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Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship

Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship

Written by: Nina Badzin
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Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship is a top 1% podcast for anyone who has ever overthought a text from a friend, wondered who’s supposed to reach out first, or quietly questioned whether a friendship is totally fine—or fading away. Hosted by writer Nina Badzin, the show dives into the deeply important and sometimes most confusing relationships of our lives: our friendships.

Each episode of Dear Nina explores the questions adults don’t always say out loud: How do you turn an acquaintance into a real friend? What happens when the effort feels uneven? Why do some friendships grow stronger while others fall apart? Can you stay friends when your kids used to be friends and now hate each other? Friendship is tricky—even for grownups.

Nina has been writing about adult friendship for over a decade, with work featured in NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Time, and more. Drawing from listener letters, real-life dilemmas, and thoughtful guests, the show offers practical insight without pretending there are easy answers. These are conversations, not lectures.

Warm, honest, and relatable in the best way, Dear Nina is for anyone who wants better friendships—and reassurance that they’re not alone while figuring it out.


ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

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

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

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

📪 Ask an anonymous friendship question

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

© 2024 Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship Hygiene & Healthy Living Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Relationships Self-Help Social Sciences Success
Episodes
  • #185 - When Career Success Strains Your Friendships (Dr. Kimberly Horn)

    #185 - When Career Success Strains Your Friendships (Dr. Kimberly Horn)
    Feb 22 2026
    Today we're talking about a specific and underexplored friendship challenge: what happens to your social life as your career takes off. We get right to the heart of something many ambitious women feel but rarely say out loud — that they appear socially rich on the outside while feeling quietly disconnected on the inside. We discuss why a full calendar of networking chats isn't the same as genuine connection, and how competence can become a cloak that makes others assume you don't need support.I’m joined by Dr. Kimberly Horn, an internationally recognized research psychologist, professor, and public health scientist, and the author of Friends Matter for Life: Harnessing the Eight Tenets of Dynamic Friendship. Kimberly studies friendship through a public health lens, and she’s also lived what she teaches: the higher she rose professionally, the smaller (and trickier) her social landscape became.We talk about common friendship traps for high achieving women, how success can make relationships feel murkier (hello, “real friend” vs. “deal friend”), and other issues like jealously and lopsided friendships.In this episode, we get into:Why career success can shrink your friend circle (even when you don’t want it to)The “socially rich, internally disconnected” feelingHow being “too busy” (and saying it out loud) can train people to stop inviting youThe optimization trap: why we cancel a friend walk 4 times, but never cancel the draining meetingThe comparison trap: how jealousy shows up in friendships (and why it’s normal)A concept I loved: co-celebration—and why celebrating others actually helps your brainThe over-functioning trap: when competence turns into caretaking and then into resentmentWhat “reciprocity” actually looks like in real adult friendships (hint: not 50/50, but not forever lopsided)The three options when a friendship feels “askew”Why some friendships fade without drama, and why that doesn’t mean they weren’t meaningful Practical takeaways you can try immediately:The 2-2-1 ritual: 2 texts, 2 calls, 1 in-person touchpoint each week (small, doable, and powerful)Safeguard your energy: not everyone gets full access to your calendar (this one is hard for me too)If friendship has started to feel like an “extra” you’ll get to someday, I hope this conversation helps you treat it like what it actually is: a health habit and a life support system.Meet Dr. Kimberly HornDr. Kimberly Horn is an internationally recognized research psychologist, professor, and public health scientist whose work bridges science and soul to improve human well-being. With nearly three decades of experience and more than 160 scientific publications on addiction recovery, and physical and emotional well-being across the lifespan, she is dedicated to helping people live healthier, more fulfilling lives. At the heart of her work is a simple truth: meaningful connection is a powerful health intervention.Her new book, Friends Matter, For Life: Harnessing the 8 Tenets of Dynamic Friendship—endorsed by bestselling author Mel Robbins—confronts the public health crisis of loneliness, exploring friendship as its antidote. It offers a practical path forward—rooted in research—for navigating modern friendship and reclaiming connection. Her insights have been featured by NPR, CNN, ABC, SELF, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Mashable, Newsweek, The New York Times, TIME, USA Today, and Psychology Today. Kimberly is known for translating complex science into practical, relatable guidance for daily living.To learn more, follow Dr. Horn on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or visit her website.ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina🎈 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: dearninapodcast@gmail.com🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? **That’s probably here.**Grateful to our sponsor this week: The Midlife Creative Studio. Head to theMidlifeCreativeStudio.com and use the code DEARNINA at checkout to carve out an hour all to yourself, for free. Special thank you, as always, to assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs.
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    29 mins
  • #184 - Socially Connected, Emotionally Unsettled: The Friendship Paradox (Dr. Jeffrey Hall)

    #184 - Socially Connected, Emotionally Unsettled: The Friendship Paradox (Dr. Jeffrey Hall)
    Feb 15 2026
    Have you ever looked at your life and thought: I have friends. I’m doing things. I’m not isolated… so why do I still feel unsettled and maybe even lonely?This week’s guest is Dr. Jeffrey Hall (and yes, I was awkwardly a bit of a fan girl for this one). Dr. Hall is a professor and department chair of Communication Studies at the University of Kansas, where he directs the Relationships and Technology Lab. He’s the author of Relating Through Technology and The Social Biome, has written for The Wall Street Journal, and if you’ve read basically any big article about friendship over the last several years, you’ve probably seen his research quoted.You may know Dr. Hall best for his well-known findings on how long it actually takes to become close friends. We don’t get into the exact numbers in the conversation, so here they are: about 200 hours of shared time to become close friends, 80–100 hours for a solid friendship, and 40–60 hours for a casual one. If that feels like a lot, that’s the point. It explains why friendship can feel slow even when you’re “doing everything right.”But the heart of this episode is Dr. Hall's newer work from the American Friendship Project, research on what he calls the Loneliness and Connection Paradox. In the age range known as “emerging adulthood” (ages 18–30), people are often very connected--more friends, more touchpoints, more socializing than they’ll have later in adulthood--and yet they can still feel emotionally unsettled and lonely.That paradox isn’t limited to 20-somethings. Any season of rapid change can bring it on: moving, starting a new job, ending a relationship, divorce, kids leaving home, rebuilding a life, starting over. If you (or someone you love) is in a "season" where friendships feel shaky, slower than you want them to be, or weirdly unsatisfying even though you have a social life, this episode is for you.In this episode, we talk about:Why loneliness isn’t always a sign something is wrong — sometimes it’s a healthy signal that you want more connectionHow major life transitions disrupt our sense of social stabilityWhy women may experience the loneliness-and-connection tension more intenselyThe role of expectations in friendship — and why “high standards” can be both a strength and a stressorA concept I loved: ontological security — that settled feeling when life stops churning and friendships feel more stableA surprising insight about social media: it may be less about platforms causing poor wellbeing and more about people turning to them when they’re already strugglingAnd what Dr. Hall is studying next — including research suggesting that feeling socially connected today can actually give you more energy tomorrowMeet Dr. Jeffrey Hall:Jeffrey Hall is a professor and department chair of communication studies at the University of Kansas, where he is the director of the Relationships and Technology Lab. He is the author of Relating Through Technology and The Social Biome, and has written for the Wall Street Journal. ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina🎈 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🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? **That’s probably here.**Grateful to our sponsor this week: Learn more and apply at https://sahaquest.com/
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    39 mins
  • #183 - Are You Mad at Me? Friendship Anxiety and the Need for Validation (with Meg Josephson)

    #183 - Are You Mad at Me? Friendship Anxiety and the Need for Validation (with Meg Josephson)
    Feb 8 2026

    If you tend to assume someone’s upset with you when their tone shifts even slightly, when they don’t text back right away, or when you notice the smallest change in their availability, this episode is for you. And if you have a friend who is always asking, "Are you mad at me?" or assuming you're upset when you're simply living your life, then this episode will help you, too.

    I’m joined by licensed psychotherapist Meg Josephson, author of Are You Mad at Me?: How to Stop Focusing on What Others Think and Start Living for You. We spoke about people pleasing, anxiety in friendships, and that constant low-level worry so many of us carry: Did I say the wrong thing? Did I mess something up? Am I in trouble?

    Meg explains why people pleasing isn’t a personality trait or a weakness—it’s a survival response called fawning. A lot of us learned it early on as a way to stay safe, liked, and connected. The problem is that in adulthood, it turns into overthinking, over-apologizing, and a constant focus on how we’re being perceived, including in our friendships. It can very exhausting to live this way, and also tiresome for the friends who have to constantly assure you "everything's OK."


    In this episode, we talk about:


    • Why you can’t actually control how other people see you, no matter how carefully you try
    • What the fawn response is and how it shows up in adult friendships
    • How people pleasing leads to anxiety, burnout, and quiet resentment
    • The difference between reassurance-seeking and real emotional connection
    • Why constantly needing reassurance can be hard on friendships
    • How growing up around criticism or gossip can make you feel perpetually judged
    • Finding the balance between showing up for people and over-functioning
    • Why resentment is a signal worth paying attention to
    • A practical mindfulness tool for interrupting anxiety spirals
    • How social media makes people pleasing worse
    • Learning how to tolerate discomfort without immediately fixing it



    Meet Meg Josephson:

    Meg Josephson, LCSW, is a licensed psychotherapist. In her private practice, she specializes in trauma-informed care through a compassion-focused lens. She holds a Master of Social Work from Columbia University, and she is a certified meditation teacher through the Nalanda Institute. Meg also shares accessible insights via her social media platforms, reaching over five hundred thousand followers. Find Meg on Instagram at @megjosephson.



    ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO

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

    🎈 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

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



    Grateful to our sponsor this week: Learn more and apply at https://sahaquest.com/
    Show More Show Less
    41 mins
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