September 10, 2025 • 33 mins
So far, we've mostly been talking about the "boy" part of boysober. The sex, the romance, the relationships. But there's another aspect to knowing yourself... and it's understanding that friendships are just as important as romantic relationships. This week, Hope talks with "Bad Friend" author Michelle Elman about the heartbreak of her own friend breakups.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I asked my friend yesterday.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I was like, how long do you think is like
a normal amount of time to get over a friend breakup?
And she was like, Babe, I don't think that there's
like a normal amount of time. And then I was
just thinking about it today and I was like, I
actually think I won't be sad about it for the
rest of moh m.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Not.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Kind of oh my deathbed, thinking where is she? Why
is she not holding my hand right now?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
So far, we've mostly been talking about the boy part
of boysover, the sex, the romance, the relationships.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
But there's another aspect.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
To knowing yourself, and it's understanding that friendships are just
as important as romantic relationships.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So if you are going through a friend breakup and you're.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Like, oh, what the hell, I gotta get over this already,
just know you are not alone, and it just means
that you have a really big heart and you had
a lot of love and that's so great that you
had that with someone, and you'll probably miss them for
a long time. This week, we're talking about the crushing
(01:09):
nature of friend breakups. I'm hopewordered and welcome to voiceover
a space where we're learning and on learning all the
myths we're taught about love and relationships. One thing that
(01:38):
I haven't talked about is that at the beginning of
my voiceover year, I was also dealing with the end
of a friendship. It was with somebody who was really
special to me, and to be honest, it wasn't my
first time going through something like this, and it's embarrassing
for me to admit how many friend breakups I've been through.
It's not something that's easy for me to think about,
(02:00):
and if I'm being honest, it's not something I'm very
proud of. But that one friend breakup in particular, that
was harder than any of the others, and I'm still
really untangling my emotions about it, which is a little
bit embarrassing for me because it was over a year ago.
So I'm asking myself all the time. Shouldn't I be
(02:23):
over it already?
Speaker 4 (02:28):
Right?
Speaker 5 (02:28):
No?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Episo?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Yeah, yeah, So do we want this? It's a lot
of tight ship right now.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I have to believe that.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Like when I was in the studio the other day
with my producers Emily and Christina, it came up my
one best friend and I stopped speaking to each other
completely and she was like my sister. You know, it
was really a number of things. It was like we
didn't have the same perspective on what was happening, and
we tried to ignore that for a long time, and
(02:56):
then that just came to a head and my life
was sort of falling apart.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Was this during a time like you were already having
like already how.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Everyone, I've let people down, I've fucked up, I've flopped.
If you remember from our very first episode, my first
attempt at going boiceovert didn't really go according to plan.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Internet virality, headlines.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Depression, anxiety, it all kind of got in the way.
And to make it worse, I didn't really have anyone
to turn to. I don't want to sound dramatic, but
I don't really think I knew how to see myself
or even knew who to really.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Be at that time.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I didn't know who to lean on or how to
communicate how I was really feeling. I was trying to
act fine, but I wasn't. I'd been in Tennessee with
my family, which is never totally stable, and I needed
a sense of normal. See, once I got back to
New York, I was so far away from myself though
(04:05):
that I was doing anything for a sense of belonging me.
And this girl, I loved her because she was so
different from me, and she made me feel like I
could be a part of a type of New York
that I never feel like I can be a part of.
And so it was my first night back in New
York and we were supposed to go out together.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
And she invited this one girl.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And all of these girls are very hot, I don't
give a fuck, you know what I mean, sexy, comedian player,
just hot. And the ones who were like I who
I was trying to be, like, Yeah, And on that
night where I just felt like my whole life was
out of my hands, she invited this girl onto a
(04:50):
night out and I knew this girl was a party girl.
Long story short. The girl she brought a girl I
didn't know. I didn't want to be a caretaker that night.
I did not want to be there emotionally for anyone.
I wanted someone just desperately to be their emotional I
wanted my friend there for me, and I didn't want
to have to hold anyone else's hair back. And then
(05:11):
this girl that she brings along, which like all loved
this girl. She is not my enemy. These girls are
not my enemies. Gets too drunk and passes out in
the middle of the floor. And then my friend she's
acting like she's twenty two and in college, and I'm like,
I'm twenty seven.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
And my life is fucking falling apart.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
I do not, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And then after that night, I started to resent my
friend so much, and I didn't.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
Tell her that I hated her for it.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I tried to remove myself from our relationship, but we
were so codependent that my backing up was so obvious.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
That is when I started like drinking a lot more.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
And I don't consider myself an alcoholic, but I do
have a substance abuse issue, and I do want to escape,
and I do want to ignore when I don't like
someone or like something, and drinking helps me ignore that.
Like I would be hanging out with her, and I
would be like getting absolutely hammered and just being like,
(06:12):
I actually cannot be across the table from her if
I'm not hammered, because I'm angry and I'm hurt and
I would rather not talk about it. And she was
so confused, and I was probably gaslighting her because I
kept saying, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, things are fine.
I'm just taking space. I'm fine, I'm just busy. I'm fine.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Yeah, did you guys ever have an actual talk about it?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
To make a long story short, we didn't really talk
so much as fight. All of the ways we hurt
each other and everything I was resenting her for bubbled
up one night and ended with us in a huge
screaming match after a comedy show we fought.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
In that moment, She's screaming at.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Me in front of people.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
In the street, absolutely in the street, outside of a
venue at a comedy show. She's like saying that, Yeah,
I don't care. I mean just you know, like I
loved her so much in that moment, I said. I
texted her after it all, and I said, let's email
about this. That's funny, but I also understand exactly why
(07:18):
you did that, Like you.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
We can email about this enough.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Distance to have like a rational right, right, right, we.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Can write each other because what I said to her,
I think another thing about her. She's brilliant, and this
is what I love about her because I'm like, I'm
all emotion.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah she's not.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
She's all intellect, She's all logic, okay. And so I
say to her, let's email about this. We'll send each
other sort of research papers on this, like we can
write our arguments. Because I sent her. I can't keep
up with her. Like she has the type of brain.
She could be a lawyer, she.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
Could be account I could be at a debate, you know.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Still going with.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Her wasn't like agree to dis or just no.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
There was no end to it. But it was like
I was on each other a power.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
Point, but she was like, you can email me, oh, okay.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
So she was not going to meet you in the
middle in any kind of form.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
And the thing that actually broke us up is there
was a guy that liked me and she liked him,
and he wanted to be her friend, and he was
texting me and I made a TikTok about it and
I didn't tell her, and I publicly said, this guy
is texting me Da da da da da. And she
saw that video. This is after she hurt my feelings again.
(08:36):
We got in this fight, and so I make this video. Listen,
I was begging for her to leave me.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
I made the video with the intention of her knowing she.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Would say I mean just like I made the video
to hurt her totally, Okay, I.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Think I wanted her to. I wanted to hurt her.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
I think like I was still mad at her about
not really being there for me. I was mad at
her for not knowing why she had never apologized about
any of it. And then on top of this, I'm
like trying to give her so much space on something
that is a value of mine. I'm going against my
values making space for yours because I want to be understanding.
(09:14):
And still, when I tell you, let's email about this,
you tell me I can email you. I had been
avoiding her for weeks and then she texted me and
she was like, is this about so and so?
Speaker 1 (09:27):
And I was like, yeah, it is. And she was like,
I don't think we should be friends anymore. And I
was like totally.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Obviously, I'm not totally healed. So this week I'm talking
to someone who can help me make sense of all
these tangled emotions.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Hi Michelle, Welcome to boy Sober.
Speaker 6 (10:06):
Hi so lovely to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
This is Michelle Ellman. She's the author of Bad Friend,
Why Friendship, Breakups Hurt, and How To Heal. Michelle's written
plenty of other books like How to Say No and
The Selfish Romantic, and she's even been given the title
Queen of Boundaries. I was nervous going into the chat
with her. I still feel vulnerable about my friend breakups,
(10:30):
but Michelle immediately reminded me that I'm not alone in
all these messy, lingering feelings. Have you gone through, like
a really intense friendship breakup that inspired this book?
Speaker 6 (10:42):
So I think the thing that really pushed me to
bad Friend because I always loved this topic and I
always wanted to talk about it, but I had so
much shame around it. And the thing that finally we'd
break through the shame and go I can't be the
only one was my best friend. Eight years we lived together,
and she had moved out maybe six months before to
(11:03):
go live with her boyfriend, and she broke up with
me over text and it wasn't even a breakup. She
ghosted midway through texting. We were arguing about something and
she ghosted me, and then I had to get on
stage and give a talk about Christmas.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Like.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Nightmare scenario.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
And yet what I was feeling internally was if I
was walking into this work event and I was saying
I've just ended a romantic relationship of eight years, I'd
be met with so much compassion, so much kind as,
so much empathy. Yet if I walked into the same
building doing the same job and I went my best
(11:42):
friend of eight years just broke up with me, I
sound like a thirteen year old in a playground. And
I was like, that is so unfair because I was
single for all of those eight years. And I don't
know what man I'm going to marry At my wedding,
I don't know who the groom is. I knew who
the maid of honor was going to be, and she
was no longer going to be my main of HONA,
Like that is just as much a part of my
(12:04):
future as any man would be. And yet you would
expect someone to be a broken mess after an eight
year romantic breakup. But I wasn't being allowed or given
permission to have the same level of emotion around a
platonic relationship.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I have been through so many friendship breakups because I
treat friendships like romance, and I get really close to
one person.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I've got a one ride or die. I'm not a
friend group girl, and I'm a little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Codependent and so these are things I like, I know
about myself, but it sets up a friendship to inevitably
sort of like reach a head.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
So to speak.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
And so when you said in your book, like we're
mostly ghosting each other, for me, those breakups have been
like big blow up, knock down, drag out fights. I've
had one friend ghost me and it was like one
of the most heartbreaks.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
It is so heartbreaking.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
You're ghosted because there's just no there's no closure, and
you're like, wait, tell me what It's almost like you
want to be.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Like tell me what's wrong with me? Like, tell me
what makes this worth it?
Speaker 6 (13:10):
To explain? Now explosions. I talk about this in Bad Friends.
But intensity in the creation of a friendship there will
always be intensity in the fallout of the friendship too,
And it's one of the things that was very much
a learning lesson in friendship of like take your time,
go slowly. You are not in a rush, and if
you make your friendships quickly, they'll also burn out quickly too.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Gosh, don't call me out like that. That's so rude, Like,
oh my god, I want to know, like if because
I feel like for you, a lot of your perspective
is like, you know, we all need different things as friends,
and the thing that makes a good friend is like
understanding what you need out of friendship and like having
that sort of understanding going into a relationship with someone
(13:57):
a friendship with someone, do you believe in sort of
like a bad friend? Do you have an ideas of
a bad friend in your head or do you think like, oh,
we're all just different friends.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
It doesn't help that we don't have a very clear
definition of what a friend is. Well, we have quite
a definition of what a good girlfriend and what a
good boyfriend looks like or good romantic partner. What it
looks like, right, it's different values for another person. It's
another set of values. And that's where it's blurry. And
I think this thing of it's language that's used both
(14:29):
in romantic relationships and platonic relationships of if you knew me,
you would know. And it's like this idea that humans
are predictable. But you could be upset one day and
you could want a couple of tea. You could be
upset another day and you would want a hug, Like
humans are not predictable. If you need something for me,
you are going to need to ask like an adult
because I cannot read your mind.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I really love for people to try and read my mind,
and I'm really mad at them when I can't.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Like that is definitely something that I like, something I.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
Am aware of and working on.
Speaker 6 (14:59):
You also expect people to know when you're upset without
you actually telling them that you're upset.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
My issue is that I think the way we interact
with friendship really depends on how we were raised, you know,
and what our survival skills were in like early adolescent,
childhood whatever. And so for me, kind of a survival
skill was like being intuitive and sort of anticipating people's needs,
and so in my friendships, I fall into that where
(15:27):
I'm like always trying to anticipate how my friends feel,
and then when that's not reciprocated, I'm like really angry.
But it's like that's what I do, you know, and
I can't expect what I do to be what they do,
And that is like something I'm understanding now.
Speaker 6 (15:44):
Also, you have to understand that that's a skill of yours,
Like that's a like fod Levil skill that not everybody
else shifted and for you, my I'm not guessing anything
about your life. But for a lot of people, the
way they have hypervigilance of being able to pick up
on mood shifts and mood changes can be born. Actually,
(16:06):
someone who hasn't had trauma, they're like, wait, why could
you not tell I was upset? Well, I never had
to walk around and read the room every single time
when I was seven years old growing up because I
didn't know who was going to start a fight. So
they don't hypercent of like picking up on people upset
in the room, and that expectation is coming out of
(16:27):
the place of you actually have a skill and a
strength that you are not aware is not commonplace and
not everyone has that ability.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
This makes me think of your conversations on boundaries, because
you've written a lot about boundaries, you talk about how
important they are. Do you think crossing a boundary is
worthy of a friend breakup?
Speaker 6 (16:50):
Not the first time? Never the first time, because first
of all, you don't know A lot of the times
they don't know that boundary until you've actually set it.
For you to set the boundary the first time, I
think it's a lot of the time. I mean, it
depends what the boundary is. If the boundary is like
they've slept with your boyfriend, Like, yeah, maybe that's but
(17:12):
generally actually set it afterwards, like and then also set
a consequence for it, and it in the way I
teach boundaries, like if you haven't told someone the consequence
of breaking that boundary, then it's not really fair to
that person, because I like, if someone doesn't know that
(17:34):
it's going to be that hurtful to you or that
the consequence of that would be a friendship breakup, I
do think you need to get on a chance. And
I think a lot of the time this immediate ending
of a friendship, obviously not in extreme scenarios, is avoidance
of having difficult conversations. And I think that's where people
(17:54):
are willing to get down in the mud and have
a messy conversation, and it will be messy if they're
our feelings involved and people are upset, and I just
think it could be something like some I remember there
was a fight I got into a with a friend
and she called me a name. I can't remember what
it was, but she called me a name and I said,
if you continue to speak to me like that, I'm
(18:15):
going to leave the room. And then so the next
time it happens, I might not leave the room, but
the next time I might go, hey, this is the
second time you throw out names in the middle of
a conflict, And I just don't find it very productive.
If we're going to continue to have a friendship, I
need you to be able to speak to me with respect,
even at our most heat and moments.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Why do you think we are culturally allowed to fight
with our romantic partners, but we're not really allowed to
fight with our platonic partners. And like, I'll give an example,
Like I have this best friend of like almost ten
years now, and we kind of got into this like knockdown,
drag out fight where I was crying and he was screaming,
(18:58):
and like he's like my family. You know, there is
something nice about it for me, But I don't think
we really have the same cultural permission to fight in
our friendships like we do in our romantic relationships.
Speaker 6 (19:10):
I think the reason why it felt sort of nice
was because as much as you're fighting, you're also fighting
for the friendship. There is something quite respectful in the
fact someone will want to engage with you enough to
save them. And this is also a conversation I have
a lot around boundaries of when you haven't had healthy
(19:32):
boundary setting as a child, you think someone setting a
boundary with you is them being angry with you, when actually,
like I try to tell people like, if I'm setting
a boundary with you, it's because I'm still communicating with you,
because I care about you and I want to save
the friendship.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Right, what do you think is the proper way to
go through a friend breakup? What do you think the
mechanics of a friendship breakup should really look?
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Like?
Speaker 6 (19:56):
I think the first thing is like to speak to
them as if and like even if you mutually decide
like I don't really know where we go from here
in this friendship, but give them a chance to change.
If you've known someone for any length of time, you
cannot end a friendship if you've not even given them
the opportunities to change their behavior, that isn't healthy communication,
(20:18):
That is not boundary setting. But also, if you want
to end the friendship for whatever reason, communicate it. It
doesn't have to be the perfect conversation. It just needs
to be a conversation. And I think it's the decision
of like, is this a decision or is this a discussion,
you can enter unsure whether to end the friendship. And
(20:38):
I was actually talking to someone the other day about
the fact that I've had a few friendship breakups where
it wasn't the issue that ended it, it was the
argument about the issue that ended it because of how
they communicated. And I just got to a point of like,
I will not be spoken to that way, and the
way you're speaking is not the way a friend speaks
to me. And so if it gets to that point,
(21:00):
if it gets abusive, if it gets like if people
are speaking to you in a way you don't like,
you are entitled to end that conversation. You can say
this conversation is no longer productive, let's return to it
a later date, or you can even end the friendship.
But all you have to say is like this friendship
isn't working anymore, but let the person know. I would
to lead this movement of like stop ghosting your friends.
You if you don't for a guy on a third
(21:22):
date to do this to you, why the hell do
you think it's okay to do it to a five
year friendship.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
I want to talk about sort of the fallout of
a friend breakup and like what to do in that
space afterwards, you know, because I know you sort of
talk about like the rituals of processing a romantic breakup.
What do you tell people when they are like, how
do I process this friend breakup? Because especially if you're
(22:07):
like between women right now, like being online, it's so
easy to go over to like an ex friend's Instagram
and be like, oh, she's beautiful and she's thriving without me,
you know what I mean, Like immediately she's got a
best friend, and the best friend is more beautiful. The
story I tell myself pretty often is like I was
you know, I deserved it to be left whatever. There
(22:30):
was something like you sort of say in your book,
like there's something wrong with me, you know, So how
do you see sort of the processing phase of a
friend breakup?
Speaker 6 (22:40):
So I think you do have to block them on
social media. I do see that, helf Ham. I do
think if you go over to their page, the only
intention to go over to their page is to make
yourself hurt more, and it's never to feel good stories
in your head. It's not also just one way. If
they don't get access to you in real life, they
(23:00):
don't get access to your social media too. They don't
get to keep tabs on you the same way that
you shouldn't be keeping tabs on them either. And I
think when you have a lack of closure, I think
ultimately the biggest permission I could give anyone going through
a friendship breakup is you are allowed to grieve. And
I is a hierarchy of grief in the book where
like at the top of the poll is like someone
(23:22):
who is grieving a husband, and then it's a boyfriend.
Boyfriend is lower than husband, but you're grieving a friend.
What does that mean? And so where the shame comes in?
Because if you are so busy feeling shame around the
friendship breakup, you won't give yourself to feel the grief,
to feel the sadness, to feel even the anger around it,
(23:42):
Like you can have some very righteous anger around like
towards the end of the friendship or if you were ghosted,
for example. And then I think then once you go
through the feelings and the emotions in the heartbreak of it,
there is room for learning lessons and what you could
have done differently and how you're going to take that
(24:02):
into your other friendships.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I'm wondering what your thoughts are on Let's say someone's
been through a friend breakup, and I'm asking this for
personal reasons. I'll admit it, I've been thinking of real
I've been thinking about reaching out to a friend and saying,
let's grab a coffee, let's have a chat. You know,
are you pro or anti like reaching out to a
(24:28):
friend that you've been broken up or is.
Speaker 6 (24:31):
It that you've had a few arguments and you're still
technically friends.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
We broke up about a year and maybe a half ago,
and this was similar, like sister friend loved her so dearly,
cared so much about her, like a quick closeness. We
have mutual friends, We run in similar spaces. Like it's
this thing of like you're so right to say if
(24:57):
they don't get access to you in real life and
get access to you online, but when your real lives
are sort of intertwined in a way where you might
see them at a party or you might run into them. So, yeah,
what's your advice for someone who's asking themselves that?
Speaker 6 (25:13):
So what's your goal? Is your goal to be more
civil when you go to mutual friends events or is
it your goal actually to be friends again?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
I think my goal is to have some sort of
understanding and to maybe fill in the gaps that I've
been filling in from a distance. Like I said, sort
of with this ability to see someone online and you
write those stories, but you know those stories aren't based
in honesty or based in reality. They're probably based in
(25:43):
some like nasty shame, and so yeah, I think it's
like filling in the gaps and sort of just getting
on a page of mutual understanding and respect.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yeah, but I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I'm also scared to reach out and ask because I'm
afraid that they won't be interested in that.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Well.
Speaker 6 (25:59):
I think the key is if you do reach out,
you have to be able to reach out with no expectations.
And I think it's a very vulnerable thing to do.
It's a very high risk thing to do, and there
is no guarantee that you will get you will get
the outcome you want. But if you're coming at it
with greater understanding, you can even say. I've even had
(26:20):
people send a message saying like, Hey, I'd really like
to go for coffee. I don't necessarily want to be friends.
I just like I've not stopped not being able to
stop thinking about it, and in my mind, the way
I operate in friendship is if we've ever been friends
for a period of time. I believe in having respect
in the ending, and if I can give you greater
(26:40):
understanding and greater closure, I will do it not because
of how you treated me and the ending, but because
at some point in my life you were there for me.
And if I can end this on with no bad blood,
I would prefer that. And I think that's where I
don't always have. We have a little bit too much
(27:01):
pride and ego to always be the person to reach out.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
But I've always see I have none of that.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I'm like, I'm like, no Friday and ego here, let's
just work this out.
Speaker 5 (27:10):
Like I've definitely the one being the recipient.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
I have always been very kind and appreciative of anyone
who's reached out to me, and even I've said in
the reply, I have a lot of respect for the
fact that you've sent this message because I know that
I am not sure I would have the ability to
send it.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
My last question, and this is something we talk a
lot about on the show, but we talk about sort
of unlearning, right, because I think so many of our
habits in love and relationships are developed through like maybe
watching someone or learning from someone, or listening to a
song or watching a movie that you know teaches us
something that isn't actually productive in love. So what is
(27:51):
like one of the biggest things you've had to unlearn
when it comes to love.
Speaker 6 (27:56):
That it needs to be forever for it to count.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Mmmm say more.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
I'm saying that the idea that you have a ten
year friendship and even if it ends in this blowout
fight where you hurt each other to a like at
a level that like neither of you can forget it,
it doesn't the ten years where you had good friendship
the way that we view in our society of like
(28:21):
a failed marriage. Who said the marriage was a failure? Like,
maybe the longevity of a relationship is not the marker
of success. But let's say you have a ten year
marriage and then you end the marriage and you have
a divorce that can be healthier than the forty five
year marriage where you yell and scream at each other
all day every day, but you stayed married. Like that's right,
(28:45):
idea of forever like is the only marker of success,
But like you're not looking at the quality of the
relationship and same friendship friendship breakups are so demonized that
it's like, but why are we staying an expired friend
just for the sake of an old friend? Like, right,
but that person deserves to have that friendship ended equally
(29:08):
so that they can find people who are more aligned
with them, rather than someone who's like gossiping behind their
back and being like, God, every time I see her,
I'm so bored. And this idea that like, long friendships
are better, But it's like, but they're talking about you
behind your back, Like, why do you want a friend
that isn't a friend? Actually?
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Right, I really appreciate this idea, and I think you're
totally right, Like the timeline doesn't make it good or bad,
and that the friendship that you shared is still meaningful
and important and was surely beautiful, And just because you're
not in that moment right now today, it doesn't make
(29:47):
you both a failure.
Speaker 6 (29:49):
And also I think at the time that that friendship existed,
you likely needed it in a way that you might
not now. And just because you're a different person now
doesn't mean that that friendship didn't keep you afloat in
some way at some point in your life.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
How do you feel now, like, how are you? Oh
my god, like that breakup? H I miss her still?
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah, I do.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
I miss even if she still felt even if she
still does feel the way that she's.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
The thing is, I have no idea who she miss anymore.
You're romanticizing it, of course, probably, Yeah, And I knew
I miss like the good parts I do. I miss
holding her hand, I miss being her therapist because she's
so smart and I'm so emotional, and she really believed
in me in a way that I didn't believe in myself.
Because again, she has this sort of like tunnel vision
(30:42):
eye on the prize I'm gonna get what I want mindset,
and I feel a lot of like guilt and I
make myself small. And I was like totally inspired by her,
you know, and by her like determination.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
Would you be friends with her again?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I think it would be really hard for me to
be friends with her again. And here's the thing, I
have to accept who I am. For a long time,
I was really trying to be someone I wasn't. That
does not mean I think you're my enemy, but it
does mean I can't really have you in my life
so closely.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Yeah, So you're okay, You're okay.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Not I'm okay, but I'm sad and I miss her. Yeah,
and so like you know, I'm I'm still totally finding
confidence in my voice again. And this was also too
kind of the whole point of the boys sober thing
is to like, who are you when you are alone?
And I really have to I really had to figure
that out because I'm not in any codependent relationships now,
(31:42):
and I think that's what I miss about her, is
I miss like that deep like reliance because that reliance
feels safe for me, even though I know it will
run its course. But the first six months of a
codependent relationship, oh, it's amazing, but you do lose yourself.
(32:02):
It's very easy to lose yourself completely.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
We need to get you a cat.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
I'm allergic dog. I know people keep suggesting that.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Dogs talks take a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
They take a lot more work.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
I want to need to be home for it. Cat,
That's what I was saying.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Cat, because they're more independent, right, but they can warm
up you.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
We'll have to get you like a pet.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Rock, you know, oh, goldfish? You know, a goldfish would
be it would die. I would be gone, it would die.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
How to kill it? I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
This was a vulnerable topic for me.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
I'm still figuring out how to move through friendship in
the best way, and I'm really thankful Michelle reminded me
that just because a friendship ends doesn't mean it was
a failure. I wish I could say this is a
closed chapter for me, but I'm still finding my way
through learning how to be a good friend, learning how
(32:59):
to be honest, learning how to set boundaries.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I'm figuring it out.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
But the good thing is there's no timeline on learning,
and there's no timeline on healing, and that's okay. I'll
talk to you all next week. Boy Sover is a
(33:27):
production of iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host, Hope Ordered. Our
executive producers are Christina Everett and Julie Pinero. Our supervising
producer is Emily Meronoff, engineering by Bahid Fraser and mixing
and mastering by Aboo Zafar. If you liked this episode,
please tell a friend and don't forget to rate, review,
(33:48):
and subscribe to boy Sober on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your favorite shows.
I asked my friend yesterday.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I was like, how long do you think is like
a normal amount of time to get over a friend breakup?
And she was like, Babe, I don't think that there's
like a normal amount of time. And then I was
just thinking about it today and I was like, I
actually think I won't be sad about it for the
rest of moh m.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Not.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Kind of oh my deathbed, thinking where is she? Why
is she not holding my hand right now?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
So far, we've mostly been talking about the boy part
of boysover, the sex, the romance, the relationships.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
But there's another aspect.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
To knowing yourself, and it's understanding that friendships are just
as important as romantic relationships.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So if you are going through a friend breakup and you're.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Like, oh, what the hell, I gotta get over this already,
just know you are not alone, and it just means
that you have a really big heart and you had
a lot of love and that's so great that you
had that with someone, and you'll probably miss them for
a long time. This week, we're talking about the crushing
(01:09):
nature of friend breakups. I'm hopewordered and welcome to voiceover
a space where we're learning and on learning all the
myths we're taught about love and relationships. One thing that
(01:38):
I haven't talked about is that at the beginning of
my voiceover year, I was also dealing with the end
of a friendship. It was with somebody who was really
special to me, and to be honest, it wasn't my
first time going through something like this, and it's embarrassing
for me to admit how many friend breakups I've been through.
It's not something that's easy for me to think about,
(02:00):
and if I'm being honest, it's not something I'm very
proud of. But that one friend breakup in particular, that
was harder than any of the others, and I'm still
really untangling my emotions about it, which is a little
bit embarrassing for me because it was over a year ago.
So I'm asking myself all the time. Shouldn't I be
(02:23):
over it already?
Speaker 4 (02:28):
Right?
Speaker 5 (02:28):
No?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Episo?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Yeah, yeah, So do we want this? It's a lot
of tight ship right now.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I have to believe that.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Like when I was in the studio the other day
with my producers Emily and Christina, it came up my
one best friend and I stopped speaking to each other
completely and she was like my sister. You know, it
was really a number of things. It was like we
didn't have the same perspective on what was happening, and
we tried to ignore that for a long time, and
(02:56):
then that just came to a head and my life
was sort of falling apart.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Was this during a time like you were already having
like already how.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Everyone, I've let people down, I've fucked up, I've flopped.
If you remember from our very first episode, my first
attempt at going boiceovert didn't really go according to plan.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Internet virality, headlines.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Depression, anxiety, it all kind of got in the way.
And to make it worse, I didn't really have anyone
to turn to. I don't want to sound dramatic, but
I don't really think I knew how to see myself
or even knew who to really.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Be at that time.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I didn't know who to lean on or how to
communicate how I was really feeling. I was trying to
act fine, but I wasn't. I'd been in Tennessee with
my family, which is never totally stable, and I needed
a sense of normal. See, once I got back to
New York, I was so far away from myself though
(04:05):
that I was doing anything for a sense of belonging me.
And this girl, I loved her because she was so
different from me, and she made me feel like I
could be a part of a type of New York
that I never feel like I can be a part of.
And so it was my first night back in New
York and we were supposed to go out together.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
And she invited this one girl.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And all of these girls are very hot, I don't
give a fuck, you know what I mean, sexy, comedian player,
just hot. And the ones who were like I who
I was trying to be, like, Yeah, And on that
night where I just felt like my whole life was
out of my hands, she invited this girl onto a
(04:50):
night out and I knew this girl was a party girl.
Long story short. The girl she brought a girl I
didn't know. I didn't want to be a caretaker that night.
I did not want to be there emotionally for anyone.
I wanted someone just desperately to be their emotional I
wanted my friend there for me, and I didn't want
to have to hold anyone else's hair back. And then
(05:11):
this girl that she brings along, which like all loved
this girl. She is not my enemy. These girls are
not my enemies. Gets too drunk and passes out in
the middle of the floor. And then my friend she's
acting like she's twenty two and in college, and I'm like,
I'm twenty seven.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
And my life is fucking falling apart.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
I do not, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And then after that night, I started to resent my
friend so much, and I didn't.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
Tell her that I hated her for it.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I tried to remove myself from our relationship, but we
were so codependent that my backing up was so obvious.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
That is when I started like drinking a lot more.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
And I don't consider myself an alcoholic, but I do
have a substance abuse issue, and I do want to escape,
and I do want to ignore when I don't like
someone or like something, and drinking helps me ignore that.
Like I would be hanging out with her, and I
would be like getting absolutely hammered and just being like,
(06:12):
I actually cannot be across the table from her if
I'm not hammered, because I'm angry and I'm hurt and
I would rather not talk about it. And she was
so confused, and I was probably gaslighting her because I
kept saying, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, things are fine.
I'm just taking space. I'm fine, I'm just busy. I'm fine.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Yeah, did you guys ever have an actual talk about it?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
To make a long story short, we didn't really talk
so much as fight. All of the ways we hurt
each other and everything I was resenting her for bubbled
up one night and ended with us in a huge
screaming match after a comedy show we fought.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
In that moment, She's screaming at.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Me in front of people.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
In the street, absolutely in the street, outside of a
venue at a comedy show. She's like saying that, Yeah,
I don't care. I mean just you know, like I
loved her so much in that moment, I said. I
texted her after it all, and I said, let's email
about this. That's funny, but I also understand exactly why
(07:18):
you did that, Like you.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
We can email about this enough.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Distance to have like a rational right, right, right, we.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Can write each other because what I said to her,
I think another thing about her. She's brilliant, and this
is what I love about her because I'm like, I'm
all emotion.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah she's not.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
She's all intellect, She's all logic, okay. And so I
say to her, let's email about this. We'll send each
other sort of research papers on this, like we can
write our arguments. Because I sent her. I can't keep
up with her. Like she has the type of brain.
She could be a lawyer, she.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
Could be account I could be at a debate, you know.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Still going with.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Her wasn't like agree to dis or just no.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
There was no end to it. But it was like
I was on each other a power.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
Point, but she was like, you can email me, oh, okay.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
So she was not going to meet you in the
middle in any kind of form.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
And the thing that actually broke us up is there
was a guy that liked me and she liked him,
and he wanted to be her friend, and he was
texting me and I made a TikTok about it and
I didn't tell her, and I publicly said, this guy
is texting me Da da da da da. And she
saw that video. This is after she hurt my feelings again.
(08:36):
We got in this fight, and so I make this video. Listen,
I was begging for her to leave me.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
I made the video with the intention of her knowing she.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Would say I mean just like I made the video
to hurt her totally, Okay, I.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Think I wanted her to. I wanted to hurt her.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
I think like I was still mad at her about
not really being there for me. I was mad at
her for not knowing why she had never apologized about
any of it. And then on top of this, I'm
like trying to give her so much space on something
that is a value of mine. I'm going against my
values making space for yours because I want to be understanding.
(09:14):
And still, when I tell you, let's email about this,
you tell me I can email you. I had been
avoiding her for weeks and then she texted me and
she was like, is this about so and so?
Speaker 1 (09:27):
And I was like, yeah, it is. And she was like,
I don't think we should be friends anymore. And I
was like totally.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Obviously, I'm not totally healed. So this week I'm talking
to someone who can help me make sense of all
these tangled emotions.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Hi Michelle, Welcome to boy Sober.
Speaker 6 (10:06):
Hi so lovely to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
This is Michelle Ellman. She's the author of Bad Friend,
Why Friendship, Breakups Hurt, and How To Heal. Michelle's written
plenty of other books like How to Say No and
The Selfish Romantic, and she's even been given the title
Queen of Boundaries. I was nervous going into the chat
with her. I still feel vulnerable about my friend breakups,
(10:30):
but Michelle immediately reminded me that I'm not alone in
all these messy, lingering feelings. Have you gone through, like
a really intense friendship breakup that inspired this book?
Speaker 6 (10:42):
So I think the thing that really pushed me to
bad Friend because I always loved this topic and I
always wanted to talk about it, but I had so
much shame around it. And the thing that finally we'd
break through the shame and go I can't be the
only one was my best friend. Eight years we lived together,
and she had moved out maybe six months before to
(11:03):
go live with her boyfriend, and she broke up with
me over text and it wasn't even a breakup. She
ghosted midway through texting. We were arguing about something and
she ghosted me, and then I had to get on
stage and give a talk about Christmas.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Like.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Nightmare scenario.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
And yet what I was feeling internally was if I
was walking into this work event and I was saying
I've just ended a romantic relationship of eight years, I'd
be met with so much compassion, so much kind as,
so much empathy. Yet if I walked into the same
building doing the same job and I went my best
(11:42):
friend of eight years just broke up with me, I
sound like a thirteen year old in a playground. And
I was like, that is so unfair because I was
single for all of those eight years. And I don't
know what man I'm going to marry At my wedding,
I don't know who the groom is. I knew who
the maid of honor was going to be, and she
was no longer going to be my main of HONA,
Like that is just as much a part of my
(12:04):
future as any man would be. And yet you would
expect someone to be a broken mess after an eight
year romantic breakup. But I wasn't being allowed or given
permission to have the same level of emotion around a
platonic relationship.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I have been through so many friendship breakups because I
treat friendships like romance, and I get really close to
one person.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I've got a one ride or die. I'm not a
friend group girl, and I'm a little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Codependent and so these are things I like, I know
about myself, but it sets up a friendship to inevitably
sort of like reach a head.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
So to speak.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
And so when you said in your book, like we're
mostly ghosting each other, for me, those breakups have been
like big blow up, knock down, drag out fights. I've
had one friend ghost me and it was like one
of the most heartbreaks.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
It is so heartbreaking.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
You're ghosted because there's just no there's no closure, and
you're like, wait, tell me what It's almost like you
want to be.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Like tell me what's wrong with me? Like, tell me
what makes this worth it?
Speaker 6 (13:10):
To explain? Now explosions. I talk about this in Bad Friends.
But intensity in the creation of a friendship there will
always be intensity in the fallout of the friendship too,
And it's one of the things that was very much
a learning lesson in friendship of like take your time,
go slowly. You are not in a rush, and if
you make your friendships quickly, they'll also burn out quickly too.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Gosh, don't call me out like that. That's so rude, Like,
oh my god, I want to know, like if because
I feel like for you, a lot of your perspective
is like, you know, we all need different things as friends,
and the thing that makes a good friend is like
understanding what you need out of friendship and like having
that sort of understanding going into a relationship with someone
(13:57):
a friendship with someone, do you believe in sort of
like a bad friend? Do you have an ideas of
a bad friend in your head or do you think like, oh,
we're all just different friends.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
It doesn't help that we don't have a very clear
definition of what a friend is. Well, we have quite
a definition of what a good girlfriend and what a
good boyfriend looks like or good romantic partner. What it
looks like, right, it's different values for another person. It's
another set of values. And that's where it's blurry. And
I think this thing of it's language that's used both
(14:29):
in romantic relationships and platonic relationships of if you knew me,
you would know. And it's like this idea that humans
are predictable. But you could be upset one day and
you could want a couple of tea. You could be
upset another day and you would want a hug, Like
humans are not predictable. If you need something for me,
you are going to need to ask like an adult
because I cannot read your mind.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I really love for people to try and read my mind,
and I'm really mad at them when I can't.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Like that is definitely something that I like, something I.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
Am aware of and working on.
Speaker 6 (14:59):
You also expect people to know when you're upset without
you actually telling them that you're upset.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
My issue is that I think the way we interact
with friendship really depends on how we were raised, you know,
and what our survival skills were in like early adolescent,
childhood whatever. And so for me, kind of a survival
skill was like being intuitive and sort of anticipating people's needs,
and so in my friendships, I fall into that where
(15:27):
I'm like always trying to anticipate how my friends feel,
and then when that's not reciprocated, I'm like really angry.
But it's like that's what I do, you know, and
I can't expect what I do to be what they do,
And that is like something I'm understanding now.
Speaker 6 (15:44):
Also, you have to understand that that's a skill of yours,
Like that's a like fod Levil skill that not everybody
else shifted and for you, my I'm not guessing anything
about your life. But for a lot of people, the
way they have hypervigilance of being able to pick up
on mood shifts and mood changes can be born. Actually,
(16:06):
someone who hasn't had trauma, they're like, wait, why could
you not tell I was upset? Well, I never had
to walk around and read the room every single time
when I was seven years old growing up because I
didn't know who was going to start a fight. So
they don't hypercent of like picking up on people upset
in the room, and that expectation is coming out of
(16:27):
the place of you actually have a skill and a
strength that you are not aware is not commonplace and
not everyone has that ability.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
This makes me think of your conversations on boundaries, because
you've written a lot about boundaries, you talk about how
important they are. Do you think crossing a boundary is
worthy of a friend breakup?
Speaker 6 (16:50):
Not the first time? Never the first time, because first
of all, you don't know A lot of the times
they don't know that boundary until you've actually set it.
For you to set the boundary the first time, I
think it's a lot of the time. I mean, it
depends what the boundary is. If the boundary is like
they've slept with your boyfriend, Like, yeah, maybe that's but
(17:12):
generally actually set it afterwards, like and then also set
a consequence for it, and it in the way I
teach boundaries, like if you haven't told someone the consequence
of breaking that boundary, then it's not really fair to
that person, because I like, if someone doesn't know that
(17:34):
it's going to be that hurtful to you or that
the consequence of that would be a friendship breakup, I
do think you need to get on a chance. And
I think a lot of the time this immediate ending
of a friendship, obviously not in extreme scenarios, is avoidance
of having difficult conversations. And I think that's where people
(17:54):
are willing to get down in the mud and have
a messy conversation, and it will be messy if they're
our feelings involved and people are upset, and I just
think it could be something like some I remember there
was a fight I got into a with a friend
and she called me a name. I can't remember what
it was, but she called me a name and I said,
if you continue to speak to me like that, I'm
(18:15):
going to leave the room. And then so the next
time it happens, I might not leave the room, but
the next time I might go, hey, this is the
second time you throw out names in the middle of
a conflict, And I just don't find it very productive.
If we're going to continue to have a friendship, I
need you to be able to speak to me with respect,
even at our most heat and moments.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Why do you think we are culturally allowed to fight
with our romantic partners, but we're not really allowed to
fight with our platonic partners. And like, I'll give an example,
Like I have this best friend of like almost ten
years now, and we kind of got into this like knockdown,
drag out fight where I was crying and he was screaming,
(18:58):
and like he's like my family. You know, there is
something nice about it for me, But I don't think
we really have the same cultural permission to fight in
our friendships like we do in our romantic relationships.
Speaker 6 (19:10):
I think the reason why it felt sort of nice
was because as much as you're fighting, you're also fighting
for the friendship. There is something quite respectful in the
fact someone will want to engage with you enough to
save them. And this is also a conversation I have
a lot around boundaries of when you haven't had healthy
(19:32):
boundary setting as a child, you think someone setting a
boundary with you is them being angry with you, when actually,
like I try to tell people like, if I'm setting
a boundary with you, it's because I'm still communicating with you,
because I care about you and I want to save
the friendship.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Right, what do you think is the proper way to
go through a friend breakup? What do you think the
mechanics of a friendship breakup should really look?
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Like?
Speaker 6 (19:56):
I think the first thing is like to speak to
them as if and like even if you mutually decide
like I don't really know where we go from here
in this friendship, but give them a chance to change.
If you've known someone for any length of time, you
cannot end a friendship if you've not even given them
the opportunities to change their behavior, that isn't healthy communication,
(20:18):
That is not boundary setting. But also, if you want
to end the friendship for whatever reason, communicate it. It
doesn't have to be the perfect conversation. It just needs
to be a conversation. And I think it's the decision
of like, is this a decision or is this a discussion,
you can enter unsure whether to end the friendship. And
(20:38):
I was actually talking to someone the other day about
the fact that I've had a few friendship breakups where
it wasn't the issue that ended it, it was the
argument about the issue that ended it because of how
they communicated. And I just got to a point of like,
I will not be spoken to that way, and the
way you're speaking is not the way a friend speaks
to me. And so if it gets to that point,
(21:00):
if it gets abusive, if it gets like if people
are speaking to you in a way you don't like,
you are entitled to end that conversation. You can say
this conversation is no longer productive, let's return to it
a later date, or you can even end the friendship.
But all you have to say is like this friendship
isn't working anymore, but let the person know. I would
to lead this movement of like stop ghosting your friends.
You if you don't for a guy on a third
(21:22):
date to do this to you, why the hell do
you think it's okay to do it to a five
year friendship.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
I want to talk about sort of the fallout of
a friend breakup and like what to do in that
space afterwards, you know, because I know you sort of
talk about like the rituals of processing a romantic breakup.
What do you tell people when they are like, how
do I process this friend breakup? Because especially if you're
(22:07):
like between women right now, like being online, it's so
easy to go over to like an ex friend's Instagram
and be like, oh, she's beautiful and she's thriving without me,
you know what I mean, Like immediately she's got a
best friend, and the best friend is more beautiful. The
story I tell myself pretty often is like I was
you know, I deserved it to be left whatever. There
(22:30):
was something like you sort of say in your book,
like there's something wrong with me, you know, So how
do you see sort of the processing phase of a
friend breakup?
Speaker 6 (22:40):
So I think you do have to block them on
social media. I do see that, helf Ham. I do
think if you go over to their page, the only
intention to go over to their page is to make
yourself hurt more, and it's never to feel good stories
in your head. It's not also just one way. If
they don't get access to you in real life, they
(23:00):
don't get access to your social media too. They don't
get to keep tabs on you the same way that
you shouldn't be keeping tabs on them either. And I
think when you have a lack of closure, I think
ultimately the biggest permission I could give anyone going through
a friendship breakup is you are allowed to grieve. And
I is a hierarchy of grief in the book where
like at the top of the poll is like someone
(23:22):
who is grieving a husband, and then it's a boyfriend.
Boyfriend is lower than husband, but you're grieving a friend.
What does that mean? And so where the shame comes in?
Because if you are so busy feeling shame around the
friendship breakup, you won't give yourself to feel the grief,
to feel the sadness, to feel even the anger around it,
(23:42):
Like you can have some very righteous anger around like
towards the end of the friendship or if you were ghosted,
for example. And then I think then once you go
through the feelings and the emotions in the heartbreak of it,
there is room for learning lessons and what you could
have done differently and how you're going to take that
(24:02):
into your other friendships.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I'm wondering what your thoughts are on Let's say someone's
been through a friend breakup, and I'm asking this for
personal reasons. I'll admit it, I've been thinking of real
I've been thinking about reaching out to a friend and saying,
let's grab a coffee, let's have a chat. You know,
are you pro or anti like reaching out to a
(24:28):
friend that you've been broken up or is.
Speaker 6 (24:31):
It that you've had a few arguments and you're still
technically friends.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
We broke up about a year and maybe a half ago,
and this was similar, like sister friend loved her so dearly,
cared so much about her, like a quick closeness. We
have mutual friends, We run in similar spaces. Like it's
this thing of like you're so right to say if
(24:57):
they don't get access to you in real life and
get access to you online, but when your real lives
are sort of intertwined in a way where you might
see them at a party or you might run into them. So, yeah,
what's your advice for someone who's asking themselves that?
Speaker 6 (25:13):
So what's your goal? Is your goal to be more
civil when you go to mutual friends events or is
it your goal actually to be friends again?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
I think my goal is to have some sort of
understanding and to maybe fill in the gaps that I've
been filling in from a distance. Like I said, sort
of with this ability to see someone online and you
write those stories, but you know those stories aren't based
in honesty or based in reality. They're probably based in
(25:43):
some like nasty shame, and so yeah, I think it's
like filling in the gaps and sort of just getting
on a page of mutual understanding and respect.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yeah, but I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I'm also scared to reach out and ask because I'm
afraid that they won't be interested in that.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Well.
Speaker 6 (25:59):
I think the key is if you do reach out,
you have to be able to reach out with no expectations.
And I think it's a very vulnerable thing to do.
It's a very high risk thing to do, and there
is no guarantee that you will get you will get
the outcome you want. But if you're coming at it
with greater understanding, you can even say. I've even had
(26:20):
people send a message saying like, Hey, I'd really like
to go for coffee. I don't necessarily want to be friends.
I just like I've not stopped not being able to
stop thinking about it, and in my mind, the way
I operate in friendship is if we've ever been friends
for a period of time. I believe in having respect
in the ending, and if I can give you greater
(26:40):
understanding and greater closure, I will do it not because
of how you treated me and the ending, but because
at some point in my life you were there for me.
And if I can end this on with no bad blood,
I would prefer that. And I think that's where I
don't always have. We have a little bit too much
(27:01):
pride and ego to always be the person to reach out.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
But I've always see I have none of that.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I'm like, I'm like, no Friday and ego here, let's
just work this out.
Speaker 5 (27:10):
Like I've definitely the one being the recipient.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
I have always been very kind and appreciative of anyone
who's reached out to me, and even I've said in
the reply, I have a lot of respect for the
fact that you've sent this message because I know that
I am not sure I would have the ability to
send it.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
My last question, and this is something we talk a
lot about on the show, but we talk about sort
of unlearning, right, because I think so many of our
habits in love and relationships are developed through like maybe
watching someone or learning from someone, or listening to a
song or watching a movie that you know teaches us
something that isn't actually productive in love. So what is
(27:51):
like one of the biggest things you've had to unlearn
when it comes to love.
Speaker 6 (27:56):
That it needs to be forever for it to count.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Mmmm say more.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
I'm saying that the idea that you have a ten
year friendship and even if it ends in this blowout
fight where you hurt each other to a like at
a level that like neither of you can forget it,
it doesn't the ten years where you had good friendship
the way that we view in our society of like
(28:21):
a failed marriage. Who said the marriage was a failure? Like,
maybe the longevity of a relationship is not the marker
of success. But let's say you have a ten year
marriage and then you end the marriage and you have
a divorce that can be healthier than the forty five
year marriage where you yell and scream at each other
all day every day, but you stayed married. Like that's right,
(28:45):
idea of forever like is the only marker of success,
But like you're not looking at the quality of the
relationship and same friendship friendship breakups are so demonized that
it's like, but why are we staying an expired friend
just for the sake of an old friend? Like, right,
but that person deserves to have that friendship ended equally
(29:08):
so that they can find people who are more aligned
with them, rather than someone who's like gossiping behind their
back and being like, God, every time I see her,
I'm so bored. And this idea that like, long friendships
are better, But it's like, but they're talking about you
behind your back, Like, why do you want a friend
that isn't a friend? Actually?
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Right, I really appreciate this idea, and I think you're
totally right, Like the timeline doesn't make it good or bad,
and that the friendship that you shared is still meaningful
and important and was surely beautiful, And just because you're
not in that moment right now today, it doesn't make
(29:47):
you both a failure.
Speaker 6 (29:49):
And also I think at the time that that friendship existed,
you likely needed it in a way that you might
not now. And just because you're a different person now
doesn't mean that that friendship didn't keep you afloat in
some way at some point in your life.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
How do you feel now, like, how are you? Oh
my god, like that breakup? H I miss her still?
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah, I do.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
I miss even if she still felt even if she
still does feel the way that she's.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
The thing is, I have no idea who she miss anymore.
You're romanticizing it, of course, probably, Yeah, And I knew
I miss like the good parts I do. I miss
holding her hand, I miss being her therapist because she's
so smart and I'm so emotional, and she really believed
in me in a way that I didn't believe in myself.
Because again, she has this sort of like tunnel vision
(30:42):
eye on the prize I'm gonna get what I want mindset,
and I feel a lot of like guilt and I
make myself small. And I was like totally inspired by her,
you know, and by her like determination.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
Would you be friends with her again?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I think it would be really hard for me to
be friends with her again. And here's the thing, I
have to accept who I am. For a long time,
I was really trying to be someone I wasn't. That
does not mean I think you're my enemy, but it
does mean I can't really have you in my life
so closely.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Yeah, So you're okay, You're okay.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Not I'm okay, but I'm sad and I miss her. Yeah,
and so like you know, I'm I'm still totally finding
confidence in my voice again. And this was also too
kind of the whole point of the boys sober thing
is to like, who are you when you are alone?
And I really have to I really had to figure
that out because I'm not in any codependent relationships now,
(31:42):
and I think that's what I miss about her, is
I miss like that deep like reliance because that reliance
feels safe for me, even though I know it will
run its course. But the first six months of a
codependent relationship, oh, it's amazing, but you do lose yourself.
(32:02):
It's very easy to lose yourself completely.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
We need to get you a cat.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
I'm allergic dog. I know people keep suggesting that.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Dogs talks take a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
They take a lot more work.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
I want to need to be home for it. Cat,
That's what I was saying.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Cat, because they're more independent, right, but they can warm
up you.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
We'll have to get you like a pet.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Rock, you know, oh, goldfish? You know, a goldfish would
be it would die. I would be gone, it would die.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
How to kill it? I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
This was a vulnerable topic for me.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
I'm still figuring out how to move through friendship in
the best way, and I'm really thankful Michelle reminded me
that just because a friendship ends doesn't mean it was
a failure. I wish I could say this is a
closed chapter for me, but I'm still finding my way
through learning how to be a good friend, learning how
(32:59):
to be honest, learning how to set boundaries.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I'm figuring it out.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
But the good thing is there's no timeline on learning,
and there's no timeline on healing, and that's okay. I'll
talk to you all next week. Boy Sover is a
(33:27):
production of iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host, Hope Ordered. Our
executive producers are Christina Everett and Julie Pinero. Our supervising
producer is Emily Meronoff, engineering by Bahid Fraser and mixing
and mastering by Aboo Zafar. If you liked this episode,
please tell a friend and don't forget to rate, review,
(33:48):
and subscribe to boy Sober on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your favorite shows.
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