It's Independent Bookstore Day, and to celebrate, Friendless is doing a double feature — two short conversations recorded at the Bookshelf, both circling the same question: what do bookstores actually do for us that nothing else can?

First up is MLA Christine Boyle, BC's Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs — and a lifelong library and bookstore nerd. We talk about the physical, relational experience you can't get from an online cart, why her 11-year-old plays her like a fiddle every time they walk past a bookshop, and the climate novel her book club still hasn't forgiven her for.

Then I sit down with Cathy Jesson, the owner of Black Bond Books. Cathy started in her mother's store in Brandon, Manitoba in the sixties, moved to the coast, built the business into a three-generation family operation, and in 2012 stepped in on a five-day turnaround to save Book Warehouse from closing. She talks about running a bookstore as a business (not a pipe dream), why the magic only happens on the floor and not in the office, and what she wants customers to feel walking out on Independent Bookstore Day.

Both conversations are short, warm, and — if you're anything like me — going to send you straight to your nearest independent.

Mentioned in this episode:

 * Black Bond Books, Book Warehouse, Hager Books - https://www.blackbondbooks.com/
 * Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
 * Fire Weather by John Vaillant
 * A Truce That Is Not Peace by Miriam Toews
 * The Women by Kristin Hannah
 * Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
 * Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

Find Friendless on Instagram and TikTok @friendlesspod. Reach out: friendlesspod@gmail.com

Check out the Linktree: https://linktr.ee/friendlesspod

Fun and safety, Sweet Peas.

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Celebrating Independent Bookstore Day (with special guests Cathy Jesson & MLA Christine Boyle)

There's a version of kindness that isn't actually kindness. It's saying yes when you mean no, showing up depleted and resentful, and building relationships on a quiet lie — the lie that you're fine, that it's all okay, that you have no limits. And the thing about that version of kindness is it always ends the same way: in a blowup, a ghost, or an overcorrection so sharp it takes the whole relationship with it.

Episode 8 of the DBT mini-season covers Give and Fast — the two interpersonal skills for when getting a yes isn't the point. Give is for when the relationship matters most: how to stay connected, be honest, and get through a hard conversation without torching what you've built. Fast is for when self-respect matters most: how to say no, hold your values, and not apologise for existing.

The real skill, as James puts it, is knowing which one you need — and then actually following through.

You'll come away with:

 * A clear breakdown of Give (Gentle, Interested, Validate, Easy Manner) with real examples of what it looks and sounds like
 * A full walkthrough of Fast (Fair, no Apologies, Stick to values, Truthful) — including why "I don't want to" is a complete sentence
 * Two layered conversation scenarios showing how Give and Fast work alongside Dear Man in practice
 * A reflection prompt to identify where in your life you're sacrificing self-respect just to keep the peace

• Email: friendlesspod@gmail.com

• Instagram: @friendlesspod [https://www.instagram.com/friendlesspod/]

• TikTok: @friendlesspod [https://www.tiktok.com/@friendlesspod]

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balancing boundaries: the GIVE and FAST approach (DBT mini-season part 8)

Most of us were never taught how to ask for what we need — we were taught how to be nice, how to be agreeable, and how to silently hope the other person would just figure it out. And when they didn't, we either resented them or came in way too hot trying to make up for lost time.

In this very special episode, James unpacks interpersonal effectiveness — the DBT module that's less about managing yourself and more about navigating other people, which, let's be honest, is the hard part. He covers how to get clear on what you actually want from a conversation before you open your mouth (spoiler: most of us skip this step), and walks through Dear Man, a structured skill for asking for things clearly, directly, and kindly without being apologetic or aggressive.

This is episode seven of the DBT mini-season.

You'll come away with:

 * A framework for identifying your real goal in any difficult conversation (objective, relationship, or self-respect — and why you can only pick one)
 * A full walkthrough of the Dear Man skill with real examples
 * A short practice exercise to apply it to one thing you've been avoiding

• Email: friendlesspod@gmail.com

• Instagram: @friendlesspod [https://www.instagram.com/friendlesspod/]

• TikTok: @friendlesspod [https://www.tiktok.com/@friendlesspod]

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Stop Hinting, Start Asking: The Dear Man Skill for Assertive Communication (DBT mini-season part 7)

What does it take to truly belong somewhere — and what happens when you didn't know that's what you needed?

This week on Friendless, James sits down with Iona Whishaw — bestselling author of the Lane Winslow Mystery series — for a live conversation at the Book Warehouse on Main Street in Vancouver, BC. Her newest novel, A False and Fatal Claim, is the backdrop for a wide-ranging discussion about identity, deception, community, and the surprising things we discover about ourselves when we stop running.

They get into: the lies we tell ourselves versus the lies we perform for others; why Iona doesn't plot her novels (and what that means for how story finds her); how Kings Cove functions as both utopia and honest mirror; the way technology has quietly eroded our capacity for friction — and why friction might be exactly what we need; Lane Winslow's journey from deliberate isolation to unexpected belonging; and how writing at 64 gave Iona a whole new life.

Iona also shares how her mother — a larger-than-life woman who hitchhiked to Alaska with an evening gown and sneakers — became the unlikely skeleton of Lane Winslow, and what it means to inherit someone's courage second-hand.

Recorded live at Book Warehouse Vancouver

Pick up Iona's book at the Book Warehouse on Main Street.

• Email: friendlesspod@gmail.com

• Instagram: @friendlesspod [https://www.instagram.com/friendlesspod/]

• TikTok: @friendlesspod [https://www.tiktok.com/@friendlesspod]

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A False Sense of Safety: Iona Whishaw on Trust, Community, and the Lies We Tell Ourselves (Live at the Book Warehouse)

Your feelings are real. But what if acting on them is making things worse?

In this episode of Friendless, host James Avramenko continues the DBT series with three  tools for navigating emotions without being controlled by them.

We cover Opposite Action — the skill for when your emotion is justified, but the urge it's driving you toward would damage something you care about. We look at Problem Solving — for when the emotion does fit the facts and there's something concrete you can actually do. And we explore Building Positive Experiences — the proactive, preventative practice of filling your emotional reserves before crisis hits.

James shares personal stories from his medical leave, a financial spiral, and the anxiety he felt recording this very episode — and what it looked like to apply (or not apply) these tools in real time.

In this episode:

 * The "action urge" behind every emotion — and when following it makes things worse
 * How avoidance teaches your brain that the threat is real
 * Why you can't half-ass opposite action
 * The difference between a catastrophe and a problem
 * Why positive experiences aren't a luxury — they're emotional infrastructure

📧 friendlesspod@gmail.com | 📱 @friendlesspod [https://www.instagram.com/friendlesspod/]

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when your emotions are lying to you (and what to do instead) DBT mini-season pt.6 

This week on a very special episode of Friendless recorded live at the Book Warehouse on Main Street, host James Avramenko interviews thriller author Robin Harding about her novel Strangers in the Villa.

They discuss the inspiration for the book’s setup—a couple, Sydney and Curtis, retreat to an isolated villa in Catalonia, Spain, to repair their marriage after an affair, then invite in two Australian strangers who won’t leave—by a real trip and intensified by language and cultural barriers. They discuss character psychology, morally gray “damaged and damaging” behaviour, the cruelty of calling an affair “meaningless,” and Harding’s theme of “what is forgivable,” escalating toward an ultimately unforgivable revelation tied to exploitation and trafficking, raising questions of justice versus vigilantism. Harding describes her craft process, multiple POV, and how isolation strips away performance.

Find Robyn at robynharding.com [https://www.robynharding.com/] or on Instagram @rhardingwriter. 

Strangers in the Villa is out now — find it at the Book Warehouse! [https://blackbondbooks.com/item/1iqMaW6srnPNkZ4uKwiX_w]

📧 friendlesspod@gmail.com | 📱 @friendlesspod [https://www.instagram.com/friendlesspod/]

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What Is Forgivable? A Conversation With Robyn Harding (Live from the Book Warehouse)

This week on a very special episode of Friendless, we ask what if the goal of emotional maturity isn't to stop feeling things but to stop fighting them? 

In Part 5 of Friendless's deep dive into DBT emotional regulation, James unpacks what emotions are actually for, and why treating them like problems to solve is exactly what keeps us stuck.

This episode covers three foundational skills: naming emotions accurately (because "I feel bad" tells you nothing useful), checking the facts (the difference between what actually happened and the story your brain added on top), and the PLEASE skill — the unglamorous daily maintenance checklist that has a surprisingly direct line to how regulated you feel.

James also gets personal: about spending years terrified of his own anger, about the shame hiding underneath a text that didn't get answered, and about why exercise remains the bane of his existence.

In this episode:

 * Why emotions are signals, not malfunctions
 * The smoke alarm analogy that reframes everything
 * How vague labels like "fine" keep you stuck
 * Checking the facts vs. checking the story
 * PLEASE: Physical illness, Eating, Avoid substances, Sleep, Exercise
 * A short practice to try right now

Friendless is a podcast about loneliness, connection, and the honest, sometimes uncomfortable work of understanding ourselves.

📧 friendlesspod@gmail.com 

• Instagram: @friendlesspod [https://www.instagram.com/friendlesspod/]

• TikTok: @friendlesspod [https://www.tiktok.com/@friendlesspod]

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Naming What You Actually Feel (or 'Fine' Doesn't Cut It) (DBT mini-season part 5)

Distress Tolerance Pt. 2: Self-Soothing & Radical Acceptance

This week on a very special episode of Friendless, we're continuing our exploration of Distress Tolerance skills as the DBT mini-season hits the halfway mark!

STOP and TIPP — last week's skills — are built for acute crisis moments. This episode is for the other kind of hard: the slow burn, the ongoing grief, the situations you can't fix right now and just have to live with anyway. Two major skills today: self-soothing and radical acceptance.

Self-Soothing is about giving your nervous system what it needs to feel safer — not by fixing the thing, not by numbing out, but through sensory input that tells your body it's okay right now. James breaks down what this looks like across all five senses, shares what's in his self-soothing kit, and makes a case for building your own before you need it.

Radical Acceptance is probably the hardest skill in DBT. It's also, in James's experience, the most transformative. This is the practice of accepting reality as it is — fully, completely, without the layer of this shouldn't be happening — and why that's not the same thing as approval, defeat, or giving up. James draws on a deeply personal story about his divorce to show what it actually looks like when you finally stop fighting what is.

In this episode:

• Why stop and tip aren't enough for the slow burn — and what is

• The DBT distinction between pain (unavoidable) and suffering (optional)

• What self-soothing actually is — and what it isn't

• A sensory breakdown of self-soothing tools across all five senses

• What James carries in his self-soothing kit and why

• The most common misunderstanding of radical acceptance

• A personal story about divorce, gaslighting, and the moment reality finally shifted

• Why radical acceptance is a practice, not a one-time decision

• A short guided practice for both skills

Connect with Friendless:

• Email: friendlesspod@gmail.com

• Instagram: @friendlesspod [https://www.instagram.com/friendlesspod/]

• TikTok: @friendlesspod [https://www.tiktok.com/@friendlesspod]

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Radical Acceptance Bro! (Distress Tolerance pt. 2) 

This week on a very special episode of Friendless, we're leaving the mindfulness skills behind and stepping into DBT's toolkit for emotional emergencies: the moments when you're at an eight or nine on the chaos scale, logic has stepped out of the building, and your nervous system is running the whole show. The only goal in those moments? Don't make things worse.

In this episode, James breaks down two core Distress Tolerance skills:

The STOP Skill — your emergency brake for when your thumb is hovering over "send," you can feel those words rising in your throat, and everything in your body is screaming do something. STOP interrupts the impulse-to-action pipeline just long enough to give you back a choice.

The TIP Skills — a set of physical interventions (Temperature, Intense exercise, Paced breathing, and Paired muscle relaxation) that work directly on your biology when you're too flooded to think your way through anything. Because sometimes you can't logic your way out of a crisis. You have to use your body.

James also shares two personal stories: what happened when he recorded a full 45-minute episode and forgot to hit record, and how he used the STOP skill in real time during a text conversation that was heading somewhere neither party wanted to go.

We wrap with a short guided mental rehearsal so these skills are a little more accessible when the real crisis hits.

In this episode:

• Why mindfulness alone isn't enough when your brain is in chaos mode

• What's actually happening in your nervous system during a crisis (and why the first impulse is almost always the wrong one)

• The STOP skill, broken down step by step

• The TIP skills: Temperature, Intense Exercise, Paced Breathing, and Paired Muscle Relaxation

• The dive reflex — and why cold water actually works

• Why a long exhale is a biological signal that the danger is over

• A short guided rehearsal to help build your crisis response map

Connect with Friendless:

• Email: friendlesspod@gmail.com

• Instagram: @friendlesspod [https://www.instagram.com/friendlesspod/]

• TikTok: @friendlesspod [https://www.tiktok.com/@friendlesspod]

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Don't Make It Worse: Distress Tolerance Tools (DBT mini-season part 3)

This week on a very special episode of Friendless, your pal and host of the show James Avramenko sits down with journalist, activist, podcaster, and author Garth Mullins — live at Book Warehouse on Main Street in Vancouver — for one of the most honest, wide-ranging conversations the show has ever had.

Garth is the host of the Crackdown podcast and the author of Crackdown: Surviving and Resisting the War on Drugs (Penguin Random House), a memoir-meets-manifesto that traces his life as a drug user, activist, and community organiser through the ongoing overdose crisis. His book is one of those rare things: deeply personal and rigorously political at the same time.

In this episode, they talk about shame — what it costs to carry it, and what it feels like when it finally lifts. They talk about grief as something we were always meant to share communally, and what it means to lose half your community to a crisis the government had the tools to prevent. They talk about necropolitics — the idea that governments don't just neglect people, they make calculated decisions about who will live and who will die. And they talk about what it actually looks like to build community in the middle of all of it: the meetings, the minutes, the coffee runs, the naloxone.

Garth is one of the clearest, most generous thinkers James has had on the show — and this conversation is proof of why.

📖 Pick up Crackdown wherever books are sold, and learn more about Garth on his website [http://www.garthmullins.com/]

🎙️ Find Garth's podcast at crackdownpod.com [https://www.crackdownpod.com/]

❤️ Get your free Naloxone kit and training at towardtheheart.com  [https://towardtheheart.com/naloxone-training]

🫂 Support or Learn about the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) on their website [https://vandu.org/]

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Mutual Survival: On Community, Grief, and Resistance (with special guest Garth Mullins) LIVE at the Book Warehouse

Friendless is a podcast about the strange, tender, often painful work of staying connected. Host James Avramenko talks to writers, thinkers, activists, and everyday people about loneliness, platonic love, community, mental health, and what it actually takes to build a life with people in it. No easy answers, no toxic positivity, no pretending the hard parts aren't hard. Just honest, sometimes uncomfortable, often moving conversations from somewhere in the void. But always fun and safety. 

James Avramenko

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