#212 - What Your Behavior May Be Saying to Your Friends (Laura Tremaine)

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.

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