Speaker 1: Wind down with Janet Kramer an I'mheart Radio podcast. All right,
Speaker 1: this line about it. We have Laura Tremaine. So she
Speaker 1: grew up in Oklahoma. She moved to Los Angeles when
Speaker 1: she was twenty two years old. So she's worked in
Speaker 1: film television production for many years, MTV, VH one, Fox,
Speaker 1: Paramount Pictures, but now she is full time writing. She
Speaker 1: has shared a lot about her life with anxiety, mother,
Speaker 1: had a marriage. She has a podcast as well, but
Speaker 1: right now she's got a book out called The Life Council,
Speaker 1: Ten Friends every Woman Needs. There's a lot of times
Speaker 1: I get questions about friendships, frind breakup. So let's dive
Speaker 1: in with Laura tremain. How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm good? How are you look? We both have neon
Speaker 2: behind us.
Speaker 1: Our signs? What's your sign?
Speaker 2: Say? It says share your stuff. It's kind of hard
Speaker 2: to see on the.
Speaker 1: Oh, yep, there it is. You Do you share your stuff?
Speaker 1: You like sharing your stuff?
Speaker 2: I mean I've made a career of it.
Speaker 1: Same girl. What's the downside for you of sharing your stuff?
Speaker 1: I'm curious, like we're because I have some.
Speaker 2: I mean there's a few. The obvious one would be relational,
Speaker 2: like with people in my real life. Of like, there
Speaker 2: I attract people in my real life who are the
Speaker 2: opposite of sharers, and so they don't love that I
Speaker 2: share my stuff. Even though I try to be very
Speaker 2: mindful and respectful of that, it's still it's tricky. And
Speaker 2: then the other part, the second hardest part, I think
Speaker 2: would be because I've been doing this for so long
Speaker 2: that when you change, you change your mind on something,
Speaker 2: you change the way you believe, the way you vote
Speaker 2: a take you might have had ten years ago. When
Speaker 2: that changes, it's harder to walk it through because what
Speaker 2: makes sense to you in your spirit or even would
Speaker 2: make sense to people in your real life. People online
Speaker 2: are whatever, have not followed all the dots, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. So it's just like and nor do
Speaker 2: they have to, but like it's just harder to unpack
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 1: Why do you think you attract more people that are
Speaker 1: private like relationally? Because it's interesting because I when I
Speaker 1: was dating post divorce, a lot of the people that
Speaker 1: were very like, very private, like they just they wanted
Speaker 1: to stay private. They relationally wanted to stay private like
Speaker 1: you know, And I was like, this is interesting that
Speaker 1: I keep picking the same person.
Speaker 2: I mean, I like, is the is it dumb to
Speaker 2: say opposites attract I honestly think my first instinct when
Speaker 2: you asked that question, I always try to go with
Speaker 2: my kind of gut instinct is not that I'm necessarily
Speaker 2: attracted to private people. It's that private people are very
Speaker 2: attracted to me. Like I don't feel like I am
Speaker 2: as overtly taking something from their privacy as they might
Speaker 2: need from someone who likes to share and talk. And
Speaker 2: doesn't mean I don't take anything from them, but I
Speaker 2: mean just that particular aspect.
Speaker 1: Like you're saying, like it's a trait that they wish
Speaker 1: they had.
Speaker 2: Or that they're attracted to, that they want more of,
Speaker 2: or that they like observing. You like being in proximity
Speaker 2: to because a lot of people they don't necessarily I
Speaker 2: don't necessarily teach them to open up over time, but
Speaker 2: they like being in proximity to people who open up,
Speaker 2: but they like listening or observing. Yeah, my husband would
Speaker 2: say that for sure, and then some of my closest
Speaker 2: friends would also say that, And then I have family
Speaker 2: members who would never say that. They're like, Nope, they
Speaker 2: don't like it, and they still don't like it right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my boyfriend, he's he's definitely way more private, and
Speaker 1: you know, he was kind of had that conversation like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like, I'm I talk about a lot
Speaker 1: of things now. He's like, well, I think the only
Speaker 1: thing I wouldn't want, you know, to talk about is
Speaker 1: when we have those we face those hardships up. Because
Speaker 1: I used to have a podcast with Max husband, So
Speaker 1: I'm like, I would never go back to that because
Speaker 1: that was like two open wounds, you know, that was
Speaker 1: an oversharing and that I think affected us in the
Speaker 1: long run. So like, I wouldn't I would never do
Speaker 1: that again with any relationship moving forward again because I
Speaker 1: saw the negative effects of that. Now they were positive, sure,
Speaker 1: but at the you know, but also I think more
Speaker 1: so like negative. So I was like, I would never
Speaker 1: come in and be like, oh, I'm you know, I'm
Speaker 1: mad am I this person, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like I always I will I said, I will always
Speaker 1: share us as in a positive light, you know, and
Speaker 1: because I think that helps, you know, keep the relationship
Speaker 1: strong too, not think because when you were having all
Speaker 1: these negative thoughts, it's like it's not good.
Speaker 2: I kind of worried about that with my book writing
Speaker 2: a book about friendship, even though I wrote about it
Speaker 2: very positively, it felt like a little bit like what
Speaker 2: you're saying, like when you know, when you see married
Speaker 2: couples go on a reality show about their marriage, and
Speaker 2: then what always happens is they get worsd Like I
Speaker 2: felt that way about writing a book about friendship. I
Speaker 2: was like, if am I going to write about all
Speaker 2: my friends and then end up friendless? Like this is
Speaker 2: what's going to happen? Is this the natural trajectory of
Speaker 2: things that has not happened so far? But I think
Speaker 2: it is human nature. It's almost like we're jinxing it
Speaker 2: or when you put it out there, you know, that's
Speaker 2: a vulnerability that you're exposing yourself to. And I try
Speaker 2: not to believe that God or the universe works that way,
Speaker 2: like in a vengeful way, like you put yourself out there,
Speaker 2: so then you're going to get something bad back. I
Speaker 2: have to train my brain to not think like that.
Speaker 1: No, I totally a hear you I've written something and
Speaker 1: it's you know, writing things like what if you know
Speaker 1: something happens or whatever. But it's like your friends are
Speaker 1: especially I'm sure the ones that you write about in
Speaker 1: your book are friends that have been on such a
Speaker 1: journey with you through a lot of your seasons. Now
Speaker 1: I'm curious, like in that, like are there because you
Speaker 1: talk about the friends that you need, you know, are
Speaker 1: there new season friends in there? Are those? The ones
Speaker 1: that you worry about? Are the ones that have been
Speaker 1: there for for a long time.
Speaker 2: Both, I probably care more about those that have been
Speaker 2: there for a long time. To damage those would be
Speaker 2: really detrimental to me as a human versus new friends,
Speaker 2: which I love new friends. Actually the new friend chapter
Speaker 2: in the book is one of my favorite sections. But
Speaker 2: there's less stakes with a new friend if that ended
Speaker 2: or if there was damage there with an old friend,
Speaker 2: you know, it's like such a part of your heart.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean yes, my best friend Kat and
Speaker 1: I mean the very few times we've had disagreements, it's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it feels like a like it's that
Speaker 1: scary feeling of like I can't lose this. It's like
Speaker 1: a family member, you know. It's like that's how fifteen
Speaker 1: years of like love and but you know, people change
Speaker 1: and they grow and you just hope that they're they're
Speaker 1: there through you and I mean, I feel very fortunate
Speaker 1: with the friends that I have that it's stuck with
Speaker 1: me through some of my best seasons and some of
Speaker 1: my worst seasons, and some of my ugly seasons, you know,
Speaker 1: where I haven't been the best version of myself. But
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I'm curious with your book. You
Speaker 1: know a lot of why I think my friends like
Speaker 1: I have the friends that will be like I need
Speaker 1: you to look in the mirror on this one, you know,
Speaker 1: and kind of call me out because I need that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I start the book out with a
Speaker 2: little bit of a call out. The first section of
Speaker 2: the book is called a friendship reckoning because in twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: I said something hurtfull accidentally. I just was multitasking and
Speaker 2: not thinking it through on a group text, and it
Speaker 2: hurt one of my friends so badly she was almost
Speaker 2: willing to end our friendship over it. Now. It was
Speaker 2: the height of the pandemic, emotions were running high. Texts
Speaker 2: can obviously be misconstrued, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It was.
Speaker 2: It was definitely a thing like I've had to walk
Speaker 2: through those hard friendship moments, had hard conversations, had to
Speaker 2: say do we want to move forward? It's terrible. I
Speaker 2: wanted to start the book out that way because I
Speaker 2: didn't want anyone to think that I was coming from
Speaker 2: a place of perfect friendships, right or not? Right?
Speaker 1: Why did you want to write a friendship book? Where
Speaker 1: was that?
Speaker 2: Because I've been sharing myself on the internet for over
Speaker 2: ten years and the friendship topic kept coming up. Now,
Speaker 2: I will say I started when I was a blogger,
Speaker 2: like in two thousand and nine, like a long time ago.
Speaker 2: I started that blog from a place of loneliness. I
Speaker 2: had moved to Los Angeles from Oklahoma, where I'd had,
Speaker 2: you know, a hometown friend group and a college friend
Speaker 2: group and a summer camp friend group and a youth
Speaker 2: group friend group and all these things when I was young,
Speaker 2: and I moved to this city of ten million people
Speaker 2: thinking I would have the same types of friends. And
Speaker 2: I didn't. And I spent a lot of my twenties
Speaker 2: working in film and television production. When I got married
Speaker 2: and we decided to start a family, I was at
Speaker 2: home without work friends, without very many local friends, and
Speaker 2: I was super lonely. And so I started this blog. Well,
Speaker 2: I blogged about a lot of things. I wrote about
Speaker 2: a lot of things for many years, but I did
Speaker 2: blog about this idea of not having very many local
Speaker 2: friends and this huge city that came up a lot,
Speaker 2: and so many women would reach out and say they
Speaker 2: were lonely, but they were lonely in their hometowns, or
Speaker 2: they were lonely in their new cities or in their
Speaker 2: new marriages or whatever, and nobody could figure out why,
Speaker 2: like nice people couldn't make friends, you know, like what
Speaker 2: was wrong with us? And so that just came up
Speaker 2: time and time again. I always knew that I wanted
Speaker 2: to write about it, but what held me back from
Speaker 2: writing about it for a long time was, first of all,
Speaker 2: there's a lot a ton out there about friendships, Like
Speaker 2: there's a lot a lot of books out there, and
Speaker 2: the ones that are out there are like very research driven,
Speaker 2: or they're like by therapists or you know, a psychologist
Speaker 2: or whatever. And I was like, I don't have like
Speaker 2: the credentials to write, to write a book about relationships,
Speaker 2: because I don't. I only have my own lived experience.
Speaker 2: I don't have, you know, academic background, but I do
Speaker 2: have like hundreds literally hundreds of hours of talking on
Speaker 2: my own podcast, writing on this blog, talking about on
Speaker 2: social media, of hearing from other women over a decade
Speaker 2: about this topic. So I finally got to myself. I
Speaker 2: finally got myself to a place where I felt like
Speaker 2: I can write about this as long as I set
Speaker 2: it up as I'm not an expert or I'm you know,
Speaker 2: not a researcher here. I just want to start this
Speaker 2: as a conversation. This book should be a conversation, much
Speaker 2: like my own show is, because I want other women
Speaker 2: talking about it with their friends and they talk about
Speaker 2: it with me. They need to talk about it in
Speaker 2: their friend circles or with their you know, online buddies, whoever.
Speaker 2: But we need to be talking about some of these
Speaker 2: aspects of friendships. Nobody ever talks about friendship. We talk
Speaker 2: about marriage, we talk about parenthood, we talk about aging parents,
Speaker 2: we talk about childhood trauma. People do not talk about friends.
Speaker 2: We have like friends, it's just like water, just like they're.
Speaker 1: Or that they're going to stay there too, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, it's a you bring up
Speaker 1: a good point with what you how you start the
Speaker 1: book because something happened and that was again like my
Speaker 1: best friend Kat, who's one of my co hosts on
Speaker 1: my Monday show, like we we've maybe had in fifteen years.
Speaker 1: Three arguments that really, you know, were like rocked us.
Speaker 1: And the one recently happened when I was over in
Speaker 1: England because my I don't take a minute when I
Speaker 1: when I respond back to something, I don't respond. I
Speaker 1: respond kind of feelingless I because I'm not meaning to
Speaker 1: hurt feelings. And I don't think that I'm going to
Speaker 1: hurt feelings because I'm my intention is not to hurt feelings.
Speaker 1: But I said a text that ended up hurting your feelings.
Speaker 1: But I was like, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.
Speaker 1: But I didn't even think about how it because I
Speaker 1: just put the text message out. It was very work related,
Speaker 1: but it was how I like said it, and you know,
Speaker 1: her feelings are hurt and I'm you know, I'm talking
Speaker 1: to my boyfriend like I don't understand. But then I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that's not that wasn't my intention. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: when you write it like that, I'm like, but that's like,
Speaker 1: why would she even think that, Like she's my best friend, like,
Speaker 1: and so I think that's hard because we just think
Speaker 1: that their bullet proof when they're not. And that was
Speaker 1: kind of a lesson than I had to go. Well, shoot,
Speaker 1: I have to be mindful now of how I use
Speaker 1: my words, even in my girlfriend friendships. And I've been
Speaker 1: so aware since I because I'm like, she's one of
Speaker 1: the most important people in my life. I don't want
Speaker 1: to upset her or make her think that she's not
Speaker 1: important or any of those things. You know well.
Speaker 2: And also the other part of that is is one
Speaker 2: of my core I have five core friendship philosophies in
Speaker 2: the book, and one of them is believe the best.
Speaker 2: So it doesn't mean that you didn't say it in
Speaker 2: your best way. I mean clearly you didn't.
Speaker 1: Right, I just I just can be very direct because
Speaker 1: we work together too. She's my day to day manager,
Speaker 1: like you know what I mean. So it's just like
Speaker 1: I can. I just am very direct sometimes.
Speaker 2: Right, So, and I believe you, and I'm sure she
Speaker 2: knows that about you, so she can still say this
Speaker 2: hurt my feelings. I don't like it when you speak
Speaker 2: like this to me, Like I, you know, need a
Speaker 2: little bit more padding in a direct comment whatever however
Speaker 2: she wants to phrase it for you. But when you're
Speaker 2: having that hard conversation about this hurt my feelings. Please,
Speaker 2: don't you know, speak this way or whatever. To believe
Speaker 2: you start that conversation believing the best about one another,
Speaker 2: like if she believed the worst about you, or even
Speaker 2: not the best of like yeah, you were trying to
Speaker 2: be mean, you treat me like an employee, I don't
Speaker 2: know whatever wherever her brain went. Instead, if you can
Speaker 2: both start a hard conversation believing the best, like I
Speaker 2: know that you didn't mean it this way because I
Speaker 2: know you and I trust your heart. However, when you
Speaker 2: text like this, it bums me out. And then you
Speaker 2: can believe the best about her. You believe you know
Speaker 2: that she's coming to you with pure intentions, that she's
Speaker 2: not trying to like cause a big work fight or whatever.
Speaker 2: If you don't believe the best about each other in
Speaker 2: one of these hard conversations, this is when you get
Speaker 2: these like deep riffs, when you start to like think, oh,
Speaker 2: she's actually secretly thinking this, or that she doesn't believe
Speaker 2: the best about me, so that it makes us defensive,
Speaker 2: like how could like you just said, how could you
Speaker 2: think I was being mean? Like you know me? You
Speaker 2: on both sides. You have to believe the best because
Speaker 2: you want them to believe the best about you, you
Speaker 2: have to offer the same grace to her, which it
Speaker 2: sounds like you guys did, but it's it's easier said
Speaker 2: than done, for sure.
Speaker 1: Why do you think friendship conversations like aren't talked about?
Speaker 1: Is it just because people can just they're fine to
Speaker 1: let go of them, or is it like another work
Speaker 1: thing that they feel like they have to, like you know,
Speaker 1: then going to like therapy with your friend.
Speaker 2: Well, I do not think people are good to let
Speaker 2: go of them. We already mentioned friendship breakups are it's
Speaker 2: so painful. I have talked to so many women who've
Speaker 2: said that their friendship breakup of a best friend, like
Speaker 2: a deep friendship ending, was more painful than their divorce,
Speaker 2: was more painful than romantic breakups. Like it was that devastating,
Speaker 2: and culturally we do not give it any weight. Like
Speaker 2: if you go through a romantic breakup, people are like, yes,
Speaker 2: stay in bed, have your grieving period. Nobody says that
Speaker 2: about friendship breakups. You just act like, oh, you're just
Speaker 2: gonna pick up another friend. You know you're out of milk,
Speaker 2: you get more milk. Like people treat friendships like it's
Speaker 2: this unending resource when I don't find that to be true.
Speaker 2: But to answer you a question of why we don't
Speaker 2: talk about it more, I think we've learned about friendships
Speaker 2: when we're really young, like elementary school age, when you
Speaker 2: first start to learn how to be friends, like be kind, share,
Speaker 2: you know, that kind of thing, and then we just
Speaker 2: never revisit the rules that we learn when we're young,
Speaker 2: or the patterns that we get in when we're young.
Speaker 2: We literally never revisit it because it's almost like these
Speaker 2: this thing in life that we take for granted, Like
Speaker 2: you learn to read, you don't need to relearn to
Speaker 2: read when you're an adult, like you just it's a
Speaker 2: thing we learned, we got it, you do it or
Speaker 2: you don't, which actually isn't true, because we learn friendships
Speaker 2: and how to be a friend like under a completely
Speaker 2: different life circumstances. So like we learn to be friends
Speaker 2: primarily at school, so we're at school together eight hours
Speaker 2: a day. Even when we get to be on adulthood,
Speaker 2: like in college or post college life, if you have roommates, whatever,
Speaker 2: you are learning friendship with a lot of time on
Speaker 2: your hands, like a lot less responsibility, a lot more resilience, frankly,
Speaker 2: and then you get to adulthood, life is so different.
Speaker 2: You have work, you have a mortgage, maybe you have kids,
Speaker 2: maybe you have health stuff. I don't know, And suddenly
Speaker 2: you can be like, I don't I don't have the
Speaker 2: same amount of time to give toffriends. I don't have
Speaker 2: the same amount of energy. I don't understand why making
Speaker 2: friends take so much effort when earlier in my life
Speaker 2: it was so easy. It was sort of served up
Speaker 2: to me that was my problem is friends were always around.
Speaker 2: So when I got to Los Angeles, I was like,
Speaker 2: I didn't know you had to like make all this effort,
Speaker 2: like ask people on a friend date or like introduce yourself.
Speaker 2: Like I'd never had to practice any of those skills
Speaker 2: in the first twenty years of my life, and so
Speaker 2: it was really eye opening to me to become an adult.
Speaker 2: And I think that this is true for a lot
Speaker 2: of people, Like we had no idea. We're never taught
Speaker 2: that there's maintenance involved and effort involved and friendship and
Speaker 2: and for a lot of people, we don't ever really
Speaker 2: examine it until something bad happens, until we go through
Speaker 2: a lonely period, until we have a friend break up,
Speaker 2: you know, until we go through something where we're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I maybe haven't paid much as much attention to friends
Speaker 2: as I should have.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that piece is hard. Like I mean,
Speaker 1: I have a high school, high school best best friend,
Speaker 1: you know, since middle school, and we don't talk hardly
Speaker 1: at all. Really, I mean, you know, we maybe catch
Speaker 1: up once a month. You know, it's been a little
Speaker 1: bit more now, but before I was a couple every
Speaker 1: or so months. But I still love her, you know,
Speaker 1: very much. It's just you know, with kids and getting older,
Speaker 1: it's different states. Like it's it's really hard. But I
Speaker 1: will say that the fallout friendships I'm curious about because
Speaker 1: in my mind, I'm like, there's you know, there's been
Speaker 1: one for sure that really hurt. But in my mind,
Speaker 1: I go, Okay, well, I guess that friendship just didn't
Speaker 1: mean as much to them as it did to me.
Speaker 1: And like do do I did? I wouldn't have wanted
Speaker 1: that anyways, if that's how it was gonna.
Speaker 2: Be, Well, why do you assume it didn't mean as
Speaker 2: much to her because she was willing to end it?
Speaker 1: She was Well, it wasn't a she, it was a yeah,
Speaker 1: he like he sold something to a story. Oh and yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was my best friend, so it was that
Speaker 1: was really hard, you know, because like we had a
Speaker 1: fallout and then you go do that, so it's like,
Speaker 1: were you even my best friend?
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, that is a betrayal. Yeah, so that's different.
Speaker 2: I think that's like in a different category of friendship breakup.
Speaker 2: Like a betrayal especially like of that magnitude is enormous
Speaker 2: and something you'll you'll never get over that. I mean,
Speaker 2: that can't be repaired most ship breakups, I think, are
Speaker 2: you know, you hurt my feelings, we're growing apart.
Speaker 1: Do you think those kind of friendships are repaired.
Speaker 2: I think they can be, But I don't think most
Speaker 2: friendship breakups or friendship changes like we're talking about, involve
Speaker 2: immense betrayal. What you're describing is a mince betrayal. I'm
Speaker 2: just saying that to affirm to you that that is
Speaker 2: a whole different level of grief that you have to
Speaker 2: go through on top of leaving, on top of losing
Speaker 2: the friend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a long time ago, but yeah, and
Speaker 1: it was not fun. But that's what I always kind
Speaker 1: of that's l like my arm kind of went out
Speaker 1: to a lot of like I keep people at very
Speaker 1: I have a very small circle, and I have a
Speaker 1: hard time letting other new friends come in just because
Speaker 1: I don't like who can I trust, right, and like
Speaker 1: who's not going to say something or you know.
Speaker 2: Well, it seems like that would be harshly a public
Speaker 2: figure problem, like in some way, like you're going to
Speaker 2: have different considerations than sure other people do. But that
Speaker 2: affects a lot of people too, Like I grew up
Speaker 2: in a really small town, so public figure is relative, right,
Speaker 2: But it's the same thing of who can you trust?
Speaker 2: Who is going to harm my reputation or share a
Speaker 2: secret or anything like that. Anyone who's gone through something
Speaker 2: hard will tell you that they circle the wagons right
Speaker 2: with like the closest people. Because your betrayal happened in adulthood.
Speaker 2: But this happens to a lot of us when we're young.
Speaker 2: If you get mean girled, if you're bullied, if your
Speaker 2: best friend in high school steals your boyfriend, all those
Speaker 2: different stories that can for sure affect the way that
Speaker 2: you do friendship going forward, even on you know, just
Speaker 2: in your own life, it only affects you, but it
Speaker 2: affects you, like for the rest of your life of
Speaker 2: how you walk in friendship, Like I A lot of
Speaker 2: times hear women say some version of this diminishes a
Speaker 2: little as we get older. But when we're younger, don't
Speaker 2: you hear women who are like, oh, I'm a guys girl,
Speaker 2: Like I only have guy friends. All I hear when
Speaker 2: I hear a woman say that is who hurt you?
Speaker 2: Like somebody hurt you. It doesn't mean that you can't
Speaker 2: prefer to be around men, and like, really love that dynamic.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you do. But when you swear off a
Speaker 2: whole gender set that is probably coming from a place
Speaker 2: of hurts. You probably got mean girled. You probably lost
Speaker 2: your best friend in some really painful way, and so
Speaker 2: now you don't trust women anymore, you know, you only
Speaker 2: trust men? And yeah, I just think we get into
Speaker 2: these habits a lot of times. They start when we're young,
Speaker 2: and we never examine them when we're older, of like, well,
Speaker 2: why don't I have more friends? Or why is it
Speaker 2: hard for me to make friends? Or why don't I
Speaker 2: trust people?
Speaker 1: And do you write all about all that in your book?
Speaker 2: I mean yet not quite as exactly as we're talking
Speaker 2: about it, but for sure I talk about the patterns
Speaker 2: that we learned when we're young and how it affects
Speaker 2: our adult friendships. The main point of the book is
Speaker 2: more though, about addressing our loneliness, because so many of
Speaker 2: us feel lonely in so many different types of circumstances
Speaker 2: in so many cities, big and small. And I really
Speaker 2: wanted to write about what I had to do, which
Speaker 2: was changed my perspective on friendships. When I didn't have
Speaker 2: very many local friends in LA I had to make
Speaker 2: something work for myself. I turned to the internet. I
Speaker 2: made internet friends, which I do write about. I poured
Speaker 2: into my childhood friends that were back in Oklahoma, which
Speaker 2: is where I was from. But I was like, I'm
Speaker 2: just going to invest in these relationships even though they're
Speaker 2: not local, Like I'm going to call more, email, more,
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. I looked around at co workers
Speaker 2: and even though they weren't like my type of galpal
Speaker 2: that I pictured, like this was a coworker, but we
Speaker 2: that's an intimacy because we saw each other every single day,
Speaker 2: we had lunch together every day. They understood a part
Speaker 2: of my life, my work life that other people didn't understand.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to sort of elevate these people that
Speaker 2: are in my life, which is what a lot of
Speaker 2: the book is about. Looking around at your existing landscape
Speaker 2: and instead of feeling like I don't have any friends
Speaker 2: or I don't have enough friends, or feeling this lack
Speaker 2: that a lot of us feel, which makes us feel
Speaker 2: lonely disconnected, to look around who is there and see like, Okay,
Speaker 2: maybe I wouldn't have given this person the title of
Speaker 2: friend because they're my neighbor, they're a sports mom, they're
Speaker 2: a coworker, whatever, but I'm going to see that actually
Speaker 2: they are a part of my daily life. I'm a
Speaker 2: part of theirs, and sort of elevating all of these
Speaker 2: relationships in our life that we either don't give credit
Speaker 2: to or like. Another big piece I think is we
Speaker 2: have a friend, but she doesn't tick a certain box
Speaker 2: for us, like she's super fun, but like you would
Speaker 2: not have a heart to heart with her, or the opposite,
Speaker 2: like she's great for a heart to heart, but like
Speaker 2: maybe she's a stick in the mud. I say that
Speaker 2: because I'm that person, like I will love to deep
Speaker 2: die with you, but like I'm not ever described as fun. Probably,
Speaker 2: So instead of seeing like our friends like uh, like
Speaker 2: she's not quite like she's not this or that or whatever.
Speaker 2: Like I really want a friend that's x y Z
Speaker 2: that we can be Like no, let the heart to
Speaker 2: heart girl be the heart to heart girl, and then
Speaker 2: find you a fun friend that never wants to go deep.
Speaker 2: Those are two different people that does not have to
Speaker 2: be the same person, and they are going to serve
Speaker 2: on your life counsel. And what a joy it is
Speaker 2: to like see people in their strengths instead of thinking
Speaker 2: that they're not fulfilling you in some way. This also
Speaker 2: freezy up for you to be that way too. Like
Speaker 2: I just said, like I'm not exactly the fun friend.
Speaker 2: I have other people that I let be the fun friend,
Speaker 2: Like I'm gonna live for sure. Yeah, Like yeah, call
Speaker 2: me when you want a heart to heart. If you
Speaker 2: want a margarita, call Tracy, Like I just for sure.
Speaker 2: That's how we have, Like there's five of us in
Speaker 2: a little queendom. We have like a little quendom chat.
Speaker 2: But it's like every single one of us have the
Speaker 2: like if you're gonna go if you want just like
Speaker 2: a really fun get dressed up, You're gonna go with Pammy.
Speaker 2: If you want like a heart to heart. You're gonna
Speaker 2: come to me like I will. We will spill everything together.
Speaker 2: If you want just to like chill out watch TV,
Speaker 2: you're gonna go to cat like it's like we're all
Speaker 2: we all have our thing and it's like but together
Speaker 2: we we're great.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Well that is the life Counsel. That's the whole book.
Speaker 2: You already have it. You don't need to read.
Speaker 1: Oh very okay, Well that was my next question because
Speaker 1: you say you know the ten friends you knew. I
Speaker 1: was like, give meet because I was like, obviously I
Speaker 1: want the listeners to read read the book as well,
Speaker 1: so not give them all away, but like, what's one
Speaker 1: friend you really need?
Speaker 2: Oh, I'll give them all away. I have no problem.
Speaker 2: I want to read the book, but I also like
Speaker 2: want people to kind of know what they're getting into.
Speaker 2: I'll read you all ten, but we can focus on
Speaker 2: whichever ones kind of peek your interest. Okay, there's the
Speaker 2: daily duty friend, which, by the way, I did not
Speaker 2: have a daily duty friend till I was forty years old.
Speaker 1: There's the best that's my that's my girl, Tanya. That's
Speaker 1: like I think if I hear when I hear daily duties,
Speaker 1: it's like things that we you know, we have the
Speaker 1: same sports kids and we do the exports activities together
Speaker 1: and like we you know, I help pick up kids,
Speaker 1: same school stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Same mine is a fellow sports mom. But I think
Speaker 2: when we think of friendship, we think all friends should
Speaker 2: be daily duty friends, like only text every day, we
Speaker 2: talk all the time. And my deepest friendships are not
Speaker 2: all that. I didn't have a daily duty friend, like
Speaker 2: I said, till I was forty, But I've always had friends. Okay,
Speaker 2: here's the other the old friend, the business bestie, the
Speaker 2: fellow obsessive. So that's a big one. That's a pop one.
Speaker 2: The battle buddy, Okay, what's the battle buddy? Someone who
Speaker 2: is going through the same battle you are.
Speaker 1: Okay, got it, And that can.
Speaker 2: Be any battle, you know, surface level or deep. And
Speaker 2: they understand this battle in a way that other people don't.
Speaker 2: And maybe you only bond on the battle like again,
Speaker 2: kind of like the coworker. Maybe you aren't connecting in
Speaker 2: other ways. Your life circumstances don't look anything else alike,
Speaker 2: but you're both walking through this particular fire. That kind
Speaker 2: of companion is like absolutely priceless. Okay. Then there's the
Speaker 2: yes friend, that's the fun friend, the mentor.
Speaker 1: The yes friend's also a dangerous friend. Though I've had
Speaker 1: to really nip.
Speaker 2: Those wait say more.
Speaker 1: Because I need to be challenged, I need to like
Speaker 1: be held to being and I can do it on
Speaker 1: myself now. But in my twenties the friends were the
Speaker 1: worst of my friends because twenty Jana's was not great.
Speaker 1: Thirty is you know, now I can like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be forty this year, so like now I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: like I can call myself out now. I don't really
Speaker 1: like whether it's a yes or no. It's like, but
Speaker 1: back in twenty is, those were like, they were fun,
Speaker 1: but they didn't help me become a better version of myself.
Speaker 1: But I guess that wasn't their job. It was mine
Speaker 1: all along.
Speaker 2: I hope that they gave you some good memories.
Speaker 1: They sure did.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, and that's a value you can
Speaker 2: be like and my my yes friends are in the past.
Speaker 2: They live in my scrap books.
Speaker 1: Don't really, Yeah, they live in Los Angeles and they're
Speaker 1: still there.
Speaker 2: The other oh, here we go, okay, the mentor, the
Speaker 2: password protector, the new friend, the soul sister, and then
Speaker 2: there's a bonus that I write about, not one of
Speaker 2: the ten friends, but there's a seat at the table
Speaker 2: called the empty chair.
Speaker 1: I love that sounds like my therapist. I thought, the
Speaker 1: empty chair. What do you signify as the empty chair?
Speaker 1: Is it someone that's like in the like a moment,
Speaker 1: or is it just a feeling thing or well.
Speaker 2: I wanted to write about the empty chair because I
Speaker 2: wanted to give space in the book for friendship breakups,
Speaker 2: friendship loss, which we already talked about, but I also
Speaker 2: really wanted so that's the first part of the empty
Speaker 2: chair section. But I also really wanted to keep a
Speaker 2: chair empty at your metaphorical life council table as like
Speaker 2: hope for the friends to come, like almost like I
Speaker 2: leave a light on for you, like I'll leave an
Speaker 2: empty chair for you. Because I think sometimes, as we
Speaker 2: already talked about circling our wagons, sometimes we have like
Speaker 2: a closed off vibe of like I have all the
Speaker 2: friends I need, I don't need it more on my
Speaker 2: to do list, I don't have capacity for a new person.
Speaker 2: And if that's the energy that we're putting out and
Speaker 2: some once we go through seasons where that's the us,
Speaker 2: we can do, which makes sense. But also there are
Speaker 2: so many amazing people that can come into our life,
Speaker 2: that can flow into our life, and if we do
Speaker 2: not have a metaphorical empty chair for them, we are
Speaker 2: going to miss out on an amazing relationship. And so
Speaker 2: I always wanted my circle to be open and not closed,
Speaker 2: and so that required having an empty chair. It's two sided.
Speaker 2: It's the chair can be held in grief, in memorial
Speaker 2: in you know, sadness of a friendship ending, but then
Speaker 2: it can also turn and be like, well, I have
Speaker 2: an open seat at my table sort of like that's
Speaker 2: like Taylor Swift's blank space. I have a blank space
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 1: I know. I love that because I'm I'm a big
Speaker 1: believer that God sends you people all the time, and
Speaker 1: so it's being open open eyes to that, like I'm
Speaker 1: I will I will welcome people in when it feels like,
Speaker 1: you know, that empty seat, like I just I love
Speaker 1: that even though I can be guarded and not trust,
Speaker 1: I still am open to the like, Okay, is this
Speaker 1: someone that, like I'm, it's supposed to move and me
Speaker 1: in a certain way and like, you know, help me
Speaker 1: with the season or something or so I'm very mindful
Speaker 1: of that piece, and I'm also curious to wrap up.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of when we do talk about friendships,
Speaker 1: a lot of people are like, how do you deal
Speaker 1: with friendship breakup? So it's like, if there's someone out
Speaker 1: there that's listening that wants to reconcile a friendship breakup,
Speaker 1: but they don't want to be the first one, right
Speaker 1: because like I know, like with me and my best friend,
Speaker 1: it's like sometimes we're just so stubborn and so we
Speaker 1: don't want to be the first one to be like
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, and so like, how would you, like, what
Speaker 1: would you say to the person that like misses their
Speaker 1: best friend they had to fall out and they want
Speaker 1: to like get it back.
Speaker 2: Okay, well you have to lose the ego part of it.
Speaker 2: You have to. You just have to talk yourself off
Speaker 2: that legend be the first to reach out. And then
Speaker 2: let me explain what I did with my friend that
Speaker 2: I described that we had a text rift in the
Speaker 2: middle of the pandemic. It's how I start the book off.
Speaker 2: I could tell by our interactions after I said the
Speaker 2: thing that hurt her feelings, that she was so willing
Speaker 2: to end our friendship, and I did not want that
Speaker 2: to happen. So what I did was, this is a
Speaker 2: silly story, but I am glad to tell it. I
Speaker 2: asked her to come over so we could talk face
Speaker 2: to face. We sat in the backyard because this was
Speaker 2: fall twenty twenty. Who sat in the backyard six feet apart?
Speaker 2: I set up my backyard. It looked like a date night.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I am obsessed.
Speaker 2: I love that I had flowers, I had champagne. I
Speaker 2: put like candles out like I almost giggled once I
Speaker 2: kind of got it going because I'll like, this fully
Speaker 2: looks like I'm trying to seduce her. It's fine. I
Speaker 2: wanted to give the conversation and the friendship like a reverence.
Speaker 2: Like I wanted her to walk in the backyard and
Speaker 2: feel like I cared because I did right, and that
Speaker 2: this was like my last ditch effort to make this work.
Speaker 2: So I did this because I had had a friendship
Speaker 2: breakup in the past, A dear, dear friendship breakup in
Speaker 2: my past, that I didn't fight for that friendship. I
Speaker 2: let it end. I had so many regrets after for
Speaker 2: all the things I didn't say, even if the friendship
Speaker 2: was going to end, I wish that I had expressed
Speaker 2: things in a different way, you know, just like we
Speaker 2: do with romantic relationships when we are like I understand
Speaker 2: why this is ending, but also I want to like
Speaker 2: leave it all on the table, like I want to
Speaker 2: say all the things. I had not done this with
Speaker 2: this friendship in my past. So if this this twenty
Speaker 2: twenty friendship rift I was going through, if it was
Speaker 2: going to end, I was not going to make the
Speaker 2: same mistake like I was going to leave it all
Speaker 2: out on the blanket with the flowers like I was.
Speaker 2: I was going to let her know if she chose
Speaker 2: to end it. I wanted her to know I loved
Speaker 2: her and that I was sorry and everything and.
Speaker 1: Did everything you could do. I did everything like you
Speaker 1: could walk away going okay, I did everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why are we Why do we only put that
Speaker 2: type of effort into romantic relationships? Like my friendships are
Speaker 2: so important to me. I didn't want it to end.
Speaker 2: I treated it like the weighty conversation that it was.
Speaker 2: And she told me later when she walked into the backyard,
Speaker 2: she was definitely sort of mad and like a defensive
Speaker 2: mode whatever. And then when she walked in, she sort
Speaker 2: of melted because she could see immediately what I was
Speaker 2: trying to do. And we still went on to have
Speaker 2: a card conversation. We still both cried, we still had
Speaker 2: moments where we were defensive and irritated, but we were
Speaker 2: sitting with these flowers and candles.
Speaker 1: Did she accept the final rose? Yes? She did.
Speaker 2: And you know, this actually sort of ties back to
Speaker 2: the empty chair in a weird way, because you have
Speaker 2: to be willing to receive. You have to be willing
Speaker 2: to receive what people are offering to you. And I
Speaker 2: was offering a sincere apology and a hope to mend
Speaker 2: that friendship, and she chose to receive it. I'm glad
Speaker 2: she did, right.
Speaker 1: I love that. Well, that's I mean. I'm excited to
Speaker 1: read your book. So thank you Laura so much for
Speaker 1: coming on the show. Everyone get the life console ten
Speaker 1: friends every woman needs. I love it. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: This was awesome. Thank you for having me.