Mini-Ep 434: How To Keep Friends and Stay Connected
Dor and E hear from listeners about their takeaways from friendship month (both the positive and the negative), why reaching out for connection is always a good thing, and therapy for therapists.
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Transcript
This episode transcript is AI generated.
Doree (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Forever 35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafir.
Elise (00:16):
And I'm Elise Hu. And we're just two friends who like to talk a lot about serums
Doree (00:20):
And this is a mini episode where we hear from you, we share your comments and your thoughts, and we answer your questions to the best of our ability. But please remember, we are podcast hosts. We are not experts. We always encourage you to seek support first and foremost from a medical and or mental health professional as needed.
Elise (00:38):
I love these episodes and we have so much listener mail in the old listener mailbag this week.
Doree (00:44):
We do. We do. But speaking of listener mail, we are going to have Rachel Goodwin makeup artists to the stars back on the show soon and we would love to get your questions for her. So please send those in to Forever 35 podcast@gmail.com. Call or text us at (781) 591-0390. You can also send in your regular questions, but we especially want your questions for Rachel. She's not an aesthetician, so I feel like the sort of skincare questions are sometimes a little bit outside of her area of expertise, but anything makeup related is fully in her wheelhouse.
Elise (01:26):
It's also just fun to have her come back quarterly because she's always doing something interesting or out there in the world bopping around, Bopp around to Fashion Week and SNL. Oh, she was at SNL 50 with her gal Emma, so I'd love to hear her stories just about SNL 50 and how all of that went and then she
Doree (01:47):
And award season is just ended, so
Elise (01:50):
Exactly her whole award season run. Yeah, I'm sure she has lots of stories and she's just fun and she's around our age and so it's always a good time having Rachel back. We're looking forward to it.
Doree (02:02):
It's a good time. It's just a good time. Yeah. What's happening with you, Elise, since we last spoke?
Elise (02:10):
What's not happening? By the time this plays, I will have seen some tennis in Indian Wells, the fifth Slam, they call that the Fifth Slam, or the people at the BN PBA open in Indian Wells call it Tennis Paradise. So I should be back
Doree (02:31):
From, when are you going
Elise (02:32):
Tennis Paradise? By the time this comes out, I'm going Friday. Friday and I only have tickets for the day session, so I don't know which big stars and we don't know who's going to actually be playing because it depends on who's winning the previous matches on the previous day, but last year when I went, I got to catch Djokovich just before he lost to the Lucky Loser, so I got to see Djokovic's last winning match at that tournament last Year and
(02:59):
We had really good seats for that, but the girls were all way more excited to see Cocoa Golf because Cocoa Golf was playing in her first Indian Wells after winning the US Open in 2023, so she was on, I think she was still ranked like world number three and there's a lot of movement I think in the tennis rankings lately because the top players are either out because of potential drug infractions over there on the men's side with Yanick Sinner and then iga, who is the Polish 22-year-old, 21-year-old who's been world number one for so long. She's been having kind of a rockier run. So there's some tennis happenings. I'm still documenting my teens for this fire documentary. We're still trying to sell it and so we've been kind of pitching and yeah, I'm just in limbo I think on a lot of things.
Doree (03:55):
Yeah, you're waiting for people to get back to you on stuff.
Elise (03:58):
Yeah, that's always anxiety producing. Yeah,
Doree (04:04):
Because it's out of your control. You feel like you've done everything to make it work and all the things, and now you just have to let things play out.
Elise (04:14):
Yeah, and so much is out of our control these days. At least we've got this, at least we have our regular check-ins and then the schedule, the routine of the Monday episodes and the Wednesday episodes and so that's actually really helped me I think stay centered knowing I have a schedule here for
Doree (04:36):
This. Yeah, I feel that limbo. It's stressful.
Elise (04:41):
How's column writing? How's advice giving for Slate?
Doree (04:44):
It's good. It's actually really good. I feel like I'm getting into a rhythm of it and it's coming a little more easily. I filed my column early this week, which like, Hey, I never file anything early, so editors close your ears. But no, I think I was like, okay, I'm just going to tackle this. I think I'm also just, sometimes I'll read these questions and I'm like, I have no idea. I don't know what to tell you. And then I'm like, oh wait, I can actually ask someone who knows? I talked to an employment lawyer this week and people who have actual expertise in these things because yeah, there was a question this week where I was workplace harassment and the lawyer was like, it's actually not. Oh, interesting. Well she was basically, I'm paraphrasing, but she was basically like, this is a shitty situation, but a court would not recognize this as workplace harassment.
Elise (05:57):
Got it.
Doree (05:58):
Okay. Alright, got it. Okay, so I'm also learning a lot. I feel like if I ever go back into an office I will,
Elise (06:08):
You're going to be better off.
Doree (06:09):
Yeah. Very aware of what's going on. So yeah, that is going well. My husband and I are still trying to be better about checking in with each other and just feeling like we're working towards something. I saw this, did I mention this on this podcast or have I just talked about it in real life? I don't even remember. It's all blending together. I saw this TikTok from this business school professor who was like, my secret to all of my success has been, I do five year plans and every day I write down the three things that I've done to work towards the five-year plan and I was like, oh my god.
Elise (07:01):
See, planning that far ahead actually would just make me very despairing because I'm so worried that we're not even going to be around or be a democracy that far out from now. So I,
Doree (07:14):
I have never been able to do a five-year plan that just seems so abstract to me and maybe that's why I'm flailing right now, but I just feel like five years, I dunno what's happening in five years, it seems so far off and so I'm trying to just think more about the next six to 12 months.
Elise (07:36):
I think that's reasonable. That's reasonable. Well, and then sometimes you get hit by all these surprises. I was walloped with news that I didn't pay enough or hold back enough from my freelancing last year for taxes and then suddenly, so then you're going back in time and trying to make up for things instead of go forward and plan ahead and prepaid 2025 taxes in advance. Now I'm like, oh great, I have to find more money for 2024 and all this stuff. So I like the idea of people really planning ahead. I don't think it necessarily suits everyone, but yeah, six months. Six months. That sounds reasonable, but let's get to your questions and not my ongoing despair.
Doree (08:25):
Okay, sounds good. Before we do that, I know I mentioned our email and phone number already when I talked about Rachel Goodwin questions was just as a reminder, you can call or text us at seven one five nine one zero three nine zero. Email us at 5 3 5 podcast@gmail.com. We also have our website Forever 35 podcast. Our Instagram is Forever 35 podcast. Our newsletter is Forever five podcast do com slash newsletter and we have our favorite products at shop my us slash forever three five. So go check those out and we will take a short break and we'll be right back. We'll be right back. All right, we are back and we got a bunch of feedback about Friendship month, so we're going to play some of it,
Listener Voicemail (09:17):
Do and EI wanted to share something that I implemented from Friendship Month. So I have a friend who always reaches out to me. I never reach out to her, not that I don't want to, it's just that life is nuts and she always suggests to do the thing that is easiest for me on dates and times that are easiest for me, which is to go on a walk during the workday when the kids aren't around. When I have a break at work, she lives a couple blocks from me. We walk to a coffee shop and talk and then walk home and talk and she even goes so far as tries to reach out to me to schedule it during the week because she knows if she does it on the weekend I'll say, yeah, let me write myself a sticky note to look at my work calendar when I log in on Monday.
(10:09):
And she's like, oh, I'll just reach out to you during the week so you don't to can take that step out of your to-do list. Anyway, so we went on a walk yesterday and I said to her, I know you always reach out to me and I do not reach out to you, but I want to let you know that that's not because I don't want to walk with you Every time you text me about a walk, I get excited and I look forward to it, so please continue to do that and don't take my lack of initiation as a lack of interest. And she was like, I'm so glad you said that because sometimes I wonder that and it was just such a lovely conversation, like connected like a yin and a yang. I wouldn't have shared that with her had I not been listening to the friendship month and thinking about that unevenness. And Elise was saying sometimes people you connect into friend groups because you have the same style and in this case it's actually a good fit that she reaches out and I want her to reach out. So anyway, thank you guys for all you do.
Elise (11:09):
I love that.
Doree (11:10):
I love that.
Elise (11:11):
I do actually, that's why I don't think I've ever really taken a tally of who reaches out because I think I do have a lot of friends that just have a different kind of style than me. We have warm vibes towards each other, but I usually reach out because they're the ones who are always down to do something but aren't proactive about making the plan to get together. I was actually thinking, I'm having breakfast with my really good friend Alec next week and this friendship, he was like my first friend when I moved to LA and this friendship has sustained over now seven or eight years and
Doree (11:45):
We
Elise (11:45):
Don't really have friends in common, we don't have work in common, we're just friends and we get together regularly, but every once in a while he'll have season tickets to something or he'll be working on something and send them over to me or ask me for advice and it's that kind of friendship, but he is never the one who's like, okay, let's get something on this schedule. But I don't think anything of it, it's just like that's the way, that's the cookie crumbles and I'm so glad that our friendship exists.
Doree (12:13):
So I love this because I just think it highlights this idea that sometimes friendship styles succeed because they're complimentary. I think what is the key, and this listener really highlights this is that both people need to be on board. I think where we saw some of the tension from people writing in was when they didn't want to always be the one making the plans and taking the initiative they felt like the other friend should be doing that more. Whereas in this friendship it seems like everyone is sort of comfortable in their roles.
Elise (12:50):
Yeah, I love it. Alright, let's go on to the next one.
Listener Voicemail (12:53):
Hey Doey, that meme that was going around, I dunno, maybe a year ago, it was like, Hey, if you have a friend who has a toddler second on them, well this is your Washington DC federal employee correspondent and I'm calling in to let you listeners know if they have a friend or a family member that is a federal employee or a federal employee adjacent or a contractor to the federal government anywhere in this lovely Dumpster fire nation reach out to them
Elise (13:26):
So good they
Listener Voicemail (13:26):
Need you. It's a psychological warfare and they could use a text just a thinging to you, not even, how are you doing? Putting something else on their plate, just thinking to you. Feel free to respond with any info you might have, but if not, just wanted to let you know. I'm thinking of you anyway. Yeah, man. Brutal. Okay, fine.
Elise (13:51):
It's so vital. I was actually doing that at TSA because I've been traveling the last couple of weeks. I've been telling these because all these TSA folks, they're all federal employees and they're not paid that well and it's kind of a thankless job in a lot of ways and I would think of them because every time there's a government shutdown or nearly a government shutdown, which might happen again in the coming weeks, there's no TSA employees or there's talk that federal air traffic is going to have to stop. And so I think of them and so as I would get my ID checked and stuff, I'm like, thank you all. I know it's rough times or whatever, but we appreciate you just something small,
(14:31):
But many
(14:31):
Of us, I love that it's a huge federal workforce. It's like 2 million Americans and so many of us have family members and friends who are federal employees and all of us are connected to one another. None of us is an island. And so I think this is a really great reminder.
Doree (14:51):
Another question that I think you and I can tackle because I feel like you do a really good job of keeping in touch with your friends who don't live here. So I feel like you would be a good person to answer this. Okay,
(15:05):
Loving the Friendship series. It is raising a lot of emotions for me. I'm missing friends who live far away, but now that many of us have young kids traveling to be together, it feels so hard. I have a 15 month old, the youngest and the rest of the kids range in ages up to seven. So we've been in the new parent zone for many years now. Maybe it's harder in my head than reality, but we are sick all the time and I haven't had a lot of opportunities lately to get together with friends nearby, let alone far away.
(15:31):
I know it gets better, the sick part at least, but it feels like these friendships are withering. In the meantime, I just sent a message in the group text, but even that has not been very active since we aren't really present in each other's day-to-day lives and haven't been for a long time. Not sure if I have a question, just a lot of feelings maybe how to rescue a friend group when probably you can only get together once a year or would it be best to focus on individual friendships rather than the group to cut down on the moving parts of four people in three states with five kids trying to triangulate a plan, thinking of fond memories of my college best friend and I finding so many ways to spend time together, even just sitting on a stoop together when we only had a few minutes in the same city wondering if I should just send this to her.
Elise (16:10):
Yes, you should definitely send it to her. Always let folks that you love know that you love them. We really don't know how much time that we have to express our connections to one another. I think to the question about getting the whole group together, it is really gnarly. It gets really hard to get the friend group of the girls that you used to be in the same college dorm with all together. Again. I remember in my twenties we had so many wedding related get togethers, there were bachelorette weekends and things where a lot of girlfriends from various groups would get together because there was a milestone or something to gather around or then there were baby showers and all that and now there's fewer milestones now that I'm in my early forties. And so it's really tough. You basically have to have one of those friends who is type A and hyper organized and can corral everybody and do the doodle poll and see which weekends are available. And if there isn't one of those leaders in the group, then it's very hard to get the whole group together. And so in that case, in some of my groups that don't have those, I have kind of just prioritized individual check-ins
(17:22):
And usually around there's reasons that we reach out to one another even if we haven't talked for nine months. It's like birthdays for example. We check in on birthdays and so I'm pretty good about knowing when my friend's birthdays are and using that as a way to just check in or they're checking in with me on mine. The other is just little stuff. If there's things that make you think of your friend,
(17:48):
Like little memes here or there. The other day I don't remember what made me think of my friend Chris. I was in a CVS aisle or something. I was like, I haven't talked to Chris in a while. And I texted him and he responded by saying, oh my gosh, I was just thinking about you and thinking about you and Rob a few days ago. So we are on each other's minds and so sometimes we just have to make that explicit. So I love your feelings and I hope that you share them with the people that you love and the friends that are in that group.
Doree (18:20):
I love that.
Elise (18:22):
And you'll pick up right where you left off. You'll pick up right where you left off. So it can go a long time. But for my friends who I haven't seen, my Texas girls, like my Texas crew, I can go a long time without seeing them, but we are so tight and every time we're back together it's just like we had been hanging out for a long stretch. We just pick right up.
Doree (18:43):
This also, this made me think of some of the takeaways that we posted in the newsletter last week. Like Raina Cohen said, be willing to initiate and be willing to get rejected. People would rather play it safe even if that means suffering, the consequences of not getting closer to people. And I was like, yes. And Dr. Mar Franco made a similar point where she said, our brains are glitchy. And so instead of thinking, how will that friend see it if I reach out to them, you should ask yourself, how would I see it if they reached out to me? I'm like, most of
Elise (19:21):
The time, you
Doree (19:21):
Welcome it. Oh my God, yes. Thank you. I'm so glad this person reached out. So keep that in mind. Alright, we're going to take another short break and we'll be right back. All we are back on our last mini episode we had, was it our last one or the one before? I forget. We had Anna Goldfarb, one of our guests for Friendship Month answer some listener questions that came in about friendship
Elise (19:57):
And y'all had very mixed reviews about this very mixed reviews. Some of you really appreciated having somebody else in the advice chair and somebody who was a researcher on friendship and some of y'all really just miss us giving advice. Yeah.
Doree (20:13):
Yes. We got quite a few responses that said that Anna's advice really missed the mark. And so we hear you, we honor that and just want to read some of this feedback. Or actually, you know what? Let's hear some feedback first.
Listener Voicemail (20:30):
Hi Dorie Elise, this is Julie Miller and I love the podcast I was calling in reference to the Anna Goldfarb episode. I listened to it today and rarely have I been so surprised by an answer from a guest. I'm calling about the 40th birthday question. I believe it was the last one on the show and I was just really caught off guard by Anna's answer to that. I felt like it was, gosh, it really caught me off guard. I feel like the friend who had the 40th birthday maybe could have expected her friend to do something for her big birthday. I mean, just because you choose to have children doesn't mean that you can't be there for your friends. And I feel like maybe the whole situation was lacking in context. I believe they had been friends since the sixth grade. Maybe that was something that they had always talked about in their twenties and thirties.
(21:36):
Yeah, when we turned 40, we're going to throw huge parties for one another and the friend with the child, and I believe she said she was also pregnant, we don't know what kind of support system she has that she may have grandparents and a supportive husband who are ready to step in with childcare. I think Anna just presuppose that she was a struggling mother who was barely keeping it together and the friend who was turning 40, I think by the time we turned 40, especially single women, child-free women, we have been to so many weddings, so many baby showers, and I don't think it was wrong for that friend to want something in return. I mean, has Anna Goldfarb never seen the Sex in the City episode where she has to go to the shower and take off her shoes and Tatu O'Neal makes such disparaging remarks about she doesn't have children and all that.
(22:37):
It really, really caught me unaware. I am 52. I did not get married until I was 32. I'm child free by choice. I have joined with another human, but I have seen my friendships shift when my friends have had kids. But my best friend got on a plane with two infants and still came to be maid of honor in my wedding. So I feel like that friend really dropped the ball and I was surprised by Anna's advice, but mainly I want to know if I'm alone in this. Did anybody else feel the same as me? Anyway, keep up the great work. Look forward to your show every week and thanks for listening. I know it got caught along. Thanks. Bye-bye.
Doree (23:21):
Not alone. You're not
Elise (23:23):
Alone. You're not alone. In fact, we have an email that starts the same way, which I'll just read now because it pairs very well with your voicemail. It says hello, I might be alone here, but I found Anna's advice to the woman whose pregnant friend wasn't able to be there for her to be quite cruel. The implication that single child-free people have wants and people with kids needs really upset me. Is it not possible to need time, love, and affection if you don't have kids? I'm childless by choice and happily do everything I can to accommodate my friends' kids. And there are a lot of them, including nearly always being the one to travel to them despite not being able to drive and having all of the kids be invited to my birthday lunch so my friends with kids can come. I also had this at home so it was easy for them versus a restaurant and provided everything I could to make the place.
(24:14):
But very often you are either dismissed with things like, I can't believe I ever thought I experienced stress before children. You have no idea or fetishized. Tell me about your dating life. I have to live through you the later actually being a very painful and complicated issue as I'm on the asexual spectrum and struggle to date at all. But my friends just want a good story. Despite knowing this, I think women with children either have to accept some of the responsibility for navigating the change in friendships with their childless friends or just be honest that they aren't capable of having true friendships with people who aren't experiencing motherhood. It feels unfair that all the responsibility is on the childless friend, even if some of it absolutely is best. Yeah, great answer, great response.
Doree (24:57):
Yep, great feedback.
Elise (24:58):
Yeah, great. No, I've really tried not to. I've been pretty deliberate about trying not to melt into my children's lives so that I can continue to show up for my friends. And it just does depend on the kind of support that you have. Yeah, totally. That is possible. And I think that there were some assumptions in that question or that answer that the pregnant friend didn't have the kinds of supports that might make it possible for her to show up
Doree (25:25):
More. Right, totally.
Elise (25:26):
So anyway, we understand the blind spot we see it. Those of you who wrote in and called in are not alone. And I think if anything, it shows us that when we feel like we're the only ones in situations, we're often not. So please do speak up because it gives license for other people to do the same. And I'm not saying just about reaction to advice on a podcast call in show.
Doree (25:49):
Yes.
Elise (25:49):
I'm saying just in general.
Doree (25:51):
Totally.
Elise (25:52):
All right.
Doree (25:54):
We are going to end with a call back to another question that we raised and we got a great voicemail about this.
Listener Voicemail (26:06):
Okay.
(26:06):
Hello, wonderful, 35 host and listeners. I'm a therapist and I have a therapist and I wanted to call in about that question. Every therapist does not have a therapist. Many people don't for similar reasons why the general public doesn't because of stigma, which is ironic because lots of people are therapists who still have internalized mental health stigma and a host of other access issues. With that said, there are lots of things to consider when you are looking for a therapist, which would go into the overall fit. So once you talk to them, which you should for let's say 15 minutes before committing, do you like them? Do you feel like you can open up to them? Do they feel safe? Do they feel confident? Does this feel like someone who you would be happy to share with and be vulnerable with? So that's one. Then there are also demographic markers, like if you want to have a therapist that shares your gender or your ethnicity or your sexual orientation or gender identity, those or even nationality immigration status, there are so many factors that you might feel more understood if you share one of those demographic markers.
(27:23):
Considerations if you want therapy in person or online or hybrid. Lots of people are online and that is great for access, but in person sometimes is powerful in a different way. You might also think about specialty. Does this person specialize in the thing that you want to work on? So lots of people work on anxiety and depression, but there are also specialties in eating disorders or personality disorders or grief or role transitions or transition to parenthood or a million other things. So people have specialties in those areas. There's also the therapeutic approach, which might be behavioral, psychodynamic, humanistic, integrative, or a host of others. And then availability is huge. So you might love somebody, but they might say, I can only see you once a month and really you want to be seen weekly or biweekly. So lots to consider. And last but not least, price is the biggest access determination that I can think of. And even as a therapist myself, that is the thing that made the decision for me because I found pre therapy and that was through University Counseling Center and I'm going to use that as long as I can. So there's so many factors that go into it and I wish everybody great luck and really encourage everyone to do it and everyone deserves support. So sending love to all, especially my sister.
Elise (28:56):
Oh, lovely. That is such a helpful rubric or a heuristic to kind of go down.
Doree (29:04):
Yes,
Elise (29:05):
Yes. Good thing. This episode is transcribed by a machine so that we can go back and look at that transcript. So you can go to our website forever 35 podcast.com and read the transcript of that because I think that was a really helpful list of things to consider when considering a therapist. Yes, I agree. And if you're looking for online therapy or open to online therapy, we do have a code at Better Help one of our sponsors. So if you are interested in shopping around at Better Help, you can visit Better help.com/forever three five. And they are offering 10% off your first month. Obviously there's lots of different routes you can take of course. But Better Help does have that discount through us.
Doree (29:49):
Alright, thanks everyone for listening. We appreciate you and we will talk to you soon.
Elise (29:55):
Okay, bye-bye.
Doree (29:56):
Bye.