65. How Do We Make–and Keep–Good Friends?

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Hi, everybody!

You came back.

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.

We are proving that we can do hard things by talking for significant amounts of time about things we know nothing about.

That issue this week being doo, do, do, do,

friendship.

Friendship.

Why?

How?

When?

What?

I mean, it's just such an interesting thing to discuss right now because

wow is this a doozy of a time in human history in terms of

everything,

one being connection.

And like how if connection, we were talking so much in the last episode, if connection is what we need in order to be happy and healthy,

there's no question about why we're so freaking unhappy right now.

I mean, we've, have, have we ever been so isolated from each other and more just enmeshed with just like the people we live with, if we are living with anyone in an unhealthy way, probably, right?

Just to be totally, solely dependent on a few people.

And then just so isolated from friendships we're used to, from

community.

How are you doing, Sissy?

What do you you think of all of this?

When everything started in 2020, there was a little bit of

like a kind of, it was horrible and sad, but

you had like some energy.

You had some like Rosie the Riveter situation where you're like, I can do it.

I can pull through and

gather my resources and my people and we can find a way.

And like

a bazillion teen years later, and we're still going through it, it just feels like

surrender Sarah.

It's just like, it's Susie the riveter to surrender, surrender, Sarah.

It's just like,

what even?

Why?

No, this is just life now.

It's just like a wall, man.

It's a wall.

And I think that, I think that actually

the social isolation

has been

this kind of creeper that we haven't really registered.

I mean, obviously, it's been the overwhelming stress.

It's been the having to reinvent and invent our lives.

It's been fear for our families.

It's been all of this.

But I think a silent player in this has been

what we didn't recognize was fortifying us through the other times, you know, these connections, these kind of everyday interactions, and also the reliance on these ritualized connections with friends, the disappearance of that, because we culturally don't value it,

it disappeared silently and we don't connect the kind of serious anguish that, you know, speaking only for myself,

we're going through right now.

I think a lot of it is attributed to that.

That's so interesting.

And especially as someone who,

I mean, I think on the introvert scale, I'm probably a 10,

Being most introverted, I can tell myself, and I hear a lot of people saying this in my little, you know,

highly sensitive

introvert community of people.

We really believe that this is the, these are the conditions that we actually need to thrive.

And I really

think that even me, even an introvert 10,

I have not been doing very well lately, just psychologically,

daily.

I think I have finally proven to myself that I actually do need other human beings in some form, not just in pages of books, not just on my computer, but actual human beings, because I think you're right.

I think that's the one of the major traumas of right now.

I was writing a thing the other day about how we all need to,

you know, the idea that everyone just keeps saying, I'm so over it.

I'm so over it.

Well, okay.

Being so over it does not in fact make it over.

Like there's no amount of angst and anger and apathy that we can have that will then result in a pandemic just being over.

Like, and that's part of the Sarah surrender thing.

Even though we don't have any more capacity to deal with this, we must, we still have to because it's still existing.

I was was writing about that and I put out the like, you know, we have to keep showing up to, for each other because we belong to each other.

It was like, who's the we?

I have forgotten who the we is.

When we're out in the community, when we're seeing other people, when we're connecting, even when those people annoy us, even then, whatever, there's this idea of the we that is kind of what keeps you going.

And now it's just

without seeing each other, without looking each other's eyes, the we is gone.

And then I think the we has actually crumbled a little bit because of

what really seems like a failure of direction, of guidance, of good decision-making, of

it feels like this every man for themselves

mentality.

And so, the every man for themselves mentality,

the constantly having to make decisions without any guidance,

the feeling like you're an island, and then you're actually being an island, right?

We don't have any of the things that get our resilience

activated.

It feels much like a perfect storm.

It's like, what is that?

Like exhaustion makes cowards of us all.

Yes.

It's like we are so physically, emotionally, spiritually exhausted.

We are, we are hope starved.

We are, and then we are In the ecosystem of social interaction, we're at this really crisis point, even introverts so the i think it's worth drilling in on that because i think we have so we have a disproportionate number of introverts i would guess that listen to this podcast and i think that as you're saying when you when you didn't identify you're saying this is great for me for the first x amount of time because you don't have that that need as much as others I think even for folks like you,

we're hitting a crisis.

And

so I think it's interesting to talk about.

So this professor Kay Tai, she discovered that we all have a social set point that is like similar to hunger, where we have, you know, how like with hunger or temperature or thirst, our brain circuits, our whole being is, has its own like set point.

So I know

I am satiated when I eat this.

I know that I'm not thirsty anymore when I have this.

There's a thing called social homeostasis where it's we have a drive to seek out balance of that

and i have always felt like a bad friend because i don't crave the things that i think that good friends crave i don't crave getting on the phone and calling someone i don't crave making a coffee date i always thought there were good friends there were people who were good

who got excited about those things.

I feel resentful and annoyed and burdened by by those things.

When I know that I have a coffee date, all I do is pray that someone cancels the coffee date.

Same game of chicken every time.

Just if I wait it out, maybe they'll cancel and then I can get credit for not canceling game of chicken.

Yes.

That's exactly right.

That's exactly right.

So what I've always been, well, clearly the only rationale for that is that I am an asshole who doesn't deserve friends anyway, since all I want is to not ever do anything with friends.

And it doesn't have anything to do with liking them or not.

I very much like them, but I don't know.

Why don't you want to then?

I think it's very similar to

like exercise and any of these other things where I don't ever want to do the thing, but after I do it, I feel good and it's doing good things for my mind and soul and body, but my cravings are not aligned with my needs.

And the interesting thing about that is that there is no

should

social amount.

Exactly.

So can we talk about that?

Because is that it?

It's like

as a culture, we have defined mental health.

We have defined physical health.

We know as human beings that if we want to have a healthful capacity in that certain area, we have to do certain things that we do not necessarily crave.

We have lists of things that we can check off that we have done to address our mental health, to address our physical health.

Is there another realm that needs to be explored and planted in people to understand that friendship health is a whole nother thing that we have to

contribute to?

I have a hypothesis listening to you too.

What is it?

Because

I would say that I fall in similar categories of like not having a ton of friends

as you two.

Do you think this could have something to do with

motherhood martyrdom?

In that

friendships,

like, so if we had a priority list of things that you needed to get done in a day,

you've got kids stuff, work stuff,

and kids stuff, work stuff, kids stuff, work stuff, maybe some health and wellness and care, self-care in there.

Do you think friendships are like a privilege that gets put at the end of that list for women more especially?

Because I don't,

quite frankly, I don't see a lot of men out there going

having having a struggle with the relationship with friends.

It's actually not true.

Men have more of a struggle.

You don't hear it because they're not talking about it.

One, one in five men can't identify a single good, solid friend.

Wow.

That is so tragic.

It is very tragic and it

is

a problem.

You know, I'm so proud of Craig.

I actually, did you see on Instagram, he right on

New Year's Day or something, he posted a few pictures of him with some friends at different times of the year.

And he said, my intention

for 2022 is to foster and nurture my friendships.

I mean, listen, this guy,

at New Year's Eve,

he had New Year's Eve party, which was very social distancing, only a few people.

One of his friends came up to me and said, you know, Craig has just been like I was his parent or something.

Craig has just been such an addition, such a great addition to our friend group.

And I was like, what a compliment.

Freaking Craig Milton getting the compliment of all compliments.

Yeah.

He's the best.

He's such a dear friend.

But I mean, it's an example of being, of a guy being vulnerable

enough to value

and, you know,

publicly state that they want to value friendship.

And I think it's probably harder for men, too, because it's not just about finding the time.

It's about finding the vulnerability.

Talk about not having a structure.

They're not even allowed to talk about the real things that human beings need to talk about to make friendship.

helpful like your actual life and your actual pain and your actual vulnerability and your actual struggles you know men have weather and work.

Weather and work and sports.

And sports, yeah.

I think, Glenn, what you're saying about like, is there a cultural understanding we need to develop to get the value of social connection in our lives?

I think as a society, we don't value it.

But I also think it becomes problematic because then you run into this world where like introverts and extroverts and me feeling like I must be an asshole because I don't want to get together all the time to do this thing.

And so I think it's important to say, and I felt very relieved to learn this, but like each one of us has a very individualized social homeostatic set point, right?

So you think of it as a hunger, like some people will eat two bowls of pasta and they're like, now I'm good.

Some people will eat smaller amounts.

Like that the same thing applies to a social isolation starts to deteriorate our brain, our body very, very quickly for for each of us.

But that, how quickly that happens, depends

on how introverted or extroverted we are.

Because our introversion and extroversion sets that socio-homeostatic set point.

So, like,

it's interesting because, like, the way the mind works.

So, if you have a little bit, Glennon, as an introvert, if you have a little bit of social isolation,

you,

your body will automatically crave that, just like hunger and you will crave out some kind of connection and you will get it because it's a natural part of your of your body's craving

but your body will dump a lot of dopamine when you get that social interaction

so that you don't need

a lot of social interaction.

So like brief, infrequent social interactions for you, you're craving satiated.

You're good.

You're like, I literally am good.

So when you ask me to do this other thing I don't want to do, I am resentful because I don't need it the way you do.

It's like you're keeping serving me over and over again.

And I already said I'm full.

Exactly right.

Whereas

we're served.

I'm being overserved.

And in fact, you're asking me to meet.

Because you know, the secret resentment that you always have where like, basically I'm doing something for you.

Yeah.

It's in fact true because they actually need more.

They crave more.

So you are meeting

their need

by being with them.

So like they have, because they get a lower dopamine dump out of every social interaction, they need more frequent.

So

they are extroverts, did you?

Yeah, so if they have a higher level of extroversion, they need more.

And I think it's also helpful to understand each other.

Like, A, that helps me understand, like, there's nothing wrong with me.

My brain circuits just require less of that.

And then for if I have a friend who doesn't understand why I only want to get together every third time, maybe it's like, oh, it's not that I don't love you just as much as they do.

It's that I don't,

I, that's not what my body is asking for.

Yeah, you can be my favorite food, but if I'm already stuffed, I can't, I don't want any more of that.

How are we to

know if this is social anxiety

or introversion?

Like it, to me, it feels like a little bit that

it's like an excuse making also for social

anxious people.

Like, I think that you're a social anxious people, person, Glennon, and also an introvert.

So, like, how do you know which is the difference?

And when to push and when to not.

Yeah.

Cause I think it's important that you still get interaction, even if it doesn't feel 100% like.

It's such a good question in terms of like, so how do you know

when

what's good for you?

What amount is good for you?

Like, is it all based on how you feel?

Because if, because it's not necessarily that way when it comes to mental health or physical health, like, I feel like I don't want to go for a walk.

Every time.

Right.

And every time you feel like you don't want to go to dinner or you don't want, you know, but like when they leave, you're like, that was so great.

Well, it could be this crisis point we're in because this is the rub: is that

our self-regulation of our cravings only works in typical times.

When we're having this chronic level of social isolation,

it stops working.

So listen to this.

You know how like you eat when you're hungry, you eat when you're hungry.

Once you've been fasting,

your body doesn't crave

the food the way your body craved pre-fast.

The exact same thing happens in our bodies.

So right now, we have been restricted from social contacts that we would prefer to have.

Yep.

And we are so socially isolated that we are out of our set points.

And that is developing, you know, the elevated stress hormones, all of the negative effects.

And the craving is not happening.

That's true.

That rings true to me.

That me too.

Do you know what?

That's true.

You know what you're saying in fancy words is what I have been feeling the last couple weeks and the best way to describe it is dead inside yep yeah i just feel absolutely dead inside nothing that i do that would normally bring back the magic of the day or like you know give me a boost or like just Feeling everything.

It's like we're fine.

I'm going through the motions, but I'm utterly dead inside.

And so that's what.

Okay.

So, on that positive note, I would like for us to move into discussing.

In the last episode, we talked about how we're all three kind of deciding that we do want,

we believe it.

We believe the hype about friendship being good for us and adding, you know, layers of magic.

Also, science.

But

what to me is hype.

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I want to talk to the three of us about what each of us are going to do.

Like why

what we've told ourselves in terms of why we haven't been able

to have friendships in our lives.

And now, what we're kind of like next right thinging, because I feel like all three of us have been kind of deciding, we're going to try something new because we want this.

In order to get a different result, you have to try something different.

Right.

Definition of insanity.

Right.

So, like, what are we going to try differently

to build, begin to build this incredible like building block of life,

which is friendship?

So, what have you told yourself, babe, about

why you haven't been able to be a good friend?

And what are you going to do differently?

So I'm going to say some words and

just hear me out.

Okay.

As a soccer player, everything that I did was

all about me.

And it was a very selfish exploration.

And in order to do it at that level, I do believe that I had to

think about myself and my life as this very rare and very

exclusive kind of life.

I was traveling the world.

I got to play in front of amazing, I got to do amazing things.

And so it gave me this excuse, I think.

And the story I have is that I'm a bad friend, but I had this noble cause, cause, this noble reason for being this bad friend.

So I didn't have this consistency with my life and I was always gone.

So being on the road all the time,

and I do live a very present life.

You do.

You do.

So you're so present in the moment that you're not thinking about.

others who is not there.

And it does make me forget

about thinking about my friends the whole of my life.

So I don't know.

I was horrible at keeping in touch with people because of, I think the person that I am.

And I always just thought, well, I'm a bad friend in this way.

I think because I'm not traveling as much.

Like that's been such a gift during this weird pandemic time.

I haven't been on the road.

And

still, I'm not staying in touch with my friends.

Well, do you think, I mean, one of the things we've talked about is that the maypole that we talked about in the other episode, that you did have, I mean, when your friends from your soccer life talk about you, they talk about you in ways that are so beautiful, the way that you were friends to them and the way that you showed up for them.

And I wonder if having the maypole of soccer

is,

you did have a special mission.

You did have a special vehicle for friendship.

And that is what a lot of people do.

That's what book clubs clubs are about.

That's what it's like, people create a structure that is important around something that is important to them personally

to create friendships.

So is recreating a maypole what you need?

You're not going to just think about them for no reason.

Do you need a project?

Yes.

And

because I think overall, what I know about my happiness with friendships,

I was happier.

I had a happier friendship life during my playing days because we had this maypole.

So So, a couple years ago, this is literally before the pandemic in 2019.

I reached out to a couple of my former teammates to ask them to see if they wanted to run a marathon with me.

We decided to do that.

And then we went on this two-year escapade because, of course, you know, the pandemic canceled the marathon in 2020.

We ended up running it in 2021 in November.

And so, I understand now that sometimes, like

when life

happens, you have to like go out and create certain things to see, to see what works and what won't work.

Because it's integrating your life.

Sometimes I think in terms of a very busy life also, we don't have these huge chunks of time just to set aside for friendship.

So I think it's a cool idea.

to think about what you need in your life and what you want in your life and what your curiosities are and your passions and then include friendship in those things.

So, for you, that marathon running, that running, that physical, you know, commitment to a physical goal was something you would have been doing anyway.

Yeah.

But you circled your friends into it because then this individual mission became a friendship building mission, also.

Yeah.

So, it's combining.

But what was interesting is that wasn't necessarily my intention at first.

I wasn't capable of reaching into the whole of why I was doing it.

I was really doing it because I just needed some help and some support in running.

And then over the literal year and a half of the training bit, I mean, just this last week,

we've been texting about families and,

you know, aging parents and the struggle of our own personal mental health with small children during the pandemic.

And had I not needed this help and accountability in my pursuit of wanting to run a marathon, I could have, I would have, not could have, I would have missed out on not just knowing other people, but like their lives are informative for me and in my life, right?

Like, and not that I've give them much or anything really, but.

sharing of story is so fucking important.

And I don't know, like every time we get off of a text chain, you know, with my friends, my marathon, my former teammates, I should say my marathon friends now,

I feel

more full.

I feel like, oh, we're sharing and we're caring about each other.

And, you know, each one of us are in kind of different phases of our children's ages.

And

us.

Us folks who have children that are older and that have left the nest, like we are able to share a little bit of wisdom, and those who are younger are able to make me understand: oh, small children and parenting small children right now is fucking brutal.

Impossible.

It's brutal.

And, and, and to the grace that we have to give parents is, is so important.

So, you know, this is all to say that the things that I want to be doing and learning about,

I want to be inviting my friends into that because I think that that is for me

the way to get to

intimacy and friendship.

Yeah.

It's, it's, you know, it's like, it's like driving in the car, right?

Like how you can have sometimes a better conversation both looking forward without being too, having to be forced to be too intimate.

For me, that's what

creating that maypole around some other

thing.

And, you know, like, for instance, Katie, my friend Katie and I, like we would start, we started running, becoming friends, working out and all we did was talk about our lives during our runs and that those were some of the most important runs that i've had over the last five years because you got to express yourself and talk about you know family stuff and and stuff that you i was going through personally and cool yeah so you're gonna you're gonna invite human beings that you want to be connected in into

efforts and projects and interests that you have.

Yeah, I want, I want maybe to create some maypoles, some more maypoles in my life, whether it be around hobbies or things I'm learning.

You know, so it's not, you know, the story you've been telling yourself is that you had this special thing going.

So you couldn't be a good friend when, in fact, it might be the special thing

that allows you to be your best self, for friend self.

Yeah, for me.

Like, that's just my, that's kind of my avenue.

And it's so cool because it's kind of like, it just, that magic just needs a vehicle, right?

Like the magic will flow but but you wouldn't have

we're not in touch enough with our needs to on any given tuesday you're not going to call katie and be like i just need 45 minutes of your time so i can chat through this thing but if you are in a flow of some kind of um

you know ritualized connection with somebody whether it's a book club or running or whatever, then it flows just through that vehicle, which is cool.

What about you, sister?

What is your story and what are you going to do?

Um,

well, I think that what I've told myself is that it's, it's, um,

a lot to survive, that it is a lot to make it through the day and to be a mom and to be a partner and to be a sister and to be a writer and to be all these things.

And that that's all what I can do.

I've looked at sections of life, you know, and been like, okay, if I have mental health, I have physical health, I have work, I have family, and then there's friendship and maybe a couple other things I don't know about.

I can do these few.

I'm going to do motherhood, right?

You're doing so well.

I'm going to nailing it.

Nailing it, sister.

I'm going to do my marriage.

I'm going to do work.

Do that well too.

Thank you, babe.

And

that's what i'm gonna do

and like i'm okay

you know being

letting go of that one section because i know my capacity

and

um if at the end of the day i'm on my deathbed and you know it's just my family there but i've had this good life in other ways like that'll be fine i'll be cool with that

what i think

I'm understanding truly listening to this last, listening to you and this conversation is that perhaps I'm not thinking about it exactly right because perhaps I could be doing

a better job or being happier inside of my mental, physical, and familial health and work health if I infused every area with friendship.

If I didn't think of it as like a separate thing.

So

I think I'm going to try to, I think I've got like a wagon and what's it, a cart and a horse thing or something.

I think I've gotten a little bit backwards.

I do want to integrate friendship into my life.

I also think that there's this interesting thing that happens when you have, when I had young kids, when you were talking about people in communities needing each other to survive, I felt that when my kids were very little.

Like I felt like I was losing my mind constantly and having friends or other moms around was necessary to my survival.

Yep.

And then

when the kids get a little older, for some reason, that just like goes away.

And

there's many reasons.

There's less like immediate physical terror constantly.

It's like less physically taxing.

You're sleeping a little bit more.

Yeah.

But also it's lonelier because when kids are little, they like all their problems are the same.

Like you can talk about your kids in a way when your kids are little.

That when they become older and have their little individual personalities and their problems become their own and their lives become their own that you can't talk about anymore with other people.

Like it's lonely raising tweens and teens because they have, you know, the Venn diagram of what is their life and what is your life, of what is childhood and what is parenthood is not one big circle anymore.

It's like you don't get to share their stories anymore.

And that is lonely for you because their stories are still your life,

but

not really.

So

it's your life, but it's not parts that you have the right to share.

So it's more isolating.

So then your kids get older, older, like ours, and you find yourself with,

well, they call it an emptiness, but there is a bit of emptiness.

And it's not.

Oh, I see what you did there.

Well, I'm

working it out loud.

I literally never thought of that before.

But

it is an emptiness, but it's not just literal.

And it's not bad.

Like, it's an emptiness emptiness in terms of space that can be filled up with something else finally, right?

Like possibility.

Possibility.

I love emptiness.

Like I love nothingness.

I think that's one of my favorite parts is of life is the nothingness because something is going to swoop in.

It's interesting because especially when kids are little, very little,

they feel like you and you feel like them.

Yeah.

Right.

And as they get older,

there's no boundaries, but as they get older and they actually leave, it's this

for sure

understanding that they are an individual independent of you.

Yeah.

And there's an emptiness that goes along with that as a parent.

Like, oh, no, I have to figure out, I have to fill my life up with things

too.

And I think that's true.

Yeah.

I think instead of woe is me about them leaving, it's kind of like, huh, what's, what am I going to?

There's all this space now.

Like, what am I going to do?

What am I going to fill it with?

Because the the worst kinds of parents are the ones that continue to try to get their children to continue to fill that when their kids are trying to go make their own life.

I do feel all my same fears in terms of starting friendships, which I'm we're starting now with some people that we are feeling excited about, um, is that I'm still afraid of commitment because I'm afraid of commitment that I don't understand.

So, and I, I, I also feel like because I live my life so much through writing and through this sort of thing, that as Abby knows, I always feel like I'm going to be the disappointment in real life.

Oh.

So I always have that.

Like one of the reasons I don't want to go to coffee, I don't want to like, because you're going to be disappointed.

Like

I'll write you a letter.

Yeah.

I'll write you a letter and my letter will crush.

And you will be like, this is the best.

But then if I'm just sitting with you, I'm actually not.

I'm kind of quiet and personal.

Oh, but baby, like, i just couldn't disagree more with your with your belief system like you are so

good in the flesh

you are like

not that kind of podcast abby and smart and i just i couldn't disagree more with your personal belief system well thank you i mean i will tell you that i am going to

pursue continue to pursue our friends this new couple that we have become friends with.

And this is like, and let's just tell you how it happens.

This woman like reached out to us through this other person

and was like, we need to be friends.

And for stuff, okay.

One of the things I liked about this reaching out was that it felt very formal and official.

And there was information in it.

Okay.

There was what sort of friends they are.

There were pictures of a recent celebration that they had had, which was really precious.

There were dogs.

There were, it was very weird and unusual, but it worked for me.

I felt like I knew enough about them to escalate.

We met.

Well, it's speaking your intentionality language.

Yeah.

This isn't like an arbitrary, casual happenstance of a situation.

It was a very long proposal almost.

And it was like full of life.

Here's our life.

Here's what we have to offer.

I've read your stuff and listened to your stuff.

I think I know what you have to offer.

Here's our full, beautiful life that we can offer you.

I don't know, it just really worked for me.

So, this couple came over.

I said, Come over in the morning.

I think the first time we got together was 7:30 in the morning.

Yeah, well, because this is another sober couple, and like for us, one of our biggest things is being sober.

It's like we're not going out to a bar after nine o'clock.

We're not, we're not, we're in bed at nine o'clock.

Dinner is too late.

Dinner, I'm not my best self.

Like, I know when I'm my best self.

This 7:30 a.m.

until 10.

That's right.

We're about to hit the witching hour.

I'm talking 10 a.m., not 10 p.m.

Okay.

10 a.m.

is when all my coffee, i.e., hope and joy, runs out.

Okay.

So the point is,

I actually feel afraid

with this friendship because

I like them so much

And they are so special

and so

kind and loving and good and smart.

And you know what you've been doing?

You've been paying attention in this friendship.

This is the first friendship I've seen you really pay attention.

Yeah,

I know.

Because they make me feel less lonely.

They make me feel very tethered.

And so I'm going to, do you know what we're doing, sister?

We have been escalating the relationship.

What I've thought of is that I think we've gotten to the point where we're deciding we're going away for a trip together.

Oh my God.

So I think I might, I don't want to be disappointment is what I'm saying.

I don't know whether I trust myself.

I'm serious.

I've never had like a long-term relation friendship where I've been shown up consistently and it's still there and I've never disappointed them or missed something huge or done whatever

because I didn't get sober till I was 25.

And then when I got sober, I just became a family person.

So my point is, I think I'm going to talk about this to my new friend.

I think I'm going to ask my new friend, like, what do you want from a friendship?

Many friends

to know what my job is and whether or not I can accept.

Maybe this could be part of

the little trip that we're taking that is

maybe we can say, hey, listen, we do better with expectations.

Yeah.

What do you want and need and dream from our friendship?

Yeah.

God, that's the thing.

What's the truest, most beautiful friendship you can imagine?

Oh, that's I feel so, so cringy about this conversation already.

I know who you're talking about.

The four of y'all are,

you know, this isn't too woo-wooy.

But I do think for, you know, your average teddy bear like me, I think it is inspiring to have

this idea that in adulthood, the beauty of being an older person is to be able to look around and have the

experience to know, hey, that looks like a person and a relationship that would be edifying to me.

Like that one, not that one, but that one.

And I have enough confidence

and

self-embodiment to put myself out there and be like, I know who I am and what I bring.

I'm looking at you.

I'm beginning to see who you are and what you bring.

I propose

that we

see what we can do together.

Yeah.

I love it.

Like it's so like, it's, it's kind of super badass to present yourself to someone because it suggests that you have enormous amount to offer.

And it's a compliment to them to suggest that they do too.

So I think it's, It's kind of cool to think about it that way.

And when you think about it, you would never just assume exclusivity or some kind of special status of a romantic relationship without talking about it, except me in middle school with a certain philandering seventh grader.

But like the point is, you would have

a conversation.

You would say, would, are you interested in this?

Yeah.

And it

seems, it seems like we should be doing that to friends.

More intentionality and expectation setting.

What about you, Sissy?

What are you

doing differently to have a different result?

I think that I'm being honest with myself is with the fact that, you know, we talked a little bit in this the last podcast is that

I don't crave what I need and that my instincts are not to go towards things that fill my need and make me feel better.

And they're more towards the kind of low-hanging fruit of efficiency and productivity and mindlessness.

And so

I know, I think that's that's the good part of being in this desperate place of the wall of this pandemic is that I know I need to change things.

And so I think my next great thing is just kind of remembering that about myself, just because I don't feel like I have the energy or the craving to call a friend, that's my brain lying to me.

And I know that on the other side of that,

there will be a different outcome than what I have right now.

And so I'm just trying to do, I'm actually doing it, which is crazy.

And

think if I do it enough, that it will rewire my brain

more appropriately that like I will crave what is actually sustaining to me.

And so does it make you feel tethered, retethered after you do those things?

It does true to you.

It does.

And it also has this thing of like, I always feel like I'm like, oh my God, like, I'm going to get on the phone.

And first of all, I have to text people before I call them to say like, everyone is alive.

Everyone's breathing.

Don't worry.

I'm going to call you now.

Because people are are so used to me only calling if there's like a proper right emergency um that's just kindness i it is kind yeah it is kind and then um

but it's possible just to have like a six minute check-in it is possible

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Okay, let's get some questions from our pod squad friends.

Hi, Lennon and Amanda and Abby.

I'm Sophie.

I'm from Orlando.

And my question is, how do

we know

the difference between loyalty and being a martyr?

How do we know that it's the right time to be loyal to the people that we love and in our friendships?

And how do we know when it's time to let go?

We're accepting less for ourselves than we deserve.

I think oftentimes I mistake loyalty in my friendships for really just holding on too long.

It's really hard to navigate when is the right time for a friendship breakup, I guess, and when is the best time to be a good and loyal friend?

That's my hardest thing right now.

So I love you guys.

Bye.

Sophia,

tell me if you think this is true, sister, because

It feels true to me, but I don't know.

Sometimes I can be a little bit too black and white about things.

So

I'm trying to to think if there's any scenario in which

being loyal to somebody else

means not being loyal to yourself.

Like, and that that should be the right choice.

If Sophia is having to decide between

being loyal to herself

and her own knowing and her own peace.

and being loyal to this other person,

if staying with that other person means abandoning herself,

then I don't think that can ever be the right decision.

Isn't it loyalty to another person?

Shouldn't it always coincide with self-loyalty?

Is there a scenario in which I decide, okay,

even though this feels wrong to me, Even though this is not in alignment with my own values, even though this is a negative experience for me in terms of friendship, I am going to stay with you.

Is that ever

the correct response for either person?

I think the confusing part, Sophia sounds like

a person whose identity and values align with, I am a good and loyal friend.

It isn't as clear as to her, it sounds like, do I stay loyal to you or loyal to me?

It seems to me me that she has built probably

through a lot of her life and love,

the identity and the value of being a good friend and valuing it in her life.

So it, so it's probably more confusing, but to me, I mean, the part where she said,

how do we know when it's time to let go and when we're accepting less for ourselves than we deserve?

I mean,

That's kind of the whole ballgame.

And she's describing a really good friend of hers, but I i feel like i think of it like at daycare when my kids were really little and we would occasionally get notes home from school and they would never tell us the name of the kid because of confidentiality protections but we'd always get notes home that said something like wanted to let you know that unfortunately during block time today one of bobby's friends threw a brick at bobby's head or like

one of alice's friends pushed alice off the slide and i used to laugh so hard at that because I'd be like, you keep using that word.

I do not think it means what you think it means.

Like their friends

aren't doing.

And that's kind of what I feel like.

It's so good.

It's like how people are like, I can't stand my friends.

Or I have this friend that is such an asshole to me.

Or I have this friend who never listens to me.

Or I have this friend who constantly makes me feel bad.

Like, no, you don't.

You have something else.

Yes, ma'am.

If your best friend is doing that to to you, she is in fact not your best friend.

Right.

But we get, okay, but can we trace back some of this bullshit thinking to when we're little and like we're forced to be around these people and other people convince us that these are our friends doing these horrible things to us throwing blocks

and we don't know why our friends are throwing blocks at us and we're still calling them back.

I mean, I think, I think so.

And I think it does get caught up in the identity of us.

If friendship is super important to us to like, quote unquote, abandon this friendship, leave this friendship.

Does that change

how we view ourselves?

I mean, it's very, it's very tricky.

Can we just say also, if, if what's important to Sophia is the identity.

of I am a good friend and friendship's important to me and I don't just abandon friendship.

Sophia gets to keep that identity if she for herself decides what a friendship is.

Because if she decides, if Sophia rethinks her definition of friendship and decides that a good, edifying, life-giving friendship is a friendship in which she is, in fact, getting what she deserves, as is the other person, then Sophia not only has the right, but the responsibility to leave this friendship because it's not a friendship by her own definition, right?

Sophia can only be a good friend if she knows what the word friend means to her.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because friendship is not martyrdom.

Good friendship is not martyrdom, just like good motherhood is not martyrdom.

And that hurts.

It hurts to

look and say that that friend is in fact not being a good friend to you.

But you, I think we can't allow the tragedy of that truth prevent us from seeing that truth.

Like you can both grieve it.

It can be very, very sad.

And you can accept it at the same time.

That's right.

Because that goes back to the idea that it's hard.

It will be hard to leave, but it's hard to stay too.

Obviously, inherent in this entire question is that it's painful to stay.

It's painful to go.

It's hard to stay.

It's hard to go.

What's the right kind of hard?

Right.

And I think I'd tell Sophia, listen to the last episode because where we talked about that research where in confusing relationships where it has a lot of really great stuff, but a lot of really shitty stuff, that

actually those ambivalent relationships can be as bad for us as the ones that are clearly toxic.

Right.

And so just because the good outweighs the bad doesn't mean it's actually a healthful relationship to be in.

And if an airport is life.

And friendship is like the moving sidewalk.

It just makes it all a little bit easier, a little bit less effortful, a little bit more enjoyable.

A friendship like this, it's not just not having a moving sidewalk and walking on the regular ground.

It's like walking backwards on a moving sidewalk.

It's not only not giving you more energy, it's robbing you of so much energy that you'd probably do better with just nothing.

Sophia, I'm sorry,

but I think you already know your answer.

Yeah, and you're still a good friend.

Yes.

That's right.

You're just a good friend to yourself also, Sophia.

And to the next lucky boo that gets you.

That's right.

That's right.

All right, let's hear from Meg.

Hi, Glennon, Abby, and sister.

My name's Meg.

During COVID, I've lost the friendship of one of my most central people.

And it has been by far the hardest breakup of my life.

This is someone who I thought would be in my corner forever and ever.

I was prepared to show up for her through thick and thin until the end of time, but we had a conflict and her response, which I know was rooted in her own past trauma, was to cut off all contact with me.

It's been over a year since our rift and I still think about her every day.

I still run through scripts in my head of things I wanted to say and never will.

I still get lonely and angry and really sad in a million ways about it all, but I mostly keep it to myself because grieving a friendship doesn't really seem as acceptable somehow as grieving a romantic relationship would.

With time and therapy, I've come to understand that as special as our friendship was, it was rooted in some deeply unhealthy patterns of behavior on both sides.

So COVID times have made it clear to me that I'm actually only interested in relationships that are deep and intimate and meaningful.

But after such heartbreak, going deep with someone feels really risky and vulnerable and kind of unsafe.

How do I find the courage to look for the kind of deep connections I crave after this friendship heartbreak?

And how do I avoid returning to the entrenched patterns and roles and habits that led to our end in the first place?

Thanks so much in advance for your thoughts.

Take care.

We had so many questions like Meg's.

It feels like this

is

a real

grief and trauma that so many folks go through in life and that there's no

cultural

legitimizing or template for

showing that you're going through it.

Or word.

Exactly.

We have the word divorce.

We have the word death.

We have words for endings of things.

And we don't even have a word for losing a dear friend.

I mean, someone thought, someone that you thought you were going to go through everything together, someone that you've spent decades of your life together, something, and then you don't even have a way of communicating that

through your words.

Like I remember when I got divorced, I

remember having this odd sense of gratitude that we would actually been married.

So I could say,

I'm going through a divorce right now.

And it's like when you say it, people get

that that's a big fucking deal.

That like you have all of the, like you're, this is really bad.

And I remember feeling sorry about that people who are going through just as many losses as I had, but just happened to be like boyfriends or girlfriends or engaged.

Sissy, I have a friend who was so in love with her person

and found out that the person was terminally ill

and they got married because

she imagined the funeral and she imagined people coming up to her and not knowing that it was a marriage

and that she couldn't handle

that

the world, the universe, not respecting the loss the way that people only respect loss when you have a fucking contract.

Yes.

But because we don't have a contract with friends, the universe does not respect the loss of it.

I mean, if imagine like staying at home for a month in your pajamas,

if it's because you're divorced, everybody, there's a million shows about it.

There's everybody, that's, that's okay.

We get it.

You're not allowed to stay home in your pajamas in the dark for a month because you lost your best friend.

But you should be.

It's an ambiguous loss in some ways, too, because there isn't a name and there isn't a cultural respect.

And if the whole world is, you know,

by omission, telling you to get over it and you haven't been able to even walk through it because of that,

you must feel like you're going a little crazy through it.

And I wonder if also there's this role of, you you know, I feel like culturally we're just starting to evolve to the place of

in romantic divorces where we are letting go of the trope of there's like a villain and a here we have to demonize each other.

Like there's also this strange trope in women's relationships where it's like an extension of the mean girl situation where it

I don't feel like we've quite gotten to the place where we can

understand

that relationships have evolved and are taking on a new form or going away.

And that doesn't mean that anybody's a villain in any of it either.

Yeah, because when you think about too, the

agreed-upon expectations that we have in other sorts of relationships, there's a better storyline.

There's a better, you cheated, you da da da da.

There's like a clear bad guy could get out of jail, free car.

But there's less, since there's less

rules about friendship, it's harder to know who broke them, what's the storyline, what's the narrative.

That's an all-ambiguous loss.

It's lots of times not a bad guy, good guy situation.

It's just that that

it's the idea that we have that relationships are only worthy if they and successful if they last for fucking ever.

Like this idea that a marriage is a failure if it ends.

Are we sure about that?

Because I have seen so many marriages that were very, very life-giving, then stop being.

And so they ended it instead of holding on forever and ever while everybody died inside of it.

What if friendship is the same way?

Like, what if

there are, friendship is not only successful if it lasts forever, but what if it comes into your life at a certain time and carries you across a river like a canoe?

Like, what if it

grows you and helps you heal?

Like what Meg said, she said that looking back on it, she can see some unhealthy patterns.

That means she grew.

Right.

She wouldn't be able to see that in retrospect unless she had grown

through that relationship and through its ending.

And now has different eyes to see because of that relationship in both good and bad ways.

Right.

So what if she crossed a river with the canoe of that friendship and now it's time to put it down?

You don't carry it.

It's like that old story, right?

You don't carry the canoe forever after it's gotten to you from the place you needed to go to this new place.

And what if the next relationship she has will be all the more beautiful and healthy because of this one?

And what if all of that is a raging success?

And that goes to her.

question about how do I avoid returning to the same patterns.

I mean, I think that is,

in a way, it's cyclical back to the same thing.

I mean, we, you know, you go through a divorce and you

hopefully do the work of really seriously evaluating, you know, what got you there, what kept you there, what happened there.

And

she is working with a therapist.

And I think she gives the validity

to this breakup and grief and really interrogating all that happened there

at the same level as she would had that been a divorce.

That's exactly because I think we reveal so much

about ourselves in those relationships.

And there's no reason why we just put it under a microscope with the romantic ones.

That's so good.

Yeah, take it seriously, right?

Gather up every single thing you learned about yourself and also trust yourself in this new, because what that relationship already gave you is new eyes to see, right?

That's what you will look for different things,

and you don't have to will it, you don't have to be scared.

You will look for different things because you have new eyes

after that friendship.

You will see things differently just based on

what you became

from that relationship.

Good luck, Meg.

Good luck, Meg.

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Okay, let's hear from our pod squatter of the week.

Hi, Abby and Glennon and sister.

My name's Mackenzie, and I actually just ran into you three at LAX.

Abby and Glennon, I think you were picking up sister and some other friends from the airport.

And I was the girl on the curb who like was awkwardly telling you that I love your podcast and I love your book and your soccer and

just everything and I just wanted to call and just thank you guys for being so

nice and warm and Abby was like a pod squatter and Amanda walked up and Amanda like hugged me and I started crying because I was trying to respect your space but I also feel like I just didn't adequately convey how much you three mean to me.

I wish I would have shown more excitement, but I was also just like not trying to bombard you in the middle of LAX

pickup.

So

sisters, thank you for the hug.

And

gosh, today was just like the best day ever.

I'm like, cannot believe that that happened.

I'm so grateful for you guys.

Have a great day.

Bye.

Mackenzie.

I totally remember McKenzie.

Do you remember me too?

Completely, yes.

I was, we were picking up, Abby and I are picking up you and Allison and Dina

for a, for a pod squad, like get together.

We were talking about this pod squad and Mackenzie was there.

And I just, I forgot to tell you this.

I recently, Amma's bunch of stuff fell out of her backpack and there were these little notes in there.

And I was like, what is this?

And she's like, oh, that's so-and-so's mom's ideas for the next pod.

No.

I mean, it's the most precious thing.

Like, it just makes me, you you know, when we talk about friendship and being tethered,

so I'm working on my big, you know, corner tethers, right?

I'm going to work on these friendships, but I'm telling you, having this pod squad all over the place, wherever we go,

and because it's just like this thing you see in people's eyes when they tell you.

And it feels like you're their people.

It feels like if anybody lasts long enough to become a pod squatter in this pod, like they are people who have a sense of humor, who are honest, who are vulnerable, who are grappling with the hard things of life.

And knowing that those people are everywhere just makes me feel so much less alone and tethered in a million little tethers to the earth.

So Mackenzie, thanks for being a tether.

We love you.

I think

I just want to also, I feel like this about the pod squad.

They did this study that said if two people were standing and looking at a hill, that it doesn't seem as steep if you're standing with a friend.

Yes, I read that.

And I just feel like

that's

what we want to be for you, Pod Squatter.

We just want to be standing at that bottom of the hill and being like, yeah, we got this.

We can do hard things.

This isn't steep at all.

Let's go.

Let's go.

Even if it's a time like this.

And the mountain is actually a wall.

It's definitely

as steep as it can possibly be, but it doesn't look that way to us.

And it's

just delusional, y'all.

Even if it's just a delusion, we're here to tell you that we love you.

It's not as steep as it looks.

And together, we can do hard things.

We'll see you back here next week.

Bye.

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