Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship

Why a painful ending (or a slow drift) doesn't erase the good years of a friendship.

When someone describes a friendship that ended, there's a response I often see online: “She was never really your friend.” I've been wanting to talk about why I think this is such unhelpful advice.

In this solo episode, I'm making the case that a friendship can drift apart or even end painfully and still have been meaningful, genuine, and important. Just because someone disappointed you doesn't mean they never cared about you. And just because a friendship faded doesn't mean the years you spent together were wasted.

I'm talking about friendships that naturally fade when circumstances change, as well as closer friendships that end after hurt feelings, disappointments, or unresolved tension. There's a difference between recognizing that a friendship wasn't good for you and rewriting its entire history because of how it ended.

I also discuss why we should be careful with sweeping statements when comforting someone who's grieving a friendship. We can validate their pain without turning their former friend into a villain.

My hope is that we can leave more room for nuance when thinking about our former friends and the friendships that didn't last. We can appreciate what was good, acknowledge what went wrong, and accept that the friendship is over without declaring that none of it was real.

LINKS MENTIONED:

• Episode 201: A Softer Way to Think About Friendships That Faded (with Rebecca Kotok)
• Episode 214: Are We Giving Up on Our Friends Too Quickly? (with Melissa Radke)

 

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify

📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina

🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events

🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!

📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack

❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group

📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question

📪 email: [email protected]

🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

How often do you pass up an opportunity to connect with someone because you're telling yourself you're not someone who needs it, you're worried about bothering them, or you simply don't feel like it? What if those small decisions are costing us more than we realize?

My guest is Nicholas Epley, psychologist, behavioral scientist, and professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. His new book, A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection, explores why reaching out to others often makes us happier than we expect.

One of the most fascinating parts of our conversation challenges what we believe about introverts and extroverts. Nick shares research showing that acting a little more outgoing can make us feel happier and even more authentic (not less as you might assume), regardless of how we typically describe ourselves.

We also discuss why we underestimate how positively others will respond when we reach out, our fear of bothering people, and why hearing someone's voice can communicate warmth that a text message simply can't.

As Nick reminds us, we don't have to overhaul our personalities or fill every free moment with conversation. We can enjoy our alone time while noticing more of the easy opportunities to connect that we're already passing up.

LINKS MENTIONED:

• A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection by Nicholas Epley
• Mindwise: Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want by Nicholas Epley
• Related episode: #200, "Why Talking to Strangers is Good for Your Friendships" with Dr. Gillian Sandstrom

 
MEET NICHOLAS EPLEY:

Nicholas Epley is the John Templeton Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science, and Director of the Roman Family Center for Decision Research, at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He studies social cognition—how thinking people think about other thinking people—to understand why smart people so routinely misunderstand each other. He teaches an ethics and happiness course to MBA students called Designing a Good Life. His research has appeared in more than two dozen empirical journals, been featured by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Wired, and National Public Radio, among many others, and has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Templeton Foundation. He has been awarded the 2008 Theoretical Innovation Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the 2011 Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology from the American Psychological Association, the 2015 Book Prize for the Promotion of Social and Personality Science, and the 2018 Career Trajectory Award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology. Epley was named a “professor to watch” by the Financial Times, one of the “World’s Best 40 under 40 Business School Professors” by Poets and Quants, and one of the 100 Most Influential in Business Ethics in 2015 by Ethisphere He is the author of Mindwise: Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want and A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection.

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify

📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina

🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events

🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!

📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack

❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group

📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question

📪 email: [email protected]

🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

How to address hurt feelings, unmet expectations, and changing friendships

Have you ever been upset with a friend but decided it would be easier to say nothing? Maybe you're tired of always initiating plans, a friend made a joke that stung, or you sense that a once-close friendship is drifting. Sometimes we avoid these conversations because we don't want to make things awkward. But is staying silent actually helping the friendship?

My guest, Jewel Hohman, has spent nearly 6,000 hours coaching people on social anxiety and friendship. She joins me with a practical framework and scripts for deciding when to speak up, when to let something go, and how to have the conversation you've been avoiding.

We discuss:

• How to distinguish between an unmet need, a crossed boundary, and a passing irritation.
• Why it's important to consider whether something is a pattern or a one-time incident.
• Simple ways to tell a friend something bothered you without turning it into a major confrontation.
• How to approach a friend when you sense you're drifting apart—and why that may be the hardest conversation of all.
• Why speaking up doesn't guarantee that your friend's behavior will change.

As Jewel says, "Confrontation is truly an investment in the friendship." But that doesn't mean every disappointment needs a conversation or that every expectation we have of our friends is reasonable.

One of my biggest takeaways from this conversation is that we sometimes give up on friendships before giving our friends a chance to understand what's bothering us. We can't control their responses, but we can decide whether to speak up.

Is there a friendship conversation you've been avoiding? And would having it give that friendship a better chance?

 LINKS MENTIONED:

• Jewel's "Complete Guide to Confronting Friends" 
• Jewel's work with PS Society
• Episodes of Dear Nina that Jewel mentioned:   #35. When You’re Putting More Effort Into a Friendship: Anna Goldfarb, #99. The 14-Day Friendship Mindset Cleanse: Anna Goldfarb, #102. Friendships Can Survive Hurt Feelings and Conflict: Shasta Nelson #118. Why Making Friends After 30 Can Feel So Hard: Julia Hotz, #202: When Friends Make Plans Without You: Danielle Bayard Jackson, #211: You Don’t Have to Be Fully Secure to Have Good Friendships: Dr. Marisa G. Franco
• My Substack post, "The Friends Who Rejected Us: Thank you"

MEET JEWEL HOHMAN 

Jewel has nearly 6,000 hours of coaching focused on high-functioning social anxiety and friendship. She has been featured at conferences across the country, as well as on ABC 13, POPSUGAR, and guested on over 100 podcasts. Jewel is the Director of Programming for PS Society, a nonprofit dedicated to combating loneliness for women. Jewel is in her final year of earning her master’s in social work- with the goal of opening the first Social Prescribing Clinic in the Detroit area. 

 

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify

📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina

🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events

🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!

📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack

❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group

📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question

📪 email: [email protected]

🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

When Your Friendship Needs Don't Match

Are you expecting too much from a friend, or are you accepting too little? It's a question that comes up again and again in the letters I receive from listeners of Dear Nina. Sometimes a friendship truly is one-sided. But sometimes two people care deeply about each other and simply have different needs from a friendship.

I'm bringing back a conversation from episode 80 with Minneapolis-based writer Sally Vardaman, author of Shoot the Arrows. Sally originally reached out after hearing an episode with my mom (episode 72) in which we discussed a friendship that ended, in part, because my mom felt the other person was "too needy."

Sally shared a remarkably honest story about being the friend who wanted more. For years, she felt disappointed that one of her closest friends couldn't meet certain emotional needs, even though they had a loving friendship. Eventually, they talked about the mismatch and found a way to move forward without expecting either person to change.

Sally and I discussed:

• Why "needy" is such a loaded word in friendship
• How insecurity can influence our expectations of friends
• Why we sometimes look to one particular friend for proof that we're loved
• How to set boundaries without abandoning a friendship
• Why having unmet needs doesn't necessarily mean a friend is letting us down

Can we accept that a friend isn't able to give us everything we're looking for without deciding they're a bad friend? And how do we know when we need to adjust our expectations versus reconsider the friendship itself?

LINKS MENTIONED:

• Episode 72: Grudges and Apologies in Friendships
• Books Sally has found helpful:

-Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, a great assessment on attachment issues with lots of practical suggestions for all attachment types.

-Platonic by Marisa Franco, a look at attachment specifically in friendships (pretty sure I heard about this one through Dear Nina 🙂

-How to Be Your Own Best Friend by Mildred Newman and Bernard Berkowitz (first published in 1971, thank you Nora Ephron!)

-Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melodie Beattie (first published in 1986)

-Lying by Sam Harris

MEET SALLY VARDAMAN

Sally Vardaman is a writer who believes in the power of stories to make us think, question our assumptions, and connect with each other despite our differences. She is the author of Shoot the Arrows, a book of essays to her three children on why honesty and self-reflection are the keys to a healthy and meaningful life. You can find more about her work at sallyvardaman.com. As well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads.

 

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify

📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina

🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events

🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!

📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack

❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group

📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question

📪 email: [email protected]

🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

How to help your child through exclusion without letting your own panic take over

I've been a parent on both sides of friendship exclusion. I've had kids who were left out, and I've had other parents upset with me. And I know how hard it can be to watch your child struggle socially without letting your own emotions take over. Sometimes our kids move on from a friendship disappointment long before we do!

My guest Andrea, founder of Strong Mom Strong Girl, knows what it's like when a child is deliberately pushed out of an established friend group. She now helps other mothers navigate these painful situations. Andrea and I make an important distinction between not being invited to everything (a normal part of life!) and being purposely dropped from a group. We also discuss why your child's friendship drama is not yours to "fix" in the way you might assume, even when it's affecting your own friendships, your sleep, and the atmosphere in your home.

Andrea reminds parents: "What you can do is show up as the best version of yourself so that your child can borrow your peace rather than pick up on your panic."

WE DISCUSS:

• Why having a friend group should NOT be the ultimate goal for our kids.
• The difference between ordinary disappointment, exclusion, and targeted mean behavior.
• Why Andrea advises against calling the other parents, even when you know them well.
• How our questions, facial expressions, and emotional reactions can make a difficult situation better or worse.

Andrea is sharing only her first name, and this episode is audio-only, to protect her family's privacy.

LINKS MENTIONED:

• Strong Mom Strong Girl on Instagram @strongmomstronggirl
• Dear Nina Episode 180: “Mean Mom Culture, Relational Aggression, and Belonging vs. Inclusion” with Dr. Noelle Santorelli.
• Katherine Martinko's article, "The Problem With Group Chats," which encourages delaying children's participation in group chats, not just delaying social media.
• The NPR/Ira Glass story: About middle schoolers using the comments on NPR's Instagram posts to communicate with one another, sometimes because they weren't allowed to use social media. 
• A few more episode on teen friendships related to this episode: #65. Teen Friends Groups and Teen Friendship Strife: Dr. Lisa Damour & #152: When Your Child’s Friendship Issues Reopens Unresolved Wounds: Beth Segaloff

LEARN MORE ABOUT STRONG MOM STRONG GIRL

Andrea is the founder of Strong Mom Strong Girl, where she helps moms support their daughters through friendship drama, exclusion, and mean-girl behavior with more calm, confidence, and clarity. Everything she shares is based on actual lived experience and years of both research and trial-and-error. Follow her on Instagram, where you can find resources, actionable advice, community and more.

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify

📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina

🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events

🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!

📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack

❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group

📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question

📪 email: [email protected]

🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

Are we too quick to decide a friendship isn’t working?

That’s the question running through this conversation with bestselling author and podcaster Melissa Radke. Melissa and I have both ended important friendships in ways we later regretted, and we spoke about what we wished we had done differently before deciding it was time to walk away. To quote Melissa, "Because a friendship can be hard without being wrong."

We got into the things that can make people want to run from a friendship: jealousy, uneven effort, changing life circumstances, fear of rejection, and seeing a close friend become close with someone else. Are those signs that a friendship is ending, or are they just normal parts of having long-term relationships with imperfect people?

We also talked about the friendship “tests” we give without telling the other person they’re being tested. Maybe you stop reaching out to see whether your friend will finally initiate. Maybe you say nothing about your birthday because you want to see if they remember. Instead of asking for what we need, we collect evidence.

Melissa and I discussed what can happen when we give our friends a little more room, say what’s actually bothering us, and let them respond before we decide we already know how they feel.

There are certainly friendships that need to end. But before we decide we’re done, it may be worth asking: Is this friendship truly wrong for me—or are we just going through something hard?

LINKS MENTIONED:

• Melissa's recent friendship piece on Substack. 
• Episode #34 of Dear Nina about my own friendship breakup (that I regretted) "Reconnecting with an Ex-Friend"
• Episode #210 of Dear Nina with that same friend. "A softer to way to think about friendships that faded"
• Melissa's books
• Melissa on Instagram 

 

MEET MELISSA RADKE: 

Melissa Radke is a bestselling author, speaker, and media personality known for blending sharp humor with heartfelt honesty and Southern charm. She first gained national attention through her viral storytelling and memoir, Eat Cake. Be Brave., and is the author of Chicken-Fried Women: Friendship, Kinship, and the Women Who Made Us This Way, which celebrates the relationships that shape who we become.

Through her writing, speaking, and podcasts, Chicken-Fried Women and The Radke Show, Melissa explores faith, friendship, women’s empowerment, and the beautifully imperfect parts of everyday life, connecting with audiences through her relatable stories, wit, and authenticity.

Website | Instagram | Books | Podcast

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify

📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina

🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events

🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!

📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack

❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group

📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question

📪 email: [email protected]

🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

Dr. Miriam Kirmayer is back on Dear Nina, and this time we did something different: we each brought friendship questions the other person had not seen in advance.

No prep. No polished answers. Just two people who think about friendship constantly digging into the kinds of questions that rarely have a clean yes-or-no answer.

Dr. Miriam is a clinical psychologist and a well-known friendship researcher. She also now hosts the friendship podcast Two Peas on a Pod.

WE GET INTO:

• What to do when two friends are fighting and you’re stuck in the middle. Can you really stay neutral, and how do you avoid becoming the go-between?
• “Friendship flings.” Why do some friendships get intense very quickly and then cool off just as fast? And when is that simply normal versus part of a larger pattern?
• The eternal reciprocity problem. If you’re always the one reaching out, does that actually mean your friend cares less? 
• When a friend is great one-on-one but treats you differently in a group. We talk about teasing, exclusion, mixed signals, and what Dr. Miriam calls an “ambivalent friendship.”
• Why making plans is more complicated than it sounds. Reaching out, comparing calendars, choosing the place, making the reservation—sometimes one person is carrying more of that invisible work than anyone realizes.

And finally, we turn the questions on ourselves: Does talking about friendship professionally make us self-conscious about our own friendships?

LINKS MENTIONED:

• Previous Dear Nina episode with Dr. Miriam: #109: "Quiet Quitting a Friendship"
• Two Peas on a Pod episodes about friendship breakups. Part one and Part two.

 

MEET DR. MIRIAM KIRMAYER:

Dr. Miriam Kirmayer is a clinical psychologist, leading friendship expert, and one of the most influential speakers on human connection and social support. See more about Dr. Miriam's courses, keynotes, articles and more at www.miriamkirmayer.com. Listen to the podcast: Two Peas on a Pod. Find Dr. Miriam on Instagram on @miriamkirmayer.

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify

📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina

🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events

🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!

📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack

❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group

📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question

📪 email: [email protected]

🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

When good intentions aren’t enough in a friendship

What happens when you genuinely care about friends, but your behavior isn’t showing it?

That’s the question at the center of my conversation with writer and podcaster Laura Tremaine, author of The Life Council: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs and Share Your Stuff: I'll Go First. I’m bringing this episode back because Laura’s honesty about her own friendship missteps feels just as useful now as it did when we first recorded it.

Laura realized that she had been relying on the history, chemistry, and closeness she felt with certain friends without doing enough to maintain those relationships as work, family, and other responsibilities increased. She wasn’t always texting back. She wasn’t checking in. And eventually, several friends cared enough about the friendships to tell her that it hurt.

One of Laura’s biggest realizations was that there was a disconnect between what was in her heart and what her actions were communicating. She deeply valued these friends, but they couldn’t know that if she wasn’t showing it.

So Laura did something surprisingly practical: she started putting friendship on her actual to-do list.

WE DISCUSSED:

• Why friendship sometimes needs to be treated as something we intentionally maintain—not something that runs on autopilot
• The difference between making a friend a priority and making friendship feel like a chore
• What to do when “I’m busy” or “I’m overwhelmed” starts becoming an excuse for behavior that’s hurting people we care about
• Why responding to strangers online can sometimes feel easier than responding to the people closest to us (and why our friends might still take that personally)
• Paying attention to the particular ways our friends like to connect
• How our ideas about boundaries and self-care can work against the relationships we say are important to us

I especially love Laura’s emphasis on noticing—noticing what makes a particular friend feel cared for, noticing the patterns in our own behavior, and noticing when our intentions and our actions aren’t lining up.

And no, this episode isn’t an argument that you have to answer every text immediately or be endlessly available. It’s about something much more basic: If you want the friendship, are you behaving like you want the friendship?

 

LINKS MENTIONED:

Laura's books: The Life Council: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs and Share Your Stuff: I'll Go First.

 

MEET LAURA TREMAINE

Laura Tremaine is a writer and podcaster based in Los Angeles. She’s the author of two books about connection and friendship, is the co-host of the SLOW READ podcast, and she writes and hosts regular conversations on her Secret Stuff substack. You can usually find her on Instagram @Laura.Tremaine.

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify

📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina

🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events

🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!

📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack

❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group

📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question

📪 email: [email protected]

🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

Dr. Marisa G. Franco is back on Dear Nina! This time we spoke about her new book, Worth: The New Science of Self-Esteem and Secure Attachment, and how our sense of self-worth affects the friendships we build, keep, and sometimes struggle to trust.

Marisa’s first book, Platonic, focused on how we create and maintain strong friendships. Worth goes a step further inward: What happens when the way we see ourselves makes it harder to believe that other people genuinely like us, value us, or want to be close to us?

One of my favorite ideas from our conversation is Marisa’s argument that the goal isn’t to become perfectly secure. It’s to become secure-ish—aware of the anxious, avoidant, insecure parts of ourselves without pretending they’ve disappeared.

We discussed:

• How old friendship hurts can become “open memories” that continue to shape new relationships
• Why one painful rejection can make us expect rejection long after the original friendship is over
• How low self-worth can sometimes look like not initiating, pulling away, rejecting compliments, or needing constant reassurance
• When reassurance starts becoming exhausting for the friend who is constantly being asked to prove the friendship
• Why our assumptions about what friends think of us may say more about our own fears than about what’s actually happening

Marisa shares the story of Esme, who carried one devastating friendship moment from middle school into adulthood and became afraid to initiate with people she genuinely wanted to know. We expand on Esme's story to talk about reciprocity, rejection, memory, and the possibility of changing the meaning we’ve attached to experiences from years ago.

I also share one of my own “open memories” from college and what came up for me while working through one of Marisa’s exercises in the book.

And we get into something I talk about often on this show: sometimes a friend’s lack of initiation really does mean something—and sometimes it doesn’t. Self-worth, fear of rejection, disorganization, and all kinds of other factors can sit underneath behavior we’re very quick to take personally.

LINKS MENTIONED:

• Dr. Marisa G. Franco's previous episode on Dear Nina: "Telling Friends They've Let You Down"
• Buy Worth & Platonic
• Find Marisa on Instagram @drmarisagfranco

 

MEET DR. MARISA G FRANCO

An enlightening psychologist, international speaker, and New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Marisa G. Franco is known for digesting and communicating science in ways that resonate deeply enough with people to change their lives. She works as a professor at The University of Maryland and authored the New York Times bestseller Platonic: How The Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends and Worth: The New Science of Self-Esteem and Secure Attachment.

She writes about friendship for Psychology Today and has been a featured connection expert for major publications like The New York Times, The Telegraph, and Vice. She speaks on belonging at corporations, government agencies, non-profits, and universities. For tips on friendship, you can follow her on Instagram (DrMarisaGFranco), or go to her website, www.DrMarisaGFranco.com, where you can take a quiz to assess your strengths and weaknesses as a friend & reach out for speaking engagements.

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify

📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina

🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events

🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!

📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack

❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group

📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question

📪 email: [email protected]

🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

Why human connection requires friction, empathy, and accountability.

I have real concerns about AI, and one of my biggest is what happens when we start treating it like a person—especially a friend.

My guest, Sarah Baldeo, is a neuroscientist and the author of 100 Ways to Future Proof Your Brain in the Age of AI. She has spent more than 20 years working at the intersection of neuroscience and artificial intelligence, so I wanted to bring some of my biggest worries about AI and human connection directly to her and I appreciated her treating my concerns with seriousness and respect. My biggest takeaway remains the same: we need to be very careful not to confuse something that can imitate human connection with the real thing.

We discussed:

• What happens when we ask AI what to say to a grieving friend instead of working through our own empathy
• Why AI can feel like the “perfect friend”—always available, agreeable, and unlikely to make us uncomfortable 
• Why real friendship requires disagreement, reciprocity, boredom, and sometimes friction
• The risks of outsourcing too much of our emotional and cognitive processing
• Why I’m especially concerned about teenagers growing up with generative AI
• How Sarah believes AI can actually be used to challenge our thinking rather than replace it
• My deep concern that we need to be very careful about confusing something that can imitate human connection with the real thing! 

 

MEET SARAH BALDEO:

Sarah Baldeo, PhD (c), Executive MBA, is a bestselling author, neuroscientist, AI futurist, TED speaker, and CEO of ID Quotient Advisory, whose work explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping human cognition, executive judgment, and leadership decision making and what that means for how we connect, trust, and relate to one another; she is also the world’s foremost doctoral researcher on AI and cognition. She is the author of 100 Ways to Future-Proof Your Brain in the Age of AI, and has been featured on CBC News, CTV, NBC, SiriusXM, and Yahoo Finance. A global keynote speaker with more than 1,300 appearances across North America and Europe, Sarah advises organizations on the future of human intelligence in the age of AI. Connect with her on Instagram and LinkedIn.

ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify

📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina

🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events

🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!

📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack

❤️  Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group

📪  Ask an anonymous friendship question

📪 email: [email protected]

🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!