Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship
Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship is THE podcast for nuanced advice about managing the ups and downs of friendship. As seen in NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Guardian, Time Magazine, and elsewhere, listeners appreciate Nina's practical take on friendship issues. Are you the friend who ALWAYS reaches out first? Or is your friend more invested in the friendship than you are? How do you take a casual friendship to the next level? What if your friend's kid is being terrible to your kid? These questions come up no matter your age and background. Friendship is tricky, even for grownups. Since 2014, Nina Badzin has been fostering discussions about the nitty gritty of adult friendships with sensitivity and practicality in her friendship advice column. Friendship is an endless, timeless, fascinating topic, and the more anonymous letters Nina receives, the more she learns about being a better friend and having better friends. Nina loves hearing from readers and listeners. Her work on friendship is meant to be a conversation, and she hopes you will share your thoughts with her and with each other. ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO 📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina 📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack ❤️ Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group 📪 Ask an anonymous friendship question 🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.
Episodes
Ever feel like your friendships are trapped in the very general "how are you?" catch-up loop? Award-winning journalist Jonah Kaplan joins me to talk about moving from small talk to something more substantive that feeds connection. Jonah has spent two decades covering difficult stories for CBS and WCCO, and he’s learned that the best conversations—on camera or off—come from curiosity, empathy, and follow-up questions that go...
You're probably not asking your friends enough questions.
This month’s Friendship Challenge is simple but powerful: ask your friends more questions. (Way more than you think you should.) Trust me, people notice when you're not asking questions.
One of my most viral TikToks from last fall was when I talked about "the friend who never asks about you." It has over 90K views and over 400 comments. People had NEG...
A good apology can save a friendship; a bad one can torch it. And yes, our friends will mess up. As will we! That's why learning to say "I'm sorry" (and why!), accept an apology, and even ask for a better apology if the one you got was "off" are all important skills in maintaining and deepening your friendships.
In this episode of Dear Nina, I spoke to author and journalist Marjorie Ingall, co-author with Sus...
Different choices, same friendships—if you’re willing to speak up.
This week on Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship, I talk with bestselling author Dani Alpert, who has always known she didn’t want children. While her five best friends all married and had kids, Dani carved out a different life. The result? Decades of navigating friendships where communication was extra necessary to keep resentment and misunderstanding at bay. ...
New parenthood can be isolating and full of unspoken (or spoken!) pressures. But those early years are not only about the challenges. There are opportunities too! For one, being at a drastically new stage of life is a common time for making friends who are going through similar experiences. I spoke to Alex Reed, a new-ish mom (at least compared to me--a mom for two decades), a tech-industry pro, and the creator behind Roses & R...
What happens when we carry shame into our friendships? How does it keep us apart? How does it connect us deeply to others? I spoke with author Melissa Petro, whose book, SHAME ON YOU: How to Be a Woman in the Age of Mortification, delves into the complex relationship between shame, identity, and connection. Together we explore how unacknowledged shame affects our ability to form deep, meaningful relationships.
Melissa shares her st...
This month’s Dear Nina Friendship Challenge taps into the fresh-start energy of September to help you quiet the inner bully telling you you're awkward or not desired and dial up your inner bestie. I'm joined by Leslie Randolph, certified coach and TEDx speaker, who helps adults, tweens, and teens cultivate self-confidence that sticks. Leslie and I break down self-confidence as a skill (not a genetic lottery prize). We encou...
What should we expect from friends when we launch a new business or creative project like a book or a new company? Bestselling author Jackie Friedland joins me to wrestle with the messy feelings of disappointment, obligation, vulnerability, and gratitude that come with asking friends for support.
Jackie opens up about the rollercoaster of releasing five books—sometimes surrounded by cheering friends and other times left disappointed...
My dream for "Dear Nina" has always been to make people feel less alone in the messy parts of friendship. Episode #160 was our first-ever LIVE show with 120 people in the room—and wow, you could feel the energy, see the heads nodding, and appreciate the camaraderie of an audience who has experienced the highs and lows of friend groups.
Friend groups are complicated. They can be the source of safety, belonging, and joy. But t...
As parents, we all want our kids to be kind, inclusive, and compassionate. But what about when your child simply isn’t interested in a friendship? How do you balance kindness with their right to choose who they spend time with?
This week, I revisit one of my earliest and most-loved conversations with award-winning author Jessica Speer, whose books help kids and tweens navigate the tricky terrain of friendships, including BFF or NRF ...
The August Friendship Challenge on Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship is all about mixed-age friendships, and I’m grateful to dive into the topic with author Liz Alterman. Her latest novel, Claire Casey’s Had Enough, includes a beautiful friendship between a 46-year-old and a 78-year-old woman, which gave me the perfect reason to talk about why we all need a friend who’s not in our exact age and stage. August's challenge...
Amy Blumenfeld was in 8th grade when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma. While the medical story is remarkable on its own (including Amy becoming the first adolescent with Hodgkin lymphoma to have an autologous bone marrow transplant at Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC), what stayed with her deeply was how her community showed up for her family. Just one example: a group of friends and synagogue families created a ...
It’s the four-year anniversary of Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship! Whether you’ve been with me from the column that began in 2014, started with the first episode in 2021, stumbled in at episode 86, or you're new around here at #156—thank you. Thank you for caring about friendship on a deep level and for helping this podcast grow into something that’s helped me (and hopefully you) navigate the joys and messes of adult ...
After 31 years on the East Coast, Lisa Giordano decided (less than a year ago) to make a big move to Austin, Texas, with zero local contacts and a personal challenge to build a community and social life from scratch. In this upbeat conversation, Lisa tells us what really works (and what does not) when you’re starting over single in a brand-new city—or simply trying to make new friends right where you've lived for years.
WHA...
Ever feel that low-level hum of annoyance when a friend casually drops your (good or bad) personal news into the conversation? I have my fantastic "Dear Nina" assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs, with me this week to crack open a listener's anonymous letter about DISCRETION.
Discretion is that gray zone between gossip and harmless chatter. Rebekah and I discuss how much we can expect friends to know intuitively what stays...
Ready to see where your friendships stand halfway through 2025? In this solo episode, I (very quickly!) round up the first six monthly challenges. Then I hand you three laser-focused questions to help you reflect, assess, tweak, and strengthen your connections for the rest of the year.
Answer the 3 Questions This Week!
- Block 15 minutes.
- Jot down honest answers. And bullet points count!
LINKS & RESOURCES
- Join the De...
Facing Unfinished Friendship Business When Your Child Hits Social Snags
Your child’s social life can stir up every unresolved playground scar you’re still carrying. Licensed clinical social worker and EMDR therapist Beth Segaloff joins "Dear Nina" to talk about separating our past (and present) friendship baggage from our kids’ current experiences. We discuss how kids' realities are so different today and why that small ...
What does it mean to have a close friendship in adulthood? How important is history in a friendship? What does (realistic) quality time with a friend look like when you're no longer in school?
Therapist and podcast host, Jazzmyn Proctor, joins me to bust some of the most common myths she sees in her work with clients. This conversation offers a grounded, kind, and honest look at how we can rethink what adult friendship shoul...
In this milestone 150th episode of Dear Nina, we’re diving deep into friendship and community with siblings and co-directors Rebecca Davis and Pete Davis, the team behind the Netflix documentary Join or Die: A film about why you should join a club and why the fate of America depends on it.
Inspired by the groundbreaking work of political scientist Robert Putnam (Bowling Alone), Join or Die explores the powerful link between social c...
Welcome to the Dear Nina Friendship Challenge for June: Ask a friend for a favor.
Why? Asking a friend for a favor demonstrates trust and intimacy. It helps your friend feel closer to you merely because you asked, and this will strengthen the friendship. Unfortunately, people really struggle asking for help, even for the smallest of favors. This month I want you to practice this important skill!
I also ask you to consider if you stru...
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