Oh, my God, you guys. I literally have something I have to talk to you about today's episode, Friendship: Making Your Life as an Adult as Fun as Summer Camp, and an amazing, three-part takeaway about how to make adult friends using coffee shops in your neighborhood. Awesome. Okay.

Yes.

Let's do it. But first, I came from a coffee shop. Can we talk about this freaking pastry that I brought? It's gorgeous. Oh, my God. I love a pastry, everybody. I exercise simply to eat a 10,000-calorie pastry.

Look at it. Well, it's worth it.

Yes, we're going to get to the friendship thing first. But first, I want to become besties with this pastry. Most of you don't know this, but I have a love affair with pastries because my grandparents, Betty and Frank Schneiderger, they... What are you laughing about? I'm laughing at my.

Freaking name. It is a funny name. And also, you act like, Oh, you know Betty and Frank Schneider? Yeah, right down the road. It's like a very funny.

Like- They're under the ground.

And up in heaven. No, I'm sure. Yeah, no, but they sound like folksy and like they are people that we would like to be friends with. I would like to know them. They need a.

Pastry with. They are Salt of the Earth. My grandfather immigrated here from Austria at the age of 15. He was in the Navy. My grandmother grew up in a coal mining town in Ohio, and they met because she was shipped off from the coal mining town to become a maid for some rich family based on a newspaper ad. And they met. And when he got out of the Navy, they started working in a bakery in Chatham, New Jersey. And my grandfather was the baker. And ultimately, over the years, they bought out the owner, and they were the Chatham bakery people. This is, by the way, why I never saw them, because they ran a bakery by themselves. And when you run a bakery.

You're.

Running a bakery.

When you're on Team Butter, you just are on Team Butter.

All the time. Yeah. So I always think about my grandparents when I see a great pastry. And my love of flowers, that's my other love, comes from my parents, because I was forced to weed every single weekend of my life and deadhead. So I love pastries, and this one is a winner. And I promise we're going to get to the friendship. But first, can we just all collectively...

Wow.

So here's the breakthrough that I had. When I first moved to this tiny ass town a couple of years ago now, I've lived here full-time now for about a year. When I first moved here, I hated it. I was lonely. I had no friends other than you two. And you two are amazing. Im sorry. It's lame if you're only friends are from work, right? Yes. And I hated it here. Today, I realized that I have had a life changing breakthrough. I woke up today, and I feel like I live in adult summer camp.

That's awesome.

I woke up. I rolled out of bed. I had my glass of water. I made my bed. And then I checked my phone. And, Amy, you and David Gerbets were already texting like schoolgirls.

We were.

At 5:30 in the morning, he's like, Who's up? And you're texting photos of the view this morning. And then you're like, Who wants to do something? Is Amy pulling a card? Are we going for a walk? What's happening? And then you said, Mel, get in here. And that was the last text I read. And I was like, Here. What do you mean in here? And then I realized you were talking about just get in the text chat and.

Talk to us. Well, we were up before the bugle at camp. We were just up. And yeah, we're like-minded in that way. We're all up early in the morning doing our thing, getting our day started. So I was like, Mel, get in here. What have you got to say? What are we doing? Oh, my God. And I.

Felt this like, Oh, I have friends.

I have friends that are having fun that want me to have fun with them.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And then it just was this moment. And so, excuse me, I'm so excited that I'm choking myself here with my own air. That as I was reflecting on this this morning, I thought, How did I get here? How did I get here? How did I get from being new to a tiny community, feeling so depressed and lonely, being worried that I had made a huge mistake by leaving a place that I had been for a very long time, convincing myself I would never be happy. I would never find people that were my friends. I would never have an experience in my life where I had friendships like people have in college, or you have at summer camp, and you're just having fun, and you're doing life together. There's some drama, but.

No.

Drama, really. And here I am. And I've created it. And I realize, because I really want you... The point of the episode today is to get you to consider that it is within your power to create an experience as an adult, where your life feels like summer camp, where your friendships are really fun, where you're having fun, where you wake up to text chains, where friends are already talking, you're walking into a coffee shop and people that you know and love are walking in just randomly. And so you have and that's what's happened. And oddly enough, it has to do a lot with coffee shops.

I can't wait to hear this. You know what she's talking about, Jessie, though.

Let's do it. Okay, great. And I just need to also say that there are people outside doing all kinds of work around here. There are tractors. There are stone walls that are getting built. There is pavement going in today. And so you're going to hear some stuff, and we're not going to edit it out because the whole point of the Mel Robbins podcast is that we're doing life together. And we're putting our arm around you and taking you on that walk.

With us. Along with all the brawdy men outside. Yeah. We're jumping.

On the mic. Yeah, we're just jumping on the mic together. And I want to inspire you today to think about the next 12 months of your life and the breakthrough that is available to you if you start to show up differently and you get super intentional about creating fun with friends and meeting new people and putting yourself out there. And it does have to do with- Gretchen, who is it? Oh, my God. There's a.

Friend of mine.

Oh, there's another friend. Oh, my God. It's a friend of mine calling, like on queue. Gretchen. Gretchen. Can you hear me, Gretchen? Mel? Yes, you're on the podcast. We were just talking about friendship and how it sounds... It feels like summer camp here. And then you called. I'm so glad I called too. I'll call you back when you're done with your podcast. All right, but just tell everybody how miserable I was a year ago. Like no friends, sad, sack, depressed.

Well, you thought you had no friends.

You did have friends.

And you were depressed and you are sad, sack. But you had friends and you were loved. You just didn't feel it.

Oh, whoa, drop.

The mic. Drop the mic. Exactly.

She sounds like the camp counselor.

This morning. Yes.

All right, my love. All right. I love you. I'll call you later. Bye. Okay. Maybe we should start there.

Yeah.

Maybe you do have friends, and you're not letting them in, and you're not embracing it, Amy. I'm looking at you.

Yeah, I believe it. You're looking at me because I.

Just said that. Yes. Just yesterday, Amy turned to me and was like, I need to find my friend group. I'm like, Bitch, I'm in your friend group. What are you.

Talking about? I don't know about that. How can you... And I told my husband, Tim, about that. And he was like, That is probably the rudest thing you could ever say to somebody. I need friends while looking at a room full of people that are like your contacts. Not you. Not you. I mean, real friends. No, it's true. But you know what that points to, though, Mel, is I was feeling a little sad and I didn't have friends. Why? Because I was looking at life through the lens of I don't have any friends. I was literally telling the person, you, that I am friends with, Well, I don't have any friends. How lame is that? And I was thinking about that moment and how I changed my mindset on that. And you were like, All right, listen, this ends here. If you're not going to consider me a good friend. And I thought about it, and I thought, Why do I feel like that. It's just a habit to feel.

Like that. Yes. And I also think that as an adult, there is a major change in mindset that you need to make. And interestingly, Gretchen clearly called at the exact right time to make sure that we talked about this. I mean, it's uncanny because when you're growing up, so much of your friendships are orchestrated through teams and through the classes that you're in and through people that live on your hallway or people that you work with. And so they are made for you through proximity and through the number of times that you see them. But the older that you get, the more intentional you need to be about causing those bump-ins and causing reasons to get together. And what Gretchen is saying is something that I think happens to all of us. As life gets busier, as you get older, as people move away, as people go through different life experiences, whether it's a change in a job or an ending of a marriage or a breakup or whatever, or start having kids or get a ton of dogs or whatever ends up happening. Your friendships change because you stop seeing people so much. But here's the big thing and the mistake that I made is I stopped thinking that the people that I didn't see as much were my friends.

We associate the amount of times you see somebody with whether or not they're actually a friend of yours. And I am here to make you think differently on a number of levels, because these are big breakthroughs that I had. A year ago, when I was a sad, sack, lonely, I got no friends, bitch.

I remember it.

Yeah.

I was so sad. Amy's favorite story about me is the definition of pathetic.

Yeah. Well, you had just moved into this house, and it is a gorgeous home, and your surroundings are fantastic, and yet you're crying your eyes out. And like Gretchen said, Super sad, sack. And I was trying to cheer you up. And I said, Mel, what do you think you'll do with the landscaping here? Knowing that you love flowers. I said, Do you think you're maybe going to plant some some hydrangea here or peonies that you love? And you said, I.

Don't know. I'll probably just leave it all dirt. And what do.

We know?

Who's outside? Right. We're planting peonies.

Yeah, a year later here at it. Planting peonies, hydrangeas, and tons of has to. Yeah. And here, this is an important part, because when it comes to loneliness and friendship, it doesn't matter how nice your car is. It doesn't matter how good your job is. It doesn't matter how much money you have or you don't have. If you tell yourself the story that nobody likes you or that all your friends are gone or that you're the only one that doesn't have a.

Friend group, or you can't have.

Any fun, or you can't have any fun or you're not having any fun, or you'll never have fun again, you will stay stuck there. And the truth is your friends didn't go anywhere. Your friends, I am convinced, and I need you to hear this loud and clear, every single adult right now is having a friendship crisis. You believe that your friends are having this wild party, and you're not invited. And it's not true. Every single time I talk about this topic with anybody, they chime in and say, I feel the exact same way. I feel like I never see my friends. I feel lonely. I'm not having as much fun as I would like to have. And I got so sick and tired of going, I'm just going to live with dirt.

I'm not going to plan anything.

That I said, woman, if you want to have more fun, if you want friends, you got to put your ass out there again. You do. You have to cause this. Just like if I want plants to grow, I got to plant the seeds. I got to split the has to. I got to stick them in the ground. And I'm telling you, I want to inspire you today to think differently about friendship. I want today to be the day that you turn the corner and you start to plant those seeds because you can wake me up a year from now and go, Holy guacamole.

My.

Life feels like camp. I have a lot of friends. I'm having fun again. I'm like- There's activities. I'm like, bring the fun.

There's activities. And they're on purpose friends, like what I call on purpose friends. What does that- They're on a friend. -right? Like, not friends from work, although we know that they're great. You're an on-purpose friend. No, you're an on-purpose friend for me, too.

Wait, not an on-purpose friend?

What is an on-purpose friend? An on-purpose friend is somebody that you deliberately saw and wanted to be friends with and made that friendship happen. So not on purpose would be work friends or friends that you, I don't know, that you maybe do some sporting activity with. But it's not because you're a friend group first, it's just the sport- They're an quick common- Yeah, there's a common bond, but that bond comes before the friendship. So the softball team is going to always exist whether.

You're on it or not. Hold on a second. Okay, I love this distinction. Okay. The difference between the bond that's created versus the friendship that's developed. So to use the three of us as an example, we have a bond because we work together every day. But our friendship got created because we took it way further than just the bond of work.

Yes. Yes. Yes. There's caring, empathy, and nurturing, and support.

Outside.

Hours.

And outside and probably HR non-compliant.

But that's cool because it's on purpose. It's okay. It's on purpose. We want to. On purpose friends are amazing. And I'm just opening up to that, too, because you don't feel like they're... I think that's part of the reason why I felt like I didn't have any friends, because you feel like they're just friends with me because I work with them. Or they're just friends with me because I'm in school with them. And that can make you feel like you're not really a good friend. But on purposethose friends, for me, fill your life with such vitality and activity and excitement because they're there for you. They're the friend that's behind you, not behind the softball team or the organization that you work for or whatever. They're there for you. How great is that to be on purpose with your friendship? Great.

So already two massive takeaways, and I haven't even talked about the coffee shop. You got to get to the pastry. But I want to make sure that we pull this apart, because number one, there's a lie you're telling yourself, which is you have no friends. That's actually not true. Your friends are still there. What's been missing is the fact that you're not being proactive about developing the friendship piece. Let's take Amy's little framework there. Every relationship, when it's a friendship, has both the bond, which is usually created from some outside force. You're a neighbor or you're working together, or you go to the same yoga studio. Or your family. Or your family. Yeah, it's a good one. Or whatever, like you went to college together. When the bond that brings you together all the time disappears, it's on you to keep the caring and the interest and the outreach alive, because that's what the friendship actually is. And so I want you to understand that all those people that you used to hang out with, that you used to feel that bond with, they're still there.

And.

They're thinking you left. And you have an opportunity to flip your thinking and realize it's literally about reaching back out. It's literally about getting very intentional about the reconnection, because the last three years and everything that we've all been through, I think, evaporated the bond that brought most of us together in real life with our friends. And so that's takeaway number one.

Takeaway number two is that this is possible in your life. You can have an experience in your adult life that your entire adult life, when it comes to friendship, is a camp experience, that you're in it with other like-minded people, that you're having fun, that there are activities. And if you want that, then get the shovel out and start planting some seeds. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel. I got my arm around you. We're going for that walk. We're having pastries this morning. Amy and Jesse have joined us. This is one of these impromptu episodes. I cannot get the information out of my mouth fast enough.

Yeah, you've got a lot to say. I have a lot to say. You have a lot to say. I can't wait to hear what you have to say about friendship and coffee houses. It seems like a low lift. Seems like something achievable.

Okay.

Tell us. What you got, Mel?

I'm so excited about this because I do think it's possible for the next year for you to take on a project around friendship and for you to create the best friendships of your entire life doing this. And I'm so excited because I realize looking backwards that that's what I've been doing for a year. I've been putting myself out there, and putting myself out there, and putting myself out there, because I really do want to have fun. I really do want to feel community. I really do want to have a breakthrough in this, and it's happened. And so I so want this for you. I really do. And if this sad sack can make it possible, so can you. Here's how you use a bakery to get friends as an adult. I think one of the hard things about being an adult, particularly in this world of remote work, is that you don't have as many chances to bump into people. And so what you were talking about, Amy, of that bond of a softball team or people that you meet at work or people that you meet at your kid's soccer games or people that you might meet because you're going to a yoga studio, one major thing that has impacted adult friendship is that people are way more secluded in their homes.

And so it's reduced exponentially the opportunity for the first part of friendship, which is that external bond that brings you together. So you got to create the bond. And what I realized in moving to a new town in the last year or so is that it's hard to find people. Like, where am I finding my people? And I don't want to seem like a desperate stalker. So how do I find my people? And when I'm out in public trying to create this bond, how do I approach without seeming creepy? How do you do that if you're introverted? This is weird. Because you also, unlike... It's not like we're all freshmen in college again, because people that are out in public, you don't know if they're new to the area. You don't know if they've been here forever.

Are they tourists? Yeah. I don't know.

Yes. And so we opt out of these opportunities, and that's where the coffee shop comes in. So first, I want you to think about your town. And I'm going to tell you something that's true that you've probably never thought about. There are four types of coffee shops in your town.

There.

Is the chain. So Duncan Donuts, Honeydew, Starbucks, insert your favorite chain, okay? And that's one type. There is the first responder coffee shop. And I'm going to explain a little bit more about that. That's where the EMTs, the volunteer fire folks, the police officers, they're all gathered there every morning. There is the neighborhood, local coffee shop, which is the place that a lot of moms stop by quickly to grab the regular, the carrot muffin, the latte or whatever on their way to school, or maybe they meet their mom friends after school. And then there's the fourth type of coffee shop in your neighborhood, which is that super high end one, the place where people wear an apron with leather straps and the pastries look like you would pay $75 for them, right? Yeah.

Okay. Are you getting a cocktail or coffee? You don't know. Yes.

And you have to think about it and identify those four types of coffee shops because the coffee shops themselves create an opportunity to create that external bond that is needed in order to form a friendship. Hear me out. Because all four of those types of coffee shops automatically, like the Sorting Hat and Harry Potter, sort out the people that walk through the front door.

Yeah, I can.

See.

This. Yeah, right? Yeah. I'm with you. So if you think about the first type of coffee shop, the chain, the training. That is not a great place for you to create a bond with anybody that you want to become friends with. And I'll tell you why. Because those coffee shops are very transactional. Yeah. A lot of them have mobile order. A lot of them have drive-through. And so the entire psychology and energy of anybody going to that coffee shop is get in and get out. Get in and get out. Make it efficient. Get in and get out.

Don't want to.

Be seen. Correct. And if there is somebody sitting in there with a laptop, they are likely going to be sitting there with a laptop not every single day because they will probably be asked to not use it as their local library. But they're likely going to have headphones on, because they're trying to get something done. And because that coffee shop experience is so transactional that people are in and out and in and out and in and out, it's a very distracting place to work. And so while they may serve great coffee, and it may be an efficient way to put a mobile order in, and zip in, and get your coffee as you're commuting somewhere else, it's not a great place to create a bond. So we're going to move that off the table, okay?

Yeah, makes sense.

Second type of coffee shop in every community is what I call the first responders, Salt of the Earth coffee shop. This is where the people that grew up in the town, the old timers, the volunteers that keep our town running, the highway roads.

What's that- Yeah, construction workers. Yeah, I love these. Road maintenance.

Yes, you've got the best damn donuts in town.

And thecups of coffee.

Oh, yeah. The little cups of coffee, the little, those thick, just like used to be the diner crowd. Yeah.

It's.

An institution. It's an institution. And when you're new, it is intimidating as hell to walk into it, even though it's all of the most best, amazing people.

Who know everyone.

I know. They make your town run.

But it feels-.

Like an insider? Yeah.

It feels like a hard casing on top of that that you have to crack through. And you.

Feel like you have to why? You have to sit down there.

Yes. Now that first responder, salt of the earth, thank you for your service, everybody. We love you. The backbone of our town, that coffee shop proves my point because that coffee shop experience where everybody gathers, they're always there having their cup of coffee before work, or they're always there after plowing all the driveways at a snowstorm, a fair routine. That coffee shop has created their bond. They prove that it's possible. Yes. I never thought about that. Right? Yeah. And by sitting there over a cup of coffee and having it be a ritual to start their day together most mornings, their friendship is deepening. And a couple of things about this coffee shop, best donuts in town. No question. No question. No question, best donuts in town. They probably have a crawler, that big of a doughnut thing that you're going to dip in. I'll tell you what they don't have. Those kinds of coffee shops never have a machine that makes cappuccinos and latte.

You're right. They don't.

Have Espresso. No. You know what they have? They have the institutional coffee pot maker that has the two pots. It's like a metal tea and the two pots with the black handle and the opaque thing. And then they pour the coffee in. And then they've also got the cream where you pull back the little packets and you have to shake them, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So that's that coffee shop. And so here's the thing I want to tell you. If those are the folks that you really connect with, and this is my entire extended family, I come from a line of farmers, and machinists, and COs, and sheriffs, and nail technicians, and school administrators, and people that own bakeries. These are my people. But it is so intimidating when you're in a new town. It is. To penetrate that older, not... I don't know. I know they're older as an age, but that.

Old school- Established.

-old bond, established crowd. It's like being a kid and sneaking into the teacher's lounge.

It is.

Like that. But if.

You're lucky enough to do it, they're going to be great people.

You're in good hands. But I think that if these are the folks that you know are your folks, if you just show up every week and you sit down, they will put their arm around you. You just got to start showing up. And so that's coffee shop number two. And I'm so happy that it also proves my point about the bond and that this is possible for you. We're going to take another quick break because I want more of this pastry.

Get in.

There, Mel. And when we return, I'm going to explain coffee shop number three and coffee shop number four. And then we're going to get into some really great techniques that you can use. Once you pick which coffee shop, you're going to try to establish your bond in to make the approach.

Stay.

With us. Awesome. Welcome back.

Get in here, Em.

It's your friend Mel. This pastry is so damn good. It came from coffee shop number four. I'm talking about adult friendship and how I'm on a mission to inspire you to create the best friendships of your entire life. Whether that means you're meeting a whole new group of people, or it means that you're taking out the defibrillator paddles, and you're going to send life force energy shockwaves into your current friends who you've told yourself are no longer there. No, you're just no longer there. You just got to reach out. So here we go. We're going to get into all this. So I left off at... Where were we? Number two. Number two, coffee shop number two. Okay, so we covered that. Coffee shop number three in your town is the coffee shop, where it's like the local coffee shop. It's where all the moms go on the way to work or on the way to dropping off kids at school. And it's the place where it's bustling in the morning. You got people with laptops out. It is the walk up. And every other customer, they're like, I'll have the regular. And the people working behind the counter are like, They know.

Oh, that means you want a latte with three sugars and you want the carrot muffin to go. Or that means that you want the hot tea and you also want the egg sandwich with sausage on it. It's this community driven, very busy, bustling. They're usually busy till 11:00 because a lot of people meet there after dropping off their kids. It's that place.

It's different from number one because it's maybe not a franchise and it's just more the local feel. Yeah.

And different for number two, because it's not really the place where you see the established group almost every morning. Yeah.

Okay.

This is the place that if I had to meet you at 10 o'clock to catch up, we'd meet there. You know.

What I mean? Solid food, solid coffee. You know you're going to.

Get the right thing. Exactly. They got the little punch.

Card that.

You buy the coffee from. They might even have the alphabetized index on the desk for your cards. You can leave it there. It's like that place, right? Yeah. They might convert to sandwiches at noon time, that place.

And all the teenagers, way more food. And all the teenagers in town work there in the summertime. And you see little Joe who you knew from six months old, now and he's serving you your macha.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And one of the other things I'm going to layer into this is that, again, the sorting hat reference. Certain types of people go to certain types of coffee shops on a regular basis. I'm not saying that we don't frequent all four because I do frequent all four of these. But there is my go to that really I feel more at home in that you want to spend an hour there. You want to spend two. If you could only pick one of the four, there is one that you would pick. And that's how you know the person that you are and the sorting hat thing that's going to happen for you. And this gets deeper and deeper. But let me tell you number four, next. So number four is that coffee shop that is always written up in the travel guide about your town. It is the one that is white with barnwood. And the people that work there are very cool, hippie, smart, maybe a beanie. You've got an apron on with a leather strap. The pastries look like a million dollars. The coffee is strong. The latte machine is like the size of a New York City bus, and it looks gorgeous.

And that is a whole different crowd.

A.

Whole different crowd.

And.

One of the things that I love about this distinction is that when you decide, okay, one, two, three, or four, and you can decide that based on if you had two hours to spend, which coffee shop are you going to go to for two hours? Like you've got a kid that's getting braces put on. You got two hours to kill. Where are you going to go sit with your book? And the reason why this is important is because instinctively in your heart, there are going to be certain kinds of people with certain kinds of interests coming in and out. Because none of these are better than the other. They just attract a baseline person who's interested in certain things. And look, there are amazing people that go to all four, and there are complete assholes that go to all four. It's not about that. It's about the baseline interest in what people like.

So.

That's why the sorting hat is important. And I'm going to go back to what I said about the first coffee shop and the fact that the group of people that are the established backbone of your town that are there almost every morning, they have used that coffee shop as a bond for their friendship.

Right. Like a vessel holding their friendship.

If you want to start to make adult friends, park yourself at one of those coffee shops several mornings a week and on one day on the weekend for an hour.

How is that going to help, Mel?

What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? How that's going to help is you're going to start seeing people coming in and out, and they're going to be the same people. And you're going to start saying hello. I've seen Jesse at coffee shop number four. Guilty. Yes. And it was Jessie that told me about it. I had been here an entire year. I did not know that coffee shop number four existed.

Wow. Because your eyes were closed to the friendship.

Yes. I was still thinking I was just going to have dirt around my house. I'm not going to the coffee shop. I'm not.

Going to the coffee shop. I'm living in her aunt farm.

With all the dirt. Yeah, Jessie is like, You've been to this coffee shop? And I'm not going to name it because I don't need stalker showing up there. I'd love to promote all the coffee shops in our town. But I was like, no. Kick rocks. No. I walked into that place. I was like, am I in New York? There's a person with a beanie. There's an Espresso machine. There's a pastry that I'd pay $75 for, largely because it tastes like $75. And also the ingredients for me to make this at home, it would take me eight hours. I would burn it and cost me $75 in ingredients. I'm willing to pay six, five dollars for this thing? I think it was what it was. That's a bargain.

Bargan.

That's a freaking bargain. And when I walked into this place, I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. And so here's how this works. This becomes your go to place when you meet people elsewhere to meet up.

Yes.

Yeah.

So anytime you meet somebody new or somebody introduces you to somebody in the town, you say, how about we go get coffee on Saturday morning at nine o'clock at the such and such? Now here's where this starts to build. As you meet new people, here's what you say, Because I always meet my friends there at nine o'clock on Saturday morning. You're creating an institution. That's a good ad right there. You're creating your bond and your institution.

You know what? You know what's hitting me right now about all of this? Friendship is a verb.

Like when you're saying, Oh, let's meet up for coffee, or, Let's park yourself there. And then you have to actually park yourself at the coffee shop, and then you actually have to.

Talk to people.

Friendship is a verb. You got to be doing things. It's an action word. You have to make it happen.

That's what's hitting me right now. Yes. Good point. And the more you go there, the more you start to know the staff and the owners. And then you'll see who else knows the staff and owners. And then that gives you an in, don't you just love this place? How long have you known so and so and so and so? And here's another way that you can strike up a conversation. If you're standing in line, turn to the person next to you and ask them, What's the best doughnut? What's the best? Muffin. What's the best pastry here? What do you recommend? That's your in. Yeah. That's your in. And here's the other reason why I don't like category number one for this friendship building. And the reason why is it's so transactional. Who in their right mind turns to anybody at a Starbucks or a Nugging Donuts? It's like, what doughnut do you recommend? You're like, idiot. They've had the same ones for a decade. What do you mean what ones? Have you never.

Been here? The menu has not changed.

And plus, you don't know if they're driving.

Through on.

Their way somewhere else. It's a pit stop. Yeah, it's a pit stop. And so this allows you to start to create that bond. It gives you a place where you're always going to say you meet people on Saturday mornings there at nine o'clock in the morning, and that's your parking spot. That's your bond. And then you tell people that every time you meet them there, and then people start to bring their friends. And that's how it starts to grow. And here's another tip. If you're shy and if you have trouble approaching people, here's the best way to approach for anybody. Look at something the person is wearing or look at some feature like glasses or nails or a hairstyle or a hair or color, or braids, or whatever it may be, or a weave, or earrings, jewelry. Compliment them. Compliment them. When you compliment, Oh, my God, your nails are so great. Wow. People literally light up like a light bulb. They do. They do.

I know I do, right? Yeah. So everybody else must, too.

Yes. Yes. And if you're new, I would say this all the time to people, I'm new here. What do people do here? Or even if you're not new somewhere, you can say to somebody, I've lived here a long time, but these last three years, I think I've become a little bit socially awkward. I've fallen out a loop of what's going on. What's going on this weekend around here? And here's what's super cool about that. Let's go back to the way that coffee shops work is sorting hats. If you ask somebody that at Starbucks, the likelihood is they're going to shrug their shoulders and be like, I don't know. And then they race off because they're just coming in for their mobile work. Too busy. You got a coffee shop number two. Those folks are going to tell you something super fun like, Oh, well, there's a tractor pull over at such and such. There's a potluck. Yeah, or there's like a whatever there is, or there's something going on over at the... There's like a bingo night or this. I'm not saying any of this is good or bad. I'm just saying it's a type of thing.

Or there's a huge pizza fundraiser thing going on for the local fire department taking the job. If you go to coffee shop number three, it'll be like, oh, well, there's a art fair at the school this weekend.

Birthday party. Yeah, those kinds of things, something going on at the library. You go to number four, it's like, oh, well, there's a mushroom foraging or.

Something.

Like that happening, or there's an author coming to the bookstore. Again, because it's a sorting hat of what people are interested in, you're pulled in for the esthetic, you're pulled in for the type of food, you're pulled in for the vibe. But those folks that love those things tend to have certain events that they go to. And so you're also then going to get recommendations that also feel like it's something you actually might want to do.

Right. Well, and what I'm also getting from this is that it's a better spot to make conversation.

At number four. Yes.

Because it's not transient where people are going in and out. It's not institutionalized. It's not focused around maybe kids, or work, or something like that. It's a great place to strike up a conversation. So go where it's a little bit easier.

Yes. And here's one more recommendation that has really helped me. And again, I think I've demonstrated over and over that I can put myself out there. I don't give a shit. It's an emergency. It's an emergency to solve the loneliness problem. And so I have no problem because I have no problem going up to people and saying, I'm new to the area, and I desperately need friends. If you guys need friends, let me know. How do you people meet people here? And most people laugh and say, I feel the same way. And even if you have been in an area for a long time, there are two things I want you to do. It is okay to live in an area for 20, 30 years and feel lonely. And it's normal. And I think most of us do because of the last three years and quarantine and remote work. It's okay to do all of this in your own town where you've always lived and to say to people, I've become a hermit. I'm trying to make some new friends. If you feel that way, you guys want to start a walking group or something, you want to just meet here on Saturdays, so we have a touch point?

And then if people say yes, I get their cell phone right then. I text them right then. And here is a power move. You say, make fun of yourself. And the second I walk out of here, I'm going to forget what you look like. So why don't we take a selfie? So we remember this moment. And so that when I text you, you're not like, who is this freak? From the coffee shop? What are you talking about? Yeah. And so that is a major thing. And I say that because for the first six months, I started using this coffee shop strategy on adult friendship, I didn't do that.

The selfie thing, you didn't do that.

Yes. And then weeks would go by and somebody would text and be like, hey, you want to be at the bakery? And I'm thinking, Who the fuck is this? Who can I give my name to? And then I've got ADHD, so I would have deleted the text chain. I'm like, Who the fuck is this? And now you're embarrassed because you're like, Who is this? All right. What's your name? Yeah. And then you walk in and you're thinking, Okay, what person am I- Yeah.

That's not a good start to the friendship. So you smoothed it out a little bit with the selfie thing. I think that really is a power move. Yes. Yeah, really good. And that also shows you're super determined.

We're.

Getting together.

I'm.

Going to see you again.

I'm going to see you again. Yeah, I like that. Yes.

And I have one final tip. I can't wait to hear it. And should I wait for the construction vehicle to go by? Are we hearing the beeping? Actually, maybe the beeping everybody is trying to get you to go, deep, deep, deep. This is really important.

Attention.

Attention. Let's go back to my original desire. My desire is that your life as an adult feels like summer camp. And the reason why I say that, even though I got homesick and left early at every summer camp I ever went to, is that the one thing that's really great about summer camp or college is that you're constantly rolling out of bed. And it's like, hey, let's go grab a meal. Hey, let's go to a conference room. Hey, you want to go on a hike? You walk down the hallway, next thing you know, you're brushing your teeth next to somebody, and you're then walking to the dining hall together. It's like constant just bumping into people and energy around it and fun, spontaneous fun. So one thing that I've started taking on more and more, and I stole this from friends of mine that I think are hilarious, is that I try to lighten up every single group chat that I'm in with memes, with funny ass photos, and it works wonders. Like when somebody texts you like you want to get together, I will literally take the ugliest selfie and be like, Absolutely. But not right now, because I haven't even gotten dressed for the morning yet.

Like that thing. Or you want to meet for coffee? Yeah. I'm so excited to see you. I'm coming in my pajamas and I'm not kidding. And then I take a photo. That's awesome. I'm in camp again. I'm having fun again. You are. And it's working. It's working. I've gone from wanting to just have dirt around my house to putting plants in the ground. I've gone from feeling like I've got sympathy friends, like that my only friends are people I work with to feeling like, well, actually, I feel like it's not even that my work friends have become my friends. It's that I just get to hang out with my friends all day long, and we call part of that time work. Right. Right? You know what I'm saying? Yes, totally. And now I'm like, oh, my God. This morning, you guys. This morning was it. What happened?

What are you talking about? Oh, my God. Well, first of all, I've.

Already told you. I woke up. I did my ABCs. I got up out of the bed. I drank my water. I made my bed. I was about to go out for a walk. I picked up my phone. And there is this literally long text chain of Amy and David going fricking off with each other at 5:30 in the fricking morning. On a Friday. On a Friday.

It's Friday, people. You got.

To double down. Literally. They are going... I'm trying to think. Oh, that is long. It started at 5:06 AM with a video from David. That was a.

Mareem cycle then.

Jeez. Of the mist in the Valley. I'm a home, sweet home. Amy says, I was just thinking about you. He's like, I'm good. I'm ready. Amy's like, Super. What are the weekend plans? David's like, Get my health and wellness underway. Start figuring my business out. Relax. Blah, blah, blah, blah. What time is the card pull? Yeah. Amy pulls cards, as you know. Amy's like, Jumping right in. Super. Pull in the card at 6:45. Guys, I'm sleeping as all of this is going on. David's like, Oh, all my poems are now edited, so I'll probably get after that. They're still going, you guys. Six o'clock at 6:20. 6:20, I wake up, and I see the last thing, which is, Mel, get in here if you're up. I'm like, I love these people. So we text back in the morning, and then all of a sudden- It's like a camp that just walks to.

Your cabin and started.

Making you up. Yeah, well, David did. He came over to my house, and we did a walk in the morning. You're going to the cabins. It really is like a cabin. I said, I.

Feel like I'm in college or a camp. I just fucking love you guys. And then I said that I'm going to head off to this pilates class, and then I'm going to stop for an 800,000-calorie pastry. And then David's like, Mel, this is way better than camp. It's fucking amazing because we can have wine here. And then- What are we talking now?

That sounds like it. I was seven. What's seven? Okay.

I love this. I walk into my number four coffee shop and guess who's there? David. And then guess who pulls in?

You, Jesse. And then guess who pulls in? Maxine, our other friend.

No way. Because she was having a meeting there. Oh, of course. Because, of course, where do you go to have a meeting?

Number four, baby.

Well, yeah, or number three, or number two. But just don't go to number one. Yes. Because you're not going to establish the bond there. Right. How freaking cool is this. So cool. And this is available to you. What did you two get out of this conversation?

I want to say easy. It's easier than we think than we give it credit for. And I think it helps in our small little town that you can remember people's names and you're going to bump into someone. But I never did this even in the city when I had access to 10 coffee shops.

Never.

Tried because you just stayed in your bubble. But here it's so special having this. I'm with you. It's just so cool to go to a place and be like, Oh, yeah, there's my friend. And then I'm going to bring another friend to you. I'm trying to meet someone this weekend for coffee.

Nine o'clock.

Saturday morning. I'm going to take her to number four.

I'm meeting at nine o'clock Saturday morning, tomorrow morning.

Done. Nice. Okay, I will. I'll do that right before I go to Jane's game. Jane's soccer game.

And so to those of you that live in a bigger city, here's the thing, though. Your neighborhood has all these places. And your favorite place to go exercise has all these places around it. And your kid's school or your office has these four places around it. And so get intentional, because getting serious about adult friendship, which means A, stop lying to yourself, you do have friends. All those people that were your friends that you saw all the time and those bonds that kept you in proximity that have disintegrated, your friendships are still there. It's on you to reach out. Number two, use the coffee shop model. Use the coffee shop model and get intentional about this. And you be the first, and you be the one pushing it, and you bring the fun. Number three, approach, approach, approach. Just be interested in people. Be open. Make sure you get their contact information. Take a selfie, at least take a photo of the pastry or whatever so you can remind them. Have that go to. You do it every week at a certain time. And then people start to aggregate, and that feels like you're connected to something.

It's like church used to be, I think, for a lot of people.

I think so. What I love about this is it's something you do anyway. You're having your cup of coffee anyway. Are you going to do it alone? Or are you going to do with other people? Like you said, Mel, you're going to exercise anyway. Are you going to do it alone, or are you going to do with other people? I was talking to my mother-in-law, who was talking about how she used to get together with her girlfriends and fold laundry together. You're doing it anyway.

How cool is that?

You're cooking dinner anyway. Why not invite a friend? Have both your families come on over, enjoy the time together, and make it a friendship moment.

Or weeding. If we traded weekends- Do we talk about that?

I love weeding. Yeah.

You do? Like when you were painting your house- Well, if you want to come here to weed, I will come to your house and do something else because I can't stand weeding. Something that you don't love.

I remember when you moved in, and you were painting your house, and I was like, I got to get after that because I love- I was.

Like, You're crazy. You're just being sweet. I love painting. I come over and help you. You're serious.

You love cutting a room. I never did it just to be completely transparent on this podcast. But I really feel like those are those moments. You and I standing side by side with paint brushes and getting crap in our hair, and you know what I mean? And Myrtle walking through the paint. I just think that those are moments that are way better than, Let's all go to, I don't know, a restaurant or something that feels fancy. Those plain, spoken moments are way better.

I loved what you said that friendship is a verb.

That was a really, really good point as well. That it takes a lot of, not a lot, but it takes effort and action.

Yeah, we're not in first grade anymore. We don't just show up in class.

No. You know what? And this is my final note. It could be way more fucking fun. The best years of your life and the best friendships are ahead of you. So get your ass number one, number two, number three, number four, and start making on people. All righty. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I want you to have this much fun in your life. You deserve to have this much fun, and you can create it. Give it a year. Keep chipping away at it, and you will find your people. I have one final tip. I can't wait to hear it. And should I wait for the construction vehicle to go by? Are we hearing the beeping? Actually, maybe the beeping everybody is trying to get you to go deep, deep, deep. This is really important.

Attention.

Let's go back to my original desire. My desire is that your life as an adult feels like summer camp. And the reason why I say that, even though I got homesick and left early at every summer camp I ever went to, is that the one thing that's really great about summer camp or college is that you're constantly rolling out of bed. And it's like, hey, let's go grab a meal. Hey, let's go to. Hey, you want to go on a hike? You walk down the hallway, next thing you know, you're brushing your teeth next to somebody, and you're then walking to the dining hall together. It's like constant just bumping into people and energy around it and fun, spontaneous fun. So one thing that I've started taking on more and more, and I stole this from friends of mine that I think are hilarious, is that I try to lighten up every single group chat that I'm in with memes, with funny ass photos. And it works wonders. Like when somebody texts you like you want to get together, I will literally take the ugliest selfie and be like, Absolutely. But not right now, because I haven't even gotten dressed for the morning yet.

Like that thing. Or you want to meet for coffee? Yeah. I'm so excited to see you. I'm coming in my pajamas, and I'm not kidding. And then I take a photo. That's awesome. I'm in camp again. I'm having fun again. Good. You are. And it's working. It's working. I've gone from wanting to just have dirt around my house to putting plants in the ground. I've gone from feeling like I've got sympathy friends. My only friends are people I work with to feeling like, well, actually, I feel like it's not even that my work friends have become my friends. It's that I just get to hang out with my friends all day long, and we call part of that time work. Right. Right? Do you know what I'm saying? Yes, totally. And now I'm like, oh, my God. This morning, you guys, this morning was it.

What happened? What are you talking about? Oh, my God. Well, first of all, I've.

Already told you. I woke up. I did my ABCs. I got up out of the bed. I drank my water. I made my bed. I was about to go out for a walk. I pick up my phone. And there is this literally long text chain of Amy and David going fricking off with each other at 5:30 in the fricking morning. On a Friday. On a Friday.

It's Friday, people. You got.

To double down. Literally. They are going... I'm trying to think. Oh, that is long. It started at 5:06 AM with a video from David. I was in my.

Rem cycle then.

Jeez. Of the mist in the Valley. I have a home sweet home. Amy says, I was just thinking about you. He's like, I'm good. I'm ready. Amy's like, Super. What are the weekend plans? David's like, Get my health and wellness underway. Start figuring my business out. Relax. Blah, blah, blah, blah. What time is the card pull? Yeah. Amy pulls cards, as you know. Amy's like, jumping right in. Super. Pulling the card at 6:45. Guys, I'm sleeping as all of this is going on. David's like, Oh, all my poems are now edited, so I'll probably get after that. They're still going, you guys. Six o'clock at 6:20. 6:20, I wake up, and I see the last thing, which is Mel, get in here if you're up. I'm like, I love these people. So we text back in the morning, and then all of a sudden- They just walk to.

Your cabin and.

Start waking you up. Yeah, well, David did. He came over to my house, and we did a walk in the morning. You're going to the cabin. It really is like a cabin. I said.

I feel like I'm in college or camp. I just fucking love you guys. And then I said that I'm going to head off to this pilates class, and then I'm going to stop for an 800,000-calorie pastry. And then David's like, Mel, this is way better than camp. It's fucking amazing because we can have wine here. And then- What are we talking now?

That sounds like a seven. Okay.

I love this. I walk into my number four coffee shop and guess who's there? David. And then guess who pulls in?

You, Jessie. And then guess who pulls in? Maxine, our other friend. No way. Because she was having a.

Meeting there. Oh, of course. Because, of course, where do you go to have a meeting?

Number four, baby.

Well, yeah, or number three, or number two. Or whatever. But just don't go to number one. Yes. Because you're not going to establish the bond there. How freaking cool is this? So cool. And this is available to you. What did you two get out of this conversation?

I want to say easy. It's easier than we think than we give it credit for. I think it helps in our small little town that you can remember people's names and you're going to bump into someone. But I never did this even in the city when I had access to 10 coffee shops.

Never.

Tried because you just stayed in your bubble. But here it's so special having this. And I'm with you. It's just so cool to go to a place and be like, Oh, yeah, there's my friend. And then I'm going to bring another friend to you. I'm trying to meet someone this weekend for coffee.

Nine o'clock.

Saturday morning. I'm going to take her to number four.

I'm meeting at nine o'clock Saturday morning, tomorrow morning.

Done. Nice. Okay. I will. I'll do that right before I go to Jane's Game. Jane's Soccer game.

And so to those of you that live in a bigger city, here's the thing, though. Your neighborhood has all these places. And your favorite place to go exercise has all these places around it. And your kid's school or your office has these four places around it. And so get intentional because getting serious about adult friendship, which means A, stop lying to yourself. You do have friends. All those people that were your friends that you saw the time and those bonds that kept you in proximity that have disintegrated, your friendships are still there. It's on you to reach out. Number two, use the coffee shop model. Use the coffee shop model and get intentional about this. And you be the first, and you be the one pushing it, and you bring the fun. Number three, approach, approach, approach. Just be interested in people. Be open. Make sure you get their contact information. Take a selfie, at least take a photo of the pastry or whatever so you can remind them. Have that go to. You do it every week at a certain time. And then people start to aggregate and that feels like you're connected to something.

And it's like church used to be, I think, for a lot of people.

I think so. And I think what I love about this is it's something you do anyway. You're having your cup of coffee anyway. Are you going to do it alone or are you going to do with other people? Like you said, Mel, you're going to exercise anyway. You're going to do it alone or are you going to do with other people? I was talking to my mother-in-law, who was talking about how she used to get together with her girlfriends and fold laundry together. You're doing it anyway.

A laundry party. Yes. How cool is that? You're cooking.

Dinner anyway. Why not invite a friend, have both your families come on over, enjoy the time together, and make it a friendship moment.

Or weeding. If we traded weekends. Did we talk about that?

I love weeding.

Yeah. You do? Like when you were painting your house. Well, if you want to come here to weed, I will come to your house and do something else because I can't stand weeding. Something that you don't love.

I remember when you moved in and you were painting your house, and I was like, I got to get after that because I love- I was.

Like, You're crazy. You're just being sweet. I come over and help you. I come over and help you.

I come over and help you. I come over and help you. I never did it just to be completely transparent on this podcast. But I really feel like those are those moments. You and I standing side by side with paint brushes and getting crap in our hair, and you know what I mean? And Myrtle walking through the paint. I just think that those are moments that are way better than, Let's all go to, I don't know, a restaurant or something that feels fancy, those plain, spoken moments are way better.

And I loved what you said that friendship is a verb.

That's a really, really good point as well. Amazing. That it takes a lot of, not a lot, but it takes effort and action.

Yeah, we're not in first grade anymore. We don't just show up in class.

No. You know what? And this is my final note. It could be way more fucking fun. The best years of your life and the best friendships are ahead of you. So get your ass number one, number two, number three, number four, and start making on people. All righty. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I want you to have this much fun in your life. You deserve to have this much fun. Do you want to be the quote, house that all the friends come to?

Oh, my goodness. Okay. We are the quote, house that all our friends come to. And honestly, love my friends, love them to the moon back. And they love this house so much, in fact, that they just show up. Sometimes without me even knowing. Sometimes I won't be here and I'll get a text and I'll be like, Yo, where are you? I'm here. And I'm like, I didn't invite you over. They're like, Well, I'm here. I feel like that's more of a question for you because just like for me, I always love seeing my friends and we are able to accommodate them. So, of course, I'd love to be the house to have them.

Well, do you feel any pressure? Or is there anything on you that everybody wants to be here?

I mean, no, because all my friends have come here so much that they get they understand what works and what doesn't, what they can and can't do. And so it's gotten to a point where I don't really need to police anybody. Got you. And it's really nice. I'm a sucker for sleeping in my own bed. That's true. If all my friends are coming over, of course. But for you, it's your house.

Yeah. This is our third rodeo because you have two older sisters. We lived outside of Boston when they were in high school. And the fact is I would have loved to have been the house. I grew up in a house that kids hung out. Friends were constantly coming and going. And we were not that house outside of Boston. We lived in a small farmhouse. It had a dirt basement with a very short ceiling. And even when we ultimately cemented the basement, you could barely stand up in it. So that wasn't an option. We didn't have a play room or a separate room for the kids to hang out in. And it was just like a long, narrow house and kids. Our daughter, Sawyer, didn't want to bring her friends there because they wanted to be doing all kinds of shit that high schoolers do. And all her other friends had basements or had party barns or had a play room that became the teen hangout. And so we never were that house. And I was always missing the energy and the fun and just the commotion that comes when your house is the hangout house.

And so I was really jealous of all the other families who were constantly hosting the kids. When Kendyl was in high school, she was a little bit more innovative. And she would- I.

Think they came over a lot.

Yeah, her two or three girlfriends would come over and they'd sleep over at our house. But she had a couple of parties where they would have them in the garage.

Yeah, that was smart.

Yeah, and our garage was underneath the house, so they could be down there. You didn't hear the music. And so when we moved to Southern Vermont, one of the things that I really wanted is I wanted a place for the kids to be able to hang out without me being all over them or being angry that the music is loud or that they're trashing the place. When we moved here, I'm like, I am successful enough at this point at the age of 54 that I can afford to build a small outbuilding barn thing. What I said to the person who build it is, if somebody takes a pool and chucks it across this room, I do not want it to hit anything that I'm going to be pissed off that it breaks.

And there's nothing in there that can't break.

And so I love it because I love having the kids around because I didn't have that with our other daughters. And I also love it because I've gotten to know them really well. And I also love it because it keeps you here. And I love having you around. And there's one tip, though, that I'm going to give to everybody listening.

I'm listening, too. I mean, I'm interested.

Do you know what the tip is?

Probably. Okay. Set some ground rules.

Well, I love having all the kids here, but I'm not your fucking maid. Right. Okay? So if I'm hosting you kids, don't turn me into your maid.

Which we don't.

No, you don't. And do not turn me in. Do not make me feel like I'm getting taken advantage of. And do not make a big mess for me to clean up. And so I have sat all of Oakley's friends down. I've made it very clear you're welcome here all the time. And I have two rules. You need to leave this barn the way you found it, which means the trash in the trash, the counters wiped down, the shit put away that you pulled out, and you have to make the bunk beds.

It's a religious thing. Every morning after we wake up, we're just like, All right, make the bed. There's photos.

Tell them what I did.

Yeah. So she actually did sit everybody down. I actually fully recommend that. Actually, before I go on, I would like to say one thing about the do you want the house? If you're not the type of person that doesn't want a bunch of kids running around your house, you don't have to be the house. If you want that and you can have it, go for it. It's so much fun. Fully recommended. But if you don't want it, don't do it. It's not the end of the world. But to go on, you sat everybody down, you talked to them. And if you're worried that the kids are going to think you're the bad guy or evil, they know. They understand that it's your house and you have a few rules. And my friends are totally fine with it. And so my mom printed out a step-by-step photo thing that's in the bunk room still, and it's just there. I mean, we don't even need to look at it anymore because we know it by heart. But it's like we wake up, make the beds, go out, clean the room. And then, yeah, it never takes that long.

It's always good.

Well, and here what he's talking about is bunk beds are a pain in the ass to make.

Oh, my God. The top ones are such a pain. But we.

Still do it. Yes, because I'd be angry if I were the one doing it. So you guys, seriously, I made the beds, and then I took photographs of how they're made.

And we make them the same.

Exact way. Pull the sheet up, pull it back, tuck it in, fold the comforter, put it down, take the two European shams, stick them in front of the pillows. There is a step-by-step photo guide. And I'll tell you what, these 17 and 18-year-old boys make a fabulous bunk bed.

Yeah, you'd think they're interior designers. They set the pillows up perfectly. It's great.

It's great. But you know what I love about it? First of all, when you have that talk ahead of time, I think teenagers and young adults respect you because you're respecting them. Secondly, they know what's being asked of them. So it's not a situation where they're having a party and you stomp in there and start screaming at people, which I've also done.

You have done that.

But I also think when you say, This is how you can be successful at my house, people want to do something to say thank you.

Yeah.

And so I feel like I earned more respect and your friends know how to be respectful in a way that I care about because of that.

Yeah.

And your kids will be mortified when you do it.

But do it anyway. They'll be mortified. Do it anyway. But also, one more thing is don't make your kid do it because if you're making your kid be like, Guys, my mom wants you to make the beds-.

They're not going to do it.

They're not going to do it. Jeannie wants to know, Mel, when do I know when it's time to walk away from a friendship?

When you're giving more than you're getting. And I want to unpack this a little bit. Here's the thing, friendships are a give and take. And I think it's very important when you have a friendship that if your friend is going through a hard time, that you are there for your friend, that you understand that they are not capable of pouring back into you the way that you may need them to. And part of friendship is showing up in hard times. And so when I say that, you know when a friendship is no longer worth it, when it's been a sustained feeling of you not getting back what you're putting in. It's no longer that somebody is going through postpartum depression, or they're going through a divorce, or a breakup, or they're recovering from an illness. And your role in the friendship in this moment is to be the strong one, to be the one checking in. It's a situation where it's just sustained. You're the one always making the effort. You're the one that is always asking about them. You're the one that is always making the plans. You're the one that is always reaching out, and you are not seeing that reciprocated.

And the thing about friendship that we don't think about is not everybody's supposed to be in your life forever. And I don't know where we all got this idea that you have to be lifelong friends with everybody. You're not going to be, because friendship is about energy exchange. It's about a vibe. It's about you and this person being in a place in your lives where you are able to bring out the best in one another. You're able to support one another. You can laugh together. And sometimes those are because of circumstance. It's because of where you live, or where you work, or who your kids are friends with, or who your partner is friends with. And that's how you came to be. And I talked about this with my daughter a lot about a relationship that ended, that sometimes your friendships or your relationships make a lot of sense when you share a container of college, or a job, or being of a certain relationship status, or living in a certain place. And what you'll find in life is when the container disappears, oftentimes, the binds that kept you in the friendship disappear as well.

And that's normal. And it means you are meant to pour your energy into other friendships. And so you will know when a friendship is no longer worth investing in because you have been feeling this way for a while, and you have checked in with said person, and there is not something devastating or difficult going on with them such that they need your support. And here's the other thing. If you have a friend that's been down for a long-ass time, and you have been their support system. And over the course of the years, you're not getting anything back or very little back, it's okay to pull back. It's okay to spend less energy. You're not abandoning them entirely. But nobody said that your life had to be about pouring into other people and expecting nothing in return. You get to spend your time and energy on relationships that lift you up, that fulfill you. And there's nothing selfish about it. In fact, I think it's life-sustaining when you do that.

Absolutely. So you said you could pull back. What does that look like? You don't answer their calls or their texts? What do you think that looks like.

For Genie? I think that that could look like only reaching out once every two weeks instead of once a week. It means not answering their text the moment that they text you. It means not feeling obligated to invite them to the party that they're throwing. Stop and think about, well, what are you getting in return for your effort? Is because there is a reciprocal nature to friendships. Friendships are not one way. And what you often find in a relationship is when you stop putting in the effort, the relationship completely disappears. And what you come to realize is, holy shit, this actually wasn't a friendship. This was me chasing something. And this was me thinking that the relationship was something more than what this person thought it was. And the same is true in romantic relationships. That a lot of times when you let the person reveal who they really are, you stop chasing them, you realize, oh, I was just in a relationship with the possibility and the potential of who this person and what this could be. And the second I stopped living in a fantasy and I started pulling back the chase and I just started seeing how this person showed up, I realized, Oh, shit.

I've been in a fantasy land in this relationship for a long time, pretending that it was something else. And that's a painful moment. But I'd rather you do that on your own than have somebody rip out the rug from underneath you because you were too scared or too stupid or too blind by your own fantasy or chasing or insecurity that you didn't wake up and drop the reins and realize you're the one putting in all the effort. Right.

Makes a lot of sense.

And here's the other thing. Everybody's busy. It's why I also feel like I've got a hundred people or more that I think are really awesome that I never see, that I don't have time to text. And guess what? They don't have time to text me either. And I feel like life has gotten so busy and people move a lot in modern life. It's not like it was when our parents or grandparents were around where everybody stayed in the same state or county. And so I also think you got to upgrade your definition of friendship in general to not have to mean that you have to be in constant contact with people. Some of my favorite people in the entire fucking world live the furthest away from me. I almost never see them. We don't text back and forth. We did not raise our kids together. And yet, if they needed me, I would be on a plane. Every time they call or they text once a year, whatever, I smile. And so also don't grip this friendship thing so tight because I think you have a lot more friends than you realize, you may not be spending time with them.

And instead, you're pouring energy into people who are not giving it back to you. And that's when you got to pull in the let them theory. Just stop chasing everybody. Stop pouring into things that don't give you energy back. And then when you stop doing it and you let the other person show up or not, now you know what you're dealing with.

Awesome. Love that. Upgrade your friendship expectations.

So tool number one, I promise three tools. Tool number one is a framework. You're starting to realize Mel Robbins, she loves her frameworks. And here's why. I think advice is boring and intellectual. And so I like to have metaphors and frameworks because it helps me to truly make it stick. So here's one of my favorite frameworks for friendship. You probably heard it. There are three types of friendships, and this helps you be really flexible in your friendships. It also helps you to remind yourself of the truth. Okay, so here are the three types of friendships. You ready? And this framework is there are friends for a reason, there are friends for a season, and there are friends for a lifetime. That's it. And if you think about people coming and going in and out of your friendship zone in a flexible way because they're either there for a reason, or they're there for a season, or they're there for a lifetime, you now no longer are gripping. You can be flexible. You can assume people like you. You can stop holding on to the wrong people and trying to force somebody who's just there for a reason to try to be a lifetime friend.

This is such a helpful framework. Let me explain it. So these people are in your life for a reason. These would be work friends. You see them all the time because you work together. They might be the parents of other kids that are on your kid's sports team, or they might be people that are on your team that you're playing sports with. They're there for a reason. They might be your neighbors. They're there for a reason. These are great friends to have. They're there for a certain period of time. They're there to teach you something. They're there to support you on a leg of the journey called life. These are awesome friends, but don't grip onto them. Be flexible with them. Let them come in and out of your life. Love them up. Enjoy them while they're there with you. Then at some point, when you no longer have that reason to have those friends in your life, they fade a little bit. They're still your friends. I guarantee you, 10 years later, if you were good friends with your neighbor, they would certainly help you out. So would your friends at work. This is why flexible friendship is such an awesome concept.

Now let's talk about a season. So these are folks that are there typically a little bit longer. They're there for a chapter, a season. So they might be the people that you met in college and you were really, really close friends during college and you were really maybe you're room together after college. But then people start peeling off. They start heading in different directions. They maybe move away to different cities or they get married. And so these are close friends for a certain season of your life. And I find that I had a lot of really good friends that I was friends with when I was a young mom. That was a really amazing season of my life. I will cherish that season of my life. I had so many close female friends because we were all doing life in the same season at the same time. And when that season ended and my kids went to middle school and then they scattered even further in high school, and then all of a sudden, the bomb drops on everything when they go off to college. That season of my life was over. In fact, it had been over for a long time.

And so seasons are a beautiful thing. And I'm in a new season of my life. I'm beginning a new season here in Southern Vermont. And I bet you're beginning a new season. So many of us had a reckoning with ourselves about what really mattered during COVID. And it's why so many of you made major changes like my husband and I did. And it's why those of you that haven't are probably thinking about major changes because you haven't truly accept the things that you were processing around COVID and the changes that you would like to make. And so friends for a season are amazing, absolutely amazing. Just love them. And when the season changes, be flexible because a new season is beginning. Which means a new seasons of friends are going to emerge. And lifetime friends, those are those 4:00 AM friends we talked about. And remember, you're doing pretty dynamite if you can think of that one person that you could just pick up the phone at 4:00 o'clock in the morning and call, and you know that they would pick up and just chat with you just because you wanted to talk to a friend.

So tool number one, use that framework to enforce this flexibility. Reason, season, and lifetime. Don't force people into the wrong category. This is a big one. Please stop being mad at people for not being who you want them to be right now. Sometimes, some of the most generous and beautiful and loving things that you can do for people is to graciously let them go and let them grow and let them be who they need to be in this season of their lives. Now let's move on to tool number two, which you are probably going to hate, and that is you need to take action. That's going to require you to step out of the comfort zone of your couch and the comfiness of a Friday night alone, binge watching TV, and push yourself to get out of your comfort zone and make the effort to make friends. And this effort part is really important. There was this enormous study done at the University of Kansas, and this was mind-blowing to me. And I found it to be, again, another very helpful framework, because I think you're not a dummy, and neither am I. I know that if I sit alone in my house, it's not like friends are going to come calling, and I'm going to suddenly have strangers show up that are going to become my new friends in this season of my life.

I know I need to get out of the house. You know you need to make the effort, but we're not. And frameworks and research helped me go, Oh, this actually is a big deal. Oh, if I do want to change this and I want to stop feeling so lonely and I want to stop swimming in the toilet of comparison and dislike and insecurity, I got to climb out of the toilet. That makes a lot of sense. But this research from University of Kansas blew my mind because it puts friendship into a timeline, an hours perspective. Making friends, check this out. They studied how long, how many hours it takes to make a quote friend. And this is fascinating that as a student, it's very different than what it's like to make friends as an adult. This is why it can feel hard because most of our lives, we were in seasons where we were forced to be in groups. Think about how you're in a group in elementary school and that's how you meet your friends. And then you're in a group in middle school and that's how you meet your friends. And then you're in a group in high school and that's how you meet your friends.

And then you're in a group in college and that's how you meet your friends. And then all of a sudden, your 20s hits and boom, everybody scatters. And you're like, where the hell did my friends go? In fact, I did an interview with Alex Cooper, who host Call Her Daddy. The episode is called Where Did All My Friends Go? And we focused on this phenomenon in your 20s, where you feel like you don't have any friends anymore. And the reason why is because for the first 25 years of your life, your friendships were basically handed to you because you were in settings with large groups of people moving at the same pace through life together. And as soon as you graduate, you're on your own, baby. It's a whole big world out there. And if you think it's hard in your 20s, huh, wait till your 30s, 40s, and 50s. And now you have the tools, so we don't need to freak you out. But this is normal, and we require effort. And this University of Kansas study explains this. So if you're in college and you're swimming in the sea with all these people doing the same thing at the same time, it takes you about 43 hours to become an acquaintance with somebody.

Now you're sitting in class together. That's part of the time. You're eating in the cafeteria together. That's part of the time. You're hanging out in the dorm room together, that's part of the time. When you're an adult, to become a casual friend, it takes you 94 hours. Why? Because your patterns are very different when you're an adult. You don't have as much overlap. It's why you tend to become friends as an adult with people you work with because you spend more time with them. It's why you're friends with people that you live near because you spend time with them. This is not just common sense, it's researched. And in order to go from just a casual friend to a really good friend, if you're a student, it takes about 57 hours, which makes sense because you're spending more time together. So you're sharing more experiences together. For adults, we need about 164 hours. That's so sad. This is why it's so important for you to have this perspective and for you to understand it's going to require effort on your part. And that's okay. Knowing that everybody feels this way, knowing that everybody's at their homes alone under the fuzzy blanket on the couch feeling like a peach that nobody likes, swimming in the toilet of comparison, feeling like friendship is so hard.

Knowing that, I hope, is helping you go, Oh, well, maybe I could be the one. Maybe I could get all the peaches together and we could make a pie or some jam or some cobler. That's what I did this weekend. I'm going to tell you a quick story because I think it's really important. So here I am. I always say, Please come visit me. I live alone on a mountain in Vermont. I'm lonely. But the truth is, I've met a bunch of really cool people up here, and every one of us say the same thing. It's amazing living here, and I really want to meet some friends. I really want to get together with people. I want to stop saying, Let's get together and not make plans. And so I'll tell you a quick story, because all it takes is leaning toward your curiosity. That's all it takes. I walk this loop all the time that's right by my house. It's a beautiful loop. It's about four and a half miles. And I love flowers. I know there's five love languages. I have a sixth: flowers, flowers, flowers. I'm a psycho about flowers. They remind me of my parents.

I love growing them. I love bringing them into the house. I just love flowers. And so this year, I've been walking this loop for 26 years when I would visit my in-laws before we bought their house, and now it's our own. And all of a sudden this year, there was this insane flower farm that popped up. And by flower farm, I mean this patch of flowers, like an acre big. And in the spring, it was this row of gorgeous double peony tulips, and French tulips, and parrot tulips. And I would do this walk, and I'd stop, and I'd take photos. And you've probably seen them on my Instagram stories. And then as those came and went, then Renunculia came up, and it was this triple petal Renunculia and peonies. And I'm like, it's like flower porn for me. And then now there's this field of dahlias. Dahlias are mind-blowing, just gorgeous flowers. And there was never anybody there, ever. There was no sign, no nothing. And I became obsessed, you guys, with stopping by this flower patch, just drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Oh, my God, I just loved it. I would like sound of music with the flower patch, and I'm taking flowers.

And now I feel like an influencer that's 20 years old. And I need a cowboy hat with a feather in it so that I can do the festival photos that everybody does. And I just flower porn all day long. And all of a sudden, I see a truck parked there one day, and the truck, thankfully, had a contractor's label on it. And lo and behold, that same label was on a truck here at our house because we're under construction. So I walked over to... I don't... I'm like, Hey, do you know this flower feeling? He goes, Yeah, I parked my car there every once in a while. I'm like, Do you know who the person is? He's like, Yeah, that's Annette from Fleur Farm. I'm like, What? I think she's on Instagram. I'm like, What? So I DM her. Oh, my God, I've seen the flower. And then she DMs back. Oh, my gosh. Really? It's a labor of love. It's a hobby. A hobby? Yeah, I work full-time. And I've been really worried about how I'm going to get all the dalia bulbs out. And I'm like, Well, I'll help you. You'll help me?

And so next thing you know, just by following the energy, following the connection, leaning into the season of my life, leaning into the curiosity, I DM her. She DMs back. I come to find out that she has been planting flowers in this new season of her life. She sells bulbs online. She is going through some stuff personally. And I'm like, Well, I know some other women. I'll get other women that I know to come and hang out with us, and I'll see if we can't make something happen. And so we get 13 women to show up at the flower field on Saturday. I didn't know any of these women. Well, I knew some of them. I knew the ones that I invited. And then the friends that I invited invite other friends. And it was this army of new women here in Southern Vermont that showed up to help another woman dig dahlias out of a field on a Saturday. And she and I have been texting ever since. So I met all these new people. We connected over something we're interested in. We now have a group chat called the Dynamite Dahlia Dames. And so, Annette and I are texting.

Wait till you hear this. When we both showed up, she said to everybody, I'm so overwhelmed because I'm so alone and introverted. I never think anybody would help. I have trouble asking for help. And so as we're texting, she writes, I'm so grateful for everyone's kindness and presence and the joy there was in the field this morning. It's been a hard and a lonely path thus far, building a vision shovel by shovel, digging my way to a new life. Boy, I relate to that. I really relate to that. And then suddenly, outcome all these fabulous women. Yes, I'm very, very happy because that morning was my highlight of my week too. So the challenge now is leaning in again and setting a date again and moving the ball down the field. Because as we know from that University of Kansas study that it takes time and it takes effort, and we all need each other to be making the effort. And so the final tool that I'm going to give you is something that is so simple and so impactful. And I have so many friends that now do this that I'm stealing this from.

And it's very simple. Every single day, make it a habit to text a friend just out of the blue. And if you want to amplify this, take a selfie video. Hey, I'm just on my walk, and I was thinking of you. And hey, my dog says hello. And you not only underestimate how much people like you, you underestimate how much it means to somebody when they hear from you. This isn't just me. This is research that was covered in the New York Times recently about how receiving an unexpected text from a friend makes you immediately feel connected to that person, and it makes the friendship stronger. Make it a practice every single day as you start your day to reach out to one friend with a random message. In fact, I want to share one with you. I love my friend, Glo Antonimo, and she's an incredible author and podcaster and just puts out incredible content and motivational speaker. I learned so much from her. And she is so great about this. I want you to listen to this random message that popped in my phone literally a month ago. There was her beautiful face just sending me a video message.

And I'm going to play it for you because I want you to listen to it as if she's sending this to you.

Mel, hello. It has been almost a month since our last video message. I was reading one of my daily devotional type books, and I thought of this. I'm like, Who can I send this to? And you came to my heart. I'm going to read it out loud. You are human. You will make mistakes. Hopefully, you'll make a whole lot of them because that means you are trying. And trying means you are fully alive. It also makes life a hell of a lot more interesting. Here's to making more mistakes, here's to living, and here's to appreciating the ebbs and flow of life. It's hard for us to maintain equilibrium. We try to go through life chasing and seeking comfort and just staying happy and staying positive. But sometimes in those moments and those seasons and those valleys of depression or sadness, we're meant to get something from that. And then when we come out of it, it's like we have so much more appreciation. So no need to respond. Just wanted to bless you with this message, thinking of you, sending you love, high five. That just.

Makes you feel good. And so here's what I want to tell you. I want to tell you I love you. I believe in you. And I believe in your ability to stop telling yourself these lies and to really embrace the truth. The truth is you deserve amazing friendships. You need amazing friendships. And you are that amazing friend that somebody who is going through a very lonely season digging their way to a new life needs desperately right now. So 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, as soon as we're done, I want you to text a friend of yours and level it up. Send a video and let's level it up again. Send them a link to this episode. Because the more that we get everybody reaching out and the more that we create this ripple effect, the more we are helping people get the things that they deserve and find the courage to take the actions that created and make it a reality. Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for checking this video out. And if you like this one, I have a feeling you're going to like this one, too. I'll see you there.