The Mel Robbins Podcast
It’s Not You: The Real Reason Adult Friendship Is So Hard & 3 Ways to Make It Easier
Thu, 24 Apr 2025
If you’ve ever felt like making friends as an adult feels impossible, or you’ve looked around and thought, "Where did all my friends go?" – you’re not alone. In this episode, Danielle Bayard Jackson is sharing the real reasons why female friendship can feel so complicated, based on research and the advice you need to hear. Danielle is one of the country’s leading experts on female friendship, the Director of the Women's Relational Health Institute, and the bestselling author of Fighting For Our Friendships. She teaches women how to build and maintain better friendships using proven, science-backed methods, and today, she’s here to clear up the confusion, cut through the drama, and break down exactly what you need to know about female friendship. Today, you’ll learn:-Why adult friendships change so much—and what it really means -Why it’s okay if you don’t have a BFF (and what to do about it) -Why female friendships can get messy and how to handle it -What do do when friendships fade -The subtle ways you might be pushing people away without realizing it -Simple, powerful steps to make new friends, rekindle old ones, navigate conflict, and strengthen your support system No matter your age or stage of life, it’s not too late. If you’ve ever felt lonely, disconnected, or like making new friends is impossible, this conversation will show you exactly what to do next. For more resources, click here for the podcast episode page. If you liked this episode, and want more tools, tips, and scripts to create more meaningful relationships, listen to this one next: What Makes a Good Life? Lessons From the Longest Study on HappinessConnect with Mel: Get Mel’s #1 bestselling book, The Let Them TheoryWatch the episodes on YouTubeFollow Mel on Instagram The Mel Robbins Podcast InstagramMel's TikTok Sign up for Mel’s personal letter Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes ad-freeDisclaimer
Chapter 1: Who is Danielle Bayard Jackson and what expertise does she bring on female friendships?
You know, one of the things that I felt after reading your book is I felt like I understood myself better. I felt validated and seen in terms of the struggles that I had making friends when I was in middle school and high school and college keeping friends. And so I'm just super excited about this conversation because especially talking about that tension and frustration.
Mm-hmm.
That thing that we can't quite put our finger on, why are girls mean? Why is it hard to connect with women? Why do friends come in and out of my life? Do I need to have a breakup? What is up with the tension? Why do I miss people that I'm no longer friends with? I can't wait to unpack this. And where I want to start is you have such an interesting career. How on earth did you find yourself...
in a career where you're writing books, researching and teaching about female friendship?
First, let me say that becoming a friendship coach was certainly not on my vision board when I was 10. Okay. Definitely something I fell into. I actually started as a high school English teacher. And so I had 10th and 12th graders who I was teaching. And I noticed that between classes and after school, the number one thing the girls wanted to talk to me about was friendship stuff.
So I didn't realize that at the time I was kind of unofficially coaching them through their weird, awkward friendship drama. And so the classroom was kind of the first place where I saw how issues of connection and belonging directly impact everything else. Their attendance, because you're not even coming to school if you don't feel like you belong somewhere.
Their confidence, their academic performance, their mood, all related back to whether or not they felt like they had people at school. And so I did that for about six years and became the academic chair. And then I left and I got into the world of public relations.
And I always joke that I made the foolish mistake of thinking, I'm leaving that teenage drama behind because I'm working with adult women. And it wasn't long before I realized that despite the fact that these women were charismatic, high-achieving extroverts, they too were secretly dealing with friendship stuff.
And so I just thought, wow, at every stage of womanhood, we're trying to figure out how do I better relate to the women around me? It's not an age thing. It feels like the great equalizer. It doesn't matter your background or generation.
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Chapter 2: How are female friendships different from male friendships?
But does it also happen that it's not that she's necessarily talking down to you, but that you're also beating yourself up because you're like, oh, well, she's better looking and everybody's attracted to her or she's getting more money than I am.
100%.
And so much of this is perception because maybe she's doing nothing wrong. But because of things happening in your life, you're perceiving this imbalance, right? So much of it is subjective.
Oh, that was me. I was a walking friendship red flag. Oh, yeah? You could have had an entire section of this book called Melanie Schneeberger, which is a mouthful of a name. That was my maiden name. I saw everybody as a threat. Mm-hmm. I literally don't think I had that symmetry in a lot of my friendships. And I can see how if you don't feel like we're in this together,
then it would create this conflict and tension in your relationship with somebody else.
Sure, because how do I befriend the threat that doesn't even go together? So seeing you as an extension of myself and seeing women in general as an extension of myself, I am you, you are me, you're not my competition. I mean, it directly impacts the way that we engage with our friendships. So that symmetry piece is really important. And then we have support.
You know, there's some research that tells us that the number one thing women look for in their same-sex friendships is emotional support. So that means that there's nothing else. I expect you have my back. I expect some shows of solidarity, some gestures of emotional help.
What makes that tricky is we so often don't articulate what support looks like, because I think that as another woman, you ought to know. I shouldn't have to say it. That will certainly make things complicated.
Every time you say something, I'm thinking about a dynamic that's negative with a former friend or something that I did. Because even when you said that sentence about support, I mean, how many times have we sat alone?
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Chapter 3: What are the three key affinities that define female friendships?
Yeah. Information is kind of like the currency in our relationships. And it's kind of the thing that we start doing as soon as there is tension is I share less information. If I start to feel like, I don't know, things have been weird, I'm probably not sharing things with you.
And so I think as much as we can remember, if we're trying to keep the friendship strong, as much as we can remember, I've got to share things about myself. I've heard women who maybe were raised with different cultures who feel like sometimes that's counterintuitive because there's a sense of pride or respect or an expectation that you don't share your business with others.
We don't do that anymore. And so I can honor that and respect that. But for the person who has that tendency or had that cultural upbringing that you don't share, you keep that to yourself. I would challenge that person to think about the degree to which they feel close to people in their life if they're not doing that.
Well, what I love about this framework is that when you put it in the context of all the other research in terms of the trends and the tendencies of how boys and guys connect, whether it's in groups where you can be a little bit more anonymous, things are a little bit more casual, you're bonding over the big thing, you're doing a lot of stuff together versus women who tend to bond over kind of intimate conversations, one-on-one shared experiences.
You can see why if the connection is grounded in those three deeper things and you feel connected to somebody because of this reciprocity, so to speak, why you start to have this very intense feeling, because we've all had it, where you've been super close friends or you've been part of a friend group of women or girls, and then suddenly... you feel like you're on the outside of it. Totally.
And it feels like a deep betrayal and heartbreak and you're not quite sure why, but I think you explained why. Because the intimacy that is demanded in female friendships is very different and it's also the source of all the conflict and the tension and the friction that starts to happen.
And I do think if a person finds themselves on the outskirts or there's been some kind of like this tectonic shift that was happening slowly and you're like, things are different to kind of look at those three things and see if you can trace it back. Did somebody perceive that there was a change and we can no longer relate to one another?
Right.
Is someone secretly feeling like you didn't support me? Is someone feeling like you've been sharing outside the vault or you're not my person to share with anymore? It's likely that you can trace whatever your present conflict is back to those three things. And just because there is tension that emerges in one of those domains doesn't mean immediate dissolution of the friendship.
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Chapter 4: Why do female friendships often experience drama and conflict?
Chapter 5: Why do female friendships sometimes end and why is it so painful?
There are so many people who are in the same boat. And to resist the urge to internalize that and to wonder what's wrong with you because you don't have that right now.
And if you're a parent or you're just worried about a girl or a young woman who feels like she's just been iced out of her friend group, I remember when our daughters were in high school, one of my close, close friends, her daughter was going through something and her friend group dropped her. And I just remember how many tears her mother and I had Over what do you do?
I mean, this kid has been basically, you know, the words feel so dramatic, kicked out of, excluded, just dropped by a friend group. What would you say to a person that feels like that's just happened to them?
It's really hard, especially as a parent, to not want to drive up to that school. Yeah. And find those girls and be like, what the heck is your problem? It's hard. So you're saying we shouldn't text them or their parents or get involved? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, no, it's hard, right? Especially as a mama bear, you're like, I want my girl to feel confident and to belong.
And how dare people reject her? That is painful. And it's painful to watch your babies go through anything. In the meantime, because a lot of times we talk about handling what you can control, that is hurtful. And there's even research that finds that being rejected socially lights up the same parts of your brain as experiencing physical pain. So she's not being dramatic.
It is hurtful to not have people. And it's even worse sometimes when you don't know what you did wrong.
And so what do you do or what should you say or do you not say anything at all? Do you just give the person space to grieve? Do you acknowledge it? I don't know what to do.
Well, one of the things we can do is to share with that young woman who's in that situation is what she can do right now is to continue to show up, let's say in this situation at school, to show up to school, to be kind to others, to confidently go about her day and to have connections with people.
And if she feels comfortable going to one of the young women who she trusts most in the group, because sometimes we feel like it's us versus this large capital G group. So go to a person in the group who you trust most and say, hey, you know, I'm noticing we're not talking as much. What's going on? Right. And to ask.
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Chapter 6: How does adolescence impact female friendships and social dynamics?
And, you know, unless of course you're like, you bet that, you know, they're doing all that stuff. But what are warning signs that a friend is not or no longer good for you?
One of the ones I like to lead with is if you don't like who you are when you're together. I know I've been a part of friendships where I am not acting like myself when we get together. And I don't know what prompts that. It just happens so stealthily. But when I'm with other people, I enjoy who I am. I'm proud of who I am. So the first indicator is you don't like who you are when you're together.
Yeah. Another might be after you're spending time together, you find yourself totally depleted. It is exhausting. Whether she's super negative or you find yourself doing the mental labor of performing and you feel like you can finally relax, right? That could be a sign that it's not good for you.
If you feel like certain goals you have for yourself are being delayed by being in this friendship, whatever that looks like for you. I know sometimes we have friends who are like, you're not like you used to be. You used to be fine with this. You used to be.
And there are things I want to do with my life, new directions and goals that I have, but I feel like I'd be betraying my friends by pursuing these new goals that I have for myself. Yeah. that could be something to look at as well.
And then the last thing I'll say is whenever trust feels like it's so lost that there's no way to recover it and get that back, that can be difficult for maintaining a relationship.
As I'm listening to you, I'm like, you're right. Why do I ignore those things and stay in it and work harder?
Yeah, yeah. And it's hard because I know when we see these videos on social media and it's like nine signs she's toxic or nine signs. One thing I want to say about the whole toxic thing is sometimes it's not that this person's so toxic, even though there are people with ongoing toxic behaviors. but sometimes it's just our dynamic. Maybe it's not her.
It's just, there's something that happens when we come together and it's not clicking. I don't like who I am and something's weird here, but all your other friends, that works for you. They think you're delightful. That's awesome. there's something about our makeup, like quite literally our chemistry, that when we come together, it doesn't work. And so I think it goes back to what we said earlier.
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Chapter 7: What advice is there for those struggling to find or maintain close female friendships?
And then again, and I know this continues to be a theme in what I'm saying is you can announce it. We've got to get permission to announce it. You can say to a friend, I love getting to know more and more about you. Or like every time we get together, I'm learning more about you and I'm loving it. I'm loving getting to know you.
I mean, sometimes saying it up front helps the other person to buy in because so often we wonder, do they like me? Do they not? Like, are they as invested as I am? So let me remove the mystery. I really enjoy you. Do you want to do this more often? And sometimes making it plain relieves that pressure, the mystery, the game playing, right? I initiated last time, but is that too much?
There's no time for that. So I think even explicitly expressing to somebody, I'm so excited to get to know you more. I'm always learning a little something every time we get together. I think that sometimes can expedite the process of being close friends.
You also had interesting research about how women's friendships in particular when you're younger are a huge predictor for how your relationship with your significant other is going to play out. Can you say more about that?
Yeah, so we tend to put friendship into the margins of our lives and see it as like this extra recreational thing that's non-essential. But it really is. And it has benefits that we might not even suspect. And there is a study that found that the number one predictor of the success of your romantic adult relationships is how well you did with your same-sex friends in adolescence. Really?
Likely because things do tend to be segregated by gender in school. Girls go over here, boys go over here. I'm mostly with girls in school in these different groups and in class. That's where I'm developing social skills. I'm learning to negotiate. I'm learning how to communicate. How do I show up as a friend? I'm learning that here.
So if I struggled with that in these formative years, it's likely that those same skills that I need to have a successful romantic relationship, some of that stuff's going to travel with me. So these are, you know, it's an important time to figure out with other women when we're young, how do we do this? Because there are surprising ways that it impacts everything else.
For those of us that look back on those years and go, oh God, I was terrible at this. I was the jealous, competitive, one-upper, gossipy. We can change, right?
I'm living proof, hey, that you can. And I mean, the same way we get all these books to be a better parent, to be a better wife, like that's awesome. This can be learned too. And this is what I mean about like giving people more optimism. There's something where we feel like, well, this should be organic. Why can't I get this right?
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Chapter 8: How can young women handle exclusion or being dropped from friend groups?
But we aren't learning about how to show up as a better friend because we feel like it should be something that's just natural. And the extent of the conversation at one period about friendship is, you either have friends or you don't. And if you don't, what's wrong with you? There's so much more to that conversation.
So yes, get the book around how to be a better friend or to get over your anxious attachment so you can enjoy healthier relationships. Yeah, figure that out, especially in adulthood because the scripts that worked for you in friendship at 18 and can work at 45 At some point, I have to sit down and get to the business of figuring out, how do I do this?
How do I make time for friends with my other obligations? How do I release my anxiousness? Because that's been a theme in my friendships and it hasn't gone well. How do I set boundaries without feeling like an awful person? We've got to get to the business of figuring that out to enjoy the kind of connections that we're dreaming about.
What I love about your book, Fighting for Our Friendships, is that you not only go straight at this and you unpack all the things that we, or I'll speak for myself, I got profoundly wrong about navigating female friendships. It also explains what's missing when you start to feel conflict and frustration. And so I love the example that you give in your book. And it's on page 110. And
You need to send this episode and conversation and Danielle's brilliance to every person in your life that is getting married right now. Because let me read this to you. You're talking about this sort of mismatch where you think the friendship is more important than it is to the other person. I see this play out most often in bridal parties.
Several brides-to-be or would-be maids of honor come to me for the sensitive dilemma of bridal party selection. There's tension when one friend assumes she'll be asked to be a bridesmaid but realizes the bride has no intention of asking her. Brides come to me with tearful pleas to help them figure out how do I choose? And then how do I deliver the news to those who won't be included?
When somebody has a wedding, why is there so much conflict and drama inside people's friend groups?
Having a bridal party is probably the only time, aside from the MySpace Top 8, where you have to put your hierarchy on display. So if I'm going through our friendship process, assuming that we're on the same level. And I'm not chosen as a bridesmaid. I'm not chosen as the maid of honor. And here I am thinking we're best friends.
For a lot of women, they do say it's hard for them to recover after that with that new information that we're not as close as I thought we were. Because I've been going around thinking that we see each other the same. And then when you have to make a public declaration of your hierarchy of friends, I'm not up there. It can be really hard to digest. What's your advice?
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