Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship

Dr. Marisa G. Franco, author of Platonic , and I talk about how expressing anger can strengthen a friendship. Dr. Franco also gives tips for how conflict between friends can have a win-win outcome. We talk about attachment theory in friendship and more. "When someone brings up an issue with us, remember it as an act of love. They are giving us an opportunity to reconcile and to heal things. Th...

Today we’re talking about being friends with people who are different from you. There have been a ton of articles on the topic lately because of a new study about cross-class friendships — just one kind of difference possible in a friendship I of course could not tackle this topic alone, so I invited the fabulous friendship pair and podcast duo from HerNext Chapter , Stephanie Pierce and Julie Bur...

Author, Mary Laura Philpott, joins me to discuss feeling loneliness and worry despite having close friends . Mary Laura Philpott is the nationally bestselling author of I Miss You When I Blink and of Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives . She writes about the overlap of the absurd and the profound in everyday life. Her writing has been featured by The New York Times, The Washington Post,...

Chaz Sandifer joins me to discuss the reality of outgrowing friendships and friends who disappear in the good times but show up in bad times.  "Over the course of 10 years, as I've grown as an entrepreneur, I realized there are people in your life who are there for a season, some people who are in our lives forever, and some who are there to teach a lesson and just for you to take the next...

The one and only Zibby Owens joins me to talk about her memoir, Bookends , and her experiences grieving the death of three close friends. In her new book, Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature , Zibby tells several story threads at the same time, all organized around the books Zibby was reading when events occurred. It starts as a personal family history of Zibby's grandparents risi...

We're tackling four friendship dilemmas from listeners in under 30 minutes. This time the topics circle around (mild) covid issues in friendships, the role of a best friend in adulthood, what happens when a teen's group is drifting away, and a listener whose friends keep walking away from the friendship. Thank you once again to Taryn Kessel for joining me! You can find the full show notes...

You want to make new friends, but worry it’s too late? Too hard? Too intimidating? You don’t know where to start?  I believe it's never too late to make new friends , which is why I invited Carolyn Cochrane, Kristin Nilsen, and Michelle Newman of the Pop Culture Preservation Society Podcast to tell us how they become good friends in the last handful of years, what these new friendships have me...

Love them or hate them, you're probably in a group chat once in a while or even very regularly. Author, Kat Vellos, and I are navigating the world of group texts and all the friendship issues and potential that come along with them. Kat and I discuss the ideal uses for group chats, the less than ideal uses, and all the potential etiquette opportunities that could make our group chats more effe...

Did you love the movie Steel Magnolias in the 80s/early 90s? I did, but rewatching it recently brought up some thoughts I never would have had as a kid when I watched it MANY times. Instead of a regular Dear Nina episode this week, I’m directing you to a deep dive discussion I had with Lori at the The Untitled Gen-X Podcast . We left no stone of Steel Magnolias unturned, including the friendships...

How to gracefully maintain boundaries and stop giving away too much information without damaging your friendships. This episode with my husband, Bryan, is a direct follow-up to the discussion I had in episode 23 when my guest and I spoke about kids' issues becoming too private to share with friends. I asked Bryan to share his advice for keeping information private because he's really good...

I answered an anonymous listener's question about how to still feel close to friends when you can no longer discuss issues that once might have bonded you like certain parenting conundrums. There comes a point when our kids' problems are really their stories to share and we have to honor their privacy. Here to help me is Twin Cities author, Rebecca Prenevost, a mom of two daughters who enj...

Fast forward a friendship by hosting friends for a meal! I'm taking on two topics today, with one topic logically leading to the other. #1. How to go from being casual acquaintances to actually considering someone a friend. #2. How to make it easier to have people over for a meal. I have the only sensible guest to handle this challenge, and that is my good friend, Debra Arbit. In addition to b...

I loved my conversation with Pennsylvania-based author Rachel Levy Lesser, and I REALLY enjoyed Rachel's memoir, Life’s Accessories . In the episode, we discussed Rachel losing her mother so soon after Rachel had her first child. We talked about how close Rachel was with her mom and the ways friends stepped up for her when her mom was sick with cancer and when her mom passed away. We also cove...

I'm fascinated by what makes people click. Within minutes we often know whether we want to pursue a friendship with someone, or not. Is that fair? Maybe not, but it's reality. Time and experience together can overcome a so-so initial chemistry, but I want to talk about those magical friendship moments. Those "friends at first sight" feelings. Have you had them? I’d love to hear abo...

Books about friendship! Today's episode combines two of my favorite topics—friendship and books--specifically, novels and memoirs about friendship for adults. Thank you to my guest, Rebekah Jacobs , who came up with all the book categories and was the perfect well-read guest to join me in this discussion. It was like the best giant book club meeting ever. You can find the show notes with the B...

Scaling back, reaching out, overlooking flaws, and accepting boundaries. Taryn and I answered four listeners' questions about friendship in about 30 minutes. We jammed a lot in! You can find the full show note with the questions here . ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO 📢  This week’s fabulous sponsor + how to purchase ad space on Dear Nina 📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations Abo...

Episode #17: An important discussion about sobriety in friendship, from addiction to all levels of sober living and how friendships transition and sometimes completely phase out in early sobriety. Jen Veralle shared her personal story and offered extremely helpful tips.  You can find the full show notes here .  ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO 📢  This week’s fabulous sponsor + how to purcha...

This whole idea of "the in crowd" or "the popular crowd" comes up in questions I’ve received for many years. As a generality, I’m calling the issue in crowd vs out crowd, but let me clear, nobody uses that exactly language when they write to me. What I get instead are letters explaining how frustrated people are when they aren’t being welcomed into a certain group, or when their ki...

Making small talk is an essential step of making friends. There's no avoiding it. All relationships, casual or deep, start with those first moments of small talk.   I invited Ali Wenzke, author of The Art of Happy Moving , to give us lots of tips about making this kind of (sometimes) awkward conversation and how body language cues can help in making friends, too. You can find the show notes HE...

The most essential point in this episode is about creating opportunities to see the same people on a regular basis. It takes a lot of repeated time together to get more familiar and really feel CLOSE. I think it’s why pickle ball and paddle ball leagues are getting so popular as one example. I also discuss how keeping expectations in check might also be the key to feeling happier with the friendsh...

Making new friends as an adult is difficult whether it’s because you moved to a new city, you’re in a new stage of life, or you’re lonely and could use more friends. It takes tons of time to make casual friends you want to see repeatedly and even more time to make close friends. But it’s not impossible. Difficult? Yes. Takes consistent effort and work? Also yes. But it can be done. What helped me...

How can we help a friend who’s in crisis because of illness or grief? And how can we ask for help rather than waiting for friends to know exactly what to do? A few months ago, Alissa reached out on email to discuss a trend she saw on some of the Facebook pages and forums for widows. She wrote: "One thing I see over and over in these groups is people complaining that friends who said they'd...

My brother-in-law, Dave Dluger, and I were talking after recording an episode, we got into a conversation about how male friendships seem to involve less drama and I realized we ought to record it as an episode. I loved getting a male perspective on some of the previous episodes. In addition to male friendships, we talked about friends being there for Dave and my sister during hard times, being aw...

Last week in episode #10 with author Jessica Speer who wrote BFF or NRF , we talked briefly about her nine friendship truths. We mainly focused on truth #9— which was “You choose which of your friendships to grow. Grow the healthy ones.” In this mini-episode I am focusing on Jessica's truth #6— "Everyone makes mistakes." If we want wiggle room to make mistakes with friends, we have to...

It's not easy to say no to a friendship. And it's just as hard to help our kids do the same. How do you handle it when you’re not interested in pursuing a friendship, but you don’t want to be unkind when subtly communicating that message to an acquaintance? And how do we help kids make decisions about which friendships to pursue? It's tricky to simultaneously teach kids to make their o...