Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship

Quiet Quitting a Friendship: Withdrawing from friends or ending friendships: Dr. Miriam Kirmayer

• Miriam Kirmayer • Season 1 • Episode 109

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Episode #109: Let's say you know that a friendship has run its course, but the friend has done nothing wrong. How do we go about distancing from a friend or ending a friendship? How do we process it when we feel a friend withdrawing? How do we negotiate conflict or transitions that are going to come up in many friendships?

"Quiet quitting" is the latest term for withdrawing from a friendship, phasing out, or disengaging completely. In this episode with the insightful Dr. Miriam Kirmayer, a clinical psychologist in Montreal who specializes in friendship, we discuss why someone might choose the strategy of "quiet quitting" for fading away from a friend.


Meet Dr. Miriam Kirmayer:
Dr. Miriam Kirmayer is a clinical psychologist, leading friendship expert, and one of the most influential speakers on human connection and social support. Find free friendship resources on her site and follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn.


We discussed:

  • Most people have been on both sides of the "quiet quitting" equation
  • How quiet quitting differs from ghosting
  • When quiet quitting is a good strategy and when it is not
  • Why we are both strongly against using "quiet quitting" to test a friend
  • Friends cannot read our minds!
  • The struggle many people have to initiate plans, but respecting friends' strengths (and not expecting friends to do things exactly the way we do them)
  • Quiet quitting has its place, but it can also be a sign of an inability to have a vulnerable or direct conversation because of a lack of practice or opportunity to do so.
  • Downgrades in friendships vs. dissolutions
  • How to avoid burning a bridge with friends (or old friends)
  • "Quiet quitting works until it doesn't." You might have to be more direct at some point. We discussed some kind ways to do so. 


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* All transcripts are available on the main Buzzsprout "Dear Nina" site. Click on any episode and find the transcript tab.

Let's connect over all things friendship!

[00:00:00] Miriam: When we look not only at the types of strategies or behaviors that people use to end their friendships, but also how common those strategies are, the quiet quitting strategy is the most commonly used strategy. So this is the way that most of us are ending our friendships.

For all sorts of reasons, very often it's because we either don't want to hurt someone else's feelings and we worry that having the explicit conversation might hurt them, which it might. We worry that ghosting will hurt them, which it will. Sometimes it's also a matter of being uncomfortable with assertiveness. I see this actually as being a big and bigger problem for younger generations where they aren't used to having conversations face to face.

It is all through text message or technology. And the idea of approaching somebody to have a vulnerable conversation or to be assertive in that way just feels so foreign. In that sense, it isn't necessarily all that helpful if we're avoiding something, if we're avoiding this sort of conversation, the transparent conversation.

But if we're trying to disengage gradually and let a friendship run its course and we're not ghosting somebody, there absolutely can be moments where this is the expected and common and preferred strategy. There is a time and place for this. 

[00:01:19] Nina: Welcome to Dear Nina, conversations about friendship. I have such a major guest today: Dr. Miriam Kirmayer. She is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in friendship. I've had other therapists on, other psychologists. They've all been excellent guests. I really enjoy having that kind of expert advice on here that gives people clinically proven strategies that they're seeing, in their work. Dr. Miriam Kirmayer is really the only one I've had who specifically specializes in friendship, keynote speaker on social connection and mentorship. She is a genuine friendship expert. Without further ado. We have Dr. Miriam Kirmayer. Hi, Miriam. I'm so happy to have you here. Welcome to Dear Nina.

[00:02:06] Miriam: Thank you for having me. This has been a long time coming.

[00:02:08] Nina: It really has. And you are just an amazingly supportive person in the friendship space. It's funny to call it that, but there really is such a thing now. 

Miriam: Yes 

Nina: And I've had a lot of them on the podcast, which is great, I have had handful of clinical psychologists, but I have never had somebody who specializes in friendship. I want to understand before we get into our topic of quiet quitting how you got to this place in your career that you focus on friendship.

[00:02:39] Miriam: Let me give you the quick version of the arc that has gotten me here. So I started researching friendship, early on in graduate school when I was starting my PhD in clinical psychology. At that time, we knew that friendships were important for everyone, children, adults.

There was a lot of information coming out about why they're so important, but very little information on the how. How do we actually go about building new connections? How do we go about letting go of our friendships and ending them or processing a friendship breakup? How do we negotiate conflict and challenges and transitions that are going to come up. And so that was really interesting to me. And I wanted to better understand that with the goal of then being able to share advice and guidance. And one of the things that I was noticing clinically at the time, I had just come off of working very closely with children and families.

And in that space, there's very much an explicit emphasis on helping youth to build new friendships. We talk about how important it is to be collaborative and pro social and help our children learn to share. And there's such an emphasis on extracurricular activities and getting kids involved in sports or musical theater or art or whatever it is.

And there's this built in community aspect to that, where kids are encouraged to make friends and be friends with the people that they're interacting with. One of the things that I was noticing clinically was as I started to then do this research and work more with young adults and adults, there's virtually, or at least there was then, virtually no support available.

There's so many questions that were coming up and people were struggling with those very same questions and really unsure of where to turn or who to turn to. I was just really interested in not only kind of learning the answers to these questions, but trying to find a way to share that more broadly.

And so what started out as my clinical practice expertise where I was sharing this has now become this full blown community of my own, where I've shared this kind of information, evidence based guidance on social media and in my newsletter community and through my courses and speaking work. And so it's just been really meaningful to play a part in this knowledge transfer space of working to make this yes, accessible, but also relatable because these are, as you know, I don't need to share this with you. These are relatable topics, right? We will all have and be a friend at some point, and we will all go through these ups and downs in our friendship.

[00:04:56] Nina: That's right. I always say it's ageless and timeless, I mean I use that line all the time because it is. I hear from people teens up through 80s. And the problems don't really change and I'd say the work I do and I'm sure yours too falls into three buckets. Making friends, keeping friends, ending friendships. And everything falls in those three buckets, and that's the truth.

I love what you said about how just absolutely normal it is to talk to younger kids about how you make friends and the skills that you're gonna need and the places you're gonna meet them. There's so much shame people carry, I find. I get all these anonymous letters. And there's so much shame around, all those three topics, but definitely making friends. So I might put a quote out there. I, you have quotes too on Instagram, that's, inspirational, about a good friend you have, and maybe having gratitude for that friend. Let's say I will then hear from someone that says like, that's nice, but I don't have a friend, where do I even find that friend?

I love that you can help people build the skill set, because you know, I can only do so much, you know, in my sort of writer, podcaster space, but you're really working one on one with, well, more because you're speaking to so many people. It's fantastic.

[00:05:59] Miriam: Well, thank you for that, and thank you for the work that you do, because these are the conversations that we need to be having, and that shame that you're talking about is something that is so widely felt and yet so, uncommonly spoken about. And that was one of the big differentiators, when I started working with young adults and adults, was this feeling of aloneness in loneliness. And that's not to say that we are all able to navigate friendships so successfully or easily when we're younger, but there is this expectation that the older we get, the more likely we are to have figured it out. And so people are much less comfortable seeking support or having these kinds of open conversations when they are feeling alone and when they're struggling to find their people.

I think that podcasts like yours and the conversations that so many people are now having are so powerful because not only do they allow people to learn information, they also feel less alone in the process.

[00:06:52] Nina: So moving on to our topic of quiet quitting, it actually comes at a perfect time because I just did an episode with Shasta Nelson. I know, you know, Shasta too, and we focused on something she's doing in her podcast, which is real conflict, working out conflict with her friends.

I had an episode like that, just one with a friend that I had broken up with and gotten back together with. I'm so grateful that she and I have that friendship. Our topic is the other side of that. It's what happens when you don't have that actual conversation with friends. Let's first talk about where that term quiet quitting came from. When did you first encounter it?

[00:07:25] Miriam: this is a term that's certainly been popularized through Tik Tok, right? There's the Tik Tokification of it all, but it really did come out of this experience that a lot of people, especially young people, were struggling with or going through when it comes to this kind of gradual disengagement and withdrawal of energy, attention, investment in their work.

There are all sorts of reasons why I think we're seeing that in the workplace, but it is interesting to see how that term has now been appropriated by other fields. When we talk about quiet quitting and friendships, I think part of the reason why this is really gaining momentum is because intuitively we all have a sense of what that might mean or what that might look like or feel like, regardless of the end that you are on.

I'm willing to bet that a lot of the people listening to this episode have either been in a friendship where they have noticed themselves withdrawing gradually or disengaging from that connection, feeling a little less close over time, or been on the receiving end of that, where it feels like a friend is pulling away and maybe you aren't exactly sure why, and that can be painful.

It can be confusing. Uncertainty is a very difficult emotion to process, and there's a lot of uncertainty too about how to navigate those kinds of situations or how we should be letting go of our friendships. And so the quiet quitting and friendship piece is something that I think is, is really interesting to explore because again, it's one of those friendship topics that we all go through and yet so few of us are talking about openly.

[00:08:53] Nina: And you're so right that we absolutely go through it on both sides. I mean, there's no question that there are times when you just know that a friendship has run its course. And what we're talking about, by the way, listeners is different than ghosting. All these terms that have gotten really popular on social media, but even ghosting, I think would be a total disappearance.

I'd say a quiet quitting is another way of saying fading out. 

[00:09:13] Miriam: Absolutely. When I started researching adult friendships all those years ago, one of the things that we were looking at was not only the types of challenges that are coming up in friendships, but how people are responding to those challenges. Some of the strategies that we were able to identify and really categorize were the various behaviors that we use to end our friendships or to disengage from our friendships. And so you're absolutely right that ghosting is a strategy and we could have a whole other conversation about that. But this process of disengaging, of quiet quitting, of the slow fade as sometimes called or phasing out.

They're all sorts of words that we use. That is a unique strategy in and of itself that people use and that frequently comes up in friendships. And it's again separate from other types of strategies that people might use to and their friendships like having the very vulnerable and at times uncomfortable transparent conversation where you might chat about the state of your friendship, the current and future state of your friendship, and set some expectations about what that might hold or not.

So this phasing out, this distancing and quiet quitting piece really is a gradual process that differs from the other types of strategies that we use to end our friendship.

[00:10:31] Nina: I love that you use the word strategy because I think it's true. Well, I wonder if you agree with me that it's true that sometimes it is a strategy that makes sense. It isn't always a bad thing. The word quit and then quiet quit just has a ton of negative connotations and the way it's being used right now in a bunch of articles and everything does have a little bit of a negative slant.

How to know if your friend is quiet quitting this friendship. Sometimes it is the kinder route because I often tell people, when they are very frustrated that they're not getting straight answers from their friends about why their friends have perhaps ghosted or are fading away.

I wonder why people think they're going to get a straight answer. You think for sure, like you're so sure you're going to sit down with your friend and they're going to actually tell you. And by the way, if they do tell you, maybe your behaviors are not right for that friend, it doesn't mean they're totally wrong.

So sometimes it could be damaging, I think, to hear from someone while you text too much. Well, maybe you text too much for that person. 

[00:11:25] Miriam: That's such an important point. It is a strategy. And what's interesting too, is that the reasons for employing that strategy, let's say, can also vary. So one of the things that I see is for many people, for most people, I would say, the gradual distancing, this quiet quitting process is an attempt to gradually end a friendship.

And there are all sorts of reasons why we might choose that route and choose that strategy. And we can talk about that, of course. The other piece that I sometimes see though, is that the gradual disengagement, this quiet quitting is almost like a test. It's almost like a test. Testing the waters to see, is my friend noticing that I'm withdrawing?

Will they shift their behavior? Can I encourage them to initiate a little bit more in our friendships that I'm not doing all of the work? In those cases, I have a lot to say about that,

[00:12:18] Nina: Me too. It's my number one topic. This is my number one topic I hear about the most. I hear about it the most. I talk about it the most. Not on purpose even. It just like fires me up. I love having a, psychologist on here because you know, I'm just, you know, spitballing, but I feel very strongly about it. 10 years is a long time to be writing and talking about the same topic. So I feel like I've gotten to know it pretty well. I am so against, testing our friends, especially on that topic of initiating. I truly firmly believe that some people are just better at initiating and they just are, and if you test your friend that way, they're probably going to fail.

Look, if they've not been good at initiating thus far without a conversation where, you say explicitly: I need to know that you want this friendship as much as I do, which to me looks like you reach out sometimes, not maybe 50 50, but at least sometimes I think you need to have that conversation. If you're going to test a friend who's not good at reaching out, they're not going to magically be better at reaching out. They will fail that test.

[00:13:14] Miriam: I think this is so well said. And actually this is something that I talk a lot about in the course that I launched recently, Confidently Connected, this idea of respect, uh, respective strengths. You may be Very good at initiating you might be good at that because you value it because it's a strength of yours and as a result, you often expect other people to also be good at that and to see that as a sign that they care about you and about your friendship. And for all sorts of reasons, people struggle with initiating phone calls, conversations, plans with initiating vulnerability.

That whole idea of going first is very scary. And yet they have their respective strength in your friendship. They may be really good at listening and active listening. And so while you might initiate that vulnerable conversation, your friend is able to meet you there when you do that. And they are giving you the attention and the focus that is such a rarity in today's society, or they are moving the conversation forward by being really disclosing or by asking really thoughtful questions. Maybe this is the friend whose respective strength is their killer sense of humor and when you get together, it's just It's such a blast because they are witty and the banter is flowing and the pop culture references just feel so exciting and invigorating.

And if you can pay attention to those respective strengths and not expect your friends to have the same strengths that you do, it's amazing. You're able to create balance in a different way than the tit for tat formula that so many of us expect. I really think you're onto something here and I, I, I don't love, I don't love tests either because our friends can't read our minds.

One of the big themes that comes out in therapy often is this expectation that our friends should be able to read our minds. They should pick up on our cues, our subtle cues. That goes for tests. That also goes for quiet quitting. When we are withdrawing our effort and involvement, we hope and expect that our friends will pick up on our intentions and what that means. And they might not, they're not able to read our minds. That can create all sorts of opportunities for miscommunications and conflicts. 

[00:15:19] Nina: So that's where it's not a good strategy. I think we both agree that using this quiet quitting to get your friend to change their behavior is probably not a great strategy, but when it will end backing up the strategy, I think would be to actually be honest with your friend, which I know is hard and as a whole skill set. But the next phase of this is when would quiet quitting be an appropriate strategy?

[00:15:40] Miriam: Well, here's one thing that I'll say. When we look not only at the types of strategies or behaviors that people use to end their friendships, but also how common those strategies are, the quiet quitting strategy is the most commonly used strategy. So this is the way that most of us are ending our friendships for all sorts of reasons. Very often it's because we either don't want to hurt someone else's feelings and we worry that having the explicit conversation might hurt them, which it might. We worry that ghosting will hurt them, which it will. Sometimes it's also a matter of being uncomfortable with assertiveness. I see this actually as being a big and bigger problem for younger generations where They aren't used to having conversations face to face.

It is all through text message or technology. And the idea of approaching somebody to have a vulnerable conversation or to be assertive in that way just feels so foreign. In that sense, It isn't necessarily all that helpful if we're avoiding something, if we're avoiding this sort of conversation, the transparent conversation.

But if we're trying to disengage gradually and let a friendship run its course and we're not ghosting somebody, there absolutely can be moments where this is the expected and common and preferred strategy. There is a time and place for this.

[00:16:56] Nina: I think there is. Like I said, I call it the fade out. I was laughing for a second to myself when you talked about how hard it is for the younger generation to have an assertive conversation. It's so true. I have four kids and they are, 20, 17, 15, and 12. And when I tell you that they hardly, not just my kids, but their friends, they could hardly make an appointment. , so a real assertive conversation would really be hard. 

[00:17:18] Miriam: Ordering a pizza feels vulnerable. How can you possibly tell a friend that, that your friendship is over? Yeah.

[00:17:24] Nina: There's a funny meme going around of a mom sitting with her kid. It's probably made up for this thing, but it's so real. She sits over him while he makes his very first dental cleaning appointment, and he's like, mom, don't make me do this. It's so funny. And then they ended up calling the wrong number. And it was like the wrong dental office. He's like, you didn't set me up for success. It was just very,

[00:17:44] Miriam: Send, please, please send that to me afterward. That sounds also like there's some good psychologist humor in there too, in terms of exposure exercises.

[00:17:50] Nina: you have younger kids, I know, do you have two?

[00:17:53] Miriam: I do. I have two little boys who are almost six and three.

[00:17:57] Nina: okay. We're in such a, we're in such 

[00:17:58] Miriam: you, you are, you are giving me a taste of what's to come here.

[00:18:02] Nina: You know, it's interesting as they get more and more reliant, not just kids, but us too as adults, more reliant on not having to talk to people in person. I know we're kind of joking about it, but it really is an issue. And I think that is where this term quite quitting came from in the workplace. It was 2022, I saw in my research, which makes sense, people had to start going back into the office. And they were like, Nope, not interested in that. Oh,

[00:18:25] Miriam: reel me back in if it doesn't feel relevant, but I do think it has a role to play in this. We're talking about a lack of practice, let's say, or lack of opportunity for having those kinds of transparent, vulnerable conversations. One of the things that we know is that avoidance feeds anxiety. The less you do something, whether that's by choice or by lack of opportunity, the more unfamiliar it feels and the more anxious you can feel doing so. As a result, it's very easy for people to get caught in this vicious cycle of avoidance, escalating anxiety and greater avoidance.

The whole idea of the mother standing over the son forcing him to make this dental appointment, there is an element of that that is actually grounded in what we recommend clinically, which is finding ways to test the system to test out your fears that this will necessarily be as uncomfortable as you assume or that this won't turn out well and when it's the wrong number and you have to do it all over again that's another exposure exercise. One of the strategies that can sometimes be helpful, whether you are working towards finding new ways to end your friendships or to just be more vulnerable and assertive in your friendships, is to find small ways to test that out, to find small, what we call exposure exercises, to test the waters and gain a little bit of comfort and confidence in doing so.

[00:19:49] Nina: What are some reasons you are hearing most often that people want to downgrade? That's another word I would use. It's like they want to recategorize or downgrade. Maybe they don't want to end completely the friendship because I think you could fade out to a different place. It doesn't always have to be an end. What are you hearing out there in the, in the real world?

[00:20:08] Miriam: I appreciate you making that distinction because there is a difference between downgrades and what are called dissolutions. At times, this phasing out or the fading out is in service of a true dissolution, a true friendship breakup, the quiet quitting. Sometimes it is about downgrading the friendships and just reducing the level of intimacy or closeness that you feel in that friendship.

Some of the reasons are very practical. Our lives are busy and very often the older we get the more complicated our lives become and the less time we have to spend with different people. Sometimes we need to make difficult choices about who we are prioritizing and which friendships or how many friendships realistically we are able to maintain at any one point in time.

Downgrading or this fading into a different level or layer of intimacy can be a function of that where we are working to feel and be a little bit less close so that maybe we don't have to put as much effort into that friendship so that we can maintain a certain level of connection with that person.

So it's kind of a shift in the norms of intimacy that friendship that have perhaps much less to do with how you feel about that person and much more to do with just your overall capacity to maintain connections. And the older we get, we are, we are always evolving and as our friends are as well. And it's possible that you end up in a place where you just no longer feel as close.

Your interests have changed. Your values aren't as aligned as they once were. And because of that distance it can create an emotional distance where again, you don't necessarily want to get rid of this friend. They've served an important part in your life and you are still able to connect over certain interests or hobbies or activities or experiences, but you just don't feel as close as you once did. And so that fading out can be a strategy to actually maintain a part of the connection that is still healthy and viable. 

[00:22:03] Nina: I like to encourage people to not burn a bridge. I've had several situations in my own life where I've definitely had some fade outs naturally and from on both parties. That's the ideal, right? When doesn't even need to be a discussion. Both people just for whatever reason, I mean, I've been at like a couple of people's weddings, even where then we just weren't barely in each other's lives for the next decade.

And then now we're close again. It's probably no coincidence. Our kids are a lot older. I mean, these are people my age I'm in my I guess late. I'm 47. Is that, we're a little past mid forties. I might have to stop saying mid forties. A lot of people in my peer group who had kids when I had kids in my, in my twenties, our kids are older now.

I'm glad I didn't do some kind of drastic, sit down where I said like, listen, we really can't be friends. That would be hard to come back from. If people could get, a major tip out of this, I think it's, if you can lead with kindness remember that there's still another person on the other side of this thing that you once really did enjoy a ton and care a ton about, maybe you don't want them to be your daily text buddy anymore.

If you could do it in a way that doesn't damage someone's feelings, that's hard, but it's nice to be able to come back from it is what I'm saying. You just never know. You never know what turn life takes.

[00:23:12] Miriam: Part of what separates our friendships from other relationships is the fact that they are fluid or more fluid than other relationships may be. So people can come into our lives, and they can move out of our lives, and we are able to pick back up in a way that some of our other connections, whether it's, you know, platonic connections with colleagues who aren't necessarily friends or prejudice or magic partners or even family members, they wouldn't necessarily sustain those ebbs and flows as much as our friendships are able to.

Sometimes that fading out is more of that ebb and flow than a true fade out or phase out. And it is just one of the moments in your life where for all sorts of reasons you are less close and there's a very good chance that what brought you together initially might reconnect you at a later point in time.

I do like this idea of leaving the door open because we tend to think that friendships end because of some big betrayal. Somebody has committed a transgression where a core expectation of friendship has been violated, or there's just been such an accumulation of conflicts that the dynamic is, is unhealthy and people are just completely fed up.

And yes, of course, friendships end for those reasons. But very often it's something that's a little bit less significant and less tangible even. We just don't feel as close as we used to. We just aren't able to connect right now. Our schedules don't align. And in those cases, leaving the door open, by leading with kindness, as you said, I think can be so helpful. And to just remember that people are orbiting around us and they continue to orbit around us. We might end up on the same similar path at some point.

[00:24:45] Nina: I think a final page of this and then we'll wrap it up is it's a realistic situation I've been in. You hear about them. I hear about them. Is somebody initiates some sort of fading back. They text less, which I think is a smart thing to do. You know, maybe you kick the can down the road of plans.

Someone asks for plans. You don't say no, but maybe we're going to do it two months from now, not two weeks from now. Do you advise people to do generally? I know it's hard to say specifically, when the friend calls you out on it, which happens. When the friend then says, Hey, I noticed you're kind of backing off. Do you suggest that people take that opportunity to own up to it do people deny it? I mean, I'm sure most people deny it. That's probably what happens, but what would you advise.

[00:25:27] Miriam: Yeah, this is a really good question and it's an important one because here's what I always say. The quiet quitting works until it doesn't. It works well when both people are on the same page. Both people are willing or motivated to gradually let go of that friendship or to be less close, while still holding on to perhaps the parts that are working or while still having that respect for what once was. Quiet quitting really does not work well when one person is working to let go and the other is working working overtime to hold on.

But again, there can be this element of cat and mouse, almost like there's this chase that's happening. Depending on interpersonal dynamics and that friendship, depending on attachment styles and all these other interesting things that we can throw into the mix. That can actually escalate over time. Or one person then feels the need to withdraw even more, and the other person is chasing them even more, and that can be difficult.

So quiet quitting works until it doesn't. I think what you're talking about here is a moment where it maybe doesn't work as well, where somebody either is really wanting to work through this and preserve the connection, or is really wanting to have that transparent and open and honest conversation, and isn't going to be satisfied with continued uncertainty or distance The idea of, I don't want to say being deceitful, but saying, oh, no, no, it's it's nothing. Nothing to notice here. Right? Everything's fine.

[00:26:50] Nina: The kids call it gaslighting. My

[00:26:52] Miriam: Okay,

[00:26:53] Nina: Right.

[00:26:54] Miriam: As the kids say. The idea of gaslighting in those moments, really, I don't, I can't recommend that in good faith. I don't think that, it's not right. I mean, it's, on the one hand, people are sensitive. Our friends are sensitive to changes in our behavior. And when they're picking up on something real, to gaslight them, as you said, in that way, just isn't all that kind. It also doesn't work well for us though, because our needs aren't being seen and met in that situation.

Once you've withheld the truth or withheld your own experience in that moment, well, what are you going to do about that? Do you continue in this same loop that you were now stuck in? So that really doesn't work as well as we would like it to. There is a way to have these kinds of conversations. I wish I could say that they are never painful, and that's not the case. As much as possible it really helps to focus on your own experience. So instead of putting this on the other person, even though there may be aspects of the other person that you don't connect with anymore or that you don't enjoy or that just doesn't fit with your needs, really framing it as, uh, I am in a place right now where I don't have as much time to devote to our friendship or friendships in general.

I'm prioritizing other aspects of my life, or I'm actually feeling really overwhelmed at the moment. If you can frame it from an I perspective, as opposed to a you thing, that can be very helpful. Because as you said earlier, which I think is so important, Very often, it isn't an inherent flaw of the other person.

It's all about the match. How well matched you are can also change depending on external circumstances. Focusing on your own reactions, your own experiences, as opposed to blaming the other person, that can be a really helpful way to have that conversation. If you feel the need to go into more detail, if they're pressing for details about certain dynamics, the advice that I often give is to give some clarity, give a few examples of what you're finding difficult without going overboard.

We don't want to throw the kitchen sink at them and say, here, here's everything that you were doing wrong or everything that's not working in our friendship, everything that I don't feel comfortable with. Give a few specific examples. It's also okay to set boundaries and limits about what you are or are not willing to speak about.

And this is something that is very difficult. As difficult as it is to have open and honest conversations, it is also difficult to express that we aren't willing or able to have a conversation. And if you go so difficult, if you go that route you want to say a set of boundaries, say something like, I'm not in a place where I'm able to talk about this.

My advice as a tag on strategy with that is to really take the time to validate the other person's feelings in that moment, especially if this is someone that you have had a good friendship with in the past. To say something like, I know that might be really hard to hear right now. I know that's not the answer that you were looking for.

Show them that you are considering their side really can go a long way in having them respect your boundary. And again, in terms of just preserving that level of respect in the friendship.

[00:29:51] Nina: These are such good strategies. They're great lines. I just think you just in a very short time gave really good practical, to dos because what, and you said something so important.

You don't have to say everything and it is hard. If you're someone like me, I can only speak to my own personality. I'm such an open book and it really can be an issue sometimes because then the expectation is you're always going to give everyone every detail and it can be very hard to actually Say something along the lines of I'm not going to say, you know however, you're gonna utter those words, but to give over that message of this is all I'm willing to share is hard if you're somebody who's been sharing a lot.

So yeah a little bit of self control along the way maybe would make it less hard if you ever get yourself in that position where you don't want to say everything. Um, any last thoughts you want to share before we say goodbye? I have a hundred things I want to talk to you about, but it

[00:30:39] Miriam: Oh my gosh. Well, I was going to say I'm more than happy to do this again and continue our conversations. I love the conversations that you have on your podcast. And I just really appreciate you having me on. It's really a pleasure to get to know you a little bit more offline and

[00:30:56] Nina: I feel the same. You do such a great work and your clients are very lucky to have you out there. And Montreal, you have no accent. Were you born there?

[00:31:05] Miriam: I was, yeah, but, but I'm Anglophone. So I speak French, but English is my first language.

[00:31:10] Nina: Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Cause he had the couple of people I know from Montreal have a little more of an accent. So I was, I would not have guessed I would have said Toronto. I knew you were Canadian

[00:31:18] Miriam: if we speak long enough, you might hear my Canadian accent, uh, seep out little bit. Yeah.

[00:31:21] Nina: maybe cause I'm in Minnesota. I don't even notice that people think I have an accent and I'm from Chicago actually, but people think I have a super thick accent. I'm like, what are you talking about? all right, listeners, I will have every single way you can find Miriam. If you live in Montreal, you should really see her as your therapist and who knows if she's even seeing people anymore. Do you take clients?

[00:31:37] Miriam: I haven't in a very long time. Right now most of my attention is focused on sharing this kind of information and guidance, as I said, through my course or through my speaking and workshops. And the reason for this was because I was one of the first and only psychologists to specialize in friendship.

I was met with all of these requests for individual therapy. And just as a kind of PSA for your listeners, the way that it works when you're seeing a licensed psychologist is we can only see see clients who live in the state or province where we are licensed. And so I was getting all of these requests for people for individual therapy I had to say no, which was so difficult to do and there weren't many friendship resources at the time.

So in realizing kind of the need that's out there and some of the limitations of the work that I do, this was really why I wanted to create some of these resources to be able to make this, as I said, accessible and get people involved in this conversation and hopefully start changing the conversations that we're having about friendships.

So if people are interested, the best thing to do, on my website, I have a free guide and that's a really good place to start. I've just five ways to create connections that you can count on and connections that count and it has all kinds of reframes and reflection questions and journaling exercises and some of the strategies that we talked about today that people can use in their friendships to strengthen them.

[00:32:45] Nina: And people can take your course like they really should so I totally I would recommend that. Listeners as you know, I'm going to say say it every week come back next week when our friendships are going Well, we are happier all around Just to remind you, in case you don't know, you can find me on Instagram and on TikTok at Dear Nina Friendship. You can join the community of Dear Nina listeners at the Facebook group called Dear Nina, the group. We don't just talk about friendship, we talk about books and TV and sometimes recipes and definitely a lot of friendship.

See you next week. Thanks. 

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Nina Badzin

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