Love Lives - The ups and downs of female friendship, with Gemma Styles

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

This week, Olivia is joined by writer and podcaster Gemma Styles to discuss the complexities surrounding female friendship.The duo talk about how the pandemic has made them reevaluate some of their friendships, whether you can outgrow certain friends, and how these relationships change in your 20s and 30s.They also discuss the fetishisation of female friendship groups in popular culture and the pressures this can put on women to form lifelong bonds at a young age.Finally, they discuss whether or not we should put the same emphasis on friendships that we do on romantic relationships.Enjoy the show!Follow the show on Instagram at @millennial_loveSupport Millennial Love with a donation today: https://supporter.acast.com/millennialloveSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like, and now that's what my grandma's on. Thank God phone a friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, a podcast from The Independent on everything to do with love, sexuality, identity and more.

This week I'm very excited to be joined by writer and podcaster Gemma Stiles. Gemma has just launched a new podcast called Good Influence with Gemma Stiles on which she interviews guests about everything from mental health to sustainability. Today she joins me on the show to talk about female friendship. We discussed how female friendship changes in your 20s and 30s, the pressures of finding the perfect sex and city style girl gang, and how to cope when it feels like you're drifting away from some of your friendship groups. Enjoy the show. Hi Gemma. Hello, how are you? I'm good thanks, how are you? Yeah not too bad thanks. We are recording this the day before we come out of the second lockdown, how have you found it so far?

Um I mean it's a bit Groundhog Day now isn't it? I feel like weirdly the second one's been harder which I feel like a lot of people have said but it kind of feels a bit like you know when's it going to end now and also it's cold now which is just so much worse yeah that's what I was going to say I think the first lockdown there was kind of this weird like almost excitement in the air because it was like well there's nothing we can do this is new this is interesting we're all at home together and but the sun is out so you can just can just drink wine outside on your doorstep. Exactly. Anyway, so you have a new podcast. Could you start us off by telling the listeners a bit about what it is and what made you want to start it? Yeah. So the podcast is called Good Influence with Gemma Stiles. And it's basically,

I have a different guest on every week. And the idea of the podcast is that we speak to a different guest and learn about something that they have to teach us, essentially. So it's been really great for me because I get to have a chat with someone really interesting every week and sort of get to ask them a lot of questions that are the things that I would like to know about from a podcast um but I also have got people to email in questions for the different guests and the different topics that we have so that's been really good so far like there's definitely been a couple of questions I can think of so far where I've asked the audience question and it's got like such a great answer out the guest and it's not something I ever would have asked so I'm really enjoying that sort of collaborative um part of it too and yeah everyone everyone's been so nice about it so far and like people have been really generous sending in their questions and sort of

giving giving lots of feedback and stuff so yeah it's been it's been really fun so far. Right so today we are going to talk about female friendship uh which is something I wanted to talk about on the show before but I think now is a particularly relevant time to talk about it because obviously we've been dealing with this pandemic for eight nine months now or something and I don't know about you but for me it's changed a lot of my friendships in terms of the fact that like obviously in the first lockdown you know everyone was on house party and everyone was facetiming people and everyone was doing zoom calls but you know you're not really gonna do those things with people that aren't your kind of like a-list friends so the kind of c-list d-list people who

you know you would happily have a drink with at a party or have a chat with, they've kind of fallen by the wayside a bit. And I just think how much of that is to do with the pandemic, but also is a part of that natural as, you know, we move through our 20s and into our early 30s. You know, friendships do inevitably fall away and you do kind of form closer bonds with some people than others how have you how have you found that um it's yeah like you say it's obviously been such a weird time um I think more than like letting people fall away I think for me it's kind of made me realize who I miss and even if you know because it's obviously like my closest friends I wish I'd seen them more this year but it's also like you know people who you might not see that often

but you realize that actually you do really miss seeing them and it makes you or it's made me realize yeah the people who I want to see when we go back out again and I think that's that's been like a conversation I've had with a few people is kind of it's really taken the pressure off having to do kind of like social things that we're like forcing ourselves to do so you know if everyone's going out and you're like oh well everyone's going I feel like I should go I feel like a lot of that's going to disappear after this because I mean they'll obviously be I'm sure there'll be a rush of people who are just desperate to go out to whatever they're invited to do when we're allowed to but I do think there's going to be a lot more of like people saying no to things that they don't

want to do because they know there's such an alternative of like having more free time and like I think people will probably be a bit better in their own company and I think yeah there probably are going to be some friendships reformed when we get out I think because yeah I think it just if it hasn't made you realize who you actually enjoy spending time with this year then nothing will yeah it's interesting isn't it because I know before um I'm just thinking of like this time last year for example you know typically in the run-up to Christmas it would be an incredibly busy social season wouldn't it and you'd have loads of Christmas parties you know whether they're your friends or friends of friends being invited to things and it's exhausting but I don't know

about you but what I end up doing is I say yes to everything and then when the night comes around and I'm inevitably exhausted I then feel so guilty but I have to cancel and I end up cancelling on so much stuff yeah yeah I've definitely I mean I've definitely done that before I think as I've got older and to be honest as I've gone through different patches of like anxiety and stuff like that I've definitely got better at not saying yes to as many things but I think it's kind of once you once you figure out your kind of rhythm with that then people know what to expect from you as well so I don't I don't know it's a funny one because actually now that I think about it I don't know that I'm sort of constantly saying no to things but also like to think of an example

so like a group of um my like girl friends um we've done it before where like we'll make plans and it'll be like right or we're all gonna meet up and go for dinner and then get people have you know bought tickets to go to like a club night or whatever like in a bar or something like afterwards and I've been like okay cool like I really want to see everyone and like I'm gonna come for dinner and like have some drinks or whatever and then I'm going to go home which like the first time you say it because I mean and to be honest like a lot of my friends like very different music to me as well so I was just like I'm just not going to enjoy this club night and I'm feeling a bit anxious and I don't really want to go and the first time you say it you're like can I say that can I like pick and

choose like what parts of this evening I want to do but in my experience you totally can because like people don't want to like force hang out with you and I think people who are you know actually your friends and know you I'd rather be like yeah I would really love to see you and that's like the bit that I want to do but thinking about going to this thing afterwards it's just making me really anxious and it's going to not make me even want to come to dinner. So I'm just going to say like dinner, great. Yeah. No.

That's such a good tip actually. I think outline it before you go so that you then don't feel guilty when you're like, okay guys, I'm going to slip away. Like I'm so known for not doing the second bit in my friendship group. I will always do the civilized first bit like the dinner or whatever where you actually talk to people and then for the late night stuff I'm

I'm I so never go that if I do say I'm gonna go my friends are like what you're coming to this really um but then again you know when we cut like I was saying before I'm so desperate to you know go out once lockdown ends when we get back to normal maybe I'll be going to the second part all the time I know we'll bump into each other some more like why are we both out I know um right I want to ask you about meeting people and making new friends in your kind of late 20s early 30s because I think there's kind of this idea like oh you should have this group of childhood friends who you hold on to for your entire life and I think that's particularly relevant with women and there's this kind of like idea of a perfect group of you

know four or five girls they're all in a whatsapp group they're all each other's rocks and I think that comes from popular culture which I want to touch on a bit later as well but do you think it's possible to form those really strong bonds with people that you do meet later on yeah I absolutely do I think like when I think about my life I don't imagine that I'm never going to meet anyone else who's going to be a really close friend to me because I'm like you know well 30 when this goes out so I don't think I'm like done making friends but also just thinking about friends that I have made so like my friend Rachel I met when I was I don't know 23 24 maybe like early 20s um and she's a bit older than me I think she's I think she's like seven or eight years older than me and we met through a mutual friend and just instantly got on really well and this this is obviously like

several years ago now like a long time ago and yeah I don't know I think it's one of those things where like some people you just meet and it just works like we're at quite different stages of life like she over the time that we've known each other um has like got married she's got two kids now like I'm godmother to one of her kids but like we've got very different lives and I don't think I mean I think that's something that happens a lot at this age is you know partly because not everyone is doing the same things or the same you know milestones of life at exactly the same time but also I think nowadays more than ever like the milestones that we hit aren't always

exactly the same so you are definitely gonna find that you're not doing the same things all the time and I feel like I've I have got there's people who I can think of who are friends of mine who, like you say, have, have got that group of lots of kind of girls that they've known since school who are still very close friends. I think I'm just thinking about my own, my own friendship group. I've got, I've got a group of maybe like 15 girls from school. Um, and that's a lot of people. 15, I was going to say. Yeah. But this is the interesting thing so we've got like one big whatsapp group for all of us but then within that there's like different

kind of cliques almost and different groups because it's impossible for 15 girls to all be as close with one another you know so there are different like sub sects of it if you see what I mean yeah um but it's interesting because I think the people often that you meet when you're older are more similar to you in terms of your interest because obviously you know you're a very different person to who you are at school to who you are in your late 20s and 30s so I think if I met if I met the people who I'm you know best mates with the people I met at school if I met them now I don't know if we would be as close as we are today I think part of what binds us together is that kind of history whereas all of the people I have met and made friends with in

my 20s and 30s and by the way I think I've only made like two really good friends in my 20s 30s like excluding uni and school um I think I've only got about two one of them's probably Charlie it's that they're much more similar in terms of like interests and what I'm currently doing and currently interested in um so I think there's definitely something to be gained from that and like you said about the age difference I think that's really interesting as well particularly as women because there's so much pressure on us to hit certain milestones by certain ages. It's, I imagine, incredibly refreshing when you have someone in your life who is older, who maybe hasn't hit those milestones, maybe has overcome the pressures that we're all facing now to do those things in like, you know, tick off these things in a checklist.

It's probably quite enriching to have that kind of relationship yeah definitely I think it's good to have people in your life who maybe you know have already gone through things or have had a very different experience to you because at the end of the day like nobody's experience of life is exactly the same as anyone else's but having kind of different people around you who've got different points of view can be really helpful and I think you know we get different things from all of our friends anyway I think and I think that's fine like it's a difficult one I feel like as you grow up I guess to realize that no two friendships are the same and by that I mean what what somebody means to me isn't exactly the same as what I mean to them and you know my relationship to friend a our other friend you know their relationship with them won't be exactly the same either and like I know that

I've got different friends who I would consider myself equally close to but in terms of like how we not how we interact with each other but like the things that you go to different people for are are always very different like yeah I think there's definitely that that kind of expectation that you have when you're younger especially that you're going to find like your one best friend who is going to be everything for you and you're like each of the soulmates and whatever you need they can give it to you and you can support them in whatever way they need and I think that's actually quite unrealistic like to find everything you need in one person I mean that's true of romantic relationships as well I would say yeah this is

what I was actually going to talk about because that's so interesting you bring that up because I do think with romantic relationships like you said we're looking for that one perfect person that completes everything that we need you know they can be our person we lean on when we're sad, they can be the person that we lean on when we want to do, you know, a crazy night out, like we expect our romantic partners to literally satisfy everything. And that is far too much pressure. And that is something that I think comes from years of social conditioning. And, you know, the relationships we see on screen in popular culture but it's interesting what you said that is the same with friendships but I think the difference and this is something I was talking to a friend about the

other day say you have a fight with your partner or your partner is doing something that pisses you off you talk to them about it don't you address it and you're like okay you have done this and it has annoyed me because of this, because obviously that's the way you overcome it. We don't necessarily have that same approach to our friendships. I think often if there's something that has pissed us off that a friend has done, I think we're more inclined to just let it go and move on. We don't kind of have the same inclination and compulsion to work through things with our friends do you know what I mean yeah I do know what you mean I think it's a tricky one because well I mean obviously any situation like that would be so individual but I do think I think it kind of should be the same in the way that you know like if it's a relationship

that you value and whatever has gone wrong is something that is going to be really detrimental to that relationship then you know like if it is a relationship that you care about and want to continue then you obviously want to get that sorted out but I totally agree it is much harder it almost feels like I don't know it's do you feel like you're gonna lose the person I don't I think it's it's just easy to let things fester in friendships I mean obviously not everybody who's in a romantic relationship lives together but there is you know that element if you're in a long-term relationship you might well live together there's only so long you can avoid someone giving you the cold shoulder when you're sharing a bathroom you know what I mean whereas

you know if you just haven't happened to see your friend for a couple of weeks and they're like oh I've just been busy at work like you don't really know it's it's quite easy it's a lot easier yeah that's true I think it might be I yeah I think that might be a real source of it is that you typically spend more time with your romantic partner than you do with a friend, who it's probably, it's probably quite easy to just, you know, not see them for a week, and then when you see each other again, it's no big deal, but you know, you're probably going to see your partner more often than that. Yeah, and I mean, I get, to be honest, I guess like then by the time, if you haven't, if you haven't seen someone for a week or a couple of weeks or whatever,

then maybe you've just cooled down by then and you actually weren't that bothered and you just needed the time to yourself. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. I'm Jessie Kirkshank and and on my podcast, Phone a Friend, I break down the biggest stories in pop culture. But when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy. You will not die hosting the Hills after show.

I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like a no. That's what my grandma's on. Thank God Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts.

Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com their podcast everywhere aks.com let's talk about popular culture i mentioned it earlier so if you look at a show like sex and city and i know i talk about sex and city all the time on this podcast and i'm sorry but it's just the best show ever and i just it's so relevant to modern life anyway i'm mentioning it now oh you're making the face have you not seen it Gemma I have not seen Sex and the City okay which has been of great annoyance to a

friend of mine before who also likes to reference it I kind of I mean I get it I've seen like the odd episode here and there I feel like it's so entrenched in popular culture I feel like I kind of get it but I wouldn't know the storylines if you ask me them yeah that's fine for the for this conversation you don't really need to have watched the show because I'm sure you're familiar with the fact that it's four women in New York all very close friends and they are they are each other's everything you know they are they are each other's family they support one another through grief they are there for each other you know in every situation they go above and above above and beyond for one another and it just paints this really lovely but very idealistic picture of female friendship like we said you know you can't rely

on one person for everything but then what this show does is it gives you this dynamic of four women and they all bring something different to the table and you know when I was growing up I felt a lot of pressure to kind of have that dynamic within my own friendships and I still feel it now um and I think this is something that affects women more than men because women are more likely to be the ones well this is what this is how it's portrayed in popular culture anyway to be sharing everything you know whereas male friendships are never really depicted in that way and perhaps they should be because that is probably very sexist like men don't talk about emotions ever um but anyway I guess my question to you is have you felt that pressure as someone who hasn't even seen the show you know that just dynamic do you think that's something that you feel?

the show you know that just dynamic do you think that's something that you feel yeah I think I definitely have done in the past or even if not a pressure a kind of expectation that that's kind of what was going to happen and you just find like that group of women and then they're your best friends forever and that hasn't necessarily been my experience which is something that I have thought about this a lot over the years and it's like so I had a group of female friends when I was in like sixth form kind of age um and then we all went off to uni and you know life moves on and they're as far as I know anyway and I mean I say this I don't really I haven't spoken to any of these people in years like nothing bad ever happened I just don't really speak to them anymore um but I'm pretty sure they're still like some of

each other's best friends and I kind of feel like that then again happened at uni and like my girl mates from uni who I still I love all of them dearly but most of them are still much closer friends to each other than we are to each other and I think like for for a long time I was kind of like is there just something a bit wrong with me that I kind of can't maintain this group dynamic of the friendship and like so like my uni friends for example like I still consider them all friends and like we do still see each other and I love it when we see each other but it's kind of that thing where you were saying before like we've got a whatsapp group that's like and there's only like seven of us it's not not not a 15 person job um but I know full well that obviously they see each other a lot more often as like a

subset and then even you know as a lower lower down than that there'll be like a couple of them who are each other's absolute best friends and I think that's like something that took me a long time to get my head around of like is there something wrong with me in this scenario or is it just is it just the way that it is and I kind of like I don't feel upset by that anymore like I don't I don't think there was anything wrong with the relationship that we don't still see each other every month but I also you know it's yeah it's just a different phase of life how did you how do you think you got to that place where you kind of didn't it didn't bother you anymore because I think that's a very common thing um you know I have a similar thing with my

friends from uni um I have you know individuals from uni who are very very close very close friends of mine but I know that there were big groups who I used to hang out with when I was there who now hang out without me and I've had that same feeling and it's it's a weird one because you're like you're in your 20s and you kind of feel like you're not part of the cool kids anymore at school and it's a weird thing to feel because you're like it feels a bit juvenile to feel annoyed by that so how did you get to a point where you weren't as bothered by that anymore I don't know I think I don't ever feel like it really annoyed me it was more that it kind of like made me a bit sad like I'd done something wrong but then I think it was kind of a realization that like it was it was never something that they'd like forced me out or not

wanting to hang out with me it was probably a situation that I'd created one way or another which is you know maybe partly because they were they were still going on like bigger nights out when I didn't really want to do that or like you know we live slightly further away from each other than we did before and a lot of them worked in central London and I didn't so they would like pop and see each other for dinner and stuff and I honestly I think part of it is just that I'm not that good at maintaining close relationships with that many people at the same time like it's just something that I've had to sort of learn about myself and it probably makes me sound terrible and I hope it doesn't I'm just being honest but I kind of don't have the like capacity to keep up

with that many people at that level yeah at the same time I think a lot of people don't particularly people in their mid to late 20s because you, you know, typically that's the time when for a lot of people, your career becomes, I think, more prominent in your life. And maybe your romantic relationships become more serious. And other things, you know, when you're younger, your friends is really kind of like your core thing, aside your family isn't it but then as you get older and you're you know maybe by this time you have found uh you know a passion in your professional life that takes up a lot more time than it would have done when you were younger and you know like you said maybe you move in with a partner maybe you get engaged like all of these things and you know you there's only so much room in your life

for for other things you know yeah I think I think it's also you know sometimes it just takes as we grow into different people and you go through sort of different phases of your life it takes you a while to find your people you know as they say but also as you change your people might change and that doesn't really it doesn't always mean that anybody's done anything wrong or that you know like people who I'm now not as close to it doesn't mean that those friendships were or are any less meaningful to me or that I don't you know care about other people anymore but I'm probably slightly different as a person you know I've got my like closer kind of day-to-day friends if you like not like the people I see most often is what

I mean by that the people I socialize with most often are my kind of London friends I guess who are like people who you know I met a couple of people through work and then like when I moved to London I mean and then got to know their friends got to know their friends like I met my boyfriend through that mutual friend so we've got a lot of like a lot of mutual friends our friendship group is fairly combined now that's really nice the people you tend to like hang out with a lot yeah then I will I will say it's like the as you said earlier about someone you know it's like if you'd have met a different time of life would you still have been friends and that's a conversation I've had a lot with my best friend Chloe who I've known since we were like five um so we've been friends for 25 years now so

a very very long time but we've had that conversation a lot actually and I like she is like a sister to me basically and I'm so glad that we met at the age that we did because if we'd have met when we were in high school I don't think we would have had the same friendship at all and like we we were still friends through high school but like she was she was like one of the top like popular girls in high school and I was like the like weird alternative like crowd with my like emo fringe and like we just had very different friends but like that's a friendship that I obviously cherish so much and I do I actually really enjoy that conversation and kind of thinking about the different people that you were at the same time at kind of different

points throughout the time you've known each other because yeah yeah also there's so much like serendipity and the people you meet at the right time yeah but also I think there's so much like serendipity and the people you meet at the right time. Yeah. But also, I think there's so much value in being friends with people who are different to you and have different interests and do different things. You know, none of my I think I have one friend that works in journalism. None of my friends do the same thing I do. They have such a mixed they're such a mixed bag of careers. And, you know, it just makes it really interesting. In fact, when we get together, we never really talk about our jobs. We just, I don't, I don't know how we just don't ever talk about what we do. It's never a thing. And no one really cares. I also, I think

some of my friends still think I work for the Guardian. Someone said that to me the other day. So maybe I should talk to them a bit more about what I do. Um the way I changed jobs two years ago yeah I was like that's not where I work um where do you think uh this idea that uh female friendship groups are really bitchy comes from because that's something that has plagued female friendships forever you know from when we were at school or just not even female friendships just like girls are so bitchy where there's this myth where it's like women are so bitchy they'll say stuff behind your back but men will always be really straightforward and stay to say stuff to your face um and that is such a problematic uh myth because what it does actually is it pits other women against each other a lot of the time doesn't

it and it's like I'm thinking of you know when I was at school there are certain women who would be described as oh she's a girl's girl and or like she's a she's a guy's girl you know like she's only friends with guys because she can't deal with all of that bitchy nonsense um which is just it's awful isn't it um but what do you what do you make of that where do you think that all kind of comes from I mean it's frustrating because I think it's probably quite a universal thing that we all waste a lot of time on that sort of narrative when we're younger because that's that's what we're told is going to happen you know that's what you'd see probably even in you know like teenage tv shows and stuff and like it's quite a dramatic dynamic like that's that's how people tell you that's how

teenage girls are so one you expect it and two I guess on some level you probably play up to it I think it's a lot of like it's a lot of competition between girls and I don't think it's girls' fault it's like part of that whole media narrative and like the thing that is just fed to us every day since we're born of like the sort of internalized misogyny of you know I have to be the best girl and we're all we're competing for I don't know boyfriends or girlfriends or like yeah or like you know who's the prettiest one and who's got this and who's got that and it's it's such bullshit isn't it really like and I do honestly I do I hope it's one of those things that future generations might not have to such a degree because I feel like the things that people know now and the way

that young people and young women understand how much we've always been manipulated by the media and stuff like that I think people are rejecting a lot of it and that obviously that that won't be everyone and I'm sure like you know if there's anyone listening who's in high school and is thinking nah they're still awful then yeah you know sometimes teenagers are just awful sometimes like sometimes women can be awful sometimes men can be awful like we can all be awful I've definitely been awful oh I've been awful this is a thing isn't it but I think yeah it's like I think so much of it comes from being in competition with each other from such a young age it's just nonsense I mean I am beyond grateful that Instagram didn't exist when I was in high school because like yeah so am I I don't I just I honestly I like I I feel for teenagers who are growing up like through all that because it's just

such a like an extra level of self-awareness that you have to have and like I was so self-conscious when I was at school I imagine if I'd have been had to start curating an Instagram feed like what a living nightmare yeah I think even just even the social media that I did have when I was at school things like Bebo um and um yeah oh god Bebo was so awful because not only did you have a profile picture but you also had like you could put a soundtrack on your profile page and I remember so like every time someone went to look at your profile they would hear this song and I think mine was like a Nickelback song amazing so mortifying I was trying to be this like cool grungy rocker oh god you know what that's so funny now you mention it though like thinking about did they I didn't have bubo did they did they have the same like on my space where you'd have your like top friends section and you'd

have to like shuffle about and like display to the world who your like best friends and your top ranked friends were like oh god like no wonder we're all so messed up for our friendship yeah that's so true I completely forgot about that that's so weird we had that as well we also had which is so strange I don't know if they had this at other schools but at my school you there was this thing called like your top five in terms of the people you fancied when we were like 12 and 13 and for some reason people would write it on the back of their hand and you would write like the five people you fancied and one two three four five and so at break time everyone would just be grabbing each other's hands to see who everyone like oh my god oh that's so funny it's so weird um

um finally on the subject of social media i want to ask you uh so you obviously have a massive social media following you have like six million followers or something um i can't imagine the pressure that probably comes with that um but also the privilege because you know it gives you a platform to talk about yeah about which is amazing um but I want to know how it's affected your approach to friendships because I suspect in in one in one way maybe it's made you kind of cling on to the people that you have met offline and the people you've known for years before you got this big social media following but in another way I want to know if it's made you more open to making friends with people online and you know having really interesting

conversations with people on Instagram and then becoming friends with them because that happens a lot now um how how has how has your social media following impacted your friendships um I think it's really important and I think this would probably be the same for anyone that you know I have friends who I've known for a long time who are kind of like grandfathered in if you know what I mean so you never have to think about the fact that it's like it's a weird conversation to have because it makes me sound like I think really

highly of myself which I don't but there are people who see a lot of followers on a social media account and suddenly want to be your friend which I have to say I have always found to be extremely transparent I can imagine can you tell there are definitely people like people who I've met who I've been like no I'm getting a weird vibe from you instantly or like all this has happened to me so many times like if you have gone to like I don't know a party or like I don't know somewhere like with a friend and they introduce you to people and people are like yeah like oh you're you're not that tall you're not that thin like you're you're clearly not anyone what are you you know you're not someone who's all like on the scene who I

need to meet and then they suddenly realize that I've got like really stupid amounts of Instagram followers and they're like oh my god hi babe do you want a drink or anything and I'm like too late too late it's so it's that is so bleak first of all what that says about our society in terms of our like social currency is based on how many Instagram followers you have oh it's also it's horrifying but also it's just so funny because like you said I imagine it is so transparent and people probably don't realize how obvious it is but that's what they're doing it's not put me off ever getting to know anyone online I think like there's definitely people who I know I say I know who I like know through Instagram because we'll like occasionally reply to each other's Instagram stories or something like that I don't know I probably do have like a level of wariness around it but it's just nowhere near as weird as it is um with like dating

that's the only thing I can compare it to so like when well like lucky for me touch wood I've not had to go on a first date in quite a long time now but like going on dates and stuff and having kind of like skirting around the question of like what I do for a living or like not wanting to talk about like I don't know you wouldn't want to like let people know stuff like that too soon because you just never know like what people's motivations are and stuff yeah it's it's really interesting we did an episode um with an influencer called grace beverly in the summer about dating in the public eye and she was talking about that as well and you know yeah you think friendships are complicated christ dating is a whole other ball game like yeah you know she can't even use a dating app because she'll go on bumble

and she'll get all of her followers reporting the account because they'll be like oh this can't be this can't be you she can't be on bumble um and then also it's actually it's so interesting also she would get followers going up to like her boyfriend when he was with another girl being like I know you're Grace's boyfriend what are you doing talking to that girl and he's like whoa who are you I mean that's that's so funny there's so many different aspects of friendship on that like one the fact of like you know women sticking up for each other and being like oi what are you doing yeah but then also the assumption that men and women can never be friends is wrapped up in there as well like what a minefield yeah Christ I know we haven't I think we have done

an episode on whether men and women can never be friends that's another interesting meaty subject that some of my male friends feel so strongly about ironically they'll be like even though we're friends they will they will kind of insist oh no men and women can never be friends because the man always fancies the woman so it's time for our lessons in love segment so this is the part of the show where I ask every guest to share something that they've learned from their relationship experiences um Gemma what is your lesson in love it can be relationships it can be friendships it can be anything I mean I think coming out of this conversation just you know doing that much reflection I think yeah realizing that we all mean different things to each other and the different things we mean to each other aren't necessarily you know ranked higher than the other one and it's very unlikely

that you're going to find one person two three people in your life who are necessarily going to give you everything that you want everything that you need at every different stage of your life I think you know friendships evolve through your life the things that you need at every different stage of your life I think you know friendships evolve through your life the things that you need evolve the people who you're going to be closest to but remember that goes the other way as well you know like if your friends are spending a huge amount of time with each other it might just be that there's something in particular that they need right now that isn't your strong suit and that's not always a bad reflection on you it's just everyone's different yeah I think it's important

what you said to to realize that and just take the pressure off a bit because otherwise you can be left with those feelings of like oh I'm not I'm not cool anymore they don't want to hang out with me anymore like why don't I have that perfect female friendship group? There must be something wrong with me. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. Very few people have that because that's just not a realistic depiction of life. You know, you need to get different things from different people. And that's just, that's just the common experience, isn't it? Yeah, for sure. I think trying to find like, trying to find in your friendships, the strength that you have and the role that you can play as well. Like, you know, like you were saying earlier, there might be, you know, the friend that you go to if you really want a big

night out, for example, like I'm probably never going to be that person for people. But I do know that in like, in a lot of my my friendships I know that I am one of the people who people will come and talk to if they feel like they really need to talk to someone if you know what I mean not not to kind of like go too deep into that but that's a lovely thing to be able to that's a lovely thing to be able to offer people and it's really like you said it's important to recognize your value as a friend and what you can offer yeah I think it's it's a weird one to realize like as you go through and sort of get quite introspective about friendships throughout your life and start thinking what am I doing wrong as a friend what am I not giving people that they're finding from someone else I think yeah try and

find the things that you actually do give to people in the ways that you are a good friend. That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. If you're a new listener to this show, you can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast or anywhere else. You can comment and leave us a rating too so that more people can find us. Keep up to date with everything to do with the show on Instagram. Just search Millennial Love. See you soon. Instagram. Just search Millennial Love. See you soon. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got

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