Saturn Returns with Caggie - 6.7 Friendship heartbreak, Sexuality and Finding Your Tribe with Florence Given

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Florence Given is a Sunday Times bestselling author, illustrator, artist, podcast host of ‘Exactly’ and feminist activist who shot to fame with her first book Women Don't Owe You Pretty.  In this conversation, Caggie and Florence talk about female social dynamics and friendships, how Florence discovered her sexuality, why we need to be more unapologetic in our behaviours as well as waking up to why the world around us continues to do a disservice to women. Florence and Caggie also discuss the Saturnian principle of accountability, as well as why we may be enabling narcissistic behaviour in our partners.   --- Follow or subscribe to "Saturn Returns" for future episodes, where we explore the transformative impact of Saturn's return with inspiring guests and thought-provoking discussions. Follow Caggie Dunlop on Instagram to stay updated on her personal journey and you can find Saturn Returns on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.  Order the Saturn Returns Book. Join our community newsletter here.  Find all things Saturn Returns, offerings and more here.

Hello everyone and welcome to Saturn Returns with me, Kagi Dunlop. This is a podcast that aims to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. And any time I find myself justifying a relationship in my life friendship dating whatever to my friends I know that there's something wrong going on there when you're going yeah but they do this and it's almost like a Jekyll and Hyde type split thing where they're amazing and you kind of crave those moments and I've had that in female friendships as well not just romantic relationships on this week's episode of Saturn Returns I am joined by the one and only Florence Given. I have wanted to get Florence on the show for such a long time, so I was so thrilled to have this conversation with her.

And in this conversation, we unpack female friendships. This has been a topic that so many of you have asked for on the show. So I'm very excited to be having this conversation with Florence and bringing this episode to you. Before we get into this episode where we unpack a lot, let's check in with our astrological guide, Nora. Twelve zodiac signs, twelve houses, twelve realms that preside over a particular area of the human life. Friendship relates to the archetypes of Gemini, Libra and Aquarius, the three signs that represent the air element. The air element, among many things, stands for mental and intellectual connection. It stands for communication and what we can create out of it, the types of communities and friendships we become a part of thanks to this very expression of the air element within us. Saturn at the time of recording is transiting the sign of Aquarius, the last

of the air signs. It's the sign of the humanist, the genius, the innovator, but mostly it's the sign of the friend. Saturn also corolls Aquarius which means that if we look at our friendships we are most likely to learn much about ourselves and the needs we have in healthy, enduring friendships. Some for example discover around their Saturn return that a childhood friend is to go in a different direction, or that a friend they bloody trusted betrays them. Others feel cast out of a friend circle they so deeply valued. And then on the brighter side, many finally find their community and forge friendships that set a foundation for the next decades. If we're open to it, the opportunity to attract sincere platonic love

starts to increase significantly as we get older. We become less tolerant with friendships that have jealousy, greed or unhealthy competitiveness plaguing it, something we might have normalized before. During Saturn transits, we're seeking friends we know we can rely on, we desire to align with those who have similar values and a moral compass pointing in the same direction, at the very least. compass pointing in the same direction, at the very least. A quote by Anaïs Im, who was a novelist with Saturn in Aquarius in her own natal chart, explains the gifts and necessity of a healthy friendship best. She wrote, each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born so wait Florence I want to call you flaws because I feel like

welcome to the Saturn Returns podcast thank you so much for having me I'm so excited we've wanted to have you on here for ages and I do feel I think probably a lot of people get this with you I do feel like I know you. Okay interesting yeah. But then obviously like you know perceptions of how people are then like sometimes very different in reality so I'm super excited to have this conversation. then like sometimes very different in reality. So I'm super excited to have this conversation. The place where I wanted to begin,

if you're happy to go there, because obviously you're still very, very young, you've achieved a huge amount, but I would like to ask you about what your experience was like at school. The reason I bring it up is because I think friendship groups and especially like women's friendships are a big theme that people talk about. And then I get a lot of questions about is because I think friendship groups and especially like women's friendships are a big theme that people talk about.

And then I get a lot of questions about with my community. And it's something I've heard you speak about. And also you have so much autonomy and like authority in who you are. But of course, like our friendships and our relationships in our younger life, like have a play a huge part in shaping who we are, or, you know, perhaps we rebel against them. So I just wanted to ask you about those years,

because of course they're super formative to all of us. They are. They're super formative. And I really love how you frame this question, because I actually, when I look back at my life, I think I learned probably, obviously everyone learns their attachment style from their parents but I think I was hurt most in my female friendships as a child because women hurt each other with intimacy we don't hurt each other by beating each other up in the playground and

then being like all right fine this is over this is done with like boys do right it's like we we spread rumors about each other we use our secrets against each other to get in with the other girls or the cooler girls. Or when it's our turn and we're the one being picked on, we rubble back to the friend group. And then some people opt out of it altogether. And I think everyone has a different experience with female friendship when you're growing up in secondary school, primary school. And I always was very attached to my female friends growing up, like very attached. Did you have like one best friend or like a group or lots of different friends or did you,

how was it for you? I've always had lots of different friends, but I had my besties, you know. When I was in primary school, I was very, I was a very eccentric child. I was very self-expressive. I used to wear Lady Gaga costumes. I used to make collages of Lady Gaga. I used to wear Lady Gaga costumes. I used to make collages of

Lady Gaga. I used to learn how to do her hair. She had in the music video with her and Beyonce telephone, they made these like cigarette sunglasses and I made them out of little brown rolled papers and stuck them on my Primark sunglasses. And I was very expressive. I used to make people do tests of my knowledge of Lady Gaga. I'd be like, ask me absolutely anything about Lady Gaga and I will answer it I was very eccentric I used to upload pictures of myself online like fuck the haters

I had absolutely no haters but I was on my Facebook account going fuck the haters with my middle finger up and then I would get bullied for it on Facebook and people made up these Facebook accounts like Florence Given is a slag with all of these pictures. Were they people from school?

Yes, people from school, but you didn't know who set them up. So then it was like, ooh, who made this account of me? So yeah, I was a very eccentric child and my mum just let me do it. We'd be in Zara. I'd be shopping with my mum in Zara, like holding her hand. And then all of a sudden I'd just break out into some kind of break dance in the middle of the room in my little punk skirt tutu with my friend at the time and my mum just kind of like my mum was never embarrassed of me which I think has helped me keep that flame the flame that I still have today to even go online and be silly and do talking videos and dance in my knickers I think you have this gorgeous creative flame inside of you. I think everyone has it and it's either bashed out of you

or it's preserved and loved by those around you. And I think I thank my mum greatly for never shaming me for who I was, even if she didn't think it was, you know, cool or whatever. She always just kind of, yeah, let's do her own thing. I think the shame kept it with my peers. So it wasn't until I moved to secondary school that I decided to fit in. Brené Brown talks about the distinction between fitting in and belonging and fitting in is the sense of moulding yourself to be the same as people in a group uh to have a sense of it's a false sense of belonging is it yeah it is a false sense of belonging exactly but when you're authentic you'll actually

tend to find that maybe there are other people around you who resonate or relate to that. And then it just actually takes a lot longer to form those connections. Long story short, I went to high school. I was so annoying. I was in the first year, I was like going around to everyone, hi, my name's Floss. I'm obsessed with Twilight. And then this self-awareness of boys and girls and what everyone thinks of me started to kick in and it was very obvious to me there was a hierarchy in school for me and it's survival instinct so I just completely dumbed down everything that I was about it wasn't a conscious decision at all I was doing what I thought you had to do to be popular and be liked and I think

that's one of the biggest currencies but when you're a young girl especially well I need to be liked and it's only exacerbated now on social media that's why I've written all about this in Girl Crush and I've started every chapter with Eartha's following and likeability because I want people to see how it literally impacts her mood when she wakes up in the morning if she's lost followers she's having a shit day and every single thing that you go through in high school I can't imagine having TikTok in high school now. So anyway, I was friends with this group of girls in school. And then I was an absolute little shit in school for the first few years when I started being friends with them, not paying attention in class,

just completely downing myself down, just being a little shit, basically. And then my parents had an intervention with my teachers, you know, like parents evening. And they were like, parents had an intervention with my teachers you know like parents evening and they were like floss is so bright but she's not applying herself and we don't know why we think something needs to happen because she's sat at the back of class she's not behaving she's just not applying herself but we see these little sparks in her and it's it's like it's wanting to get out but she's not letting it and my parents were like gosh you need to buckle down you need to focus on your grades and so I sat started to sit in front of class right I was like saying to my mates oh I've got to sit in front of class forever then I actually started to apply myself and I really enjoyed it I'm a very I love I love I love working I love getting results I love

doing tests I love exams I loved all of it and my grades went from d grades to a grades um in for my GCSE and then once I started to sit at the front of the class and score and actually want more for myself that's when I lost all the friends because it was it was almost like a cult it was like anyone who breaks the rules of the cult is exiled from the cult and you'll have rumors spread around about you so you're completely isolated and no one else can be friends with you and that was the punishment um I confided in a friend about a secret a very personal secret something I was going through and then it got spread like wildfire around the school as social currency because she wanted to be friends with the popular girls right um and I remember experiencing such shame I had after that

I had no option to crawl back to them because I'd been kicked out. And I was on my own for a bit. I made friends in some other classes, but that's when I fucking found myself. And I developed anxiety going into school because of the girls and what they would say. Even a look from them would, you know, girls are so mean and I'm not entirely a victim. I've definitely been mean to girls in school. And then when you experience it on yourself and it's everyone in school's not allowed to talk to you because they've heard this rumor about you and you're really gross it's um it's so it's so shameful you feel it in your body but I completely rejected that shame so I I googled that I was having heart palpitations I didn't know what it was I didn't want to tell my mum because I thought it was embarrassing

and I googled racing heart short of breath whatever it was. I didn't want to tell my mum because I thought it was embarrassing. And I Googled racing heart, short of breath, whatever. And it was like, you have anxiety. And then I went to Waterstones to buy a book on mindfulness because they said one of the techniques to soothe it is to be more mindful and to do breathing exercises. So I was 14 years old and I bought this book on mindfulness and that book changed my life. It said in the book, do one thing that scares you and I loved the sun I still love the sun I'm an absolute sun worshiper and I went and laid in the middle of this field where everyone from my school would go it was like it was a park near the school and to be seen on your own laying in the middle of a field was just so embarrassing and cringy but it's what I wanted to do so I went over to the field I laid in the middle of it listened to an entire album

of what I was listening to and I just felt so in love with myself I was like oh my god that was so embarrassing at first but now I feel amazing I feel confident I feel courageous and then I started to include those little acts of courage in my everyday life which I think Gloria Steinem actually has a quote about doing one outrageous act a day and an outrageous act to someone else might be something as scary as asking someone for the time everyone has a different version of what's scary and what isn't and to me that was being seen as alone and that's what I talk a lot a lot about in women don't only pretty even is having courage to be single and I think that we're so encouraged women in particular to just couple up with literally anyone rather than rather than be alone that we settle for these really

uh toxic and unhealthy relationships um and it's just something I'm so passionate about I'm so passionate about showing women the alternatives I just love any reason to bring women together and I love doing with my Instagram doing with my events and it's actually healing for me because of what I've been through before well I was gonna say it sounds very healing for you because you know there was that sort of exile that you experienced and I got you touched on so many amazing things firstly that thing that your parents always encouraged you to be who you were and your fullest expression is amazing because I think a lot of people don't get that and that's not necessarily a parent's fault it's just they're

living through their own limitations or how they've made themselves smaller and in turn they're projecting that onto their children but then secondly this piece around belonging and fitting in which is so present in school and in this very hierarchical way but then as we get older we still like there's still this presence of it and even though on one hand women can create amazing communities for each other of support and we talk about things and we can be emotional support systems to each other equally we can tear each other down and that part around school and like what you experienced and that sort of exile you went through I think is going to resonate with so many people and also for you to have that awareness did you say you were 14 when you had yes yeah yeah and you took yourself

off at 14 and you were like fuck this I'm gonna lie on the field on my own which is incredible because I don't think people sometimes people go their whole lives without ever doing that one courageous thing but then you know you're saying that now sort of your part of your mission is bringing women together and actually creating community so did that stem from that feeling of isolation and exile I wouldn't say I think anyone who goes into any type of work that's people focused doesn't know why they do it until they have hindsight so I didn't do it going I'm doing this because of my experience in high school or I'm doing this because I don't want to be that

person I want to be the antidote to this it wasn't a conscious decision I think you just go full steam ahead. And then only later I'm going, oh, obviously, duh. You know, it's like then you connect the dots. And I'm looking back at everything. And I'm like, God, it just makes so much sense. Even my complete obsession with women. I didn't know I was queer, you know. I didn't know that that was why. And then in hindsight, you look back and I'm like, oh, god there's there's all of the dots I used to like it's the classic queer coming out story of only look looking back and seeing how obvious it was

um I why was it obvious I got I in these I was completely like I said to you I found these really intense attachments with my female friends and I couldn't quite make sense of those feelings because I'd only seen women be loved and adored through the eyes of men so I'd seen examples of how men loved women and how men thought about women and I didn't relate to that way it was this inexplainable feeling and no one else had it or was talking about it at least um and the I and also the image the stereotypical image that we have of lesbians is is butch and masculine and I just wasn't butch and masculine and I was like well then that's just all of these feelings is obviously I'm just obsessed with my friends and obviously I just think these women are beautiful in the media

and I just you know maybe want to kiss them but oh god what does that mean and yeah so I didn't really know but then yeah I remember I have this really vivid memory of crying to my mum in Asda and like holding her hand as a child going mum I don't want to be a lesbian because I was thinking because I was thinking you'd have to conform to the stereotypes yeah no no no I just didn't know because I was having these thoughts um right oh and you were scared about it yes yeah I inherently knew that being gay wasn't safe and that it wasn't like something that people in society liked it was all this internalized homophobia that I had I was like literally five years old in Asda just crying and I think like you said the way that we're brought up and and view often ourselves and like the way women are viewed through the male gaze is like very overly sexualized

so when you had this sort of adoration for women at what point did it become sexual if you don't mind me asking because it sounds like it was more like you just adored them no it was like it was you know the more i came into myself it was like absolutely I wanted to have sex with girls and kiss girls but I also wanted to care for them and love for them in ways that I've never heard men speak about like I was like oh yeah I want her to fuck me but I also want to braid her hair before she goes to bed you know and I was like what the fuck is that like what is this oh it's just that's just love that's just what you want to do um yeah but I never and I never spoke about it to my friends because then I thought would they be

scared it's the classic queer thing where you're like if I tell my friends will they be afraid because we've had sleepovers yeah are they gonna think that I fancy them yes and it's just so annoying so yeah what was that like with your parents or were they like completely amazing and yeah they my mum didn't really get it I think I think a lot of parents they can understand being gay or straight but not bisexual so they're like which one is it uh my dad when I first came out he thought I was lesbian I saw him like two years after I'd come out and we just finally spoke about the girls I've been dating and he was like and I said like a guy was attractive or something and he was like whoa he was like do you like men again also I'm bisexual but yeah they're totally supportive of

me um and yeah I feel very lucky to have that and then when it came to your friendship groups because it sounds like you went through a big shift, especially moving to London. Yeah. With friendships. What was that like at school? And then how did that change as you left school and moved to London and kind of crafted this new life for yourself? Yeah. So I've been putting my artwork online while I was living in Plymouth. So everyone in Plymouth kind of knew me for being this loud feminist. in Plymouth so everyone in Plymouth kind of knew me for being this loud feminist um but that only really came between so I started illustrating in my art GCSE um my art teacher introduced me to a

fashion illustration book and I was like can I draw naked women and he was like yeah go for it again how did I not know so I was like can I draw naked women so I started doing that and then when I went to art college I did my fashion b-tech instead of a-levels and there was this course on the thing where you were doing fashion illustration and I just completely fell in love with the unit started pairing it with my political slogans I can go into nightclubs men were groping me and my friends and I couldn't believe it I was disgusted and no one else was disgusted everyone was like Ross that's just all my friends were older, so they'd already been going out for a while. They were like, Ross, that's just the way it is.

They don't mean anything by it. And I was like, but I feel violated. Am I crazy? But this is, like, this is weird. And then I started Googling it. And I was like, oh my God, sexual harassment is a thing. So I started putting it into my illustrations,

desperate for someone to just kind of agree with me that this is fucked up. Started putting them on Instagram. And then they started getting shared. I did some exhibitions in London. So then everyone in Plymouth, suddenly everyone knew what my deal was, that I was this woman.

I'd go into the smoking area and I'd have girls telling me all about their section of rape trauma at like 18, 19 years old. And it was a lot. And I didn't know what to do because I'm not going to tell this woman, excuse me, this is inappropriate when she's crying to me about this. Oh God, it was a lot and I didn't know what to do because I'm not going to tell this woman excuse me this is inappropriate which is crying to me about this oh god it was so much um and I had absolutely no boundaries then I didn't know what I was doing so you were talking with all these people and like holding space for them whilst they were going like yeah the stuff yeah and also yes and also I was um

young at the same time I was just talking about what's right and what's wrong um I didn't know really what was going on. I just, I knew I had a way with being able to give people advice and making women feel heard and seen and comforted without really saying much at all, just listening to them. Anyway, then I came to London, to London College of Fashion, which I did styling. And then alongside that, I also worked a full-time job as a waitress in Chelsea in the botanist and I used

to get really good tips there so like but there were all the men were really just like I just hated it it's like I'm this massive feminist and then I go to be a waitress where these men are flirting with me for tips and it was just so shit and I was like I hate this and then I was also doing full-time uni work and doing my uh illustrations and then eventually I was like something has got to give and I dropped out of uni gave my illustration mark my full time and then I wasn't really friends with anyone at this point because you asked me about friendships in the transition that's what I was going to do so in Plymouth I had I did have some good girlfriends um some people from my art college who were lovely and amazing not really friends with those people anymore but just outgrown and lives

have gone separate ways and stuff and when I came to London I didn't really have to come out to anyone because it was just no one thought oh floss is straight it was it's weird in London it's almost like if you're in these kind of scenes, no one thinks you're straight. At least that's been my experience anyway, which is amazing, especially someone who's feminine and bisexual. People usually assume the opposite. I was going into one of these spaces and, you know,

talking about being an ally of queer people and people are like, this girl is a very passionate ally. And then I didn't really have to come out. i came up privately to a few people but yeah and then i made friends through um posting my stuff online and that's amazing women at these events some of my friends i've met from dating apps uh we've gone on a date and it's not like out whatever yes and i have the most amazing core group of friends now who are so incredible and just joyful. That's what I look for in friends, people who are critical thinkers and joyful. I find it very hard to be around miserable people.

And I don't mean people who are having a hard life. I don't mean people who have insecurities. My friends have all of them. I have all of them. I have so many insecurities. And there are ways you can handle insecurities that don't make everyone around you suffer with them and me and my friends we're all very responsible for the energy that we bring to a room and I just love them so fucking much

I love people who bring joy to other people's lives and that is the fair minimum for friendship of dating with me well it sounds like a big thing for you is accountability yeah yeah but it's funny because accountability sounds like such a mean word now I think we've seen it so much not really no not not to you that's good to me I think when I hear the word accountability it almost has these connotations of rigorous self-reflection to the point that it's like painful and I will I do not I mean it always sounds quite not very not a very relaxing state to be in if you're accountable but actually it's it is it is easy but okay I've seen people almost criticize themselves for absolutely

every single thing that they do because they want to be accountable for everything you know so the accountability itself isn't a bad thing but people can use it to just completely berate themselves yeah so taken to the extreme and then when it's self-berating it's also another form of sort of playing the victim really in sort of the narrative of your own life. But you're kind of saying that you're accountable for it. But actually it's like a sort of joyful accountability, I guess is what you're saying.

It's like take ownership over the part you play in things, but show up and be mindful of the energy you're bringing to the table. Yeah. To bring it back to school for a second, because you mentioned before about how women have broken your heart and how women have the capacity to break each other's heart and betray each other in just a friendship capacity. Because the reason I bring it up is it only came to my awareness quite recently, because I think when I think about trust or my inability to trust sometimes, if that's in relationship I'll I'll sort of pin that back to like men and the relationships I've had with them but I rarely gave any consideration

to the female friendships that of course at that age when we're younger are just as profound and just as intimate and when we are betrayed by them like there's not much space to put those emotions. There's not much conversation around betrayal and friendship. Or when a friendship ends, what do we do with all that love? Do you know what I mean? Because when breakups happen, like everyone is very understanding, very supportive. But when a friendship ends or we outgrow a friendship, that's something that's also incredibly painful. So has that been something you've experienced a bit later on in life?

Yeah, I think I've outgrown so many friends. Friends have outgrown me in lots of different ways since I moved to London and stuff. Yeah, I think what's interesting as well is that, you know, you said you can make the split between who you date and who your friends with. Whereas I date women. can make the split between who you date and who you're friends with whereas I date women and so those that kind of um that wounding from women early on will impact my dating life because I'm dating women so it's harder for me to make that split and although of course it's not for me it's been learning to treat people as individual people I'm not like I'm looking into a mirror of my past and you're gonna do this because this person did this or blah, blah, blah.

Yeah. Isn't that hard though? It is hard. And it's finding, I guess, the right person or the right people to do that work with. Something I've learned is that relationships, friendships, they are work and they are, they're not going to be easy. And it's so easy for me when I first started coming when I moved to London and I was single I almost didn't want to I worked so hard on becoming independent um and learning to be okay on my own that I've now realized that actually

there's no such thing as being too independent however you can only heal relationship wounds in a relationship yeah right because yeah when you're on your own you're fine I'm not insecure I'm not jealous when blah blah blah blah and it's because I've no one to be jealous about in that situation you know yeah or um when it comes to attachment styles and all of this kind of stuff you can think that you're so good fine and dandy um but it's because you've not been in a relationship for so long and then all of that stuff kind of comes up when you start dating again um me and my friends talk about it a lot and yeah I think I think relationship wins can only be healed it's nothing I'm not saying anything radical but they can only be healed it's nothing not saying anything radical but they can only be healed in relationships but learning how to be on your own is the best thing for making sure that we don't

end up in awful situations again because if you're okay being on your own then you'll be okay saying to something that's uh negative and not enhancing your life which of course sort of sounds paradoxical but essentially like if you are repeating a toxic pattern and attracting a certain person into your life and not understanding why you're doing that and also afraid to be on your own. I think a time period when you are alone and really cultivate that independence and that life yourself is the best thing you can do. however I do think there is such a thing as too independent because I found myself after a very bad breakup being like I don't need anyone this is the life I'm going to live and there's nothing wrong with that but like you said the healing that's required often only comes when we're when we're relating to another and so we can think we're healed and have it all figured out and then someone comes along and it's like a mirror to all those parts

we cannot see on our own yeah and then it kind of brings you around this like new stage like I truly believe people come into a life so they can bring you that opportunity to heal because you said you said you can't be you don't think you can be too independent what do you mean by that okay well no i take that back because of course human beings rely on human beings we all rely on each other we rely on farmers who bring our fucking groceries to our store like human beings are interdependent by nature we need to rely on people to be able to function to make money to to have someone to check in on us we need people what i think i meant in that context of what i said i don't need to be too independent

there's never any reason for you to need to be in a relationship to just be in one and i think it depends what your default is and i think for a lot of women particularly my audience anyway because of what i talk about and what i've spoken about with relationship abuse and all this kind of stuff is that if your default is I must be in a relationship then I don't have to shift that you have to shift it yeah yeah and I think if you've been I agree with that completely yeah if you've been muting and suppressing your gut feeling for so long then it's almost like you need swinging the complete opposite direction just to get back to the healthy medium

of like, I like people and I like alone time. So that's what I did anyway. Like you said, when you have a single after being, you know, not in a nice relationship, to say the least for a while, then you can go in the complete opposite direction of like overcorrection, which I think a lot of people do with anything.

As soon as you learn a new piece of information about something, you overcorrect it and then eventually you come back to the medium totally and also allows you to better discern for yourself who is actually right for you and in alignment versus coming from that place of neediness because you don't feel complete without being in a relationship because your community because I'm I'm a bit older than you so a question and thing that I get more than anything is women panicking about being single at 27 28 29 30 into their 30s and I fortunately a bit like you my parents never put any pressure on me they've never said oh when are you going to settle down and have kids but I would be lying if I said that I was immune from the pressures from society and from just random people that feel that

they can ask me these kind of things and I sense that from my community they struggle with that as well so from your experience and the people that follow you and look up to you and ask you questions what have you noticed about like what they have to say or how they feel about that particular piece yeah that's interesting there's definitely um there is the pressure to be with someone even more on old women who are older than me because there are literal like societal stakes and we place this importance on women with marriage with having children with our time running out as though we're like on some kind of shelf and we're the last one chosen and we're so fucking undesirable so there are higher stakes societally imposed

stakes pressed on women the older you get and women who are my age i get messages from all kinds of women. I did a book signing the other day and there was a few women in their 40s who said that they've read my book and that they've been single for the first time. So I don't want to generalize my audience. But women my age, the kind of issues that women my age come to me with is their first relationships. So they're having their first relationships and they've been with this person. and it's usually a man in a case of someone not treating them very well it's usually a man not always but usually is where they say but we've been together for so long and he's my childhood sweetheart and he does this but then other times he does this and what a lot of

women do is wrestle with these two versions of men in our heads um or any kind of abusive person even with female friendship it doesn't matter you go around kind of justifying the relationship to everyone and anytime I find myself justifying a relationship in my life friendship dating whatever to my friends I know that there's something wrong going on there when you're going yeah but they do this and and sometimes they're like this and it's almost like a Jekyll and Hyde type split thing where they're amazing and you kind of crave those moments and I've had that in in female friendships as well not just um romantic relationships and I think to go back to your point about female friendships or just friendships in general and them being really heartbreaking it

is really interesting and we don't talk about it because a friendship breakup isn't it's not as spoken about because you can have multiple friends. Whereas like with a partner, generally speaking, most people are monogamous. So they're like, you can clearly cut off a relationship where it's a lot harder to cut off a friend because it seems a lot harsher because technically you could just kind of keep them around in your life and not reach out for a little bit or whatever. So to actually text someone and end a friendship, it feels different to ending a romantic relationship because typically people usually just have one.

But do you think that that's a good idea for people to do that if they feel that a friendship is no longer sort of serving them or it's toxic, that they should actually cut it off in that kind of way? Yeah, I think it is a good thing to do depending on the context everything requires context so is this someone who has been wearing you down or is this someone who's been wearing down your insecurities they're an old friend it's always the old friends it's always the friends you've had around for a while and perhaps you've made some new friends who reflect this newer version of you and then you've got this old friend who's reflecting this old version of you and you're like how am I still

maintaining and accepting this when I would never accept this from my new friends um that's the that's the thing that comes up a lot for me with people messaging me they're like I've made these new friends and I've got this friend and she's this and she's that but I don't know why I tolerate it with her but no one else and it's this it's like this bond that's just not healthy it's a bit like family yes you know it's like it's that history we hold with someone because it's rich and experienced we like have a lot of value around it even if that person's behaving out of integrity and actually pulling us down making us smaller especially if we've changed a lot like you said we found a new group if we found a new calling we found something that's like lighting us up and we're going in that direction but the other friend friend feels like they're

being left behind so they're kind of wanting to call us back into the version that we used to be and how this can manifest for a lot of people is within the behavior they do in that friendship circle so if like they were partying a lot like taking loads of drugs and then there's something like this isn't what I want to do this isn't who I want to be but they find themselves kind of slipping back in because it again goes back to that thing of like belonging doesn't it like feeling like that need to belong even in a situation that is no longer serving us that's like actually harming us and something that I've noticed recently is like I've always wanted to control how people perceive me or that was something I struggled with when I was younger

and of course then like the more you sort of put yourself out there in the public that perception kind of gets warped it gets it bring it kind of has a life of its own and I'm sure that this is something you've experienced and so it becomes you can no longer micromanage it but how people in the past that may have been your friends and knew you at a certain point in your life how how they may still perceive you as you were then, even if you developed into a new person. And there's like a friction and a pain in that because you have to kind of let it go

and know that you can't change how someone's going to view you. And they might just be viewing you that way because it makes them feel better about themselves. Yeah, not to mention now that everyone's evolution is public you get to see what your high school friends were doing are doing now that's weird it's so weird we're not supposed to know that we're supposed to bump into them at the pub when you go home for Christmas or something you know not see every single thing and yeah I think what you're saying about growing and outgrowing friends and

stuff there's a lot of guilt attached to that and it's so uncomfortable particularly if you know the old friend isn't actually a bad person you might just have outgrown them and you can't connect to them anymore because not only because they represent an old version of you that you're trying to shake off and I think the best long-term relationships or friendships they do see the death and the rebirth of lots of different versions of yourself but if that's completely drastic to who you used to be then yeah it might be hard to connect with that person anymore particularly if it is like you said lifestyle differences um and stuff that you just can't connect to or relate to anymore yeah and what you're saying about the evolving online and stuff, that's what it's so fascinating to me how fame is so accessible now.

And that's that's why I also I wanted to write Girl Crush is because typically fame was something that used to be something that people on the red carpet had. And you didn't know anything about them unless it was printed in the press. And now anyone can go viral on TikTok. unless it's printed in the press and now anyone can go viral on tiktok and that's what happens with arthur in girl crush is uh she goes viral on a platform called wonderland where she's drunk and then the next morning uh she's being held with abuse and then extreme praise and it's this really confusing cocktail that you receive on social media of feedback because so many people are experienced you don't need to have too many followers to experience this now it's like a drug high addiction that people are having to social

media online and i wanted to kind of create this dystopian but actually not that far off from where we are universe where we can look into it and i made the town fictional and the social media act fictional because it's easier I feel for people to talk and listen about themes when they're fictional and you can project yourself into them as well I know you've spoke like you do keep some things as sacred but you have also talked quite openly about relationships in your life that have you've like felt possessed narcissistic behavior and stuff like that so it's something that gets I think a lot of airtime and stuff like that. So it's something that gets, I think, a lot of airtime and people use that term a lot.

Like, what has been your experience of that? And how do you define it after having those conversations on the show and stuff? I've experienced what I now realize through years of research, years of reading books, and years of watching Dr. Ravani's YouTube videos. She's the world's leading expert on narcissism. And I now realize I've experienced it many times. And it's funnily enough for exactly the reason you just said before about, you said you understand that

people do bad things because they're hurting. And while that is true, it's having that belief at the forefront of my mind that has constantly excused the bad actions of other people and have had me keeping my arms open to them and while relationship abuse is never your fault there needs to be acknowledged that there's a pattern forming for me at least I needed to acknowledge there was a pattern forming of my own kindness which is a beautiful thing uh actually working against me And there's a quote around social media about empathy is incredible, but empathy without boundaries is self-harm. And that is essentially what had happened to me, is that I was such a proud, nice woman,

and I prided myself on that identity, even the idea and again that that's society programmed but it is my responsibility to change it no one else is coming to save me and I think that the really shitty thing to learn was was that um I had chosen these people and that doesn't mean it was my fault but there was something in me that wanted to win over their approval um and you know of course that that game of approval seeking is created by the narcissist with the with the love bombing and the affection and then the immediate withdrawal of this you literally have addictive symptoms where you need it back and they're the only person who can supply you this drug they're the only person you can give you and then and then they give it back to you and then you're so happy and

then and then they do the bad thing again and this is kind of the cycle that you get trapped in and the more that these acts of abuse occur the more you become tied to a person and I think it takes women on average seven times to leave an abusive relationship seven attempts that's the average go at it and it's something I'll never stop talking about in my life relations there's so many things I care about changing in the world and unfortunately you can't talk about all of them so I choose to focus on relationships because I think that's where for me at least it's it's the most interesting topic because it involves people and I have learned over the years to develop boundaries and be okay with being seen as a rude person and you're never being rude you're just there's this book that

I've recently just finished called The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker I don't know if you've read it no okay I recommend this book to every single woman on the planet every single queer person oh my god so the whole thing teaches you how to listen to your intuition. And it's basically about personal safety and how your gut is never wrong and how the worst, the worst thing that can happen if you make a misjudgment about someone, let's say someone on the street is offering you a hand and you say, no, thank you. And they go, oh, come on, you're being a bit too proud. You've one of those feminists. Let me help you guys. No, thank you. I said, no, you walk off. the worst thing that you have done is made a rude impression on the stranger at best it has saved your life because this person was trying to kidnap you and this was something in the book that

taught me one of the chapter titles or something is politeness gets women killed and it goes through all of these cases where women who had gotten into abusive relationships with people because the man persisted persisted persisted persist. And we're taught to find that fucking charming right down to the Disney movies we watched when we were growing up. So it's all of these ways. That's so true. Yeah, all of these ways that we're taught and then blamed for being in these relationships. And like I said, it's never your fault, but it is only your responsibility to get out. It's only because we need to empower women and people anyone who's in an abusive relationship that they do have a choice and though that choice

is not obvious and I've been in one myself I know how hard it is to leave but that there is a choice and that you you can get out of it and when it comes to narcissistic abuse you can't see it it's not physical at least not always no and like you say you get you get stuck in that cycle of like relapse and recovery when sort of the the the poison and the antidote are one of the same and you're chasing that hive that person but even though you know that they're the ones that are hurting you but also how we have like you say we have to acknowledge our participation in that because especially if there's been like a pattern with different people it's like that's one of the like you say, we have to acknowledge our participation in that. Because especially if there's been like a pattern with different people,

it's like that's one of the most profound but incredible things when I actually did like a timeline. And it was like during this retreat, and it was to do with like relationships and people in my life. And there was like all these questions around it. And then one of them was, what role did you play in this? And at the time I was like, I don't understand. I was like, no, I didn't actually comprehend. I went over and I was like, I don't understand.

They weren't crying. Yeah. And they were like, you know, it was a day of silence as well. And I was just like, this doesn't make any sense. And then suddenly it hit me and I was like, fuck, I am the like common theme here because I'm calling these people into my life and I found that like so liberating but also obviously painful to acknowledge and it also goes back to what we were just saying about like having that core if you have those five people that core friendship it makes it a lot easier it's quite hard I empathize

with people that don't that are so far gone that they only have that person you know their world has become so warped and that's what they do they do it to you they isolate you they start saying things about your friends I think your friend's jealous of us you know she's been single for ages she's just jealous and then the second your friend your bestie goes I think there's something wrong with him you're immediately brainwashed to think that she's just being jealous and and then you just dismiss any attempt for anyone to bring you back into reality because you've already been these people have already been smeared as jealous in your mind and it's just it's like a spider to a fly when you mentioned about you know

this book um i want to write it down before before i let you go but in terms of how we disengage willingly from our intuition especially as women because i think intuition for women is stronger it's like a you know it's a very feminine quality I always think about how animals when they're in danger, right, if they sense danger, they'll feel it, they'll have like an instinctive thing. You watch it on like, when you watch the TV shows with David Attenborough, and you've got like an animal that sent something, it hasn't seen it yet, but it knows that shit is like going on. And it will run. Whereas as humans and as women, we'll sort of sense something but then we'll like use our logic and our language to sort of call up our girlfriends and convince ourselves it's a good

idea and depart even more from our intuition and I think the further along we go the more we kind of lose how to tap into it like we don't lose it it's still there but because we have it's like a trust muscle you know we haven't like actioned it we're like oh well I've kind of used logic and reason so let's keep using logic and reason and then we can feel really really lost so I think that that key piece about knowing that it's okay to just feel something and trust it but like you say society whether it's intentional or not and like the darker realms makes me think it is intentional we're told as women to be polite and agreeable and all these things of course it's intentional but do you think it's intentional so that we just do what men want? Yes. Well, yes.

Of course, yes. Yes, immediately, yes. It's so that we're easier, more pliable to sell products to. Because if you don't know who you are, you can be easily dictated to your interests, your sexuality, what you wear, where you buy, where you shop. It's like we're so much more our minds way more pliable and vulnerable to submission um and to being dictated to the more we look to externally for answers because the more even the even the thing of having an intuition is called feminine and girly and it's like oh no no no like you said i think woo woo and witchy yeah exactly

and isn't it funny the very things that make women feel amazing and actually liberate us and bring us together are the very things that are shamed and those are exactly the things that will liberate us and bring us closer to ourselves because that's one of the biggest dangers and threats to society businesses would crumble if women liked themselves people would be paying them any money because we'd all be okay as we are but it takes everyone to agree you can't just have one woman going okay let's all just stop trying to be pretty because the standard is still upheld by everyone let's all stop um having to wear makeup and do this with our hair to be treated well in the workplace no it would take everyone doing it or it would take

like a team effort everywhere and there's the thing of acknowledging that shit is fucked up and women should not be judged by their bodies and then also accepting that there is a reality in which that is still being upheld because that is still the way it is and it's making that's the system we're living in yes yeah and i think we are definitely uh the best book i've ever read about this entire thing we're talking about is The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, about how women are controlled and manipulated to spend their money. When I was saying about all of the things that women are shamed for, so sex, food, all of this stuff, we are allowed to enjoy it, but not too much. And anything that we enjoy too much is greedy. So if you enjoy sex too much, you're a

slut. If you enjoy food too much, you're a greedy and large woman and you're taking up too much space. And all it does is teach women that we're not allowed to enjoy living. Even the way that we constantly suck in our stomachs, the second someone looks at us and we're taking a picture or something like this, we're constantly living. And again, that's such a general statement, but for most women, that is fucking true. Even like rolling over in your stomach and having a hookup when someone puts their hand on your stomach is like the worst nightmare for a lot of women.

And this stuff, it's like we're not really inside our bodies. We're witnessing our bodies living. As ornaments. Yes, as ornaments. And what I was going to say is, it's funny that all of the things that women are supposed to be enjoying

and all of the things that would liberate us, including hating and fighting with each other is exactly what keeps patriarchy alive and thriving because if we're not talking with each other and we're hating each other and if women can't trust each other then who do we turn to for validation so and the other thing is like back in the day congregations of women if you were women talking together like in ye old town, you were called witches and you were murdered. That's how dangerous women communicating was, is because any kind of ceremony or anything, there was a woman called Bridget Bishop. She was one of

the first witches to be killed at the Salem trials. And she wore red clothes and had lovely sex with a lot of people. And she was murdered for being a quote unquote slack. And that's what we killed women for. You were punished for showing anything that showed that you enjoyed the very things that men are allowed to enjoy. And so I do. It is very intentional the way that we're made to feel. And it's just so you only need to look at the fact that all the things that would actually liberate women from giving a fuck what men think and realizing and waking up to the fact that they're running this whole game are the things that we're shamed to

not enjoy and like you said it's like we can only have a little bit of it but not too much and so it's like this sort of narrowing of what we're allowed to experience and and express because I was writing I was having a bit of a like rant with myself the other day and the sort of frustrations and it was it wasn't even a poem it was just like a stream of consciousness and it and it was the top of it was the rules for being a woman and it went on to say like all the things that we're taught which is sort of be thin fit into the ever ever-changing standards of beauty that are always evolving and never achievable and then sort of you know don't be too loud exist in a man's world like don't be too masculine be

feminine like be sexual but for a man don't be too slutty don't be too like prudish don't and it's like all these things that are constantly around and then it's like oh have have a baby but like don't let your body change don't be depressed if your body changes and like all these things and especially because I'm 33 so many women that I think there's this view that when you reach 30 that it narrows even more and that you're and I think that again is intentional because I feel like you know yourself amazingly but most people take till they're about 30 to finally kind of come into their power and then it's like oh no the window's gone you can't do any of these things nothing infuriates me more than the scam that we're supposed to be afraid of getting older

like I've i don't know how i have this mindset and maybe it's because i am young and i've not yet experienced that absolute wrath of people telling me when the fuck are you gonna have a baby when are you gonna get married yet i've not had that yet so maybe i'll change my mind in a few years yeah but i have this perspective on aging but i am genuinely so excited because I can't wait to become wiser. I can't wait to become more refined. That's always been my perspective on aging, but I know that that's not what we're supposed to think. We're supposed to be afraid of it. And yet the older you get, it's like there's something that's society disgusting about a woman who finally

knows herself. It's like, we want to keep these women in this infantilized prepubescent state and that that's what men are supposed to be attracted to older men and it's just so fucked up that we're taught to view women as less attractive the more she knows herself it's just so weird it's like so you want a woman who doesn't know what she wants so you can dictate it to her okay yeah exactly and I was thinking about it in a sort of when you think about women in the music industry how that's you know they want them super super young and then it's past a certain point like they're not interested and that's because they're they're malleable and moldable when they're young yeah it's so messed up when you because you talk a lot about internalized

misogyny what does that mean to you and how does that sort of manifest for like a lot of people in a day-to-day way that they might not recognize okay so internalized misogyny can be thinking that you're not like the other girls putting women down and I don't think there's ever any reason to put a woman down I just don't that there's no reason and anytime those thoughts arise in my head I do not say them out loud and I evaluate what's actually behind them and it's usually jealousy every single time almost every single time and there are some people by the way kaggy who will just piss you off who just are your kind of person yeah and that's okay it's not all combined all women have got to be friends okay that's not what feminism about because also that doesn't have any accountability in it jamila jamil speaks excellently on all of this um about how sometimes we just won't like a woman in the

media because of her hair and then we'll make everything about women can do amazing and brilliant things and we'll be like oh but when she was five years old she did this thing on the playground or is that men are not held to the same public scrutiny as women um and it doesn't matter what kind of field you're in women jamila speaks about this excellently when she says that we want to know every single detail of a woman in her public life, in her past. But with men, if a man does a bad thing, or we just don't like him, we just kind of ignore him.

But with women, we want to dissect and pick apart. And women do it to each other. It's not just men. Women do it to each other. Even when you think about gossip magazines that women buy them it's you know it's it's all a distraction it's all a distraction and the more that we kind of fuel all of this stuff which i believe is all internalized misogyny it's a it's called the crabs in a bucket syndrome i don't know if you've heard of it for anyone else crabs in a bucket

syndrome is where when crabs are caught at sea and this is real and they get in a bucket syndrome is where when crabs are caught at sea, and this is real, and they get in a bucket, they can all help each other escape the bucket and get back into sea. But as soon as one crab is seen trying to escape the bucket, they all work to bring the crab down so that they all die together. So we're all crabs but again the solution to freedom is literally there if we all band together and i know that does sound a bit kumbaya but if we all work together there is a way of helping one another but it's the trust that once the person is at the top they're gonna put their hand back down and pull you up and that's what i feel is missing between some relationships if you've been hurt before or you wouldn't do it for someone there's all this trust that we're not taught to

trust each other and again this is what i mean the more that women don't trust on each other the more women don't collaborate with each other the more that we view each other as competition the more of a men who have stood over the fucking bucket who put you in the bucket in the first place are laughing their heads off and also we've seen you know forever how they love to pull a woman up and then tear her down and in like especially the British media is just notorious for it and doing it to such a degree that's just barbaric and but we all are partaking in it because we're reading about it we're buying the magazines it's like watching it in an arena,

like in the olden days and more mentality. It's just, it's so, you can't look away. I've definitely struggled with the, the thing about, and I've had it happen quite recently, actually,

because I feel like I've changed a lot in my life as one does, but, and I was very different when I was in my 20s and I found myself in a situation where someone I won't go into too much detail but someone thought it was appropriate to take my boyfriend off at a party and start telling them warning them about how I behaved when I was in my 20s and I literally and then it caused this huge thing and then I found myself sort of defending my behavior in my 20s and I was like well I was mostly annoyed at myself that I was partaking in it too that I was feeling guilty about it and I was like this is not okay no no yeah I thought I read this really

good quote on social media it might be a little bit cringy but it was something about like bringing up my past and trying to use it against me now it's like uh trying to rob my my old house like I don't live there anymore it's so irrelevant like I don't live there and you're robbing my old house I don't live there anymore and it this is yeah that that's so interesting to me and I think many people have experienced different versions of that. What was the experience writing Girl Crush? How was that different to writing the nonfiction? If it was in like what was kind of going through your mind at the time, what you were kind of. Escapism.

Okay. More escapism. More escapism because women don't only put it. I had the book in my head already installed. Everything I'd learned in my life, everything I wanted to tell women, it was already in my head installed. I knew exactly what the chapters were going to sound like what they were going to look like um it's something I've been doing for years so I already knew what I

wanted the book to sound like doesn't mean it wasn't fucking hard to write um but the process was the same I wrote it in cafes I also illustrated women don't know you're pretty in cafes and with girl crush it was escapism so I can escape into the lives of these characters and it was so exciting getting to create a fictional town and I didn't actually know what was going to happen in the scenes until I came to writing the scenes so I had really yeah so I had the skeleton of the book like chapters 1 to 20. Eartha has sex here um Eartha gets this text message that changes everything here and I knew loosely what the plot line was going to be but like I was writing a sex scene and you know I didn't know that Earth was going to sit on this girl's face but it fucking happened it's a bit like having sex yourself you know you just end up doing things

and so that's that's what it was like for me that process there were a lot of characters killed that I that didn't work my editor so basically the process of writing the book, you had your chapters into your editor. And then I sent everything to her. And the final manuscript is 160,000 words long. And we cut it down to 100,000. So there was a lot killed, but it was entirely necessary and something that I didn't do with Women Don't Know You Pretty

because I knew how I wanted the book to be. So that was definitely different about this process. It was killing a lot of it. Would you say that the next book will be are you going to write more fiction yeah I want to write I want to write books for the rest of my life and I definitely want to write another fiction book absolutely is that the medium that you feel is most you yeah I know like I also want to write another non-fiction I've got so much to say but just I just mean in writing though in like doing books um I think I'm good at articulating my thoughts so that's why fiction is

very me because I am good at articulating feelings and that that's why it works so well for me when I was talking to girls in smoking areas they'd be like I'm feeling this and I'd say it back to them they'd be like that's exactly how I'm feeling and that's what started off with my illustrations and my art so I'd say that that's why non-fiction is very floss but also fiction is very floss because I'm such a storyteller and I love creating these worlds and I'm a very visual person and so being able to stream a movie into someone's mind it's like Stephen King calls it like telepathy writing is telepathy because you write something over here and someone the other side of the world made an image appear into their mind that is crazy and amazing and I think it's magical

that is magical isn't it it is and amazing that you can touch and impact people in that kind of way and for them to have such a full experience whilst they're reading it as well and a different experience for everyone so with everything we've talked about, obviously a super important thing here, and you've mentioned it a number of times, is boundaries. Now, boundaries are easy enough to kind of fathom, to intellectualize.

Most people know what they are. We can even explain what they are if people don't understand. But if you are a sort of people pleaser and you live in the world that we live in where women are often made to feel like they have to be nice and polite and all these things how do you go about actioning these boundaries and actually setting them what was that process like for you text messages so texting people first. So start with the people you trust. For me, it was a process.

So if I'm with a friend now who asks me, Floss, have you got time? I'm like, babes, I'm knackered and I really can't move off to do that. Can we reschedule? Can we do it another time? Before, that might have even been frightening for me to do. I've gone, yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Let me check my calendar, babe. I know we said we'd do it. Yeah, I'm really busy this week, but I'll it work i promise i promise and then i'm gonna go to the lunch resentful but absolutely resentful a bit pissed off and it's not my friend's fault whose fault is it fucking mine because i should have said no so when i say text messages it was easier for me to implement boundaries of people over text rather than doing it face to face because that brings out my fight flight fawning responses where i go text messages, it was easier for me to implement boundaries of people over text rather than doing it face to face because that brings out my fight, flight, fawning responses where I go, where I placate and I go, oh, okay, okay, it's fine because I can't imagine anything more

uncomfortable than conflict at this period. So text messages, saying, you know, writing something out always helped me from my introduction to boundaries. And it's very simple, but it's a very good way to start it off with people. And also letting people know prior. So if cancelling things stresses you out, send a text saying to people preemptively, I'm going to be a bit quiet for the next month. I promise I love you and I want to see you, but I'm just really busy. Please don't take it personally. I'm just going to be busy and I need you to know that.

Let's get a date in for next month. That kind of thing. just communication just communication and almost preemptively doing it with the people that you love in your life because if also you've got to remember if you're just starting to implement boundaries into your life people will be a bit resistant to it at first if the pattern has been in your dynamic that you are a doormat to be walked over and that floss never says no so look at you blah blah fucking get used to it this is what's going to happen around here and then you'll start to there will be an adjustment period and hopefully those people just adjust to it and there will be a bit

of a period where you might need to remind someone um yeah i don't i don't want to do facetimes like like randomly anymore actually can you text me before you facetime and they might override that boundary again and forget and then you just have to remind them a couple times and hopefully the new pattern builds but setting patterns in friendships it's a part of life and you're gonna have much better friendships because of it that's really good advice i tend to go for the sort of head and sand approach because yeah avoiding and then it makes everything so much well it does just send him a text okay that's useful um and then the other thing because i think this is something that people will deeply relate to is this sort of navigating friendships and cultivating friendships and i think what you

said about if we can have like five people that we really trust that are sort of like in a circle our tribe that we know that we can go to and they will like tell us how it is even if it's what we don't you know something we don't want to hear how would you advise people to go about cultivating that in their life if they are in between that in-between phase yeah so like i said when i moved to nand and i didn't have many friends at all like i had one friend that i saw from Plymouth I was mostly busying myself with work to the point where I wasn't social at all at uni so I have been in that position where I've not really had many friends and they've just it's trial and error and friendships I don't think it always has to be you know it takes years to make incredible

friends but in terms of trusting people trusting people is a process and I think with women often we can hotwire a connection in the girls bathroom just because we dislike the same fucking person or because we like her outfit and then instantly it's besties and that is so beautiful not bitching about others part that's a false connection but you know when we bond over shared interest or something initially personally anyway I've been very inclined to just give women my trust just because they're women and then but it actually takes months and months and months of pattern building to find out who's a friend and who's a social friend and who's someone that you go for drinks with and so who's who's the person that's going to bring you stuff when you're poorly or on your period and there's all these different types of friendships that we

have and you should have different categories for friendships and i'm not saying right fucking list about oh this person deserves this and this person doesn't deserve this access it's like a mental thing of sifting out those people and kind of over the time as you grow as as you shift and expand things it's like things are going to shake off and it's just nature over time but when you have these people when you find these people either by frequenting a regular cafe or going to a local gig every weekend or something all of these things that happen you will find your people eventually and over the years time will tell if they're a real friend if they're not a real friend but time will tell and trusting people is a process if you're not comfortable with doing something if you feel a little twinge in your gut and you think i probably

shouldn't say that don't say it hold it back you don't want to have the vulnerability hang over the next day trust is something that needs to be earned over time but also please remain open to new relationships and friendships because that is the other thing that you can do is being too scared to trust someone um which I have a personal experience with beautiful well Floss thank you so much it's been thank you I've enjoyed this as well. And if there's anything else you want to add for our listeners, otherwise, it's been such a pleasure talking to you. We've covered quite a lot of ground.

Yeah, we've covered quite a lot. And it would be sick if you checked out my new book, Girl Crush, which just published last week. And also my podcast, my own podcast, exactly. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Saturn Returns, and I hope you enjoyed it if you would like to pre-order the saturn returns book it is now available or if you would like to come and see us at the live show in january i would love to see you there and you can find

ticket links in the show notes thank you so much for listening and remember you are not alone goodbye