Speaker 1: Welcome to Go Ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio as a stand
Speaker 1: up comedian, of which I am not. I tried it.
Speaker 1: When you are hilarious, I've been your fan forever. Hey,
Speaker 1: you know I should say right now, I'm married, so
Speaker 1: I'm off the table. We can do weekends. Get your
Speaker 1: bullshit detector and get it honed. Are you mad about something?
Speaker 1: Go out and seek people who are mad about related things,
Speaker 1: and also listen to them if part of what they're
Speaker 1: mad about is you. You actually looked for those little
Speaker 1: colonels of hope dumout. Yeah, well that's that's a good stuff.
Speaker 1: I think it is a good stuff, and I think
Speaker 1: we need the good stuff. Always. Welcome to go ask Allie.
Speaker 1: I'm Alli Wentworth this season, I am digging into everything
Speaker 1: I can get my hands on. I'm just peeling back
Speaker 1: the layers and getting dirty. You know. A few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: we got a question about how to end a friendship.
Speaker 1: Our listener said, I'm not the type to ghost people,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to have to sit down and
Speaker 1: g conversation, which got us thinking because I think every
Speaker 1: woman I know has either been broken up with by
Speaker 1: a friend or broken up with a friend. There's really
Speaker 1: no clear way to do it. When you're in a
Speaker 1: romantic relationship, it's very easy too. You could say you
Speaker 1: cheated on me. We're arguing all the time, Um, it's
Speaker 1: not me, it's you. But with friendship, there's just not
Speaker 1: an easy way to get out of it. And there's
Speaker 1: nothing worse than being deep into a friendship and sort
Speaker 1: of seeing the cracks, as they say, and suddenly you go, God,
Speaker 1: I don't really want to be friends with this person anymore?
Speaker 1: What do I do? This episode is about the friendships
Speaker 1: that don't work out? How the hell do you get out?
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about my guest, Danielle Buyer Jackson. She's
Speaker 1: a certified friendship coach, what's that Well You're gonna find out,
Speaker 1: speaker and founder of friend Forward, a platform dedicated to
Speaker 1: teaching women how to create and sustain meaningful friendships. Her
Speaker 1: advice has been featured in NBC News and The Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Insider, and Danielle is
Speaker 1: also the host of the friend Forward podcast. Well hello,
Speaker 1: fellow podcaster, Danielle, thank you for being here. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you for having me I'm excited to have this chat. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so before we delve deep into the friendship divorce, explain
Speaker 1: what a friendship coaches and how the hell did you
Speaker 1: get into that specific genre. I'm not surprised that it's
Speaker 1: got you thinking, like, what in the world? Right, It's
Speaker 1: funny because when I do share what I do with
Speaker 1: other people, I get the side I right. I get
Speaker 1: people who are like, oh, that's that's adorable. Good for
Speaker 1: you know, I'm getting like how much do cops an hour?
Speaker 1: Because I need you right away. No, I appreciate that,
Speaker 1: you know, a friendship coach. I always say, you know,
Speaker 1: it's normal to get support in every other area of
Speaker 1: your life. If you're an entrepreneur and you go and
Speaker 1: get a business coach, people are like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's so like wise of you. Or you're struggling your
Speaker 1: marriage counselor so why not somebody to support you? And
Speaker 1: what I would argue is one of the most important
Speaker 1: relationships to lover have. Um, you know, and I work
Speaker 1: with women, so you know female friendships and so you know.
Speaker 1: I was actually a high school English teacher for six
Speaker 1: years and I left the classroom to get into PR
Speaker 1: and It's funny because I made the foolish mistake of thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm out of you know, high school, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: have to help them through their drama. Little did I know,
Speaker 1: you know, adults, we have our our issues too. And
Speaker 1: so I was just curious one night and I went
Speaker 1: on Amazon and I searched friendship books, and of the
Speaker 1: few results that came back, most of them were for children.
Speaker 1: And I thought, is this what we think a friendship?
Speaker 1: That a kid would need help? But if you're an adult,
Speaker 1: like you should have it together. And so long story short,
Speaker 1: I started going down the rabbit hole and and you know,
Speaker 1: I already had my education background and started doing friendship
Speaker 1: stuff and talking to psychologists about it. And so for
Speaker 1: the past four years, that's that's the role I've been
Speaker 1: serving it. And it's been a really fun journey so far. Well, congratulations,
Speaker 1: we could we could use a friendship coach. And so
Speaker 1: let me start by saying, I have two teenage daughters.
Speaker 1: So I have found that I sometimes go through the
Speaker 1: exact same thing that they're going through. And so not
Speaker 1: only have I been sort of charting my own waters
Speaker 1: when it comes to female friendships, I suddenly have two
Speaker 1: teenage girls coming to me and asking for my advice
Speaker 1: on stuff. And there are some things I think I'm
Speaker 1: pretty good at, but there are other things where I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe she is ghosting you, you know,
Speaker 1: like I don't know. So I'm going to soak up
Speaker 1: like a sponge everything you give me today. So we're
Speaker 1: just starting to come out of COVID, and I think
Speaker 1: it's been kind of a universal thing, particularly for women,
Speaker 1: that during this time, besides baking a lot of bread,
Speaker 1: we have reassessed our friendships. Everybody I've spoken to has
Speaker 1: said that because suddenly it comes down to like who
Speaker 1: do I want to spend my time with and who
Speaker 1: makes me feel good. One of the most common things
Speaker 1: people were coming to me for during the pandemic was,
Speaker 1: you know, help because I'm starting to see my friend differently,
Speaker 1: and I think with everything with you know, the social
Speaker 1: justice movement last summer, last summer summer before Oh my God,
Speaker 1: with masking or not masking and who did you vote for?
Speaker 1: It was like a big and a stir in the
Speaker 1: pot and a lot of stuff came to the surface.
Speaker 1: So all at once we were looking sideways at our friends,
Speaker 1: like hold on, you believe what now? You know you
Speaker 1: voted for who now, And so I think there is
Speaker 1: like this this sifting right now. That's I almost think
Speaker 1: the pandemic kind of like expedite at the process of
Speaker 1: sifting through your people and taking a friendship inventory because
Speaker 1: values are important, and maybe you had some realizations with
Speaker 1: the social justice movement and you don't want to live
Speaker 1: or think a certain way. You know. I know for
Speaker 1: a lot of my black friends, and I'm a black woman,
Speaker 1: i have lesser tolerance for certain things because I'm just like,
Speaker 1: I can't anymore. That person is not a bad person,
Speaker 1: but I'm evolving, very evolving, and we might not come
Speaker 1: back together. And that's okay. H. So, once you've gone
Speaker 1: through that funnel, you have a lot of i'll call
Speaker 1: them co stars in your life that you realize like
Speaker 1: are a little bit toxic or actually never made you
Speaker 1: feel good, but you don't know how to get rid
Speaker 1: of them. And that is something I've heard from twelve
Speaker 1: year olds and I've heard from eighty four year olds.
Speaker 1: So here we are right now today, in this moment,
Speaker 1: I'm asking you, I have somebody in my life who
Speaker 1: I don't think is good for me, I think is
Speaker 1: toxic for me that talks shit about me. I don't
Speaker 1: know how to extricate them from my life without there
Speaker 1: being a lot of drama, and I don't want to
Speaker 1: get hurt in the process. What do I do? Friendship coach, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you said a lot of really good things there, because
Speaker 1: we do think. Okay, I'm clear on letting this go,
Speaker 1: but I'm so nervous about, you know, all the consequences socially, emotionally,
Speaker 1: I'm so nervous and I want to avoid that. But
Speaker 1: I'm clear on letting somebody go. So the first thing
Speaker 1: I always bring up when it comes to the conversation
Speaker 1: of releasing a friendship is to make sure that we're
Speaker 1: not releasing them prematurely, because what I've noticed is a
Speaker 1: lot of us we have female friendships that in prematurely
Speaker 1: in my opinion, because we don't want to have a conversation.
Speaker 1: So we have not given this friend a chance to
Speaker 1: correct herself. We have not made the boundary known. We
Speaker 1: are telling everybody else that she did this and that,
Speaker 1: but we never told her about it because we want
Speaker 1: to spare her feelings. So if you are trying to
Speaker 1: cut someone off, but you have not yet done the
Speaker 1: work of making it known what the issue is and
Speaker 1: giving them a chance to self correct if it's appropriate,
Speaker 1: then I would say perhaps we're acting a little, you know,
Speaker 1: too soon. But if you've done that work and you're like, oh, Daniel,
Speaker 1: I'm ready, Okay, next step. The first thing I want
Speaker 1: you to get clear on is when you have that conversation,
Speaker 1: you want to focus more on what it is you
Speaker 1: need as opposed to they're perceived inadequacy. So instead of
Speaker 1: me saying, you know what, you're just to this, you're
Speaker 1: just not this enough. That's all rooted in her, But
Speaker 1: the reality is I am looking for something and I
Speaker 1: don't get it here that we were not like personalizing
Speaker 1: it to her. I mean, yeah, she may be awful,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to say because you're awful, I'm
Speaker 1: leaving you. Know. Um, So I might say, you know, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to focus on X y Z right now,
Speaker 1: and I just I don't think I can maintain this
Speaker 1: friendship and do that, and so I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to step away. And you know, I love you, I
Speaker 1: I just I just can't do this anymore. And I
Speaker 1: know that sounds very formal um it's normal and a
Speaker 1: romantic relationship to have these mile markers, and it's understood
Speaker 1: that if you're ending it, you will have the decency
Speaker 1: of having a conversation. But with friendships it's it's the
Speaker 1: same thing. If there's a mutual fading out, then sometimes
Speaker 1: in my opinion, that doesn't require a formal conversation. If
Speaker 1: both parties are kind of it's understood we're getting busy,
Speaker 1: we don't prioritize each other anymore. But as soon as
Speaker 1: one person is under the impression that we're going to
Speaker 1: be engaging the same way and another one's made up
Speaker 1: their mind, they don't want to. Well, now I've got
Speaker 1: to clarify because there would be an issue here and
Speaker 1: I might leave somebody hanging. And so I always advised
Speaker 1: never ghost. Have a conversation in the medium that's most
Speaker 1: appropriate for you. Also, if we see each other every day,
Speaker 1: it might not make sense for me to email you
Speaker 1: and and trying to do it in what's alignment of
Speaker 1: like our regular rhythm. And then also get clear on
Speaker 1: why you're so hesitant to end it in the first place.
Speaker 1: A lot of people will say, well, because I don't
Speaker 1: know what she's going to say about me to the
Speaker 1: other girls. Will never be able to control her narrative.
Speaker 1: I know that's not comforting, but you'll never be able
Speaker 1: to control how she tells people how it went down.
Speaker 1: You can't. But are you comfortable releasing that because the
Speaker 1: alternative is what you stay friends with her because you're
Speaker 1: scared she'll spend the narrative if you don't and let
Speaker 1: it cause you stress every day. And if we're being honest,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've been here. But with my husband, for example,
Speaker 1: if a woman's giving me drama I used to, I'm
Speaker 1: complaining about her to him, and I'm talking to my
Speaker 1: other friends about it, and I'm dodging her calls. It
Speaker 1: is more stressful to do all that, and I'm roping
Speaker 1: other people in than to have an uncomfortable conversation to
Speaker 1: let her know. And she can be mad, and she
Speaker 1: might be vile, but at least she's got to respect
Speaker 1: the fact that I made it really clear and I'm
Speaker 1: ready to release the friendship with as much grace as possible.
Speaker 1: And how do you do that without creating the drama?
Speaker 1: My fear would be even if I wrote a nice
Speaker 1: email or sat down with her and said, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I just feel like we're we have different priorities and whatever.
Speaker 1: That then she would go nuclear as soon as she
Speaker 1: walked away from the table, or like you said, she
Speaker 1: changed the narrative, would you probably will to protect herself,
Speaker 1: And then I just get afraid of like, oh god,
Speaker 1: how does that impact me? Right? Well, you know, I
Speaker 1: like to take things to like, I don't think we
Speaker 1: talk about friendship enough from a wellness perspective, because research
Speaker 1: tells us, and I'm and I'm coming back here, I
Speaker 1: love it. Research tells us that the thing that has
Speaker 1: the greatest impact on her overall life satisfaction and well
Speaker 1: being is not our income or marital status, but the
Speaker 1: quality of our relationships. And the key word there is quality.
Speaker 1: So you're not doing yourself any favors physically, mentally, and
Speaker 1: emotionally to keep a friendship that is not quality for you.
Speaker 1: So a lot of us like to say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: she's she's my friend forever, and I want to honor that.
Speaker 1: But if it's this obligatory friendship, every time you you
Speaker 1: get together, you're thinking, God, I wish I could. I
Speaker 1: should have been spending my time somewhere else. And you're
Speaker 1: fussing at your husband about her. That does no one
Speaker 1: any favors. Um, it's even considered ruinous empathy. Oh, I
Speaker 1: feel bad for her, so I'm gonna stay. But first
Speaker 1: of all, she deserves somebody in her company who appreciates
Speaker 1: what she has to give. And you don't need to
Speaker 1: be spending your time to do somebody favors. There's just
Speaker 1: not enough time for that. So do your question about, well,
Speaker 1: how do I do this without avoiding the drama? The
Speaker 1: truth is sometimes you can't. Sometimes you cannot do this
Speaker 1: with a guarantee of there will be no collateral damage,
Speaker 1: that she won't pop off on you. She just might.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of times with clients I like
Speaker 1: to ask, like, what is the biggest fear, and then
Speaker 1: let's prepare for that, Like, let's lean into that, because
Speaker 1: once we do, we'll see, Oh, even the worst case
Speaker 1: scenario is survivable. I'll be okay. It will be uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: she might spend the narrative to other people, and then
Speaker 1: how will I deal with that? But is it worth
Speaker 1: me hanging on for an unforeseeable amount of time? Because
Speaker 1: I don't want to be uncomfortable? Because I don't want
Speaker 1: her to get mad at me. All those things may happen.
Speaker 1: I mean, friendship breakups are really hard. And if somebody
Speaker 1: tells you, like hey, I don't want to do this anymore,
Speaker 1: we do take it personally. In friendship, you know, it
Speaker 1: starts because somebody chose you. So when somebody un chooses you,
Speaker 1: that is very painful. You know, am I not interesting enough,
Speaker 1: funny enough, worth your time? You're stirring all those things
Speaker 1: up in me when you tell me you want to leave,
Speaker 1: and so you know it is what it is. UM
Speaker 1: research also tells us that we replace half of our
Speaker 1: friends every seven years. So to some extent we have
Speaker 1: to expect there will be like this natural pruning every
Speaker 1: now and then. But if I told you that, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: she is going to blow up and she is going
Speaker 1: to spend the narrative, now what that would be the
Speaker 1: thing that I would encourage a client to spend time on,
Speaker 1: because that's really what's going on, is being scared of
Speaker 1: someone being upset with you, or being scared that people
Speaker 1: will misunderstand you when it's over. I mean, it's the
Speaker 1: risk you take, but why the fear right? And sometimes
Speaker 1: do you ask a client or I would say, I
Speaker 1: asked myself and my daughter's like, get all the drama
Speaker 1: that will happen if they ghost you or you ghost them,
Speaker 1: or you lose them, or they do you want to
Speaker 1: be their friend? Like is this important to you? Is
Speaker 1: this worth fighting for? Right? A? H and you know,
Speaker 1: is it worth being all up and knots to have
Speaker 1: that cringe e conversation? Yeah? And you know, healthy conflict
Speaker 1: is good. It serves a purpose because it brings us closer.
Speaker 1: I get a chance to understand you better. So if
Speaker 1: of all your experiences you've determined no, I think it's
Speaker 1: worth it. Like I love what she brings to my life,
Speaker 1: she has value to my life. I think this is
Speaker 1: just a really awkward period. Well, then fight for it
Speaker 1: or save it by having the conversation. Um. I always
Speaker 1: like to say, you know, starting a hard conversation by
Speaker 1: doing this exercise, what is the reason you're reluctant to
Speaker 1: have the conversation? In my opinion, that should be your
Speaker 1: opening line because it does bring in vulnerability. So for example,
Speaker 1: that might look like, listen, I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about something, but I have been hesitant to do
Speaker 1: it because the last thing I want is for it
Speaker 1: to stir a bunch of drama with with the other girls.
Speaker 1: That's the last thing I want. But I feel like
Speaker 1: if we're going to be on the same page, I
Speaker 1: gotta bring this up because they're less likely to do
Speaker 1: the thing if you call it out. And it also
Speaker 1: lets her know I'm on your team and I've been
Speaker 1: thoughtful about this, and my objective is to get some harmony,
Speaker 1: not to come at you. So you know, if you
Speaker 1: realize I have to have a hard conversation, but I'm
Speaker 1: scared of my in the friendship. If you believe it's
Speaker 1: worth it, I mean, bring that thought from your brain
Speaker 1: to your lips and say I've been hesitant to say this,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to because like I love you, like
Speaker 1: you're my girl, you know. So I thought i'd bring
Speaker 1: this up and just see how it goes. Now she
Speaker 1: becomes indignant, or she's like I can't believe you, or
Speaker 1: gets you know, dramatic. Well, now you look at that,
Speaker 1: but at least you can say, I mean, I really
Speaker 1: tried to tell her where I was coming from. Um.
Speaker 1: It's interesting I read that a lot of psychologists have
Speaker 1: in the past sometimes monitored their subjects blood pressure by
Speaker 1: being in the presence of people who made them feel
Speaker 1: good and made them feel bad, and they did actually
Speaker 1: see a physical change, you know, blood pressure going up
Speaker 1: and down depending on who they're, the friends that they
Speaker 1: were with, and how they made them feel. Um. I
Speaker 1: find that I say this to my daughters and I
Speaker 1: say this to myself. Does this person make you feel good?
Speaker 1: Can you base friendships on how does that person make
Speaker 1: me feel? Do I feel good around them? Yes? Or no?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say yes, but I will say, you know,
Speaker 1: just like with marriage, if we were saying, how's your
Speaker 1: spouse make you feel well most of the time? Great?
Speaker 1: If you can do that, then yes. If I take
Speaker 1: an aerial view of the last ten interactions y'all had,
Speaker 1: how many of the ten were positive and contribute to
Speaker 1: your overall feeling of the friendship, Because I know sometimes
Speaker 1: we get into these seasons where it's not feeling good
Speaker 1: or it feels awkward, and we're like, well, lately, I'm
Speaker 1: not feeling good about it. Okay. When I take that
Speaker 1: aerial view, though, does the positive for the most part
Speaker 1: outweigh the negative? Um? You know, according to researching, need
Speaker 1: for a relationship to be positive A ratio of five
Speaker 1: to one, five positive interactions to one negative in order
Speaker 1: for it to kind of balance out. So especially you know,
Speaker 1: for young people teaching them early for the most part,
Speaker 1: is it a pleasurable experience being together for the most part?
Speaker 1: And if the answer is yes, yes, But as soon
Speaker 1: as yeah, you start to think, I don't know if
Speaker 1: if if I even want this friendship, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that's enough. As soon as you want out, then
Speaker 1: maybe you should not be in. And because who wants
Speaker 1: to be friends with somebody who kind of wants out?
Speaker 1: You know, So sometimes that's enough and you don't need
Speaker 1: another person to validate. Well, that's a bad reason or
Speaker 1: a good reason. Now, I will say, sometimes having this
Speaker 1: conversation with clients, we do discover that they have maybe
Speaker 1: unhealthy expectations of friendship to begin with, and then we
Speaker 1: need to talk about that because nobody feels good or
Speaker 1: the one time they have an issue they want to leave,
Speaker 1: or you know, so we talked through that where they
Speaker 1: expect that a friend should be everything or she should
Speaker 1: have to read your mind, and it's like, no, did
Speaker 1: you tell her that it made you uncomfortable? Well, no,
Speaker 1: but I shouldn't have to tell her. Okay, let's talk
Speaker 1: about that, you know. And so sometimes our expectations of
Speaker 1: friendship itself. Oh, I don't need a therapist. I have
Speaker 1: my friends. Okay, well, talk in your friends is therapeutic.
Speaker 1: But they're not your therapist, you know. Is their experience
Speaker 1: of your friendship that every time you'll get together they've
Speaker 1: got to be your therapist? Is that fair? At some
Speaker 1: point that that's their role in the dynamic that is
Speaker 1: your friendship, you know. So sometimes it's the expectation of
Speaker 1: what this woman is supposed to offer you that we
Speaker 1: need to assess first. Yeah, and it's time for a
Speaker 1: short break. Great, let's get back to it. Okay, let
Speaker 1: me ask you this. You're on the other side of it, Okay,
Speaker 1: how can you tell if you're being ghosted? That's such
Speaker 1: a great question. This is hard because this is something
Speaker 1: I'd like us to get better at collectively as women.
Speaker 1: I think, because we do the whole like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: we're good. What are you talking about? We're fine? We
Speaker 1: know because we do that to suspect that that like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have asked her if we're good and she said yes.
Speaker 1: So we don't know if we should believe it, because
Speaker 1: that's how we tend to operate. We don't, you know, confrontation.
Speaker 1: We don't want to look like we're being like a
Speaker 1: b you know. But also women trust their gut. So
Speaker 1: what happens for women is their gut is saying there's
Speaker 1: definitely something wrong, there is something going on here. And
Speaker 1: when you're met with like, no, we're cool, it's good,
Speaker 1: it's good, but you know that's not true. You know,
Speaker 1: do you verbalize it? Do you make yourself vulnerable and go, look,
Speaker 1: I just is I can tell like you're pulling away?
Speaker 1: Or does that you know, make you feel like too insecure? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of the word insecure. On that show Insecure, there's
Speaker 1: this moment where the two main stars of the show
Speaker 1: are grocery shopping together and one of them says, are
Speaker 1: we good? Like I feel like we've been off right
Speaker 1: and the other one's like, yeah, we've been off and
Speaker 1: they're like, okay, we'll talk about that. And it gave
Speaker 1: me goose bumps because I wish we did that more.
Speaker 1: Because again, if we put it in like a romantic sphere,
Speaker 1: of course we're going to address if something feels weird
Speaker 1: to reconnect, but why not do that in friendship. So
Speaker 1: is that a little vulnerability and there's that risk of
Speaker 1: rejection there. She might minimize and be like, where are
Speaker 1: you talking about? Sure, that's all possible, but again, at
Speaker 1: least you gave her the opportunity. You tried to facilitate
Speaker 1: that conversation by saying this. It could just be in
Speaker 1: my head, but we're okay, right because I know we chatted,
Speaker 1: you know, like every day, and now we we're kind
Speaker 1: of missing each other, you know here there every week.
Speaker 1: It's okay to say that. It doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: this formal, intense thing, but almost like a matter of fact. Now,
Speaker 1: if she is not honest with her feelings and says
Speaker 1: to you, yeah, we're good, that's on her. And of course,
Speaker 1: you know, be observant. If I noticed that every time
Speaker 1: I try to hang out she's busy, but she doesn't
Speaker 1: work to negotiate with me, because a friend should be saying, ah,
Speaker 1: I can't get together on Sunday, but let's do Tuesday.
Speaker 1: She's working with me. If I've tried to reach out
Speaker 1: to you and it's like, yeah, I'm just busy, and
Speaker 1: there's no effort to try to kind of get on
Speaker 1: the same page, then you're right, like our intuition strong.
Speaker 1: You know, she's not feeling it for whatever reason. But
Speaker 1: it's not our job to become paranoid and figure it out.
Speaker 1: As an adult, it is her responsibility to communicate why
Speaker 1: she's upset if she was invested in the friendship, and
Speaker 1: even if she's not, it's her job to say, like, actually,
Speaker 1: I am kind of upset about what you said last night.
Speaker 1: That's her job. But I've I've seen too many women
Speaker 1: who spiral because they're like, I know it in my
Speaker 1: gut something's wrong, but the other friends not being honest. Well,
Speaker 1: at this point do we want to be at the
Speaker 1: mercy of waiting for them to give us clarity if
Speaker 1: they just won't? Yeah? And also how much clarity should
Speaker 1: they give? Meaning how honest should you be? I know
Speaker 1: I have one friend and her girlfriend kind of broke
Speaker 1: up with her by just saying, well, we had a
Speaker 1: good run, and she's still scratching her head. She's still like, what,
Speaker 1: we had a good run? Like what? I don't even
Speaker 1: know what that means. On the other hand, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily want to sit down and be told like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you're really clingy and I can't deal sometimes
Speaker 1: with your insecurities. You're always talking about should you lose weight?
Speaker 1: And it just gets really todious, like how truthful should
Speaker 1: the person be when breaking up? You know, it depends
Speaker 1: you know, I like the idea of saying what you
Speaker 1: need instead of what they're doing. But again, it depends
Speaker 1: on a lot of things. It depends on y'all's history.
Speaker 1: If we have a lot of history, maybe I know
Speaker 1: you can absorb me being direct. It depends on what
Speaker 1: you've seen of how she responds. Is she very defensive,
Speaker 1: because in that case, I might see, Okay, every time
Speaker 1: you say anything to her, she is so defensive. I've
Speaker 1: determined it's not worth it because of the evidence she
Speaker 1: showed me that she's gonna get too crazy right now.
Speaker 1: So it depends on kind of all those things. Is
Speaker 1: it helpful to list to that thing, you know, because
Speaker 1: sometimes it's a it's a turning point for her. So
Speaker 1: is it helpful for me to say listen? I mean,
Speaker 1: I know you're going through a lot right now, but
Speaker 1: I know every time we get together it's it's just
Speaker 1: really heavy and I want to support you, but I
Speaker 1: just I feel like I can't support you anymore emotionally.
Speaker 1: It's a lot for me. But that's helpful. I'm giving
Speaker 1: you some clarity and why I'm leaving. It might help
Speaker 1: you to see that you need to get out of
Speaker 1: this funk because it's super negative or or whatever it is. So,
Speaker 1: you know, is the cre teake that you're giving Is
Speaker 1: the specificity helpful? What's the point in being specific? Does
Speaker 1: it give her clarity so she's not running around wondering
Speaker 1: why you ghosted her? Is that something she can work on?
Speaker 1: But yeah, but the story you're telling him a friend
Speaker 1: who was like, well we had a good run. I
Speaker 1: mean that's you know, h Well, that'll make you crazy.
Speaker 1: I mean she's crazy. She's lost her mind now. And
Speaker 1: I also think that that's what ghosting does too. I
Speaker 1: have a few friends that have been ghosted and like
Speaker 1: they've been years trying to figure out what happened. And
Speaker 1: I find that really unfair. And I'll also tell you,
Speaker 1: Danielle that I had a friend for twenty five years,
Speaker 1: like really close, one of my best friends, and I
Speaker 1: made a mistake. And I made a mistake because I
Speaker 1: text something about her, a creative negative thing about her
Speaker 1: to my husband and I accidentally texted it to her.
Speaker 1: I know, it's everybody's nightmare. Every time I tell this story,
Speaker 1: somebody they like, go under the couch or that. You know.
Speaker 1: It was one of those text mistakes, right, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: screwed up. I screwed up. I threw myself on the
Speaker 1: sword with her. I'm like, I was nervous, I was anxious.
Speaker 1: I was worried, and I said, I wasn't trying to
Speaker 1: be malicious. Sa da da da da da. I sent
Speaker 1: her flowers, I baked her a cake. I made her
Speaker 1: a photo album of the past twenty years of us together.
Speaker 1: I was like, don't throw years of friendship away because
Speaker 1: I'm an idiot. And she never spoke to me again.
Speaker 1: And it's been a few years now, and I still
Speaker 1: don't understand it, you know, and it's hard for me
Speaker 1: not to go like, but that one thing, that one thing,
Speaker 1: you know, and which was just stupid on my part
Speaker 1: that couldn't be forgiven. And then other people say, look,
Speaker 1: you don't know what was going on with her. It
Speaker 1: could have been a perfect storm of other things, and
Speaker 1: that was like the final like she could have been
Speaker 1: already feeling bad. But whatever it is, I find when
Speaker 1: you're the person that has been broken up with that
Speaker 1: it's hard to move on yourself if you've been just
Speaker 1: completely shut off and ghosted and you're forever going God,
Speaker 1: how what what could I have done better to get
Speaker 1: her to forgive me? So, you know, but it was hurtful,
Speaker 1: and I think it's been really hurtful on both sides. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was just having a session with somebody today and
Speaker 1: we're talking about all the things, and finally we get
Speaker 1: to the heart of the matter, and she says something
Speaker 1: about being ghosted last year and so how it's complicated,
Speaker 1: how she tried to move forward with other people, And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard because to your point, we don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on with her. We don't know if for her
Speaker 1: it was something where now she feels like whenever she
Speaker 1: gets together with you, she doesn't know if you're genuinely
Speaker 1: enjoying this time or are you secretly hating it And
Speaker 1: you're telling somebody else that you're hating time with her,
Speaker 1: Like what's real and what's not? And even though you're
Speaker 1: so genuine in your apologies, and I love that you said,
Speaker 1: I mean, twenty five years compared to this one little
Speaker 1: instance but it's at the end of the day, her
Speaker 1: right to say what's too much. And maybe it's a
Speaker 1: trust issue or whatever it is. But yeah, it does
Speaker 1: really suck when we do make a mistake, and we
Speaker 1: would like to hope that our gestures or our history
Speaker 1: will make the case for why they should forgive us.
Speaker 1: But they get to say, and it is very vulnerable
Speaker 1: to put the ball in their court, and we're waiting
Speaker 1: for them to say, I forgive you. Let's go back
Speaker 1: to normal. For some people, they feel like they can't
Speaker 1: go back to normal after that because they had a
Speaker 1: certain idea of how this is supposed to go. But
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of moving on to that, we're
Speaker 1: not constantly ruminating about that. Women you know, are more
Speaker 1: likely to have, you know, anxiety and depression than men,
Speaker 1: and a lot of us because we ruminate, and so
Speaker 1: just fixating on that and wondering what did I do?
Speaker 1: What did I do? You know, accepting and I know
Speaker 1: this is easier said than done, accepting that things will
Speaker 1: probably never go back to the way they were. I
Speaker 1: will probably never know. How can I move forward knowing
Speaker 1: that I will probably never know? Um? I always like
Speaker 1: to say, in terms of moving on. You have to
Speaker 1: find a way to stop repeating and rehearsing. So repeating
Speaker 1: is when we're agonizing over what happened and we're playing
Speaker 1: out like different scenarios. I mean, if only she said this,
Speaker 1: then I could have been well, that's not possible anymore.
Speaker 1: And then rehearsing for I mean, if I saw her
Speaker 1: on the street again, then I would say da da
Speaker 1: da da. And so it's hard to to get let
Speaker 1: go of those two things. But we have to find
Speaker 1: a way to be grateful about the experience. So, at
Speaker 1: the risk of sounding life coachy, if there's any way
Speaker 1: we can start to get to you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: thankful I had her friendship for twenty years. I really
Speaker 1: needed her companionship. But I'm glad I had her when
Speaker 1: I did. I mean, and even if we're not totally
Speaker 1: there yet and our emotions at least we can kind
Speaker 1: of get there in our brain and our emotions will
Speaker 1: catch up. Um. But the quicker we can get to
Speaker 1: I may never know. And with that information, how can
Speaker 1: I find a way to move forward instead of ruminating?
Speaker 1: Would be like the healthiest plan. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: it's a process like any breakup. And for me, it
Speaker 1: was what what could I have done? What could I
Speaker 1: have done? Or what can I do more? What could
Speaker 1: I do? What do for? And then it was anger, like, hey,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, you know, I'm great. And then it
Speaker 1: finally got to the point where I went, maybe this
Speaker 1: was the friendship it was supposed to be and that
Speaker 1: was it, Like these twenty five years were great, you know,
Speaker 1: And maybe there are relationships that are different times, you know,
Speaker 1: and some last a lifetime and some last ten years
Speaker 1: and some last a year. So for me, that's what
Speaker 1: gave me final closure, this idea of my treasure that time,
Speaker 1: and that was the beginning, middle, and end of that friendship.
Speaker 1: And now I, you know, triple check every time I
Speaker 1: text somebody because you know, now I get to be careful.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but but you know, I think with friendships
Speaker 1: there are reasons that you have the friends you have
Speaker 1: in high school and then suddenly, and this is a generalization,
Speaker 1: you have kids and suddenly you are only hanging out
Speaker 1: with other women that have kids because it's all it's
Speaker 1: a village and you want information and you're sharing the
Speaker 1: same things. And then you get older and then now,
Speaker 1: because of my age, I just realized all my friends
Speaker 1: are about to be empty nesters. So that's all we
Speaker 1: share is like, oh my god, our kids are going,
Speaker 1: our parents are aging. Should I get a necklift? And
Speaker 1: what am I going to do with my husband and
Speaker 1: my kids are gone? Like you know, so some of
Speaker 1: those friendships can last through all those different milestones in life,
Speaker 1: but some don't. Write and the fundamentals of friendship are,
Speaker 1: you know, shared values, shared experiences, common interests. So as
Speaker 1: long as those keep shifting, the people in our lives will,
Speaker 1: you know, inevitably shift as well as we kind of
Speaker 1: explore different aspects of our identity. Becoming a mom for
Speaker 1: many of us is like who we are, and so
Speaker 1: having people who relate to that, who can accommodate that
Speaker 1: kind of lifestyle because now the way you live your
Speaker 1: life looks a little bit different, and so yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's to be expected the people around us will kind
Speaker 1: of shift as well. You know. There's this concept it's
Speaker 1: called Dunbar's number, and the idea is that our brains
Speaker 1: only have the capacity to maintain one hundred and fifty connections,
Speaker 1: like the cognitive capacity to maintain one hundred and fifty connections.
Speaker 1: But then there are these circles. Like, imagine smaller circles
Speaker 1: inside of that number getting gradually smaller. At the heart
Speaker 1: of that circle, the smallest one is the number five,
Speaker 1: meaning we can only have the capacity for five close
Speaker 1: meaningful relationships. And he says that if you have a
Speaker 1: romantic partner, he or she takes up two of those
Speaker 1: five spaces because of all that's required to maintain this
Speaker 1: relationship with your significant other. So that's the case, we've
Speaker 1: really got room for three to five close friendships. Now,
Speaker 1: I always say research should just be like a loose
Speaker 1: guideline because some people are like, well I've got six, Like, oh, okay, great,
Speaker 1: But you know, but this concept of you know, you
Speaker 1: only have room for a certain amount of people. I
Speaker 1: say that to say, if the people in that bucket
Speaker 1: kind of change and maybe one person floats to the
Speaker 1: outer circle because of where you are, but they're still
Speaker 1: in your life, but they're kind of like a weaker tie.
Speaker 1: And then they come back because it's something that happened.
Speaker 1: That's okay, and it's to be expected, you know, especially
Speaker 1: those of us who move. You've got work from home.
Speaker 1: More people are moving across the country. It's changing the
Speaker 1: dynamic of our relationships just because of something like that,
Speaker 1: Because you're twice as likely to make friends with somebody
Speaker 1: who's closer proximity to you. So she's gonna make new
Speaker 1: friends in her neighborhood or people she sees all the
Speaker 1: time at the coffee shop, and you know, not necessarily
Speaker 1: replace you. But there's a shifting that happens, like these
Speaker 1: tectonic plates underneath that are moving and grooving as as
Speaker 1: we become different people. But those friends who are ride
Speaker 1: or die with you for twenty years, it's people who
Speaker 1: are able to support the different aspects of your identity
Speaker 1: as you continue to evolve, and not everyone can do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I also think that that sometimes a friendship is really
Speaker 1: the give and take. I don't have patience with somebody
Speaker 1: whose life is always great, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like if I feel like I'm one always going like
Speaker 1: you know, oh my god, and and and the nuclear war?
Speaker 1: What about this? And I'm worried about this? And then
Speaker 1: I was like not great, No, like my marriage is
Speaker 1: super good, everything's fine, fine, Fine, it's you know, you're
Speaker 1: playing strip poker with someone in a down PARKA Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's hard. You know, there's this concept by a
Speaker 1: friendship expert who name a Shasta Nelson, and she has
Speaker 1: this idea called friend timacy a frientimacy triangle. So if
Speaker 1: you imagine a triangle and a word on each of
Speaker 1: those sides, she says that we need these three things
Speaker 1: in order to have like depth in our friendship. The
Speaker 1: first is positivity, and that appears at the base of
Speaker 1: the triangle because she argues that if it's not a
Speaker 1: pleasurable experience, I'm not going to elect to build anything
Speaker 1: else with you, So it's got to be positive for
Speaker 1: the most part. The next thing is consistency, so we
Speaker 1: see each other with some kind of rhythm, like I'm
Speaker 1: talking to you and checking in on you with some
Speaker 1: kind of regularity. And finally, vulnerability, you know, So to
Speaker 1: your point, if I feel like I'm kind of opening
Speaker 1: up to you, but you want to pretend that everything
Speaker 1: is great and you don't share, it feels off balanced.
Speaker 1: And so if we're looking for more in our existing friendships,
Speaker 1: I always encourage us will think, how can you increase
Speaker 1: the positivity level? Have you all gotten into a rhythm
Speaker 1: of chronic complaining inventing all the time? I mean sometimes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what we do, but all the time, you know,
Speaker 1: and inconsistency. Are we seeing each other or checking in
Speaker 1: regularly and then finally vulnerability or are we opening up?
Speaker 1: Are we taking risks of being rejected? But we're still
Speaker 1: going to put ourselves out there with each other because
Speaker 1: those are the three things that help us to feel
Speaker 1: close and for a lot of people, if we're able
Speaker 1: to identify what's lacking there, it kind of solves the
Speaker 1: mystery of of of what's going on and why we
Speaker 1: feel unsatisfied in certain relationships. So with that example, you know,
Speaker 1: feeling like, well, I'm opening up there, but she's pretending
Speaker 1: everything's fine. She needs to humanize herself somewhere, like you
Speaker 1: can't relate to someone who everything's fine, Well, then what's
Speaker 1: what's the point? You know, what am I here to
Speaker 1: support you through? Or I can't relate to that as
Speaker 1: a person, so I don't feel connected to you. And
Speaker 1: then you know that consistent rhythm we talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: and then you know positivity overall, that five to one ratio,
Speaker 1: and so I always feel like that's a good brothers
Speaker 1: see like overall and my feeling connected and if not,
Speaker 1: and I want to be more connected. It helps give
Speaker 1: me some language to understand what it is I need
Speaker 1: to be pursuing to experience that more. Right, we'll be
Speaker 1: right back, and we're back. It's interesting watching my teenage
Speaker 1: girls because you know, teenage girls are full on into
Speaker 1: everything you're talking about. I mean, teenage girls should have
Speaker 1: a friendship coach like they do a college counselor, because
Speaker 1: it's all girl drama all the time, you know, and
Speaker 1: then you bring the boys in. There's all of that,
Speaker 1: and so I think these are all good lessons for
Speaker 1: that age as well. And I sometimes, you know, one
Speaker 1: of my daughters will come in, you know, see me
Speaker 1: angry about something or see me crying about something, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, it doesn't change, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like I'm still dealing with me and girls, or I'm
Speaker 1: still dealing with you know, try to figure it out now,
Speaker 1: believe me, because it'll be a calmer life. Because on
Speaker 1: the other side of it, my eighties six year old mother,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a few kind of great things she
Speaker 1: said to me over the years, like don't go to
Speaker 1: the Bahamas in July. And another great thing she said
Speaker 1: to me was never underestimate your female friendships. You know,
Speaker 1: she's like, that is what's going to get you through life,
Speaker 1: and that resonated with me in a big way. I
Speaker 1: love hearing that. You know. It's it's funny. I meet
Speaker 1: this TikTok a couple weeks ago, and I did not
Speaker 1: expect it to go viral. It was about how our
Speaker 1: relationships with our mother kind of affects how we approach
Speaker 1: female friendship. So if you had a mom who was
Speaker 1: saying you don't need these girls, or you can't trust people,
Speaker 1: I mean, things like that will affect how you enter
Speaker 1: into adulthood. And so many of us are growing up
Speaker 1: on learning certain attitudes toward female friendship. Do you find
Speaker 1: that that women do with other female friends what they
Speaker 1: do sometimes with men or women they're in love relationships with,
Speaker 1: where they meet somebody another woman and you go, oh,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be my best friend, this is gonna
Speaker 1: make everything good, you know what I mean. It's like
Speaker 1: the joke is like, oh my god, we're gonna braid
Speaker 1: each other's hair and do face fast every night. Like
Speaker 1: I think adult women have that sort of same thing too,
Speaker 1: of like you know, are you my bestie? Are you
Speaker 1: my best see? Yeah? Yeah, you know it's hard because like,
Speaker 1: I've definitely had that too, where you have like that
Speaker 1: instant chemistry and you're like, oh my okay, like you're
Speaker 1: my soul mate, you know. Yeah, And so I think
Speaker 1: we've all had that, and I always say, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: take pleasure in that, take delight in that when you
Speaker 1: meet that woman and it feels very easy. However, if
Speaker 1: you have a belief that that will sustain you, guys
Speaker 1: for the rest of your friendship, then you are misguided.
Speaker 1: Or if you're using that as the barometer of whether
Speaker 1: or not to enter into friendship or I need to
Speaker 1: feel chemistry right away, then that would be misguided as
Speaker 1: well as a matter of fact, there's a study in
Speaker 1: which they asked women, do you believe that making friends
Speaker 1: should be easy or you expect that it will take
Speaker 1: some work, And they follow these women over a span
Speaker 1: of five years. The women who said I think friendship
Speaker 1: should be easy, we're reporting greater feelings of loneliness than
Speaker 1: the women who said, I expect I'll probably have to
Speaker 1: work at it. And so even from the beginning, keeping
Speaker 1: those expectations that I'll probably have to communicate my needs
Speaker 1: and be patient with her, and she's gonna be patient
Speaker 1: with me and we'll talk it through. We have to
Speaker 1: expect and normalize that that will happen. But all this
Speaker 1: imagery we've been fed on the media of instant chemistry
Speaker 1: and braid each other's hair. If we don't have that
Speaker 1: in real life, we're questioning everything. But that's not real life,
Speaker 1: you know. So the instant chemistry thing, I think is nice,
Speaker 1: and I think sometimes we're secretly you know, I once
Speaker 1: hurt another friendship experts say we're secretly auditioning for a
Speaker 1: best friend sometimes when we meet women and we wanted
Speaker 1: to be totally perfect and have all the things. And
Speaker 1: I always say, if we're keeping a real you don't
Speaker 1: have all the things for your friends either. There's something
Speaker 1: you lack for them, but they love you and and
Speaker 1: you still offer a lot of value to their world.
Speaker 1: Give me some of your favorite notions about women's friendship.
Speaker 1: You must have some kind of inspirational quote that you've
Speaker 1: put on your refrigerator or you've instagrammed. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: one thing I'll say. I know I keep saying research says,
Speaker 1: and I sound like Steve Workele over here, but you know,
Speaker 1: but I like it. Smarty pants, I get. You know,
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting because you know, we're all familiar
Speaker 1: with fight or flight as a stress response. But when
Speaker 1: they did that study over again, they did it with
Speaker 1: women in the nineties early nineties, I think, and they
Speaker 1: found that we have a greater range of responses to stress,
Speaker 1: and two of those responses are tend or befriend meaning
Speaker 1: we will seek out the company of another woman, and
Speaker 1: when we come together, we produce more levels of oxytocin,
Speaker 1: which actually calms the stress that we have. And so
Speaker 1: I always say, like, even on a you know, physiological,
Speaker 1: biological level, female friendship is so life giving. You know,
Speaker 1: whenever I do make videos and stuff about female friendships
Speaker 1: so beautiful. Naturally, there are people in the comments who
Speaker 1: are like, well, I've had women who've been awful. I
Speaker 1: get along better with men, and all those experiences are valid,
Speaker 1: they really are. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: there's nothing like going through this life in the same way.
Speaker 1: We share the experience of being a woman in this world.
Speaker 1: And for me that is enough. And I you know,
Speaker 1: understand where we're different, and you know, interracial friendships, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to experience things that you don't all that,
Speaker 1: but being a woman in this world, I'm going to
Speaker 1: need some friends who can share that experience with me.
Speaker 1: And I really do think it's that simple. Well, let
Speaker 1: me just tell you something that just came to my mind.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's because of what's happening in the world
Speaker 1: right now. I think if you put all women in
Speaker 1: the war room in the situation room, or you put
Speaker 1: all men in the war room, there are going to
Speaker 1: be two completely different outcomes. And uh, I would assume
Speaker 1: a more peaceful conclusion if it were all women in
Speaker 1: the war room. Danielle. I have been barraging you with
Speaker 1: questions because I'm so fascinated by the subject. But at
Speaker 1: the end of my podcast, I like to turn it
Speaker 1: around and say, do you have a question for me?
Speaker 1: And it can be about anything. Well, I want to
Speaker 1: get you to weigh in on something I was debating
Speaker 1: with friends. Okay, good, okay. So you know how you
Speaker 1: have like books that you love or this this this
Speaker 1: song that you just love. When you find out that
Speaker 1: the artists so like the author or the singer themselves,
Speaker 1: did something problematic, or they have this crazy history or whatever,
Speaker 1: are you able to separate like, oh, this artist is
Speaker 1: crazy and they've done these things. But man, I love
Speaker 1: that song or are we supposed to like not love
Speaker 1: that song anymore. We had a little debate among my
Speaker 1: friend group, and I was curious as to you how
Speaker 1: you feel about that, how you separate the artists from
Speaker 1: the art My feeling is that, like, let me, let
Speaker 1: me say this. I'm not behind cancel culture. You know,
Speaker 1: I do think people deserve second chances. So it's hard
Speaker 1: for me to answer because I do think you have
Speaker 1: to be specific about what it is. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: one that I grapple with is Woody Allen, because you know,
Speaker 1: I like his earlier films, I really do, and yet
Speaker 1: he's never been convicted, but there has been obviously court
Speaker 1: cases about child molestation, so it has changed how I
Speaker 1: look at his films. Yes, once I have the information,
Speaker 1: it's hard for me to separate the artists from the
Speaker 1: art But it depends on the degree of the crime
Speaker 1: of the artist. I guess that is that what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to say. Okay, I just realized that was kind
Speaker 1: of an intense question. No, no, but but but the
Speaker 1: reason you're talking about it with your girlfriends is the
Speaker 1: exact same reason I talk about it with my girlfriends,
Speaker 1: because I'm trying to figure it out too, Like when
Speaker 1: do we when to become too totalitarian where we're like, no,
Speaker 1: they're gone, you know, cancel, And when do we go, Okay,
Speaker 1: they made a mistake, they said this thing and they
Speaker 1: apologize for it. Do they get a second chance or
Speaker 1: oh they're a child pornographer? Know what I mean? Like
Speaker 1: it's there are degrees. I don't mind a hard question.
Speaker 1: I just um, it's not a succinct answer. I'm still
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, just like you are. Okay, they'll
Speaker 1: tell me what you think. I guess it does depend
Speaker 1: on like what it is. I was asking because there's
Speaker 1: this book that's being turned into a movie and I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's so good. I can't wait. And
Speaker 1: I had people say like, oh, you know, she's problematic
Speaker 1: because she did this one thing, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: but I'm conflicted, like that's still one of my favorite books.
Speaker 1: And right now if I go, do I look like
Speaker 1: I'm less feministy if I'm like, but I still want
Speaker 1: to see that movie though, you know, so we're just
Speaker 1: kind of having that conversation. I thought I was just
Speaker 1: curious Danielle, I could stay on for a few hours.
Speaker 1: There are so many layers to it, and I just
Speaker 1: applaud what you do. I think my nineteen year old
Speaker 1: should be one of your clients. Yeah, no, I appreciate you.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to see that more women are making
Speaker 1: space to have this conversation. It's so important and so
Speaker 1: thank you for letting you come on and lend my
Speaker 1: voice to the conversation. Wow. I think Danielle is amazing.
Speaker 1: And I have to say when I thought about the
Speaker 1: idea of a friendship coach, I was a little skeptical.
Speaker 1: I didn't really understand what a friendship coach would do
Speaker 1: that like a therapist couldn't do. I mean, listen, romantic
Speaker 1: relationships are incredibly difficult, but girlfriend relationships are really hard.
Speaker 1: When I've broken up with boys, it's been like, uh,
Speaker 1: you cheated on me, or I don't like you anymore
Speaker 1: and we're done. It's so much more difficult with our girlfriends.
Speaker 1: And the other thing that I think is so interesting
Speaker 1: about a lot of what daniel said is you never
Speaker 1: outgrow the stuff. We love our girlfriends and they give
Speaker 1: us so much strength and a floor for everything we do.
Speaker 1: But they are relationships and they can be fraught, and
Speaker 1: I think we could all use a girlfriend coach. H.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Go Ask Gali. If you
Speaker 1: like more info, check out our show notes. Be sure
Speaker 1: to subscribe, rate and review the podcast, and follow me
Speaker 1: on social media on Twitter at Ali e Wentworth and
Speaker 1: on Instagram at the Real Ali Wentworth. Now. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to ask me a question or suggest a guest
Speaker 1: or a topic to dig into, I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from you, and there's a bunch of ways to do it.
Speaker 1: You can call or text me at three to three
Speaker 1: three six four six three five six, or you can
Speaker 1: email a voice memo right from your phone to Go
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