381. Are friendships REALLY meant to be inconvenient?

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Speaker 1: Hello everybody. I'm Jemma Spake and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments, and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here, back for another episode. Guys, I don't know, I don't know how I feel about my outfit. I'm trying to I'm like trying out the leopard print today. It's this leopard print. I don't even know anymore. I don't know, I don't know if this is me. So if you see me like picking at my cardigan today, no, it's because I'm trying out a new identity as somebody bold enough to wear leopard print and I'm I'm adjusting. That has literally nothing to do with what we're talking about, Like, literally nothing. Today we are going to tackle the biggest question on the Internet of the error. Are friendships supposed to be inconvenient? How much can we actually expect and demand from our friends? And have we come to expect too little from people in our lives. I am sure that you have seen this phrase out there recently online specifically on TikTok, maybe on Instagram inconvenience is the cost of community. Or another one that's very similar is everybody wants the village, nobody wants to be the villager. These terms, these phrases have been really hard to miss, and I think they're pointing towards this big realization that we're having as a society that you know, the past twenty years have made us one of the most isolated generations in history there has been, you know, the proliferation of social media that was meant to make us less lonely has made us lonelier. And a lot of wellness content has really focused on protecting our peace and boundaries. But has any of that actually made us happier. If we were to look at any loneliness survey, any loneliness study, any life satisfaction survey taken in the last five years, the answer is pretty obviously no, we are not happier. Loneliness has literally been labeled the modern health epidemic, in the same class as diseases like COVID or a bowler or the flu. And the younger you are, the more connected you are. Ironically, or you should be due to technology, the more likely you are to report feeling increasingly isolated. Now, obviously there are a lot of factors going on here. You know, the pandemic in particular, interrupted a huge developmental stage for a lot of us when we were typically meant to meet a lot of our lifelong friends, you know, against social media, our smartphones, they are highly addictive. They've made it a lot harder to connect in person. But how much of it is because we have become selfish community members? You know, I've had some moments with people in the last few months personally that have really made me start asking this question myself. Am I asking too much of my friends? Or do I just need better friends? You know? There have been so many moments since moving to London and since Netflix happening where I'm like, you know, do I actually deserve more? Am I putting up with not enough? Am I putting up with less? And how much is that me? How much is that my expectations? How much is that my fault? And how much is it because maybe overnight our expectations for friendships have changed and that has been a really hard pill to swallow, and one I'm still kind of confused by myself. So of course I thought I would take this conversation and this rumination out of my mind and give it to you guys, and hopefully you can decide what we should be doing based on our discussion and the psychology we introduce today. So without further ado, let's get into it. So I thought that we'd start this episode by actually going through the psychological research on what makes a good friend but also what is needed for a friendship to survive, because I don't think anybody teaches us this, but it is such valuable knowledge. There have been so many attempts to categorize good friendship over the years, but my favorite one is by the social researcher Deborah Oswald, who in twenty sixteen published an entire meta analysis on maintaining long lasting friendships. And she looked at studies from years and years and years of psychology and what she found. Her conclusion was that lasting friendships need for things to survive positivity, openness, supportiveness, and interaction. Positivity is essentially, we need somebody who's going to make us feel better about ourself or better about our lives. Openness means we want people who are vulnerable who are responsive, who who share. Supportiveness means just classically like people need to be there for you in good times and in bad times as well, not just emotionally but physically, which is very important for the discussion we're having today. And finally, interaction, interaction doesn't have to be in person, it doesn't have to be every week, but there is some kind of minimal level of contact required before friendship is deprioritized in our lives or just like fades altogether. Now, this number, this level of interaction changes based on where you are in your friendship. Obviously, when you're first establishing a friendship, that is where the biggest time investment is taking place. Twenty eighteen study found that it takes about fifty hours to shift from acquaintances to casual friends, ninety hours to call someone a good friend, over two hundred hours plus to call somebody a really close friend. Even that is kind of at the lower end. So obviously, when you're first making a friend, you need to see each other quite frequently to kind of maintain that bond. But in terms of maintenance, the maintenance of a long term friendship, we actually don't have that much research about how often we should be interacting and maybe that's part of the broader social problem here. We're all very interested in making friends, in surrounding ourselves with people, but once we have them, I think it's a lot easier to kind of take them for granted and not be putting in those maintenance hours. My take is the longer the friendship, the more time between interactions online or in person you can kind of get away with, especially if they're a long distance friend. I also think, my personal opinion again is that in person hours count for triple online hours in terms of quality time. But it's funny that, you know, as soon as we get to this discussion of like what does it take to be a good friend, we immediately discuss minimums here. You know, we immediately are like, what's the minimum amount we should be seeing our friends, when in fact, you should want to see your friends as much as possible. You shouldn't just be looking for the minimal number of hours to pour into somebody so that they will be there for you when you really need them. So that was a tangent. Let's return to the original research. Positivity, openness, supportiveness, and interaction. That's what a friendship needs to survive. Something though, that these factors all have in common that comes back to this broader question we're asking today, is that all of these things are quite time intensive and sacrificial and difficult at times. It's difficult to always be supportive, it's difficult to always be there for your friends. But if you are missing even one of these things for too long, a friendship is going to fade. Friendships are not, at least my friendships are not some evergreen tree you can plant and leave and they will stay the same forever for your return, especially not friendships that are early on in their lives. This is where our problem emerges. It is so much easier to be that kind of detached friend and to only devote our energy and our time to ourselves. It is so much easier, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert. Like we're all tired, it's so much easier to spend time alone and to not be annoyed or inconvenienced by other people's problems. But you are almost guaranteeing loneliness that way. And this really brings us naturally to the big question of the day. Why is our preference for being alone? Why is it that we have come to expect less from our friendships and also inadvertently desired to give less. Like what has changed in recent decades that has made this a trend that we're seeing. I personally think there are three distinct horsemen of like the low expectation, low effort friendship apocalypse, Three things that have done the most damage to how we create and maintain good relationships. First is the move from social spaces to private spaces that we're experiencing the broader social move from social to private spaces. Second is busyness and how overworked we are. And third is and this might be controversial, but it is the manipulation of self help language and self help terms that we throw around and we don't actually understand. So let's start with number one, the move from public spaces to private spaces, including our move online, which could be deemed a public space but is often accessed privately. I read this fascinating study that said in the last thirty years, our use of public spaces has dropped by more than fourteen percent. The time we spend in third spaces so coffee shops, libraries, parks, pubs, just sitting and enjoying ourselves being present outdoors in public spaces has also drastically shifted, with people spending more and more time at home. You know, a really fascinating way they studied this. They looked at walking speed and walking pace as a determinant of how much time people are spending in public spaces. Obviously, if you're walking slower, you spend more time in public spaces. You're more likely to run into a neighbor or talk to somebody, if you're walking faster efficiently to kind of pass by those minimal social interactions. Our walking pace has increased by fifteen percent in the last few years, meaning we are more in a rush. We are more on a rush to get from place A to place B, from work to home, home to gym, gym back home, which has and I kind of just mentioned this, reduced our incidental exposure to other people in our community. What has replaced these times we'd usually spend out of our homes. You know what has replaced these moments we'd usually spend with our friends. It's our phones, our phones, our screens, our streaming services, things that are by their very nature very private. Technology, particularly social media, which ironically promised us even more connection, has made us actually a very isolated and sanitized life. On average, and this is an average, we spend two two and a half hours on social media day. A lot of that is just empty time that I think often feels like we're doing something social because we're seeing the faces of other people, we're hearing their voices, we're learning about their stories, we're receiving dopamine. But it's not. And what's funny is that a big reason we don't see our friends, don't do the forty minute commute to their side of town, don't have the evening free for them, is because we think we have less free time, but in fact, it's because we have devoted more of that free time to farm time. The twenty twenty three study actually found we have about the same amount of free time as we did two decades ago before the explosion of MySpace and Facebook, on average, five hours five hours of free time a day, but we spend so much much more of it online, which feels more like a necessity and therefore means that we are becoming more and more isolated without realizing it. And I know, obviously you guys have heard this so many times. Social media is making us more lonely. Social media is stealing our time, stealing our attention. But I think it's really important to emphasize that in an episode about how friendship has become seemingly more inconvenient when we are very easily and very much allow ourselves to be inconvenienced by our phones equally as much. The truth is, though we may have as much leisure time as we did twenty to thirty years ago, that doesn't mean we're not cognitively more exhausted and more extended during the time we are working or switched on at work to use that time effectively, And that brings me to reason number two. We may have the same amount of free time, but busyness and overall exhaustion is a big reason, and we feel like the inconvenience of friendship is sometimes more of a challenge. You know, we may be working the same hours, but what is expected of us during those hours is far different from before, especially as technology has you know, driven up productivity expectations and therefore driven up cognitive fatigue that leaves less mental energy for the things we actually want or know we should do, like seeing our friends. The fact that the busyness has become more of a status symbol as well these days, which you will know all too well if you listen to our why rest makes you feel guilty? Episode that hasn't helped you, know a busy schedule. It's the new design handbag, it's the new sports car. It makes you seem important. Having a large community simply isn't admired the same way that having a lot of money, or having great accolades or an amazing important job is. I think that's changing these days. I think people are like, huh, money coun't buy me happiness. It's almost like people have been saying that for years, but now I'm starting to realize it. And you can actually see that in social media trends right the community influencer, people who do events, people who show people where to meet, others who get off the line, they're becoming so much more popular. I think we're realizing that the allure of exhaustion is a lie. You can again, have all the importance and money in the world, but you can't buy deep friendship. I always ask myself this question, why are we so willing to inconvenience ourselves for a boss or for a job, but not for a friend if your boss says, hey, I need you to work till nine pm without pay, you're like, of course right away. But if your friend asks you to come to dinner that starts after eight, you're not going to do that. Too busy or too tired. Your boss isn't going to be the one visiting you when you're sick. Your friends are, So you've got to make that space. Let yourself be inconvenienced by your friends the way you inconvenience yourself for work. I will say, it is really hard to maintain everything we are expected to maintain as adults in a capitalist society. I know I'm receiving this message. You are receiving this message that you have to prioritize everything, do everything, be successful in everything that's impossible. So of course some things get let go of. We fail in some aspects, and typically because of the way that society and culture has prioritized our lives for us, friendship seems the least important, the least necessary. That's the thing we're going to give up first. And what we're seeing is, hey, maybe the priorities we've been given friendship at the bottom or closer to the bottom is not right because friendship is life giving and not having our friends, not having community, regardless of how inconvenient it is, does come at a cost. I feel like this is a balance or challenge we are really going to have to figure out in the next few years, hopefully, how do we balance you know, productivity and a very very competitive job market and making money with well being and with one of the most inexpensive things for our well being there is out there, which is friendship. We are going to take a short break here, but when we return, I want to get into that third and I would say most controversial reason that we've you know, shied away from the inconvenience of friendship, which is the rise of hyper individualized therapy speak. I don't think everyone's going to be happy with what I have to say, but it's important the less stay with us for a psychology podcast. Again, what I'm going to say next might be a bit controversial. This is just my opinion, but I think the viral nature of so many therapy terms and therapy speak without actual education on what those terms mean and how to apply them, has made us think it's okay to be selfish for no reason. This has made us think that it is normal to just do what we want and to call it a boundary and to expect others to respond accordingly, and if they don't, we can cut them from our lives. Big distinction I need to make here. I'm not talking about setting boundaries for well being or being selfish as a way to reclaim the times that you were self less and were taken advantage of. I'm not talking about selfishness for self protection. Love all those things. I love when people stay what they need, know what they need, are open about their wants. Love that. But that's the thing. I love it because it's being communicated, it's not being dictated. I think we can all think of examples of boundaries or therapy speak being co opted in a way that is just unfair, unreasonable, and never explained. Ghosting a friend over a minor disagreement, not showing up for important events because you're tired, and refusing to acknowledge someone else's disappointment. In that, protecting your peace by disregarding others feelings. I've done it before. I wish I could be like the innocent person here, but we all have. I read this article though the other day from Bustle, and this is like a great example of this that I just think if there was going to be one example of this, this is the one I would need use. It was this girl. Her name was Anna. Now I think let's call it Anna. Sorry Anna if it's something else, But her name was Anna. She'd had this friend of five years. That's a long time to have a friend in your twenties, and her friend dumped her. Dumped her over text whilst they were making plans, being like, I'm in a place where I'm trying to honor my needs and act in alignment with what feels right within the scope of my life, and I'm afraid our friendship doesn't seem to fit into that framework. I can no longer hold the emotional space you've wanted me to. That kind of language, which is empowering language, but that's classic therapy speak and that language. Yes, again it's important. Boundaries are important, but in this example, this person is missing a crucial ingredient. You can't set a boundary and not communicate it with the other person and then only deliver the consequences. You can't expect every relationship to be purely dictated by your needs, which are never expressed before the person is cut from your life and think or expect to have fulfilling friendships from that. It's just it's not possible. Self help and therapy and wellness speak and all this language has made us think that, I guess self improvement and healing is something that happens in isolation, or that improving our lives is all about what we can do for ourselves and what we can do to make our lives more stress free and nervous system regulation and removing toxic energy. But I think I think we've overcorrected. There was a point where we didn't have any language for this. You didn't have any knowledge about this, and so we really did need some of this language to be like, hey, that's why I feel bad, That's why I feel taken advantage of. Now we've perhaps taken this standard so far that that it's isolating. It's a highly individualistic approach that, you know, I think contradicts the collective lives most of us crave. What it also doesn't acknowledge is the mere fact of human nature. People make mistakes. You have made mistakes. You have made mistakes, people have forgiven you for People have disagreements. Relationships aren't equal all the time, and maybe the most crucial one of all. You are not the only person who has needs, and you are not the most important person in a relationship or in the world. You are just a person operating in a bigger collective system. And what you give to that collective, to your friends, to your family, to your neighbors, to strangers, is what you receive back. And there's still agency in that equation, right if you want to maintain those boundaries of like, do not cross these, do not wrong me. I cannot be inconvenienced. I want to stress free life. You're totally welcome to do that, but don't turn around and be surprised when you don't have any friends anymore or your community is there's nothing there. The reason friendship is so beautiful and complex and nourishing, and the reason community is so beautiful and complex is nourishing is because people are complex, and because they surprise us, and because they are imperfect. If you want to appreciate the full beauty of that, you also have to pay the price of being annoyed at people sometimes because they piss you off, or inconvenienced because you don't really want to pick them up from the airport, but you know they did it for you the other day, so you may as well. Or the occasional frustration that comes with people being unique and individual and not exactly catered to your needs like a character in a movie. I think I think personally you get much more and return that way. True community is messy, because humans are messy. That's why they are wonderful. Again, you can choose the alternative. You can continue to live a life where everything is organized around your convenience. You're so welcome to do so. That's the beautiful thing about therapy and this wave of wellness and self improvement. People have learned that they have agency and their emotional choices. You have free will, But I don't think your human experience is going to be as great as it can be if you alternatively accept a little bit of discomfort. It's called the law of friction. Some of the best things in life create the most friction and discomfort. That's with friendship. With that in mind, let's talk about what it takes to be a village of these days and the ways that you can create the community you want and that you deserve, even when it's not easy. Starting with tip number one. This is the thing that dramatically, dramatically change my friendships more than anything else. Do you know when you were in high school or even primary school and you would like keep track of who messaged you for your birthday, or like, who posted about you on their Instagram story or like snapchat for your birthday, and who didn't like. I know a lot of us still do this in adulthood in a different form, keeping track of whether you were the last one to reach out, you were the last one to shout dinner, whatever it is, those little things. I need you to stop doing that. I know it feels unnatural, but I need you to stop doing that. Everything becomes a scoreboard and that eliminates the natural reciprocity that a relationship should have. There is a very famous social psychology theory that you've definitely heard on this podcast before. It's a theory basically says that when we perceive that the input and output ratio in a relationship is not fair or is it unequal in friendship, it causes tension and it causes us to be uncomfortable. That's totally understandable, right, because we want to know that somebody likes us as much as we like them, that they're not taking advantage of us. But when it's the only thing you pay attention to, that's not an organic relationship. And additionally, you have to be able to view that over many years if you want long term friendships. Sometimes a friend needs more from you, needs more of the oxygen, needs more of the time, and the space to vent needs more support, sometimes for months on end. If we are constantly weighing up the short term stats with that checklist of who did what last, I think you may incorrectly believe that they are being a bad villager, and that's not always true. Sometimes you have to be able to get that bird's eye view of over years and years, or even over decades, of the flows that a relationship takes. Secondly, the second way you can be a villager is push back against your hyperindependence and ask for help. This is something I've always struggled with, and you know, I'm a very independent person. Classic and her eldest daughter high achiever, don't need anyone type. Moved out a home when I was like seventeen. I'm sure so many of you relate to this as well. It was a badge of honor to not need help with anything. What I've realized is that not letting people help me is actually doing both of us a disservice. I struggle more, I feel more in over my head, but it's also denying someone else the opportunity they would like to show you that they love you. In their way. You are denying sometimes their love language of acts of service. But also they want to do this. This is this is this weird thing. Letting people help you is more of a gift to other people sometimes, and so not letting them do that because you think it's a you think it's an annoyance to them, means you're limiting them in a way. I think it's very, very hard to not feel like a burden when you ask people for help when you move, or when you ask them to pick you up from the airport or to take you to doctor's appointments, or you know, get up early and give you a lift somewhere. But what I found, and I want you to reflect on your own experiences here, is that any times I have been asked that, and somebody's asked me to do them a favor or to help them or to come early to the party, oh my god, I'm I feel such like a swelling in my heart. I get so excited. I'm like I they have trusted me. They must really love me. Our friendship must be like really really, they must think I'm a great friend, And that's a beautiful feeling. Being a villager isn't just letting others lean on you. It's leaning on them as well and letting yourself be helped rather than isolating yourself further. Also, the more you maintain loyalty to your hyperindependence the kind of the more exhausted you're going to be, and that is not going to give you the mental energy, the cognitive energy to show up for others. So you have to be okay with saying yes, I do need help and asking for help and understanding that's a gift for both people. Number three, remember the times that you were tired and you went anyways. A really important part of accepting that friendship is going to be inconvenient is remembering that that inconvenience still brings with it a reflecting on your own memories and looking back in the past and distinctly keeping a bank of times where you were like, I really don't want to go. This is going to be terrible and it was great anyways. Is so important for learning that association between sometimes being a little bit annoyed, sometimes being tired, too tired to go you think, and actually being rewarded and I don't want to say for that sacrifice, but rewarded for pushing through. Fourth tip, if you're really struggling with like building community, pick two non negotiable social days a week. This is something I've been employing since moving to London. Consistently showing up despite your mood, just being in physical closeness to other people is a fantastic way to build the village. Right back in the day, the village was really united by geographical closeness and people who lived next door to you and people who traveled with you and we're maybe nomadic with you or who were in the hot next door. Like, yes, we've lost that closeness with the increase in I guess individualism and how spread out we are across the world. But every community, neighborhood, suburb, city still has those community hubs, still has gyms, pubs, libraries, choirs that you can go to. So having two days a week where you're like, this is my this is the this is the price I pay to be in community and these are the days I'm going to devote just to being out there is highly effective. I would also say number five kind of similar to this. Actually it's totally not it's completely different, but I'm like, oh, because it has to do with community. No, it's different. But number five, if you're struggling, invite your friends to do chores with you. Sometimes having those two big social days a week that is a lot for some people, right, And it's expensive. It's expensive, especially if you live in a big city to go out and have to be You have to buy drinks, have to pay for the movie tickets, have to go out for dinner twice a week. It's expensive. Dinner in London is like forty pounds at the moment. Like, doing that twice a week is sometimes not an option. Find those kind of more low effort things that you want to do with people. Chores are fantastic. Your ability to do chores with somebody, I think that that is a marker of whether you are good friends or not. It's one of my best memories with my good friend Aaron. It was when we lived in Canberra and we would just go to what was it the Dixon Grocery store for hours. I had a terrible roommate at a time. At the time, like I really didn't want to be in the house and we would just walk up and down and up and down those aisles. Sounds really lame, but you know what, anything to be in closeness with somebody I think is amazing. Number six. Remember to keep track of milestones and consciously budget either time or money to make those milestones feel important for others. I just feel like we don't celebrate each other enough, and especially if you are like friends with a lot of really cool people who are always doing amazing things, sometimes we forget that they still want to be celebrated, and that we're all kind of little kids in a way who want somebody to remember our birthday, and who want somebody to remember our first day of school, our first day of a new job, and who want people to remember that like, hey, that was a really hard thing and I'm getting through it, and like that in itself deserves a reward. I think I don't know to speak from personal experience and to kind of break the fourth wall here, especially if you're watching on Netflix, like when Netflix, when this whole Netflix thing happened. It was kind of sad in a way because I felt like this huge thing was happening, and I was looking around for people to like celebrate with, and some people who I really would have expected to be there for me and to want to celebrate with me for that just want and that really that hurt, and that really stung. And I think having that experience has made me realize, hey, but am I doing that for others? And if I want to be part of the village like I've got to be, sometimes you've got to set the example. And I think one of the greatest ways to show people that you care and that you listen is remembering just the smallest things and every week putting ten twenty fifty dollars into an account just for social money and just for milestone money and celebratory money, so that you can be a presence in somebody's life during their milestones. When they look back at the memory of a milestone, of a birthday, of an engagement, of a new job, of a new house, you are there and you are part of their kind of life story. Okay, we're going to take one more short break here, but when we return, let's talk also about one of friendship is perhaps becoming too one sided, and when it's no longer inconvenience, it's a burden to be around those people stay with us, I know, I said, we talk about when it's maybe time to kick somebody out of the village. But before that, one more tip, because it has something to do with this, You gotta fight more with your friends. I don't know what tip we're up to. Tip number seven. You have to voice frustrations and you have to learn how to fight with your friends. You deserve to fight with your friends. You deserve friends who will fight with you and for you, because those are the same things. When I was younger, I know so many people are the same. Conflict to me was like that was the end. The first time somebody mentioned a grievance was the last time, because the friendship was over. But having these little arguments, disagreements, sometimes having confrontation, I think nowadays shows that you care way more than those times that you just are like you voice something and you're like done, This friendship's sover because when you get to that point of being like I'm so frustrated by this that saying it is the last word that I can say because I've already detached myself from this relationship in our mind, Like, that's not real friendship fighting with somebody when it's deeply uncomfortable and it's really you don't know how it's going to go. That shows dedication, and I think that's what we all deserve, versus the ghost, versus the fizzle. I think again, I've said this on the podcast before. It is a real sign of emotional maturity. And that is how I knew my frontal low but developed and I had emotionally matured to another level. Was when I realized, like, again, if I have a problem, I find that the solution of saying it is the one that I will most likely pursue. It's just also, I think the opportunity for a new beginning, and it's a way of kind of I don't know, of relating to somebody else, and it's kind of like a bonding experience. The shift is so powerful, right, Like one of the best things is having a fight with your friend and then three weeks later being able to be like, oh my god, remember that fight we had and we moved through it, and you stop treating every small thing, the things that come up naturally in friendships, like an emergency, you stop panicking and performing and people pleasing your way out of the discomfort, and instead you get curious. You start seeing it as information like, Okay, something is happening here, something needs to be said, something needs to change. Conflict is communication. It becomes the relationship showing you where your boundaries are, where your values are, where your needs haven't been spoken out loud yet. It's not a sign the relationship is broken. It's often a sign that it's becoming real and it's developing to a new level. I always say this as well, and I'm going to stop lingering on this after this point, I promise. But once you have had your first fight with a friend and you've survived that, that's when you can call them a real friend. I remember having my first big, like falling out fight with my one of my best friends in the world, Meg, and afterwards I was like, cool, so you're not ever going anywhere, because if we got through this, we can get through anything. Let's return to what I was originally saying, when do you kick somebody out of the village? When is a friendship too inconvenient to keep up? Because there is a line, and there's always going to be free loaders in society and in the village who want the rewards without paying their social dues. I know I said not to keep score. I know I'm going to sound like a hypocrite. I know I said not to treat friendship like a point system. But there is a feeling you will get when you realize, oh wait, wait, wait, I'm the only one invested here. A few busy months, I'd let that slide, you know. I know, I've had those really busy moments where I'm like, sorry, gals, I've got to cancel more plans than i can attend because I have to work, and like, life is busy, and when you're the boss, like that's kind of just the way it is. And I'm really glad my friends gave me grace for that. Life gets busy. We're adults, we know that. Also. People have different energy levels, people have care and responsibilities, people have health problems. Also important to know that about your friends. But it's when, and this is the distinction, when you find yourself doing things for them they would never do for you, or specifically they have had the chance to do that for you, and they haven't. It's not about cutting them off at that point, but having that conversation setting expectations. Everyone can be unaware. Everyone can have a rough season. But if you have expressed that you feel taken for granted or that you need more effort, they need to make plans, and they either dismiss you, guilt, you promise, they change, to change, and then they never do repeat the same behavior. That's not a misunderstanding. You have been understood. That is a pattern, and patterns are what decide outcomes, not potential. Like I said, you want a village, learn how to approach these hard conversations, and also learn that this may be not isn't necessarily the end. It might just be the beginning of a new way your friendship operates. But if they do something that you would never imagine doing to someone, to them, to a stranger, even to an enemy, it's not that this person doesn't deserve a village, they just don't deserve to be in yours. Your village has standards. And we're again not talking about mild inconveniences. We're not talking about things are apologetic for, but things that show a value mismatch. You're allowed to say this is not what our village does. I can't have you here cheating on a partner, hurting somebody else, betraying somebody else. Lying. A village runs on values. What ones do you personally want to see in others that you are committing to displaying yourself. Finally, the final criteria I think that a friendships has gone too far as too inconvenient is when it creates more stress than safety. And that's a feeling that you will if you've ever bit in this situation before, you understand not every friendship needs to be deep, but it at least needs to be stable. If spending time with a friend feels like bracing for a terrible mood, managing their reactions, anticipating passive aggression, walking on eggshells, if it feels exhausting in like an emotional, soulful way, it stops being about companionship. I think it becomes a form of like you're regulating them, and that is exhausting. And if you find yourself avoiding situations being really excited when they cancel plans, that is the biggest one. The moment you feel excited that somebody has canceled a plan, I think you need to place them elsewhere in your friend universe. And I wrote about this in my book Your Friendship Universe has three circles. The inner circle, the good like the second circle in the third circle, where someone sits in that circle determines essentially the nature of your relationship. The center of the circle, you should never be excited if somebody at the center of the circle cancels plans. Center of a circle, you should never be excited if they can't make it. Third circle. Your expectations are a little bit different there still in the still in the galaxy. They just don't have to be a huge priority. You don't have to drop a friend, shift your expectations shift their place in the friendship galaxy. Some final reminders before we go, remember as well. I don't think I've spoken about this enough, but a village takes time. If you don't have it yet, if it feels like you'll never have it, I have to remind you everyone who has a village now at some point didn't have one and at some stage felt like they would never have it. Sometimes you have to destroy the old for the new as well. You know, I thought I had a village at university. I didn't, and I was clinging to those people and trying to drag them into activities and into ways of engaging that I knew I enjoyed, they weren't ever going to, and it just made me feel terrible about myself. When I got out of that environment, when I gave myself space and time to just think about what I wanted in friendship, you know, the way I thought about what I wanted in dating in Korea, it was very easy to separate myself and to understand that you know, again, maybe the village I wanted didn't share the same values. Similarly, like make sure you still have time for yourself. I know I placed this big emphasis on like recognizing selfishness in boundaries, clothing, and not over using the two tired excuse. But social burnout is still real, especially if you're adapting to a new way of showing up. My guideline for myself is always a day and a half or a day of alone time per week, nourishing alone time, just to make sure I'm not you know, I'm pouring into my own cup as well. I want to be a good villager. A good villager has the patience and the time and the energy to do that, but we're all still learning, you know, We're all still learning our balances, and I think getting corrections from friends is something you have to be open to. You also have to be open to doing that as well. And just having patience and forgiveness for people. I really think that's what we need more of. Thank you so much for listening. If you have made it this far. If you are listening on Spotify, leave a comment down below. What are your tips for being a good villager that maybe I haven't included. I would love to hear from you. Make sure you are following us on Instagram TikTok. Remember if you are listening to the podcast, we are now on Netflix if you want to go and watch over there to get an even more intimate feeling. But I appreciate your interest in this topic. I appreciate you being as fascinated by this as I am. Until next time, be safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. Good luck with the village, good luck being a villager. We will talk very very soon.