Can We Be Friends?

Why does making friends as a grown woman feel so dang...awkward? Also, hey from your new SMNTY co-hosts, Emilie and Bridget! Can we, like, hang?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I am Emily Aries
and I am Bridget Tudds and this is stuff Mob
never told you. And as you can tell, we are
not your beloved Kristen and Caroline, whom we adore. We

(00:25):
are your new hosts here with how Stuff works. And
we couldn't be more excited to be here today, could we, Bridget,
We're so pumped. If you could see our faces, you
would see big smiles. I'm really happy, longtime listener, and
I had the pleasure of speaking with many of you
and your earbuds on the show last year, with canc
talking about boss stop, talking about burnout, and now I

(00:47):
could not be more thrilled to carry the torch forward
right and continue connecting and hopefully informing a lot of
us on all the modern ways and which being a
woman is complicated. It is complicated, body stuff, work stuff,
fashion stuff, activism stuff, all the stuff, all the politics.

(01:11):
I think now more than ever, it's important that a
show like this persists to borrow a term, and I
know that I wouldn't. I'm so honored to have you
Bridget in this with me. I could not imagine doing
this with anyone else. You're too kind. You're too kind,
and Bridget, we go way back. We go way back,
like lawn chairs way back. I could not be more

(01:33):
thrilled to be here. I guess my background is really
in activism. That's sort of how we know each other. Um,
I am an activist and longtime organizer. I live here
in beautiful Washington, d C. Land of Go Go music
and half smokes and politicians. Um yeah, I'm just your
average activist, writer, content creator, gall about town and like you, Bridget,

(01:57):
I started off in politics. I started off with organizing
for America on the Obama campaign, working as a digital
strategist for a bunch of Senate campaigns. Before starting bossed
up my company to help women navigate career transition. So
it's so exciting to to bring together the professional development,
the political activism and and and that's really the conversations

(02:20):
we want to have here, and we want to continue
that legacy of stuff. Mo. I've never told you, and
I think it's important to say up front, we are
not here to replace Kristen and Caroline. That would be
an impossible task. Obviously, it's intimidating to to be clear,
to be honest, it's a little intimidating. We're excited. We
know that we bring a lot um to this topic,

(02:41):
but uh, we do so humbly. Right, we're sort of
picking up that conversation because we think it's a really
important conversation to have right now. And and on that note,
I think today's topic is relevant, right because it's about
forging relationships with women. You ad Meyer right, starting friendships

(03:02):
as a grown up, as a grown woman after college,
which frankly is a little challenging. It's so hard, you know.
I think that women who can conquer all these other
things in life, whether it's professional successes or educational successes,
you could have a million degrees and still kind of
freeze up at a party and feel really awkward when

(03:23):
you're sending that initial like can we be friends? Let's
hang out? Text? Yeah? And I've sent those right, We've
done that. And it's different than networking. I want to
get that out of the way right away. But in
some ways there are more clear rules of engagement around networking.
We're talking about that incredible woman you meet in kickboxing
class and you send a text message and say, you

(03:45):
know what, we should hang out, like we should be
friends because we just had this great conversation and then
five years go by and you're pitching them in a
professional setting. It sounds like a specific This Taylor Taylor
from the United States of Women. She's like, Emily, you know,
we met five years ago and kicked backs in class
and I was like, oh man, we never got that drink,

(04:06):
We never made That happens, never too late. So I
think today's topic is really unpacking the challenges of being
a grown woman and making friends with the women you admire,
like having a lady crush as they call it sometimes,
and how to how to turn that into a real friendship. Yeah.
I think it's something that I've certainly struggled with in
my life, and I think it's interesting and that as women,

(04:28):
we can be these dynamic professional ladies. We can have
this incredible sort of career success and have a lot
of ease navigating those professional spaces, but these social spaces
can also be kind of terrifying and awkward and hard
to navigate. So we're gonna get into it talk about
some ways that we can do that right. And I
think what's great is that there is a lot of

(04:48):
research on this, and the first article that really stood
up to me, was in the New York Times. It
wasn't gender specific, which I found interesting. The examples differed
between men and women. But that New York Times piece
on why It's hard Making Friends after thirty, which ran
a few years ago, but they keep republishing it because

(05:10):
it was so popular, and I think it really struck
a chord. It certainly struck a chord with me about
the difference in if you think about it, those tight
bonds that you forged in as a you know, in
your childhood as a kid, and then as a college
student when you're forced at the close proximity with a
bunch of strangers and you you sort of rallied together
and build those foundational friendships, those are way harder to

(05:32):
establish in life after college or if you never went
to college, right. My brother skipped that whole part, went
through the military straight out of high school, and he
never got those foundational friendships in college. Granted, I think
his shipmates in the Navy sort of substituted in that regard,
but I don't know. I find that still today, and

(05:53):
I think a lot of us beyond our college years
have the same core friends totally. And I think um
what's so interesting about that article is that, like, basically,
if you're someone who does not make friends easily as
an adult, you found it to be challenging, You're not alone.
It's something that has been proven by science that like
it is a documented thing that it's harder to make

(06:14):
those kind of friendships after um, you hit your thirties.
And so in this article, they were saying that, like,
you know, by the time you you reach your thirties,
you've gone through a couple of big life milestones, and
that those milestones really show you sort of what's important
in your life, right, And so as you get older,
you're much more likely to have those kinds of bonds
with family close family members, because you might be thinking, like, oh,

(06:36):
I'd rather hang out with my kids or my parents,
or my brother or sister than like go to that
cocktail party of a friend of a friend that I
kind of know. You know, so um, totally documented by
by the resource. Your partner say, we're both unmarried, so
both unmarried with them, but we're in committed long term related,

(06:57):
we're in relations. But I think it does change that
that your bar gets a little higher. And that's that's
where I found this to actually be uplifting news. Right.
It can feel a little depressing to say it's hard
to make friends after college. But the reason behind it,
they say, is that, you know, quote here, self discovery
gives way to self knowledge. So you become pickier about

(07:18):
whom you surround yourself, which I think is a game thing.
I actually like that because again, it's like, as you
get older you have less time. You kind of realize
you have less time to like waste. Right when I
was in my twenties, I would if someone was having
a party, I was gonna be there, right, if someone
was having an event, I was gonna be there. Now
I'm like, oh, do I really want to slept all
the way out to Brooklyn? You know all of that, Like,

(07:41):
I'm much more likely to be a lot choosier about
how I spend my time so far is much higher exactly. Yeah.
And I think once you've done that, you've done the
happy hour circuit, especially in this town, especially there is
an endless array of happy hours town. Yeah, you get
a little pick here about who you you spend your
time with. And I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing.

(08:05):
Where I do think it it points to our our
element of personal agency, right, Like you have power in this,
you have about who you spend your time with. We
should include those women who we want to be friends
with on that way exactly, so you don't feel like
you have to necessarily make friends with everybody that you meet.
But like that special person that you know, can't stop

(08:28):
looking at her Instagram feed because she seems so cool,
and you're like, wouldn't it be great if we were friends?
So I like that, Yeah, like being chooesy in general, right,
but also not being afraid. And I think those those qualities,
those prerequisites for friendship which make friendship easier or make
friends making easier at younger times in our lives are
things like the proximity factor, like actually being not having

(08:53):
to slept your way across town to hang out with
someone new. Like my friend Bar is very geographical. Definitely, ye,
I'm not trying to do a bunch of complicated metro
transfer metro transfer required, Like that's kind of a deal breaker, definitely,
you know. I think once you know which neighborhood they
live in, you're like, oh, we could definitely hang out
quickly and easily, and therefore our friendship potential is already higher.

(09:18):
I know, but isn't it true? But there is research
that says the right that ability to run into someone
without having to pre plan it. There's that element of
spontaneous interaction, right the neighbor who you might happen to
see walking into her apartment when you walk into your apartment,
like that ability to cross over each other, run into
each other without necessarily planning it beforehand. And and that's

(09:42):
where a lot of my friends in d C were
established after sports leagues that I joined because I'm a
nerd Uh. You know, the afterwork sports game was over volleyball,
kickball or whatever. Maybe you want to go grab a drink,
you want to grab a meal like that, spontaneous plan
that's where relationship can can really come to fruciation, definitely.

(10:03):
I mean, I have found that so many of my
lasting friendships are just based on like we just keep
bumping into each other, and it's like I can't help
but feel like you're in my like universe here in
my like you know landscape. I see you all the time.
I keep bumping into you at the bar like all that.
And so you know, how many times have you been
at brunch and then you you see a friend and
you're like, I'll join us, like that kind of vibe.
And I think those opportunities and that element of spontaneity

(10:28):
gets less and less likely to happen in our lives
after after college, when we're working men and women. And
I think, you know, I'm the biggest gcal abuser. I'm
the one who always needs to There's there's a h
a funny sort of conflict here in that. I think
the way in which I stay in touch with a

(10:48):
lot of my friends requires being mindful of planning and
making time for people and making plans of people and
not fleaking of our plans. Oh, we all do that
a lot. I am a fear a calendar abuser. I'm
a flake abuser, right Like I'm that person who doesn't
leave their house really and so I'm always like, oh, why,
like everyone's hanging out without me, But then it's like, oh,

(11:09):
you'd have to leave your house for that to happen.
Sound And I think there's a John Mulaney stand up
bit that he does about there is nothing that feels
better than canceled planned heaven. It's guaranteed to make you
feel good. Nothing I'm going to get out of this,
or when someone else cancel, when you're about to text somebody,

(11:33):
I'm not I'm flaking, and then they text you they're flaking.
It's like the stars have a line. It's like nothing better,
Like you read my mind. But I don't have to
be the flaker. I know. So we're talking about why
it's hard to make friends, and we're like, oh, the
relief of not listen to our advice about how to
make friends from from too seemingly very anti sential people,
which couldn't really be farther from that it's not people.

(11:55):
But I think that also points to this rising element
of isolation. And what's interesting is as our society is
getting more hyper connected online, as we have more Facebook
friends and Instagram followers and exchanging information digitally, rates of
isolation and loneliness are like skyrocketing, especially amongst young folks
and especially amongst those of us who are most likely

(12:18):
to be connected digitally. And that is troubling and because
friendship matters. But you know, a bridget before we dive
into that, let's take a quick break and hear a
word from our sponsors. Okay, we're back. Friendship matters. So

(12:40):
you might be thinking, um, you know, okay, so I
don't have a lot of friends, big deal. I have
a happy you know, I have a boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, whatever,
I have a happy work life. But here's why you
should care. So they've actually done studies that show that
loneliness is actually a real problem in terms of your health.
And so that might sound strange, but it's actually true.
And so science is actually proven that friend bonds, not

(13:02):
family bonds, actually helped to increase the longevity of your life,
and that chronic loneliness has this such a big impact
on our physical well being that it actually is the
same mortality risk as like smoking. So mortality risks about that,
like not having friendships can be bad for your totally
and that for your life. Everybody shortens your life, shorten

(13:23):
your life crazy, and so you know, everybody needs time alone,
and like not to say that if you're a loner,
you're going to die, right, It's something that you know
to keep in mind. And so and I think it
also puts a strain on your partnership or in your
family dynamic if you don't have we all need those
friendships beyond the single or or very limited number of
close bonds that you might have. And it makes sense, right,

(13:45):
it has a lot to do, I think with stress
and with overall mental wellness and mental well being. There's
this really fascinating study that U. C. L A. Did
on the friendship among women in particular, and what they
found was mind blowing. First of all, I learned that
something around nine of stress research in this country has

(14:07):
been done exclusively based off of male participants, which was
a total Like what the heck moment for me? I
was like, that can't be good. We know that when
you study all men when it comes to heart attack symptoms,
we don't get symptoms that are going to help women
identify heart attack risks. So, thinking about all the time
and effort I put into figuring out how to reduce

(14:29):
stress for people and how to prevent burnout for women,
there's just not enough research. And because as we all know,
women be stressing, right, we have a lot like making
less money is very stressful and also doing you know,
twice the amount of housework, and even in the most
woke of households is still stressful. So what they found

(14:52):
doing this research on women about female friendships is that
in addition to that fight or flight instinct that that
is exhibited traditionally in times of stress, right, that experience
of cortisol, right, fight or flight, getting your brain in
caveman mode. Um. What they found among women is that
it seems that there's this hormone oxytocin released as a

(15:15):
part of the stress response. And you might know oxytocin
from what gets released after sex. Right, Because oxytocin creates
intimate bonds, it makes you want to love somebody, and fascinatingly,
the research and this is from Dr Klein, says that
it buffers the fight or flight response and instead encourages

(15:38):
the stressed out women to quote tend to the children
and gather with other women. Instead, it actually encourages female
to female friendships. And they think, you know that the
theory is way back to our cave men and cave
woman days when men were in fight or flight mode,
women were like, let's not forget about the baby, let's
team together. And I think that points to the other

(16:00):
research out there on how women are collaborative leaders are
a small d democratic in their response to challenges. And
it just totally aligned to me that friendships are good
for your health and also stressful times make you want
to reach out and connect with other female friends you
might have in your world. Like that totally resonated with

(16:21):
my experience when I'm feeling stressed out and maybe my
partner has already done what he can you know what
I mean, I've already expressed my stress to him. It's
my chance to text whomever, like my girlfriends, even if
they live halfway across the country, and say, can you
talk to me about this? I'm like, I'm reaching out
or trying to when I'm when I'm when I'm actually

(16:41):
dealing with my stress, I should say, um, yeah, I
mean this that that research that you pulled just resonates
so profoundly with me. I think back to a time
in my life and I was very stressed out, but
like living very like like a very lonely existence of
I just moved to San Francisco and I didn't know anybody,
and I was working on a very stressful campaign, and
I would go through days just having these like you

(17:03):
know these like um very uh still did really like
interactions with like Barista's and like you know whoever, like
just people in my day, and those are the only
real kind of like social interactions I had, and I
just craved like having conversations with my girlfriends, Like I
would sit in coffee shops and over hear girls have
brunch laughing and sort of get a little secondhand laughter

(17:25):
from there, you know, lean into their tables, listen, and
I do. I think that as we as we find
ourselves in stressful situations, are pull is toward those female connections.
And I know that when I first graduated from college,
I thought to myself, I have an important job to do.
I'm so busy trying to prove myself worthy of this
chance that someone gave me to step into these big

(17:48):
shoes and be a state director at a really young
age and run around the state of Rhode Island for
two and a half years, you know, doing the best
I could at work. That I totally discounted the importance
of my friends. And I'll be the first to admit
it was it bad for me, yes, but it was
also it was not nice. It was not nice to
my friends. And you know, granted they used to be

(18:09):
one cafeteria away in college, but now I was isolated.
It didn't help that I was in a really toxic
relationship romantic relationship at the time. But what confounded all
of those challenges and frankly led me to burn out
is the fact that I had not kept those relationships alive.
And there is there's I think there's an element to
this which is saying it's hard to do that, and

(18:30):
there's also a reality saying to which I would like
to say, you have the power to make your friendships
a priority. And I think for women, especially friendships with
other women is are important, you know, like those that's
not something to be um to think like I did.
I may you know, learn from my mistake please on
this which is, oh, my job is too important. I

(18:52):
don't have the time for the luxury that is friends.
Friends are not a luxury, right, Like we need friendships,
we need relationships. And you don't want to have that
day where you're trying to move and you put up
that Facebook post of like, who's going to help me move?
And I got nobody? Right, like, which we've all There's
this amazing article in the Seattle Times that I also

(19:13):
came across in this that says, for women, friendships not
only rules, it protects, it buffers the hardships of life's transitions.
Lowers blood pressure, boost immunity, and promotes healing. It might
help explain why women on average have lower rates of
heart disease and longer life expectancies than men. Right, So,

(19:33):
like it's it's pulling from the same research you found
on the health benefits and the mortality rates associated with
you know, either having a lot of tight female friendships
or not. But you know, all the research is pointing
to how it's important for women, especially to have other
women friends. And you're talking to I'm I'm coming at
this from the perspective of a tomboy. Like my whole
childhood was me my best friend Christine, and then we

(19:56):
would play football on the street with all the boys,
right we were. I was one of the girls that
was very much a tomboy, and so for me, female
friendship was intimidating. As an adult woman, I think it
can be. Yeah, I mean, I think, why do you
think that is? I mean, I I was not really
that much of a tomboy growing up, but I do
think the idea of making friends with other women can
be intimidating. And I think we also have this like

(20:18):
weird stereotype, but I don't think it's true culture where
it's like, oh, women, there's so much, there's such there's
a dramatic like, oh they're gonna catite, like you know,
women are always tearing each other down and the queen beam.
It has been disproven right at work, but that was
it was really confined to the workplace. That research, I think,

(20:38):
which came out of n y U a couple of
years ago. Um I found this great study um that
for for disclaimer, first of all, it was actually funded
by Diet Coke, so yeah, studying it was called girl
Talk the New Rules of Female Friendship and Communication, so
you know, they were trying to become the next Coke

(20:59):
within name on it type campaign like how do we
get more women to drink that? While they studied women
and put them all on focus groups and ask them
a million questions about their female friendships. And the other
disclaiming here is this was exclusively done in the UK,
so I don't know if they're across cultural communication differences
between gal pals across the pond here. But what they

(21:21):
found was that there was a distinctive theme emerging how
a lot of women want to be seen as quote
one of the lads, as opposed to being a girly girl,
as one participant put it, Indeed, many of the women
reinforced the stereotype of the other woman, like I'm not
them as being U and then there's a word here
I can't even say, but not so nice. It's not

(21:43):
it's not quite bossy. It's a little more hardcore. It's
another b aware exactly, and backstabbing, which was kind of
funny because they were very candid, like we're being about
it being a little of women being a little wary
of other women. And I think that friendship, um bar,
that threshold of friendship when you are a grown woman

(22:05):
right as an adult gets high. There is, without a doubt,
not an audition period, I want to say, but there
is a prospecting period when you make unique a new woman,
you make a connection, you you admire this person. There's
a couple of I think friend dates before you know
for sure. It's like like a first date, just as awkward,

(22:27):
but it's with a friend. Yeah, I think, yeah, I
think that the research from Coke Uh it resonates with me.
I think I think I definitely went through a phase
where I badly wanted to be seen as like one
of the guys even though I wasn't and I would
pretend to be interested in things that like I had
no real interesting I'd be like, oh, I love football
and I'll never forget um. It was like the season

(22:51):
finale of the Real World, which I used to love,
and I didn't watch that. I watched like a football
game instead to impress the dude. Not well, you didn't
want to be the girl who asked to switch the channel,
even though we both know that was would have been
a more important thing to watch. Was. I have anxiety
around not always relating to what the overwhelming majority of

(23:15):
women are talking about because I'm not into the Bachelor,
you know what I mean. I'm not into and I've
used an attempt to fake it till I make it
and it didn't work. It was it was a face
pal moment. But I think what is important at least
in my experience, and maybe we should sort of this
is a good time to start talking about solutions to

(23:35):
the awkward nows. But what I found is not having
that anxiety about I hope they like me and I
hope I like them, but instead being like as authentic
to who you are as you can be and seeing
who's into that and seeing if you're into their authentic
self and if you're not, like, that's okay. Yeah, And

(23:56):
I think it goes back to the research we were
just we were opening the show with where we it's
not all negative, Like it is good to be choosy, right,
Like you don't have to like this other person. She
doesn't have to like you, right, Like, just be your
authentic self, right if you digs it, yeah, put it
out there if it CLIs. It's tricky though, because I
think I want girlfriends, you know, so when I have

(24:19):
someone who I'm like, I think we could be real
friends here you kind of get your expectation that you
get your hopes up. But um, the other the other
piece of interesting tidbit that came up in some of
the research here was a lot of and this is
from the diet Coke study, a lot of women said
they have compartmentalized friends. They're friends to do the workout
classes with, they have friends to go hiking with, their friends,

(24:41):
work friends, happy, our friends, French friends. And that was like, yeah,
totally my life and I'm okay with that. And you know,
my sports friends are not the people I would want
to go out with, but my going out to dance
on a Saturday night friends might not be the people
I want to you know, call up when I'm having
a crisis. So like having different friends for different reasons

(25:03):
sounds a little cynical in terms of like being almost
a little transaction, which maybe it's a d C thing,
but I found that to resonate and and but none
of them can match what I have from my best
friend from growing up and my best friend from college.
You know, it's a different level, um, just that of curiosity.

(25:23):
Did this study also conclude with like nothing bonds girlfriends
like a good diet Coke? Nothing, ladies, I know a
lot of women who would agree with that. I am
not a soda fan, really, I'm not. I'm not a
diet soda fan especially, but I know a lot of
people who are, Like, do not get in between me
and my diet Coke. Just to be clear, Diet Coke

(25:44):
is not sponsors with podcast. But if they want to
call us, no, that's funny. Okay, is it all bad,
Bridget It's not all bad. It sounds bad. We just
told you that your lack of friends was going to
kill you, But it's not all that so let's let's
talk about some solutions that we've also found in our
lives and in the research. But first, let's take a
quick break. I think that would be a good time

(26:06):
and hear a word from our sponsors, and we're back,
and it is not all bad news. It is hopefully
not a surprise to you that making female friends as
a grown up can be a little awkward. But I

(26:28):
think that pickiness that you were talking about just before
the break is also known as mindfulness. It's also known
as being uh thoughtful and pensive about how you want
to spin it is. It's such a positive versus a
negative frame for the same exact topic. But I have
learned over the years that the number one way to

(26:50):
make my life happier, to make myself happier, is to
actually cut off toxic people and to stop spending time
doing things that I want to do or spending time
with people I don't want to spend time with who
makes me feel bad, and not having to justify that right,
not having to explain myself, but just really knowing that

(27:11):
I can spend time how I want to spend time
with whom I want to spend time totally, and I mean,
like you were saying before, I mean, as you get older,
you can realize life is so short. I think back
to my twenties and I think about, like all the
jerks I spent time with, all the people that, like
I did, I felt obligated to spend my time like
I never do that now, right, And I think that

(27:34):
obligation goes back to all the stuff that women deal
with about trying to be nice and wanting to be
nice and are we going to be that B word
if we you know, cut someone out or if we
choose to you know, not oblige when we feel obligated.
And I heard a quote once. I spent a lot
of time thinking about the word boss and bossy and

(27:55):
boss up. And someone said to me, like, you are
the CEO of your life, high fire and promote accordingly, right,
like take ownership over um, you know, being receptive to friendship,
but you can be picky about who you bring into
your inner circle and those boundaries, setting those boundaries and
and really choosing carefully whom you trust. That's just part

(28:18):
of being a grown up, right, That's part of learning.
And it took me getting burned a lot to figure
that out in romantic relationships and friendships in which you realize,
oh my god, this person is a textbook narcissist. I
can't spend time with her anymore, Like she actually doesn't
even notice what I'm not there because I'm calling out
sick and doesn't care to follow up with me. You know,

(28:40):
I think there are certain times when I spent time
with people whom I admire professionally and then turn out
to not be a friendship material. Harsh. It's hard. You
have to and don't feel bad about it, and don't
apologize for it. It's not it's has to be done. Yeah.

(29:01):
It makes a huge impact on your mood, on your
levels of happiness, and invest in relationships that do make
you feel good. So that was my big learning after
burning out professionally and not really being there for my
friends and not you know, being close with my friends
for years, and I lost some friends over those two

(29:22):
years because I wasn't taking friendship seriously. I didn't think
friendship mattered, and that was my bad. That was a bad,
bad learning on my part. But after that I realized, like,
even if my best girlfriend from college lives uh, you know,
million miles away, lives up in Boston. We are going
to have a regular phone call. We are going to

(29:42):
have a regular hangout. And for our college buddies, what
she organized and which I love, is a monthly Google hangout,
Like we all have it on our calendars and we've
kept in touch. We don't always make every single one.
Life happens, but there's about five of us. We get
on a Google hangout once a month. And you know,
one of our friends, two of our friends from college

(30:03):
got married and then they had a baby, and now
we're like watching their baby grow up on Google hang
that and I think, yeah, I mean not to be
too sort of like not to be so sad about it,
but I have a group of close friends. We were
very close in high school, and you know, we've all moved,
we have different job things, people have gotten married, had kids, YadA, YadA, YadA.

(30:23):
We don't see each other as much as we should.
And we had a death and our friend group and
we were all very sad. We all came together for
this funeral. But really what was so upsetting was that
like it took that, it took, you know, something really
sad happening to get us all in the same room
for the first time in many years. And I remember
when we left, we were like, let's not have it
be another five years and then we're back again for

(30:46):
something sad because someone's in the hospital, something bad has happened.
Let's have the next time we see each other be
something that we've planned and it's going to be fun
and happy, not like this intense feeling of dread and
obligation and guilt. Um, So definitely make time for those
friendships and it makes you realize just touch short life, Candyce,
and there's something you can do about it. Right, Take

(31:07):
your power back, take your power over your schedule back
to me. That's what it always comes down to. It's like, Okay,
you tell me you care about these people. Where in
your calendar, where and how you spend time? Do you?
Does it align with that? Like there's that cognitive dissonance
between what I say I care about or who I
say I care about? Like that old quote, Um, what

(31:27):
is it like? Tell me how you spend your time
and I'll tell you what you care about. Right. If
you spend your time all working, you care about work,
and that's it, and that is socially acceptable, socially encouraged.
I would say, especially here in the US. And that's
what I talked about when I was a guest on
this podcast a year ago, is that martyrdom mindset the
idea that I have to sacrifice my happiness to be
a good employee, or to be a good boss, or

(31:49):
to be a good whatever professional, when in reality, having
friends is key to a happy, healthy life, is key
to your longevity, right, and that means making the time
and committing to it as though you would commit to
any professional exactly right, exactly. Um. So I have a
little tidbits. I thought it was really cute. I found

(32:11):
it in Bustle, an article about how we can make
friends the adults, um, and it has this I thought
if this was adorable. It's this idea of like a
friend blind date or a friend fix up. So basically
you ask your your amazing friends, like who in your
life do I need to be meeting? Who in your
life do you think like I shouldn't be living without
knowing this person, right, and then fix me up with them.

(32:33):
So it may sound awkward, but if you think of
it the same way that you think of a romantic date, right,
where it's like we're just going on a little little
fix up endorsement of a friend exactly exactly, and again,
like your friend networks have this, think of them as
this like vast, untapped resource of really cool women that
you can be friends with. And I've actually done that

(32:54):
via Facebook. Whenever I travel to a new city because
my life is heavily on the road and where I'm
hosting events or when i'm you know, getting me in
town for speaking engagement. Anyway, I shout out on my
Facebook all, hey ladies, or hey everyone, who should I
definitely be meeting with while I'm in New York this trip,
like what women do you think I must know? And
that has yielded some amazing responses. But the interesting thing

(33:17):
about it, and I think it's worth mentioning here, is
that it's not enough to have a phone call or
have an email exchange. It's about the in person definitely,
And we know this from we're organizing. It's about the
one in one meeting and making it okay to like
share a little bit about what you care about, what
you're working on, and how we can be supportive of
one another in a really tangible way. That that's sort

(33:37):
of organizing principle behind relationship building has been very applicable
to me in my friend world, the same same thing
because again, like you can post on Facebook, you can email,
but you really want that face to face, one on one,
you know, connection. And I think I think we should
before we wrap shout out to our introverts out there,

(33:57):
shoutout introvert because I get a lot of energy from
being around people I love. I'm a total extrovert. Um,
I do renew I don't actually I don't know what
I am because I get renewal from being alone and isolation.
I think that's important for everybody, but I think for
introvert introverts, especially the idea of like going out for

(34:19):
coffee with someone you admire as a friend date is
so intimidating, right, anxiety provoking in some ways. And that's
where I think the bottom line about all of this
comes down to. It can be awkward, but don't let
that awkwardness or the fear of the awkwardness prevent you
from reaching out, because they might be so thrilled to

(34:39):
hear from you, totally um, and I can speak to that.
So I'm someone who is a pretty anxious person. I've
dealt with anxiety my whole life. And I actually did
some research for the show that says that if you
are someone who deals with anxiety, it can trick you
into thinking that the people that you hang out with
are enjoying your company and your time less. And so
if you're someone who's anxious, if you're someone who's an introvert,

(35:01):
just know that, like your body and your mind is
going might try to convince you that you're not this
super compelling fun person to be around, right, but it's
not true, and you just really have to have to
play through it. Right. It's like the impostor syndrome at work,
but at happy and again, I mean we're not saying that, like,
if you're an introvert who likes to be alone, you

(35:21):
know you're horrible, not at all, fight the opposite. Everyone
needs alone time and alone time is very important, but
we need our friends too. Yeah, I love it. The more,
you know, like the stars going across the screen there, Well,
I feel better already. I feel like sometimes as a
workaholic and someone who's very obsessed with my career and
doesn't really make apologies for that, that it is reinforcing

(35:46):
to feel validated around spending time with friends and like
just getting that reminder that you not only deserve a
kick ass career, but you also deserve a happy, healthy
life and that you know, if it takes sending a
text or sending an email thread or sending a gcal
invite to make time to spend with your friends, and

(36:07):
you are worth it. And you are worthy of that too.
You are worthy. Yeah, And so I'm hoping that you
listening right now and Bridge and I can hang out,
you know, like, can we be friends? Can we be friends? Like?
Is that awkward? We know it is, But I think
this is the beginning of establishing relationships that really matter.

(36:31):
I know that sminty listeners care about the same issues
that you and I care about Britain, and that I
hope that this is just the beginning of a lot
of incredible conversations and a two way conversation that establishes
real rapport, real relationships, Like we want to hang except
our calendar invite. And so with that, Bridget, I think

(36:56):
I think it's time for us to sign off really
and our first our first podcast here for stuff I
never told you. I think you're r and so we
want to know what we should talk about next, right,
We know that it's and there are a million new
angles to cover, the challenges that benefits, the perks, the pleasures,

(37:19):
the chaos of being a woman in there's a lot.
So we we've got some ideas and we're very excited
to share them with you. But this is about this
minty listener. This is about what issues are you facing
right now? What uh, what's coming up in the workplace
for you? What are your goals for seen? What what

(37:41):
kind of activism are you, you know, taking on this year?
How can we be of support to you? And we
know that there is such a history on this podcast,
there's such an incredible array of shows, of content, of
of of incredible topics that have been covered, and we
want to know what we can do to bring even

(38:02):
more great stuff your way, So give us a shout
out on Twitter. You can reach Bridget and I on
Twitter at Mom's Stuff Podcast and shoot us an email
at mom Stuff at how Stuff works dot com.