The Quickie: Why You Need Friends Who Are In Your Life Stage, And How To Navigate The Splinter Era

Teach Me How To Adult

05-06-2024 • 21 min

We’re in the splinter era of friendships (as coined by Tinx), where everyone’s suddenly in different life stages, on very different journeys.

While one friend is planning their wedding, another is having her second baby, another is single AF traveling the world in the name of self-discovery, and others are going all in on their new business or corporate ladder climbing. It can feel isolating, confusing, and hard to relate to the people you were always in sync with.

Cue the old childhood Girl Scouts jingle: “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other’s gold.”

It’s so valuable to have friends in different life stages who are going through different experiences, but it’s equally important to surround yourself with people who are where you are in life right now — because being the only single person in a group of married friends fucking sucks.

We tend to expect everything from one person, whether it’s a romantic partner or best friend, but we should be diversifying our needs across many people to feed different parts of ourselves. The friends we make to meet us where we are right now don’t need to be ride-or-die forever besties… there is just as much value in having friends for a season who can walk with you through the current phase you’re in.

So tune in for some real talk on friendships, where I chat about:

  • The repercussions of splinter era and why this is unique to our generation
  • The different kinds off friends you need
  • The value of finding our work wives, single friends, and fellow mamas
  • Investing in seasonal friends and deprioritizing the idea of “forever friends”
  • How to meet new friends that meet your needs
  • The Mel Robbins analogy that changed how I approach friendship

Wherever you are on your adulting journey, I hope you find good people to walk it with. You’ve got this!

Our show is produced by:

  • Gillian Berner, Host, Producer & Editor
  • Olivia Nashmi, Audio Engineer
  • Carolyn Schissler, Designer & Web Producer
  • Sara Valentine, Content Producer

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