how hard it is for us as adults to make friends and keep friends and communicate with friends.

It's been a beautiful thread.

So today, what we've done is we've gone back and looked at those conversations and pulled out the gems,

the moments where our brains were scattered, where we thought, oh, that could change the way that I live.

That could change the way that I relationship.

And we're coming back to them today.

We're all going to sit with them today, knowing that as we revisit them, these ideas will gel further and deeper and change us.

And that we are going to go from here with the next conversations about friendship.

This is what we have until now, and then we'll continue to revisit all of this.

So please call in and tell us what else we need to scatter on friendship and where we take the thread next.

So our first clip is from episode 61.

Are your friendships draining or charging you with our dear friend, author, speaker, and bona fide friendship expert, Lovey Ajayi Jones?

Lovey.

Lovey.

Lovey shared her wisdom on how to build a group of friends we can trust with our truth and our imperfections and who take responsibility for our care and for whom care we take responsibility.

She also shares how to know when it's time to let a friendship go and how to release one another without hard feelings.

I think a friend is somebody who you do feel responsible for some of their care, but also who you can trust yourself with, trust your truth with,

trust your your imperfection with

a friend is i think friendship is a verb just like love just like sisterhood just like community and friendship is an action it doesn't mean we talk every single day sometimes we'll go a month without speaking but friendship means that person

is another charging station for me

That person is another charging station for me.

And friendship, I was actually having a conversation with one of my really good friends, Unique, the other day, and she was reflecting friendship to me.

And she was like, you know, now more than ever, she understands the importance of that word friend and how it means like, we're all getting older.

We're going to be losing parents soon.

You know,

friendship has to show up.

The friend is not the person who just casually tells you on social media, oh my God, I'm so sorry.

Your friend is the person who says, have you eaten today?

The friend might be the person being like, do you need the obituary written?

Do you need me to help you write it?

Like actions that are substantive, which is why I'm very careful who I consider, who I call and consider friend.

Because will I show up for you in the moment of crisis?

If you are not somebody who I would show up for, I can't call you a friend.

Wow.

That's good.

It's a boundary.

It's like, do I want to, it's like the Brene episode.

Do I want to be accountable for this in the future?

Do I want to be accountable for you?

For you.

Correct.

Correct.

I have to vouch for you.

I got to show up for you.

So my friends, people know we're friends, which means my name actually goes with them.

Right.

So it becomes, oh, that's, that's one of Lovie's friends, which actually means literally, even when I'm not in the room, you represent me and I represent you.

So who I also call a friend has to be aligned with my values.

Because if that person is not, people go, that doesn't match.

That's Lovey's friend, but she's...

kind of terrible person.

That doesn't match.

That doesn't match.

You can't, I can't, no.

So I think all of that values, care, love,

and of course, sharing joy with each other and serving as a soft place to land for each other.

Like, I know I can never fail truly in this world because my friends will be my soft place to land, even if I fall.

They won't ever let me hit concrete.

They'll catch me right before the moment I do.

So

it also feels like safety.

I love that.

Comfort and challenge.

Can you talk about knowing when a friendship

needs to be released and how that works, because where you say some people are ride or die, and I'm more ride or surely understand why I'm done here.

Is that why we gotta die?

Why we gotta die, fam?

Like, I mean,

it's why we gotta die.

Nobody's dying.

Nobody, nobody needs to die.

So, we're not asking you to ride or die.

So, when you hit the surely, you understand why I'm done here phase, what does that look like to release a friend with love?

And how do you know?

And how do you know?

So I've had friendship losses over the years.

And actually, who I am as a friend today

is partly because of some of the friendship losses I've had where

people have not showed up for me in a way or they've weaponized something I did or said.

And I'm like, woof, the type of friend I am, I give you.

extra grace because I've had friends who never gave grace.

I give extra benefit of the doubt because you have to think the best of me for us to be in the community because when I make mistakes, you have to understand it's not malicious, right?

So I am the friend who is like, I must give you grace.

I must give you benefit of the doubt.

I will not project my shit on you because I'm in a bad space.

So

when it's time to let a friend go, how do you know if you no longer trust yourself with them?

If you have to second guess everything you do.

because you're not sure how they will receive it or how they'll take it.

If you do not trust your feelings with them, your very persona with them, it's time to let them go because you can no longer lean on them in the way you really need to, nor would you be present for them because you're going to feel resentful.

So, I always know when it's time to let go of somebody, is when I say

you've either crossed a boundary that

I can't unsee, you broke something that I can't figure out how to fix it,

or ultimately I start seeing you as somebody who is not in integrity.

If I can't have a conversation.

Yes, I have a conversation.

Well, here's the thing.

I also will let friends know when they do something that does, that hurts me in a way.

So like, I don't like when people will just pop up and be like, oh, my God, I've been upset for the last two years.

Oh, God.

So you've been keeping that to yourself.

I think we should honor each other and ourselves and be truly honest with each other and tell the truth, especially in those hard moments.

So repairs can happen or not.

Give people a chance to repair.

And if they don't repair it, that's a data point that you can be like, well, I guess we're done.

Right.

So I also will have conversations along the way.

And if we get to a point where I'm like, yeah, this person is not hearing, they're not doing anything different.

I really can't trust them.

Then

sometimes I fade.

Not that I ghost.

Not that I even have like a dramatic conversation,

but I become less available.

Yeah.

i become less available and then if they ask me hey this thing happened i'll tell you or i'll even say let's have a conversation and it's in that conversation that i'll go yeah see

this feels cruel this does not feel kind this does not feel gentle i can't do it multiple ways but i don't agree with the ghosting where you just like Some people will block friends on social media randomly.

And that's how they know that they're not speaking anymore.

Some people would like, no like that don't do that be a better person than that it's image like have conversations i've had friends come back to me or ex-friends who have tried to like argue with me

and i go i'm not sure what you want from me we can have a real conversation but i'm not doing a tip for tat

let's have a real conversation but i'm not doing the back and forth you know sub posting on on on instagram is great for people too and facebook because you know adults do that now social media i've seen people whose friendships have broken up and you can be like oh snap.

Is that person posting?

Sometimes friendships are for a season and a reason.

And you're like, oh, they must be mad.

They must be, they must be mad at somebody right now.

I'd be watching like,

take it up with the person.

Take it up with the person.

Yes.

And I think sometimes we don't end things or we end things wrong because we're trying to control the narrative in terms of like, I'm the good guy and you're the bad guy.

And I have to wait until I can prove that perfectly and until I can explain it in a way that makes it.

But that's not real.

Like sometimes it's not you.

It's not me.

It's the energy between us.

It's the moment.

It's the, I don't have to be situations.

It's just not working.

It's situations.

Yeah.

It's just not working.

You can release each other, right?

And I think you can release each other without even having hard feelings.

Yeah.

You don't have to be like, oh, I hate that bitch.

No, we're not friends no more.

You can just be like, no, like we drifted apart.

And that's fine.

The person, you see them out in public, say hi.

Every friendship breakup doesn't have to be this dramatic bomb that just went off, and all of a sudden, this person's, I hate them so much, they're horrific.

No, sometimes people will drift apart, and that's natural.

Like we're adults, stuff happens.

But I think all through it, try as much as you can to maintain your integrity.

Yeah.

And I love your advice: you don't always have to decide whether or not you like the other person or if they're worthy or if they're honest or whatever, but you do have to decide if you like yourself around that person.

And if you don't like yourself and trust yourself and feel calm and

safe, then that's enough information it's enough information there's so many people in the world we don't have to stay ride or die with the wrong ones

are you in love with your friends

if you're not why are they your friends like like in love where you're just like oh my god like the care bear stare oh my god i i care bear stare all my friends because i just think y'all are amazing Are you in love with the person who is your friend, who you're sharing space and energy with, who you're going on vacations with sometimes, who you're watching on Zoom or WhatsApp.

Be in love with the people around you.

Yeah.

Do you feel safe enough to receive love too from your friends?

One of my barometers of like real friendship is:

will I let them

love me?

Like, do I receive the kind of gifts or love that they want to bring me?

Do they have something to offer me that I actually will truly deeply receive?

Yes.

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Next, we have a woman known in the world as being a very good friend, Reese Witherspoon.

She has figured out how to maintain and show up and have friendships be a life-giving force in her life.

Even as busy and frenzied as her life is, you can tell she just really relies upon the sisterhood of friends that she has.

In episode 114 on friendship, what?

Like it's hard?

Rhys describes her system for balancing deposits and withdrawals in friendship.

That's her way of determining whether the friendships are working for her and are soul giving to her as well as soul giving to them if she checks her deposits and withdrawals.

And she gives us tips for making the first friendship move, which was scary and exciting to hear her talk about.

She also gives good advice she received that she passed down to her kids about the three types of people you meet in your life and the ones to pay attention to among those three.

I'm going to ask you some questions, Rhys, and I just want you to pretend like I'm an alien who's just landed on the planet and you're trying to explain friendship to you because that is in fact what's happening right now.

Okay.

What is friendship, Rhys?

Friendship is so much, but it's

it's a it's a deposit and a withdrawal system.

I think about that a lot.

You can't take a withdrawal if you haven't made a deposit.

That's really good.

And I think about that a lot because, you know, I think people in my position and y'all's position, it's like there's a lot of people who want to withdraw.

There is.

and people who have bright light or energy or are caregivers or are caretakers they give they give they give right

but you got to make sure someone's putting a deposit into your friendship

and then every once in a while re-evaluate

is this more withdrawal than deposit like where is the balance here

It's so good.

I think that this is what we've figured out over the last many years,

our search for more friendship.

we want to feel like friends are helping us also learn more about and explore more about the world.

Right.

And I think that we found a couple of friends here that are doing that.

And it feels so wonderful.

Now that we live in LA, it feels so wonderful.

Rhys, how do you identify a person that you want to be a friend?

Oh, isn't that interesting?

Yeah.

Because it's like, romantic love is like different.

It's like, oh, look, field of butterflies.

Something's Something's happening.

Yeah.

What's friendship butterflies?

Gosh, I feel like it's a very similar thing.

It is, right?

I can look at a group of people and I just know the two or three people I'm supposed to get to know better.

It doesn't mean that we're going to have this incredible connection, but I watch the way people interact with people, their use of language.

I think it's really important to me because I'm a words person.

Looking at that, are they here to withdraw or deposit or stay neutral?

This is a funny story, y'all.

I

trained for this movie where I played a

NCAA championship softball player.

Don't laugh.

Nobody's laughing.

I had this really great coach and she was like a 12-time NCAA champion coach.

And I thought, well, first of all, anybody who's had coaching at that level, just the positivity that they put in these young athletes is incredible.

I thought, if I'd had that when I was 22, I wouldn't have to read a hundred self-help books.

I read a hundred self-help books when I was 20, 22, 23.

And she said something really smart about friendship.

Her name is Coach Enquist, Sue Enquist.

Do you know Coach Enquist?

Yeah, she's amazing.

And she said,

Reese, you're going to meet three different kinds of people in life.

A third of the people are going to lift you up.

They're going to believe in your dreams.

They're going to encourage you.

You're going to encourage them.

And a third of the people are going to be totally neutral.

They're just neutral.

And you don't care about them.

They don't care about you.

No harm, no foul.

And then the other third are going to try and drag you down.

Actively, whether they know it consciously, unconsciously, they are here to pull people down.

And they're going to try and pull you down.

And she was like, avoid the bottom third.

Yeah.

And I talk to this, like my kids about it all the time: about finding friendships that lift you up, see you, care about you, care about your children, care about your mom, and your dad, and your family.

Um,

you know, try and bring and attract those kinds of people in your life and avoid avoid those bottom third.

Yeah,

because they're coming for you, man.

They're coming for your light and your energy.

Yes, yeah, it's really good.

Okay,

so when you find somebody who's in that top third and you get the friendship butterflies, what do you do to make the first move?

I have to be brave.

And for me, being brave is like just jumping.

Like I imagine myself as a little kid jumping two feet in a cold pool.

And you know, once you get in there, it's not as cold as you thought it was.

That's right.

I also think about other people like, it must be terrifying to have to stand alone in a room.

Or I think, oh,

I'm going to go say hi.

Why not?

That's the worst thing that could happen.

Or be vulnerable.

I will tell you when I had no friends in Los Angeles.

So I moved right after college.

I stopped out of Stanford because I got this job and I moved into this apartment.

I didn't know anybody.

I was 19 years old.

I had no friends.

And my mom came to visit me.

I go, mom, I have no friends.

And she's like, well, there's a girl across the hallway.

I had to do it like Betty would have spin.

There's a girl across the hallway.

and she looks like she's about your age.

And I think you should just go over there and you should just ask her if she wants to have some coffee.

And I was like, really?

Yeah.

So I knocked on her door.

Oh my God.

I was like, hi.

And she goes, she goes, hi.

I said, hi, I'm Rhys.

I'm, I'm 19.

She goes, I'm 19 too.

My name is Heather.

And I was like, I don't know anybody.

I just stopped out of Stanford.

I'm here by myself.

She goes, I just stopped out of Berkeley.

I was like, oh, I'm working.

She's like, I'm working too.

I was like, do you want to get coffee?

She's my best friend to this day.

No.

She's my very best friend on planet Earth.

And also, y'all, don't you feel like you have such limited time?

Friendship is like this very important thing, but you got to have friends who, first of all, be able to put them on your speed dial.

They'd show up if your kid was sick.

And then you have to be able to hang up the phone immediately and they don't get their feelings hurt.

Right.

I got to go.

Click.

Literally when you call them three days later, you just start talking about whatever you were talking about when you hung up the phone, right?

Yeah.

Okay, Pod Squad, the next one is very special to Abby and to me too.

This one got me.

In episode 102, Abby's former U.S.

national teammates, Ashlyn Harris and Allie Krieger, joined us for a double date.

Things got a bit teary as Ashlyn shared the story of her friendship with Abby and why she pulled Abby's final game captains band out of the trash and what she plans to do with it.

Ashlyn, you gave a toast at the wedding, and during the toast, you said so many beautiful things, but you actually, during the toast, talked about your friendship with Abby.

Yeah.

And I didn't understand, I don't think, the depth of all of your friendship

until that toast.

So tell us how you all became friends and what.

Yeah, I can't wait to hear your perspective.

Oh my gosh, this is so good.

It's so interesting when I think back because I was so young and like it was such a vulnerable time for me.

And I don't know how we ended up like connecting, but

Abby's ex-wife was one of my childhood friends.

So that's how the connection was made.

So it was my first professional year in the league.

And I was making minimum contract and I just suffered a ton of injuries in college.

So I was kind of just like finding my way a little bit.

And Abby and I like hit it off.

We were brothers from the moment we had our first conversation.

And it was such like a weird time in my life.

I really believe people are like placed in certain moments for certain reasons.

When I was in that moment, when I was like giving my speech, like.

She would let me come to terms with my sexuality because I wasn't comfortable at the time being like, I'm gay.

It was, I have these weird feelings for friends and like, I don't know what's going on and I'm super uncomfortable.

And she just like loved me through the journey and was a good friend to me and showed me like how to live life because I came from nothing.

Like I didn't experience

very much outside my bubble and like my small world.

And she just would take me on these freaking wild ass excursions.

She would be like, hey, drive your car to 95.

We're doing a cross-country trip in an RV with seven people.

Sure, I'll be there.

I have no money.

No problem.

I got you.

And it's just like, we did life together.

Some of my greatest memories are with you.

And like.

meeting Allie and like coming to terms with my sexuality.

I just remember sitting on your couch, folding your laundry, talking about.

that sounds familiar.

Yeah, like what gay looked like for me.

And it's, it's like a really important moment in my life because she just like took care of me.

And I was super young.

I was super naive.

I really don't think I had much to offer her at the time, but she just loved me unconditionally and like took me under her wing.

And then our friendship, we were always by each other's side from then.

on out we had each other's back like still to this day

so good i just remember that time.

You know, you were young, and I just remember seeing a kid who

it's not that you needed any help, because I knew you'd figure it out.

You're very, very strong, and you had the kind of a moral compass that I, in many ways, wished to have.

I feel like you knew

a little bit more right from wrong than I did.

I had a little bit of a wild streak in me, and you did too.

But I think that you had an ability to pull in the reins way better than me.

And

I think that what you just said is, it touches me so much.

And the thing that you gave me was

longevity.

When a new kid who comes to a team is so open-minded and you weren't filled with ego.

You were like, yes, like whatever it takes.

And as an older veteran player, it made my career last longer because first of all, it made me feel like I was doing something good.

And second of all, like your youthfulness made me feel like, oh, you know what?

Like I still, this is something that I still want to keep doing because you made it so easy every day in the locker room.

Abby, like you also knew how to get the best out of all of us, younger players.

I really appreciated that.

And not only, I know Ashlyn has an amazing connection with you and such a brilliant friendship story.

And throughout the years, it's obviously grown so much.

But I, I don't know if you realize like you obviously knew what you could get out of people and you always knew how to get the best out of us.

And I just really appreciated that.

And I really value that about you.

And obviously, you're one of the greatest leaders we've ever had.

And I have to say, like, I know, like, we've kind of mentioned this story before, but I think it's a really important story to share with everyone is in your final game, your retirement game.

Like I understood at the time you weren't in a great place and it was like a really difficult time for you.

And you, I'll never forget, like plays in slow motion like a movie in my mind.

You came into the locker room and you're pissed because we lost, which you should be.

And you took your captain ban and you took it off in your shirt and you just threw it into the dirty laundry.

Oh my God, Ash in this story.

And when no one was looking, I took out that captain ban.

And I took off my jersey and I wrapped it and put it in my bag.

And still to this day, I have your last captain ban wrapped in my jersey that I wore

because like that is the impact you had on the people around you.

And maybe you didn't know it.

And I just knew there was going to be a time where you wanted that back.

And I like can't wait to deliver that to you when I see you face to face because That's the effect you had on people that you didn't even know.

And it was so powerful and it was so moving that like, I need to give you back that last captain ban.

Like that's important to me for you to have it because that's the impact you had on the people around you.

I'm not crying at all.

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In this next one, Abby and I put our new commitment to figuring out what friendship is and to trying it out in real life to the test with our new friend, stand-up comic, actor, and writer, Cameron Esposito.

In episode 96, How to Save Your Damn Self, Cameron and I discuss the rule we each made to help us become better at friendship.

It's a good one.

I didn't realize this until just a few years ago, but I think I was pretty badly bullied as a child.

I thought that's how everybody was treated.

I had glasses and braces and a bowl cut and I was, something weird was going on with my gender and I was gay and I was, and I had crossed eyes.

This child,

there was a lot going on.

And so I think I just made the joke first

to sort of be like, I know what you're going to say.

Well, here's an even funnier spin, right?

And also to sort of have value to people when I wasn't like, I wasn't able to play the game of being sort of a girl that might be valuable for some other stuff that women are valued for.

That's just all garbage, by the way.

Like it is not like I think this should exist.

It's true.

But it was another way of making myself valuable as a friend or as

a student, those types of things.

So yeah, I got, I got super funny.

And actually, I

have in the last couple of years, like really wondered about

the long-term viability of that skill set because I took it to like its end.

You know, I was funny, funny, funny, and then I was funny for a living, and then I was having success in that area.

And then I

was married, and that marriage was ending.

And it was the first time in my life that I was not,

well, for a while, it was like private.

So I wasn't able to talk about it on stage.

And then

I, it was really sad.

Like I was sadder than I was funny about it.

That's actually a good thing because it changed how I make friends and how I use.

I like overdeveloped that skill.

So I never really told anybody the truth about what was going on.

I just told them like,

here's the saddest thing you've ever heard, but we're all chuckling about it.

You know, it broke.

My sense of humor broke for a while, which actually is one of the best things that ever happened to me.

That's how we started trying to be friends with each other.

I wanted to talk about this.

I think it's so important.

It was like

you and I figured out that like, oh,

we just take our trauma and pain and then we spin it up and then we serve it to lots of people.

But we don't do the middle step, which other human beings do, which is talk about it with other human beings and have actual friends.

Yes.

We just perform it.

And so we were trying to be like,

you recently reached out to me and said, I'm having feelings

and I would like to talk to you about it instead of the internet.

Yeah.

Like,

that was the text.

Talk to us about that.

This is a rule I have now.

It's a rule I made for myself.

And who knows if rules are good, but I actually think this one is pretty good, which is that I don't bring something to the internet or to stage that I haven't told someone else interpersonally.

That's good.

And I think part of that is, you know, when you do stand-up, since public speaking, and I'm sure you get this all the time too, Glennon, and actually, I even feel like I know how hard this is for you a little bit just from knowing you.

People will talk about public speaking as being the most like, oh my God, I can't believe you do stand-up.

Like, that's so hard.

And I'm like, I don't know, different people have different skills.

Some people are a brain surgeon, you know?

That's the first thing I'll say.

The next thing I'll say is, like,

that's not hard for me.

Like, it's not that the skill of stand-up isn't hard.

You know, any skill is something you can work on over time.

But standing up in front of,

you know, 20, 200,

the largest audience I've ever performed for is 40,000 people.

That,

that is like safe.

Exactly.

You know what's much worse?

Talk to one person that you have to ever see again.

Oh, my God.

No.

Nope.

That's that is impossible.

Talk to thousands of people that are going to leave.

Great.

Easy.

Like, yeah, no problem.

There's no intimacy there.

There's

some spiritual intimacy, but it's not something that you're going to have to grow.

You know, I'm not going to have to show up and have these people know me.

How is it going for you?

The creating more friendships, the reaching out to human beings?

How, do you feel more tethered to the earth when you do that?

Does it help?

What are the challenges?

It really does help.

I just said this.

I'm repeating myself, but it's very hard for me.

It's very hard to be known.

It's very hard to be open to suggestion if you're a certain type of person.

I don't want people to know I don't have it figured out.

That feels embarrassing for some reason.

We don't know why that is.

That's not a healthy reaction to not having it figured out.

And also, like,

I want to move, I want, you know, I want to move like fast and loose and

have

sparky, flame-out relationships and do a completely wild job and fling my body around the country in a plane that's like what feels normal to me chaos feels ooh uh calming

and oh that really hit me yeah did it yeah that's yeah that's something chaos is so in my in my my experience chill just like a

let's go yeah i just feel like i can relax i'm like oh thank god finally the world feels like I feel.

Finally, there's not like something I'm not doing or something I could do better.

Everything's so impossible that it's like, oh, I can really chill out.

Wow.

Cool.

So anyway, that is what I'm trying to

instead have connection and friendship and have the ability to stay.

The ability to like

not run toward or away, but just to like

hang.

I'm finding that a lot in my romantic relationship.

I'm finding that a lot in having friends that I go back to again and again.

We really hope you've enjoyed this deep dive of some of our favorite friendship moments.

Let us know what other topics you'd like for us to deep dive on.

We're going to end this one with a laugh with our friend, the hilarious Samantha Irby.

My God, if you have not listened to episode 109, do yourself a solid and listen to her.

She is a damn genius and so funny.

Episode 109 is how to survive this absurd life.

And in that, we explore Sam's friendship theory and why she doesn't need a deep soul connection with every

quote lowercase.

F friend.

I have the kind of personality that just,

I don't know, I can just get along with a lot of people.

I think I have been fortunate enough that I haven't ever tried to befriend someone who was so different from me, like politically, that it's been a problem.

Like, I don't have any friends who hate gay people or trans people.

I don't have any friends who are like hardcore.

conservatives.

I have a lot of like friends that I think you'd be like,

what do y'all bond over?

And then I'll be like, well, I watch wrestling.

And then like it explains that friendship, right?

You're like, oh, you have a very narrow like way of connecting with this person.

And sometimes for me, that's all it takes is we can have a shared interest.

in one thing and we don't have to get into other things, you know?

That is so good.

Yeah.

It's don't you wish?

Don't you wish.

No, that is exactly how I feel.

I know better.

and you have a barrier to entry that is so fucking long That's why I asked him Okay, I'm trying to learn I think it's so beautiful because I can can connect with somebody on one thing and in a lot of ways I can ignore a bunch of the other shit that I'm seeing that I'm like well I like them in this way.

Yeah.

And this is fun.

Me too.

I think.

So I'm not gonna guess, Glennon, why you have your rules, but I am gonna, so if this is kind of a guess, I'm gonna say that I don't need to have, and this is not shade, an intimate, like soul relationship with everybody, right?

Like, I don't need to get to the depths of people if we're just like having a laugh or like we can talk about, you know, this one thing.

Sometimes those narrow friendships like branch out.

and grow, but I don't go into things being like, okay, I'm going to meet this person and I'm going to hang hang out with them and then I want to know everything about them.

Some people, you don't, you know, you don't want to know.

You don't want them to know everything about you.

So I think because I don't look at everyone as like a potential like soul friend, because I'm just like, well, this is just my buddy who I do this with, then it's easier.

to like let some of that other stuff fall away.

I feel like you want to have deep friendships with everyone.

Yes, I think that's what I'm usually.

If someone's in my house watching wrestling, Sam, which wouldn't happen, but okay.

I am thinking, I'm side-eyeing that person, thinking, is this person one of my soulmates or not?

And then when they roll their eyes at the wrong commercial, it's over.

You know, and

I respect that because, like, the quality of your friendships is probably really

great because you love it.

Yes, everyone I'm friends with is on this podcast right now.

Well, so that's the thing is, well, and I think it feels like rude to call someone an acquaintance, but that's essentially the difference, right?

It's like,

we're friends because I know you inside and out, you know me inside and out.

Our acquaintances who were just like, oh, Bob, yeah, he's a good time.

We don't need to know Bob's soul.

And like, but it feels rude to call Bob an acquaintance because that just is like a rude word.

So

we need like a capital S friend and a lowercase.

Yes, yes, we need different words for friends.

Yes.

We need different words for friends because I don't want to say Bob's my friend because I don't want that to reflect the next thing Bob says this.

And then you're like, wait, right.

Why are you friends with that?

Right.

Different words.

But don't you think it all goes back to your view of life?

Like, Sam, your view of life is, I want to find the absurd.

I want to experience the absurd.

I want to be part of seeing, being part of this, experiencing this.

And so you intersect with people who can bring that out of you or share that experience with you.

Glennon's view of life is very different than that.

She's like, I'm going to have a very narrow but deep experience of life.

And I don't actually want to participate in any extracurriculars.

Right.

I do not want any depth whatsoever.

I told you that's where the llama is.

We can only dip a toe

in there before like things get dangerous so i try to be yes near the top of the volcano where it's like smoky and sexy and fun

but i only get into the lava with a few people because and i'll tell you that makes perfect sense i'm not gonna put it on them i'm gonna say that i have like that fear of when people really get like down and see what's in there that they're gonna be like oh bye And that's one of the hazards I think of like being a funny person, not just in life, but in my career, is that sometimes people don't think that lower level exists.

And then they are surprised when they get a glimpse of it.

And I'm like, all I do is write about depression.

How do you think that manifests itself for real?

So I think like having

lowercase F friends,

it like feels good to the ego.

It's good to know people.

It's good to have people around.

But also, I'm not in danger of finding out any of their dark shit, and they're not in danger of finding out any of mine and thus rejecting me on account of that darkness.

So good.

It's a safety measure.

So good.

I get that.

I get that.

Do you sometimes feel responsibility to just always be funny and always be doing the thing?

no, I don't.

Yeah, like entertaining them.

I do.

It never bothers me until I have a problem

and I talk about it to someone who wants funny Sam.

And they're like, oh, just laugh it off.

And I'm like, no, no, this is the part where you find out that I

got to go to bed for three days about it.

Sometimes it takes like a little distance.

I can always laugh at things, maybe not in the moment or the next day.

Eventually, I'll get there.

There have been people who can't deal with the in the moment, like, I'm not over this yet.

And then you know, that's never going to be your capital F, friend, always going to be a lowercase.

Never call that person when you have a problem.

Never expect more.

from them than the surface that you're getting.

And I think sometimes like people divide themselves into those categories for

you.

My friend John,

who I met like on the internet forever ago,

this was like 10 years ago, maybe, I had posted that I was in the hospital and we were just internet friends then.

And he came and visited and was the only person who visited.

And I was like, oh, you want to be here during this stuff?

Okay,

we are real friends.

But I never put that pressure on anyone because I know not everybody wants that.

i like to let i like to do a little sorting of my own and then let people do it sort themselves into their capital f or lowercase f you know i love that

we can do hard things is produced in partnership with cadence 13 studios be sure to rate review and follow the show on apple podcasts odyssey or wherever you get your podcasts especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it.

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