Get your vaccine it's episode 14. There I go making it political shouldn't be political, right?
That shouldn't be a political. Anyways, hello. Hello and welcome back to my show. Today we're gonna
talk about friendships. Kind of doing a three-part series. Last time we did dating is hard, this
time we're doing friends and apparently I'm still singing my words and next week we're gonna do a
family can of worms but we're not there yet. So let's talk about friendship. Why do I talk like
let's talk about friendship. Like who am I? Am I like a DJ in the 90s on a radio station? So as you
can tell by my gleaming personality, it hasn't been the easiest or when I was younger to make
friends I think. Maybe it was easy. I don't know I feel like our memories of the past are always
like glossed over by whatever parts of whatever like conclusions we came to about our own identities
based on like distorted perceptions of the way things went down. But here's my distorted perception
of the way things went down. I think I had a bit of trouble at a certain point connecting to kids
the same way I saw them connecting to each other but I think the reason for this is because when
I was really really young I went to daycare and made a lot of friends I think and also had like a
best friend there and was comfortable there and then my family moved to the Middle East for a year
or about a year at least a school year and so I was kind of ripped away from the environment that I
was comfortable with. I don't think this was a bad thing by the way. I just think it was kind of
unique and put in like a brand new country with a new language and I luckily I was four years old
so I learned the language really quick and I made new friends and then I was ripped back into my
hometown and then when I went back to visit the daycare most of the kids didn't remember who I was
even though I had been thinking about them while I was away and that was very alienating and I didn't
go back to daycare after that I went to kindergarten whole new school again and most of these kids
hadn't you know left the country not to mention like lived in another language in another continent
so I think that started me off kind of in an interesting way in terms of making friendships
because I had gained this whole new perspective I mean I remember that that I just you know leaving
the continent kind of breaks your brain in a way and makes you realize well the world isn't all the
same like not everybody lives the way I do you know like there's all these countries that live in
radically different ways and the whole vibe is different and the food is different and the language
is different and the culture is different everything is different even though it's still human beings
but their needs are being met through such different means did the whole shape of it is
completely different and so I would look I remember looking around at the other kids this is where
my snobbery I mean I was destined to kind of be a snob having academic parents but this is where
the snobbery really took it up a notch because I was remember looking around the kids in my
kindergarten class and just I remember them like giggling on a slide and I remember walking
pensively I'm like five years old at this point thinking they'll never understand the joy of youth
has been removed for me that's so immature because they didn't understand there was nobody that could
really relate to what I had been through and that just kind of forever put up a barrier I think
between me and other people not necessarily in a negative way just where I kind of expect people
to not really understand where I'm coming from and I've kind of made my peace with that but it's
definitely made me be like I don't know if trying to make friends with these people is even gonna
be worth it because I'm gonna have to get them to jump over this hurdle of like trying to understand
me and me trying to understand them and maybe it's not even worth it I also don't trust people
right away I like to know them for a long time I make a lot of snap judgments about people it's
really weird it's like either I make a snap judgment it takes me a long time to trust someone or
once in a blue moon there's people that I just trust right away and that probably isn't great either
I guess I kind of bounce around between extremes in that way but when I get a good feeling about
someone I just trust them right away I don't know so that's weird but let's see what else I have in
those yeah what is the difference between the people that I trust right away and the ones that
I don't honestly I don't know it's like completely intuitive I feel like I can see some things on
people's faces like sometimes people's trauma shows on their faces and I feel like sometimes I can
identify like oh that's an unhealed wound to the point where if I get close to that person their
wound is going to hurt me so I need to stay away and it's usually in the eyes I can see this like
deep pain in their eyes and I'm like oh I can't fix that and also it's a little dangerous for me to
be around which is kind of fucked up survival of the fittest mentality but you know we only have
so much time and energy on our hands and we can't be friends with everybody can we some people seem
like they can and you know what I don't understand those people I don't know where they get the
energy and they always come across as kind of disingenuous to me because nobody just likes
everybody that much all the time there it just seems dishonest and I those are the people I think
I don't trust the most the ones who are just blandly nice in all situations and don't have
opinions I guess it's just hard for me to respect them because I'm like because I can't make out who
they really are or what they think and it seems like they're trying to manipulate the people around
them by being just nice to everybody and friends with everybody just so they can get whatever it is
that they like the jobs that they want or something and I just it's hard for me to respect that because
in my value system I guess I put relationships above the opportunities that they could provide and
that's probably led to a lot of lack of success in my life because we live in a society that just
promotes the hell out of narcissistic sociopaths and that's hard I mean that would be so hard to be
that dishonest all day I feel it's like I'm not even like oh I'd be a bad person but also it just
looks exhausting I feel like I'd be exhausted every day masking that hard pretending to like every
single person that I encountered not that I mean to people I don't like I just keep my distance if
I think it's gonna be dangerous but yeah which leads to the question what is a friend what do we
think a friend is what are we looking for in a friend to me the best version of a friend is someone
you can be your whole self around you're comfortable you can take off the stress like being around
people you're not friends with stressful you need to kind of walk on eggshells a little bit or at
least I do I shouldn't I shouldn't I should not walk on eggshells for anybody but you know what I
feel unsafe around people that I don't know that well and that lack of trust adds a whole layer of
stress and tension in my body so like a good friend is somebody where I can take off that stress
and just comfortably be myself because I can trust that they're not gonna react in a way that's
going to wound me hopefully if you if it's hopefully I mean I think at this point the people
that you've chosen if you're choosing correctly they shouldn't really be wounding you so they're
kind of like a like a safe space and you are in turn a safe space for them to be their whole
self and you also will do your best not to wound them and make them feel loved and honored and
respected isn't that a beautiful thing and I have found it's it's kind of harder to make friends in
LA than it was in Canada and I don't know if it has something to do with the base level of social
democratic country that just kind of takes a little bit more care of its own and the floor
isn't just an endless bottomless pit of despair but sorry about all the noise in the background
I don't know if it has something to do with that to me I think maybe it does but when I first moved
here and I mean especially in LA people leave their whole families their whole support system to go
after a dream that's just completely their own you know what I mean so they've given up so much
so they're willing to do a lot to get what they want meaning that they don't have allegiances to
anybody all the people that they were loyal to are the ones they left at home and they come to LA
and it's like a reality show they are not here to make friends except for me I came here to make
friends and it was hard and and it honestly to make real friends it takes years because you really
you kind of need that history and that level of comfort to develop that trust so I mean if you've
moved to a city recently or you're an adult and you're finding it hard to reach out and make friends
just just don't give up it just it really does take longer than you want it to but in the end
it's so worth it just to have that safe comfortable place to love and be loved
you