[00:00:00] Nina: Welcome to Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship. I’m your host, Nina Badzin. Every so often I like to just say, I have been writing about friendship since 2014, really longer than that, in fiction form, in other kinds of forms, creative essays, but in the advice form, I’ve been writing about friendship since September of 2014.
So we are nearing the end of 2024 right now as I record this, that’s a long time. I can’t believe it, I have not lost interest in it. I still get lots of anonymous letters in my inbox, and that is what we are doing today. I am answering three short anonymous letters. The letters today are about three totally different topics, but it all works together. Talking about combining friend groups, Whether you should or shouldn’t. Friends who make little digs at you. And what do you do about that when you’re not actually looking to end the friendship?
And then following up on a previous episode on scheduling time to hang out with friends. It’s from someone who took my advice, but it’s still kind of dealing with a little hiccup there. Real quick to ask an anonymous question that may be used in the podcast or might be used in the newsletter.
There is a form on my website at dearninafriendship.com. And it’s an anonymous form. Really don’t have to put an email address or a name. It’s truly, truly anonymous. People do also write anonymous questions or by their name in my Facebook group, dear Nina, the group on Facebook. That’s a separate thing. I don’t. use those, I guess I could sometimes, so I don’t want to say never, but I have not yet used any of those on the podcast or in the newsletter.
The newsletter is at dearnina.substack.com. Those have longer letters and longer, more thought out answers. I can only do so much on the podcast with these and I can only do so much in the Facebook group because that’s more on the fly. But it is kind of fun in the Facebook group that you get answers from other readers and listeners as well. And I actually find it really generous that people answer there because if you think about it, on Facebook, you can write a post anonymously, but the way Facebook has its settings, you can never write a comment anonymously, which I actually appreciate because you get less trolly hateful comments when you have to stand by them.
So that’s another option if you have just like a quick question and you want other people’s two cents. Let’s get right into today’s questions. I’m doing three. Like I said, I normally don’t do three, but they’re pretty short and I figured why not we I’m trying to get through all these letters people send me and I hate to leave them unanswered, although sometimes they’re so long, I just can’t. So just know that you have a better chance of getting your question featured if you keep it shorter.
Okay? Here’s number one.
Dear Nina,
Maybe I was inspired by Black Friday and truly in the realm of all the problems in the world This is a small one, but I couldn’t help noticing how every time I bought something this weekend. My friend told me You don’t need that or you have something just like that. Admittedly, I do love to shop and perhaps some things I purchased are similar, but I’m also a grownup. Her constant little digs feel judgmental, and this is not the first time she’s told me something isn’t quote unquote necessary to buy, or that I’m quote unquote over the top. any ideas other than confronting her, because that will not go well.
So please offer something else. I guess as I write this, it’s not exactly about shopping, but how she makes me feel. It’s not a friendship I am trying to end. We are very close, but this drives me crazy.
Signed, Shopaholic Light.
I really like the self awareness in this note where Shopaholic Light says, maybe it’s not about shopping exactly. Because of course, it’s not really about shopping, that’s just the topic at hand. Although, as I’m saying that, maybe it’s more about shopping than she thinks. Is it possible that there’s a money thing here? So it’s not so much about, The actual item, but just the bigger sort of macro concept of spending money versus not spending money.
And maybe there’s an unevenness in the amount of extra money that, shopaholic light and her friend have . So I wonder if the digging often happens in this context, this is not a friend I would go shopping with. Like, that’s the most obvious number one answer to me is if this is a very close friend and you’re not looking to end the friendship, I would stay away from scenarios where this kind of behavior comes up.
If you’re not wanting to say something directly. Because that would be my number two idea, even though you already kind of shot it down. letter writer said, what can I do besides confronting her? I mean, isn’t there something between a confrontation and just honestly saying, this is something that’s upsetting to me.
I think maybe we need to have a different word than confrontation. honest, gentle discussion where you say, you’re such a close friend to me and I don’t want to end our friendship. I don’t want to change our friendship. I just want this one little thing that happens and happens kind of consistently not to happen anymore because it makes me feel bad.
You know, kind of an I statement. I feel it hurts my feelings that makes me feel Self conscious or whatever you want to say. However, it makes you feel it makes me feel judged. I guess using your letter You said it feels judgmental. What does that mean? That means you are feeling judged You are feeling that she’s making a judgment on you But you can still keep it an I statement and say I feel judged and I don’t like feeling that way. I Would prefer if you don’t say those things, but you maybe if you don’t even want to do that I would just not schedule shopping.
I will go on walks. I would do other things go see a movie I mean, oh, it’s so funny because I haven’t suggested movies in a long time But now that wicked is out and so fantastic to go see with friends like that’s something you could do with a friend Even if you’ve seen it once, you can see it more than once, or maybe there’s another movie.
Those of you like me who went to see Wicked, not only did I love the movie, and I’m a huge Broadway fan. I’ve seen the show on the stage several times. 20 years ago, I read the book 20 some years ago, loved the movie. But I also enjoyed going to a movie. Gosh, it’s been a long time since I’ve been to a movie.
That was just a delight. So anyway, that’s another thing a person can do with a friend. Or you go to lunch, breakfast, coffee, basically anything but shopping with this friend. As long as that is the only place the digs come. If the digs are starting to come other times, I do think you’re going to have to bring it up at some point if you’re going to stay friends.
So bottom line on this letter. You are absolutely justified to say I’m a grown up in your mind. I get why you’re saying that I’ve said that to myself too sometimes When that kind of thing comes up, when you feel like someone’s giving you unsolicited advice, you’re like, I’m an adult person and unless I ask, I don’t really want to know what your opinion is because we all have an opinion. It doesn’t mean you want a barrage of opinions when you didn’t ask for them. Okay. Next letter.
Dear Nina,
I loved your last newsletter about making plans in the letter. Spotlight episode. Oh, I want to stop right now to say I spent half of a day. I mean, I’m talking a full like five hours going through my entire back catalog. Uh, right now, by the way, this is going to be episode one 124. I went through episodes one through one very time consuming, very techie. It sounds like no big deal, but it is. And I. Changed all my titles to start with the episode number.
I had it that way for the first year. And then a lot of podcasting advice was to take the numbers out of the title. Cause it wasn’t good for Google, you know, to recognize your title being about whatever the title is. you didn’t want the number to be taking up precious space, but you know what, I care about my listeners too much.
This is a very listener focused podcast. Podcast. What are you, the listener, getting out of it? Are you being helped with your friendships? Well, if I’m going to get on here and reference past episodes, which I do because I’ve covered a lot of things, it’s very hard without numbers. And I always had the number in the graphic.
I always had the number in the show notes. But you know what? The listener is not looking that closely at the graphic and the listener is not looking that closely in the show notes. What do they see? They see the title. I am back to putting them, In the titles. with that in mind, I want to tell you the letter spotlight this questioner is mentioning is episode 121.
So right now we are in episode 124. So we’re talking just a few episodes ago. 121 was about rules for making plans. Okay, well I’m going to read that again. Dear Nina, I loved your newsletter about making plans in the Letter Spotlight episode, which was number 121. I have a follow up question. Have you ever noticed that you make plans with friends and everyone agrees to a date or a location, and then someone who has not said a word sweeps in and says, that doesn’t work for her.
Like after it’s all been decided. Thoughts? If it happens once, fine, but it’s become a pattern. From trying to make plans in Michigan. I’m really loving people getting in the habit of doing cute little names. Cause then I don’t have to make them up myself. So trying to make plans in Michigan. Yes, that’s annoying. It’s really funny. you say that trying to make plans in Michigan, cause I just made a funny, funny to me, meme, that does have a little wicked theme in there from the movie wicked. You have to see it, go to my Instagram. It’s about the person who never chimes in, in the group chat. At dear Nina friendship, or it might be on tick tock by now, by the time this comes out, it’s a riff on like that friend who never, never chimes in, although it doesn’t go as far as this, which is kind of a further point, which is they do chime in eventually, but it’s to change the whole plan.
I mean, to me, this is a no brainer. You cannot come in after the fact and say, oh, that date doesn’t work for me. You just can’t.You know, it’s a tough thing because I actually really do respect people a lot who are not attached to their phone 24 seven. I’m not that person. I respect those people. And yet they are hard to make plans with.
So they are a pleasant person to be with in person because they are not on their phone all the time. I guess the worst combo is when you do know they’re on their phone a lot and they still don’t respond. That’s irritating, right? Then you know, if you ever spend time with a friend who never puts down their phone and then yet they don’t respond to you? Irritating.
In this case, I think in this case, there doesn’t even need to be any kind of group discussion about this behavior of chiming in way later and then trying to change it. It should be you know, should, in quotes, understood that if you aren’t part of the planning, you don’t get to then come and change the plan. And I agree with this letter writer that if it happens once, okay, maybe the group can change the plan. If it’s a pattern that that person is impossible to make plans with or doesn’t really participate in the discussions and then wants to change, they’ll see through time that if you don’t change it, if you just say, oh, sorry, I hope you’ll catch us next time, They will understand they have to respond faster if they want something to happen on their schedule.
My friends just changed something for me, which I really appreciate, and it actually involves some travel, car travel, thank God, not airplane travel. And they changed the date something for me, and they were really nice about it. I think though it’s not a pattern. I’m like to think of myself as very reliable, it’s not a pattern that I Um, flaky and this updates and, or ask for a change or anything like that. that was a good point in this letter about something being a pattern or not. That’s not just a throw away line in this note.
Trying to make plans in Michigan said if it happens once, okay, but what if it’s a pattern? That’s a huge difference if it’s a pattern or not. listen, if someone in that group is a little closer with that one friend. That person could say like, Hey, we really want you to be there. Like make it positive. We really want you to be part of this plan, we can’t do it around your schedule when we hear from you a week or two later, or sometimes in plan making, it’s not a week or two later. It’s just two days later, but that’s two days too late. You didn’t say when it would work for you.
Okay. And final question
Dear Nina,
I’ve been thinking about mixing my friend group. My kids go to different high schools and I have met some new friends in my son’s school. I’m oddly nervous about mixing these friends and I can’t figure out why. If I dig deep, I guess I’m wondering, what if they don’t like each other? What if they do like each other more than they like me? Why is my inclination to keep it separate? Am I limiting myself? Is it better to try merging? Thanks to mix or not to mix?
This one is less obvious to me, meaning there’s really no right answer. I mean, there’s often not one right answer, but this one in particular, it really is a preference thing. You sound like someone with a lot of friends to mix or not to mix. So I am guessing, I guess I don’t know how old you are though. That’s the thing. Well, Oh, you said different high schools. So I know you have kids in high school.
I’m guessing you have kids in activities. You have to go watch and all that. I’m going to just guess that you don’t have a tremendous amount of free time. in a case like that, I think it’s nice to mix because then it’s more efficient, but that’s me. I’m an efficiency person. I kind of value efficiency.
If I want to see my friends and I don’t want to be out multiple times a week, because I also want to be home and I also want to exercise and I also want to edit this podcast. You know, I’m just talking about myself here. I can’t just constantly be with friends, right? So if I can see more than one friend at a time or even a handful of friends at a time, that’s great.
I love that. But yeah, you say in there and it’s a really valid point and it’s something that people have to contend with is What if they don’t like each other? That one’s easier. Then you won’t do it again. If the chemistry is not there, you have to have the awareness. If the chemistry is not there, if it’s just feeling like you are working really hard.
you will have to work hard the first time. if you are someone bringing people together, it is on you to explain to people why they should know each other. Oh, you like this and friend B, you like that. And you both have a kid who does X, Y, Z. Like that’s on you to be a little bit of, well, not a little bit to be a host, to really host this gathering, whether it’s at your house or not.
I don’t necessarily mean literally if you’re at a restaurant, fine. If you’re somewhere else, whatever, you still have to do the work of helping people have conversation. You’ll get a sense if there’s chemistry or not. But now you’re worried about the opposite problem.
What if there’s so much chemistry that they really want to hang out without you? I mean, that’s really an extreme and doesn’t happen that often and you have to just maybe tell yourself that wouldn’t be the worst thing because you can’t hang out with everybody all the time. You can’t. So it wouldn’t be so bad if your friends became friends.
I mean, it takes a real generous spirit to really feel this way and you don’t have to get all the way there. But maybe you could get part of the way there where you tell yourself, if I want my friends to like each other so that I can have everyone do stuff together at once, and maybe I could create a book club out of this, or maybe I could create a gift exchange group out of this group, but they still need to be friends with each other for that to be fun for everyone.
And then you don’t want to always have to be the host who has to do the work of introducing people and getting the chemistry going. So actually it would be a good thing if your friends became friends, and it might even be a better thing if they started to spend time without you, some of them. It takes some confidence and it takes.
the opposite of a scarcity mindset. I guess, in the psychological speak, people would say securely attached. I don’t like to use all that lingo. I’m not a therapist. I would just call it confidence in my normal everyday person speak.
And sometimes you have to fake the confidence, meaning you tell yourself it’s a lot of self talk. You tell yourself people can be friends without me and still like me. It’s not even about me. and they can enjoy being with each other without it being a statement on how they feel about me. And that’s what I mean by confidence and faking it. It’s saying that over and over again. People like me, even if they like each other. They can make room in their lives for a couple of new friends.
So your inclination to keep it separate, you ask why is it my inclination to keep it separate? Because you’re human. Because it’s totally normal to have a little bit of fear of people running off without you, and then you ask another question, Am I limiting myself by keeping it separate? And I would say, yeah, you are. I think it’s more efficient, and it just creates good feelings. When you’re a generous person who introduces people to each other, then people bring you in on what they have going on, Honestly, a better way to live. it’s a good time of year to think that way too. I’m thinking holidays. I’m thinking generosity. I’m thinking gratitude. And just having a generous spirit is a good way to go about life. All right that is it for our letters today. I Am still going to be here in December with another new episode. So come back next week.
I will have a great interview to share with you. That will be episode 25. I’m really like really into my new numbering system. If you can’t tell. I will see you next week when our friendships are going well, we are happier all around. Listeners, speaking of generous spirit, if you’re in a holiday spirit, one tiny thing I’m asking of you, if you haven’t done it already, and I know a lot of you have, and I thank you so much, is to leave a review specifically on Apple or Spotify. Now Spotify, all you have to do is press the stars. But you do have to be a Spotify listener.
They don’t let you leave a review on there if you’re listening on some other platforms. So if you happen to be listening to my voice right now on Spotify, and you can just leave me five stars. I would appreciate that so much. If you are listening anywhere else, it doesn’t matter where it is. You can go to Apple and leave a review there and leave stars there.
That’s where you can leave a written review. I love to have at least a few a month just to show that they’re current, that I have current listeners. And I have some from, I think the last ones are in November. So I don’t think I have any up for December yet. So I would so appreciate having a few up in December.
Thank you for considering it. Catch you next week.
