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Gal Pals & Heartfelt High Fives: Navigating the Quest for Female Friendships
32 Plays1 year ago
Diana and Rose begin their reign as Queens of the FDS Podcast with a deep dive into female friendships. Get ready to LEVEL UP your friendships, sis!
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Transcript
Introduction of New Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to the Female Dating Strategy, the meanest female-only dating podcast on the internet.
00:00:05
Speaker
I'm your new host, Diana.
00:00:07
Speaker
And I'm your new host, Rose.
00:00:08
Speaker
Hi, Rose.
00:00:10
Speaker
Hi, Diana.
00:00:11
Speaker
How excited are we today?
00:00:13
Speaker
We are very, very excited because the first time that we're doing it together, we've done the intro, but you know, this is our first full-fledged podcast.
00:00:22
Speaker
I'm really excited about it.
00:00:24
Speaker
And the first time ever that we've had the chance to discover what our own identities are going to be on this podcast and how we're going to fit in together.
Personal Growth and FDS Impact
00:00:33
Speaker
Yep.
00:00:34
Speaker
Yep.
00:00:34
Speaker
And I'm really excited about getting to know you and just going through this entire process.
00:00:39
Speaker
It's just really fun and very exciting.
00:00:41
Speaker
I can't believe this was something we were just talking about.
00:00:44
Speaker
I'm still in disbelief that I was actually selected, one, for the podcast, and two, to be a primary host.
00:00:51
Speaker
That was not something I was anticipating.
00:00:53
Speaker
Were you?
00:00:53
Speaker
Nope.
00:00:55
Speaker
This is probably the longest job interview I've ever had.
00:00:59
Speaker
Do you feel it was a worthwhile process?
00:01:02
Speaker
It definitely was.
00:01:03
Speaker
I think I was looking for a change in my life and just like looking to assert myself in a new way, just like really honor my voice and just talk about the issues that were important to me.
00:01:14
Speaker
And I think that FDS just gave me the platform that I was looking for.
00:01:18
Speaker
And it just was like fortuitous timing.
00:01:20
Speaker
I love hearing that because I've had a lot of upheaval in the last, I would say two years, year and a half, a lot of personal growth and a
00:01:28
Speaker
FDS has been instrumental in helping me sort of find a North Star and point my way towards it.
00:01:35
Speaker
And with the podcasting host responsibilities, it feels like, you know, I really am going to be held accountable to myself.
00:01:42
Speaker
Like, am I going to walk the walk that I'm always talking?
00:01:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:01:46
Speaker
How long have you been listening to FDS out of curiosity?
00:01:50
Speaker
Actually, it is literally the only podcast I listen to.
00:01:53
Speaker
I mean, if you go onto my Spotify, there is only one podcast and it is FDS.
00:01:58
Speaker
I should amend that to say I often will listen to Liz Lenz, who is a writer out of Iowa, who's phenomenal.
00:02:05
Speaker
But primarily, it's just been FDS.
00:02:07
Speaker
So from the days of Lilith, Roe, and Savannah, I mean, I hope we are honoring their legacy.
00:02:13
Speaker
Because
Core Mission of FDS
00:02:14
Speaker
when I tell you I did so much cooking and cleaning while listening to them and just going, yeah, yeah.
00:02:20
Speaker
oh, that's right, under my breath, right?
00:02:22
Speaker
Just like, I was like a little Greek chorus listening to them.
00:02:25
Speaker
And they're funny, and they're insightful, and they're just, I find them so inspiring.
00:02:29
Speaker
And so these are some really mighty footsteps to be following in, but I have
00:02:34
Speaker
the hopes that you and I are more than equal to the task, Jairo.
00:02:38
Speaker
I agree.
00:02:39
Speaker
I definitely feel like I'm walking in with the full confidence that we will do our very best and we'll make sure that this is a podcast that definitely offers valuable insight because I think that that's definitely what I needed at that time when I started listening to FDS.
00:02:55
Speaker
And just also, everyone who was on the Reddit group, they were so hysterically hilarious.
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:01
Speaker
that hearing the women who are behind it and then actually having them speak on a podcast, I think it just gave like the validation I needed.
00:03:09
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:03:09
Speaker
And another dimension, right?
00:03:11
Speaker
There's something that we get from reading and writing, and there's also something we get from listening.
00:03:16
Speaker
And so this is just the total package.
00:03:18
Speaker
They've really assembled a powerhouse of a brand, I guess you could say.
00:03:22
Speaker
Like it's a strategy.
00:03:23
Speaker
These are tools.
00:03:24
Speaker
These are techniques.
00:03:25
Speaker
This is not a cult.
00:03:26
Speaker
This is not an ideology.
00:03:28
Speaker
These are simply...
00:03:30
Speaker
learned experiences, lived experiences that we have amassed from across the globe, thanks to social media.
00:03:37
Speaker
And we put the dots together.
00:03:39
Speaker
We've really started to put the dots together.
00:03:41
Speaker
And we've decided, listen, all of the other techniques we've tried, you know, sexual liberation, second wave of feminism, pornography and OnlyFans, etc, etc.,
00:03:52
Speaker
it doesn't seem to be working very well for the majority of women.
00:03:54
Speaker
And so from all of this data that we've accrued, we've decided we need a new strategy.
Diversity of Perspectives
00:04:00
Speaker
And I really hope that this continues to be a place where women can come and hear truths that may be hard to hear, but that are so important for their health, their safety, and their future joy.
00:04:13
Speaker
Definitely.
00:04:15
Speaker
And I also think that, you know, Ro and Savannah have done such an excellent job with the new hosts as well, because we just have such a variety of perspectives.
00:04:23
Speaker
We just come from really different places.
00:04:26
Speaker
I mean, if anything, it's just convinced me that our aims are aligned and the things that we're going through are really similar.
00:04:32
Speaker
It really doesn't matter what part of the world you're in.
Significance of Female Friendships
00:04:35
Speaker
You know, misogyny, patriarchy, it affects all of us.
00:04:38
Speaker
I think we all grow up in a culture that tells us that our needs are just not as important.
00:04:42
Speaker
And it takes a lot of unlearning to actually assert yourself and be like, hey, you know what?
00:04:46
Speaker
I deserve better.
00:04:47
Speaker
I want to ask for more for my life and I shouldn't be made to feel guilty to do that.
00:04:53
Speaker
I couldn't agree more.
00:04:54
Speaker
I want to use the word you just mentioned, unlearning, to pivot into what we're going to discuss today, which is
00:05:02
Speaker
Female friendships.
00:05:03
Speaker
Yep.
00:05:04
Speaker
Unlearning, I think, is so important when it comes to female friendships because I think so much of what we're taught is a distorted and a twisted version of friendship that's contingent on patriarchal approval.
00:05:16
Speaker
How do we unlearn that?
00:05:17
Speaker
And then how do we pivot into a healthier, more flourishing kind of friendship?
00:05:22
Speaker
Let's go into it.
00:05:23
Speaker
Well, I think we first need to talk about the state of the union as it is right now.
00:05:28
Speaker
And I think that, you know, for a lot of people, they're kind of taught to value their friendships as a secondary thing.
00:05:35
Speaker
I think in the hierarchy of relationships, it goes probably family, romantic relationship, and then friends.
00:05:41
Speaker
And so a lot of women are groomed with this understanding that friendships are just very transient.
00:05:46
Speaker
They aren't actually that important or essential for your well-being.
00:05:49
Speaker
But reality and what you're taught are two different things.
00:05:53
Speaker
The reality is that a lot of women in relationships stand alone, and they're actually very reliant on their communities, which often include a lot of other women, in order to survive.
00:06:03
Speaker
When we look down on those relationships and we don't actually value the relationships that other women have in our lives, it actually leaves us a lot more isolated.
00:06:11
Speaker
which is the ultimate danger in being a woman, is it not?
00:06:14
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:06:16
Speaker
I think one aspect of it is to avoid isolation.
00:06:18
Speaker
And the other aspect of it is that we have to not buy into a scarcity mindset with any of our relationships.
00:06:24
Speaker
And that includes not just like your romantic ones, but your friendship as well.
00:06:28
Speaker
That's been a tough one for me because, you know, in my life, I have often, let me just say, I've never lacked for female friendships.
00:06:36
Speaker
That has been a constant in my life.
00:06:38
Speaker
It's been such a source of
00:06:40
Speaker
love and continuity and just having stability.
00:06:43
Speaker
On the flip side of that is that I've had so many awful friendships because those have been the primary means of me receiving validation, being heard, being a part of something, belonging to something, right?
00:06:57
Speaker
And as social animals, nothing is, we literally die if we don't belong somewhere.
00:07:01
Speaker
It is a primal instinct of ours.
00:07:04
Speaker
And if it is not satisfied, we will go to sometimes fatal lengths
00:07:09
Speaker
to see it satisfied.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yep.
00:07:12
Speaker
And we're social creatures at the end of the day.
00:07:14
Speaker
You know, we do need each other for survival.
00:07:16
Speaker
I kind of relate to you in that I've never starved for female friendships, but I think it took me a really long time to actually learn how to make good friends or how to let go of bad ones.
00:07:26
Speaker
How to let go of bad ones.
00:07:28
Speaker
I think, you know, as I went along, I did take in and learned and grew my skills as far as being a good friend and looking for those kinds of friends.
00:07:38
Speaker
But what I really struggled with was letting go of older friendships because I thought there was somehow a badge of honor.
00:07:44
Speaker
Oh, we've been friends for 25 years.
00:07:46
Speaker
We've been friends for 15 years.
00:07:48
Speaker
But you know what?
00:07:49
Speaker
If they're an addict and a liar and a hermit, is it actually a friendship that's worth bragging about?
00:07:54
Speaker
Is it a friendship that's even worth having at a certain point?
00:07:57
Speaker
And that's where I really struggled because you know what?
00:08:00
Speaker
I, to a certain extent, you had to betray me so profoundly in order for me to let go of this iron grip that I had on our friendship.
00:08:08
Speaker
And this has happened on multiple occasions with people who I swore were my soulmates.
00:08:13
Speaker
They were my sisters from other misters or my brothers from another mother.
00:08:18
Speaker
And it had to be a very profound betrayal for me to accept that it
Sunk Cost Fallacy in Relationships
00:08:23
Speaker
was time to move on.
00:08:23
Speaker
And so what I've been trying to learn now is how can I see the signs and honor them before it gets to that awful point?
00:08:33
Speaker
Because I'm just traumatizing myself at that point.
00:08:35
Speaker
Right.
00:08:36
Speaker
And that's the last thing I want, because I want it to understand and honor that my friendship is so valuable that others will continue to take from it, even if they don't value me as a person.
00:08:47
Speaker
And so if I allow that to be dishonored and disvalued, then going forward, I'm not able to bring the fullness of myself to those who are worthy of it.
00:08:57
Speaker
Totally.
00:08:58
Speaker
It's really hard, I think, to let go of old friendships.
00:09:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:01
Speaker
I think part of it is also just that the longer you've been with someone, it's kind of like any other kind of relationship where you kind of fixate on the good at the expense of the bad.
00:09:10
Speaker
And I think a lot of people place a lot of store by how long a relationship is, as opposed to how good a relationship is.
00:09:17
Speaker
And this is even in dating, right?
00:09:18
Speaker
Like whenever you hear about like a successful marriage, you're like, oh, the two of them have been together for like 50 years.
00:09:25
Speaker
But also the relationship is like shit.
00:09:28
Speaker
So what's the point?
00:09:28
Speaker
I don't want to be spending 50 years of my life with a guy who's a total scrote.
00:09:35
Speaker
And I don't want to spend decades of my life with women who don't champion me and don't challenge me and don't want the best for me.
00:09:42
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:09:43
Speaker
And I think I first learned of this term from Reddit, the sunk cost fallacy.
00:09:48
Speaker
Is that not what we're discussing right now?
00:09:50
Speaker
Yes.
00:09:51
Speaker
It's actually an economic principle.
00:09:53
Speaker
I think they teach it to econ majors.
00:09:56
Speaker
But in case the listeners don't know what we're talking about, would you like to give an explanation for the sunk cost fallacy?
00:10:03
Speaker
Well, I'm no economist, but yes, I would love to, Diana.
00:10:06
Speaker
I mean, from what I understand, the sunk cost fallacy is because I put X amount of time, energy, sweat into this situation or this person,
00:10:15
Speaker
I may as well keep going because if I cut and run now, I will have lost all of that time and investment.
00:10:23
Speaker
Exactly.
00:10:24
Speaker
And it's what keeps people trapped in bad situations.
00:10:28
Speaker
As well as friendship.
00:10:29
Speaker
As well as business.
00:10:31
Speaker
So yeah, I'm right.
00:10:33
Speaker
Thank you business people for giving us something that's actually a value.
00:10:36
Speaker
But so, you know, with all this being said, like you mentioned, learning how to let go of
00:10:43
Speaker
learning how to unlearn some of the harmful practices we've been taught.
00:10:47
Speaker
I mean, I really think oftentimes jealousy is, you know, this whole idea that women are catty and women can't be true friends and they're always scheming and trying to get somebody else's husband or boyfriend.
00:10:59
Speaker
I don't think that's accurate.
00:11:01
Speaker
I think there are some kernels of truth because patriarchy has taught us that there is a scarcity mindset.
00:11:06
Speaker
There's only one winner and it has to be at the detriment of all the women around you because what is the prize?
00:11:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:34
Speaker
A lot of people can commiserate in misery.
00:11:36
Speaker
And a lot of people gain a lot from you thinking less of yourself.
00:11:41
Speaker
It's when you start leveling up in your life and making changes that you'll see who's actually there for you and
Building Healthy Friendships
00:11:46
Speaker
who isn't.
00:11:46
Speaker
Because the friends who are true friends will support you at every stage of your life, right?
00:11:50
Speaker
Whether you're going through a dark period, whether you're going through a really good glow up period, they're going to be there for you because their love is consistent.
00:11:57
Speaker
Their support is consistent.
00:11:59
Speaker
That is such a hard truth.
00:12:00
Speaker
That is such a hard truth.
00:12:02
Speaker
In fact, this is something that has really, I love that you mentioned a family member because I think this is the real shaky ground for a lot of us.
00:12:12
Speaker
Because if you're lucky, you have wonderful aunts, a mother, cousins who show you what it is to just love you.
00:12:19
Speaker
No matter what period of life you're in, they love you, they care for you, they're rooting for you.
00:12:24
Speaker
But what happens if you have, for example, in my case, a sister who is terribly insecure and jealous of you?
00:12:32
Speaker
What do you do with that?
00:12:33
Speaker
You know, right before I ended a friendship with someone recently, a week before I ended that friendship, I told her, I have like maybe just one really big deal breaker in friendships and it's insecurity.
00:12:46
Speaker
A person who isn't happy with themselves, who's deeply insecure, their insecurity is going to rub off on you in some way.
00:12:52
Speaker
They're going to project on you in some way.
00:12:54
Speaker
And I think she kept it under wraps for a really long time.
00:12:57
Speaker
But I think like this year was really when it started cracking.
00:13:00
Speaker
And it was really hard for me to admit that that was what was going on, because I think it also just feels really icky to think of your friends as like people who are secretly competing with you, secretly jealous of you.
00:13:11
Speaker
I mean, it kind of feels very arrogant or very like, you know, oh, who the hell do I think I am?
00:13:17
Speaker
My friends are so jealous of me.
00:13:19
Speaker
But it's really hard to admit.
00:13:21
Speaker
It's really hard to admit that someone that you really love, someone who's near and dear to you, might actually be jealous of you and are acting, like, you know, just acting in a way that's very self-sabotaging.
00:13:32
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:13:33
Speaker
This is almost two-pronged, this situation right here, because one, things are cracking because why?
00:13:39
Speaker
Because things are looking up in your life.
00:13:41
Speaker
But two, here's the flip side of that.
00:13:43
Speaker
Do you dare to have the audacity to accept the fact that you are fabulous and
00:13:48
Speaker
I'm going somewhere because that I think feels even harder than accepting the icky feeling of a friend being jealous.
00:13:56
Speaker
Yes.
00:13:57
Speaker
And I also think it comes down to having somewhat of a strong sense of self-worth.
00:14:01
Speaker
I think even at my worst chapters of my life, I still had this inherent belief that I was of value, even if I wasn't doing something that was like super awesome for humanity.
00:14:11
Speaker
You know, I think a lot of us because of capitalism have this idea that unless we're like productive 24-7, we have very little value to the world.
00:14:19
Speaker
But I think that I will always walk to this confidence that I just have inherent value, that I'm intelligent, that I'm bright, that I'm smart, that I'm hot, whatever it is.
00:14:29
Speaker
You know, I think it's a privilege to be friends with me.
00:14:32
Speaker
And I think that I go all in for my friendships as well.
00:14:34
Speaker
I'm very much a ride or die person for friendships.
00:14:37
Speaker
So I know what I bring into my relationships.
00:14:40
Speaker
But I think that, you know, if I look at the example of this past friend of mine, they were dealing with some insecurities that like they're spending a lot more energy in repressing the insecurity and pretending like it didn't really exist than to actually work on those insecurities and reach a place where they felt comfortable with themselves and where they acknowledge that, hey, you know what, I may have my stupid moments.
00:15:01
Speaker
but I'm actually quite right.
00:15:03
Speaker
I think they spent a lot more time pretending it didn't exist.
00:15:05
Speaker
And so a lot of their feelings of resentment and animosity towards me as my life started taking off was like just a reluctance to look in the mirror.
00:15:14
Speaker
Because really, I don't think that they were unhappy that I was doing well.
00:15:17
Speaker
I think they were just unhappy with their own selves and projecting that on me because they were like, well, how does she get to be so confident?
00:15:23
Speaker
And I don't.
00:15:24
Speaker
Without realizing it took a lot of work for me to get to that point.
00:15:28
Speaker
I think this idea of being clear-sighted, it's so simple.
00:15:31
Speaker
And I think that is what we humans struggle with the most.
00:15:34
Speaker
I think the simple is where we're like, no, it has to be complicated.
00:15:37
Speaker
It has to be profound and nuanced and complex and sophisticated.
00:15:41
Speaker
There's no way that it happens.
00:15:43
Speaker
The answer is as simple as looking in the mirror, right?
00:15:47
Speaker
That almost feels like it's a cheat.
00:15:49
Speaker
But I really think when it comes to the human psyche, a lot of what it boils down to is the simplest premise, looking in the mirror.
00:15:57
Speaker
being honest with oneself, accepting that we are human.
00:16:01
Speaker
And if we're not able to really look at those base levels of human awareness, of self-reflection, I think that's where it really impedes our ability to be a friend and to find the friends that are going to do what you mentioned before, uplift us, root for us, be there for the banal as well as for the brilliant.
Recognizing and Setting Boundaries
00:16:21
Speaker
Yep.
00:16:22
Speaker
And I think that, you know, the kinds of red flags that we tell women to look out for in their romantic relationships are very applicable to friendships as well.
00:16:30
Speaker
You know, don't attach yourself to an insecure man, because he's going to try to derive his sense of self worth from you.
00:16:36
Speaker
And when you start succeeding, he's going to find ways to pull you down.
00:16:39
Speaker
This is very true in friendship as well.
00:16:41
Speaker
I think a lot of us try to be very forgiving.
00:16:43
Speaker
We're like, oh yeah, everyone has insecurities.
00:16:46
Speaker
Everyone doesn't feel great.
00:16:47
Speaker
But there's a difference between feeling off a few days as opposed to that being like a state of being.
00:16:53
Speaker
Like this person is perpetually miserable, always insecure, always creating drama out of nothing.
00:17:00
Speaker
You know, those are red flags, right?
00:17:03
Speaker
For me, there's like a lot of deal breakers that I have now in friendships where the second I see that I'm like, okay, yeah, I can't.
00:17:09
Speaker
I just can't.
00:17:10
Speaker
I can't do that.
00:17:12
Speaker
I think that's so important.
00:17:13
Speaker
Let's hop onto that because what we were talking about right before we started was how are friendships important to our lives?
00:17:19
Speaker
It is just as essential in our leveling up journey that our friendships be solid, if not spectacular, in order for us to progress in the ways we want to progress.
00:17:29
Speaker
And it is this principle of leveling up on all levels in every aspect of your life.
00:17:35
Speaker
I would argue that friendship is even more important than romantic love because
00:17:40
Speaker
If you are in a situation where you are with a scrote, you're married to him, you have children with him, you've been dating him for eight years, you're still waiting for the rain.
00:17:49
Speaker
If you do not have at least one or two wonderful girlfriends to be the strength and the shoulder that you need to lean on in order to extricate yourself, you never will.
00:18:00
Speaker
And so this idea that, what did you say in the message thread?
00:18:04
Speaker
You were saying, we are the sum total of the five people closest to us.
00:18:08
Speaker
Yeah, we are like the sum total of the five closest people to us.
00:18:11
Speaker
And also, when you think about that, it's also that every single person in your life is really a mirror of your own personal values.
00:18:18
Speaker
You're friends with them for a certain reason, besides just length of time.
00:18:22
Speaker
Also, I think sometimes it can be a red flag if all of your friends are people you've known since childhood, because what that's telling me is you haven't really evolved that much.
Leveling Up in Life
00:18:30
Speaker
You've stayed in the comfortable.
00:18:31
Speaker
Getting to know new people takes a risk.
00:18:34
Speaker
It doesn't mean that it's always going to work out and that you're going to have like a new BFF.
00:18:38
Speaker
But I think that choosing to be vulnerable, choosing to form new friendships, whatever it is, it's going to take a lot of risk.
00:18:46
Speaker
And a lot of people don't want to do that.
00:18:47
Speaker
So a lot of people stay in this really comfortable space where they just stay with friends that they've known since kindergarten, and they don't evolve because those people are stuck in time.
00:18:54
Speaker
Oh, that's such a good point.
00:18:56
Speaker
I mean, there's the comfort, there's also the familiarity.
00:18:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:58
Speaker
And there's the safety because I think the risk is something that we're risk averse.
00:19:02
Speaker
We've had to be.
00:19:03
Speaker
I mean, it's inbred over millennia to avoid risks.
00:19:06
Speaker
It's why we're alive, right?
00:19:07
Speaker
It's our ancestors stayed alive long enough for us to come into existence.
00:19:12
Speaker
And I just wanted to bring up like another point.
00:19:14
Speaker
You know, when we talk about leveling up to our audience, like it's not going to be like a Princess Diaries movie with a fun makeover and a cute song.
00:19:26
Speaker
You know, leveling up is deeply uncomfortable.
00:19:30
Speaker
if you've been on the wrong path for a really long time.
00:19:33
Speaker
It requires a lot of breaking of patterns, a lot of letting go of relationships, a lot of just stopping the things that are self-destructive.
00:19:39
Speaker
And that's never comfortable.
00:19:41
Speaker
Because a lot of those things are coping mechanisms that you've done to survive.
00:19:44
Speaker
And in order to thrive, you're going to have to let go of those things that don't work for you.
00:19:49
Speaker
Oh boy, that's been my journey.
00:19:51
Speaker
I would argue in the last, since I was fortunate enough to find a wonderful therapist who was affordable, which in the United States is
00:19:58
Speaker
is a privilege, right?
00:20:00
Speaker
It's not guaranteed.
00:20:01
Speaker
And my heart goes on to people who don't simply have the access to a one simple relationship.
00:20:07
Speaker
Because here's the thing with my friendships, you know, let me just be honest and forthright.
00:20:12
Speaker
I'm a very friendly person from the Midwest.
00:20:15
Speaker
It's a whole thing here being Midwest nice.
00:20:18
Speaker
And one of the things that FDS has really helped point out to me is how strategic use of ruthlessness or meanness is required to
00:20:28
Speaker
in being a woman in this world.
00:20:30
Speaker
And that is also what my therapist taught me.
00:20:32
Speaker
And that might surprise people who don't have experience with therapists, a good therapist, because my therapist was able to point out to me, I was being walked all over.
00:20:42
Speaker
I was being a, you know, a people pleaser.
00:20:44
Speaker
And what do you call somebody who you step all over a doormat?
00:20:48
Speaker
I was being an absolute doormat.
00:20:50
Speaker
And it was bringing me down on every single level of my life.
00:20:53
Speaker
And she just couldn't understand.
00:20:55
Speaker
She's like, you're such a wonderful person, Rose.
00:20:57
Speaker
Thank you.
00:20:58
Speaker
therapist, by the way, for being so funny.
00:21:00
Speaker
She's like, you're such a wonderful person.
00:21:01
Speaker
You're this, you're that.
00:21:03
Speaker
There are some things that you're so exceptional in, and I do not understand how you cannot value yourself and how you allow your sister, your father, your brothers, your friends to act like you don't have any value.
00:21:16
Speaker
Where is your self-respect?
00:21:18
Speaker
And that is what I like about therapists because this neutrality means, unlike a friend who is supposed to either be on your side or is a backstabber,
00:21:27
Speaker
they will absolutely tell you exactly what you don't want to hear because it's what you've been hiding from, right?
00:21:33
Speaker
You're like, why can't it go?
00:21:34
Speaker
Why isn't this going right in my life?
00:21:36
Speaker
What is it going to be my turn?
00:21:38
Speaker
Like I've done everything right.
00:21:39
Speaker
I've checked off all the boxes.
00:21:41
Speaker
I've been the good, obedient little girl turned, you know, professional business woman.
00:21:46
Speaker
And yet I'm so deeply unhappy with my life.
00:21:49
Speaker
Where did I go wrong?
00:21:50
Speaker
Well,
00:21:51
Speaker
My therapist ended up pointing out it was in my people pleasing.
00:21:54
Speaker
It was in the fact that I would not, and I refused to recuse myself from the lives of people who could really care less about me, but who only cared about what they could extract from me, what they could take.
00:22:06
Speaker
And I think this is very common across the board for women because we are taught that in order to be of worth, of value, we have to be givers.
Intrinsic Value vs. Productivity
00:22:15
Speaker
We have to be the ones who make sure that the meetups happen, that the birthday celebrations happen.
00:22:20
Speaker
go on, that Christmas is magical every year, right?
00:22:23
Speaker
We are required to do so many things in order to fill these quotas in order to be considered a good woman.
00:22:30
Speaker
And that is to our detriment.
00:22:31
Speaker
Because like you say, Diana, that intersects in a very poisonous way with capitalism.
00:22:37
Speaker
You have to be productive.
00:22:38
Speaker
You have to show your worth through productivity and sweat and sacrifice.
00:22:43
Speaker
And, you know, there are various Native American tribes here in North America where it
00:22:49
Speaker
I've read, they say things like, we are meant to be beautiful and alive, like nature is beautiful and alive.
00:22:55
Speaker
We're not meant to do anything other than live.
00:22:59
Speaker
And so I know that is so radical for so many who are in this like capitalist hellscape of neoliberalism.
00:23:06
Speaker
And I think it's very radical, which is something that I love about FBS as well.
00:23:09
Speaker
This radical belief that you are simply enough because you're breathing.
00:23:13
Speaker
Right?
00:23:14
Speaker
That's it.
00:23:15
Speaker
Yep.
00:23:15
Speaker
I always tell myself now, like, you know, don't wait to celebrate yourself.
00:23:20
Speaker
Like don't wait to have other people to celebrate yourself.
00:23:23
Speaker
You should enjoy your life, whether there are people around or not.
00:23:26
Speaker
I think a lot of us associate being nice with being kind.
00:23:30
Speaker
And it's not the same.
00:23:31
Speaker
Don't get me started on this, Diana, because I'm such a proponent of kindness.
00:23:35
Speaker
And I absolutely detest niceness.
00:23:37
Speaker
Niceness to me, it's anemic.
00:23:40
Speaker
It's a cover.
00:23:41
Speaker
It's a shield for those who have no other personality traits.
00:23:45
Speaker
And it allows them to simply be a part of society and reap all the benefits without doing anything tangibly positive.
00:23:53
Speaker
It's just the absence of negativity.
00:23:55
Speaker
And that to me is still the absence of positivity.
00:23:58
Speaker
And so kindness is fundamental.
00:24:01
Speaker
Niceness is highly suspect.
00:24:02
Speaker
That's what I always say.
Genuine Kindness vs. Superficial Niceness
00:24:04
Speaker
You know what?
00:24:04
Speaker
I just want to add like this really fun segue.
00:24:07
Speaker
So I work in the entertainment industry and sometimes I help people develop their scripts.
00:24:13
Speaker
And I remember one time I was in this writer's room where there was this guy who had like this like old Hollywood story.
00:24:18
Speaker
And he had this character, this female character who was just so boring.
00:24:23
Speaker
And I remember he asked us a question like me and this other woman who were on the team.
00:24:27
Speaker
He was like, what if her superpower is just that she's really nice?
00:24:31
Speaker
And I remember this woman's like a badass response.
00:24:36
Speaker
And she was like, nice means nothing.
00:24:40
Speaker
Nice is the bare minimum.
00:24:43
Speaker
Nice is what you say when you have nothing else to add.
00:24:46
Speaker
Like that table is nice.
00:24:48
Speaker
It's the most bland of attributes.
00:24:51
Speaker
It is not a quality.
00:24:52
Speaker
It is just the bare minimum.
00:24:54
Speaker
It's like, what if this person's superpower is being really polite?
00:24:58
Speaker
Well, it's a social nicety.
00:25:01
Speaker
That's all it is.
00:25:02
Speaker
It indicates absolutely nothing about one's character.
00:25:05
Speaker
Kindness on the other hand is gold.
00:25:07
Speaker
And sometimes doing someone a kindness is actually being real with them and telling them what they don't want to hear.
00:25:13
Speaker
I argue that a good friend won't always enable your bullshit.
00:25:17
Speaker
I think sometimes we're really nice to other people to avoid dealing with ourselves as well.
00:25:21
Speaker
I certainly feel like in the past, you know, I would know that I had all this like shit to attend to to get my life in order.
00:25:28
Speaker
And I'd procrastinate on it.
00:25:29
Speaker
And the way I would do that, you know, besides like cleaning my house for like the 10th time, or like baking something that I didn't need to bake.
00:25:36
Speaker
or just starting a project that was totally unnecessary, was I would throw myself all into my friendships and try to help my friends reach their goals.
00:25:44
Speaker
And then I would have like this weird level of animosity for them when they weren't like kissing the ground and being grateful that I was helping them with something that they didn't even really ask for help with.
00:25:52
Speaker
And like, that's when I had to call myself out because I was like, yeah, you're helping them in the hopes that they will praise you for it.
00:25:59
Speaker
But it's actually a way for you to avoid dealing with your own shit.
00:26:02
Speaker
Because you got shit to be dealing with yourself, you know?
00:26:05
Speaker
And so sometimes you have to ask yourself, are you helping them because they asked?
00:26:08
Speaker
Or are you helping them because you're trying to avoid dealing with bullshit on your own?
00:26:13
Speaker
That's a real tough.
00:26:14
Speaker
And that also has to deal with risk because it can be a risk to say something out of kindness, out of love to someone who might be doing something harmful.
00:26:23
Speaker
Because you very well could lose that friendship.
00:26:25
Speaker
Like if somebody's with, you know, I've lost various friendships because I've often been the truth teller.
00:26:30
Speaker
And it's never been from a place of, you know, smugness or condescension, but rather like, this is a last resort.
00:26:37
Speaker
I can't stop myself from saying this at this point, but I'm really concerned about X, Y, Z. But I think that is also a testament to you and your own value in friendships.
00:26:47
Speaker
What kind of friend do you want to be?
00:26:49
Speaker
Listen, you can go out and that doesn't mean it's a risk, right?
00:26:52
Speaker
Going out there and being friendly and trying to be a friend.
00:26:56
Speaker
It doesn't mean that like you're automatically going to have a bestie served up on a silver platter.
Post-Pandemic Loneliness and Connection
00:27:00
Speaker
It's quite the opposite.
00:27:01
Speaker
But I have a nephew who he's never really had a lot of friendships.
00:27:06
Speaker
And, you know, he'll ask me like, well, why do you have so many friends?
00:27:09
Speaker
And I'm like, well, if you want to have a friend, you got to be a friend.
00:27:12
Speaker
And so one of the ways I tell them to practice simply being friendly is how often does he have small talk with the postal service worker?
00:27:23
Speaker
How often does he have a little conversation with the grocery store clerk as he's checking out?
00:27:28
Speaker
You know, does he ever actually talk to the grandma who's sitting on a bench in the park, who's looking like she could really use a friendly ear?
00:27:36
Speaker
I mean, the point is, we go by people all day long who could be the best of friends.
00:27:40
Speaker
We don't have time, obviously.
00:27:41
Speaker
There's a bandwidth that we all have.
00:27:43
Speaker
But the point is, it's a practice of being friendly, of being a friend, even in the smallest of moments.
00:27:50
Speaker
And, you know, now when I go into the grocery store or I go to the United States Postal Service office, the kind of service that I've given, the kind of
00:27:58
Speaker
quality of interaction and FaceTime that I get, even just those few seconds or minutes, it fills my heart.
00:28:05
Speaker
People are so grateful when you show them the smallest of kindnesses.
00:28:09
Speaker
And I think if you can build your life from that sort of level of being decent, looking people in the eye, listening when they have something to say, I think what will happen is that it's like an investment that just yields dividends over the course of your life.
00:28:26
Speaker
I agree.
00:28:27
Speaker
And I think that there's another really important reason, you know, we're having this discussion now and today is because I think post pandemic, you know, we've heard about how men are going through a lonely loneliness crisis.
00:28:38
Speaker
And I don't think it's just men.
00:28:41
Speaker
I think that's, yeah, I mean, men are lonely for entirely different reasons.
00:28:47
Speaker
But I do think that society as a whole is getting a lot lonelier because I mean, there's many factors, you know, we can get into that some other day.
00:28:54
Speaker
But I think that, you know, post pandemic, we were all just really isolated.
00:28:58
Speaker
And then getting back into it, it was really confusing and hard to figure out how to make new connections.
00:29:04
Speaker
You know, I think for me, like after COVID, I went through like a long period of isolation.
00:29:09
Speaker
And I'm a really social person.
00:29:10
Speaker
So I don't struggle to make friends.
00:29:12
Speaker
Like there was such a long period where I wasn't meeting anyone that before I went on a trip, you know, a couple of months ago, I remember telling a friend of mine, like one of my close friends that I was like, oh my God, like what if I've lost all ability to be social?
00:29:24
Speaker
Like what if I'm like an absolute awkward weirdo now?
00:29:27
Speaker
Like what if I just don't know how to talk to human beings?
00:29:31
Speaker
And then I went on the trip and it was fine.
00:29:33
Speaker
But I built it up in my head so much because I had so much anxiety and apprehension about going on this trip because it's just been such a long time.
Travel and Social Growth
00:29:40
Speaker
And so I think, you know, all of us as we're getting more insular and just more, you know, focused on our jobs and nothing in society really encourages third spaces and community building.
00:29:49
Speaker
And this is worldwide.
00:29:49
Speaker
Like, I mean, I feel this in South Asia.
00:29:51
Speaker
I feel this in East Asia.
00:29:53
Speaker
I've been to Europe and like the US, I've stayed there too.
00:29:55
Speaker
And I'm telling you, it's everywhere.
00:29:57
Speaker
It's not like just a Western thing.
00:30:00
Speaker
Yes.
00:30:00
Speaker
And I think what you're pointing out is how with time, anxiety keeps building.
00:30:06
Speaker
What if we start to catastrophize?
00:30:07
Speaker
You know, we spend our lives online and Lord knows that's a cesspool.
00:30:11
Speaker
And so we become, I think, very defensive.
00:30:14
Speaker
We become closed off.
00:30:16
Speaker
We are trying to avert any and all disaster.
00:30:20
Speaker
But that also means that you're cutting yourself off from all human communication and human connection.
00:30:25
Speaker
And so I think to our listeners who are struggling with this, and I know for women especially, this can be hard because
00:30:30
Speaker
we are the ones who get murdered, right?
00:30:32
Speaker
We are the ones who are assaulted and we are the ones who are most at risk in society.
00:30:38
Speaker
And so we have been taught being a woman in the world can be terribly frightening.
00:30:42
Speaker
Honestly, I mean, and this is something where I think we have been exceptional in that we both lived overseas for extended periods of time.
00:30:50
Speaker
Am I right?
00:30:53
Speaker
And I'm in my forties.
00:30:55
Speaker
And when I started to travel alone in my twenties and for the youths,
00:30:59
Speaker
This might interest you to know that that was pre-cell phone.
00:31:02
Speaker
I was traveling without cell phone.
00:31:04
Speaker
I had no GPS.
00:31:06
Speaker
I had to go to local stores that would rent computers by order increments in order to have email or Skype.
00:31:15
Speaker
And so when I started to travel like this, people lost their shit.
00:31:19
Speaker
They were so sure that I was going to be kidnapped or trafficked.
00:31:24
Speaker
And this is a reality for many people.
00:31:27
Speaker
Don't get me wrong.
00:31:28
Speaker
But
00:31:29
Speaker
I think I couldn't understand why people were so hesitant.
00:31:33
Speaker
As I've gotten older, I understand because I've seen the realities of the world.
00:31:37
Speaker
But if I had allowed all those fears and anxieties to keep me from traveling, I would have missed formative experiences in my life.
00:31:45
Speaker
I would have missed learning that you can find the most wonderful of people and the most unlikely of places.
00:31:52
Speaker
And so that was the ability to travel allowed me to
00:31:57
Speaker
talk to anybody I was compelled to.
00:31:59
Speaker
If I didn't know where somewhere was and I was lost, I had to ask the shopkeepers.
00:32:03
Speaker
I had to ask somebody sitting at the bus stop in other languages, no less.
00:32:08
Speaker
And that really sort of built up this muscle of just being willing to talk to people.
00:32:13
Speaker
And so I think with the rise of social media and digital technology, et cetera, what we've forgotten is just the simple social niceties, right?
00:32:22
Speaker
Hi, how are you, et cetera.
00:32:23
Speaker
I know it sounds so, so simple and so basic,
00:32:26
Speaker
But I really think a lot of people forget that these are the building blocks of sociality and sociability writ large.
00:32:33
Speaker
And that's what we need most at this moment, I think, in societies.
00:32:36
Speaker
We need to be talking to one another.
00:32:38
Speaker
Now, we also have to develop that discernment to cut things off at the first sight of disrespect or disorder, right?
00:32:46
Speaker
So many people are disordered.
00:32:47
Speaker
So many men are porn sick and looking for any interaction that is an excuse to jack off to later.
00:32:54
Speaker
But
00:32:54
Speaker
There are also so many other people who are just so happy to have seen a friendly, smiling human face that looked them in the eye, that acknowledged that they were there.
00:33:03
Speaker
And there is a magic in that, that I worry we are losing out on that magic because we allow our fears to rule our lives.
00:33:11
Speaker
Yep.
00:33:12
Speaker
And I think that this is also a generational difference as well.
00:33:15
Speaker
Because, you know, I'm kind of like on the cusp.
00:33:17
Speaker
And so for me, like I grew up in an era that was completely analog and then became super digital.
00:33:23
Speaker
And I think for a lot of people, most of their friendships are made online.
00:33:27
Speaker
I think especially for Gen Z, they're starting to form a lot of community online.
00:33:31
Speaker
And I think that that is affecting how they meet in person.
00:33:33
Speaker
Like, I don't think it's enough to just connect with people online as awesome as FDS was and as awesome as it was to read all these stories on Reddit that like affirmed the experiences I had dating.
00:33:43
Speaker
It can never substitute in-person connection.
00:33:46
Speaker
And I think that was what I was really missing in my life.
Cultural Impact on Relationships
00:33:49
Speaker
And so when I, you know, took my trips and when I traveled, I found that and also I found it really difficult to find friends in my own hometown because the values were just different.
00:33:58
Speaker
And that's because I was raised really differently.
00:34:00
Speaker
And so like most of the people here didn't have the kind of upbringing or the kind of lifestyle I had.
00:34:04
Speaker
So it was really hard to find people who had very similar values.
00:34:08
Speaker
And I had to get out of my country in order to like find those people.
00:34:11
Speaker
But I think that I'm so glad I took that risk because I did find those people.
00:34:15
Speaker
And now I have people everywhere.
00:34:16
Speaker
May I ask, how was your upbringing different from the locals?
00:34:20
Speaker
So, you know, I didn't go to like a traditional South Asian school.
00:34:25
Speaker
I didn't study.
00:34:26
Speaker
I'm trying to be very careful because I don't want to give away too much because it might identify me more.
00:34:31
Speaker
But let's just say that my cultural upbringing wasn't native to the people around me.
00:34:36
Speaker
Like the way that they went to school, the kind of family structure they had,
00:34:40
Speaker
the kinds of friends they've made, the kinds of value system they were raised with.
00:34:44
Speaker
Like it was very, very South Asian.
00:34:46
Speaker
And I think I grew up in a very American environment.
00:34:48
Speaker
Like I was surrounded by Americans.
00:34:51
Speaker
My family was filled with people who were like all these like mixed experiences, you know, just a lot of connections abroad.
00:34:57
Speaker
And so for me, it was really difficult to relate to like the average person in my country because most people don't leave.
00:35:02
Speaker
Like the way I would describe it is like if you came from like a really small town in the Midwest, you know, and like nobody in your hometown ever left.
00:35:10
Speaker
And like you have these dreams of like being in the big city and go to New York or whatever.
00:35:14
Speaker
And almost everyone in your family was like a former New Yorker, a former Londoner or something.
00:35:18
Speaker
You know, you'd feel really different from the people who grew up from like a random part of the Midwest, you know?
00:35:23
Speaker
So it's kind of like that.
00:35:25
Speaker
So you had a more cosmopolitan upbringing?
00:35:28
Speaker
Yes, yes, for sure.
00:35:29
Speaker
And I think it definitely affected my value system.
00:35:32
Speaker
I'm curious to ask, and please cut this short if this is inappropriate, because
00:35:37
Speaker
Or stereotypical, because from what I understand about Southeast Asia, there's a caste system.
00:35:42
Speaker
Is there not?
00:35:43
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:35:44
Speaker
So were you brought up essentially outside and beyond of the caste system?
00:35:49
Speaker
No, no, no, no, no.
00:35:50
Speaker
So I occupied like the upper echelon of the caste system.
00:35:54
Speaker
Caste and class are very intertwined.
00:35:56
Speaker
Let me put it that way.
00:35:58
Speaker
So you can belong to a certain caste and have a really poor upbringing, but then because of your caste, you still hold a lot of power.
00:36:06
Speaker
Like the upper echelon of the caste system, the ones who live abroad and the ones who have like, you know, an absolutely foreign upbringing, they're not able to connect to the rest of the country at all because that's not the way that most people live their lives.
00:36:17
Speaker
Like, for example, you know, I grew up in an American Protestant environment.
00:36:21
Speaker
That was not the norm.
00:36:23
Speaker
Yes.
00:36:24
Speaker
Wow.
00:36:24
Speaker
Interesting.
00:36:25
Speaker
Hmm.
00:36:26
Speaker
I'm not going to sit over here and pretend I'm not from a privileged group because I'm actually from a very privileged group.
00:36:32
Speaker
But I think that belonging to that privileged group actually put me at odds with the vast majority
Education: Liberation and Isolation
00:36:36
Speaker
of the country.
00:36:36
Speaker
Well, that is so interesting because I find, like you say, there's caste, there's class, there's privilege, and there's the flip side of privilege, especially, I would argue, if you are a woman, even more so if you are a Black or Brown or Indigenous woman, right?
00:36:51
Speaker
I mean, there are all these different levels of intersection, but...
00:36:54
Speaker
I would argue that education is often this sort of double-edged sword for women because how long would we have access to education, right?
00:37:01
Speaker
Some can measure in single-digit years.
00:37:04
Speaker
Here in the U.S., I would argue maybe 120 years, maybe 150.
00:37:09
Speaker
And please, listeners, if you have a better historical understanding of this country than I, please feel free to correct me lovingly.
00:37:15
Speaker
And so I wasn't even a small-town girl.
00:37:19
Speaker
I was a country girl.
00:37:20
Speaker
Our nearest neighbors were kilometers away, and they were all farmers.
00:37:24
Speaker
And the closest small town where I went to school was just about 8 kilometers, 12 miles from our home.
00:37:33
Speaker
And that's to this day is a town of 783 people.
00:37:37
Speaker
So I'm coming from the Heartland Farm, Quartfields.
00:37:42
Speaker
And I've always been a voracious reader.
00:37:45
Speaker
And I had such wonderful librarians.
00:37:47
Speaker
Shout out to all the librarians of the world, especially with all the
00:37:51
Speaker
shit they're dealing with in the U.S. these days was like banning books and whatnot.
00:37:54
Speaker
Oh my God, Weimar Germany, part due.
00:37:57
Speaker
But these librarians were so wonderful to me.
00:38:01
Speaker
They never made me pay back all the late fees and fines that I accrued because it was very difficult for me to get to the library.
00:38:07
Speaker
It was very difficult for me to return books on time because I would have to beg and wheedle and plead and scheme in order to get to the library because it wasn't down the block.
00:38:15
Speaker
It was literally down, you know,
00:38:18
Speaker
country mile roads in the middle of winter.
00:38:20
Speaker
So oftentimes I would have late feasts.
00:38:22
Speaker
They always let them slide.
00:38:24
Speaker
They would suggest books.
00:38:25
Speaker
We formed our own sort of book club.
00:38:27
Speaker
And very quickly I realized the interests I had, the language I used, it was not how others talked and spoke and thought or even speak or think to this day in those areas.
00:38:42
Speaker
And so education to me was both liberatory and
00:38:46
Speaker
A bit of a solitude.
00:38:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:49
Speaker
I definitely think that that was a value that my family had as well.
00:38:53
Speaker
Like I mentioned, you know, I'm from like a Hindu majority country and my parents were raised in that environment as well.
00:38:58
Speaker
But I think they just wanted better for me and they wanted me to have really good education.
00:39:02
Speaker
And so that was always their focus.
00:39:04
Speaker
But as a result, I grew up around a lot of wasps, which is not exactly the norm for people from my background in my country, you know?
00:39:13
Speaker
And so, you know, it definitely gave me a leg up in life.
00:39:15
Speaker
I'm not going to be like it didn't, but at a price.
00:39:18
Speaker
And the price was that it really isolated me from my culture and it made it very difficult for me to be able to relate to like the average person in my country.
00:39:25
Speaker
You know, and I mean, I can't say that anyone can relate to the average person in the country because it's such a diverse country.
00:39:30
Speaker
But it just like, you know, it already put me at great odds with other people because I didn't have a similar background to them at all.
00:39:37
Speaker
I think this is such a fascinating glimpse into your life, Diana.
00:39:40
Speaker
Thank you for being willing to give us a little bit of that information.
00:39:43
Speaker
I've never heard of such an experience in Southeast Asia, so I'm just absolutely fascinated.
00:39:47
Speaker
I've heard a lot more about the immigrant experience, etc.
00:39:50
Speaker
But to have that within the confines of your, the boundaries of your country, how interesting.
00:39:56
Speaker
It was the reverse immigrant experience.
00:39:58
Speaker
Instead of me being the only brown person in a white country, there were white people in my country.
00:40:04
Speaker
That is so interesting.
00:40:05
Speaker
But so you might feel like this is not applicable to our listeners.
00:40:09
Speaker
And maybe mine is also not applicable to our listeners in that it was such a small slice of a life.
00:40:14
Speaker
But I think we can extrapolate these themes of being surrounded by people who maybe have different values, especially if we're looking for other women.
00:40:22
Speaker
Yes.
00:40:23
Speaker
I will say that, you know, in my upbringing, because I grew up in a really international community, everyone was really different from each other.
00:40:30
Speaker
You know, I grew up with like Korean people, Japanese people, Thai people, like a lot of different kinds of Asians, a lot of different kinds of Western societies, like, you know, Canadians, British people, Irish, Americans.
00:40:42
Speaker
So I kind of had the full spectrum.
00:40:44
Speaker
You know, I mean, we had people from like the Caribbean, like Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe,
00:40:50
Speaker
You know, so I must have met like every kind of person possible.
00:40:53
Speaker
So my upbringing was just extremely diverse.
00:40:55
Speaker
I'm a little jealous, I gotta say.
00:40:57
Speaker
Mine was the opposite.
00:40:58
Speaker
Mine was like all descendants of Swedes and Germans and Norwegians, and they were all farmers.
00:41:03
Speaker
Ah, well, you know what?
00:41:04
Speaker
I wouldn't have minded the farms.
00:41:08
Speaker
But I mean, you know, a good thing about growing in that kind of environment is that you kind of learn that people have really different cultural values and that the way that they express their opinions and the way they handle conflict is
00:41:19
Speaker
is very different.
00:41:20
Speaker
And so because I grew up with a lot of these kinds of people, I learned really early on that conflict isn't something you should shy away from and that you can do it in a really civilized, really patient and really respectful way.
Addressing Conflicts in Friendships
00:41:31
Speaker
And then when I got to college in the States, the only culture shock I really experienced was how reluctant people were to get into it.
00:41:37
Speaker
Like people always treated it like if you had one fight, everything is over, the friendship is over.
00:41:41
Speaker
Like nobody ever wanted to like sit and talk through things and be like, hey, it really hurt my feelings when you did X, Y, and Z. Nobody ever want to do that.
00:41:48
Speaker
People are like, oh, we had one fight.
00:41:49
Speaker
It's done.
00:41:51
Speaker
That's so true.
00:41:51
Speaker
Oh my gosh, that always broke my heart.
00:41:53
Speaker
That's probably why I was so conflict diverse.
00:41:55
Speaker
But like you...
00:41:56
Speaker
With time and experience and exposure to different cultures and cultural values, I have learned the value of being able to disagree respectfully or bring up grievances and try to have sort of a conciliation process.
00:42:08
Speaker
And so to our listeners and this idea with our listeners of how do we find the kind of friends that help us level up?
00:42:14
Speaker
Diana, what have we learned from our lives?
00:42:18
Speaker
Put it simply, I would say know two things.
00:42:20
Speaker
Know your deal breakers.
00:42:22
Speaker
Know what you won't tolerate.
00:42:24
Speaker
And also make a list of what you actually want and what you're seeking in a friendship.
00:42:28
Speaker
What's important for you?
00:42:30
Speaker
Because what your needs are and what that person's needs are, you know, you really have to hope that it aligns.
00:42:35
Speaker
They might have like slightly different needs from yours, but it's really important that as much as you want your needs met, you also meet other people's needs because friendship is about giving and taking.
00:42:44
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:42:44
Speaker
So in other words, bringing the sort of discernment and boundaries to your friendships as you would ideally to your romantic relationships.
00:42:54
Speaker
Yep.
00:42:55
Speaker
And also just to keep it short, I would say that, you know, some of our listeners might have the question of like, well, how do I know if it's wrong?
00:43:02
Speaker
Right.
00:43:03
Speaker
For me, what I've learned is when I feel drained, when I feel resentful, when I feel like I've poured a lot of myself in without any return, once I start doing transaction math, like, oh, I did this for her.
00:43:12
Speaker
I did that for her.
00:43:13
Speaker
And she didn't, you know, that's when I know that something is off because usually I'm very willing to give.
00:43:18
Speaker
Right.
00:43:19
Speaker
So once I start taking stock of it, I'm like, oh, I'm giving way more.
00:43:23
Speaker
That means I'm already like paying attention to the fact that this person isn't really putting as much back in.
00:43:28
Speaker
And sometimes it's a very simple fix.
00:43:30
Speaker
Sometimes it's just a matter of like talking to that person because I definitely extend way more grace to women than I do to like the romantic relationships I have in my life.
00:43:37
Speaker
Because when men fuck around, they find out.
00:43:40
Speaker
But with women, I really want to give them the grace and assume that they're not being malicious the first time they do it.
00:43:45
Speaker
So I do cut some slack.
00:43:47
Speaker
But I think that, you know, you know, when a person is taking you for a ride, because you'll feel it in your bones.
00:43:51
Speaker
I think a lot of the discernment also comes from trusting your instincts and trusting your gut.
00:43:56
Speaker
I think we as women have like an innate instinct that we need to hone over time.
Nurturing Supportive Friendships
00:44:01
Speaker
And you need to give yourself grace if you mess up because it takes a lot of time to actually build that instinct.
00:44:05
Speaker
It's not something that like just overnight, immediately you can act on it.
00:44:08
Speaker
Like even when you can feel it, sometimes a lot of people take time to like actually act on it.
00:44:13
Speaker
So I think it's really important to know, hey, is this person draining me?
00:44:16
Speaker
Is this person kind of jealous of me?
00:44:18
Speaker
Or like whenever I bring up something good in my life, they have to find a way to put it down.
00:44:22
Speaker
Is this person very eager to change the conversation when it's something positive about me?
00:44:27
Speaker
If we're out with men, do they prioritize the men at my expense?
00:44:31
Speaker
Or do they go out of their way to make fun of me with the men?
00:44:34
Speaker
That's a big one.
00:44:35
Speaker
That's a big one.
00:44:36
Speaker
Once we reach pick me's, we're like in a whole other era of being like, how do I avoid befriending this person?
00:44:43
Speaker
That could be another episode.
00:44:45
Speaker
That could be a whole other episode.
00:44:47
Speaker
How to figure out if someone is a pick me.
00:44:49
Speaker
I love this idea though.
00:44:50
Speaker
As soon as this is true of so many of us, I know it is of myself.
00:44:55
Speaker
As soon as I start to tally up things, I know things have gotten way off course, because it is so rare that I ever actually count up or keep an accounting.
00:45:04
Speaker
in a friendship because like you, I'm as generous as if you were my own child, if you were my friend, but anything you need is on the table.
00:45:12
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:45:13
Speaker
I would be hurt if you didn't ask if you needed it.
00:45:15
Speaker
And my friends know this.
00:45:17
Speaker
And so
00:45:18
Speaker
This is such a good point that the easiest way of telling if you are getting to this point of no return is, have you been keeping tally?
00:45:25
Speaker
Watch out for those emotional vampires.
00:45:27
Speaker
They have a lot of manipulative tendencies.
00:45:29
Speaker
Narcissists tend to be very charming.
00:45:32
Speaker
I've had to learn that, you know, the loudest people are not necessarily the best friends.
00:45:36
Speaker
Oftentimes it can be the quiet person who's not trying to push themselves to the front of the queue, who can have the most value.
00:45:42
Speaker
But trust yourself to take with time that discernment seriously that you've honed.
00:45:48
Speaker
Trust your gut.
00:45:49
Speaker
Forgive yourself if you make mistakes.
00:45:51
Speaker
And don't stop trying.
00:45:52
Speaker
Keep trying.
00:45:54
Speaker
You will find your people.
00:45:55
Speaker
And I also think that, you know, expend your romantic energies on the friendships that you actually think are important.
00:46:02
Speaker
A friend of mine recently just gave birth and we're in very different phases of our life.
00:46:07
Speaker
But I feel like no matter what kind of phase I've been in, she's always been so supportive of me.
00:46:11
Speaker
Like if I get like a gig that I really want or I finally get a visa to go to a country I wanted to visit, she'll always like Venmo me like 50 bucks and be like, go and have a great time.
00:46:20
Speaker
Because she always tells me she loves like post-subs.
00:46:22
Speaker
And like people don't post or mail things to each other anymore.
00:46:24
Speaker
So I always send her stuff from like my country.
00:46:26
Speaker
I send her like the food she likes or I send her like letters.
00:46:29
Speaker
And the post office people are so confused because I'm like the only person writing handwritten letters to anyone.
00:46:34
Speaker
I do that.
00:46:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:36
Speaker
Because I love that.
00:46:38
Speaker
Instead of getting always bills or, you know, junk mail in your mailbox, which you always have to check.
00:46:43
Speaker
What if you get something that's with a handwritten letter?
00:46:45
Speaker
address on the front with the name of your beloved in the return section.
00:46:49
Speaker
Like there is no greater joy.
00:46:51
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:46:51
Speaker
I love to send packages, but of course I'd love to receive them.
00:46:54
Speaker
And so that's, that's been one of my tells.
00:46:56
Speaker
If I'm sending cards to a friend and over time, you know, I don't hear back, not even a call to be like, I loved the card.
00:47:02
Speaker
Not that I always need affirmation, but you know, over time,
00:47:05
Speaker
I want to know if this is something you enjoy or not.
00:47:08
Speaker
And of course, we do.
00:47:09
Speaker
And also we want to feel like knowledge.
00:47:10
Speaker
Yes.
00:47:12
Speaker
And I would love it if it could be mirrored from time to time.
00:47:15
Speaker
So that's something that I got from my mom was just sending out cards.
00:47:18
Speaker
I have a whole card box and then gifts.
00:47:20
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:47:21
Speaker
I'm such a thank you note person.
00:47:23
Speaker
Like I'll go somewhere.
00:47:24
Speaker
I'll go to a hotel, leave everyone thank you notes.
00:47:26
Speaker
You know, I'll do an event.
00:47:27
Speaker
I'll leave thank you notes.
00:47:28
Speaker
Like that's very much a me thing.
00:47:30
Speaker
But I think it's just one of those things, you know, like don't lose what makes it important.
00:47:35
Speaker
Don't lose your own values.
00:47:37
Speaker
Bring them to the world.
00:47:37
Speaker
The world needs them more than
Future Podcast Topics
00:47:39
Speaker
ever.
00:47:39
Speaker
Yep.
00:47:40
Speaker
Yep.
00:47:41
Speaker
Trust and believe, Diana.
00:47:43
Speaker
Trust and believe.
00:47:44
Speaker
And I think with that, we are about towards the end of our first episode.
00:47:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:50
Speaker
You know, I think one of the things we could add is that this doesn't have to be the only episode about this subject, because I think that, you know, maybe in future people want to know, like, well, what do I need to look out for?
00:48:00
Speaker
You know, what are the green flags in friendships?
00:48:02
Speaker
What are the red flags in friendships?
00:48:03
Speaker
And then maybe we can structure it more to be like, these are things to watch out for the same way that we've done with like strategy for dating.
00:48:09
Speaker
Because honestly, I don't think that there's much of a difference in the things that you watch out for.
00:48:15
Speaker
And this could be an ongoing series about women and friendships.
00:48:18
Speaker
Because I think just like romantic love, friendly love is the foundation of our lives.
00:48:24
Speaker
The quality of our lives is directly proportionate to the kinds of friendships we have and the women we surrounded ourselves with.
00:48:32
Speaker
And I think the more we can delve into that and sort of fine tune and find the nuances, the more helpful it will be to everybody.
00:48:40
Speaker
Yep.
00:48:40
Speaker
And it's very hard to find balanced people because I think that you can go into two extremes.
00:48:44
Speaker
You can either have this extreme pick me person who's in like, not even secret, but like, you know, high key competition with you.
00:48:52
Speaker
Or you could have friends who become extremely cynical and jaded and are happy commisiting with you.
00:48:57
Speaker
And they're happy that you're miserable too.
00:48:59
Speaker
But the second that you're like, you know what, maybe I do want to find romance and love.
00:49:03
Speaker
Maybe I do want to get married.
00:49:04
Speaker
Like, and again, these are valid things for women to have.
00:49:06
Speaker
Like we shame women for wanting this and then we shame them for not wanting it as well.
00:49:10
Speaker
But I feel like you're just as likely to meet people who are cynical and jaded like, oh, okay.
00:49:14
Speaker
So you're just okay with marrying your oppressor.
00:49:16
Speaker
And it's like, Jesus.
00:49:19
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:49:20
Speaker
Like there are two extremes.
00:49:21
Speaker
There's like the fem cell extreme and the pick me extreme.
00:49:24
Speaker
And you need to find a balance.
00:49:26
Speaker
You know, I mean, of course you want friends who will be like, hey, that guy is not treating you well.
00:49:30
Speaker
And I feel like you should walk away from that relationship.
00:49:33
Speaker
But then, you know, you don't also want people in like secret competition with you and are trying to sleep with your boyfriend.
00:49:39
Speaker
There has to be a fine line.
00:49:40
Speaker
There has to be a middle ground here.
00:49:41
Speaker
And we must find it and we must stake it out.
00:49:44
Speaker
We must protect it zealously because
00:49:46
Speaker
It is so valuable.
00:49:47
Speaker
It is invaluable to what's quality of life.
00:49:49
Speaker
Studies have shown again and again, people with the longest lives with the best quality of lives are women who have built up friendships over the course of their lifetime.
00:49:58
Speaker
Yep.
00:49:59
Speaker
Single women.
00:49:59
Speaker
Single women is the number one determinant for one's quality of life and one's length of life.
00:50:04
Speaker
So if these are things that matter to you, dear listener,
00:50:07
Speaker
Let's keep exploring these topics going forward.
00:50:10
Speaker
Diana, it has been a treat.
00:50:11
Speaker
It has been an honor and a delight to have hosted this first of many more podcasts to come with you.
00:50:18
Speaker
Yes.
00:50:18
Speaker
And I'm really, really excited that I got to speak with you today.
00:50:21
Speaker
And I hope that everyone who's been listening to us, you know, loves the stuff that we've been saying today and can relate to it.
00:50:28
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, our future hope is that you continue to level up and make the kinds of relationships and friendships in your life that are going to add real meaningful value to your life.
00:50:37
Speaker
And this is as true for me, myself, and I as it is for my hopes for the listener.
00:50:41
Speaker
We're all on this together.
00:50:43
Speaker
We're all on this journey of leveling up.
00:50:45
Speaker
The entire future of the world depends upon us.
00:50:49
Speaker
So let's go forward acting like this.
00:50:51
Speaker
No pressure.
00:50:52
Speaker
But no pressure.
00:50:55
Speaker
But for real love.
00:50:56
Speaker
We're counting on you.
00:51:00
Speaker
And with that, we will bid goodbye to our listeners.
00:51:03
Speaker
We will thank you for coming and listening to us for this time.
00:51:06
Speaker
We invite and encourage you to respond to us and interact with us via, I think we have a Twitter account.
00:51:13
Speaker
I will never call it X, as well as our FDS website.
00:51:18
Speaker
And we also welcome any and all personalized emails that can be sent to us.
00:51:22
Speaker
Your voices matter.
00:51:24
Speaker
You matter to us.
00:51:25
Speaker
And we are looking forward to building up our community.
00:51:28
Speaker
even more going forward.
00:51:30
Speaker
And I think that we're going to be making accounts on Twitter as well, right?
00:51:35
Speaker
I think that was something Savannah had told us we could do.
00:51:39
Speaker
As an old, I might just refrain from that entirely, Diana.
00:51:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'm not even an old, but I just... You know what?
00:51:46
Speaker
Just email us.
00:51:47
Speaker
Go super old-fashioned.
00:51:48
Speaker
Snail mail us.
00:51:51
Speaker
Go to your post office.
00:51:52
Speaker
I would love this.
00:51:53
Speaker
Email or send us an actual letter.
00:51:56
Speaker
We'll get a PO box.
00:51:57
Speaker
We will absolutely read everything you send to us.
00:52:00
Speaker
I will because I'm a speed reader and I adore hearing people's voices.
00:52:03
Speaker
So I'm actually being serious about this.
00:52:05
Speaker
I think you are too, Diana.
00:52:07
Speaker
I'm not joking.
00:52:09
Speaker
We are for real, for real, for real.
00:52:11
Speaker
Oh my goodness.
00:52:12
Speaker
But with that being said, I will thank you again and we will be signing off.
00:52:17
Speaker
Yes, signing off.
00:52:19
Speaker
And, uh, scrotes.
00:52:20
Speaker
Die mad.
00:52:22
Speaker
And women be happy.