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Let me tell you about my new friend Anna.
We just met. Like, recently. And within minutes of talking, we were finishing each other’s sentences, nodding enthusiastically, saying “YES! EXACTLY!” over and over.
Because Anna Goldfarb (journalist, author of the brand new book “Modern Friendship”) has been thinking about the same things I’ve been thinking about for years.
And one of the biggest things we’ve both noticed? So many of us are walking around with this heavy backpack of friendship guilt.
You know the one I’m talking about. The one filled with:
- ▪️ “I should text them back”
- ▪️ “I should have remembered their birthday”
- ▪️ “I should be a better friend”
- ▪️ “I should reach out more”
- ▪️ “I should, I should, I should”
It’s exhausting. It’s overwhelming. And here’s what Anna told me that made me want to stand up and cheer:
“I used to wonder constantly: Am I a bad friend? Just guilt. This constant guilt like a backpack. All of it’s been resolved. I don’t feel that anymore. I know exactly who belongs in my life and why. And I just feel at peace.”
Peace. When’s the last time you felt PEACE about your friendships?
If your answer is “um, high school maybe?” This article is for you.
Because Anna spent years figuring out how to put down that backpack. And she wrote an entire book about it. And I’m going to tell you right now: You need this book.
But first, let me tell you why friendship feels so damn hard right now.
When Anna Discovered Friendship Experts Exist
Anna’s first article about friendship was published in The New York Times in 2017.
“That was when I first learned that there are friendship experts,” she told me. “I didn’t even know that was something someone could be. That blew my mind. Like wait, so that’s your JOB? To think about friendship and write about friendship?”
That expert was Shasta Nelson (who’s wonderful, by the way). And meeting Shasta opened doors in Anna’s brain.
“I’m like, wow, this is a FIELD. There’s a lot going on. But it’s under the radar.”
Then the pandemic hit. And suddenly, friendship wasn’t under the radar anymore.
“The pandemic accelerated these trends that were already happening: disconnection, loneliness,” Anna explained. “It shuffled all of our friendships at the exact same time, which is historically new. And it just exploded an appetite for content.”
But here’s the thing: Anna wasn’t researching loneliness because she had no friends. She was researching it because she had TOO MANY and no idea how to manage them.
“My story was: I have all these friends I’ve collected and I don’t know how to regard them,” she said. “Like I have this collection of Funko figurines that seemed like a good idea to buy a bunch of them. And now what do you do with them?”
(If you just laughed and felt seen, keep reading.)
“Social media exacerbates that. It’s a firehose stream of all of your contacts, all given pretty much equal weight. The person you haven’t seen in seven years is right next to your book club friends.”
And that was further confusing her: Who are my actual friends? It feels like I have none, but this app is telling me I have hundreds. What’s the disconnect?
So she started digging. Started asking questions. Started reporting.
And what she discovered changed her life. Including (and this part made me tear up) her relationship with her estranged sister.
The Sister Story (Grab Your Tissues)
When Anna started writing her book, she was estranged from one of her sisters.
“We were not getting along,” she told me. “We couldn’t even sit through a meal together without hostility and aggression.”
And then Anna started applying everything she was learning about friendship to that relationship.
“Everything I was learning reporting about friendship, I applied to my relationship with my sister.”
The result?
“We are now: I text her every morning. She calls me every morning. I see her every Sunday. We have transformed our relationship.”
Let me say that again: She went from not being able to sit through a meal with her sister to texting every morning and seeing her every Sunday.
“This was someone I couldn’t even sit through a meal together with. And now we seek each other out every single day.”
What changed?
“I just learned how to orient myself towards other people in a mature, loving, non-judgmental way. And it just opened up all these relationships for me. It’s been transformational.”
And here’s what she wants you to know: “I’m pretty low-key selfish. And it helped ME. So that’s why I’m so elated about the strategies, because they worked for me.”
She paused. “The strategies we’re using are outdated. They put people in awkward positions where they can’t commit and they don’t know where they stand. We need new strategies so people know they’re important to us. We need to be explicit with that. And then we need to act accordingly.”
If that doesn’t make you want to read this book, I don’t know what will.
In the full article, we’ll dive into exactly what those strategies are, why the old ones don’t work anymore, and how you can start putting down your own backpack of friendship guilt.
The Four Types of Overwhelm
As I was reading Anna’s book (which, by the way, I got an advance copy of and READ THE ENTIRE THING because it’s that good), I kept noticing this theme:
Overwhelm.
Modern friendship is overwhelming in ways previous generations never experienced. And I broke it down into four specific types:
- Expectations
- Technology
- Time
- Information
Plus a bonus: Uncertainty.
Let’s talk about each one. Because once you understand WHY you’re overwhelmed, you can start to do something about it.
Overwhelm #1: Expectations
Anna put it perfectly: “I think our expectations are overwhelming if they’re rigid.”
If you think “I need to hear from my 10 friends on my birthday” (which Anna admits she did in her 30s), you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.
“If I don’t hear from my friend, we’re in a fight. Something’s wrong. Looking at friendships as all or nothing: you have to pay fealty to me. I’m having a party, you’re expected to come. I have a big event, you need to be here.”
No nuance. No understanding. No flexibility.
“Those expectations really bit me in the butt,” she said. “They weren’t helping my friendships feel closer and more fun. They just left me feeling exasperated and taken for granted.”
So what’s the alternative?
Flexible expectations.
“Do your best. Let’s try and make it happen. No hard feelings. I know you’re trying your best and I love you. Our friendship is going to look different now than it did five years ago.”
When I heard Anna say this, I thought about something I talk about all the time: When you have rigid expectations, there’s a very narrow path to success.
You can only be a “good friend” in one specific way. But when expectations are flexible? The path splits. There are multiple ways to show up. Multiple ways to succeed.
And suddenly, it’s not so overwhelming.
“Friends really love it when you have flexible expectations,” Anna said. “People will enjoy being your friend more if you give that flexibility. If you model that to them, they’re going to want to keep you around more.”
Overwhelm #2: Technology
Oh boy. This one.
Anna and I could have talked about this for hours. But here’s the core issue:
Social media has convinced us we need to collect people. And then we never lose them.
Your grandma? If she moved across the country, she might have continued writing letters to one or two close friends. Maybe a random phone call here and there.
She wasn’t staying in touch with 75 people indefinitely from her old town.
But we are. And it’s taking up SO much space in our brains.
“Social media clearly has had a detrimental effect on our relationships,” Anna said. “It flattens all of our connections into this firehose of information.”
And here’s the kicker: It makes us feel like we’re missing everyone.
“I miss Jenny! Oh, I should call her. Oh, there’s Lois! I miss my friends. I’m not near any of them.”
But you’re not actually connecting. You’re just… scrolling. Feeling guilty. Spiraling.
“It just creates this spiral where it’s not helping anyone connect. It really blurs your social network into one stream of people you have various degrees of closeness with.”
And it reminds you of what you DON’T have.
“I haven’t heard from her. I should talk to Susie. Why hasn’t Susie reached out to me? Does Susie not care about me? Am I in a fight with Susie?”
Sound familiar?
“And then you sort of whip yourself up until it’s very stressful. All of it’s very stressful.”
Plus, there’s the uncertainty: “We don’t know what people see. I don’t know if my friends are seeing my updates. I don’t know if they care or don’t care. It’s just so much uncertainty.”
And uncertainty creates anxiety.
Anna’s solution? She’s naturally gravitated away from social media since writing the book.
“I know who my real friends are. And those relationships are not reflected on my social media at all. Social media is such an artifice. It’s not real life.”
“I’d rather be with a friend making a joke in real time than scrolling through looking at all these dozens of people. I don’t need to know this much about all these people. It’s not a good use of my time.”
Overwhelm #3: Time
Anna has a quote in her book that’s going to make you feel SO seen:
“Most of my friends’ time is already spoken for between work commitments, significant others, children, pets, groceries, laundry, workouts. What’s left for some good old-fashioned face time?”
How many times have you wanted to reach out to a friend but stopped yourself because you were convinced they don’t have time?
“I do that,” Anna admitted. “I’ve been guilty of that, especially with friends with kids. You’re like, it’s just not a priority.”
But here’s what she’s learned: You have to interrogate that voice.
Ask yourself: “What can I provide to this friend? I can just be positivity and love. Wouldn’t I want to choose that?”
And here’s where it connects back to expectations: When you have a strong understanding of who your closest people are, it’s harder to talk yourself out of reaching out.
When you KNOW this person is one of your people, you trust that they DO want to hear from you. They DO want to try to work you into their schedule.
Because you have that foundation. That security.
Overwhelm #4: Information (Or: The Burden of Personal Responsibility)
This is the one that hit me hardest. Because Anna and I had completely different reactions to it.
On page 45 of her book, Anna writes about how we’re now responsible for actively maintaining all our separate friendships. We’re the center of our own “spoke model”: all these connections radiating out from us, but not necessarily connecting to each other.
“That means there’s no one to share the burden of making plans or finding reasons to get together. We have to create meaning for our friendships. We have to do the hard work of renewing connection.”
When Anna wrote about feeling SEEN by this research, understanding that she’s literally holding the stress for her entire social network, I was fascinated.
Because I feel EMPOWERED by it.
I literally said to her: “When I listen to you talk about that, I’m like wow, I’ve never thought about it that way.”
And Anna explained: “I have a lot of friends, but they don’t know each other. They only have common history with me, not with each other.”
She’s moved around a lot. Her parents don’t live where she grew up. Her friends from different life phases have never met.
“My husband was born and raised in Philly. He has a crew of friends he can get together with on any occasion. None of my friends live here. I grew up in Chicago. I live in Philly. I’m not going to run into people on the street.”
Her Italian grandmother has a saying: “The biscuit goes to the mouth that can’t chew it.”
“I WANT this. I want a circle of friends that can help with this shared task of finding reasons to get together. But the cookie didn’t crumble that way for me.”
Two of her best friends who both live in Philly have never met. They’re finally meeting at her book launch party.
And that’s overwhelming. Totally overwhelming.
Meanwhile, I love the possibility of bringing people together. I talk about my friends with other friends. I try to get them to know each other through stories. And then when they finally meet, they already know things about each other.
I find it empowering. Anna finds it overwhelming.
And you know what? Both are completely valid.
That’s what I want you to hear: If you feel like Anna, like you’re carrying the weight of your entire social network alone: you’re not wrong. That’s real. That’s hard.
And if you feel like me, empowered by the ability to shape your social world: that’s also real.
There’s no right way to feel about this. But understanding what you’re actually dealing with? That helps.
The Bonus: Uncertainty
Here’s something I realized while talking to Anna:
We’ve built SO much certainty into our modern lives.
I’m wearing a Whoop (it’s like an Oura ring: a health monitor). I can see my heart rate, my sleep patterns, my recovery. I can pre-schedule grocery deliveries. I can set reminders for everything. I can control so much.
But friendship? Friendship is FULL of uncertainty.
Will we still be friends? Will they reject me? Will they move? Will this conversation turn into a fight? Did they see my message?
And we can’t control it the same way we control other areas of our lives.
So we shut down. We get overwhelmed. We avoid.
“There’s definitely a suspicion,” Anna said. “An air of like: Why me? Why are you seeking me out?”
Because we’re so used to people wanting something from us. (Looking at you, MLM friends.)
“Once I started writing this book, I naturally gravitated away from social media because I know who my real friends are,” Anna said.
When you have that clarity, the uncertainty matters less.
In the full episode, Anna and I talk through all four types of friendship overwhelm in much more detail, and why so many of us are walking around carrying a backpack of guilt we never asked for. If you’ve ever felt like you’re failing at friendship without knowing why, this conversation will finally give you the words for it.
How Anna Found Peace (And How You Can Too)
Remember that backpack of guilt we talked about at the beginning?
Anna put it down. And here’s how:
She got clarity on who her closest people actually are.
“I call it the Jacuzzi tier: your three to five close besties,” she explained.
And on her last birthday? “I heard from everyone in my Jacuzzi tier before 10am. And I just felt like… enough. I was so filled with love and peace.”
She laughed. “I sound like a hippie and I’m not a hippie, I swear. But I just felt like I know who belongs in my life and why. And it finally feels like enough.”
The last time she felt that way? High school.
“I realized it’s because we would focus on a few friends. We didn’t have this ginormous network of varying degrees of connection that we’re juggling.”
As adults, we become so many things to so many people. Spouses, employees, parents. All these new relationships to manage.
“But it’s really about getting back to basics. Choosing a few wonderful people that you share values with, share commonalities with, share passions with. And just being like: I’m just going to focus on you guys.”
“It’s not a message we hear very often. We hear MORE and MORE and MORE. I want more.”
But what if the answer is actually: “No, I have enough. And I just need to be really wonderful to these select few people.”
The Framework: Wholehearted Friendship
In her book, Anna introduces a concept called “Wholehearted Friendship.”
It means being dedicated, enthusiastic, and committed to the people you’ve chosen for your inner circle.
And it’s built on three things (all related to TIME, because research shows it takes 200 hours of shared activities to go from strangers to best friends):
1. DESIRE: Who do you want to spend time with? Who do you wish you were hanging out with?
2. DILIGENCE: Prioritizing those people. Coming up with suggestions and invitations they can say yes to.
3. DELIGHT: Actually enjoying the time spent together. Being a good teammate. Having good conversation skills. Being non-judgmental.
When you want to spend time with someone, when you prioritize spending time with them, and when you actually love the time you’re spending together: THAT’S wholehearted friendship.
And here’s what Anna wants you to know: “I also have a disposition of: I’m here to help.”
Instead of thinking “What are my friends doing for me? What haven’t they done for me?” She focuses on: “How can I support these amazing people in my life? How can I help them achieve their dreams and goals?”
“When you model to your closest friends ‘this is what friendship should be like,’ it really is transformative. Because you’re showing: This is how you respect other people’s time. You ask for consent before launching into a rant. This is how you show support.”
It’s contagious.
What’s Actually In This Book (And Why You Need It)
Look, I’m going to be straight with you: Anna’s book is PACKED.
It’s not one of those books where they take one idea and stretch it to 200 pages. This is like… here’s 20 pages of crucial information. Oh, and here’s another 20 pages. And another. And another.
It includes:
- ▪️ The maturity framework for friendships (we could have done a whole episode on this)
- ▪️ Scripts for getting people to say yes more often
- ▪️ A whole chapter on being the initiator
- ▪️ How to set boundaries and say no
- ▪️ Exercises and reflection prompts
- ▪️ Real examples of conversations and where they go wrong
And I haven’t even gotten to Part 3.
Anna told me her directive was: “Do not be boring. I did not want a boring book.”
She wanted it to be entertaining. Worth the $30. Something you love the experience of reading.
And she succeeded.
“I refuse to suggest something that I wouldn’t personally do,” she said. “Given that I’m a middle-aged cat mom who plays video games. I’m not the most go-getter person. But I can make this work for me.”
“And I’ve never had better friendships. I’ve never had calmer friendships. I’ve never had more secure friendships.”
“I used to wonder constantly: Am I a bad friend? Just guilt. This constant guilt like a backpack.”
“All of it’s been resolved. I don’t feel that anymore. I know exactly who belongs in my life and why. And I just feel at peace.”
The Promise
Anna made me a promise. And I’m passing it on to you:
“If you can relate to any of that, if you just want to feel peace when you think of your friends: this is the way to go.”
She’s not saying it lightly. This worked for her. It transformed her relationship with her estranged sister. It gave her clarity about her friendships. It helped her put down that backpack.
And it can do the same for you.
Because here’s the truth: You could read this book and do the work.
Or you could spend the next 40 years carrying that backpack of guilt.
Both options are hard. But only one leads to peace.
A Note From Me
I’m going to break the fourth wall here for a second.
When Anna reached out to me about coming on the podcast to talk about her book, I was thrilled. Because I’d been following her work and I knew: This woman gets it.
And then I read the book. And I was even MORE thrilled.
Because here’s what I believe: If you like my platform, if you like the messages I’m sharing, you need Anna’s book on your shelf.
We have SO much overlap in how we see friendship. But we use slightly different language. We come at things from slightly different angles.
And that means if something I’ve said hasn’t quite landed for you, Anna might say it in a way that clicks.
We need multiple voices in this space. We need different perspectives. We need a whole library of friendship books.
And “Modern Friendship” absolutely deserves to be in that library.
So go buy it. Rent it from your library. Request it at your library. Read it with your book club.
Get this book in your hands.
Because friendship doesn’t have to feel this hard. You don’t have to carry that backpack of guilt forever.
Peace is possible. Anna found it. And she’s showing you exactly how.
In the full episode, Anna shares the specific strategies from her book that helped her transform her own friendships, including her relationship with her estranged sister. If you’re ready to put down the guilt and actually feel good about your friendships again, go listen to the complete episode.
Ready to put down your backpack of friendship guilt? Get Anna Goldfarb’s book “Modern Friendship: How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections” wherever books are sold. Follow her work, sign up for her newsletter, and join the conversation about what modern friendship actually requires.
What’s in YOUR backpack of friendship guilt? And are you ready to put it down?
