--:-- Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Ooh, I am so glad that you're listening to this because today you and I are going to talk about why making friends as an adult feels impossible.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm just going to start by saying, I want to put this on the record. For most of my adult life, I didn't understand the rules of adult friendship. If you knew me, Mel Robbins, in my 20s, 30s, or even 40s, first of all, I apologize because I will own the fact that I was a walking red flag as a friend.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I was the kind of person who was both clingy and also exclusive. I was kind of transactional. I might have been supportive to your face, but in private, even though I wanted to be supportive, if you were winning, it made me feel insecure and jealous or threatened.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Look, I made every mistake that you could make in friendship, but I didn't know what it takes to truly create a great friendship, or more importantly, how to be a good friend. Because I didn't know a simple fact back then.
--:-- Mel Robbins: See, when you hit your 20s, absolutely everything about friendship changes, and nobody sees it coming. I didn't.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So today, I'm going to walk you through very eye-opening research that I've done, and that applied to my own life in the area of friendship. It's life-altering. It's groundbreaking. You're going to love this.
--:-- Mel Robbins: See, I now know the rules of adult friendship. I understand and own the mistakes that I made. And as you listen today, and you think about what I'm sharing with you, you're probably going to realize these are some of the same mistakes that you're making too and you don't even know it. I didn't know it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So if you're feeling lonely, if you feel like you never see your friends, if you're wondering where did all my friends go or if you're surrounded by people but they just don't feel like your people anymore or you just wish you had more fun, you had a better social life, you could create those close friendships that you really yearn for and you deserve, this conversation is exactly what you need to hear.
--:-- Mel Robbins: It doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter how young you are. Everything that you're about to learn is going to open your eyes and alter your life. Because yes, it is true. It does feel impossible to make adult friends. We all feel it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: But after our conversation today, you will know the truth is that the best friendships of your life, they're not in the past. They are in your future. And today, you're going to get the step-by-step roadmap and the insights that you need to go create them.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel, and I just want to take a moment and welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so excited you're here, and I'm especially excited about what you and I are going to talk about today.
--:-- Mel Robbins: This is research and insights that changed my life. It has made my life better. We're going to be talking about friendship. You are going to love this. You're going to want to share this with people that you know, that you love.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And in fact, if this is one of your first episodes, I want to take a moment and welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. Because you made the time to listen to this particular episode, here's what I know about you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I know that you're the type of person, you value your time, number one. Number two, you made the time to listen to this. And that means you're interested in learning about ways that you can improve your life. And one of those ways that you want to improve your life is by creating friendships. I love that for you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And if you're here because somebody forwarded this to you, guess what? This is a sign that you do have friends. This is a sign that you do have people that care about you. And so I love that for you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I love what we're going to talk about because you are going to feel so empowered. You're going to feel even more connected to friends because today I'm going to remind you of truths that you already know: that friendship matters, that you're capable of creating it, that the best friendships, some of the most fabulous people, they're not on the road behind you, they're on the road ahead of you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You're going to get what you need today to know how to create those friendships despite the fact that it feels impossible right now as an adult to make new friends.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Because what we're also going to discuss is rules about adult friendship that you need to know. These are rules I had no idea existed. I didn't discover them until about three or four years ago. These rules are going to change the game entirely, just like they changed the game of friendship for me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So whether you're listening right now and you're in your 20s, and the only thing that is holding your friendships together from college is a text chain, and that text chain is getting quieter and quieter. Or you're in your 30s, and everybody is suddenly in different stages of life. Or maybe you're in your 40s or 50s like me, and the chapter of your life is changing profoundly, which is impacting your friendships. Or you're older.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I mean, we all need friends. I don't care how old you are. I was just talking to my father the other day, and my dad is 80, and I was saying to him, "Hey, so dad, have you and mom thought about where you might want to go in terms of a retirement community? Are there any friends that you have that are living in one that they seem to love that you would want to go to one where your friends are?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: And he paused and he said, "Well, you know, Mel, unfortunately, a lot of our friends are older and they're starting to die." And I thought, oh my gosh, that's true. And then he paused and he said, "So I guess mom and I are going to have to make new friends." What an amazing thing to say, isn't it?
--:-- Mel Robbins: We all deserve friendship. And that's why we're going to talk about this. It's a huge part of your life. And so no matter how old or young you may be, no matter where you are in the journey of friendship, you deserve great friends.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So if you're finding that it's impossible to create friends as an adult, you're not alone. But what I'm going to promise you is this. Not only is our conversation today going to be eye-opening and empowering, but I'm going to make you feel better because you will embrace the simple truth that some of the best friendships of your life are ahead of you and you are fully capable of creating them no matter where you are, where you live, how old or young you are.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time to listen to this because your life is going to get better. And also thank you for taking the time to share this with people that you know that may feel lonely. Heck, everybody, because we all deserve to have incredible friends.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So let's talk about why making friends as an adult is so hard. There is a massive shift that happens in adult friendship when you hit 20, and no one sees this coming. I didn't see it coming. You didn't see it coming.
--:-- Mel Robbins: See, the rules of friendship completely change when your 20s hit. So I'm going to explain what the rules of friendship were when you were little. And then we're going to talk about the rules of adult friendship that hit when you turned 20.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So when you were little, all the conditions for meeting friends, creating friendships, having friends in your life, they were all handled for you. Just think about life when you were a little kid. You were around people your age all the time. Your entire childhood set up the structures and conditions that made friendship possible.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Just think about it. When you went to school, you sat in classrooms with kids your age. On the weekends, you were playing town sports. You were riding the bus. You were constantly around kids who were the same age as you going through the same things.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And just think about it. You're learning the same subjects in school. You have the same schedule during the day. You are celebrating the same milestones. You're reaching 14, 15, 16, you're going to prom, you're going to homecoming, you're graduating.
--:-- Mel Robbins: All of these things that were happening in your life where you were little, the playdates that your parents set up, the team dinners before the big games, all of these things created this environment where you just expected friendship to happen. You just expected that you'd be around people your age all the time because you were. That's why friendship was so easy when you were little because the conditions for it were set.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And then when you graduate from high school, what happens? You typically go on to college or you go into the military. And again, you're now not just with people your age all the time, you're living with them. You're eating with them. You're going through the semesters with them and you're on the same breaks during the summer. You're moving through life together.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So when you're little, not only are the conditions present for you to meet people your age, connect with people doing the same thing, you can relate to everybody because you're going through the same experiences, but you also have something else in common. And what is that? Friendship's a group sport. Everybody kind of expects to be invited, right? Why wouldn't you? You're on the same team. You're in the same friend group. Everybody's going to the prom, so there's going to be a pre-prom party.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Your childhood conditioned you because you live near your friends. You ride the bus with your friends. You're seeing your friends all the time to just expect that friendship would be easy. And because you are naturally as a kid in all these groups, whether it was a classroom or it was a team or it was a sorority or a fraternity or a dorm room floor, that you would just be expected to things. Because if the group is invited, then of course, if you're part of the group, then you're invited too.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And that's why nobody sees the big change coming when your 20s hit. Your childhood trained you, just like it trained me, to expect friendship to be easy. It made you believe to expect that you'd always be invited, that there's always something going on because there's always something going on in college. There's always something going on in high school. There's always something going on in your friend group, right?
--:-- Mel Robbins: But then something happens and none of us see it coming, and it happens when your 20s hit. And what is it that happens? Well, I call it the great scattering.
--:-- Mel Robbins: All of a sudden, everybody graduates from college, and boom, they scatter in a million different directions. All of these people that you used to see every single day that lived in the same place as you, that were on the same timeline as you, that celebrated the same milestones as you, they move and boom, scatter, which means the conditions and the structure for the friendships that you enjoyed and loved when you were little, gone.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Everybody that you love is moving in different directions. They're on different timelines. They're doing different things. They move to different cities. And next thing you know, the only thing that is holding together that tight-knit group of people that you lived with during college is some text chain that slowly gets quieter and quieter and quieter because people are naturally focusing on the lives that they're building and wherever they are and the people that are right in front of them.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And that's when it hits. Right when you get into your 20s is when the great scattering hits. And all of a sudden, you're like, where did all my friends go? Why am I not invited? Why are people living together over here and I can't find a roommate over there?
--:-- Mel Robbins: And then you make a major mistake. Because you don't understand that there are conditions and rules around friendship and those conditions were present when you were a kid and just served up to you and taken care of, you don't realize that friendship just went boom from a group activity to an individual sport.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And because you don't see it coming, I didn't see this coming, you then grip and you cling and you make it personal and you try to hold on to people and then you think that you need to break up with people. That is not the rules of adult friendship. There is a different way that I want you to approach this.
--:-- Mel Robbins: But unless you truly embrace what I'm talking about, that friendship changes when you hit 20, you will forever be working against the rules of adult friendship, and you will feel like it is so hard to make friends as an adult.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm going to teach you today that there are great scatterings that happen throughout your life. Because when you hit 20, that's just the first time that it happens. You move to that new city, you're all excited. It might be your dream city and your dream job, or maybe you're going off to medical school or graduate school and you're so excited to be there, but then boom, you get there and you don't have any friends. And so now you're going to be in it again.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And it's going to happen again in your 30s when all of a sudden the friend group that you had in the city, they start getting engaged and moving in with their partners. And then they might be buying a house or having a family and moving to the burbs and boom, they scatter again.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And it's going to happen again when you hit your forties and your fifties. Maybe you go through a divorce, you change jobs or, heaven forbid, you're experiencing some tragedy or massive loss in your life and it's just consuming you. Anytime there is a life change, anytime your life changes, there are these mini scatterings that happen.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And even my father, when I asked him, "Where do you think you and mom might want to go if you think about moving to some sort of awesome retirement community?" And he says, "Well, our friends are dying." That's a great scattering again, which means you have to be reminded that great friendships are ahead of you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And if you understand the three rules of adult friendship and you embrace the truth of what I'm telling you, which is friendship is not a group sport. Friendship is an individual sport. And you have the ability to create fantastic friends wherever you go.
--:-- Mel Robbins: If you embrace this truth of what I'm telling you, you can change your relationship to friendship. You can create these extraordinary friendships in the future. And that loneliness that you feel and that sense that you have no friends or that you don't know where to start, that is going to disappear. Because I'm going to teach you step by step by step exactly what you need to know, exactly what the rules are that nobody's told you, and then you are going to have the roadmap to just starting to create fabulous friends.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And one more thing I want to say before I teach you these three pillars of adult friendship, and once you see these, you're going to be like, "Oh my gosh, why didn't I know this sooner?" I just want to talk a little bit about loneliness because it's a very real thing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: But what I've come to realize, and I think you're going to find this is going to lift a big weight inside you, is that the only reason why the loneliness is there is because just like me, you've probably never heard of the great scattering. You didn't know that friendship changed from a group sport to an individual sport.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And when you don't know that and you don't understand the pillars of adult friendship and the rules that you need to follow that I'm going to teach you today, you start to make it personal. You think you're the only one that doesn't have any friends. You think that your friends have left you when actually they're just living their lives. They haven't gone anywhere. They're still there. You start to grip tighter, which only makes your friendships feel more strained.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So I want you to know something. The reason why the loneliness is there, the reason why friendship feels so hard, which it does for everybody, is because you simply don't see the bigger picture and neither did I. And so this is going to be liberating and eye-opening, and it's going to dissolve all of that conflict and tension and the kind of loneliness and sadness that you feel.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You can do something about this, and the first step is seeing the bigger picture.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So we've covered the great scattering, which is just the fact that when you hit 20, the conditions for friendship when you were a kid, boom, gone. Everybody scatters. And from this point forward, for the rest of your life, now that you know this, you also know that people are going to be scattering all the time, which is why you have to be more flexible. And you also have to stop making it personal. It's not you. It's all of us.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And we're going to talk about these three universal pillars that I discovered in researching friendship because I felt like I had no friends and I wanted to do something about it. And these three pillars are so awesome because it makes you realize, wait a minute, I see it very clearly now and now I know what to do.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So let's talk about the three pillars. The pillars are very simple. It's proximity, it's timing, and it's energy. These are the three pillars, the conditions, if you will, that have to be present in order for you to create friendship. That's it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: These conditions, proximity, timing, energy, they were present when you were a kid. When you turn 20, proximity, timing, energy scatters. So let's unpack these one by one, because I really want you to understand why these are so important, why they're grounded in the research, and why this means that when friendships start to fade, it's not personal. It's about these pillars.
--:-- Mel Robbins: All right, number one is proximity. This is probably the single biggest factor in creating friendships. Proximity just means how physically close are you to somebody. And this matters. This matters way more than you think.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm going to explain some research because this research really empowered me and I found it to be extraordinarily eye-opening. A study at MIT found that the single most important factor for determining friendships is physical proximity, meaning how often do you bump into somebody? How often do you see them? How often do your paths cross?
--:-- Mel Robbins: And the reason why this matters has to do with the fact that in order for you to connect with people and create great friendships, you got to spend time with them, right? I mean, obviously. And there's even research around this.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I want to bring the research in so that you understand that the three pillars of friendship that I'm about to unpack for you, this is grounded in deeply respected science. And when I know that, it's easier for me to go, "Oh, I'm not the only idiot here. Now this makes a lot of sense. Now I can get my emotions out of the way and I can operate within the truth of the facts."
--:-- Mel Robbins: So the research that I'm about to share with you comes from the University of Kansas. They studied friendship and they studied friendship of all ages. And the study is fascinating because the study found that it takes 50 hours of time with another person to become kind of casual friends. It takes about 90 hours with somebody for you to consider them, quote, a friend. And check this out. You need approximately 200 hours with somebody in order for you to consider someone a close friend.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Now, let's unpack that. First, I want to unpack that inside the context of friendship when we were little. If you think about your life when you were in elementary school and middle school and high school or in the military or in college or in a community college or a trade school, you were around people your age all the time. That proximity pillar, boom, handled by your life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I mean, riding the bus, there's some time. Playing on the field, there's some time. Sitting in a classroom, there's some time. Being in a sorority, there's some time. Sitting in a dining hall, there's some time. You are literally clocking in 50 hours every single week with people your age.
--:-- Mel Robbins: But then what happens? Boom, your 20s hit. Oh my gosh, you barely see people your age. Why? Because you're all working. You're working all the time.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So when you really put this first pillar of proximity into the truth about your life and the fact that you got to spend 50 hours with somebody to kind of feel like you're a casual friend, you got to spend 90 hours with somebody. So that's like an average of 59, 70 hours to kind of be a quote friend. That's a lot of time. No wonder it feels so hard or almost impossible to make friends as an adult. Why? Because you have to be in proximity to people in order to spend the time with them. It makes sense, doesn't it? Of course it makes sense.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And you want to know how important this is? They've actually done research about who makes friends with whom based on proximity. There was a famous study done about the state police. I believe it was in the state of Massachusetts, where they were just curious. When the cadets meet each other freshman year or the first year of the police academy, who becomes friends? And they started to notice this trend that people that reported to be friends were very close in the alphabet. Why? Because at the police academy, they were lining up in alphabetical order. They were sitting in classroom in alphabetical order.
--:-- Mel Robbins: They found the same thing about chemists, that you were more likely to be very good friends with the bench scientist and chemist that was at the bench next to you doing lab research rather than the one in the lab across the hall. Why? Proximity matters.
--:-- Mel Robbins: This is why you had such opportunity when you were a kid. It was a group sport. The proximity was handled. This also explains why it is so challenging and it feels impossible to make friends as an adult because you're not bumping into people anymore.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And by the way, this also explains why once the great scattering hits or you go through a major life change, positive or negative, you're going to feel like you don't see your friends anymore. Why? Because you might not be right in front of them anymore. Anytime you move, even if you're excited, guess what? Proximity changes. Anytime you change your job, guess what? Proximity changes. Anytime you change your relationship and the patterns of your life, and you're no longer bumping into people all the time that you used to see, proximity just changes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: It's about the pillar. It's not personal. Oh, why didn't I know this sooner?
--:-- Mel Robbins: So if you're in your 20s and you're really struggling because you feel your friendship slowly fading away, it's proximity. It's a pillar. It's not personal. But it does beg the question, okay Mel, I embraced the study from the University of Kansas. I got to spend 50 to 90 hours with somebody to be a friend. I got to spend 200 hours for somebody to be a close friend. Got it. But I don't want to get depressed because that's a lot of time and I don't have a lot of time.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Why do you not have a lot of time? Well, according to the American Time Study, because between the ages of 21 and 60, guess where you and I spend all our time? We spend all our time at work.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So it begs the question, if proximity is an extremely important pillar for creating friendships as an adult, why aren't we best friends with people at work? Great question. I thought the same thing because if I'm spending all week long, 60 hours a week in close proximity with people that I actually like, why am I not hanging out with them all the time? Why are they not my best friends?
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'll tell you why. The second pillar: timing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: See, everybody at work, even though you love them, they're in a different time of their life. Timing just means what chapter of your life are you in? And when you're at work, you're working with people who are all over the map. You might have people who are married, who are in their 50s or 60s. You might have people in their 20s. You might have people who are single, who are not single, who have kids, who don't have kids. You might have people who are healthy, who are not healthy. Everybody's all over the place, interested in different things.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yes, work puts you in close proximity, and these may be people that you like, but if you go out every weekend and get drunk and you're throwing up in a garbage can, on Monday morning, you're not going to be yucking it up with everybody who spent the weekend with their adult kids or their grandkids out in the suburbs. You like these folks, you spend a lot of time with these folks, but you're not in the same time of life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You know, when I reflect on moments of my adult life, when friendship actually came very easily, do you want to know when it was? Interestingly enough, it was when our kids were really little. Because when our kids were really little, my husband and I were in a suburban community surrounded by all these other people in the same time of our life. We were all raising kids the exact same age and we kept bumping into each other at school drop-offs or at meetings at school or on the fields on the soccer games on Saturdays. And we had so much in common. Why? Because we had kids the same age.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so two of the pillars were present, proximity and timing, which creates the conditions for you to meet people who are going through the same thing that you can relate to and connect on and to keep spending time together, which creates the conditions for friendship.
--:-- Mel Robbins: But a funny thing happens when your kids go from middle school to high school. There's this scattering that happens and the boys teams and the girls teams separate and suddenly you're not seeing the same people and your kids start to hang out with their own friends and they may not be hanging out with the kids their same age from the friend group that was bigger. And then you start to scatter and then you stop seeing all the people that you hung out with when you were in elementary school and middle school. You stop seeing them so much and then those friendships start to scatter.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You are going to experience this over and over and over again. And the mistake that I made that turned me into a walking red flag is because I didn't know about the great scattering. I didn't understand these three pillars of friendship that I have discovered that I'm talking and teaching you right now. So I thought this was personal. I thought people didn't like me. I thought I had to grip onto my friendships. When I saw people getting together, I kind of expected to be included. And when I wasn't, I was hurt. And I took it personally. And then I started to cling and grip and feel insecure. And then I'm putting out really weird energy.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And that brings me to the third pillar of friendship, and that's energy.
--:-- Mel Robbins: See, you are not going to be in control of proximity, and you're not going to be in control of the timing of life that you're in. But I'm here to tell you, you are in control of your energy. And energy is one of those things between people that it either clicks or it doesn't. You either kind of feel this thing with somebody or you don't and you can't force it. And the second that the energy shifts or it's off, it's off.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And what I've noticed, and this is again a big mistake that I've made, is that when the energy feels off, when I was in my 20s, 30s, and 40s, oh my god, I just hit the accelerator and tried to force it, which only makes the energy worse.
--:-- Mel Robbins: If the energy's off, trust the energy. Because the energy can be off for a bazillion different reasons. It might be off because you're just two different types of people. It doesn't mean you have to hate each other. It just means they're not your people.
--:-- Mel Robbins: If the energy's off, it might just be because you're interested in different things. You might be somebody that doesn't drink and this is a big party crowd. Energy's going to be off. You might be somebody who's crazy into health and fitness and reading personal development books. And the person you're talking to just thinks that's kind of cheesy. Not going to work. You might be somebody that is a very deep person, and you might be talking to somebody who's just loving stuff kind of on the surface. That's okay. The energy is a little off though. Don't try to force it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Trust the energy. Trust that if you just show up with an open heart and you show up as yourself and you're kind of a kind, open-hearted person, that energy is guiding you toward your people. So you get into a mistake when you try to force it. That's where you're going to get insecure. That's where you're going to be a red flag. That's where you're going to get passive aggressive and clingy and you're going to take everything personally. Don't do it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And that's where the Let Them Theory has changed my life. Learning to say, let them. Let them be a person that I don't click with and still wish them well. Let them come and go in my life and not make it personal. Let me take a more flexible and open-minded approach to adult friendship because everybody's got a lot going on. There's great scatterings all over the place. People are going to come and go in your life. The energy is going to shift and change between you and people that you love. And that's a beautiful thing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I see so much online about breaking up with friendship and when a friendship ends. What if a friendship never ends? Like for real. Just entertain that idea for a second. What if a friendship never ends? What if friendships go through seasons, and there are times where you're connected with people and times where you're not?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Have you ever had an experience in your life where you had a friend that you were in close proximity with, you're in the same time of life, you're into the same things, and so the energy just was the energy, and then either you faded or you had a falling out or something like that, and years go by?
--:-- Mel Robbins: And next thing you know, you come back around and you see this person at a reunion or a funeral or a wedding, or you just randomly bump into them in some city or on a vacation. And all of a sudden, with all that distance and with the changes and the growth that you've both had and the things that you've experienced along the way, you come back together in a moment of proximity and timing, and the energy's there. Interesting, isn't it?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, I'm on a roll. I have so much to tell you, and I want to just pause so we can hear a word from our friends, our sponsors, who I just adore, who support this show. But while you're listening to them, share this with somebody who's coming to mind, a friend of yours that you haven't talked to in a while that you want to connect with, maybe somebody that you know is kind of lonely or they're in a new chapter, and this is going to be life-changing information. It's a phenomenal way for you to connect with them by sharing this episode and telling them that you were thinking about them. Oh my gosh, it's gonna make a huge difference in their life and don't go anywhere. We have so much more to dig into and we're gonna do that next. Stay with me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back, it's your buddy Mel Robbins. And today, you and I are talking about why it feels impossible to make adult friends, but we are hitting that right in the face because it's not impossible. In fact, it is very possible when you understand the three pillars of adult friendship and you understand the new rules of adult friendship. And so let's keep going.
--:-- Mel Robbins: There is a fundamental rule that you have to follow about adult friendship that I did not know until a few years ago. And that is: take a flexible approach. Let people come in and out of your life. Let the energy be off. Let it be on. Let people move. Let them move on. Let them get married and have babies while you're still single. And don't make it personal. Wish them well.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You know, I didn't know this. I just literally felt like if I wasn't talking to somebody or seeing them all the time or being invited to things that they were doing, that we weren't friends. It's not true. This whole notion that you've got best friends and friends for life, it is a modern construct that actually sets us up to fail. Friendships don't actually end. They just come in and out of your life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And the Let Them Theory and learning to say "let them" — let them live their lives, let them change, let them move on, let them scatter in different directions, let them meet new friends, let them live with other people, let them not invite me, let them have a social life without me. Let me stop expecting other people to be responsible for my relationship with them. Let me take responsibility for creating it. Let me take a more flexible approach. Let me wish people well. Let me grow up and be mature and realize that just because I'm not seeing somebody all the time or we're not really clicking right now, that doesn't mean they're my enemy.
--:-- Mel Robbins: One of the things that I write about in The Let Them Theory is that people hold no power over you unless you give it to them. And so all of those people that you think are no longer your friends or are your frenemies or you're against — that's you giving people power. What if you were more flexible? What if you embraced the three pillars — proximity, timing, and energy — and you recognized, before you're quick to judge that person's this or that, that it's not personal actually. This is the law of friendship: proximity, timing, energy.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And any time a friendship starts to fade or feels forced or you're frustrated or you're on the outside looking in or you get kicked out of the friend group or somebody stabs you in the back or gossips behind you — or you feel lonely, like it's impossible to make friends right now — instead of bashing yourself or the other person, you go, "Wait a minute. The great scattering. This is not a group sport. It's an individual one. I can no longer expect friendship to happen. I have to take responsibility for creating it. And I am adopting a very flexible approach to this."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Anytime that a friendship starts to fade, I'm going to ask myself: Did any of the three pillars change? Because if proximity changes, your friendship is going to change. If the timing of your life or their life changes, your friendship is going to change. If the energy starts to shift — and energy shifts for a good reason — you want to know why energy shifts? Because it's a sign that you're changing and growing in new directions, and it's a sign that they're changing and growing in new directions, and that's a good thing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So before you blow up a friendship, before you sign off and say they are this or that, before you feel sorry for yourself and you blame yourself, ask yourself: Have any of these three pillars of adult friendship changed? Because if they have, it's not personal. It's a pillar. And you need to take a more flexible approach.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I want to share with you an analogy that one of our senior producers, Yuna, shared with me. She has this analogy for friendships of a rubber band. So I want you to imagine every friendship in your life is a rubber band. When all three pillars are present — you have proximity, you have the same timing in life, and you have energy that's clicking because you're kind of up to the same thing — it's like a rubber band that is at rest. It's tight, it's close, it's round.
--:-- Mel Robbins: But when one of those pillars changes — whether it's one of you going off to graduate school, or you're getting married, or you move halfway around the world, or you're going through a breakup and you're in a relationship, or one of you stops drinking and the other one doesn't — any change in any of the pillars is going to stretch that friendship. And you're going to feel the strain on the friendship if you don't understand these three pillars. You're going to feel the person pulling away.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I think we've all been in one of those friendships where you've been super close. One of you moves or one of you changes jobs or one of you starts a family. And next thing you know, they're so busy, you never see each other. And then every time you get on the phone, it's like, "I never talk to you." And then you feel the guilt trip. And then you're like, "But it doesn't have to be this way." And then you cannot find any time to get together. As you look at your calendars, it's like, why do we need a scheduler who runs logistics for UPS to figure out our two calendars? And why are we unable to find a date except for a Tuesday seven months from now for a two-hour window?
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'll tell you why. Because the timing of everybody's life has gotten crazy. People get stretched by the demands of their life. If you have to spend all week at work or in graduate school or caring for an aging parent or for little kids, you have very little free time. One of the things that has really surprised me is that I'm in my 50s. I thought I would have way more time for friends now. I thought I'd be dancing around and all this stuff. Are you kidding? I have less time because I have three adult kids. I have a full-time job. Any free time that I have, I'm trying to spend time with either my kids or my aging parents. I've got so much going on just like you do that the tiny amount of time that I have, trying to get that to line up with somebody that I care about that may not even live near me — the proximity's gone. This is what I mean by the rubber band stretching.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I want you to have that visual because guess what? The rubber band is still intact. It just stretched because one of these three pillars is no longer present. Oftentimes for me, it's proximity. My most favorite people in the world literally don't live near me. My closest friends, my oldest friends — I'm mad at them. Aren't you mad at the people that you love that don't live near you? Why can't they move near you? Proximity is not there. The rubber band is stretched, but it's still intact. And guess what happens? With time, with more mini scatterings, it comes back into shape again.
--:-- Mel Robbins: The most important reason why I want you to think about this is because if you cling and you grip and you become like I was — really toxic and yanking on that relationship and making the other person wrong and having passive aggressive energy because you weren't invited — guess what's going to happen? You are going to snap that rubber band. You are going to be the one that breaks it because your energy shifts and then nobody wants to hang out with you because you're not being flexible, because you simply didn't understand the three pillars and you made it personal.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And that's not going to happen anymore. The reason why it's not going to happen anymore is because you're going to take a flexible approach and you're going to remember the rubber band and you're going to check yourself. Let me check myself before I start taking it out on somebody else or making myself feel like a loser or telling myself that this is impossible and I'll never have friends and everybody's moved on. You're going to remember these pillars and you're going to go, "Wait, it's not personal. It's about the pillars. And that means I have the power to create incredible friendships."
--:-- Mel Robbins: I know you're thinking, "Okay, I'm in, Mel. Thank you. This is so eye-opening. I've already forwarded this episode to like 15 of my friends that I need to be flexible with. I forwarded it to my adult kids. Everybody needs to hear this." And I agree with you. And I am going to teach you the exact approach that I used in order to find some of the best friends of my life at the age of 52, when we moved to a brand new community. I had to start all over. I was incredibly lonely.
--:-- Mel Robbins: But first, I want to address something because you're going to have to be flexible with this. It's not going to be easy in the beginning because none of us like to put ourselves out there. We have been trained by our childhood to just expect friendship. So I want to read a passage to you from page 186 of The Let Them Theory book. This is in the section of the book that is all about using the Let Them Theory to create some of the best friendships of your life and these three pillars that we're discussing. And this is a passage that's all about using the Let Them Theory to take a more flexible approach.
--:-- Mel Robbins: [Reading from the book] "If you say hello at a coffee shop and they aren't very friendly, let them. If their calendar is so busy they can't find time to go for a walk, let them. If they cancel plans this weekend because they've had a long week at work, let them. If they fall in love or have a baby and you're no longer a priority, let them. If they move away, they start a different chapter, let them. If they stop returning your calls, let them. If they're prioritizing other friendships or work, let them. If the timing, proximity, or energy is off, let them. See, people are going to come and they're going to go in your life. And the more flexible you are, the more they come and go. And it's such a beautiful thing to let them."
--:-- Mel Robbins: I want you to focus on the second part of the theory: Let me. Because that's what's in your control. Let me be understanding. Let me make an effort. Let me check in without expectation, but just because of care. Let me make the plans. Let me trust when the energy feels off. Let me call or text if someone crosses my mind. Let me act with the belief that some of my most favorite friends, I haven't even met them yet. Let me go first.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That is how I embraced these three pillars of proximity, timing, and energy. That is how I learned a more flexible approach to friendship. That is how I took responsibility for creating more fun and a social life and finding and having some of the best friendships of my entire life. The "let me go first" part — because I'll tell you, I've wasted years of my life feeling sorry for myself. I've wasted years of my life sitting alone, bitter at home, feeling like everybody's life was some giant party that I wasn't invited to.
--:-- Mel Robbins: The Let Them Theory woke me up to a simple truth. Friendship matters. Friends are going to come and go. And friendship is there for you to create, but you've got to take responsibility for it, which means you've got to get out of your house. You've got to be the one with the open approach. You've got to be the one making an effort. You've got to go first.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Don't you just love this? I love this topic and I love this research and I love these pillars and it's so liberating to know all this. And you can tell I'm excited for you, can't you? Well, I am because I can't wait for you to create incredible friendships. And speaking of that, share this with a friend because we all need this information. And when you share this with a friend, you are reaching out, you're going first, you're connecting with them, and that's a beautiful thing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And don't go anywhere because after this short word from our sponsors, I'm going to be waiting for you, like a good friend, to welcome you back. And we're going to keep going because there's a lot more I want to share with you. So stay with me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. I've been waiting for you, and I'm so glad you're still here. And I want to thank you for sharing this with your friends. This is information we all need. And it's also going to be something cool that you can connect around.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So what I want to dig into next is this. I'm going to teach you step-by-step the things that I did that helped me when I moved at the age of 52 to a brand new community in the middle of nowhere. There's only 3,000 people in this town after living outside of Boston for 26 years. And the things that I did to go first. I'm going to walk you through that, but I want to address a couple questions that I see over and over and over again.
--:-- Mel Robbins: This one comes from a fellow listener named Charlotte. "Mel, I've been using Let Them, and I've been using Let Them so much that I hardly have any friends anymore. Do I continue to let them or do I voice my feelings?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: This is something that I saw when I was researching the theory and the more that I've been talking about the rules of adult friendship out in the world. Everybody's saying, "Okay, I get it. But now that I'm saying Let Them and I'm taking a more flexible approach, I'm noticing that the people that I used to think were my friends — well, I'm the one making the effort. I'm the one making the plans, and if I don't make the plans, they're not making plans. I'm the one that's reaching out, but they don't actually reach out back."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Here's what I want you to do. This is a very common thing to have happen when you take a flexible approach and you start saying Let Them. People are going to reveal to you through their behavior where they are in life, what their priorities are, and sometimes you're going to see firsthand that when you stop making an effort, they're not making an effort back. This is normal.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And this is the second part. You've got to say "Let me." If you find that you're only saying "Let them," you're using the theory wrong. You can't just stop by going, "Let them, let them, let them, let them, let them." Because if you only say "Let them," you are going to feel lonely because you're going to realize that people are super busy. People are in different timings of their life. The energy may be off. So I don't want you to stop at "Let them." You've got to say the second part: "Let me."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Here are some of the questions you should ask yourself. "Let me ask myself, has proximity changed? Am I not bumping into them a lot anymore? Is the timing of our life changed?" What if you were more flexible and realized that your role in life is you're the one that reaches out? You're the one that creates connection, not because you expect it back, but because the "let me" part is that in creating connection and reaching out to people and checking in and making plans, it actually is part of your value. It creates something for you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Or what you might discover, as you say "Let me" — "Let me remind myself, I get to choose how much time and energy I pour into this." If somebody's energy is shifted, if the timing is shifted, if the proximity is shifted, you can also shift how much time and energy you put into the relationship. So if you're finding that the friendships are stretched and you're sitting there realizing you're surrounded by people that don't reciprocate, that's normal. Now you get to choose. Do I want to continue to put as much time and energy into these people? Or do I want to go create new friendships with new people because I'm in a new phase of my life?
--:-- Mel Robbins: One last point about Charlotte: "Do I voice my feelings?" I think it just depends on what you want to create. Are you voicing your feelings to make somebody wrong because that's you expecting friendship? Or are you voicing your feelings because you just miss somebody and you're a little concerned that something may be wrong?
--:-- Mel Robbins: I had a friend do this to me about a year ago. They texted me a number of times and I am the world's worst person at texting back. And I appreciate everybody that's in my life that is patient with me with this, but I hate the fact that we have gotten to the point where just because you have the time to text, you expect that somebody else owes you a text back. That you have direct access to somebody is actually a privilege. And I don't think it's fair that texting somebody means you should expect them to text you back on your timeline.
--:-- Mel Robbins: For somebody who's really busy or going through a crisis, they are so inundated that your texts — they probably read it and were like, "Oh, I've got to get back to you." And then 15 more came in. So again, resist the urge to grip. Resist the urge to make it personal. Resist the urge to expect it and be more flexible. Assume that people have a lot going on. And text because you want to text, not because you expect a text in return. When you start to operate like that, you have so much more freedom because you are no longer transactional and you're no longer the one that's gripping and stretching and being kind of passive in your relationships.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So this friend of mine reaches out to me after a number of texts that I didn't respond to because I saw him and it was a crazy period at work and something was going on with one of our kids and I just didn't have the energy, honestly, to respond. And he said something — I can't even remember what it was — but it was something really passive aggressive. And I wrote back and I said, "Look, I have so much going on. You're right. Our friendship and texting all day, it's not a priority, but that doesn't mean I don't care about you. And I apologize that my silence left you assuming something was wrong. There's nothing wrong with our friendship. There's just a lot going on right now and I have very little energy, but I so appreciate you checking in." And that's all that it took. That's it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: But again, you're assuming that somebody doesn't like you. You're assuming that the person's a jerk. It's so much cooler in life to just assume people have a lot going on. And again, it's not personal. It's all about these pillars.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Here's another question that is so important. This comes from a listener named Seema. "Mel, what do you do when you put yourself out there? You're hosting parties, you're organizing events, you're inviting friends over, only to realize they don't invite you back. How do you deal with the lack of reciprocation and avoid falling back into the same lonely place where you started trying to build these friendships?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: Seema, you have to ask yourself: Are you throwing parties to try to trap friends? Or are you throwing parties and being social because you love to be social and throw parties and you're super flexible with who shows up and what they do in response?
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm going to tell you the other side of this story. I have a friend named Maxine who is extraordinary at planning things. She puts herself out there. She is a force. I love this woman so much. I am so excited to be her friend. She is constantly throwing parties. And I just have to say, she always invites Chris and I. And I don't know what it is about timing or whatever else, but we never seem to be in town whenever she's throwing a party or our kids are just arriving from being away and I haven't seen him for three months. And so I want to go pick him up at the airport.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I could see if she were a different person that she would no longer invite me, right? If she didn't have a flexible and open approach to friendship, if she didn't see friendship as a rubber band that stretches back and forth, she might see the fact that I'm often not able to come as a sign that... And here's the other thing. I haven't thrown a dinner party in probably a year. One of my goals this year in 2025 is to be more proactive in that regard, to throw more parties.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What I think is a more powerful approach is: throw a party because you want to throw a party, but don't throw a party because you expect to be invited back. That is what I mean by a flexible approach. And look, do you deserve friendship that's mutual? Of course. Do you deserve friends that make an effort? Of course. Do you deserve reciprocity? Of course. You also get to choose where you invest your time and where you invest your energy.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Let me just say the hard truth that none of us want to talk about. There are going to be people in your life that don't want to be friends with you. And there are going to be people that you don't want to be friends with either, but you're kind of in that circle. So you're going to find yourself also in situations where you're doing an invite. And you know how parties tend to have that sort of max six limit? Because once you get over six people or three couples and you add those extra two and now it's eight and it's four couples, now you start to think, "Oh my God, I should invite so-and-so because we've invited these guys. And now it seems like a bigger thing. And then they're going to wonder why weren't they invited." We all go through it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: This is why the "let them" part is super important. If you want to have eight people and some other people are not going to be invited, let them be disappointed. Let them wonder what's up. Let me throw the party I want to throw with the people I want to throw it with. Let me not feel obligated to invite 75 people or 10 people. Let me invite however many people I want to invite because this is the group of people I want to invite.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm sure you've been invited to parties where you're only going because it's part of a group of people that you know, but you don't even really like the person that's throwing the party, but you're going because you know it's going to be a good party. We've all been there, which is why we all need to be more flexible.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Here's the funny thing about life. I promise you, at some point in the future — maybe 10 years, maybe 20 years, maybe 20 weeks from now — that person whose party you went to or who comes to yours, it's not really your friend or the energy's sort of off. I guarantee you the rubber band is stretching right now, but at some point in the future, you might bump back again, energy's on, and suddenly you're friends. That's adult friendship. It's flexible.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Let people come in and out of your life. Let them leave. Let them invite you. Let them not invite you. Let them be disappointed that you didn't invite them. Let them misunderstand that you're in a super busy season of your life. Let them, let them, let them. Let them because it allows you to live your life consistently with the law of adult friendship. Do not expect it. You have to create it. Do not force it. Be flexible with it. Do not blow up your friendships. Do not make it personal. Look at the three pillars and understand this is how adult friendship works. In fact, this is how friendship has worked all along. It's just now an individual sport, and perhaps you're hearing this for the first time.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That brings me to this question from a listener named Jack. "Hey, Mel, I really want to expand my circle and have a more diverse group of friends. It feels like I'm always hanging out with the same kind of people, and I'd love to connect with others who have backgrounds and experiences that challenge me to grow. I just don't know where to start or how to meet them. Any advice?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: Love this question. And I'm going to answer this in a way that's relevant to you. If you can relate to Jack's question — you're like, "Okay, I've got a group of friends, but I'd like to meet different types of people" — or you're like I was a couple years ago and the great scattering has hit and some change has happened in your life. And now you feel like you're starting at zero again in a brand new place in your life or a brand new place in the world or your career or in your relationship, and you're starting over because the same rules apply.
--:-- Mel Robbins: The first rule I've already told you, and that is: you go first. This is the "let me" part of the theory when it comes to friendship. So what does that mean? You go first. It means don't sit in your house alone. It means don't sit at the coffee shop and cross your arms. It means take an open, friendly approach to this.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Here's how I did it. When I first moved to this small town — I write about this in The Let Them Theory — I sat alone in my house crying for like a year. I thought I had made the worst mistake of my life. And it reminded me of the time when my daughter Sawyer, who wrote the book with me, went to her freshman year of college. She was a freshman at Boston College. She would call me almost every day crying, "I'm at the wrong school. I'm not having any fun. My people aren't here." And I would tell her the same thing over and over and over again: "Give it a year. Give it a year. Give it a year. It's going to take you a year of meeting all different types of people to find the proximity, the timing, and the energy so that you find your people."
--:-- Mel Robbins: And somehow when I was 52 years old and I moved to this small town, I forgot my own advice. So I didn't give it a year. I sulked for a year. I clung to my friends who were back in Boston. I watched their lives play out online. I felt like I was missing out on everything. I gripped. I was so lonely. I didn't put myself out there. I would literally go into my favorite coffee shop and I would sit alone and read a book. I wouldn't talk to anybody because I was sulking in my loneliness.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, that all changed when I applied the advice I'm about to tell you. I literally just started to say hello. I introduce myself to people. And here's a little trick I want you to steal. I have shared this before online. I'm sharing it now with you. This has saved me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: When you want to start to meet people, let's say you have your favorite coffee shop, right? And you're going to use your coffee shop as a way to practice going first. If you don't know the names of the people that work in the coffee shop, that's the first step. When you go in tomorrow morning, you are going to introduce yourself to the cashier. You can say something like, "You know, I'm in here all the time. What is your name?" and introduce yourself.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And then here's the trick. Take out your notes app on your phone and create a contact for that coffee shop. And then in the notes section in your phone, write down a description of the person: "Tall person with a beard, name is Kevin, has glasses." Boom. And here's why you're going to need it. If you're anything like me, when you're putting yourself out there, you get a little on edge, you immediately forget somebody's name. I do it all the time too. Don't wait until you get to the table. Do it immediately after you say hello. Put it in your notes app and you're going to thank me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You want to know why? The next day when you pull up to the same coffee shop, you are going to look at the contact in your phone for the coffee shop and you're going to remind yourself, "Oh yeah, the person with the beard, their name is Kevin." And then you're going to walk in there and be like, "Hey Kevin, it's Mel. It's okay if you don't remember my name." And you chat up a little bit. Now, then you're going to start to do that with the people that you see in there all the time. "I see you in here all the time. What's your name? What are you reading?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: Start complimenting people. I love your socks. I love your nails. People open up when you compliment them. It's such an easy way if you're introverted or shy to just break the ice. And the reason why this matters, and there's research around this, is that these micro connections, just saying hi to somebody, knowing the name of the person that runs the front desk or the mail room in your building, knowing the names of the dogs that you see at the dog park, these micro connections, they matter and they matter deeply.
--:-- Mel Robbins: The research out of Harvard, this was shared with me on this podcast by Harvard's Dr. Robert Waldinger, is that these micro connections actually improve loneliness. There's even a word for it. Researchers call these sort of friendly faces that you start to see at the post office and in your building and in the elevator at work and at the cafeteria at your school, they call them weak ties. I hate that name. You want to know why? I think they're some of the strongest ties that lift you up when you're feeling lonely.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Because all of these familiar faces that you start to create by going first and saying hello and being open and flexible, and if they're not that friendly, let them, because let me go first, let me be the friendly one, they actually create strong ties and a foundation that lifts you out of loneliness and makes you feel like you are part of a community. And that starts to melt away this armor that you have, to use a word that Brene Brown uses, that we kind of stiffen up and close ourselves off. And I'm telling you, one hello at a time.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I've now got like 32 people in my notes app for this coffee shop. And I now don't even have to look at it because I know them all because I've spent the last three years talking to them. In fact, this morning, I met a bunch of women that I met at the coffee shop that I walk with on Wednesdays. It's so flipping cold where we live now that we decided to meet at the coffee shop. I met them all for coffee this morning.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I'm going to tell you something else about this. It's a go first thing. And it's a let me find the time. Everybody's busy. When it was 7:50 this morning and we were meeting at eight o'clock and it takes me 20 minutes to get down there, I thought, do I have time for this? I got to be back here by nine o'clock. Oh my gosh, should I? I'm like, Mel, let me go. Let me make the time. This matters. Let me make the effort. And I'm going to tell you something: making the time to sit with my new friends for 23 minutes at the coffee shop this morning changed my entire day. You have to make the time. It's not on them to make the time for you. It's on you to make the time for friendship to happen. That's why this flexible approach and this let me go first approach is going to work.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And you're going to love this and give it a year because I promise you, the more you say hello and the more you compliment people, the faster you're going to bump into one of the most favorite people you've ever met. And that's exactly what's happened to me in this town of 3,000 people. And if I can do this at 52 years old in a town of 3,000 people, you can do it at whatever age you're in, one hello at a time wherever you live.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Now, what do you do if you want to find different types of friends? If you're looking for friends that kind of lift you up, here's the second thing you're going to do. Let me find a new activity that I've always wanted to do. Whether it's a CrossFit gym or a yoga studio or a painting class, there's all this research, particularly if you're older, about going to an art class and how it connects you with other people that are interested in growing and learning and being creative. Join a book club at the local library, start a book club.
--:-- Mel Robbins: My husband is really interested in skiing and in golf. So what did he do? He joined a golf league. He also joined a race team at the local ski mountain. And then as he started riding the lift with people once a week to do this local race team thing, he realized a lot of people there are also telemark skiers like we are. Now he has a group of people that he meets several mornings a week, and they literally skin up a mountain. They bring their dogs. It's totally awesome. There's like 30 or 40 of them that meet at times. He created that for himself and you can do the same thing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And the other cool thing about using an activity is that the activity itself attracts people that have the same kind of energy, that are interested in the same things, just like when you were little and you're on the same team. It's like creating that condition for friendship that puts you in proximity, that puts you in the same timing of life in terms of the interest that you have in something, and that gives you a greater possibility to just connect with people that have energy that clicks. I mean, how cool is this?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Here's another really important one. Go places alone. Go to the coffee shop alone. Go to the lecture alone. And when you sit down, go first. Let me go first and talk to the person next to you. Just ask them, like, have you ever been here before? Do you know anything about this exhibit? Oh, I love your socks. How long have you lived here? You'll be so surprised how the warmth that you give to others comes back to you, how the openness that you approach with friendship brings more openings to you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And finally, I'm going to remind you, give it a year. Give it a year, especially if you're in a new environment, a new place, a new job, a new school, you're in a new chapter of your life, give it a year. Because I'm going to come back to something that I shared with you at the beginning. Remember the research from the University of Kansas. It takes 50 hours for you to kind of have a casual friend, meet at the coffee shop. It takes 90 hours to consider them a friend friend. And it takes 200 hours for you to feel like they're a very close friend. Now, this is just research, but that's why you need to give it a year. It makes sense, doesn't it?
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I love this framework so much because it's just like letting air out of a tire, right? The pressure's gone. It's not personal. You're not screwing anything up. Nobody ever told you this before. And if you can't see what the pillars are, you don't understand that the rules changed on you when you were 20 and nobody told you, of course, you're going to feel like it's impossible because you don't know the rules. And now that you know the rules, you can play the game.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Colleen says, how do you make friends when life's falling apart? I just lost my job. I'm going through a tough divorce. I'm barely scraping by financially. I can't afford to grab coffee and I'm too embarrassed to host in my home. That's actually a thing that I can relate to. I remember when Chris and I were really struggling and our house was really small and a lot of people had a lot bigger houses. I didn't want to have people over. I totally understand that. When you're already feeling low, how do you actually connect with others when you need friends the most?
--:-- Mel Robbins: So first of all, Colleen, don't forget all the people that you know in your life. I want you to go through your camera roll. I want you to go through your Facebook friends. I want you to look at photos from high school and from college if you went to college and remind yourself that those people are still there. And oftentimes, all it takes is a text from somebody you haven't heard from in a very long time checking in. "You crossed my mind" to rekindle something. I mean, haven't you had the experience where somebody reaches out to you, you haven't heard from them for a long time?
--:-- Mel Robbins: I recently reconnected with my freshman college roommate, Bernadine. Shout out, Bernadine Wu. I love you. And another friend from college, Wes Wang. And we are now in a text group. We're constantly texting. It's so much fun. I haven't truly been in contact with them consistently for over 30 years. And it's like, no time went by. Those people are still there. And if any one of them has gotten divorced, I guarantee you, if you reached out and said, "Hey, I know it's been a long time, but you crossed my mind. And I thought you might be able to give me some advice right now. I'm going through a divorce. My life is falling apart. I know you went through something like that recently. If you have any words of wisdom or a book that you would recommend, I would deeply appreciate it. And I'd also love to hear how you're doing." You will be shocked at what comes back. And if nothing comes back, let them. And assume good intent that they're just super busy and maybe they didn't recognize your number, so make sure you tell them who it is.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And another thing, there's lots of free things out there. There's things going on at the local library. There's lectures going on at the high school. There are friends of yours that you've lost touch with that may not be from long ago that have also gone through a divorce. There are family members that can be friends of yours. So don't assume that because they're not in front of your face, they aren't still there. You have to go first. You have to recognize that this is important for you and you don't need to spend money to do it. You need to pick up the phone and you need to make the effort because people don't know that you need help typically unless you ask for it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And what I've found is most of the time when you reach out and say, "I thought of you because you're super wise and you're always inspiring and I'm going through a tough time and I would love to hear your advice or recommendations for what you think I should do." People love to give advice. They love to help. But if nobody knows that you need the help because you've been so stoic and you're isolating, how can they? Let me go first. Let me ask for what I need.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I also want to give you a few things that I've adopted that have made a huge difference in my ability to go first and my ability to create friendships, my ability to do the "let me" part, right? You're going to say "let them" a lot, but the "let me" part is where the friendships get created.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So number one, I learned this trick from my friend, Brendan Bruchard. I love Brendan, shout out to Brendan Bruchard. And he has this part of his morning routine that I've made part of mine: before I start my workday, I text or send a voice memo to somebody I'm thinking about. And it is an incredible way to really keep those ties with people that are not in proximity with you or they're in a different timing of your life. It's almost like fluffing a pillow. You just kind of keep the energy going and you remind people that you're there for them and they, when they respond back, they remind you that they're there for you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so I have a couple ground rules about this. When you reach out with a "Hey, you just crossed my mind, I just wanna know I'm thinking about you, I miss you, sending you so much love," don't say "let's get together" if you don't want to get together. Okay, don't do that. It's enough to just say "I was thinking about you and I just want you to know I'm sending you so many good vibes. I hope you're dynamite." If you want to get together, say it, but throw out a date. I mean, I'm sure you have these friendships that are just all text-based. We all do these days. It's like, "Oh, let's see. We should get together," but nobody throws out a date. Just leave it off the text if you don't want to see them or you don't have time to or it's going to be too impossible.
--:-- Mel Robbins: But if you've got something coming up, I love doing this. When Chris and I are going to a concert, I will blast that concert out to like 15 other people and say, "Hey, we just bought tickets to this. If you guys wanna go, grab tickets and let us know and then we can make a plan around the concert." Do you see how you're not organizing anybody but you are organizing everybody and you're not responsible for the group but you're creating this condition for proximity and shared timing on something and the energy to click? It's such an easy thing to do.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I also have car friends. So whenever I'm on a long drive, I'm in the car for more than an hour. If I'm not listening to an audio book, you know what I'm doing? I'm calling all my friends that don't live near me or I'm calling somebody that I haven't had time to call back. I love driving and talking with friends because it makes me feel like they're in the car with me and it's a great thing to do as you're driving. You don't need a half an hour. You don't. If you have six minutes, call somebody. If you're standing in a long line, call somebody and you start the call by saying "You crossed my mind and instead of texting you, I've got six minutes right now. I thought I'd pick up the phone and call you and just say, I miss you and tell me something that you're excited about that's going on in your life." Boom. And then you say, "Oh my gosh, it's my turn at the grocery store. I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you. It's so good to hear your voice. Stay in touch." Boom, there you go. That's it. That one phone call just fluffed the pillow. You went first, you were flexible, you took a proactive approach to friendship, you didn't expect it, you created it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And every time you do, you're taken one step closer to creating the single best friendships of your life. Because again, as I told you in the beginning, the best friendships of your life are not behind you. They're ahead of you on the road to life. And isn't it so exciting to truly embrace that truth that you haven't even met some of your most favorite people in life yet? In fact, they may be sitting next to you at the coffee shop, just waiting for you to say hello.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And now that you know the three pillars of adult friendship, and you know that it's never personal, and you are gonna take a more flexible and proactive approach, you're gonna let them come and go, you're gonna let me go first, you're gonna let me reach out, you're gonna let me create the best friendships of my life, you can go find them. And that makes me so happy for you. I cannot wait to hear how you use this. I can't wait to hear how you share this with people that you love and you use this conversation to connect with people that you love.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm particularly excited for you to share this with the 20-somethings that are really struggling in this area right now and the people in their 40s and 50s who are. But we're all kind of finding it difficult. But I truly hope from the bottom of my heart that everything that I shared was eye-opening, it was empowering, and it tells you exactly what you can do to create the best friendship of your life. Now you just got to go do it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And in case nobody else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you. And I believe in your ability to create a better life. And there is no doubt in my mind, when you take everything you just learned that we spoke about today, you will create a better life because you're gonna create incredible friendships and that's gonna make your life better. Alrighty, I'm gonna talk to you in a few days because I'm gonna be waiting for you in the very next episode, the second you hit play. And I'll see you there.
--:-- [Sound of a door opening or a room change]
--:-- Mel Robbins: How's it sounding so far, guys?
--:-- Production Team Member: So good. Sounds awesome.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay, great.
--:-- Production Team Member: Oh, we are poetry people.
--:-- Mel Robbins: All right, let's go to the open.
--:-- [Pause, shuffling sounds]
--:-- Mel Robbins: You know it works to put those notes on the door. I'm realizing because I put a note on the outside door saying "Please go through the kitchen" and then I lock the dogs in the kitchen so they bark over there.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Wait, what was the second thing of this? I'm sorry.
--:-- Production Team Member: That's that.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, this is where we talk about it was a group sport but there was also this.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Hold on a second. Oh my God. La la la la la. Okay. What was the last line I just said, you guys? Sorry. I promise you this will not be a Frankenstein edit. I'm going to get into my groove.
--:-- Production Team Member: Oh, great. Okay.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Love this. I love this. I love this. I love this. Okay, great. All right. I'm going to go get my fried chicken because I'm breaking my fast.
--:-- [Pause, then a shift in tone]
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language, you know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.
