Chapter 1: What is the main topic of friendship breakups and boundaries?
Welcome back to Advice Session, a series here on Anything Goes where you, yes you, send in your current dilemmas or anything that you want advice on, and then I, yes me, give you my own professional advice. And today's topic is a topic that we've touched on many a times here on Anything Goes, and that would be the topic of friendship.
But more specifically, friendship breakups and boundaries, also known as the less fun part of friendship. The fun part of friendship is going and getting brunch together, going on a hike together, talking about your crushes together, talking about a funny YouTube video you saw the other day. You know, that's the fun part of friendship. The not fun part of friendship...
Friendship breakups and boundaries. Although I will say boundaries are not necessarily not fun. Boundaries can be awesome and they can actually make a friendship more fun, I would argue. Friendship breakups, on the other hand, not fun.
Chapter 2: How can boundaries improve friendships?
Nothing is fun about that. Long term, there can be relief, but short term, kind of sucks, kind of sucks. Boundaries, more awesome, still kind of uncomfortable. So we're going to be touching on some of the more uncomfortable parts of friendship today. And I must say, I am getting over the flu still. I've been getting over the flu for like a really long time.
And so my voice kind of sounds like shit. Okay, and maybe I also was at karaoke like a week ago too. And my voice has just never recovered. I honestly need to take better care of my voice considering it's my job to talk. But it sounds like shit. And in my defense, I was at karaoke, but I didn't even get on stage and sing karaoke. I literally just watched and sang along. Okay, I sang along.
But that was enough to fuck my voice up. In addition to the flu, it's like I just my pipes have been off. So ignore that and excuse that. Anyway, without further ado, let's begin.
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Somebody said, "'I want to end a friendship "'because it sucks the life out of me, "'but my friend doesn't know that "'because I don't think I make it obvious. "'So if I brought it up, "'it might make me seem crazy or seem random.'" What do I do? Well, this is interesting.
It sounds like to me that you've never had a conversation with this friend about whatever it is that makes this relationship exhausting. You've never brought it up. Now, I don't know what your friend is doing, right? And that is helpful information. But I will say, in relationships, confrontation is key. That's what makes relationships grow, evolve, grow.
That's what allows relationships to continue through various chapters of life, right? If you're not communicating and confronting, it's very hard to keep a relationship going. And so I don't know what your friend is doing that sucks the life out of you. And that's a serious statement. I take that very seriously. You know, if this person's sucking the life out of you,
That's a big problem and we need to fix that. However, if it's possible and fair to yourself, I think it's not a terrible idea before just jumping ship on the friendship to perhaps maybe bring up the exhausting traits, qualities about your friend to your friend before you just jump ship. I mean, listen, you got to be, you know, you want to be kind about it. You want to be gentle about it.
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Chapter 3: What should I do if a friendship feels exhausting?
Answers to texts become more and more sporadic. Drop a few more excuses to not hang out. I don't love that type of strategy. I would prefer to just say everything to everyone's face, but sometimes... That's the way that makes the most sense. If the reason why you want to distance yourself from someone is not because they've done anything wrong, but just because you don't really like their vibe.
Oops. Oops. Anyway. Okay, next. Somebody said, what do I do if I want to move on from being friends with certain people, but I feel like they have a lot of vulnerable and personal information about me and I'm scared of how they will use that in the future. Oh my God, I could not resonate with something more. This is an anxiety that plagues me all of the time. All of the time.
It's funny because I think my career is rooted in my openness to talk about almost anything. And I'm just such an open book by nature. I was like born this way. It's in my blood. It's in my DNA. It's who I am as a person. I just am okay with... I love... I love being vulnerable. I love being open. I love having heart to hearts with people. Like this is what life is about for me.
This is like my purpose on this planet, it feels like, is to just have really vulnerable conversations. For whatever reason, I was born and I just am not afraid of it, right? I'll talk about anything, anything for the most part.
And even if it's something embarrassing, even if it's something really vulnerable, even if it's something that most people wouldn't want to say about themselves, like I don't care. I will pretty much say anything about myself for the sake of human connection. Now, in some ways, that's a beautiful thing because we do connect with one another through vulnerability, right?
Like, think about a time when you're at a party or something and maybe the vibe in the room was a little tense and then somebody made a vulnerable joke or told a vulnerable story. Next thing you know, the room is moving different. It feels different. People are connecting more. It's...
you know kind of a veil was lifted things are a bit more clear there's a bit more connection happening like that's how it is you know like think about the first vulnerable conversation you had with your best friend and how that was the moment that you both really truly connected for the first time or a romantic partner the list goes on you know like vulnerable conversations are how we connect with other people you're not connecting with people over small talk you're not and so
You know, it's a crucial ingredient, in my opinion, in any sort of meaningful conversation or relationship, right? Vulnerable conversation, storytelling, admitting to one's shortcomings, the list goes on, right? That's how we connect with each other. Now, that's a beautiful thing. It works wonders. However, it's also really scary, you know?
Even though I'm someone who's unbelievably comfortable talking about almost literally anything and everything. There are also things where I'm like, that was a private story. You know what I mean? I told that person because I wanted that person to know. But I don't necessarily want everyone to know that. Even I have my limits as a complete open book.
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Chapter 4: How do I confront a friend about their negative behavior?
Because they're mad? Maybe. They might. In fact, they probably will. They also might not. but they definitely might. And that's the hardest part about all of this. They definitely might. And this is something I have had to come to terms with. Okay. And it's been really uncomfortable and challenging for me.
I've had to accept that in attempt to become close to people in this life, I'm going to tell them stories that then are theirs. You know what I mean? Like I'm giving them a piece of myself in a way. And if the friendship doesn't work out, it is out of my control completely what they do with that. Now, I think the first step to handling this discomfort is to accept the worst case scenario.
A lot of times with anxiety, this is the best approach. Accept the worst case scenario. Okay, what's the worst case scenario? This person that you're no longer friends with goes out and tells everyone one of your deepest, darkest secrets. Okay, what is the worst case scenario from that? Does that secret hurt somebody's feelings? Is it deeply embarrassing? You know, what is it?
And then run through the entire scenario. Okay, if this person goes and they tell everyone this thing about me or this thing that I said or this thing that I did, Okay, well now that might be information that's a little bit more public. Okay, if this calls me to action, I need to do something to solve this. Okay, what is my plan? You know, how do I solve this problem?
Do I need to call someone up and apologize? Do I need to just accept the fact that people know something embarrassing about me? Work through the worst case scenario. Find a solution, create a solution, make a plan for the worst case scenario. And you'll realize, okay, this isn't great, this isn't ideal, this isn't fun, but I could handle this if the worst case scenario happens.
If me and this person stop being friends and all of my secrets get aired out to the world, which probably won't even happen, right? Like, yeah, maybe they'll tell a few people about a few things, maybe, if it's even that interesting to them. Maybe, but it probably won't even extend out that far. Like it'll probably never even get back to you. You'll probably never even know that.
You'll never even hear about it. It'll probably never be an issue again. But for your own sanity and peace of mind, take it all the way to the furthest degree, the worst case scenario, and then come up with a plan in your head. But I will say though too, I'm making people sound bad, right? Like, well, they might go around and tell people, yeah, they might tell like,
one of their friends, something that you said one time, maybe. But I feel like for the most part, people really are good and they don't want to sabotage you. I mean, that does happen, sure, but it's not super common. I think at worst, usually, at worst, usually, you might get gossiped about in a small circle, but it won't extend outside of that. And who cares about that?
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Chapter 5: What should I consider before ending a friendship?
Because here's the deal. You can't stay in a friendship just because someone has sensitive information about you. And listen, I've been tempted. I've been tempted. I find that usually what ends up stressing me out is when I've had a heart-to-heart to somebody about, I don't know, someone else. Okay, not about me. I'm having a heart-to-heart with somebody about someone else.
I'm talking about someone else. Maybe not even necessarily badly, but more like vulnerably, analytically, whatever. I'm talking about someone else to someone that I'm friends with, right? Again, it's not even necessarily talking shit, but maybe just talking about someone else, okay? In a vulnerable way for like... Yeah, it's not even in a gossipy way.
It's just in like a, I'm sharing information about somebody else to my friend, right? That is what ends up making me anxious. I don't really care about stories that I tell about myself. That doesn't really bother me. It's more like, oh shit, I told this person about, I gave this person information about somebody else.
Now I'm uncomfortable because they know this thing about somebody else and I don't want them to like hurt this person, if that makes sense. That's usually what ends up triggering my anxiety and making me afraid. And so you know what I've had to learn over the years? I really shouldn't do that. And I still am working on that.
Like, it's like, we learn what our boundaries are, what we feel comfortable with, what's okay with us, you know, over the years. And I'm still working on figuring out what I'm comfortable with sharing with friends. deep down knowing that at some point we might not be friends anymore.
And information that we shared in private and in confidence and in a safe environment might not be safe forever, you know? But it's tough because, yeah, you don't know what they're going to do with it. You don't know. They might keep it to themselves forever. They might tell all their friends. They might make a fucking TikTok about it. You don't know. But you cannot...
remain in a friendship just because you're afraid of the information that they have. You can't do that. You'll torture yourself for no reason too, because majority of the time, the worst case scenario doesn't even come to pass. It won't even get back to you.
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