friendship, a talk with danielle bayard jackson [video]

Danielle Byard Jackson She is a friendship coach who speaks nationally on the subject of female friendships. Through her work, Danielle teaches women how to make and maintain better friendships. Through research-based methodology, she's studied the ins and the outs of female friendships, which are particularly complicated. I would say, in fact, I made an episode a while back about female friendships from a very personal lens, which was maybe a mistake because I mainly focused on the challenges of female friendships.

And I think I was speaking from a place of immature female friendships. I was 19 or 20 when I recorded this episode, and, to be fair, majority of my female friendships had occurred in middle school and high school. And talk about a turbulent time where everybody's insecure, nobody knows who they are.

I think the worst of female friendships come out there and that was mainly my experience. Since then, at a rapid pace, I think I've experienced more and more.

Beautiful female friendships, and so my opinion has definitely shifted on what female friendships are. All this to say, we have a very phenomenal guest coming on today who is an expert in female friendships. And she is going to answer even more of my questions that I have about friendship, because I think friendship is often overlooked as something that just comes naturally to us.

We're humans, we all have friends, it's like just what we do as humans. But friendship is a huge piece of our foundation in life. And digging in and analyzing it never hurt anyone.

So that's why I'm so excited to talk to Danielle Fired Jackson today because she is going to speak the truth. If you love this episode and you want more, go check out the Friend Forward podcast as well as the Friend Forward website. So if you want to see more from Danielle.

You know where to find her. Were you social as a kid? Did you have a lot of friends as a kid?

And it's the number one thing they wanted to talk about during class is friendship drama. And then I became the academic chair of the department and the teachers. Whenever we had staff meetings, we all were talking about how to help kids navigate stuff because there was drama in the classroom. And then I left the classroom and I got into public relations, and I found myself working with these high achieving, charismatic boss women.

And it wasn't long before I realized, Oh, they have privately friendship issues, too. They have no shortage of social connections, but they feel deeply unsatisfied with the friendships that they have. And so for the past six years, I've leveraged my background in education to study what the research has to say about women's cooperation, communication and conflict.

Not your income, not whether or not you're married, the quality of your relationships. And I know that we tend to put romance in the forefront, but I would argue that friendship is at the heart of romance as well. Because it starts there. If you can't be my friend, when you strip it all down, what are we doing? And so, yeah, so we need people who offer social support and they give us direction and feedback and help us grow. You grow and you heal in community.

And so we live at a time and a culture where we champion individualism. But all the growth that you really need to happen, all the joy that you can achieve and experience, it really comes through community.

What is it you want for your personal trajectory, what experience do you want from friendship? And when you kind of look at each of your friends individually, does it measure up to what you say you value and what you say you want? Because a lot of times, to your point, I might have friends in my life who we've been together forever. And it feels risky to end this. And looking at, I love this person and she means well to me. But when I look at what I've got going on, it's no longer a fit and that's okay.

As a matter of fact, the research tells us that we replace half of our friends every seven years. So, to some degree, you have to expect a natural pruning to happen in your friendships, and it's deeply uncomfortable, but it happens.

A lot of times, people maybe look at friendships that come and go as like, there's someone's a problem here. Yeah, but when I look at, say, my own situation, I'm like, we just grew out of each other every single time. So I guess my question is, how many of our friendships should we be retaining? Because I think there's sort of this moral dilemma of like, oh wow, I've shed a lot of friends throughout my life.

I don't regret it, I feel good about it, like I've moved on to, you know, people who fit me better in the present moment. But is there something wrong with that? Like, should I be retaining more of my friendships throughout my life?

Like, what's happening there? Yeah, so I'm curious, like, your take?

It felt like it was compromising. Okay, that makes sense, but sometimes I hear people say, you know, she just started to, you know, bother me, or she started to do this and I didn't like that. And I think it's a you have to look inside and ask yourself.

When there are things that bring tension to the relationship, do I want to leave? Because I'm so uncomfortable with conflict that I start to tell myself like, this has run its course. But in reality, I don't know how to have hard conversations, or I don't know how to. You know, so some people that's their theme of the friendships ending is the person does something I don't like. Okay, do you have a critic's mindset where you have a group of friends? But if people start to do things you don't like, you're looking for that. And when they have these elusive violations, you release them, you know, so, but everyone's different. So I would say, look at your last five friendships that faded out, or that you found yourself saying, I think I'm over this.

And I just be curious about the why and what themes emerge. When you kind of track those last five friendships, you know what's going on there. I think that's something to look at. Yeah, but I also say that I feel like friendships ending feels deeply shameful for some women.

It feels like a failure, yeah, I worked with a young lady recently and she said, I just, you know. She was telling me all these things. She was trying to do to get this friend back. And she was like, Okay, I messed up. But she won't talk to me and she's telling me all these extravagant things she's doing.

And I was like, Okay, you're doing a lot like you're being really intentional, what's going on? And she kind of just sighed and her shoulders dropped. And she said, I just can't have another friendship end. And I'm just like, And what would that mean for you? Like, what would it mean if this was over?

What would it say about you? And I think a lot of us think it would say, I'm a bad friend. I'm not good at this, I'm not likable, that people won't stay with me. I'm not lovable or interesting enough.

And so, you know, you know, the last thing I'll say here is. When it comes to the longevity of a friendship, I see a lot of people brag about, you know, we've been friends 20 years and I do think that's amazing. I have some of those. There's something really beautiful about having people who have seen you evolve, right? But if you measure success of any relationship by its longevity, that might have other issues. I've seen people endure mistreatment because they're like, Well, we've been friends for 20 years.

What would it say if I left? We've been friends for 20. Okay, yeah, you know, so thinking about, how do you measure success of a friendship?

And if it's mostly by longevity, I think that can be detrimental.

I found that in the past, I tend to take a really.

It's sort of like all at once, it's slow, and then all at once. And I'm kind of gone, I'm still there, but I'm kind of gone, you know? And now I'm thinking about it. I am sort of avoiding a larger conversation, right? Because I think I'm afraid of maybe bringing up the fact that I don't want to be friends anymore.

I don't want to make that person feel bad, I don't want to. So I leave them wondering and they never know, and that doesn't feel the smoothest because it doesn't leave them feeling resolved. And I'm aware of that. But then, on the other hand, I've also found that when I have tried to bring it up and be like, I don't think that our friendship's working anymore. I've been met with a lot of pushback and a lot of anger, way more anger.

So it's like, what do we do here? Because it's handled differently than a breakup where there's this huge conversation. It's not like you ghost your partner of four years. I mean, I guess people do that probably sometimes. My God, who is that?

But yeah, how do you healthily end a friendship with the least amount of anger? I don't even know if there's an answer, that is a complicated one.

Or did I just have an aha moment of like? I don't know if I want to keep investing time and a lot of different reasons, right? So the first thing I'll say is a lot of friendships end by fading out. I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that. If I'm realizing, like, I'm not as into it. And you are, too, and we're, like, kind of calling a little less.

It happens, I think, more than we give credit for where things just, or I'm committing to other certain things in my life. And so we invest less time. And before you know it, oh, I haven't seen her in seven months, so it happens all the time. There's nothing wrong with that at all.

Friendships themselves are largely circumstantial. We're in the same space, or we're doing this project together, so we're in each other's, you know, vicinities. A lot of things happen personally, I think a conversation needs to happen when there's a discrepancy between our expectations.

Yeah, so if both people kind of notice the fade out. And we're doing it because we're trying to spare the other person's feelings. And it doesn't feel like it requires a formal sit down, that's one thing, but as soon as I want out. Yet, she expects to maintain the status quo. There's a gap here. And so I have to ask myself, Okay, do I want to keep dodging calls? do I want to be dishonest about what I'm doing?

Do I want to?

Like, what amount of anxieties is causing me to, like, keep dodging her? And this and that? And to what degree does it begin to feel like? She's being let on? You know, she's not getting the hint and she's like, Hey, let's hang out.

Or, Hey, I bought you a ticket for the concert. I can't wait. As soon as there's a gap, I have to ask myself, Okay, do I need to give her the courtesy of letting her in on what's going on? So that she can make decisions around what she wants to do for her life? But I've equipped her with the data that she needs to make that decision. So that might look like. And I know this is like, I know this is hard, but if somebody is continually pursuing, they're not really getting the hints that I'm starting to withdraw. I feel like you have to have that conversation as close to in-person as possible.

Yep, just so people can catch like, your tone and stuff like that and not be like, Oh, that was cold.

Yeah, it's incongruent with the history of our relationship, so it can feel disrespectful. So it's really hard, but you would just say, hey. I've been thinking a lot lately and I'm prioritizing XYZ right now. And I don't think that's going to let me maintain this friendship the way that I was before.

And I'm so sorry, but I just I felt like I owed that to you.

They won't misunderstand you or go and tell a different narrative to your mutual friends. There is no guarantee, yeah, and so everyone has to kind of weigh what feels appropriate. Dignified. The best thing for me to do that, I can stand by with integrity and say, hey, I was fair, I was honest.

And that's just what it is. Yeah, but it's tough, so tough. But I just know if I were on the other end, if I had any woman in my life.

Yeah, and she started to feel like kind of over Danielle. I wouldn't want her doing me any favors, like, let me know, it's going to sting, but let me live my life.

And at the time I made that episode, I was probably 20. It was like what I was mainly referring to was my younger female friendships, which were far more challenging. It's just a much more turbulent time, but I still do feel like there is at times much less again, much less now that I'm older. But, like, the cattiness doesn't necessarily go away.

You know, it was sort of controversial that I was mentioning the cattiness, I was mentioning the backstabbingness, I was mentioning the competitiveness. And I don't think I'm crazy for that, like, I feel like that exists.

Would you say that that is a real challenge? Or, you know, like, or is that something that we've been taught in movies and it's like, not real?

They are my princesses, and you have a group that's like, Oh my god, I cannot with the drama, with the pettiness. And the thing is, both are true. And it does not speak to the range of our humanity to tell one story.

And all of our experiences are different, so depending on, you know, depending on whatever multitude of factors, maybe you had a great experience in middle school. I mean, I don't know many women who did you know, maybe you did, you know, so we're bringing those experiences.

Surely it's coloring our overall, you know?

Feel of women's friendships, about the competition that sometimes exists. I like to start by saying, being competitive is not exclusive to women. Absolutely not, yeah.

But I think the reason it sometimes feels so sinister is because oftentimes there's not room for us to outwardly compete and aggress and disagree. The way that men have the same room, so I feel like the ways that we kind of hit at each other. They live underground. Because we have more social consequences, if we loudly say, Oh, I don't like that, or push back or question, we have more consequences. Just culturally, I think, like from the society, and so, you know, the term for that is relational aggression.

I call it sophisticated stealth. But where you feel like, okay, was she being nasty, or was she just because it has to live underground? And so the best the girls who do it, the best mean girls. Or, you know, there's different terms for that.

But the ones who do it the best can strike you in a very covert way. Because we know that being outwardly mean holds social consequences for us. So I don't want to look like the mean girl. So I'm going to do little things that are like, Oh okay, that's a cute outfit that's different. Oh wow, you guys are dating.

Okay, no, that's awesome. I just I didn't think you were like mainly his type, but I love that for you, you know what I mean that way? It has to be stealthy so that if we're ever confronted about it publicly, you can deny it and be like, Oh my gosh, I didn't mean it like that.

For men, you know, I'm not. I know I'm generalizing here, but it's also rooted in the research and supported by the evidence. But they tend to compartmentalize friendship, and they do not have friendships that are as platonically intimate the way that we do, and it's because we bring so much of ourselves. I'm looking for you to be my emotional support, and I'm looking for you to, like, do all the things in my life and satisfy a lot of different things. I want you to be my person I socialize with and I want you to do all the things. And so, by definition, it is more complicated.

And I just think that, you know, I know this sounds really fluffy, but to sum it all up, I feel like the more secure and comfortable you get in your own skin, you have less of that. And I know people hear that all the time, it's so real. The more you feel good in your own skin, you will notice it starts to attract healthy friendships.

So it's just, I mean, I think it's a growth thing, but I will validate. I see what you see, that's totally a thing.

I mean, I think that's just that's a whole nightmare of its own.

And you mentioned that maybe they have more challenges in some ways, finding meaningful female friendships. Why do you think that is, and how does one combat that?

So it looks like a couple of things, one is a lot of times high. Achieving women, I mean, you're driven by achievement, so I've noticed them enter into new potential friendships, but they're leading with accomplishments, so they're leading with. Well, what do you do?

And that's one of the advantages of friendship. You have people to help you through. But if you feel like it makes you look weak, you do not ask for the support that you need. So they'll tell me I don't feel like my friends really see me, they don't really know me.

Well, what is that? At some point, I have to ask, Why is there a performance? Why can't you allow yourself to soften and say, I need help, like, I'm struggling, what is that about?

But for high achieving women in highly visible, powerful spaces, a lot of them feel they don't have the safety or the space to do that. And then the last thing I've noticed, too, is that sometimes our jobs take up so much of our world that we don't know what else we have to offer as a person. Outside of that. So you don't make friends, everything's got the business context, because you don't make time for friendship. You don't show up outside of being a conqueror, a professional conqueror.

So people don't know anything but that side of you, which again leads to feeling deeply unknown and, by extension, unsatisfied.

But when we take like a helicopter view and an aerial view of your friendships, that should not be. The norm is that most of my hours are in getting this money, you know? And again, I know there's a lot of stuff that feels counter-cultural to even say that, because it's like, hustle, hustle, girl, get your check. And I respect that. But you know, a couple of things can help. The first is think about things that you can do that aren't necessarily getting together in person.

Although that's like, the number one way to kind of clock hours together, to feel seen is in real time, in person. Okay, but what are other things I can do to spend time with my friend or to clock hours together? Because I know a lot of times we're like, I don't even have time to, like, physically see her, and I get that traveling and all the things. But what are other things we can do?

So, for example, I mean, I know it sounds cheesy, but like, let's say there's a show that you both love, like, Okay, Thursday night, we're both virtually like watching it and then we're going to dish about it. It's so simple, but that is an example of prioritizing friendship. You know what? Thursday, the emails for me stop at four o'clock.

Yep, I need to talk to my girl. Yeah, it is just as important. We cannot be pushing that into the margins of our lives. And I'll get to it.

And I just, again, it's so easy to get absorbed with, like hustle culture, but friendship just doesn't work that way. And again, I know as adults, we're prioritizing other things. Some people are focused on establishing family ties, some are like, trying to, like, crack down at work. But friendship can't be an afterthought. Because I work with too many women who lift their head up after running on the treadmill of life and business. And they're like, Well, I don't have any friends.

We're like, Gosh, I feel like I don't even know them anymore, or they don't. That happens by, you know, bit by bit. That's not a sudden thing. It tends to happen as like a accumulation of a series of little choices. That's how we end up there.

Let's say you only have X amount of time outside of work or school or whatever for social. And that could either go to a significant other or to, you know, a group of friends. Maybe how do you manage that? Because I think for a lot of people, it's not on purpose that they lose contact with their friends.

And, you know, being in a romantic relationship maybe lines up with the trajectory of the life that I want to have. Like, I want to have a family or this or that. But you also need to have friends, because that relationship could fizzle. And then you're like, that's a messy situation that I think is a lot easier to sort of discuss hypothetically, like in reality, it's so challenging to manage.

What is like a realistic sort of way to manage dating, work? Friends, give everything proper attention. Is it even possible? Sometimes? yeah.

I'm trying to figure out, how do I balance this? When it comes to romance versus friendship. The research says that people who are in a couple, mostly married couples, when they have friends outside of the friendship, those couples are more successful. Absolutely okay than people who do not have friends.

So we're not keeping our friends around as okay, I need a backup in case this fails. I need friends to even stabilize this relationship. So if you want to be successful in your platonic or romantic relationships, keep your girlfriends around. Yeah, because the research shows you need that.

Okay, so that's important, but the first thing I'll say is if you find that you're like, I don't know that I can balance this all. How do I make more time for friends? One little sneaky little thing you're probably not looking at that could help a lot is look at how much time you spend alone.

Because that's my first tip for getting. Like, reclaiming time with friends is look at how much alone time you spend. And the reason I say that is because there's this survey that came out. It's the American Time Use Survey where they monitor and they see how are Americans spending every, you know, their hours. And in 2013, we were spending an average of six hours a week with our friends.

Now, about 10 years later, we're spending a little over two hours a week with our friends. And where did those extra hours go? Alone time?

Because the easiest thing you can do is socialize the things that you are doing alone, watching shows, you're TikToking, you're cooking. Can I invite a friend into that? Hey, come tell me about your day while I make this new dish. Hey, come watch the show with me.

Or even if it's not close friends and you're starting totally from scratch. Okay, if I like to draw or read, can I go do it in a public space? Like, at least I'm among other people. And that positions me for opportunities for a person to say, Oh, hey, what are you reading? or like, Oh, hey, what? But how do I position myself for more connection in my life? And like, Yeah, it's going to take away from other things.

But I mean, it's that important to begin with.

A romantic? We're opting in and then opting out, you know, like everything else is different, but friendship we kind of fall into it. We kind of don't. And I don't have to be here.

I have, like, no contractual obligation. So to some degree, we do want that kind of relationship to offer a sense of ease to our lives. So I get that, but there needs to be some intention as well, and by that, I mean this. There's research where they were trying to find how many friends we can have and how many social connections we can maintain.

Oh, I'm curious. And they found that our brains can only cognitively really handle like 150 social connections. So you think about that like a large circle, and you think about smaller and smaller, like concentric circles. Inside of that. It represents smaller and smaller numbers, but the degree of closeness goes up.

So in that smallest circle, you have room for three to five super close, ultra close relationships. The reason I bring this up is because when you start to get intentional about like, Okay, do I have time for friends? I don't know. If you're an extrovert trying to get coffee with 15 people, you are going to feel like I don't have time. I feel overextended because you're trying to do all the things with too many people and your concern is going wide instead of going deep.

So at some point, if you're feeling overwhelmed, you're like, I don't have time to be with all these friends. Who are your three to five, who are your three to five, and everybody else? Maybe I'll catch you, like in a group setting, or maybe I'll catch, but who are my three to five? Because it helps me to concentrate my time and it gives me more direction for how to spend my hours, which is a limited resource.

Yeah, you know. And for the person who's like, Oh gosh, I don't know if I want to spend time, I would question you, do you like the people you hang out with? Because if it feels like a chore every time, like I got to spend time with friends, I'm curious about why you would feel that way.

Now I'm an extrovert and there are times when I'm like, Oh my God, I need a minute, you know, I get it. But if generally when I think of friendship, I become tired instead of energized, who are you hanging out with? Yeah.

And what are y'all doing when you're together? Because it might be an issue of you're hanging with the wrong people and y'all are engaging in things you don't want to do. Yeah, you don't enjoy, so that could maybe offer a starting point.

And there actually is research that shows that couples who have an overlap a friendship overlap, meaning they share some friends, are happier couples. So I know some people argue like, Oh, they don't have to like them, and our friends should be separate, and I get that. But in reality, if we're all kind of combining our lives, it helps if they kind of enjoy each other.

Yeah, but the reality is that partner might not be a big fan of your friends. Or maybe he's like, Oh, she talks too much, or like, she's always got drama, and I think some of that's normal. I think what worries me is when you feel like you have to choose between them. Or he's trying to make you see that they're not worth your time, and they're trying to make you see that he's. Then. That's when we have like some tension and that can be really problematic.

But you can't have an expectation that your partner be in love with your girlfriend. Sometimes it doesn't happen. But as long as we can have some kind of harmony. And one is not trying to get me to terminate the other. You know, then we're good. But in an ideal world. And, according to the research, it helps when you can all be friends, yes.

Which makes sense, right? And typically it comes to some kind of qualifier, like, how do I make friends as a new mom or as a woman in a new city? I get all that, but at some point, you're collecting them.

You know, remember what we said earlier about that research thing, that quality relationships are what make us happy and physically healthy. Yes, so it's one thing to have a lot of girls on the roster, it's another to have those all be superficial relationships, yeah.

So how do we develop the skill of, like, okay, if I wanted to advance this, what do I say, what do I do? so, okay, so, three things. There is a concept known as friendtimacy by an OG friendship expert, Shasta Nelson.

And she argues that you need three things to create depth.

Positivity, consistency and vulnerability, so positivity. There's research that shows that successful relationships have a positivity to negativity ratio of five to one. So for every one negative interaction we have, we need to have five positives to offset that. But a lot of us get into friendships or befriend people who, like, it's negative and it's chronic complaining and all that. That's fine, to some degree, but how often are we doing that?

So one way to create depth is to find more like joy in the friendship, so that we're not just bonding over the negative. The second thing is consistency. You cannot get away from having to spend time together to deepen the friendship. I'm sorry and I stand by that. And people are trying to find hacks and get around it. And be like, Oh, I just need like one coffee date every other month.

And that's cool. But the research finds that it takes 34 hours to take somebody from an acquaintance to a friend. So I always joke, like, if you had like a little timer on your head, you know, would you be like, Oh, okay, we need eight more hours? How would you become more intentional if you knew, Okay, it's going to take 34 hours. No one's saying that has to happen in two weeks, maybe over five months time.

What's the rush? But how am I sitting down and being like, Okay, she's so cool, I want to get to know her. What am I actively doing? To spend time with you, to uncover more things about you, who you are, your style, your values.

I got to spend time together. I can't just like, read your Insta bio like, I need to know you. And then finally, I mean, we hear this all the time. But vulnerability?

You want to get deeper and know her better. You're going to have to be vulnerable and the one thing I will say here because people are like, yes, vulnerability. I want to correct something really quick, which okay.

Vulnerability does not just mean.

Blab about all your business, okay? If you are oversharing in a compulsive way, it is not vulnerability, because vulnerability, by definition, means you're taking a risk of rejection. Meaning you say to yourself, this might not go well. She might reject me for it, but I'm going to do it.

I'm going to put myself out there. So if in our first conversation I'm telling you about my hygiene and my sex life. My money troubles, my mental health, my addictions and my trauma. It is not a risk for me because I enjoy talking about it, and I know some people might, if I enjoy talking about all the quote unquote, traditionally heavy things. It is not being vulnerable because I don't feel any risk, I like going into those things.

Vulnerability is when it feels really risky, You have to do that with people you want to get deeper with, so vulnerability might look like you. And I go on a coffee date and I'm driving away thinking like, Okay, she's really cool. I'd love to do that again, but I'm not going to ask her.

Because, like, what if that looks clingy? No, okay, I'm going to ask her that's vulnerable.

That is a good thing. And the last thing I'll say is there's something known as the beautiful mess effect. And it's this idea that we tend to like people more after they've been vulnerable. So lean into that if your goal is to create more depth with existing friends.

Like, I just, it's so. For me, being vulnerable is like going and asking about, like, I'm, I don't like asking to hang out first. I always wait for people to come to me, but that's not, that's where it is.

Yep, but we have got to get comfortable expressing platonic desire. If I'm like, man, Emma's cool.

But if I want active friendships, I have to be active. So, you know, to the point of, like, what's too much of pursuing this? And that I think that you have to? This sounds very like, woo woo, and this is not traditionally me. But, you know, I always say you have to embody the identity of being a connector. It can't just be something you do, it has to be who you are if you say to yourself, Hey, I'm a connector.

That's who I am. Then. Naturally, when you initiate texts with people, or somebody crossed your mind, so you send her a message. Or you want to hang out with somebody. So you ask them. There's power in that, as opposed to the passive reactiveness of like, well, if they reach out to me, then I will. What is that like? To some degree, I have certain authority of my own friendships.

And if I like you, I'm going to be like, Oh my God, we should totally get together now. Don't be foolish if I've asked multiple times and somehow this person's always busy and they never offer an alternative. Hey, I'm busy on Saturday, but hey, can we do Tuesday? Yeah, if I'm getting all the signs and cues that this person is not wanting to invest the same way. I take that information and I use that as the data I need to know how to better direct my efforts, you know?

And so it is a balance of pursuing and boldly claiming what you want and who you enjoy, but also wisely discerning who's reciprocating. And where that investment would be best returned.