This is the most dramatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast.
Everybody.
Welcome to the most dramatic podcast ever. Lauren Zema coming to you a solo because my husband is on the go today, Chris Harrison playing in his member guest golf tournament and I support it and I love it, and it's for him kind of a little mini guys trip. His best friend has come in to town for them to play in this golf tournament together and they are busy with it for three days.
And here's the thing.
I fully support it because I fully support friendships for both of us guys' trips, girls trips, golf trips. I mean, for me, it's never a golf trip, but it is a girl's trip. And I think that these friendship outings are so vital for the health of our romantic relationships and for the health of us as individuals. And that
brings us to the playbook today. What we are getting into is this Reddit post that has gone viral, and the headline on People Magazine's website is woman refuses to go on girls trip says she quote doesn't want to talk about marriage and babies for three days.
That's a very strong headline. It's very quickworthy.
I wanted before I get into it, give a little more to the post. So here's what this woman says. She identifies herself as a twenty seven year old woman, and she says that she and her close group of seven friends have known each other for over a decade and they go on a couple trips a year. Great, all sounding good, but now she's going to skip a trip. She says, quote, I am content with my life. I'm single,
I'm dating, I don't know if I want children. But she says that five of the women in her friend group are either married or in very long term relationships,
and two either have kids or are pregnant. She says she is declining this trip, telling her friends it is going to be a massive financial expense for her, and that for three days she's just gonna talk about people's upcoming engagements, weddings, and babies, and that she feels like her friends do not show an interest unless she's talking about her dating life.
Okay, this is interesting to me, and I'll be honest.
At first, you see that headline and I'm like, okay, babe, that's not fair. You can't say that you don't want to talk to your friends because they just want to talk about marriage and babies, like that's what's important to them and that's what matters. And for our friends. If you want long term friendships, I think you got to like support both the similarities and the differences in your lives. Your lives are not going to always be in the same status, in the same place at the same time.
But then when she's like, Okay, all they want to do is talk about me if I'm dating, Well, okay, we're getting into a different realm now, aren't we. Because I don't think women should be defined by their relationships. And this is a tough call because I, as a woman, I love to talk about relationships.
This podcast is all about talking.
About relationships, and that is certainly something my friends and I bond over. But we can't be sidelining the women who don't want.
To talk about it.
And here's where I would say that, like they're missing the mark. I think you can talk about relationships more so than the dating relationships, like this girl's trip. While it's fun to talk about our husband's, our boyfriends, our girlfriends, whatever it is that you know that like relationship drama, and that helps us relate what about our work relationships, what about our familial relationships, what about all the dynamic relationships that are making up the social fabric of our lives?
Like if our friends only want to talk about our dating life, I agree, I support that. I don't think we can be narrowing it down to that, yea. And I will admit that there have been moments where, like, you know, my friends are just talking about motherhood, and I certainly can relate, like having Chris's kids in my life, but like I never raised young kids. Sometimes I'm like, oh, I don't know how much I have to offer here, but I think it's okay also to be like a
little bit quieter in those moments. I don't know, we don't always all have to say something about everything. Now the big question becomes should she have fully bowed out on the trip? And I have to take out her saying it was a big financial expense.
I think she should have stuck with it. I do.
And here's why. These friends she's saying are her friends of over a decade. These friendships have clearly like stood the test of time, and I think you have to keep investing in relationships even when it's.
Not always easy.
Like I look at I do an annual trip with my girlfriends, not every trip has has been our best trip, and sometimes people were in different states of hardship, like and but we keep going because we keep investing and we keep connecting.
I have said no to some trips where like.
The activities were no for me, like like, uh, you know, if I look at an itinerary and I'm like, I don't like to do any of that, well, then I kind of know I'm going to be a I don't want to be like a bummer and a downer and crapping on the experience the whole time. So maybe I'm out, you know, like maybe if it's going to be a golf trip, I'm out on that. I don't want to do that. But I don't want to be out on people.
I don't want to be out on people who have been my friends of ten years because sometimes when you do that, like we've had people I do the Samuel trip with my girlfriends and we've had people who like said Noah couple times and they stop getting the invitation and those people have later come back and regretted it. And I'm not saying we like tried to ice them out.
I just think like trips and friendships take a lot of work and commitment, and and if you're somebody who's saying no, well, relationships are a two way street, and people kind of start to be like, well, I don't know, you know, you were out. Like if I was going to say no to a golf trip, if that's what all my friends were doing, then I'm going to plan something else.
You know, I'm going to plan a trip.
To NAPA and be like, hey, I miss the golf trip, but I have this coming up if anybody would like to partake. If I say no to a dinner, I try to be the next one to plan the happy hour. A little more from this woman's post, She said that one of the women spoke about her breastfeeding plans despite not being pregnant. This woman says, quote truthfully, it's boring. Well, you know, I'm also a big fan of like if your friends are going on and on, if these are
your good friends. I think sometimes a gentle way to call people out is with a joke. My friends and I do that to each other a lot, like, not in a mean way, but just if somebody's talking about their plans for breastfeeding for over an hour. It's like, babe, I love you, I don't what are we I got nothing left on breastfeeding? Can we go and feed ourselves a margarita and like change the topic, change the location,
do it in a gentle or joking way. I will say, on our girls' trips, it's a lot of talking, just like I'm doing now. We joke that talking is the activity, but we like talking. But sometimes I'll be like, hey, let's change the venue, like let's get up out of the pool and like go to dinner, or hey, you know, we were kind of all riding, like some of us are riding in this car. In this car, let's switch
up who's in the car with the other people. We literally will do that because like different conversations come out of it, Like we'll trade who's riding in the car so that we can catch up with each other and different topics can come up, and we also go deep quick.
I'm a fan of that. On trips.
She's saying that her friends spoke about her breastfeeding plans for over an hour. I'd be curious, did you dig in with a deeper question for your friend and say like, hey, I noticed that, like you're planning the parenting thing a lot, Like where's your head out on that? It feels like becoming a mom is so important to you right now?
Like why is that?
And maybe dig a little deeper past because while you know things like motherhood or marriage or work are not surface level, you do got to go even deeper than that, get to the why why is this job important to you right now? That you're talking about? Why is becoming a mom important to you right now? Why this moment? Or why are you hurt that something isn't happening? Or why have you stopped dating? Why are you taking a
break from dating? Which apparently I think this person is so you know, I think get to the why switch it up, change the venue. But I don't love saying no to the trip.
She says.
It feels like the group has two distinct life stages and I'm in the minority and it focuses on one stage. Maybe it's not the weekend for me at the moment. Yeah, I go back to like I think this is this spotlights kind of looking at friendships that are sometimes for a reason and sometimes for a season, and sometimes for life. I'm not sitting here saying you have to maintain every
friendship in your life forever. Like I've had friendships come and go, and it wasn't necessarily because something bad happened. But you know, maybe you move away and that friendship doesn't last, or you know, maybe you kind of went deep with a friendship quickly and then realize maybe we don't have that much in common, just like a romantic relationship, or maybe you don't work together anymore, or whatever, maybe
a person changed. Friendships can come and go. But again I kind of go back to her saying, like these people have been her friends for over a decade. That means you've been through seasons before, and I don't want you to lose like that friendship. Now I don't know this woman, so maybe maybe there is a pause moment. I do believe that in any relationship, you have to feel like you put all the effort in to, you know, before you say goodbye.
But sometimes it's okay to pause.
Sometimes it's okay to like circle back later and then maybe that later won't happen. But like before she said no to this weekend, I would be interested to know, like is she willing to say no to these friendships, to be done with these friendships. So yeah, I do think you can. You can naturally go your separate ways in friendships.
And I've had some friendships.
Where, you know, like maybe we were friends in college, and then once they got married and once they had kids, and once they moved to a different state, we just didn't have that much in common anymore. Like maybe we had a lotment in college with our activities and living down the hall from each other. But you know, I see what this woman is saying about, maybe like the commonality of their lives. If all of her friends are in relationships and married and have kids and she doesn't.
She isn't married and isn't.
A serious relationship and doesn't have any kids, it can feel like you're in really different places. And if that's how she feels like, and you really can't connect anymore. I am not an advocate of keeping relationships in your life that like aren't. Like, I do think relationships should be a value, They should be two way streets, and they should be of value. And if she feels like these people really aren't listening to her, aren't supporting her,
and she doesn't have anything in common anymore. Okay, take that pause or even say goodbye, But I just want to know that she asked herself those questions before she said no to a weekend and thought about, Okay, if I say no to this, does that hurt my friends? If I say no, do I stop getting you know? Do people pull away from me because she's pulling away from them? And I'm a big advocate like, no matter how much social media connects us all in that, we
need in person interaction. We need that girl's trip to reconnect. And you'd be surprised by how much more you get out of an in person interaction than you do out of.
A phone call or a text.
So all that being said, I love a girl's trip, I love a guy's trip, and I do think we have to support our friends whatever life stage they're in.
It might be different from us.
But sometimes I think if you get to the deeper why in people's lives, you're surprised by the commonality that's there, Like why does someone want to get married? What might be the exact same reason is why somebody else is looking for a new job. Maybe you're looking for stability or you're wanting change in your life. Why someone wants to leave a job might be the exact same reason somebody wants to go through a breakup.
I am still an.
Advocate for Like, if this person really feels like this was going to be a super unhealthy experience, these relationships have gotten unhealthy and she was going to feel like crap going okay, well then don't go. Just just know you know what not going might mean for the relationships overall. At the end of the day, make sure you have friends in your life. Friendships are so important. I think we do a lot of focusing on like do you
have a romantic relationship? Do you have friendships? We need it all and the friendships help support the romantic relationships, and the romantic relationships should help support the friendships. And thank you guys for your relationship with us, for always listening and chatting. There might be some reaction to this, so shoot me a DM let me know what you think, and we will talk to you next time because as always, we will have a lot more to talk about.
Thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram at the most Dramatic pod ever and make sure to write us a review and leave us five stars. I'll talk to you next time,