Hello! Welcome to episode 72 of I’d Rather Stay In. This week, we’re talking about long-distance friendships and how to nurture and maintain them.
Episode transcript
Welcome to I’d rather stand with your host Megan Myers and Stephie Predmore. This week we’re chatting about long distance friendships. Stay tuned.
Hi.
Hello.
What’s up? Megan?
Oh, not too much. I have been trying to purchase
pants. Oh, dear.
And that’s a journey. I’ll tell you.
I think I think the proper word here would be an odyssey Actually, I’m not sure journey even encompass.
I have not embarked too far on it. So it has not reached Odyssey point yet.
Basically,
could get there though.
It could get there. Basically, most of my pants most of my jeans are skinny jeans. Which I have realized in my old age. Do not make me feel good. about myself.
Yeah, let’s be clear that this is not this is not spurred on by you being like, Oh my gosh, the youths say that skinny jeans are in anymore. This is you being like, I don’t think my jeans are that comfortable. I think I want some different ones.
Yes. Um, and I will also preface that or add on to that by saying that when skinny jeans happened. When they began happening, I resisted for a very long time. Because I thought they were stupid. And then Stitch Fix kept sending me skinny jeans. And they did all fit. And there was a real
there really was a period of time where that’s basically all you could find.
It’s true. It’s really all you could find. So I have decided that I need to go back to straight leg jeans because that’s who I am. I am short. I am somewhat curvy in a weird way. I have short legs and short arms and long torso. It’s a whole mess. I love you. But I went to go buy jeans today. And this is one downside of now living here is that there are fewer stores. Yes, this is true in which to purchase jeans. Uh huh. And the only jeans they had at the store were skinny BOOTCUT and slim, which is slightly less tight than skinny,
are concerned that bootcut was an option.
I am very concerned about the resurgence of bootcut jeans. I don’t know who was still wearing boots.
First of all,
there’s a there’s a place for I guess there’s a place for bootcut jeans but Bloomington Illinois is not it?
No, no. It is not No.
neck. So
I don’t know I have a pair of jeans.
They fit. You sound thrilled.
I
might buy some online and shipped. Whatever ones I don’t like back but also
that’s what I’ve been doing. I just go on the buys. And I yeah, and I actually pull out the tape measure and I measure and that usually does pretty well. I can usually figure out what size I need based on my measurements or whatever. But yeah, I’ll like buy a few and then just return whatever doesn’t work from Levi’s, because we don’t have like a Levi’s store here.
Yeah. My other problem is that I don’t want to spend a ton of money on them. Right? Yes, I want jeans to last a long time, but I also don’t want to spend a lot of money on them because I might hate them.
Right? You might you might be like okay, these are fine. I’m gonna keep these and then you wear them twice. You’re like, fuck these jeans. I hate these jeans.
Right? Because part of the problem with the skinny jeans that I have is that you wear them you can wear them twice and then you absolutely have to wash them because they are now down halfway your butt. And you have to yank them up all day long.
Yes.
And I don’t appreciate that. I guess I like the stretch factor when you’re putting them on. But throughout the day, it’s not a benefit to you. I
just discovered this is kind of interesting. I just went on the Levi’s website for shits and giggles and they have a whole second hand section.
That is pretty cool.
I did not know that.
thrilling, maybe I can get a second and jeans are awesome. Cuz they’re already broken in, right? So whole,
I think I like a whole thing going here. So
I can you send those ones back though,
that I don’t know,
I can’t help you there but
I need to be I hate that the the pandemic has turned us all into the hands of people that you have to buy $500 worth of clothes, and then send back all but $100 worth. How the only way we can find things that fit.
Yeah, it’s fine. Everything is also would have been smart for us to maybe go shopping for you when we were actually in Chicago three days ago, but
I thought about it. But then I thought that sounded not fun.
I mean, it sounded a lot less fun than going to the Art Institute and eating,
taking naps and
take a nap, which is why we did which was so delightful. So I mean, you’re not wrong.
I do normally like shopping. If I’m, you know, I don’t know, I like shopping a lot of the times if I’m in the mood, and I think just the past year has kind of broken me of all things I used to take joy from so
well. And it was your first time away from the people that you live with. And I’ve been away from mine like one other time. But it was your first time away from the people that you live with. So just sort of like not doing anything was definitely a nice thing for you to partake in.
Yeah,
I don’t blame you for just being like, let’s not do a whole lot.
It’s also trying to application trying to try on clothes probably would have just
would have been a thing. It could have been interesting.
It would have probably just made me super grumpy. So
it’s better to be not so grumpy.
That’s right.
It’s fine. Everything is good. So Megan, we used to be long distance friends.
Now we hate each other. No, we
hate each other.
We just spent we just spent two and a half days together, and we’re perfectly fine. So I think I think we’re doing well. So we used to be long distance friends, we are no longer long distance friends. But for the first I don’t know, however long we’ve known each other for a while
now, I don’t even know how long we’ve known each other. So I can’t,
I can’t, I can’t even do the math. But we’re gonna we’re gonna say it’s a minute, it’s probably about a minimum of five years, we’ll say a minimum of five years, for the first minimum of five years of our friendship. We were long distance friends. And we both have a lot of long distance friends. And so we thought we talked about long distance friendships today, because I think people talk a lot about long distance relationships, like romantic relationship. But I don’t think it’s many people talk about long distance friendships,
which I think is really interesting, because pretty much every adult has long distance friends,
right? Because
you go to high school with people, and you might keep in touch with some of them. And then if you go to college, you probably keep in touch with some of the people you went to college with. And unless you went to a very small school where you all weirdly stayed in the same city. You have long distance friends.
Yeah. So more people have long distance friendships, and more long distance friendships, presumably, then, long distance romantic relationships. But I don’t think people talk about nurturing those relationships, those friendships as much as they’re like, oh, here’s how you maintain a long distance romantic relationship.
Yeah, I don’t think they do. We’ve talked about friendships in general before and how to keep a friendship going. But we wanted to cover a little bit how those long distance friendships are slightly different and maybe need different kinds of care.
Yeah, you know, as I was thinking about it, I was thinking how I think when you’re young, the idea of long distance friendship is super scary. Especially like as you’re coming out of high school, and if you go to college as you’re like graduating from college, and you’re kind of coming out of those, that that youth bubble, that bubble of proximity, where you naturally have these friendships based on people you’ve gone to school with or people you’ve grown up with, or just people that you have been in proximity to for a really long time. Especially if you’re the kind of person that likes Didn’t really move when you were younger. Maybe you’ve lived in the same place your whole life. And so I think a lot of people when they graduate, whatever level it is, and their friend groups start to disseminate across the country or sometimes across the world, I think there’s just like panic, like, Oh my gosh, my friends are moving away. This is the worst thing ever. And as you get older, I think more of your relationships are long distance. And it’s a little less freaky. Like,
yeah, yeah, I, I was the person, not the only person, but I was one of the people at my school, where I lived in the same town my entire life. So I knew a lot of the kids that I graduated with heat from, you know, age five. And then I moved out of state to go to college, and not many people in my class went out of state to go to college. So it was kind of I was, it was kind of a big deal. And I think a lot of people felt like I was abandoning them.
I mean, you’re talking to someone who very specifically went to a college that none no one else in high school class went to. So
I mean, that is one of the reasons why I went to a school out of state I wanted to, I wanted to have some space, not not because I didn’t like people from my school, but I just wanted to see what else there was.
Yeah. Yeah, I feel that.
But I mean, it turns out in the end, that the people that I was going to be friends with for life anyway, are still friends. Yeah. And it wasn’t. It wasn’t as weird I think, in the end as as people made it out to be.
Yeah, I agree with that. I think I think that because I have sort of, I sort of have two, two different groups of long distance friends now as an adult. So I have the people that I grew up with, or I went to school with high school or college with and that so you know, they started out as proximity friends, we’ll call them and then grew to be lifelong, long distance friends. And then I have this other group of people who I’ve never met, like, I may never have lived close to because of the internet.
And the Internet has really,
yeah, it’s really changed that.
I it’s funny, because I think
all
almost all of my good friends I met on the internet.
It’s really, it’s really, it’s really kind of wild. When you think about it. I have, I can’t remember if I’ve told this story or not. But one of my bridesmaids the first time, I met her online, and she’s a fellow blogger, and the first time I met her in person, I asked her to be in our wedding. Totally normal. Yeah, like, you know, like, I just already knew, like, she was a really good friend of mine and Alex, and she, you know, I just knew I wanted her up there with us when we got married. And so I think it was like, I think our wedding was like, the second time we’d ever seen each other in person. You know, again, like totally normal stuff. Um, so, so Okay, so let’s, let’s talk, let’s talk about both groups. But let’s talk about the people where you start off as friends, like, because you live near each other, you work together, you go to school together, and then they become long distance friendships. And then we can talk about the other. So, Megan, do you have any thoughts on how to like, if you have a friendship that is transitioning from like, you know, someone close by and it’s transitioning to a long distance friendship? Do you have any tips on how to like, navigate that?
I think, first of all, you have to kind of know what kind of person you’re dealing with. I am the kind of person who wants to check in on with people. But also, I, I have to get into a sort of groove where I know it’s okay to check in on that person because I want to check in on people and talk with them, text with them, send emails and stuff, but I also am like, I don’t want to bother you. Right. I
don’t want to be a past
right. So I think Take into account first of all what kind of personality they have whether or not they want to be texted every day or not. But checking in, in general is always like the first step. I think whether it’s texting or like, I like to send note cards every once in a while, just like a little Hey, thinking of you thing, like super old school, but males awesome. So it’s like an extra step that people don’t think of anymore. I think just doing I think we live a lot of our lives on the internet now. But I think being that person who goes a step further from, you know, liking an Instagram post or liking a Facebook post, and like actually talking to the person in some fashion, even if that’s just leaving a comment, or a DM or whatever. That makes a big difference.
Yeah, with my like, long distance, like my really close long distance friends, if I see that they’ve posted something on Instagram or Facebook, I’m actually I’m more likely to text them about whatever they posted on the internet that I am, like, comment on it, or just like, like, I’ll probably like it too. But I am like, quite likely to just, like text them and be like, Oh, I didn’t know you were doing such and such. Or oh my gosh, I did such and such show yesterday, too. Or like, I don’t know, whatever it is. Right? Exactly. I also also think like checking in doesn’t have to be like a big deal. No, it doesn’t literally be like, I watched this video and it made me think of you. And so you just like send them the video that you saw. And then you like have a good like lol over it.
Yeah, or sometimes my friends and I like send each other pictures of desserts at restaurants that we want to go to or bakeries. And just like longingly stir them together, as though we’re as though we’re there.
Yeah, it’s absolutely been known to do that a few times by saw. The other thing, so, and I know like I am particular, I think I have said this 300 times on the podcast before. But I think that this is where knowing your friends like enneagram type can be really helpful. So for example, I have a few different very, very close friends who I all I met all three of them in college. And all three of them are some of my very dearest friends. And all of them are long distance friendships. So with one of them, she is a type three. And I know that like when she is like in her groove, like working working on a project when she was in grad school, like any of that stuff, she’s just like, tunnel vision, in that groove, she doesn’t necessarily come up for air very easily. And so we aren’t necessarily like she she’s not necessarily the type that does or needs, just like the daily check in, or like the frequent facetimes or, or phone calls or whatever, like we could go a week or two without necessarily checking in with each other pickup be totally fine. And that’s just her personality. And and it’s not that she’s neglecting me or neglecting our friendship or is decided she doesn’t want to be friends or she doesn’t love me anymore. She doesn’t get that option. By the way. I do not give it to her. Um, but it’s just that like, that’s her personality type when she’s like in her groove and work is busy. That’s where all of her like brain power goes. And so sometimes it has to be on me to like, be like, hey, come up for air. Here’s this funny thing I saw love you. Versus my other two really close friends that I mentioned are both type twos. And so for them, it definitely like they need a little bit more of the daily texts, and they’re better at that stuff. And so with those two, we have a group text all three of us and we text each other like all the time all day long, every day and like will sometimes do facetimes or will Marco Polo back and forth. And like it’s it’s both what they need and also what they’re good at. And so like, but I wouldn’t say that my friendships with them are necessarily better than my friendship with Aaron. It’s just different because of different personality types. And so I think when you can no no some of that stuff about the person that you’re in a friendship with and in any proximity but a special Long Distance when you’re not face to face all the time. I think that that can just really help clear up any like, Oh my gosh, did you not text me because you don’t love me anymore? Like? No, that’s not how my brain works, you know, whatever that
might be.
Yeah, I think it also helps when it’s somebody that you’ve known for a really long time, obviously, newer friendships, it’s harder to navigate that kind of situation. Yeah,
I mean, I think that, I think that if you have been friends very long, and you have to kind of go long distance, then I don’t know that I necessarily have the best advice. Because I mean, at that point, like, if you’re going to be friends, then you’re going to be friends. And you’re going to make it work. Right. And I mean, that goes for however long you’ve known someone. But I do think that the longer you’ve known someone like going long distance cannot can sometimes go almost be a little easier just because you understand each other. And
yeah, I think it gets easier, the longer you know them. And I was just thinking back to when I became friends with a lot of these people on the internet. It wasn’t like, we were talking every day, kind of thing. It was more. I don’t know. I guess that’s back when you know, Twitter was not weird.
Now,
and we all like read each other’s websites, and we just kind of had conversations out in the open.
Yes.
I guess like it was a big group. Chat sort of situation. Almost. Yeah.
Well, Julia, Julia, my friend that was in our wedding, she and I like became friends. Because this was back in the dark ages of blogging when you actually like commented on each other’s posts and right. And so that’s actually how we became friends, I think because we both like commented something like borderline inappropriate on each other’s like websites. And we both found the other person completely hysterical. We were like, yeah, I want to be friends with this person. And then you know, it like kind of morphed into, like, emailing and then texting and like, you know, I mean, essentially, how just how any relationship does, right. But yeah, like, some of my friends, I have a few blogger friends that have been friends with for a long time. We’re like, that’s how it started my friends stuff. She is someone who I met over the internet and then realized this is when I lived up in the Chicago area that she was also up there. And we got to meet in person. It was like a little friend blind date. And then we got to be like, real life in person friends. So yeah, it was it was a very different time. We just had conversations out Neil, but cuz I think now, I have a few friends that I’ve made more recently, particularly over Instagram, and most of those friendships have been sparked through direct messages. Like, where I follow them and or they follow me and like we’ve replied to each other’s like, Instagram stories. And obviously, that goes to direct message. And it’s been a little less over, like the comment section or whatever. Yeah, so it’s, it’s a little, a little more like, in private, I guess. So that is kind of an interesting point. How, how the way the internet works has changed how some of those friendships even gets get started.
Yeah, I can’t even imagine it. I don’t. I feel like I wouldn’t even be able to start a friendship over the internet now. Really? I mean, maybe? I don’t know. It’s so weird. It’s same thing with people. People talk about online dating. Like I’ve made all these friends on the internet, but I’m like, online dating. Oh.
Yeah. Well, I mean, you’ve been you’ve been with the same dude since the Dark Ages. So it’s, it’s fine. Um, yeah, I mean, it is definitely it’s definitely interesting. And I think that, you know, the one of the things that I think does has kind of help in making some of those friendships is that we have so many ways to connect with people who have similar interests. Whether it be like Facebook groups, or you know, Instagram or there’s all these other apps that I don’t even use that I think discord is a thing. I don’t know, clubhouses, I think, I don’t fucking know. I know people talk about them and they’re on them and they use them. I don’t really understand how, um, but, you know, I know that they they give spaces for People that have shared interests. I know like I’m in some Facebook groups where people have become friends because they like, teamed up against like these trolls together. Or they were just like responding to like dumb mansplain earners. And then they were like, you’re cool. You’re cool, too. Let’s be friends. Um, so I don’t know, it’s a it’s sort of the I feel like it’s sort of the Wild West out there in terms of meeting people and becoming friends. But for me, I feel like the friendships that I’ve made that started out long distance, in some ways have almost been ha, I guess easier to maintain. They’re just different to maintain. Yeah, they’ve always been long distance.
I think there’s less expectations then.
Yeah.
Like, even if you’re really good friends, it’s just more like, it just it just feels like less pressure.
Yeah. I would say, Yeah, I would say that’s accurate. I mean, it is really fun. When you meet someone in real life that you’ve gotten to know like over the Internet, and like you get they come visit or you meet up somewhere, you go to a conference together. That is super fun. I have also had instances where I’ve met someone in real life, and then that friendship did not continue. Like it just was not a good experience.
So same,
same. Yeah, that’s it, that is a very interesting thing to have. Because you figure out that they are not who thought that they were catfishing you. I’m not looking, I’m not like, Oh, I was being catfished. Um, but just that the person, the persona that they were putting on, is not exactly a does not exactly align with maybe who they really are at their heart. So I
feel like you talk about different things when your friendships are online. Yeah. And when you are meeting people in person, whether it’s for the first time, or you just are spending a little bit more time with them than you usually have. There’s like that moment where they kind of I don’t know if it’s that you feel comfortable or she’s you know, when you let your guard down. And you’re like, Okay, now I can just be myself. And then you realize I don’t like that.
Oops, my, my Cisco sounds so weird. Anyone who knows me in real life knows that this is me though. My I feel like my barometer for how good of a real life friendship I’m going to have is if even before meeting this person and getting that like physical, like just level of comfort with them. Like, can we talk about poop? Can we talk? Like, are we are we that kind of friend? If we are, then we’re probably going to be fine when we meet each other in person. Like, if all of those walls have just come down, then we’re probably going to be just fine.
I mean, because let’s face it, poop is a big part of your life.
It I have ulcerative colitis, guys, I have a pooping disease. Like it’s you
can’t talk about poop with people then like where? What they’re gonna miss out on a lot of your life.
Yeah, uh huh. Pretty much so. You know, it’s important stuff. And I got to like, vet you. You know, you gotta you gotta be comfortable with the weirdness.
So, and honestly, it’s 2021 women you can talk about poop.
You can like we all poop everybody.
We all poop. I I used to work for this lady who insisted on absolutely never farting or pooping when her boyfriend was over and I was like that’s not real life.
That’s a sorry exhausting.
What do you what do you do?
What am I doing that person?
If you’re at what point
does At what point does the the the curtain come down?
If he spends the night you know your party in your sleep?
It just happens. It just happens. Also, like what you just what if you eat something that sets your tummy? Like girlfriends? I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s weird. Um, so if you’re friends with me, we probably talked about poop before it’s fine. Um, yeah, I don’t know. I just feel like if even if before I met you, like, what’s our level of comfort with each other? Like I have a couple of friends that I’ve never met in person, but like I know will be just fine because of the types of conversations that we have via text like it’ll be totally cool. I know that I can meet them. They can meet my weird husband. We can let our freak flags fly. Everything will be totally cool. So yeah, I don’t know it is that is it. But it is an interesting transition to go from like, okay, we are internet friends and then like, I think we’re real life friends now. Yeah, crossing crossing that border.
It’s like a weird. It’s like unspoken. I think it just kind of happens. Because you obviously you’re not going to be it’s not like kindergarten where you’re like, I want to chew toys. And now we’re friends.
Yeah.
Here’s my half of the best friend charm. And here’s your half of the best friend. Right? Yeah, it’s just one day you realize, like, Hey, I text this person in you know, a lot, or we’ve talked on the phone a lot, or we send a lot of voice messages or like, whatever it is, Hey, I go to them when XYZ happens? I don’t know. Just sort of magically, one day, there it is. So yeah, I don’t know, I do. But I do find like, like I said, I don’t know that they’re, they’re easier to maintain. I think it’s just different. It’s just a different set of expectations. It’s a different set of almost rules in some ways. You know, cuz also like, if you, let’s say you’ve grown up with someone, and you’re really good for you were really good friends with them in school or whatever. And you’re like, from the same area. Like if you’re both home over Christmas, some there could be a lot of expectations, like unspoken expectations of like, Oh, I have to meet up and see you. And if I can’t make time for you, I’m gonna hurt your feelings. And like, you know,
I feel I feel guilty enough whenever we would go to the Twin Cities and not see all the people.
Yeah,
from college or from like, people I knew from work or like anything. I’m just like, I don’t have I don’t have time to see you. And I feel really bad about Exactly,
exactly. There’s like this guilt factor or New York, oh my gosh, am I gonna hurt their feelings or if you see, if you’re able to meet up with one person and you’re not able to meet up with the other and you feel like you have to like, meet up with the person in secret, not talk about it, not let anybody know, because you don’t want to hurt anybody else’s feelings. Like right there you like certain net like that gets kind of weird to navigate. And so I think like, I think that also helps when you can just have that kind of friendship where you can be like, Hey, I’m coming to town, I’m only going to be in town for 48 hours. I’m totally booked. It’s for work. You’re gonna see that I see on like Instagram that I was in town. I promise I’m not ignoring you. I
promise. I’m
gonna see you next time. I’m in town. Like, when I’ve been in Chicago for work. Sometimes I just have to like, shoot my friend to text and be like, I’m in Chicago. I’m super slammed for work. I know you’re super slammed, we’re not going to be able to see each other. I’m just we’re just acknowledging that now. And I promise I’ll come back in like two months and actually spend time with you. Like, sometimes you just have to straight out say it instead of dancing around it like Oh, well. Right? Because if you’re really good friends, you can be like, I’m so sorry. It was a super quick trip. I was super busy for work. I wasn’t able to see you but I promise I’ll see you soon. And they’re like not going to be like, really mad about it.
Right? Well, also, we’re adults. And so in theory, people shouldn’t be mad about it anyway. Yeah. But also like, we’ve all been in that situation.
Yes.
There’s it’s not like you’re experienced this thing in a silo. No one else has ever been to a city where they can’t miss it. Their friends. We’ve all had that happen. Exactly. We’ve all felt bad. And we shouldn’t really feel bad about it. Because it’s not something we can control. Yes. We need to stop saying sorry for things all the time.
Yes. Someone is like majorly guilting you about it? like are they? Are they as good of a friend as you think that they are? Who are they taking more than they’re giving?
That is a good. A good reminder. I also want to add I just saw one of my friends on Twitter the other day, maybe just today yesterday. I don’t remember what our days. Hey, they posted Do you think you’re a good friend? And most of the people said no. And they all gave reasons why they didn’t think that they were good friends. And I think it’s a really good reminder of so most of them said they’re not good friends right now because they just don’t have the capacity and To be the person that reaches out to be the person that that sends an email. And I felt that so hard. Yes. Because the year has been really hard. And it was just all dealt with a lot. And I think while we’re talking about these long distance friendships, I think it’s good to remember that there might be people that kind of might have fallen by the wayside in the past year. That it’s not that we don’t care about them. It’s just that we literally can’t do anything else right now. So much. So that was it was really good to read that everyone else was feeling the same way. Basically,
yeah, I was having I had a very similar conversation. And not exactly the same, but a very similar conversation with my therapist not too long ago. And that, like, you will have to sometimes give yourself grace in that. Because I think I think there are times pandemic aside, let’s pretend it’s the before times of pandemic aside, there are times when and we talked about this on our friends regular friendship episode, but it bears repeating, that there are times that you are going to need to have people be the ones reaching out to you. And then we’re going to be times when you have the capacity to be the one reaching out. Where you have the capacity to give more versus when you need to be taken care of more. And if you’re in a season where like you need to be taken care of more. Like, you have to give yourself grace and know that like that will pass and at some point, it’ll switch and your friend is going to be the one who needs to be taken care of more, and you’re going to be the caretaker a little bit more. And I think that right now, like everybody’s just sort of in the same boat. And so I think we do all we I don’t think that we’re all bad friends. Right? I think that we just all are burnt out. And that we need to just give ourselves some grace, which is hard. I’m not. I mean, I’m like the worst at it. Do as I say not as I do. Um, and just know that, like, the people that are really going to be in your life are still going to be there when you have the capacity to come up for air out again.
Yeah, I think that’s pertains. I think that’s pertains to anyone who has it, whether it’s long distance or not. But I think it’s just a good reminder that while a lot of people think that they did talk about how friendship works both ways, and it’s 5052 way street, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all those platitude II things. And that may be true, but it’s not. It’s not a two way street at the same time.
Yeah, it’s like an average of 5050. Right. So like, sometimes it’s gonna be
2080.
Either way, and in theory over time, it’s averaging out to be equal. Right? Sometimes it’ll sometimes Yeah, there, I think there will be there are times where it is, you know, it is equal, it is 5050. But I think most of the time, you know, 6040, or it’s 3070. And now I’m just showing off that I can do math. But I think I think in the ideal, it averages out to be that 5050 but it’s not going to be 5050 every single day. Yeah, it just can’t. I mean, you know, when when I lost my mom, I was like at function, eight out of 2%. And all of my friends had to be at 98% to take care of me and they did. And since then, they have, you know, my friends have had moments where I have had to be the one carrying them. They I have picked them up. they’ve picked me up at one point and then I pick them up later. Just how friendships work.
Indeed,
I think that I think another thing about long distance friends too, is like sometimes people come to our minds for a reason. And if you’re thinking about somebody just check in on them. Like it takes very little time to send a text. And again, like we said before, it doesn’t have to you don’t have to be initiating, like an hour’s long conversation. But you can just be like, Hey was thinking of you. Hey, love you. Hey, here’s a funny Tiktok. Hey, here’s a funny Instagram post. Hey, here’s a picture of Chris Evans. shirtless, preferably. I don’t know, like, whatever it is, that maybe they haven’t had the capacity to reach out. But they will appreciate hearing from you.
Yeah, obviously, we can only speak to female friendships
in general. I
have absolutely no idea about me. I don’t
I don’t I Bob, we Bob has male friends long distance. I don’t know how he talks to them. They are friends in Austin that he has a Slack channel with them. But he’s got his best friend from high school. I don’t they talk like, I don’t even know once a year. Maybe. They just get on the phone. And they just like shout at each other. Yeah, happily shouting. But yes, they don’t. It’s like a relationship where you don’t? There are certain certain long distance relationships where you don’t check in necessarily. Yeah. But there’ll be times where you just like, you just get together and you just kind of pick up where you left off. Yeah, Alec, and you don’t feel the need to like catch up. You just kind of like, okay, we’re gonna go for a beer.
Yeah, every now and again. I’ll be like, he’ll be like 10 o’clock at night. And I’ll hear Alex talking on the phone. Like randomly. It’s almost always his best friend Parker who he met because they worked together. And then Parker moved out to Oregon. And so like, Yeah, sometimes I’ll just like all the sudden hear Alex like talking on the phone downstairs at like, 10 o’clock. And
that, like, it’s a ghost, there’s a ghost.
It always freaks me out, of course, cuz she’s a dummy. But I’m always like, Oh, there he goes, Betty talking to Parker and be like, Oh, yeah, just sweeps call ups just shoot the shit. You know, just pick up right where, you know, right where they left off. So again, I think that that’s, that’s the thing about not just knowing, understanding your own personality, but understanding the personalities of your friends and just kind of knowing, like, being able to read that room, being able to know, this is these are some of the things that they’re going to need for me and that they’re able to give and, like, how do we balance that? Yeah. Again, just like any relationship
so hard.
Yeah, you know, I think it’s so interesting, because I get and I think, I think they talked about this in in big friendship. But like, we put so much, we talk so much about nurturing romantic relationships. And we talk so little about nurturing friendships.
Yeah, I think a lot of people, it. It’s interesting, because I think a lot of people just kind of take friendships for granted.
Um,
which is funny to me, because I definitely, you know, there’s people that I’m not friends with anymore, and people that I’ve reconnected with over the years, and friendships do change. And so you’re not necessarily going to be the friends with people that you were friends with before. And so they do take work.
Yeah, they do. And, and again, like, at any given time, you are most likely, hopefully, in one romantic relationship at a time. And we’re not judging, we’re not judging, but hopefully you’re just in one. And, or if you are in multiple that it is a mutual sexual, consensual thing. Yes. Um, but you most likely have multiple friendships.
Right.
So I don’t know, I do. I think I pretty sure was at the beginning of bank friendship where they talked about that. And I was like, it was sort of this like lightbulb like yeah, like, why don’t we talk more about, you know what couples go to end like? Yes. Okay. If you’re in a long term romantic relationship with someone you are most likely cohabitating and so that adds a whole level of stuff and you are legally bound to this person if you get married to them and like XYZ thing, but At the same time, you know, we talk about going to couples therapy and you know, nurturing your romantic relationship, but we forget that friendships are as emotionally necessary to be a healthy person, as her romantic relationships are. And some people, you know, go their entire lives and they’re not in romantic relationships, but they have friendships or whatever. So, all that to say, let’s figure out our friends and take care of those friendships long distance or not.
Yeah.
Because we need each other.
We do need each other. tell you I’m a needy person. I am a needy person. I try to give as much as I perceive, but I am a needy person. So there it is.
I will absolutely not tell you what I need.
I will just have to guess.
I thought you I’m getting better. You are
getting better. It’s fine. It’s your five and a Taurus, and all of the things. Also, I thought it was very funny. We were at dinner on Sunday night out at a restaurant. And the server was like, oh, did you sell a Porsche celebrating and said that we were celebrating your birthday? And he’s like, oh, you’re a Taurus. I’m a Taurus too. And you’re like bonded over being stubborn Tauruses is adorable. They brought us really good. doughnuts for dessert.
did bring us a really good doughnut.
They were really excellent.
Okay, Megan,
what brings us joy this week?
What’s bringing us joy?
Well, we’ve already been talking about it, but trip to Chicago. Alright, first post pandemic, like, I guess not post pandemic, but mid pandemic. I don’t know what to call it. Post vaccinated trip. We got the heck out of town in which Chicago and a bunch of food and took naps and went to the Art Museum, which is one of my favorite things to do. Because you don’t talk to anyone. And you go at your own pace and look at pretty pictures and sculptures and stuff. And pretty great. Yeah, I love going to museums.
I like museums, too, because I like I am not, I’m not an art person. I enjoy art. But I’m not necessarily like I can just sit and stare at one piece of art for hours. It’s rare for that to happen. For me, there are a few pieces that I really, really, really love. But for the most part, I just sort of mosey and read a little bit of the description and like do things at my own pace. So I appreciate when I can like break off from the person that I’m with? Because undoubtedly they are going to go at a different pace and find something interesting that I do not find interesting and vice versa. So yeah, it was it was nice. And
yeah, yeah, we just plaint
is it’s it’s so hard to it’s so hard to navigate the museum. You get lost, you get lost so easily, especially now. Right now they have arrows on the floor that are supposed to help you with social distancing. They don’t know they don’t, they don’t really help you with navigating the museum. No. I just got lost multiple times because I was trying to go certain places and then parts of the museum were closed and
it’s fine. But
also they only had like, there’s only like two bathrooms in that entire in the Art Institute, Chicago Art Institute, and it’s really annoying. So
I think there are more but they’re in other buildings. So you don’t have to walk through the whole museum again.
I feel like we could consolidate some of these galleries aren’t people are going to be so mad at me for saying this. I feel like we could consolidate some of these galleries where there’s just a lot of empty space. And we could make some extra bathrooms that would be great. I would love it. Thank you.
There’s a lot of what what’s this one that usually I almost always avoid like the like the 17th century Spanish portrait section. There’s always too many of those. That Sorry, sorry, folks. Lots
of repeats of royalty. royalty portraits are just I did or not even like the royalty portraits they’re just like noble people not and kings and queens just random ass noble people and I’m like, wow, I have seen 87 noble people who I don’t give a flying fuck about.
But here they all are in one I did take some art history in college before I switch to archaeology and but I did not make it to the 16th century
art when I when I studied abroad, I took art history class where we went to the Prado every week, and like actually saw the art that we were talking about. And there was definitely a big like, noble person portrait chalk for I was Oh, yeah, can we can we? Can we move on from like, Well, first, you start off with like, all of the like, with like El Greco and all of the Jesus portraits with the the Halo, I can’t remember what that Halo is called. It has real name. Anyway, clearly all the art history stuck with me really closely. And then, and then we moved on to like Velasquez and all of his, like, royalty portraits, some of which were really interesting, but most of which I was like, another noble person on a horse. Neat. And then we moved on to Goya and the Black Paintings. And those are actually fascinating. And so you know, he just kind of got a you got to get through it.
You got to get out again. Yeah.
The 16th 17th century portraits, it’s a whole thing.
Anyway, it was delightful. It was we I ordered a I pre ordered a cake from Chicago. How was it and brought it back with me? Um, so I will say this. I don’t know that I would get it again.
Okay.
But it’s not because it doesn’t taste good. I think it’s because it’s kind of in the same style as like the milkbar cakes. Okay, that I don’t quite understand. Like, there’s not enough cake. None of actual like CAKE CAKE. It looked like there
was maybe a lot of frosting in between
those layers, a lot of frosting. And I’m not a frosting person. I like the cake. Yes. Um, so I, I like it. But at the same time, I kind of found myself wishing I had just had a regular cake. Oh, no. So it’s fine. I’m still glad I got it. Because I will never make what I ordered is called a pancake cake. It’s not made out of pancakes. It is Maple flavored, basically. And it’s very sweet. And a lot of frosting. So it was good. But I also had regrets because I have all those cupcake flavors. And the cupcakes were enormous. And I couldn’t justify bringing home an entire cake. When cookies and these gigantic like Texas size cupcake.
retrospect you probably could have gotten like half a dozen cupcakes and been like, totally happy. But I think
that’s what we’ll do. So if I go back again,
next birthday.
Next time, I will just pick up some cupcakes instead of a cake because then I can have all the flavors. That’s really what I want. That’s why I like we go when we go out to eat, we get tapis and stuff. I just want to eat all the different things. Yes. Instead of one giant thing.
Yes, I agree with that. I agree with that. Anyway,
it was delightful. And I’m very glad you joined me.
I had so much fun. I’m not to cheat, but that was definitely my joy too. And I got maybe the most I will say it was maybe the best oatmeal cookie I’ve ever had from sugarcoat it was really fucking good.
But had pickled reason reasons. Right. I
know. That sounds so weird and so gross. But it was so good. It just made the raisins like First of all, they were extra plump. And a little tangy. I don’t know. It was interesting. It wasn’t like it was it wasn’t like vinegary or anything like that. It just had a little extra like tang to them. And they weren’t like dried out or anything. They were super plump.
Yeah, it was.
It was really chewy.
Oh yeah, it
was a really good cookie. I absolutely could recommend that cookies if anyway and I because I love oatmeal cookies. So it was my jam. And I even shared some bytes with the baby and she loved it too. She was very happy. She kept going.
So
it was it was good. It was a good weekend.
Next week’s episode
It was a very good weekend. Well, next week, we are also going to touch a little bit on something that we did over the week. Okay, we all have to stay tuned for that. But we are going to be returning to one of our favorite fun topics, musicals, and we’re going to have the help of one of our favorite returning guests, our friend Caleb.
Basically we have a lot of questions about the movie cats, but you’re gonna have to come back next week for that. In the meantime, leave us review on Apple podcasts and listen to us on your favorite platform. You can also follow us on social media at irsipodcast or send us an email at idratherstayinpodcast@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you.
Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai