You're listening to She Said, what with your host, Alyssa
Harper. Hello sexy people, and welcome
back to she Said. What if you've not been here
before? Then I just want to welcome you
and let you know that this is a safe space for you to come and
grow to become the best version of yourself.
Whether we're talking about self growth or sex and sexuality or
relationships, there's going to be something in every episode
that you can walk away with and input into your life.
And of course, this is a very inclusive space and I'm so happy
that you're here. So thank you.
And if you are just coming back, then welcome back.
Nice to see you again. Hope you're doing really well.
Today we're going to be talking about friendship breakups, which
is a tough topic because I feel like there's a lot less talk
about this. I think we talk a lot about
relationship breakups, like romantic relationships, and we
see a lot of stories about that in media, whether that's like
movies or social media or whatever else.
But the breakup of a friendship can be really, really tough and
sometimes even more tough than romantic breakup.
So we're going to talk about that today and why that might
be. Of course we're going to be
sharing some of my own experiences, but also some
experiences that I've heard from you guys as well.
I've asked over on the Facebook page and I asked through my
Instagram Stories. So if you guys want to be
involved in that back and forth before episodes come out, then
make sure that you go follow me on Instagram and TikTok, Atlas,
Taylor Harper and join the Facebook group.
If you want to meet some likeminded people, have a chat
about the episodes afterwards and all of that.
That's the she said what Podcast group on Facebook.
All right, let's get into it now.
What you're going to be getting out of this episode is learning
how to create boundaries if you want to continue a friendship
with somebody, but also how to know when it's time to end the
friendship and what those red flags look like when you
actually know like, OK, it's time to move on.
It's time to stop putting in the effort.
We're also going to be talking about impermanence of life and
impermanence of relationships and how to make peace with that
just in general, because I think that really ties into today's
topic. And like I said, of course I'm
going to share some personal stories of my own and share a
little bit of the advice that I got from you guys on this
subject as well. So super excited.
I do want to hop into it as soon as possible.
I'll give you a tiny quick little update just because there
is something I want to share with you guys.
Yesterday I did a Q&A on my Instagram Stories and a question
that came up was, if I'm in an open relationship and I've never
talked about this before on the podcast, I am.
So the answer to that is yes. And it's hard for me because
honestly guys like I feel like I've been kind of like lying a
little bit, not being fully open.
But the reason I didn't say anything about this for the last
year? Really.
Oh, there's a plane going by. Sorry if you can hear that.
The reason I didn't talk about it was because I wanted to make
sure that I felt really confident in it before I shared
about it. I felt like someone who creates
content and to have a lot of people looking at my life and
judging my life and whatever else.
I wasn't ready to receive negative backlash.
I wasn't ready to receive people questioning it.
I wasn't ready to share it with my family yet.
I needed some time to, like, find balance in it, be grounded
in it, find confidence in it before I went and shared that
with people. And so that's why I held off on
sharing that. But there will be episodes
coming up about it. I know I've gotten a lot of
questions ever since sharing it, even just last night.
So there you go. Now, you know, Sam and I are, we
are obviously still together. Absolutely love that man.
Amazing person in my life. And it's just it's been a whole
journey where we've grown together.
And of course, if you guys been around for a while, you know
that I moved to Australia right after high school.
I went straight into a very, like, religious organization.
It was so much more intense than I thought it was going to be.
Coming here, I wasn't allowed to live with Sam.
I wasn't allowed to. Why was?
I mean, in theory, no one can stop you.
But like, you weren't allowed to have sex at all if you weren't
married, you weren't allowed to drink, you weren't allowed to,
like, smoke, you weren't allowed to do all these things, right?
And they were big on perception. So we got married after we
literally, we dated for eight months, got engaged, we got
married six months later, very much rushed.
I was very young. I got engaged when I was 19.
And then we just got to a point in our relationship where we
were like, hey, we actually missed a really big part of our
kind of like 20s of like exploring and meeting new
people. And for me, my sexuality very
much tied into that as well. And so after lots and lots of
conversation, lots of like coming to terms with what that
might look like, figuring out boundaries again, there's so
much to say about this. But after all of that, we ended
up deciding to go into having an open relationship.
And we've been doing that now for a while and it's been
lovely. It's been amazing.
So now I feel like I'm so like, I feel like a weight's been
lifted off me because I feel like I can share with you guys
now different episodes, like about starting with girls or
going on dates with girls or doing that for the first time
properly and what that looks like.
And I don't know. I feel like a whole new thing is
just opened up for me. And it does feel so relieving.
But I definitely wanted to make sure that I did that in timing
that made sense and felt healthy for me.
So there you go. The more you know.
But yeah, so that's my only update.
It's not an update for me or anything new, but it's new to
you guys. So now you're in on that part of
my life as well. Yeah, I want to get right into
today's episode because this is a pretty chunky one.
There's quite a lot that I want to share.
We're going to go through, first of all, some like friendship
foundations, some things that I just know to be true about
friendship. That is really important to kind
of set up what we're talking about.
And then we're going to talk about impermanence in life.
And then we're going to talk about green flags of when to
maybe continue a friendship and then red flags when it's like,
you just got to get out of it and it's sucks.
Obviously, it's going to kind of suck regardless.
This isn't like the the lightest topic, you know.
I've also realized that recently that my episodes are always like
how to deal with this tough situation.
So in the episodes end up feeling like really kind of like
intense and very emotional. And you guys will message me and
be like, in tears after this episode.
We're going to have to process this episode.
And I'm like, Jesus Christ, like, I feel like I put a lot on
you guys. So we're going to try to keep it
nice and light, OK? We're going to have fun.
This isn't going to be too intense.
We'll see. But yeah, I'm excited, so let's
get straight into it. Starting out.
Also, I have my notes here, obviously, as I always do.
I'm just not going to try to hide it.
I just, why would I do that? OK, just relax.
Alright. So starting out with Friendship
Foundations #1 is that changing up your friend groups, whether
that's falling away from people or meeting new people throughout
your life, is obviously very normal.
I think there's kind of like this narrative that we're taught
where you meant to have like, friends for life and like, your
best friends from when you were three years old.
And then it's like this kind of, like, romanticized thing to have
lifelong friends. And there's so much value in
that for sure. Like I have a few friends that I
was really, really great friends with in high school.
We still FaceTime. We still have relationships, but
the relationships just look very different now.
And that's the thing. Not only will people come in and
out of your life, but relationships will shift with
time. Like I just mentioned with Sam
and I, you know, at one point we were monogamous and now we are
not and maybe one day we will be again, you know.
So it's just kind of like you have to understand that like
life happens, things are going to continue to happen and change
is normal. We have to be ready to expect
that change. And that's actually totally,
totally fine. So there's nothing wrong with
having shifts in relationships and in friendships.
Like, around the time of COVID, I had a whole bunch of friends
who were from overseas move away.
It was like my core group of people.
Basically everybody left other than Sam Faith, a 223 Paulina.
I'm just trying to think there's like literally a handful of
people that I actually had in my life.
Other than that, everyone got the fuck out of Sydney because
everyone was spending so much money living here.
And they're like, why would I stay here during lockdown, you
know? So for me, that was a huge
shift, and I really had to rebuild #2.
Friendship breakups can be just as hurtful as romantic breakups
and sometimes even worse. And I think the thing behind
this, at least for me, is that generally going into some sort
of romantic situationship relationship, whatever you have
in your brain, that something might go bad.
Like you've seen heart ache. Maybe you grew up with a divorce
happening. Maybe you saw aunts and uncles
struggling with that. Maybe, like, you've been hurt
before by men, women, whoever, right?
Like, maybe you've had those experiences where you know that
that might happen. But with friends, I feel like
you're not sitting around thinking 01 day something bad is
going to happen, or they're going to say something or
something's going to come up. Or, you know, I feel like you
don't anticipate issues coming up as much with friends because
it doesn't feel like as intense of a connection sometimes.
Obviously that's so person to person, but I would say
generally it's like when you fall in love, so with someone's
like you're like head over heels.
Sometimes with friends it can happen like that.
I can definitely get like that sometimes.
But there tends to be more boundaries because usually if
it's just a friend and it's not a complicated situation, then
you don't have like the sexual connection.
If that's something that you enjoy, you know, not everyone
does, OK, OK, Just trying to be inclusive here.
If that's something that you do, you know there's that's not
really a part of it. Like, usually there's more of a
separation, but with loving relationships, romantic
relationships, I should say you kind of think like, ooh, got to
be careful, got to have boundaries, got to consider
myself first, got to love me before I can love anyone else.
But it's different with friends. #3 is that our interpersonal
relationships and community, or lack thereof, is going to
determine the quality of our lives.
I think we can all agree that relationships are basically the
most important thing in life. Like obviously, other than
survival shit like eating and drinking and you know that kind
of sleeping. You know that kind of shit.
Relationships is what we need. Like we know the worst kind of
torture is to isolate a human right.
Community like is so important. Having connection to others,
feeling purpose because you are giving and receiving from others
is just so, so, so important. So we need to be prioritizing
learning about friendships and thinking about our friendships
like you are right now. We need to be doing that because
that is where we're going to find, like, joy and fulfillment
in our lives. And of course you can have nice
things, right? You can have money, you can have
a good career. But without fulfilling
relationships, those are the things that are not going to
satisfy us. We really need to have deep
connection with other humans to get that.
And #4 OK, relationships take work.
They're always going to take work.
And we hear that, and we usually connect like a negativity to it.
And work isn't necessarily a bad thing.
It's just effort. That's all it is.
It's effort. And this could look like having
to commit time to your friends. It can look like having to be
emotionally vulnerable to actually create that depth, that
connection, having to communicate well, so being able
to work through issues as they come up and getting back to that
text when you don't really want to or you have to set aside that
time right. Another thing can be managing
our emotions. So if we are having an emotional
reaction to something, understanding that to be a good
friend you need to 1st be a good friend to yourself and manage
your emotions and take care of yourself.
Another one is practicing honesty like that is hard to do
sometimes. Depending on who you are and
kind of how you tend to go with how open you are.
That can be something that is a barrier, something that you have
to get over, start letting down some walls to be able to let
people in. And there's so many other
things, of course. So although work is required in
a healthy relationship, we want to be doing that alongside
people who are also willing to do that work.
And that's a really key thing. And again, we're going to talk
about that a little bit more as well.
But it's that balance. If you are putting in all this
effort, if you're putting in all this work, if you're opening up
about your life, you're you're sharing, you know you're being
vulnerable and that person isn't doing that.
It's likely not going to be a super strong relationship, a
good foundation, because you're not going to necessarily have
that bond. You know, you're not going to
relate on things. You're not going to feel that
deep human connection with somebody because you're just not
getting that from them. So it needs to be not only work
from your side, but of course from them as well.
And it needs to be equal. And I will say just a quick note
on that as well is that it's not always going to be 100% equal.
Like I think there is an up and down in relationship.
Sometimes someone will get a new job and it's like you don't
really see them that much. That's not them not putting an
effort. That's them having life happen
to them and that's fine. So I do want to make a little
note of that, just in case. Right there, your brain clocked,
oh, see, they're not putting in enough effort.
And it is really important that we do step back just for a
second, just to go, oh, are there reasons that they might
not be doing that before we assume that we are the problem
or we assume that they have a problem with us or we assume
that there's like a malicious intent?
Because usually there's not. All right, let's get into
impermanence in life. This is a big topic of course,
and it applies to so many areas. But I feel like it's so
important with this because friendships, relationships,
again, they change. They they come, they go like
people are going to come in and out of your life for seasons.
And you might think someone's going to be a lifelong friend
and then they end up only being like a good friend of yours for
a few months. Or you might meet someone
thinking nothing of it and then you could be best friends for
years and years and years to come.
I've had friendships like that where I kind of like at the
start of the friendship. It doesn't feel super balanced.
Like I have a friend where when we first started in our
friendship, it was always kind of like I was giving her advice.
I didn't really see her to be in a similar season to me at all.
Like this isn't, you know, she'd be fine for me to say this now
and obviously not. You can say her name anyways,
but she was a bit more like immature, like she just like
hadn't worked through some stuff and she definitely like gave to
me in so many other ways. We had so much fun together, but
we never really had that, like, balance with when it came to our
guest, like, our emotional lives and everything else.
She's just a bit rogue. She was just running all over
the place, dating people, making all these crazy choices,
whatever, having fun, you know, living her life.
But I wasn't looking to do that. So I had never felt like we had
that balance. And I remember thinking like,
oh, we probably aren't going to be very good friends for a very
long time. But I do really enjoy your
company. And I don't know, look, it's
just, it's not that I didn't think we're gonna be friends.
I feel like this sounds so bad. But like, I'm just saying that I
didn't expect a lot of it. And then in time we got closer
and closer. She went through so much growth.
So did I, of course. But like, she went through that
big season of growth kind of just a little bit after I had,
and now we're like balanced, you know, Now we're here and I'll go
to her and I'll tell her about stuff.
And she's such a support for me. And like, we've been friends now
for years and it's been amazing. But you just never know, You
never know who's coming into your life.
So speaking on impermanence of life, right, what you have
today, you are not guaranteed to have tomorrow, Okay.
You can be really close to somebody right now and then they
could tell you tomorrow that they're going to go move
somewhere or they're going to make this life choice or they're
going to start this job or they're going to do something.
You are not guaranteed and teed that.
And like I mentioned earlier, when during COVID I had all
those friends leave a few weeks before that, when we were all
going out together having the best time of our lives, we were
like all knowing that we were going to leave this college.
So we all just started going out and like drinking and whatever
together. It sounds so funny to me being
like he, I'm like feel nervous talking about it cuz I literally
would have gotten in so much trouble like, Oh my God, and at
the time having the time of my life, some of the time my life.
Because for the last, like, however long it had been, a year
and a half or so I had been not barely, like barely drinking.
Everything was a big secret. I wasn't dressing certain ways.
I was very, like, worried about how I looked all the time, like
trying to give this, like, perfect Angel presentation, you
know, Christian girly vibes. And then it was like the start
of COVID, like very, very early. Just when it was like first
starting to become a thing and everybody's like the world's
ending, Who gives a fuck? Let's go.
We all went out. We started having the best time
together. And I remember thinking, this is
the best friend group of my life.
Like, I I love these people so much.
I need them in my life like I was.
So like, I needed to hold on to these people.
I had this really intense feeling like that.
And then I literally lost, almost all of them.
And lost is pretty dramatic. I mean, they are still alive,
you know, thank God. But I just didn't have them
close to me anymore. And obviously then didn't get to
have those deeper relationships as much for much longer with a
lot of those people. Yeah.
So I just want to encourage you that if you feel like you have a
loss right now where that person or a group of people or
whatever, you're like looking at them being like, I'm never going
to find that again. Just know that you will.
Like I'm telling you right now, It's not that you probably will.
You literally will. You have your whole life ahead
of you and you'll look back and you'll still see those memories
as being amazing memories and those people being great friends
and everything else. But it doesn't mean that you
can't have that again. And having new people as well
doesn't take away from the fact that those people served a
purpose at that time. And that's great, OK?
What can you do with this feeling of impermanence?
First of all, I want you to enjoy every interaction for what
it is, just for what it is. Don't try to meet somebody and
make it something straight away, like don't jump too far ahead.
Don't try to create a narrative. Don't try to put people into
boxes in your life. Just let people flow in and
enjoy every interaction for what it is.
As you're sat there talking with someone, you're enjoying their
company, you're laughing with them.
Be present and love that moment. And then even if you have in the
back of your mind, I want to hang out this person again or oh
like I feel like this could be a really good friend for me.
That feeling of excitement is great, but don't let it freak
you out and kind of like psych you out like because that's a
thing Like that can definitely cause you to then self sabotage.
Like you start to try to make things happen a certain way and
it becomes this control thing. It becomes this like I need this
security probably comes from like a lack of security as well.
I would say in yourself, realistically, if we're going a
bit deep here, if you try to do that, if you find yourself doing
that, try to just back up. Be as present as possible and
enjoy every single interaction for what it is.
Also, don't put pressure on one person or a friend group or
whatever to fulfill all of your needs.
Like, you can have friends for different things, right?
You can have a friend that you go to Pilates with.
You can have a friend that you go to the beach with.
You can have a friend that you go play a certain sport with.
You can have a friend that you like just go on walks with and
you don't even really do anything with them.
Like you can have friends that you'd like to do different
things with. And again, that's really normal
and really healthy and actually really fun because you get that
kind of like diversity. Something that I like to do as
well is sometimes I'll have kind of like friends from all over,
like say, maybe I'll have like 10 friends in my head that I can
think of. And it's like all different
places. Maybe a few of them know each
other or whatever. Sometimes I'll just get us all
together and I'll just like, force them to all hang out and
see who clicks because that's a really fun way to do it.
So it's like don't put pressure too much on one thing.
Just know that over time things will kind of mix, maybe friends
will mix and have a good time together.
You never know what's coming. Like, just try not to put that
pressure on. Something that helps me is
seeing relationships kind of like a story that just, like
continues with time rather than having this, like checkpoint in
your head of like, OK, these are the friends that I have right
now, OK, yes, these are the kind of people I want to have around
me. Like getting a little bit too
analytical about your life, being able to just back up and
be like, oh, it's a story. You know, like maybe right now
I've just met someone in a season of their life where this
isn't just them, this is just a version of them right now on
their journey that I'm experiencing.
Maybe you meet them when they're going through a really tough
time. So maybe you really like them
and you enjoy their company, but you don't want to spend all the
time with them because you're just kind of getting to know
someone and and there's a lot to unpack.
And you know, maybe you're going through that or maybe you meet
someone when they're really busy and they're in a new season,
they're having a lot of fun, but then in time they start to kind
of like slow down and they have a bit more time for you.
Like, just don't see that initial.
Version of your relationship as the relationship.
Because again, it's like this ongoing story, because of this
impermanence in our lives. It's OK to fear loss.
It's OK to look back at past experiences and be like, well, I
lost this friend or well, I lost this person.
But don't let the anxiety in that fear of losing someone stop
you from enjoying the present. I know I keep talking about the
present, but it's really, really important because like I said a
little bit ago, this will cause you to self sabotage.
You're literally going to look at other relationships that
you're starting for the first time, new relationships, great
relationships. And you're going to go, oh, but
what if they're just like that person?
Oh, what if they just do the same thing that person did where
they were jealous of me or they wouldn't celebrate my wins or
they, like wanted to take my friends from me or whatever.
We kind of like will, you know, foresee things and we'll make
assumptions and we don't want to do that.
I also want you to be really real with yourself and ask
yourself if you might be struggling with some sort of
fear of abandonment. Because naturally, if you are
very triggered by losing this friend, I'm not saying 100% you
do, but I think some people like or a lot of people do, It can be
a psychological thing that can go back to your childhood.
It can be from past relationships, it can be from
funny things. But what will happen if you do
have that fear of abandonment? You're going to put up walls.
You're not going to let people in.
You're going to hold back emotions.
You're likely going to hold in issues that you have in your
relationships. And in time that's going to
manifest as resentment, and you're not going to be able to
build healthy friendships. So just take a second to ask
yourself that, because that could be a deeper issue that
you'd want to go work through, maybe with the therapist.
I don't know, maybe read a book. I don't know.
It's up to you. But just a good question to ask
yourself and to kind of check in on that.
My last point here is that just because a relationship doesn't
continue forever doesn't mean that it didn't serve a purpose
at one point and it wasn't still a good relationship.
And even if there are some negatives or there was like a
negative ending, what we don't want to do is discount all of
the good stuff because of something negative.
Like I think it's a lot easier for us sometimes to just be
like, well, that's a shit person.
They don't care about me. They did this one bad thing.
They blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's easier.
But it's not necessarily like useful or productive.
Because now you look back on that relationship when it was
really great and you think, like, wow, that whole time they
were just thinking this or wow, they were actually like this, or
I had no idea that they were going to do this in the end, but
there was really great things about it.
And you're not an idiot. Like you want to be around
people that make you feel good and you probably have a good
sense of character and judge of character.
And so you didn't do anything wrong by being friends with that
person. And the good times were good
times and let those good times be good times, like move forward
knowing that those were good times and you're going to find
great times as well going forward.
But I just, there's something for me that I find really
empowering about Not now putting someone in like the trash bin in
my brain. Like, not just discounting them
and saying that they're now a shit person in my brain because
it's not actually helpful, it's not loving, it's not empathetic,
and it's not healing for you. Oh, right.
OK, let's talk green flags and the things that you want to be
looking for. If you're sitting here right now
and you're like, OK, friend break up, but maybe I could
become friends with them again. These are the things that you
would want them to be doing. And you can also see this from
the perspective of if they didn't do these things, then
you're probably on the right track by not having this person
in your life anymore. One thing thing is that you
trust this person's character and there's longevity in your
friendship. So a good thing is longevity
because it means that you actually have a long time, a
long amount of time where you've seen situations unfold.
That person, you've seen how they've worked through things,
how they've communicated through things, and that might not even
be issues that you've had with that person, but also issues
that you've seen them have with other people and other
situations. If you feel like you have a good
read on their character, maybe that's a good reason to stick
around through a difficult season.
Another green flag is that this person is actively wanting to
work through these issues with you, and they're actively
seeking out ways to come to agreements, ways to move
forward. It's really important that that
person is showing that they want you in their life.
They're not just willing to, like, give it up really quickly
just because they don't want to have to have that conversation,
because ultimately that shows that they don't value your
friendship enough. If you're gonna continue a
friendship with this person, you want to trust their ability to
move forward. You want to have examples in
your mind of when you've seen them apologize to anybody.
Doesn't even matter who it's to. But you've seen them be willing
to apologize. You've seen them be willing to
forgive, to move on, to admit their mistakes.
Like, genuinely someone being OK with being wrong can be an
issue, because a lot of people really struggle to find that
moment where they lay down their ego and just admit to their
faults. And the last one I want to share
is that this person is going to respect your boundaries.
So say you choose to continue a relationship with this person,
but you need to set a clear boundary with them.
Like, OK, well, we're not going to talk about this topic
anymore. Like, OK, we're still going to
be friends. I understand you don't like my
boyfriend, Let's still be friends.
But let's not talk about my boyfriend.
Again, not a great scenario. But if that's the boundary you
want to set and you really want to have this person in your
life, maybe there's something you disagree on as well.
Like something like political or something that you're okay with
not agreeing on. Like it's okay to be friends
with people where you just choose to not talk about certain
things. Again, it is harder.
Like, it does mean that there's going to be some sort of block
there. There's going to be certain
things you can't talk about, and that sucks.
But maybe you do want to prioritize that friendship and
continue with a boundary. And of course, want to make sure
that that person is going to be someone who understands the idea
of like, boundaries and is going to want to respect you if that's
what you choose to do going forward.
We're going to take a second to talk about the sponsor of
today's video. Vegetated.
Vegetated is an online platform that has over 100 courses about
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There's so much good stuff on there.
I've been using it myself personally.
And one thing that I'll share with you guys that I learned
this week that was super interesting through their G Spot
course, which is like a quickie course, they have these little
quick version ones that you can do and then they have more like
long form ones if you want to learn a bit more, go in more
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Another really cool point was to use your breath and to find that
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Or a relaxed arousal kind of like this, like deep wave of
arousal. And the last point, which I
really love, is to let go of the goal.
Like sure, you're sitting down to explore to see if you can
have that G spot orgasm, but ultimately you want to let go of
that being the goal. As long as you leave that
experience, having pleasure, feeling relaxed, knowing that
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I learned all of that in like a 10 minute course.
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It's literally that easy to learn about your body and to
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Again, please feel free to use my code, Alyssa.
Or you can go to the link in the episode description and you can
go from there. All right, let's get back to the
episode. OK, let's talk red flags.
These are the things that this person should not be doing if
they're going to be in your life.
And if you see any of these things in somebody for me, huge
fucking red flag. OK, starting out, just to make
sure we say it, this person has done something unforgivable.
OK, we're talking. This person has gone behind your
back and slept with your boyfriend.
We're talking. This person has found your nudes
and sent them around to the school.
We're talking this person has been stealing from you, OK?
Something where you're like, what the fuck?
Like, OK, we're just just we understand that that one,
they're just going out, OK? And I'm not saying it's going to
be easy for you still to move on knowing that you don't have this
friendship anymore. Someone can still do something
bad and you can still be angry at that while also still loving
them and wishing that they were in your life.
Like those things can happen at the same time.
But if they've done something unforgivable and it's like, Oh
my God, what the fuck, then just know that you're on the right
path when it comes to not having them in your life anymore going
forward. If you're like, not willing to
move forward from it. Because I think there are some
things that it's like, you know, is it when it's bad enough?
OK. Another one is that they don't
support your choices if it doesn't benefit them.
So if you were to say, I want to move to this place and they're
like, no, don't. Like, come on, you know, like
you want someone who's, like in your corner, like they're in
your corner, not for their sake, as your friend, but for you as a
person because they love you and there's a huge difference.
Like, that is so, so, so important.
Oh, another one is that they show jealousy often, and they
seem to resent your wins. Like they don't want to
celebrate your wins with you. Maybe you bring up something
really great that's going on in your life and they're
dismissive. They don't ask questions.
They don't really seem to care. If anything, maybe they go into,
like a negative and they're like, oh, well, wouldn't that be
hard because of this or that kind of bullshit?
Yuck, OK, yuck. The last thing you need is
someone in your life who is not excited for you.
Someone who makes you feel small again.
It's going to come back to them feeling small in themselves, and
that comparison is going to make them uncomfortable.
But it is not your job to fill in and make them love
themselves, and you actually can't do that for them anyways.
Your job is you. What you can do is determine
what you want to do moving forward, who you want to be
friends with, how you're going to act, how you're going to
support people. And if someone's not going to do
that for you, then it just isn't worth your time because it's a
them problem. It's not a relationship issue.
For example, I can see someone walking down the street and they
can tell me I just got married or I just got a new job.
I'm going, Oh my God, congratulations.
I'm so excited for you. I can have that with a stranger,
you know? And we should be able to have
that with strangers. We should be able to have that
with everyone. We should especially be able to
have that with our friends. And if you get one of those
people that are just a bit of like, a fucking lemon and they
just don't want to appreciate things and support you.
Yuck. OK Yuck.
Red flag. Ooh.
Another one is they want to control you and they don't like
you hanging out with other people.
They don't like to hear about your other friends.
They make comments like, oh wow, they're your best friend.
I guess they don't. They don't like that you can
have more than just them. Again, it comes back to control.
It comes back to them not being confident in themselves,
whatever it is. Of course, these are the kind of
things that you can still have conversations with them about,
like these are issues individually, say some of these
things, right. If it's just that one issue, you
can always bring it to someone. You can say, hey, I've noticed
that this is how you respond and we're talking about my wins.
Or hey, I've noticed that when I talk about my other friends, you
seem to be unhappy to hear about it or you seem to be a little
bit upset when I hang out with other people and I don't invite
you or whatever it is. These are things that you can
work through in theory. I'm not saying to just cut
someone out like that because one issue comes up, but these
are if, if this is the overall vibe of somebody, these things
collectively, or maybe you've brought up some of these things
and they haven't been able to change through it or work
through it. Again, Red Flag.
Another one is stonewalling when they refuse to communicate with
you. So something happens.
They shut down. They're not willing to talk,
They're not willing to apologize.
They're not willing to even hear your side.
They're not willing to share. Obviously, yes.
Like, it's important if you're literally having a fight with
somebody to like have boundaries and give people space and
whatever else. Like, I understand that there
there's like nuance to that. But if this is a common thing
where every time something happens, they just shut you out,
they want to act like nothing happened.
They want to just move on. They don't want to communicate.
Yuck, Red flag. Ooh, this one's really good.
My therapist gave me this one. She said.
If you are trying to help them, but they don't want to help
themselves, if maybe, say, they're struggling through a
really difficult season of some sort and you want to be there to
support them and you're doing everything in your power to
support them, but they are just not willing to help themselves.
They don't want to do the therapy.
They don't want to do the personal work.
They don't want to communicate. They don't want to take care of
themselves and their bodies and their lives and their jobs and
what like, they just are not owning their experience.
They're not owning their life. That can be really, really
frustrating. And with this one, again, it is.
There's always nuance to all of it.
And I feel like I always give these disclaimers because I
don't want you guys to go make some rogue fucking choices
because I say some stupid shit. But it's really important that,
like, if you're going to have someone in your life that is
struggling with something, they still own it.
Like mental health. Mental health issues are never
an excuse to treat the people around you like shit.
And I've been diagnosed with anxiety.
I've been diagnosed with depression.
Like, I've, you know, I've had really, really shit seasons.
But I don't go around and take it out of my friends, you know,
I don't go around. If anything, I look for support.
I don't go around and tell them that they're being shit friends
because I feel bad about myself. Or, you know, take it out on a
big night on them and I'm drunk and yelling at them and all the
shit. Like, no, no fucking way.
Like these are the people that are there to support you and
love on you, but ultimately you have to own your own life and
your own experience. Of course people can make
mistakes. But if this is a habit where
somebody's like, just cutting you down, don't want to say
anything, don't want to work through it, let's just move on.
I'm not going to help myself. Yuck, Red flag.
Another one is if you often leave hanging out with this
person and you don't feel good if you leave and you feel
drained every time. Because sometimes we don't know
why that happens, but we know that it happens and sometimes it
takes a while to figure out. I've had this with a friend
before where I would hang out with them, wouldn't feel good,
but I was like, they didn't do anything wrong.
Like, what did they do? Is it me?
It must be me. So then it keep having kept
having kept having over and over and over.
And then eventually I was like started to notice little things
like, oh, they keep making these like, little comments about my
appearance, like about something that doesn't look quite right.
Or they say, oh, you would look a lot better if you did this
thing. Just little things, just little
things. I was like, oh, it's kind of
funny. And then realized, oh, there was
a bit of a fight. Oh, And they just kind of
stonewalled. They didn't really want to move
on. Like, they didn't want to talk
about it. Like, that's not actually
healthy. How are we going to talk about
that thing? What if that thing happens
again? You know, I would show up to
hang out with them. They'd be in a bad mood.
It was like, if they're in a bad mood, everyone's in a bad mood.
Not willing to. There's no coming back, you
know, not willing to move on. It started to make sense that
there was all these little things and I was like, oh, oh,
that all makes sense, OK? I don't want to hang out with
them because I feel like shit every time after I hang out with
them. And sometimes at first you're
like, you don't know why, but just know that that's usually
like an early sign of some of these other things coming out
down the line. And lastly, of course, if they
are abusive in any way, and obviously physically you would
be very aware of it. Not always.
It's not easy obviously to leave that, but you'd be aware of it
Emotionally is a really big one. And like mentally like someone
just trying to control you, trying to convince you of
certain things, trying to make you like them, trying to get you
to always help them, but they don't want to help you.
All that kind of stuff like that, That version of
manipulation is really scary and is easy to fall into if you
haven't had a lot of healthy relationships as well.
So just obviously, please, please, please be aware of that.
All right, let's talk some do's and don'ts.
Okay Do do be honest with yourself about how you are
feeling. It's okay, like I said earlier,
to be sad and to miss somebody while also recognizing that
that's not someone that you want to have in your life, That is
really hard. Being in that position where it
literally is, it's a grinding. Like that's only where that
comes to mind for me. It's like it's two things that
kind of push against each other because the emotional part of
you is like, fuck, I just miss them.
I want to reach out to them. And the logical part of you is
like, Nope, hold up. Let's think about what they did.
Let's think about the things. Let's think about how I used to
feel when I was friends with them.
Let's think about this, Let's think about that.
And then you can kind of, like, talk yourself out of it.
It's a difficult situation to be in, but still be honest with
yourself about how you're feeling.
So what you don't want to do is pretend that you don't care
about them, pretend that you don't miss them.
Like, try to gaslight yourself into not having emotions.
Because it never fucking works. It's always going to explode
somehow, and it's probably going to be way worse than if you just
dealt with it in the 1st place and got to a place of acceptance
when it comes to missing them but still choosing yourself.
At the end of the day, do surround yourself with great
friends, other friends, right? And if you don't have any
friends, that's fine. Meet new friends, go out, meet
people like I've made episodes about this before.
You can Scroll down, go for a little look, see if you want
about making new friends, because it's hard to do.
But it's definitely doable. And really, really important
that you are now seeing the other relationships that you
have in your life and pulling from those, especially if you
started spending less time with most of your people because you
were really focusing on this one person or this one group of
people or whatever, make sure that you're still keeping that
widespread. And I think we learned lessons
through that too, Like you learned going forward.
Oh, like, maybe I shouldn't put all of all my eggs into one
basket. You know, maybe I actually
shouldn't, like, focus all my time on one person.
Maybe I actually do need a balanced community and I think
going forward you kind of learn your lesson that way and you
start keeping check of that more often.
I think that's, I think that's really, really helpful to do.
And it just ensures you a little bit more like safety, that
you're still going to have people, even if you're going
through one issue with one person or whatever that looks
like. Also do feel free to unfollow or
block or whatever to whoever you need to for your Peace of Mind.
This is something that you guys were saying as well when you
were giving me your information, your stories, everything for
this episode. And I agree with this.
So, so, so much, guys. I have had a friend break up.
I've had a few, but I had one in the last year and it was like
only a few months ago where I chose to unfollow this person on
social media. Because every time I was going
on social media I was getting notifications being like, Oh my
God, your favorite person, your best friend is online, talk to
them and I was like, fuck off, actually leave me alone.
It was so annoying and like. Because I followed them every
time that I would look at like story views or likes or
anything, whatever. It's like the first person.
Like, you know, there's just a way that these apps know.
It's like, here's the one person you're trying not to think
about. Oh my God, they just liked your
photo. You even talked to them in a
while. They're online and it's like,
fuck off. Actually, leave me alone.
So if you need to do that for your Peace of Mind, do it, OK?
Someone might get hurt. Someone might be like, wow,
really? Like, now you've unfolled me.
It doesn't fucking matter, OK? Do what you need to do for your
Peace of Mind. And if that person does reach
out and say something like that, like, you can respond if you
want to. You don't have to.
But if you do want to respond and just be like, hey, just, you
know, that was actually just from my piece of mind, has
nothing to do with you. Like, it's genuinely just for
me. Hope you're doing well.
Boom, You can say that, You know, drop the ego for a second.
Just be honest and move on with your day, because if it's gonna
help you that much, it's not a big deal.
It's social media. It's like a game on your phone.
It's ridiculous, OK? It's a little button you press
if it's gonna help you to not feel like shit in your day.
Oh my God. Just do it.
OK, OK.
Don't make unfair conclusions about this person because you
are sad. Don't look at their Instagram.
Don't look at them hanging out with new people.
Don't look at them doing all these things and be like, well,
they're a shit person. Well, maybe I should warn these
people about this shit, friend. Like, just leave it alone.
Own, OK. Stay in your lane.
Try not to look at that person now through this negative light
and not want good for them. Like check yourself.
Like genuinely check yourself. Like are you coming from like a
kind heart? No.
If you're thinking that way, right.
And I know we're not perfect. I know we're going to have
moments where we're like he they're doing bad haha.
Like, Oh well, sucks for them. Feel good about me.
It does feel good right in the moment.
It might feel good, but it doesn't serve you like, it
doesn't feed you. It doesn't feed your, like,
soul. You know, like we're talking
soul here, OK? We want to make sure that we are
like actively being that person. We want to be that, like that
evolved version of us who has a heart for people and can
empathize and is like, emotionally ready to, like,
admit their faults and move forward.
And you want to be that person where you actually feel
grounded. And if you're looking at this
person and you're kind of like diminishing them in your brain
to make you feel better, just check yourself because, yeah,
it's not, it's not, it's not nice for you.
It's actually not good for you. Do not try to get mutual friends
to pick sides. This one is tough because
sometimes you look at your people that are close to you and
you're like, this is my tribe, these are my people.
And then if people have all met each other and everyone's kind
of friends and whatever, you don't want to try to make people
like be on your side. I do think that like if that it
was all like intertwined and like it was a situation where
other people are affected. Like of course there might end
up being a bit of a sides situation, but whatever you do,
you need to release the people around you and let them do what
they want to do. If they choose to continue to be
friends with that person in time, they might learn that it's
not a good friendship, but they actually might work as a
friendship. They might be great.
Maybe you and that person just aren't great and you have to be
OK with there being some crunchy situations because we're human.
Like, life is complicated, There's a lot going on, OK?
And try to have as much grace as you can as possible for your
other people that are in your life for thinking the things
that they think or maybe wanting to have contact a little bit
with that person. Like I remember seeing the other
day that one of my cousins follows a guy that one of my
other cousins dated like years ago.
And it was funny because in my brain I remember being like why
the fuck do they still follow that person?
Like that doesn't make any sense to me.
If I was the person who left the actual relationship, I can't use
names. This is so hard to explain, but
if I was the person who got broken up with, I would be so
pissed at the cousin for still following like my ex.
You know what I mean? Like I'd be like, what the fuck?
But I was like, I was like, you know what?
Just doesn't matter. Doesn't matter, OK?
People are going to do what they want to do.
It doesn't matter. So you have to just try to as
much as you can, release people. Let people figure out on their
own. OK, Maybe you can help to
educate the people around you. Like, hey, just so you know,
this is the situation that happened.
This is why we're not friends anymore.
Be fair about it. Try to be careful with, you
know, just you never know who's still friends with that person.
So, you know, be aware of that as well, OK?
You don't want anyone talking shit about you.
Just be careful. But yeah, try not to, like pull
people in on your side because you don't need that.
Like, you don't need to hoard people, you know?
And I think sometimes if we start to get into that like
controlling thing of like, these are my people and that anxiety,
it's an US issue and we need to work back and figure out what
the root of that is. Don't let it stop you from
making new connections. Having a past shit relationship
should not stop you from making new connections.
And I know that like saying that you're like, well, it's going
to. I'm scared because I was fucked
around and I don't want to be fucked around again.
I know, OK. But as much as you can, try to
remember that this new person is not that old person.
If you're going to enter a new relationship, taking all of the
past things and throwing it onto that person is like the worst
way to start out a friendship. And you can absolutely tell new
people in your life about these situations.
Like, I think that's really important.
I have a friend actually, where when I met her within probably
about a month into our friendship, she opened up to me
about a past friendship that she had that was really, really
difficult. She actually said to me I have a
really hard time in friendships because of blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah. And it was great because she
just educated me on her situation.
So now going forward, I've been able to say to her really
validating things. I've been able to say, hey, just
thinking about you today, I want you to know how much I love you,
appreciate you. Like, thank you so much for
being in my life. I'll do that more often because
I know that friendships and security within friendships is
an issue for her. She never said, oh you're going
to do that to me. Like she never angrily said it
to me or started assuming negative things about me.
She was just honest with me and it genuinely set up our
relationship so well. Like that is communication.
That is a friend who is like moved on from things but is
still working through it but is still going to be fair to you
through it. Lastly, I just want to say that
if you have been ghosted or if you've been like unfriended out
of nowhere and you don't know what the fuck is going on, first
of all, and I'm sure you've already done this, you want to
think and consider is there anything that I did do have a
little moment now knowing us as a community, we're all pretty
anxious, you know, so you've probably already done that many
a times. OK?
So moving forward from there, now you just need to remember
that if you want to have good people in your life who love and
care and support for you, those people are going to put an
effort for you and they're going to see the value in you being
their friend. If they aren't doing that, if
they've literally ghosted you or they've just like suddenly
started being really weird with you or something like that, you
just got to give people space and you just got to let them do
their thing. OK?
If you've established I haven't done anything, I don't the
fuck's going on, obviously. If you still think there could
be potential in this friendship, sure, check in on them, make
sure they're OK. Like sometimes people do that
when something really shit has happened in their personal life.
So obviously do that first, you know, like, go through that
stage. But if you're past that stage
and it's like, oh, we're definitely not going to be
friends anymore, just remember that your time is valuable.
Like, if you're sat here right now listening to a fucking
podcast about friendship and bullshit and you're trying to,
like, become a better person, OK, Like, you're doing OK,
you're doing all right. So just know that going into
friendships, if you take that and you take this kind of
knowledge and you're actively trying to work on yourself and
other people are hopefully doing that as well, you're going to
have better relationships. But if they're not, if they
don't really give a fuck, if they're just like, oh, well, I
don't want to hang with that person anymore.
I'm going to block them. I'm going to fucking, OK, OK,
You don't want that person in your life.
You just don't want that person in your life and your time is
really important. Who you share with is really
important. Like who you are honest and
vulnerable with is really important.
You want those people to be good people and there's a lot of
fucking people. Like there's there's a lot,
there's a lot of people. There's a big ass world, OK?
You're there's a lot of people to meet.
There's a lot out there. So in time you will absolutely
find your people. Don't feel like this one failed
friendship. Or I shouldn't even say failed,
because obviously it served a purpose at one point, OK?
But don't let this one negative experience make you think that
that's how things are going to be going forward, because that's
so like much of A unfair conclusion for you.
Like, you deserve to believe that you have amazing things
coming for you. Literally today I was going
through a whole bunch of videos and stuff because I needed to
delete shit because I have literally guys 30,000, I think
it is photos on my phone. Disgusting.
So I was going through and it was so cute because I found a
video of me and my friend Ava when we first met and I was
like, that's the day we met. And then I was going just before
it and I saw that I had some video talking about me really
struggling with my mental health that week or whatever.
I think it's a TikTok. I posted and I was like, whoa,
it's crazy because I had a really shit week.
And then at the end of that week I met someone who was one of my
best friends right now. And I had no idea that was
coming. Like I had no idea.
I just went to something social. I went to a friends of a
friend's birthday, not even really knowing anybody.
I think I literally only knew the birthday girl and I was like
kind of nervous going. I was like literally met one of
my closest friends that I have right now.
So that's another thing as well. Put yourself out there, like
just try as much as you can do. Those things are a little
uncomfy. Like go to that event where you
have to put in some effort and you have to pay for the Uber and
you're like, fuck, I don't know if I should do it.
If you can, like, especially financially, you know, if you
can get out and do those little extra things and make the little
sacrifices so that you can be as social as possible, especially
if you're looking to make new friends, actually actively
invest in it. Like, think, OK, this month now
what is it? October.
It's October 1st. Holy shit.
Oh my God. We got to set our goals guys.
We got a lot to do. OK?
If it's the start of the month, perfect.
OK, make October about making at least one new good friend.
Like, just actively put an effort on it.
Because again, it's work, but it's so, so important, so
valuable. And we don't talk about that
value enough. Like, it's like, Oh yeah, me and
my friends and whatever else. But like, this is what makes us
happy. Like, these are the moments of
joy. These are the memories.
Like, when you think back to memories, are you often thinking
about when you got, like, money or like, when you got things
regular? Like, no.
Like you're thinking about fun times when you're out with
people and you're, like laughing about something or something
really crazy happens. Like, that is what gives us joy.
And like, gives us stories. You know, the stories.
That's what's so exciting. So I would just really, really
encourage you to push yourself here and to know that it's OK to
be really struggling right now. If you're sad and you miss
someone, I'm sorry. I do too.
I have people that I miss 100%. I've trust me, guys, I've
fucking been through it, OK? And I've seen it, and it sucks.
Like it does suck so much to miss somebody.
But if you've done these things like we everything we talked
about today, if you've thought about the red flags, the green
flags, you've thought about the do's and don'ts, you're at a
good place, at least within yourself, where you can choose
who's going to be a good person for your life.
And you know that you've made that choice.
Just continue on that path because in time you will miss
that person less and less hopefully.
Or at least you'll think about it less and less just because
it'll become less of a present issue in your life.
And who knows? Maybe one day you'll become
friends again. Who knows?
You never know. But do your best.
If you've decided this is what I'm doing, I'm going to choose
to move forward without this person.
I'm going to choose myself. I'm going to choose the other
amazing people in my life, and I'm actually going to let that
person go. Then try to stick to that.
Try not to like contact them or like, you know, try to make
something happen. Try to like, give that release
and just know that if it's meant to be like, that person will
come back into your life. I really believe that and I've
seen that in my life. So thank you guys so much for
listening. I hope that this episode brought
you comfort and a little bit of guidance If you're in that kind
of figuring it out stage right now with a friend or even just
gave you information for if you get to that point in the future
with people. I'm so thankful for every single
one of you who listen and support the podcast.
Thank you for all of your amazing messages, especially
after last episode where I talked about bisexuality and
feeling valid in your sexuality. I got a lot of people messaging
me in tears and just being like, this really was what I needed to
hear today. So I hope that I can continue to
just like, validate you guys and be that support for you in
whatever way that I can be. If you want to chat to me about
any of this, feel free to DM me on Instagram is the best way to
get in contact with me at the moment.
Again, that's Alyssa Taylor Harper and it's also Alyssa
Taylor Harper on TikTok and you can join the Facebook group as
well if you'd like. It's all going to be LinkedIn,
the episode notes. And of course, now that I've
told you guys about the whole open relationship thing, there
will be episodes coming forward in the future for that.
So look out for that. And that's everything.
Love you guys so much. Thank you so much.
And I will see you in the next episode.
Okay. Bye guys.