Should the Goal of Your Friendship be to “Never Rock the Boat?”

Have I made it sound like it’s easy to keep friendships strong and resilient?

If so, let me set the record straight: making changes in friendships, even if they’re for the better, is HARD. A lot of the time, it involves uncomfortable conversations, confrontation, and hard feelings. It’s so tempting to push problems aside to keep relations “peaceful.”

I think there’s an expectation to put in work for romantic and familial relationships, but how much work should we be doing for friendships? At what point is it not worth the effort? 

Here’s my hard truth: If you want friendships where you can grow, change, and share the real stuff, you’re probably going to have to rock the boat. It might be uncomfortable, but it won’t be uncomfortable forever. On the other side, I think you’ll find the work was worth it. 

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• The assumption that friendships should always feel good and seamless, with zero challenges as we all move through life’s transitions
• Different types of work involved in maintaining friendships (and why avoidance is even work, from suppressing urges to withholding details about our lives)
• Why having those difficult conversations sometimes will not feel good but are important in addressing changes, building resilience, and maintaining connection
• How we feel having hard conversations with partners, family, long-term friendships and new friends; does the label of the relationship impact your investment of effort?

Resources & Links

Listen to Episode 99 about individualism in friendship with James Richardson; Episode 149 about why we should want our friends to have robust social lives; Episode 153 about friendship break-ups with Meenadchi; and Episode 159 about speed dating for friends.

Like what you hear? Visit my website, leave me a voicemail, and follow me on Instagram and TikTok!

Want to take this conversation a step further? Send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting and use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out!

This episode is sponsored by Are We Friends Yet?, Alex’s book on building the support system you’ve been wanting.

Buy the book and submit your receipt before July 16th to get The Connector’s Toolkit free: a private pep talk podcast for the moments that feel hardest, a full year in The Less Lonely Club, and more. Grab your bonuses at alexalexander.com/are-we-friends-yet

WANT MORE?

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Transcript

Podcast Intro/Outro: 0:55

All right, gang. Here's to nights that turn into mornings and friends that turn into family. Cheers. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Friendship IRL podcast. I'm your host, Alex Alexander. Each week we talk about what is working(and what is not) in our friendships, community and connections. Have you ever wished you could sit down and have a conversation about what is really going on in your friendships? Well, you found your people. Join us as we dive into real life stories and explore new ways to approach these connections. Together, we're reimagining the rules of friendship oh life like that, then I would

Alex Alexander: 1:45

I was chatting with someone on my team the other day, and she was telling me, just so sweet of her that she was listening to one of my episodes. She was listening to Episode 149 why we should all want our friends to have robust social lives, even if it's without us. She was telling me about how she was listening to this episode, and she's like, Yeah, you know, it is so great that you want your friends to have other friends. And I love that idea. Like it sounds like the dream, but I really don't know how you go from where I am now where that's not really acceptable in our friendships, to brag about how we hung out with someone else, like there's to what you're talking about, where it's okay to even just say some jealousy under there. To what you describe in that episode, it just seems like it would be so hard to get there, and it feels like we'd really rock the boat. Basically, is like, Hey, I hung out with one of our closest friends without what she was telling me, that there'd be conflict, it would be you last night. It just feels like I don't know how we get uncomfortable, that she just couldn't imagine a little bit like the journey to get there, and how they would navigate that there there probably will be some and still stay friends. Now, of course, I kind of did what I just let them go. What is the switch? At what point is it tend to do. If you've ever talked to me one on one about this stuff, people say, have a very distinct like look when I worth it to do the work? I don't know you tell me why. Why is it go into kind of this friendship mode and I'm really clicking all the pieces together in my head and thinking through what you said, I really go into a work vibe. Okay? I drop into that might be like, Well, I don't know. What would they say? I space, and I'm thinking about it, and I'm thinking I'm like, actually don't know. Are people telling me it's tight, like to analyzing what she said to me. And my first response was like, hey, if my episodes make it sound like every friend hold on tight? I actually think in that case, transition I have is seamless, then I really messed up here. My apologies to you seriously, because these transitions are friendship, if it's not fun, if it's not seamless, if it's not not seamless at all. They're definitely hurt feelings. Sometimes there are definitely frustrations. Sometimes there are fights. Sometimes there are periods where two friends really positive, then why bother almost. This isn't the first aren't talking to each other until a bigger conversation happens. Sometimes it's uncomfortable. Now, this isn't all the time, that's why I think I don't push it. It's not like we're having blow up fights, but there are definitely times where conflict. It doesn't need to be these big blow up fights, but I show up to a friend hangout and I can tell that some sort of shift happened, right? And somebody has some thoughts about it. Maybe they've been staying up a little too late at night, there will have to navigate. And if our thinking, ruminating on whatever this shift was, and they have something they want to say, and it's like, Okay, we got to say filter is that we never want to have those conversations, that's it. Tell it to me. You know, what is your frustration? What going to make it really hard to shift anything in our do you not think is right? How are you feeling? Maybe you agree that we need to make this shift in our friendship, but you still don't like how it feels. You're dealing with maybe some jealousy or it's giving you a hit of your self-worth. You feel like you're not a good friend. I don't know what it is, okay. Could be anything, and it's like we talk about it. We have a civil conversation. Normally, it's just a piece of our Hangout. Like, if I think back to the last one of these I had, I was out shopping with a friend. We were wandering through a store. We had spent, I don't know, over an hour just having a normal hangout. I could tell she really wanted to talk about something. I asked her what it was, and said I was open to hearing anything. She gave her perspective. We probably talked about it for 20 ish minutes. Just as we're wandering the aisles, we're having a like, Hey, this is how I feel. This is how you feel. And then we were like, Okay, let's check back in on how we feel about this the next time, where we probably checked in for five minutes, the next time we hung out, then we checked in again. The next time, I'll try and pay more attention to it for you. But the point of this is that if I have made it sound like all these transitions, all these changes in friendship culture are seamless and there's no conflict, that's not true, but it's also not these big fights all the time. Now, when I kept thinking about what my teammates said about how do we get from here to there again, I'm the day. I think the question we need to sit with is, if the dropping into work mode. I'm sitting here listening to her, and all I can hear is like is the point of friendship? Do we North Star shouldn't always be that our friendships always feel all think that the point of friendship, the North Star of our friendships is that they always feel good. Is that what makes a quote, unquote good friendship, that they always good, feel easy, seamless, then what should our North Star be? feel positive and uplifting and that we never push them right we want, like this natural, easy change to happen, and so that's what today's episode is about. This is kind of one of those episodes that has my unfinalized thoughts. I'm just thinking through this. I would love your feedback, because in today's episode, we're going to challenge the assumption that we should always have friendships that feel good, and when I dig into that, we're going to talk about the work that you're actually doing when you're not doing the work of like confronting your friend. Here we go. Let's see if I can flesh this out in today's episode. So I think that there's this unspoken rule that a lot of us have, somewhere along the way, we started to believe that a good friendship, a true friend, a real friend, right? Which brings me to, I guess, my next section here, which is the work we're already doing. I broke this down, I think that there are three types of work we're doing here, if we're trying to make our friendships feel good, right? The first one is we are suppressing our urges. I could give you all sorts of examples, but I'm just going to continue along with this idea of your friends having friends other than you, or maybe like if you're in a trio of friends hanging out with somebody else in the trio without you, because that relates to my example in the beginning of my teammate talking about episode 149 so I'm just going to continue along with that example to keep it all congruent in this episode. So option one would be suppressing your urges. So let's say that you want to expand your social circle for whatever reason, maybe your friend had a life change. They have been feeling really sick, they have really bad migraines, and they're not able to go out and do as many things as you want to do. You're still supporting them. You're still checking in on them, you're still going over to their house, but you have things you want to do. You want to join some clubs. You want to get out of your house more on weeknights, right? You want to expand your social circle, but you're worried that if you do that, they will be jealous or upset, or they'll feel like you're leaving them behind, or whatever it is. So you suppress your urge and you don't do it. You just stay at home. Watch More Netflix. Get really into basket weaving, whatever it is, you pick up a hobby that you can do on your own at home. You hold yourself back from joining that group, going to that event. You make yourself smaller. To keep the peace, and I would argue that is work, right suppressing your urge to go out and expand your social circle. It's work. It's work to sit there and know that you are drawn towards maybe some community events or a speed dating event. Sounds really fun to you, like a speed friending event. That's what I meant, which I have an episode about that. We'll link that in the show notes, too, if that's something you're interested in, but you don't do it. You do all this work, right? You look at all these I could I could sew, I could crochet, I could basket weave. I could get really into sourdough. I could rebuild car engines. And none of them really like sit right, because it's not what you want to do, but you just keep forcing yourself to find a singular hobby because you don't want to upset your friend. That's work. Okay? Option two is to hide and calculate. So let's say that you well, you decide to go to the speed friending event, and when you go on your third time, you meet a couple people you really hit it off with. So you invite them over to your house for a game night. Maybe that seems a little aggressive, so you meet up with them at a local board game shop where you can play board games. You have a great time. You really enjoyed getting out of the house on a weeknight. It was fun to meet new people. You found out that one of them also has an interest in basket weaving. You're going to go take a class together, but when you're talking to your friend, the one who is at home trying to figure out how to navigate this new migraine diagnosis, you lie about where you were the night before. Or maybe you don't lie, but you just, you just kind of omit it, you know. And she's like, how is your week? You talk about everything else, but what you did last night, and she never really asked specifically what you did, because she figured you just stayed at home. So you just omit it. And then you have to start calculating, because maybe you get together again for board games, or you go to a walk, or you go to that basket weaving class, and you're thinking, like, Can I share that I went to the basket weaving class? Will they be jealous? Do I tell them that I went to the class, but not that I went with this person? You don't mention something, and you basically start to build this entire part of your life that you don't feel like you can share with your friend. And that is also work, right? It is work to calculate what you can and cannot share. It is work to try and make sure you're going places where they can't, they won't run into you, or they won't hear about the fact that you were there. Option three is to navigate the changing culture in your friendship. Now this might look like having kind of a hard conversation with your friend, and it doesn't need to be this big blow up thing. It could just be telling your friend, like, Hey, here's how I would have that conversation ready. I'd be like, Hey, I know that you're really, really struggling with these migraines, and I feel awful for you, and I want to help you however I can, and I'm happy to come up with some ways that we can still stay really connected, right? Is it easier for me to text? Is it easier to voice memo? Is it better if I come over and sit in your house? You know, if they're having really bad migraines, maybe it's like, I'd love to come drop off dinner to you a couple times a month, so that you know that I'm thinking of you. What can I do to still feel connected? But I also have some things that I want to do, and normally maybe we would do those together, but you can't do that right now, and I don't want you to think that I'm trying to leave you behind, but I have some things I want to explore, like I'm lonely at home without you. I want to go check out this group and see if I can meet some more people who are interested in some of the hobbies I'm interested in, right? Maybe they're sad about that your friend that they can't join along. And you have to sit there and say, like, Yeah, I'm sad you can't join along either, right? I want to help you get rid of these migraines so we can go do fun things together. Now, that conversation maybe it was a little hard to bring up. It feels like it's rocking the boat, because your friend is probably kind of sad now, because they want to join along with you, right in their mind, when you were also sitting at home doing nothing, it made them feel a little better that they weren't the only ones sitting at home miserable. There's probably gonna be some uncomfortable moments. Maybe there's some growth. Maybe they tell you to go, do it. Go check out those speed friending events. And then when you tell them about it, maybe they're a little sad, and it feels like you backtracked, right? They told you to go, and now you feel uncomfortable because it'll almost sounds like they wish you didn't go right, which might lead to more conversations, and over time, this will be a slow shift of what's normal between you. The alternative is if you go with option one or option two, where we are suppressing our urges or hiding and calculating, I think that there's kind of an emotional undercurrent that builds over time, right? There's more lies to keep track of, more resentment that's building more distance. That is all work that you are managing, but it is work that I think is kind of eroding the foundation of your friendship. I think this is just me talking. I don't have any proof of this.... It's just somebody to sit with. Sometimes, I do think that people, if you've been doing this type of work, that's kind of eroding the foundation of your friendship for a really long time, and then, let's say, a year from now, your friend finds out you've been doing all these Hangouts, and you never told them, they might get really mad at you, and it might actually be like a blow up fight, maybe, and you might come back and blame your friend, like, well, they just can't handle that. I've been doing all these things, and sometimes I think people don't see their part in this. Of like, Hey, you chose the work of hiding everything. You had a part in this too, but I digress. I'll move on. The emotional toll with the option three, which is navigating the changing culture of your friendship, is that there is going to be some discomfort when you bring it up when you have that conversation that I kind of mocked up for you. But the hope would be that over time, the discomfort decreases, right? Because you're building repair skills. You're building trust that you can work through things together. Eventually it becomes easier and easier to just bring this stuff up. And the biggest bonus, the biggest win here, is that you get to be fully yourself in the end, right? You get to go after your interests. You get to talk about your real feelings. You get to hear your friend's real feelings. You might get closer to that friend that has the migraines, because now they're really telling you what it feels like. I'm speaking from firsthand experience as someone who navigated is still navigating chronic illness, they might tell you all about how they feel like the world is passing them by, and how sad that is, and they're not blaming you for that. It just you might get to hear this whole side of them you never would have heard if you had gone with option one or two. So I think the reframe here is that you're not choosing between work and no work. You are always choosing which work you're going to do. But one kind of work keeps you stuck, and one kind of work, in my opinion, builds something more sustainable, right? We're going back, and we're kind of rewriting this idea that you can have a friendship that feels good, quote, unquote, or an easy friendship, the one that feels good on the surface, both people are working really, really hard underneath. It's like you're swimming, and you look like you're perfect on the top... right?... but underneath your legs are just like doing that egg beater motion over and over and over again, because you're trying to not fall under the surface. You're hiding things. You're sweeping things away. You're ignoring hard things. It looks really smooth from the outside, but it is exhausting underneath. Version two, the hope would be that you are building repair skills, right? You are surviving these uncomfortable moments together. You're building trust that you can metabolize conflict, that like if something comes up, it is okay. You will work through it. It might suck for a bit, but you will get there. And as you do that, more and more, you're building this bank of evidence that you can handle hard things together, and I think you have less fear and scarcity because you have proof that you will both do the work to navigate this. How are we all doing? This is a big topic. Am I tracking? I really want to hear from you all, because I'm just this is like a conversation I would normally record in my own voice notes, but we're just doing it live today. We are putting unfinished work out there. So if the North Star is not to have this friendship that feels good on the surface, then what should the North Star be? I think it comes down to three parts. I toyed with four, and I'll tell you the fourth one, but I don't love the fourth one, so I'm gonna go with three. Number one is authenticity. We are trying to fully be ourselves. We are trying to share. I don't think it's all the parts of our lives, but I think whatever you decide to selectively Share. Feels honest and real, like you're allowed to still keep something close to the chest. If you want to, you don't have to share it, but whatever you do share, you feel like it's the real share. And this is all in contrast to like performing a version of yourself. I think that the second North Star is growth, growth, both individually and together in your friendship relationship. Can you change and evolve? Can the friendship change and evolve? Can you share when you're learning new things about yourself, like when you're not even sure that would be a cool I think the third North Star is building resilience. Can you weather discomfort together? Do you have repair skills? Can you metabolize conflict and do you trust that you'll work through hard things? The fourth one that I considered was this idea of kind of alignment on values. But as I thought through that in my own life, I realized that there are definitely friends where I don't align on every single value they have, and they don't align on all my values. But I do think that we can be authentic about our values, we can be honest if our values change and grow and evolve, and we can build resilience where we don't agree that we can talk and listen about what each of us value. At the core, I think a number of my friends and I have very, very similar values, right? But I value honestly, direct, open conversation way more than maybe some of my friends do. I could see that I think I value pushing the boundaries and being bold a little bit more than some of my friends do. I don't think we necessarily have to be aligned on all of our values, but the places where I push them, the places where I make them a little uncomfortable, they can respect me, and the places where they push me, I can respect them. That's my goal. The other thing, when I think of maybe a successful friendship, like a friendship that is aligned on these North Star, the authenticity, growth and resilience, sometimes that friendship will feel bad, not even because either of you chose to bring up some sort of conflict or change. What do I mean by that? I've mentioned on this podcast that I have a friend who lost her husband about seven months ago, and I think that together, we have navigated authenticity, growth and resilience beautifully. I think that unfortunately, this circumstance has brought us really, really close. It did not feel good. No part of that felt good. It was a lot of feeling bad together. It was a lot of sitting there and crying. It was a lot of sitting in sadness and watching her be at her lowest point and wishing I could fix it all, and knowing that I can't and all I can do is sit there. It's a lot of her depending on me way more than she ever wanted to, and me constantly having to adjust, show up in different ways, sit in really hard stuff. And we didn't choose this, right? This is just by nature of the circumstances, but the fact that we could go through the really, really, really bad together. And I'm talking like I messaged her when I heard what happened from a family member of hers, I messaged her and I said, you know, I'm not offended, I just need your honest answer. Do you want me to get on a plane? Like same day I got on a plane and I flew to her and I stayed with her for weeks in her house. The fact that we could do that together has completely changed our friendship, and none of that felt good at all right? The boat was absolutely rocked. It was overturned. It was thrown to the bottom of the ocean by circumstance, not by choice, but we chose to navigate it together. I've given you a couple examples of what I think rocking the boat can actually look like, right? It can be that kind of gentle conversation. It can be life circumstances, throwing you in the saddest, worst moments. It could also be a fight. It could be uncomfortable conversations. It could be looking like, yes, I want this growth, but as you go through the growth... as you tell your friend, like, "yeah, I totally want you to go out and make some new friends that support you in that area of your life." You could have said that, and then, as it happens, you could feel more jealousy, and you could feel like you're backtracking and like, hey, we need to have another conversation about this, because I am still on track to do this work, but I need to talk about it. I need to process it. I need more conversation so we can move forward, right? That's not seamless. And I have been both the one to rock the boat, and I have been the one who has been told like, hey, something you did really hurt me, somebody who has shared something about themselves that has forced me to have to adjust. So I'm not just saying this as in, like, I've rocked the boat. I've also had the boat rocked on me many a time, and in those moments, what I've tried to do is be open and curious. I've tried to listen and reflect. I've tried to get really specific about, like, Okay, what actions do you wish I had taken? Right? I... not to say I'm gonna do exactly what the other person says... but I want to understand, like, what do they wish had happened? Am I willing to do those things? What would that look like for me to do those things when I slip up and fall back into old patterns? Let's acknowledge it. I'm sorry I did that. Let's try again. You know, I think the sign that it's working when you're rocking the boat is that you're building repair skills. You're starting to build trust and the fear deep down that your friendship is just this expendable thing. I think that decreases because you have all these examples of being willing to do the real work to grow together, the work that we celebrate in familial and romantic relationships and when it's not working, I think that the under the surface work that treading water under the surface feels endless, resentment builds and you're not seeing progress or change if you're like, Okay, Alex, but when do I walk away? Think that anyone can decide at any moment not to do the work like the real work, if that's what you want to do, is the option three, work, the out in the open, messy work, and the other person decides not to do that, and you're forced to be like, Okay, well, then the work I have to do is option one or two, and I don't want to do one or two. That could be a moment to walk away. If the work that they want you to do in the open, the messy work just really doesn't align with your values, you're like, that's not me. I'm not doing that. That could be a moment to walk away, and that's okay. Not every friendship is meant to survive, but I do think that whatever above the surface work you do, the hope is that you can take some of those skills into your other relationships, which will build more of that resilience and that trust, right? You have less scarcity. "She'll be like, okay, when conflict comes up, I feel like I can have the hard conversation." Let's close this all up. Let's bring it back. If you are somebody who has listened to some of my episodes and you're like, I can't comprehend how to get from where my friendship is now to what you are talking about. I hope this episode has made you realize that you are probably already doing work. I know I used that like friends making other friends example. There are so many other examples I could use. If you have an example where you're like, how do I get from where I am to there? Reach out. Let me know. I would love to hear what your situation is, because you're probably already doing the work. The question is, just like, which work actually is serving you and your friendship? Because the hard truth is, if you want friendships where you can be fully yourself, where you can grow and change and share the real stuff, you're probably going to have to rock the boat. They are probably going to be moments that are uncomfortable, but it won't be uncomfortable forever. And the hope is that on the other side, you will see that work was worth it because it made your friendship feel closer, feel easier, feel more authentic, true to yourself. And is that work that you think is worth doing, or do you want to keep treading water endlessly, forever and ever? Because I don't think the treading water option, I don't think it'll ever stop. So with that, I would love to hear your thoughts as I just word vomited all over you with my incomplete thoughts. We will see where this goes maybe a year or two from now, I will be recording a different episode with more refined thoughts, but for now, thanks for being here and having this conversation. We'll see you next week.

Podcast Intro/Outro: 36:49

Thank you for listening to this episode of Friendship IRL. I am so honored to have these conversations with you. But don't let the chat die here. Send me a voice message. I created a special website just to chat with you. You can find it at alexalex.chat. You can also find me on Instagram. My handle, @itsalexalexander. Or go ahead and leave a review wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts. Now if you want to take this conversation a step further, send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting. And use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out. No need for a teary goodbye. I'll be back with a new episode next week.