Episode 228: The Quickie: Why You Need Friends Who Are In Your Life Stage, And How To Navigate The Splinter Era
We’re in the splinter era of friendships (as coined by Tinx), where everyone’s suddenly in different life stages, on very different journeys.
We’re in the splinter era of friendships (as coined by Tinx), where everyone’s suddenly in different life stages, on very different journeys.
While one friend is planning their wedding, another is having her second baby, another is single AF traveling the world in the name of self-discovery, and others are going all in on their new business or corporate ladder climbing. It can feel isolating, confusing, and hard to relate to the people you were always in sync with.
Cue the old childhood Girl Scouts jingle: “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other’s gold.”
It’s so valuable to have friends in different life stages who are going through different experiences, but it’s equally important to surround yourself with people who are where you are in life right now — because being the only single person in a group of married friends fucking sucks.
We tend to expect everything from one person, whether it’s a romantic partner or best friend, but we should be diversifying our needs across many people to feed different parts of ourselves. The friends we make to meet us where we are right now don’t need to be ride-or-die forever besties… there is just as much value in having friends for a season who can walk with you through the current phase you’re in.
So tune in for some real talk on friendships, where I chat about:
The repercussions of splinter era and why this is unique to our generation
The different kinds off friends you need
The value of finding our work wives, single friends, and fellow mamas
Investing in seasonal friends and deprioritizing the idea of “forever friends”
How to meet new friends that meet your needs
The Mel Robbins analogy that changed how I approach friendship
Wherever you are on your adulting journey, I hope you find good people to walk it with. You’ve got this!
Our show is produced by:
Gillian Berner, Host, Producer & Editor
Olivia Nashmi, Audio Engineer
Carolyn Schissler, Designer & Web Producer
Sara Valentine, Content Producer
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Episode 139: Teach Me How to Make Friends As An Adult, with Psychologist and Friendship Expert Dr. Miriam Kirmayer
There’s a new epidemic in town: Loneliness. And while making friends is intimidating at any age, it feels especially daunting as adults. As we hit our 30s, our groups of friends are getting smaller and smaller (fun fact: We replace half our friend group every seven years as adults!). Life gets busy, people move away, and milestones come at different times. Even though this seems to be universal, it can still feel like something is wrong with us.
There’s a new epidemic in town: Loneliness. And while making friends is intimidating at any age, it feels especially daunting as adults. As we hit our 30s, our groups of friends are getting smaller and smaller (fun fact: We replace half our friend group every seven years as adults!). Life gets busy, people move away, and milestones come at different times. Even though this seems to be universal, it can still feel like something is wrong with us.
If we’ve learned anything along our adulting journey, it’s that friendships are crucial to our mental and physical wellbeing. So this week, we’re learning how to prioritize the most underrated of our relationships, how to make new ones, and why it’s so damn hard to maintain friends as an adult.
We’re not the experts, so we called in Dr. Miriam Kirmayer. Having spent over a decade researching the science of friendship and helping people live more connected lives, Dr. Miriam is a clinical psychologist, writer, speaker, and leading expert on friendship and social connection. She’s appeared on some of our favourite media outlets, from Call Her Daddy to Vogue and The New York Times.
She sits on the Mental Health Advisory Committee for Wondermind, a media company co-founded by Selena Gomez, and is a member of The GenWell Project, a human connection movement. She also has a private practice and is one of the first and only licensed clinical psychologists to specialize in friendship therapy!
Join us as we chat about:
Why our friendships dwindle as we age
Dr. Miriam’s best tips for making new friends
Overcoming the fear of rejection
How many hours it actually takes to establish a true friendship
How our attachment styles affect our friendships
Adapting to new life stages and navigating changing relationships
Why one friend can’t check every box
How to prioritize friendships (and why it’s good for your health!)
Advice on letting go of friendships that have run their course
We hope this episode helps you feel less alone and inspires you to get back into the friendship market. Remember, you’ve always got a friend in us!
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