“I don’t think I know how to be a friend.”
Kristian James said this to me early in our conversation, and I watched her face as she realized what she’d just admitted out loud. Not “I’m a bad friend.” Not “I don’t have friends.” But “I don’t know HOW to be a friend.”
And you know what? That might be the most honest thing anyone has said on this podcast.
This episode is part one of a two-part conversation (because we went DEEP and I couldn’t fit it all in one episode). Kristian is in her mid-20s, navigating that brutal shift where proximity friendships disappear and you’re suddenly supposed to know how to build adult friendships from scratch. Except nobody taught you how.
We talked about people pleasing in friendships. About performing a palatable version of yourself because you think that’s what keeps people around. About the exhaustion of being the “super nice girl” who never sets boundaries. About losing friends when you finally start being authentic. About the shame that comes with all of it.
This conversation got emotional. Multiple times. Because this stuff is HARD, and we don’t talk about it enough.
The Reformed Super Nice Girl
“I am now a reformed super nice girl,” Kristian told me. “No longer doing it. Sorry, can’t. It’s exhausting.”
She paused, then clarified: “I just want to focus on being kind instead of being nice, because I feel like people who are nice kind of don’t have boundaries.”
Here’s what led to that reformation:
Kristian grew up in a predominantly Black community where she had her people, her space, her sense of belonging. Then her family moved to a predominantly white area where she was suddenly the minority by a LOT. Kids didn’t like her. Not because of who she was, but because of how she looked. She was different.
She became a lonely kid. Then a hardened teenager.
When she got to college and finally found a friend group, they basically told her: “Girl, we don’t like that. Fix that. That’s not cute.”
So she did. She became NICE. Super nice. Accommodating. Agreeable. Never rocking the boat.
“In order to have friends and keep friends and keep people from leaving me, I have to be so nice. And that allowed people to walk over me. Different situations to not be actually genuine. Because you’re not really being yourself. It’s kind of like a trauma response.”
And here’s the kicker: even with all that niceness, all that performing, all that energy spent being palatable… she still felt incredibly lonely.
“I don’t feel supported or less alone. I was like, is this it? Is this what life is? Because everyone on social media seems to be having the time of their lives with their friends. That just was not my experience.”
The conversation goes so much deeper than this. Kristian shares specific moments that made her realize she needed to change, and we talk about what that reformation actually looks like in practice. Listen to the full episode.
The Social Anxiety Nobody Talks About
When Kristian mentioned her social anxiety, I said something that made her tear up.
I told her it makes complete sense that social interactions would feel exhausting and anxiety-inducing when you’re already anticipating having to perform a likeable version of yourself the entire time.
“I didn’t really understand the root of my social anxiety,” she said, her voice catching. “And maybe you just helped me unlock that.”
Think about it: you walk into every social situation already bracing yourself. Already calculating. Already trying to figure out which version of you will be most acceptable. Already exhausting yourself BEFORE the interaction even starts.
People think she’s shy. An introvert. But she’s NOT.
“I naturally am an extrovert, but I don’t act that way. I’m anxious. And I think it’s because of the past me still trying to understand how to be my full self and walk in just being fully genuine at all times.”
This is what performing does to us. It doesn’t just make individual interactions exhausting. It fundamentally changes how we move through the world. It makes us AFRAID of connection even when connection is what we crave most.
Show Up As Your Weirdest Self
Society tells us to put our best foot forward. Make a great first impression. Be likeable. Be professional. Be polished.
I think that’s BS.
“Show up as the weirdest you,” I told Kristian. “Show up as the most unique you. Show up as the having-a-bad-day you. Show up in your sweatpants, show up where you haven’t done your hair in longer than you should have. Show up a mess a little bit, because then they’re getting a real taste of the real you.”
Here’s the thing we forget: the people we love most, we love BECAUSE we’ve seen their messy parts. We’ve seen what makes them weird and unique. We’ve seen them at their worst and their most authentic.
So why do we keep trying to hide all that when we’re making NEW friends?
“My closest friends are the ones where we’re super weird. I just woke up and we’re on FaceTime super close to the camera, or we’re hanging out and we’re not even doing anything. We’re just breathing with each other because we’re both in a space where we just need to be around someone. The real stuff, the real life things… those are ways of genuinely connecting with someone.”
THAT’S what we want. Those moments where you’re on FaceTime doing nothing. Where you’re sitting in someone’s car waiting for the oil change to be done. Where you get lost somewhere and feel dumb and just laugh about it together.
Not the polished, performing, best-foot-forward version.
The messy one.
There’s so much more in the full episode about what authentic friendship actually looks like and how to get there when you’ve spent years performing.
Kids Get It Right
“My favorite thing about kids is they don’t care about anything,” Kristian said. “They just want to have a good time.”
She used to coach gymnastics and cheer, and she noticed that the kids who became friends were often complete opposites. They didn’t look alike, didn’t sound alike, didn’t like the same things.
“They’re just like, ‘Cool! Oh my god, do you want to see my car?’ ‘Great! Let’s go play outside. My mom said you could.'”
That’s it. That’s the whole friendship origin story.
As adults, we want to look like we have it all together. Like we’re perfect. But those childhood friendships? We were so used to getting it wrong, to not being perfect. And that made us love each other MORE.
But the awkward moments, the imperfect moments, the getting-in-trouble-together moments… THOSE are what build real connection.
The Individuality We Lose Growing Up
“That’s what I hate about growing up,” Kristian said. “I feel like we lose our sense of individuality in a way.”
She paused, then continued with more energy: “That’s something I’ve been coming back to in 2022. And let me tell you, that is the KEY TO LIFE. Literally go back to your individuality and you will start to love yourself again.”
For Kristian, that meant dressing however she wants (not following trends), exploring fashion on her own terms, doing whatever hairstyles she wants, wearing her grandma’s earrings because SHE thinks they’re cute. Just literally doing what she wants.
“I was like, why am I trying to be the same as everyone, knowing that I’m not the same, will never be the same? No one’s the same. That’s such a silly, weird thing that we do.”
And here’s what happened when she started embracing her individuality: her confidence skyrocketed. Not just in how she dressed, but in how she showed up in friendships, in how she moved through the world.
Because when you’re being YOURSELF, you stop performing. You stop exhausting yourself trying to anticipate what version of you will be acceptable. You just… are.
The Mid-20s Friendship Shift Nobody Prepares You For
Here’s what I think is happening in your mid to late 20s:
As kids, friendships are based on PROXIMITY. You go to the school your parents chose. You live in the neighborhood they picked. You join activities in that area. You didn’t choose most of it. You just made friends with whoever was around.
And you still figured it out. Even in all the awkwardness of life.
But as adults? You get to pick EVERYTHING.
Where you live. What interests you pursue. Whether you join the gymnastics gym in your town or three towns over. Whether you do gymnastics at all or chess or both. You get to decide where you’re going and what you’re doing.
And I think we get really overwhelmed with that freedom.
“You have more control over your friendships as an adult than you ever have in your life. And yet that is not the message we’re sold. All the societal messages tell us it’s harder, that these friendships aren’t as easy to make, aren’t as easy to keep, are rare.”
It’s like taking away our power.
But what if we reframed it? What if instead of seeing adult friendship as HARDER, we saw it as more INTENTIONAL? More CHOSEN?
You get to decide who you are. What you care about. What makes you unique. What you bring to a group. What ways you can help people. What ways you need people to show up for you.
Then you put yourself in places where those people might be.
If you can do that and take control of your situation, you’re better set up than you’ve EVER been.
In the full episode, we go much deeper into how to actually DO this: the practical steps, the mindset shifts, the toolkit you need.
The Friendship Losses That Feel Like Failure
In 2022, Kristian started setting boundaries. She shifted from being “nice” to being KIND. She started showing up more authentically.
And she lost friends. Both new connections and friendships that had lasted 10+ years.
“For a span of six months in 2022, I was losing friends. And I was like, what the heck is going on? I thought I was trying to build connections, but here I am losing connections.”
She started spiraling. Feeling depressed. Questioning everything.
“I remember telling my friend Andrea, ‘Is something wrong with me? Or am I just not a good person?'” Her voice got quiet. “It felt so embarrassing.”
She even posted on social media asking for tips, asking if anyone else had felt this way. And when people responded saying they’d had the same friends their whole life?
The shame set in.
Here’s what I want you to understand: when you change and grow, your friendships WILL be impacted. That’s not failure. That’s NORMAL.
But here’s the reframe: those friendship losses aren’t about you being a bad friend or doing something wrong. They’re about TWEAKING.
The Art of Tweaking Friendships
I don’t love the constant focus on “letting go” of friendships.
Yes, we need to let go sometimes. We can’t hold onto everything. But when we ONLY focus on letting go, we’re left with a void.
What if instead, we thought about TWEAKING?
Say you stop drinking, and the main way you hung out with a friend was going to bars on Saturday nights. You changing impacts THEIR life. They just lost their Saturday night bar buddy.
So instead of just thinking “they’re my friend, they should support me no matter what,” you could think: “The way we used to connect doesn’t work for me anymore. Can we find a NEW way to spend time together? Or do I need to let this particular connection go and find people who connect with me in THIS new way?”
It’s tweaking. Adjusting. Looking at what’s working and what’s not.
You’re not throwing away the whole friendship. You’re TWEAKING what you talk about with that person while you find other people to fill that particular need.
And while you’re grieving what that friendship used to be, you’re also directing energy into finding the NEW right people.
There’s No Use Chasing Nostalgia
I heard this recently: there’s no use in chasing nostalgia.
It’ll never be exactly the same. Sure, you might have moments where it FEELS like old times. But it’s not quite the same. Someone has worries they didn’t have seven years ago. Someone has responsibilities that change how they show up.
But chasing that old version? Trying to force the new version to repeat old patterns? That causes SO much stress in friendships.
So grieve what was. Appreciate it. Honor it.
Then refocus your energy on what IS. What’s the new version? What are the moments you’ll look back on SOMEDAY from THIS version?
Because this version will also pass.
(I talk a lot more about this in Episode 4 about navigating big life changes if you want to go deeper.)
The Toolkit Approach
“Reframing is probably the best tool on earth that I’ve learned,” Kristian said.
YES.
What I’m trying to do with this podcast is offer up a TOOLKIT. Not a prescriptive “do this exact thing and your friendships will be perfect” plan. Because that doesn’t exist.
It’s trial and error. You try things. They work or they don’t. You tweak. You adjust. You try something new.
And the SHAME that comes with this process? The feeling that you’re doing it wrong because you’re losing friends or struggling or don’t have it figured out?
That shame exists because we don’t TALK about this stuff.
When people say “I’ve had the same friends my whole life” as if that’s some badge of honor, they’re not telling you the full story. If you dug deeper, they’d probably admit that at certain points they felt really close to those people and at other points they felt disconnected.
It’s not a stagnant line. It goes up and down and up and down.
But nobody wants to admit that.
So we feel alone in our struggles. We feel shame when friendships shift or end. We feel like we’re failing at something everyone else seems to have figured out.
But we’re NOT failing. We’re just navigating something nobody taught us how to navigate.
This episode is only part one. In part two (next week), Kristian asks some HARD questions about what this actually looks like in practice. How do you handle these changes? What do you do when friendships shift? What does tweaking actually look like in the real world? Make sure you listen to this full episode first, then come back next week for part two.
STOP UPLOAD HERE
Resources Mentioned
- ▪️ Episode 4: Navigating Big Life Changes [NEEDS LINK]
- ▪️ Kristian James on Instagram [NEEDS LINK: Kristian’s Instagram handle]
- ▪️ Part Two of this conversation (Episode 22) [NEEDS LINK: Will be available next week]
Post-Draft Notes
Tone check: This one was HEAVY. Kristian got emotional multiple times, and I wanted to honor that vulnerability without making it feel performative or overly dramatic. I tried to balance the weight of the shame/loss/anxiety stuff with the empowering reframes. Let me know if it needs adjusting.
Strong quotes I pulled:
- ▪️ “I don’t think I know how to be a friend” (opening hook)
- ▪️ “Reformed super nice girl” (perfect encapsulation of her journey)
- ▪️ “Show up as your weirdest self” (the golden thread reframe)
- ▪️ “There’s no use chasing nostalgia” (powerful closing concept)
- ▪️ The kids with chalk metaphor (so good)
What I left out:
- ▪️ Some of the back-and-forth about specific fashion/career details (kept the main points but didn’t need every detail)
- ▪️ A few tangential moments that didn’t directly support the main themes
- ▪️ Some repeated points (we circled back to certain ideas multiple times, which is natural in conversation but doesn’t need to be in the post)
Golden thread assessment: STRONG. The performing vs. authenticity thread runs through every section. From the “super nice girl” opening to the “show up as your weirdest self” reframe to the kids example to the individuality section. It’s woven throughout.
Structure note: I frontloaded Kristian’s story because her vulnerability is what makes this episode so powerful. Then moved into the reframes and practical stuff. Ended with the tweaking/toolkit concepts to set up part two.
Links needing URLs:
- friendshipirl.com/episode21 (x4 in the post)
- Episode 4 about navigating big life changes
- Kristian James’s Instagram handle/profile
- Episode 22 (part two, next week)
SEO keywords used naturally:
- ▪️ Primary: “mid 20s friendship shift” (title, multiple sections)
- ▪️ “adult friendship changes” (throughout)
- ▪️ “being authentic in friendships” (dedicated section + golden thread)
- ▪️ “people pleasing in friendships” (Kristian’s story)
- ▪️ “social anxiety and friendship” (dedicated section)
- ▪️ “stop performing in friendships” (golden thread)
- ▪️ “nice vs kind friendships” (Kristian’s reframe)
- ▪️ “friendship shame” (major section)
- ▪️ “losing friends in your 20s” (dedicated section)
- ▪️ “tweaking friendships” (major concept)
- ▪️ Various secondary keywords woven in
Emotional weight: This episode deals with shame, loss, anxiety, and vulnerability. I tried to validate those feelings while also offering hope and reframes. The “you’re not alone, you’re not failing” message is crucial here.
Let me know what needs tweaking!
