Making Friends Later in Life – Episode 8 When You're the Only One Reaching Out | Reclaiming Balance in Friendship

0:00 Jennifer: Hey there, I'm Jennifer.

0:01 Jackie: And I'm Jackie.

0:02 Jennifer: And welcome to Slightly Insupervised, where best friends, business partners, and the chaos behind bestimony, a ceremony we created to celebrate the kind of soulmates who don't come with a marriage license.

0:11 Jackie: Podcast is all about our f that friendship energy, the deep stuff, the messy stuff, and the laugh to snort stuff.

0:16 Jennifer: So whether you're driving, folding laundry, hiding in your car for some peace and quiet, you're in good company.

0:20 Jackie: Let's get slightly unsupervised.

0:22 Jennifer: Well, welcome back, everybody. We are now on episode eight of our series, Making Friends Later. This episode is matching effort when you do when you're doing too much and how to stop. And we want to help women recognize when they're overfunctioning in friendships. Understand why matching effort matters emotionally, and learn how to protect their energy without becoming cold or reactive.

0:42 Jackie: Why this episode matters. Have you ever realized you're the only one reaching out, the only one making plans, the only one checking in? And then one day you stop and the friendship just disappears. This episode isn't about keeping score. It's about recognizing when you're carrying something that was supposed to be mutual and learning how to stop overgiving without becoming bitter.

1:00 Jennifer: Absolutely. This whole series, this whole episode we're going to be talking about matching effort actually means what it means to match effort. That it's not tit for tat, guys. We don't want you to start a spreadsheet on who called who last and who texts who last, because that's more of a transactional friendship. What we want is that somebody is mutually initiating some interaction. Some people are emotionally investing in something and stuff, that there's some mutual energy that uh there's a matching effort, but it doesn't necessarily mean tit for tat.

1:32 Jennifer: We don't want to get too bogged down on that because sometimes people are like, Well, I text you last and you better text me back. You know, once in a while people forget. I do it all the time, Jack. You do it too. I'm sure it's like you text me or something, I'm in the middle of something. Maybe I'm at work or something. I see your text and I read it and I don't have time to respond. And then I go on with my day, and then I've totally forgotten you've texted me. And it happens all the time.

1:54 Jackie: All the time.

1:54 Jennifer: Yeah. That or what happened with Jen? I just was we have one of our best friends last night. She's like, I totally thought I sent this message and I just realized it never went through or it never came through, or she forgot to send it or something. And it's like, it happens all the time, y'all. That these things happen. So we're not asking you to be so stringent on this that the matching effort is if I text you better, text me back. If you don't text me back, I'm never texting you again. It's not about that.

2:18 Jennifer: It's kind of like, let me text you. If you don't respond, there's always a little nudge. Be like, hey, I don't know if you saw my last message. Um, did you want to have lunch or whatever you text to that person? Sometimes a little nudge is nice. Or, you know, just starting with a new conversation that it, you know, kind of bypasses that so that you can go on to see if there's really any in information. Maybe they don't respond. Sometimes people don't respond because they don't want to go do the thing you want to do, or they don't they're not interested in it.

2:47 Jennifer: And so they don't respond to it.

2:49 Jackie: Or like what happened this weekend, other girls brought it up in our group text about when I asked everybody for Thanksgiving or for Valentine's for the plans I was making.

2:57 Song: Yeah.

2:58 Jackie: And our one girlfriend's saying, I was sitting there screaming at the phone, it's only November. That's why we haven't answered you. I know, right? And it was for Valentine's plans, but I sent it in November because I wanted to plan it out and who was gonna be here. You know, if in case someone couldn't come, I wanted to get other people involved because we had so many, only so many people we could have, and to make it nice and you know, smaller and not too big, because then you don't get to spend the time with the people.

3:23 Jackie: But um, but they kept hearing me asking, kept asking over and over until I finally got an answer.

3:29 Jennifer: Right. Because you persisted that way. But they're like, we're not thinking about November, we're not thinking about things or uh Valentine's Day till February. And and it's true. I mean, there's a lot of holidays kind of like by the time January comes, which by the way is the longest month of the year, I swear that's the longest January of my life. And then February starts, it gets a little better because it's shorter. But I wouldn't think about Valentine's Day until February.

3:53 Jackie: And I'm already starting my plans for for July 4th. So exactly.

3:58 Jennifer: Next time we talk to Jackie, she will have her Thanksgiving plans in order. So some you gotta meet people where they're at, right? So Jackie's a planner and Jackie's gotta she does take care of all the problem. I mean, not only the problem, she takes care of all the planning. So for her, she needs to know. But it's the same thing that, you know, just because you don't get an answer, just because they don't text you back, sometimes they don't want to do it, move on to the next thing. Maybe you say, Hey, do you want to go have a cup of coffee?

4:24 Jennifer: Maybe they never answer you. They didn't get it, they don't have time, whatever. The next time you text them, maybe you come up with something different. Maybe it was the coffee they didn't want to do. Maybe you'll be like, Hey, do you want to go grab a drink or something? So give some some time for people to respond. Don't be so stringent on the fact that they didn't respond. But you don't want to be the only one making some kind of effort. And uh, we're gonna talk about how you know you're overfunctioning in a relationship so that we can give you some spaces to say to yourself, Am I doing that?

4:56 Jennifer: Is that something that I'm doing? So here are the signs that you're doing too much. You want to talk about Jack?

5:02 Jackie: Sure. You always text first. You are the planner. You check in emotionally. Yeah, I'm saying that sounds like me. You check in emotionally, but they don't. You justify their silence, you feel drained instead of connected, you feel resentful, but say nothing.

5:18 Jennifer: Yeah. So that's always a good sign, is just to be aware. Be aware. If you are making efforts and you're not getting a response, then it may be uh a one-sided friendship. And, you know, it's it happens to all of us. I don't want anybody out there to feel like it only happens to them. We've all been there, we've all done that. I have a very good friend that I was friends with for a very long time. And something happened and we had a bump in the road, and that friendship imploded. And I've said it before and I'll say it again.

5:51 Jennifer: It's like, was I keeping that alive? Because how could it implode on one bump in the road if it wasn't something that the other person was valuing as well? That, you know, it's a realization that maybe they didn't value that friendship like I've valued it because I feel like they would have responded and we would have worked through it, right? So you, you it happens to all of us. I mean, I'm not we're we're not just because we're best friends or we have friends groups or whatever, doesn't mean that we haven't experienced this stuff too.

6:21 Jennifer: So, you know, you gotta test your friendships once in a while to see how it's going. But I think a good thing is is that if you're the one doing everything, you've got to take a step back and say, okay, I'm not going to, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna see if somebody else does that. But when you were saying that, Junkie, I was thinking about you always text virtue with the planner. Well, you are the planner for us. Like for the most part, you are. And so I don't want you to feel that way.

6:44 Jackie: No, no, I'm I'm just joking. No, you know I enjoy planning. Yeah. So that's not a problem for me. That works out in our our group of friends, friendships, even with my other friends that you know that I do the other things with besides you five or four. Sorry. I like to if I can plan, I like to plan. I then I know what's gonna happen and what's gonna go on. It's gonna be all done and ready.

7:03 Jennifer: Right. But I think part of that is your personality too, right? You want to be the planner because you want to make sure that it goes smoothly and you have the control over it.

7:11 Jackie: And that everybody has a good time.

7:13 Jennifer: Yeah, everybody has a good time, and we're all like, yeah, go for it, plan it. We'll pitch into whatever. But like Jackie's birthday is coming up next month. They all I'm just gonna tell you this right now. I'm gonna sidebar this for a minute. Jackie's birthday is next month, and we all get gifts for each other. Well, Jackie gets everybody's gift, and we give Jackie money, and Jackie takes care of it. Next month, it's Jackie's birthday. Now, the four of us that are not very good at it have to come together and figure out what to give for Jackie.

7:38 Jennifer: So it's gonna be an interesting thing to see how the four of us outside of Jackie can get this thing done. But we will.

7:44 Jackie: You always do.

7:45 Jennifer: But we're I'm just giving you a headship. It's how that works with us. Anyway, so if you stop trying, you know, the thing to ask yourself is that, and women do it, women own our function, we do everything, we plan everything, we're used to it, we're in charge, we're mothers, we then are wives, we take care of everything, blah, blah, blah. That you are not that person in friendship. That it's a mutual thing and a friendship that needs to be both ways. And you cannot be the only one overfunctioning in that and taking care of everything because you're used to it.

8:13 Jennifer: You need to take a step back and let some people show you that they want to be in that relationship with you. So we are women and we are conditioned over function from the day we were born to the day we die. We are overfunctioning. We have a lot of responsibilities on our plate. So it may be, it may be something to think about that you had conditioned to do it and you have to stop doing that. You need to give some pause and let people come with their own side of that friendship so that you can understand if there's really a friendship or not a friendship.

8:44 Jennifer: So be careful on that and don't think that just because you're the woman, you got to take care of everything. Your friendship may be with another woman and maybe with a guy too. I mean, everybody has best friends that are different, but there is uh there's there's cause to think about it. And the more you think about it, the more you can handle it. And if you don't think about it and you just get yourself in the situation where you've done everything and now you're angry, it's not a lot of room for fixing because now you've got yourself bitter.

9:09 Jennifer: Like you did everything. So starting to I don't get bitter.

9:12 Jackie: Don't worry about me. But our friendships, you know, we've had our this friendship for for a long time with the five of us, and we kind of all know what all of our rules are in it all. And I enjoy my role. I never complain about it at all. Just I just need everybody to get it back to me when I ask them to in a timely manner. In my manner, timely manner, not theirs.

9:29 Jennifer: If you're gonna be the flatter, you need to know the rules, right? So yeah, and we know that about you, and we appreciate that about you. But yes, everybody has a role and everybody does a certain thing, and that's just your role. That's I'm thankful for it. I mean, I don't have time to do it, so I'm thankful. And like I said, we'll see how it goes. I mean, it's just the four of us having to figure out something for you. Anyways, why matching effort is so hard for women? It goes deeper than the psychological part of that.

9:52 Jennifer: Jack, do you want to read those?

9:53 Jackie: Reasons women overgive. Fear of losing connection, fear of being forgotten, identity tied to being needed, learned people pleasing, and loneliness.

10:03 Jennifer: So those are all valid parts by women would definitely overgive.

10:08 Jackie: Because we're afraid that if we don't, there will be nothing there.

10:11 Jennifer: Right. But you gotta kind of test it to see if there's nothing there, because you may end up in a one-sided friendship, which isn't a friendship. It's uh it's I don't know what it is. I mean, I've been there, so I understand it. Like you think it's a friendship, but it may not be a friendship. It may not be a mutual thing, and you know, that's even worse. I spent how many years in that? At least 30 years in that, and to find out it really didn't mean that much to somebody, that's a rough place to be.

10:36 Jennifer: And and I know I'm not the only one that's had this, so uh I'm just putting mine out there because I think that it's good to be relatable in this, but I'm sure you've had it too, Jack, where you've lost the friends and You're right.

10:46 Jackie: And and and I'm kind of on the other side of it. I you know, I I got rid of a friend just because of things I did notice she was doing to me that you know had nothing, not that she wasn't ha doing any of these things that you know that I would expect her to do, that she was not healthy for me. Right. It was always, you know, not toxic. Yeah, very toxic. So I'm the other side, but that's something that had to be done. I I just finally figured it out. Like, hey, I'm doing all this and you're just not a nice person back to me.

11:14 Jackie: Right. And I think what you needed.

11:16 Jennifer: Yeah, but what you needed, I think, in that was that you needed somebody to be good to you or not be toxic with you to realize that, wait a minute, these people don't talk that way to me. Why are you talking that way to me? Like, you need some contrast, right?

11:27 Jackie: So contrast always helps sort of bring things into light because you're like And always talking behind my back or saying certain things to other people and it getting back to me.

11:36 Jennifer: Right.

11:36 Jackie: And just I like just things that just weren't weren't nice.

11:40 Jennifer: Do you think she matched your energy, or do you think that you were holding on to that more than she was?

11:45 Jackie: Probably I was holding on to I think because she was there when I was going through a hard time divorce and stuff like that. Right. And whenever I, you know, when even the before the divorce and the hard times were happening with my me and my ex, she thrived on not focusing on her own life. She li thrived in other people's like having bad stuff going on. It made her feel better in her glasshouse. Right.

12:06 SPEAKER_03: Right.

12:07 Jackie: And I really didn't know it because I mean I had her helping me and I wasn't a person that told everybody what was going on. I just didn't, I kind of kept it to myself until it happened.

12:15 Song: Right.

12:16 Jackie: When I divorced, I literally moved with my boys, sent out a card with the pictures of all of us and said, we have moved and there's no husband in it. And everybody's like calling. Something you're trying to tell us? Well, there it is. It's only me and my boys now.

12:29 Jennifer: Yeah, it's went to the three of us. The four of us have gone to the three of us. And the other guy's still alive, so he's not he's gone. But yeah, I think that, you know, we we we want so hard to make everything work, and we definitely there's gotta be some fear of being forgotten or identity needs to be needed. And I think your friend over there that you're talking about, that's probably uh her identity needed to be needed, tied to her needing, and that you were probably somebody's life that was worse off than her, so she felt comfort in dealing with your problem instead of dealing with her own problems, basically.

13:03 Jackie: Exactly what it got to. And it's bummer, it took that long because that was a lot of years too. Yeah when I finally did it, I was just like, just relief, just relief.

13:12 Jennifer: Yeah. You know, because you were holding on to something that you probably knew a long time ago to let go of and you just ignored yourself. So at that moment you were being on you were being true to yourself, which is why it felt better at that point. So overfunctioning feels safer than finding out the truth sometimes. And we just want to make sure that you you really worry about this mat this energy matching thing, that you have some attention to it because it can be very telling about how much of relationship will survive.

13:42 Jennifer: Again, I'll say it again. I said every time we talk about this. The point is that you're going to have some bumps, you're going to have some failures. And this is one of those things that probably will happen to you. And this is a good one to dump out of before you get too far down the line with it. But, you know, you're looking for a friend, you're looking for a mutual friend. And if you don't find them and you're doing all the energy, and then all of a sudden you give up because everybody's the same, you we don't want that either.

14:06 Jennifer: We're trying to give you the heads up that these things happen and that it's gonna be part of it, and you're gonna have to go through a few friendships before you find a real friend. And it's don't give up on the first one just because it feels like this was what happened to you. And um, you know, it's easy to put everybody in the same bucket that everybody does the same thing. It's it's just not true. So you gotta keep working at it. And if you can call it early and you don't go through 30 years of it like Jackie and I probably did on each of these friends, and you know, you are a lot better off.

14:35 Jennifer: I had no idea any test of my friendship until it we ran into a bump. So sometimes you just don't know. So, anyways, it's how to start matching energy without drama. Practice initiating a little bit. So initiate and then wait. Maybe you don't hear something back, maybe initiate once or twice more. I wouldn't do it much more than that, right? If I said, Hey, Jackie, you want to have a drink? You don't respond. Maybe the next cool. Yeah. The next week I might be like, Hey, Jackie, do you want to go have a cup of coffee?

15:02 Jennifer: No response. There's two out of two, maybe one more, be like, hey, I never heard back from you. We're gonna watch football if you want to come over. If there is a three, I'm out, you're out. Like, I'm not there's not even a response in between. One thing if I said, Hey, Jackie, do you want to have a drink? And you go, I can't tonight. Well, that's the response. That's good. That's an initiation of responding to you. And then I say, Oh, do you want a cup of coffee? It'd be like, Oh, shoot, it's a bad week for me.

15:27 Jennifer: Again, through an issue, that's responding. That's somebody that's participating in a friendship that you could be like, okay, well, we'll try again, another thing, you know, because not everybody has the same schedules. It's the no response, it's the I'm always asking and you're never responding. By the third time, if you're not getting a response, I say that's it, right, Jack? What do you think? What's your call on that one?

15:48 Jackie: I'll agree with you. That's fine. That works for me.

15:50 Jennifer: Yeah. By three times, if you don't hear back from somebody, it's a pretty good indication.

15:55 Jackie: Yeah.

15:56 Jennifer: I think one time maybe they didn't see the text. Second time, by the third time, I think you've got a pretty good indication. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, protect your energy, guys, while you're out there, that you want to make sure that it's being returned. We don't want you going out there and giving everything to everybody and then feeling like you drained your soul out, or you, you know, showed this person everything on the in your deck, and then they're like, nope, oversharing's bad too. So let's be careful with that.

16:23 Jennifer: Do you have any funny stories, Jenny, about people that have overshared or have started that where you've just like pulled back and went, Oh my heavens. I can only think about it when I think about dating. Like people that are like, oh my God, you're my soulmate. Like, we have a good date. Good God.

16:38 Jackie: Oh my god That's so true. Or we're talking about actually all of us girls, because you know, we watched the big brother or these dating, you know, shows and um the thought that they've only went on the like a date like once or twice, and they're just like, I'm so in love with you. Or big brother, they're like best friends. I mean, I understand they're in this place for 24 hours a day. Yeah. But when it's like it's only been one week you've been there, like you don't even know this person yet. Come on.

17:02 Jennifer: No. Even if you're living with them, you're not you don't really know them, right? Like, I know.

17:07 Jackie: You haven't seen what I really do when I get in a deep sleep and I take my clothes off and I end up that yet. That's why my husband won't let me on the big brother.

17:18 Jennifer: He's like, you move around at night. Shaggy moves around, she sleepwalks. I've been in bed with at her house and she gets in bed with me, and I'm like, oh hey, go back to sleep. And I wake up, she's back in her bed. So that's just something she does. If you're friends with her, you gotta know about that about her, be okay with it.

17:33 Song: Like, yeah.

17:34 Jennifer: Doesn't bother me that I'm used to it. I know she's asleep when she gets in bed with me, then she just goes to sleep. It's so funny, too, because when I go to your house, you generally will sleepwalk over to my room and hang out with me. It's probably just like the years we've all like we've been best friends, like just familiar. Just a comfort. Yeah, comfort, maybe. We sleep with Jen for a little while. She wakes up eventually and realizes, where am I? She's in the wrong bed. So keeping yourself first looks like not chasing clarity, not over-explaining your distance, not shrinking your needs, not rescuing the dynamic, and not begging for consistency.

18:09 Jennifer: You're responsible, you're not responsible for maintaining every connection that it is not your job to do it. So if someone wants access to you, they will reach out. Again, they will do it. It will be reciprocal. There are people that are shy. I mean, there's all these excuses we can give to people about why they didn't do something. But if somebody wants to be in your life, they will have a place in your life to do so. And uh, just a little bit about Jackie and I, because I think it's important to talk about our friendship.

18:38 Jennifer: Jackie and I were not friends for about 15 years. We were best friends in like high school, and then she got married, and I didn't like her husband, and he didn't like me, and there was a big void there, about 15 years. Plus, we were raising kids. I mean, it was just there's probably gonna be a lull there, anyways, right? But when we did come back together, Jack, wouldn't you say that the only way for us to get through that was to start to test that, right? Like Jack could be like, hey, do you wanna come?

19:03 Jennifer: She was having a late, you know, late thing or something at her house. Do you want to come? I'll invite some people over. So that's that's the initiation, right? And my response was, sure, I'll try to come. So had I been no, I can't, no, I can't, no, I can't, then you would see that there would be this thing, like, well, I'm trying to make a friendship, trying to do something here that doesn't respond to me. So that's your cue, right? But it the outcome, maybe I couldn't come every time, but I'll can come to that one, I'll try.

19:31 Jennifer: And then then it's back in my court. Like, hey, Jack, um, do you guys want to come up and hang out with us and on the weekend we're gonna, you know, at my house or whatever. So that's up to her to come back. But those are mutual things that happened. Because we'd lived, what, seven hours apart from each other? At that point, six or seven hours, it was a distance between us. So I came to her, she came to me, I came to her, she came to me.

19:55 Jackie: And we both always usually drove. We didn't. I think maybe once you flew, because it was like something else we were doing, but with everybody. But I think pretty much when you came to stay or every came to stay, we drove both directions.

20:08 Jennifer: Right. Which is a lot. I mean, that's a day driving and a day drive back. So there's two days of your life driving really to see somebody. But it that's how we worked through it. It was a back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, the more time. So sometimes we meet in other places, like we flew to Vegas when you were so there was that. I mean, but it required some mutual consideration for each other and to say, okay, you're valuing my friendship now. I'll come see you. You thank you for the invite.

20:37 Jennifer: We'll see how it goes. And then how about you come see me now? I've come to see you. Does that matter to you? And then it does. And then it goes back and forth, back and forth. We're not in that anymore. Now we can move past that. But it took some time for us to get to that point, and it had to be mutual. She had to come and I had to go, and we had to make that work. But the point of this is that these are friends that were friends for a long time that weren't friends, and we still had to go through this to get to the point where we got into a position that we could trust each other again in each other's space, and that the friendship was actually something that meant something to both of us and not just one of us.

21:13 Jennifer: Don't you think, Jack?

21:14 Jackie: No, definitely, definitely.

21:16 Jennifer: That it was you needed my effort and I needed your effort. And we knew that. And so we we walked quietly behind that back and forth. It wasn't a big disruptive, crazy thing. It was very slow and methodical until we could feel comfortable that the other one was gonna be good for us again. Because we hadn't been friends for 15 years. I didn't know. And we were different people. Yeah. Yep. I had to learn who you were then, and you had to learn who I was then. Life had changed us. So it goes happens for everybody.

21:47 Jennifer: So just, you know, know that if it doesn't work and those are things that don't happen and somebody doesn't reciprocate, you didn't fail. You tried, and it just wasn't a mutual thing. And that's okay. Give that some closure in your head. It happens.

22:05 Jennifer: Put it in perspective. You were gonna be a friend or try to be a good friend. And if you were and they didn't work out when they were lost, not yours. They were something that you need to give yourself credit for. So anyways, um if this episode hit you in the fields or made you laugh way too hard, we consider that a win.

22:22 Jackie: Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your writer died.

22:26 Jennifer: And when you're ready to make your friendship official, put your best and money at rhinestonewedding travel.com.

22:30 Jackie: Because the best love stories don't always come with a ring.

22:47 Song: We stick together, ride or die to the moon, and no amount of space could ever come between us two. The reuniting's like we never been apart, and every single time we're eye to eye and heart a heart.

23:21 Song: Through heartaches and ups and downs in this life, you've stayed right next to me. I've ought to make you laugh, don't you cry? Look at everything under the moon. The definition of a best friend is good.

23:56 SPEAKER_03: And we'll keep printing through the rays. We're ever connected, same page, we're writing a story. Everything we'll keep on going every time.

24:28 Song: What you made a made. Two heartaches and ups and downs and this life you've stayed right next to me. I'll make you laugh till you cry. Don't come through everything under the mole. The definition of a best friend. It's good.

24:55 Song: It's good.

24:58 Song: It's good.

25:08 Song: Trust that says loyalty.

25:16 Song: You are me.

25:21 Song: Love trust. That says loyalty.

25:30 Song: You are me.