Amena Brown:
You all, it's been almost a year since my podcast joined Seneca Women Podcast Network and iHeartMedia. I want to celebrate with all of you, my listeners who have been joining me in the HER living room every week. I know we can't gather in person. I'm not even sure there's a house that would be big enough to have a big enough living room for all of us, but I'm glad we have our podcast living room here. I would love to hear from you. I'm working on an episode to celebrate my HER anniversary and I would love to include you in the episode. Here's what you do. You go to speakpipe.com/her with Amena Brown and leave me a one minute voice message telling me your name and where you're from, if you feel comfortable sharing. Then tell me your favorite episode of the podcast and why you loved it. Leave me a message by Friday, September 3rd and you could possibly be included on a future episode. But don't worry about writing all of this down. The link will be included in the show notes and the episode description as well. I can't wait to hear from you.
Amena Brown:
Hey everybody. Welcome back. We are still in a friendship mode here. I wanted to make sure I got a chance to answer your question. This is part two of me answering your questions about friendship. Friendship, it can be really, I mean, a part of me wants to say complicated, but complicated sounds so negative. Doesn't it? It could be complicated, I guess. That's true, but it can also have a lot of layers to it, right? Here's me. I'm going to take my best shot at answering your questions. Question number one from a listener. Are there truly friendships for a season or is that a cop out from having hard, boundary or conflict conversations? Well, we're starting off our episode with a zinger. Are there truly friendships for a season or is that a cop out from having hard conversations, boundary conversations or conflict conversations?
Amena Brown:
I am of the belief that sometimes friendships are only for a season. I know I've had some. I actually think both things can be true. I think there are some friendships that don't continue on in our lives because we didn't have the hard conversation or because we didn't, I was going to say embrace the conflict, but you all, I really hate conflict so bad. I don't really want to embrace it. That's not the verb I want to put there, but you know, because we didn't face the conflict and talk through it. But I do think you can have friends that there is a season of time where you may have really needed that person in your life, or they may have really needed you in their life. Then you grow and you find that maybe your values are in different places now or the directions of your lives are in different places now.
Amena Brown:
That can totally make a difference in whether a friendship continues or not. But I'm also of the belief that not every friendship in your life is meant to be a long-term friendship. I think that's okay. I think there are times that we're trying to force a friendship to be long-lasting when that friendship maybe was never supposed to be that. I do think that there's a both end that's present here. I would say, when it makes sense, I think you should have a conversation. This is going to come up in some of my other answers to your questions as well. If there is a friendship and you feel it fizzling out or something, I think when you can have the conversation that you should. But I think it's important to know that a conversation is not going to fix all friendships, but sometimes that conversation will actually tell you that the friendship should be over or that the friendship needs space. The two of you need space away from each other.
Amena Brown:
The other hard part about having conversations with friends is having to realize that not every friend will be in a place where they are ready to have that type of conversation or receive whatever it is you have to say. Of course, there are some friendships that are so unhealthy that you may get to a point where it's not even healthy to try to have a conversation with that person. I am of the opinion that there are friendships that are only meant to be for a season in your life. I don't think you can always know that when that person first walks into your life, but I do think that's true. Although friendship and dating are not the same thing, you'll find me referring back to dating a little bit here, because I think that some of the parallel lessons are there. And so I want to make a mention of that. In the same way that I don't think every friendship is supposed to be lifelong in your life, I don't think that every person you date is somebody that you're supposed to marry.
Amena Brown:
I think that sometimes you are supposed to date that person and maybe there was something you're supposed to learn. Maybe there is something they're supposed to learn. Maybe there was just something good or not good to the season of time that you knew that person, but it doesn't mean that every person you go to coffee with, go to dinner with, go to a movie with has to be your lifelong partner or your lifelong spouse. I think that can also be true of friendships. But I think when we think about it that way, I don't think that has to be viewed as a cop out necessarily because I think if we think about it like, yeah, there will be some friendships that won't last forever. Then for me, that puts me in more of a place to be able to be grateful for the time that I do have someone in my life, if it was good to have had them around. Sometimes there are people that it wasn't good to have them around. I am not thankful for the painful experience, but I like who I became in spite of it, or I like who I became after having to endure that. Right.
Amena Brown:
I think in a way that can help us to hold our friendships with open hands. That means that we are open to however those friendships develop and grow and however we develop and grow in the process. Right. Next question. What do you do when you always feel like you're one ring out of a circle of friends? My, my, I have a little theory. I don't think I'm the only person with this theory. I don't think I'm the person that came up with the theory. I believe in the theory of three. I do think when you're in a friendship group and there are three or more people in the friendship group, I feel like there's always going to be someone that feels like they are left out at some point in how the friendship continues on. I think if you know that and you're in sort of a friend group, that can maybe help you to not feel freaked out. Sometimes in groups of friends it's just a seasonal thing that may happen, or it could be something going on in different people's lives that makes that friendship lean one way where this person feels left out. Right?
Amena Brown:
I'll give you two examples. When I was in college, my mom moved from the neighborhood we lived in when I was in high school to a different neighborhood. When I got home from college, instead of me being five minutes away from most of my friends, I was 25 minutes away. I didn't have my license yet. I didn't have a car. I wasn't able to be like, hey, you're five minutes away, come by and pick me up before you all go over to the whatever. They were really going to have to love me to drive across town to see me. In a way, I know there were some things during those breaks home from college that I was left out of, but that was simply because my location had moved and that changed things. It wasn't necessarily that my friends didn't want to kick it. It was just that they had to think through a lot more logistics to kick it with me than they did before when we all lived near the same area or in the same neighborhood.
Amena Brown:
The other example that I was going to give you all is just in thinking about when we think about the theory of three or four or more friends, this isn't even one that's from my personal life but those of you that are fans of the TV show Insecure on HBO. Shout out to Issa Rae. On that show, there is a group of four friends there. One of the friends got pregnant, but she was the first of all four friends to get pregnant and have a baby. With her getting pregnant, that shifted the whole friend dynamic because the four of them were used to going out together to parties, to the club, to have drinks. She's got her mind on different things as she's preparing to become a new mom. She's processing that very differently. There were certain ways that intentionally or unintentionally, she was beginning to be left out of the group activities not because they loved her less, or didn't want to hang out with her, but because she's at a point in her life where she's getting ready for a big change.
Amena Brown:
She has these three friends that are not experiencing that change. Right. Just giving those couple of examples that there can be just these natural things that happen that are not malicious. They're not malicious behavior of anyone in the group, but there's just the natural swings of time and life changing that make it so that we feel like we're left out of that ring of a circle of friends. Here's what I think, in answer to your question, dear listener. I think you have to ask yourself, what do you really want the most out of a friendship? What are the reasons that you are possibly one ring out of a circle of friends? Are you new to this group of friends and everyone else has been there longer than you? Are these friends where you all used to hang out together and used to do these different things but you're finding that they're going places and you didn't know about it and you don't know why they didn't tell you? I feel like there are two things that you can do here and why I said you should ask yourself what you want out of a friendship.
Amena Brown:
I think this will also come up in some of the other answers here. You should ask yourself this question because sometimes we want something out of a friendship that we may have a friend that just isn't at a place where they can meet that expectation or provide that what we might want. We may want to hang out more and they, for various sundry reasons may not be able to provide that, so that we have to ask ourselves, am I really asking something of someone that they can't give or don't want to give? Does that mean that I should branch out and find some other people that I can get to know, kick it with, hang with, build community with that may be at more of a place where they can do some of the things that I want to do or like to do with my friends? My two answers here as what to do. One, if these are people that you feel close to, that you feel trusting to have a conversation with, have some communication. Say to them, hey, I noticed you all's pictures on Instagram and you all went over there and I would love to go. Is there a reason why you all didn't invite me?
Amena Brown:
Now, I'm going to tell you right now, opening up these communications, the thing about effective communication is it doesn't always feel good. It's helpful in the end, but it doesn't always feel good. Who knows what your friends may say? They may say something that's true but it's hard for you to hear. Or they may say something that is really hurtful and is them not being considerate of you. But either way, by you asking the question, you're getting communication so that you know what to do moving forward. Right. Think about branching out. Sometimes we can get so focused on what we don't have or so focused on what the people in our lives are not doing, that we don't realize we have an opportunity to get to know some other folks that maybe more on the same page with us, or maybe more in the same phase of life we are. I know I've had friends that have experienced it where most of their friends got married and they weren't married. Right. They experience that shift of their friends doing whatever they felt they needed to do to go into this new stage of their life being married.
Amena Brown:
But if you're the one friend or the couple of friends in that group of friends that isn't booed up, doesn't look like you're about to get married anytime soon. Or maybe you're not even interested in getting married or whatever, those things can cause these shifts. It's not like if you get married, you can look at your single friends and be like, hurry up and get married so we can still be friends. Maybe it means that there are other friends that both of you need in your lives. Friends that are in whatever your phase of life is so that you can have that way to identify with them. I'm just using that as an example. But we watched that in all sorts of changes people have with their jobs, sometimes with becoming parents, when people move, like the location point that I brought up. Sometimes when you move, you want to hold onto your friends that you knew in the other city you used to live in, you sure do. But now you live in a new place. Maybe there are ways to meet some people that live there also. Right.
Amena Brown:
There can be a both and, and when you can get the both and, try for it, try for it. If the both and doesn't go, then you know some other either or options that you have as well. I hope that answered your question about what to do when you are one ring out of a circle of friends. Question number three. What to do when friendships end? When you initiate the hangouts and just keep getting ghosted. First of all, I want to give a special shout out to the MTV show, Ghosted. You all need to watch it because it's great. There are two hosts on there. I believe it's Rachel Lindsay from The Bachelor. I feel like the guy who's hosting with her, his name is Travis. Anyway, shout out to that TV show because it's literally like a show of people who got ghosted, and the ghostee goes to Travis and Rachel and tells them like, here's what happened. I don't know why so-and-so ghosted me. Sometimes it's a friend. Sometimes it's somebody they dated. Then Travis and Rachel track down the person that did the ghosting and they end up actually meeting up in person.
Amena Brown:
I think they did some during the pandemic where they were meeting up on Zoom and the person who did the ghosting has to explain to the person why they got ghosted. It was a variety of reasons, right? Sometimes it was that the other person had really done something very hurtful and so the person just ghosted. Sometimes it was because the person ghosting had something really terrible going on in their lives. Sometimes the person ghosting was just a terrible person. Those options are the same in this situation. I'm going to admit to you all that I have been a friend who has ghosted another friend. I have never ghosted a close friend. I have had some friends that I wasn't super duper close with, but I would say we were friends. We talk, we hung out. I have ghosted at least twice. I'm going to tell you why in both situations, and maybe this will bring some understanding to you, or maybe you will be like, wow, done with this podcast. Because Amena ghosted friends. But it's only happened to me twice that I can think of right now.
Amena Brown:
One of them was really, the reason that I ghosted this friend really had very little to do with them personally. They didn't do anything wrong. There wasn't anything that I was like, oh, I don't want to see them anymore. It was honestly a whole lot of really hard personal stuff that I had going on at that time. Both of these friends that I ghosted, this one was more of a very new friend. We had hung out a little bit and we had a great time hanging out. I really enjoy their company. However, I realized at that time that I was really in an unhealthy place in myself. And so I started back going to therapy. As I was going to therapy, I realized, oh my gosh, I have this new friend. I really jumped in there with this new friend like way too deep, because I don't know if any of you have ever experienced the kind of depression or even grief or sadness where you almost feel like your body is turned inside out. You feel like all your tender parts are on the outside of you, and all you can do when you meet people is like, whatever is going on with you.
Amena Brown:
I was really at that point but I didn't realize I was at that point until I got back into therapy. Once I got back into therapy, it took me some months of therapy before I realized, oh my gosh, I can't be what I was in that friendship. Now, because I went to this depth, this friend is expecting that of me. Now, if I were in a healthier place, I would have been able to go back to that friend and say, hey, I actually really like taking it with you but I had a lot of really hard stuff happen to me right at the time that we were starting to be friends, which is why I was telling you all the things that you probably didn't even want to hear really. I do want to stay friends, but I kind of want to like start over if we can do that and just really start over giving ourselves some space and time to be friends, without me having to jump into all this stuff that's happening while I'm healing up. That's how I would've said that, but I really wasn't in a healthy enough place to even say that at the time. So I ghosted them in an effort to try to take care of myself and get myself into a healthy place.
Amena Brown:
I'm sure that that was probably really upsetting for them. But I bring that up to say that sometimes when people ghost, they are ghosting not for reasons of anything being wrong with you. It may be some stuff that's going on with them. People can be going through such emotional and really hard things that they don't even all the way have the language in that moment to tell you why they're ghosting you or to tell you why they can't be present. Right. The other time that I remember ghosting a friend, and this was like a short-term ghosting because some time did pass. Again, going back into therapy where I was able to finally articulate to them why I had to ghost, and this is what was happening. But I had another friendship where I really did like spending time with the friend and we hung out. We were probably friends a bit longer than the previous example I gave you. But as I realized I was going through this really hard thing, there were times that I noticed them not being sensitive to that.
Amena Brown:
I at first accepted that they weren't being sensitive to it because you know how sometimes people can say things that are insensitive but it doesn't mean their hearts are coming from a malicious place. But then over time they keep saying the insensitive thing to you. And so even though you're looking at them like you don't think they mean to be mean, but it doesn't mean that that's not processing to you as mean. Right? Or as hurtful at the very least. I went through a period of time where really I ghosted that friend because there were some insensitive things being said. Also, because the things they were saying that were insensitive were hurting me because there were some bigger issues going on with me that were making that very painful. I ghosted again, because I needed some time to figure out in myself, you know, okay, what do I need to do? What's happening with me? How do I care for myself? I actually talked to my therapist about the fact that I had ghosted this friend.
Amena Brown:
As we were working through my other stuff, I did finally get to a point where I told my therapist, I think I'm ready to communicate to them. And so I did reach out to them and I was able to tell them, this is what was happening during that time. This is where I am right now. I am in a bit of a better place, but I'm still in a tough place. During this time, I need to really cling to my family and my super close friends. I'm also sure that that was hurtful to them to hear me say, and basically to hear me say like, I don't see us reconnecting as friends. I'm sure that was hard to hear, much harder than I can imagine right now saying it to you. But I tell that to you, to the person who asked this question and to people who may be listening that have that question to ask the person who has ghosted to give you a perspective. That in my case, it really was a lot of just hard, hard things. These were not super close friends of mine that we had even gotten to the point where we could have that type of honest conversation.
Amena Brown:
Here are my tips I can give you from someone who has ghosted and been ghosted. Try if you can, to establish communication with the person. If you keep getting ghosted, try to say to them, hey, I feel like whenever we try to schedule something, I feel like you're saying you're not available. Maybe that's your schedule, but is there something else going on that we need to talk about? Are you okay? Try to have that communication. However, accept that even the communication may still mean that that person ghosting or not being in a friendship with you may be the best thing for them and may be the best thing for you. That's hard to hear, right? Because a lot of times when we're looking to have a conversation with someone, we're thinking like, okay, I'm going to have this conversation. We're going to come to some agreement. We're going to either go back to the way things were, or the path forward is still going to be us forward together. It just may not be. I think when we're thinking about what to do when friendships end, when you keep trying to make the connection and you keep getting ghosted is I think you have to first of all, accept that sometimes people are going through things that they may not be ready to talk with you about.
Amena Brown:
Also, accept that they may not have the capacity to go through what they're going through and maintain a friendship with you. Also, accept that you may never find out why they ghosted. You may have to find a way to give yourself closure. This is also true for dating. We love closure. I love closure, but sometimes people are going to be unable or unwilling to give you that closure. Finally, I want to say, sometimes people ghost, I'm trying to say this without cussing, but sometimes people ghost because they're terrible. They're just they're terrible. They're terrible. They knew it was mean. They were selfish. They chose themselves, and that's why they ghosted. That also happens too. That means from that person, you may not ever get communication about why they did that. Even if they did communicate to you, the reason why may still be asinine to you. Consider these things, try communication, if you can, but also accept that even that communication may not fix the friendship.
Amena Brown:
Even that communication may not help you to not still feel some type of way about why they ghosted in the first place. Last question. Do you have any recommendations for drawing a line between A, I want to help my friend, and B, I don't have to be the main person who helps my friend. Sometimes I wonder if my helping is selfish because I feel like I need to be the main one to help. I want to tell you dear listener that I have been there. Okay. If you are into Enneagram, folks, I am what would be considered an Enneagram two, which I nicknamed the anti-agram, because I feel like the two is the person that wants to care for people, is good at caretaking as well. Here's the situation. I just want to tell you in short that you don't have to be the main person who helps your friend and you're not being a good friend if you expect to be the main person that helps your friend. I'm going to give you an example. My best friend was having her first kid. I was so excited and we're very, very close to each other. I was checking in on her and monitoring how things were going with her.
Amena Brown:
I really, truly in my heart just love to do things for the people I love. I love it, love it, love it. It really brings a lot of joy to me. I was on tour at the time that she was getting towards the end of her pregnancy. We were hoping that her baby was going to be born at the beginning of April, because I wasn't going to be back from tour until then. Her baby came a couple of weeks before that. I was so happy for her and really, really devastated for myself because I wanted to be there when she had her baby. I wanted to be there when they were headed home. I wanted to be there to do whatever I could for her and her husband and her little girl that was now going to be my goddaughter. I wanted to do everything, but I couldn't do anything because I was on tour in the middle of nowhere, basically Midwest somewhere. I wasn't going to be home for another few days. That meant other people had to help them when it was time for her to come home from the hospital with the baby.
Amena Brown:
Other people had to help them in those first few days that they were home. Getting them food and all that. I did what I could from afar, but I couldn't be there in person. That was really a good lesson for me to remember, first of all, and thankfully my best friend had a village. She had a whole bunch of people that love her, that love her husband, that love this little girl we were all just getting to meet. And so I did not have to be her village. I was a part of her village. For people who love taking care of the people that they love, it can be hard to accept that your friends don't need you to be everything to them. Sometimes if you are a person that can be the caretaker friend, you have a need inside yourself to be needed. And so if you look around and you watch your friend's village caring for them and you weren't there to do it, then you're like, well, what does that mean? Does that mean my friend doesn't need me? That's not true.
Amena Brown:
That means your friend needs all of you to do whatever your part is. Okay. The second thing I want to bring up is as a person who loves to really take care of my friends, I noticed that sometimes I would put a lot more focus in being the main person caring for them because I was avoiding doing what I needed to do to take care of myself. I found that when I was actually spending time giving myself the same energy that was so easy for me to give to other people, when I gave that energy to myself, then I realized, first of all, I actually don't have as much time to give all my time away to everyone else when I give some time to myself. I have like this time to give. That taught me to really focus less on doing the most for people when I love them and focusing more on the fact that my good enough is good enough for them. That whatever I can give them, whatever time I have, they are happy to get that from me and they don't need me to run myself ragged for them.
Amena Brown:
I don't need to run myself ragged because I'm not the only person in the world that loves my friend. Even though I love my friends till the cows come home. Make sure if you do fall in that category where you're the person who loves to attend to everyone and care for everybody, really think to yourself, am I giving that same energy to myself? Would I care for myself in that same way? Lastly, just remember when you are helping a friend, you want to help them because you want to, you want to help them because you love them, because it's good for you to help them. Not because of your own ego or your own insecurities or your own internal need to be needed or wanted, right? You don't have to be the martyr for your friends. If you were in a healthy friendship with friends who love you for you and not just the things that you do for them, your friends don't want you to run yourself ragged to help them when they move, when they had their baby, when they start their business.
Amena Brown:
They want you around because of who you are, not just what you do for them. If you find yourself in friendships where the people only care about you because of the gifts you give or because of the time you spend, or because of the things you did for them, then I do want you to evaluate that and reevaluate that so that you can have some friends in your life that want you for you, not just all the things that you do for them. Thank you all so much for asking such great questions. We've got one more episode coming your way. I will answer the rest of your questions. We'll get a chance to talk about what it's like when you feel like you're in an imbalanced friendship. We're going to talk about how you know as a Black person if a friend who is not Black can hold your experiences. We're going to talk about how to end a friendship if it's no longer serving you.
Amena Brown:
We've got a few other things to discuss, as well as next episode, I'm going to give you some tips on how to make and keep friends as a grown adult. All right, I'm sending you all love today. I'll talk to you all next week. HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.