the zurkie show - we’ve lost the art of friendship

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

not all friends are created equal.so make time for the ones that matter...get rid of the ones that don't.sending you all lots of love and peaaaaaaace.https://linktr.ee/thezurkieshow

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That's how TD is making banking more human. The best friendships in your life will come from the moments you least expect. And they will come from people that are a complete opposite reflection of everything that you are. I first noticed this in my life when I was introduced to my first true best friend, which was Patrick in middle school. Patrick and I, we both shared so many common interests. We were both Polish, devoutly into soccer, and also both loved through. throwing controllers in FIFA.

This is true, okay? And it's not your fault. It's the game's fault. Trust me. Yes, the game is rigged against you, and it's scripted. And we met in middle school when I was sitting down in my, I don't know, fifth period lunch. And Patrick sat down next to me and immediately said, I know you. It's the first thing that came out of his mouth.

I know you. This kid with sports glasses in Arsenal jersey, who is the, Bozo. And I say, I don't know you. I've never met you in my life. He's like, no, no, no. I know you very well. You actually helped me warm up.

I used to play a goalie. And I think you came for a friend's soccer game and you were taking shots on a net and I was saving them. And I'm like, dude, I've, wait a minute, you're right. Wait, I do. Yeah, you're right. I think we know each other. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks for that. I think I'm better than you at soccer.

If you know anything about being a middle schooler, 13, 14 year old, it's like when your ego is the most fragile, okay? It's like it's a glass pain and just the tiniest pebble will break it. Or a screen protector on the old iPhone. And you could, those screen protectors, I don't even think they were legit because I swear I would crack them within the first, couple of days of having them and then I'd have to go in and do the whole warranty swap and oh my goodness there's just more of a headache than they were worth anyways what do you mean you're

better than me at soccer I've never I don't even know you I kind of know you but I don't even who are you dude well I mean I just I I I know how you play I've seen you play I think I could take you one on one oh really what are you doing after school where I grew up across the middle school was our soccer field. That's where we trained. That's where we had club practice. So it was clear what we needed to do on Friday, that first week in middle school, Patrick and I were going to go to the field

and we were going to have a one-on-one. That's just what you had to do, right? He challenged me, he was talking all this trash. Let's do it. And I remember it was this overcast day. Get out of school. We're all excited. We hit the field.

And it was funny. Like the whole walk to the field, there is this weird feeling I couldn't really get to the bottom of where our banter, our chemistry, the fact that we were like so into all the same stuff and it was kind of fun to talk about these things, but slightly different. He always had a different angle towards everything, right? I was a Chelsea fan, like big, I guess, back in the, day. He was an Arsenal fan. That was funny. We kind of had different, we played different

positions in soccer. We had different views on things, on the world, on experiences. Even though we shared a very common thing of both being, you know, kids of immigrants and kind of figuring out what this life was going to look like for us for the first time in a new country, I really, I didn't even really care about the game that we played. I think, it was like a, you know, you know, marginal difference of who won, and I forget, maybe, probably me. No, I actually don't know. But that day, I remember it felt like a start of something that was going to be here for the rest

of my life. And it has. That friendship is one I still have, and I hold dearly. And Patrick and I talk on the phone, and, uh, we keep tabs on each. other he's seen me here in Austin and it's been really special to keep that friendship but I would be lying if I didn't say that there's a good chance that won't happen again at least that's what I thought but time and time again in my life I have somehow fallen into situations where I meet good people and good

people find me and they're nice and they're courteous and they want to get to know me but it doesn't always mean that i'm going to be their friend that's just how it is but in this i think that i've realized a big part of our friendship recession or whatever you want to call it or the fact that it feels so hard to make a friend is because we don't actually understand what friendship looks like friendship is not something you can cultivate by hanging out with people as if it's a job application and applying to 30,000 different people. You can't. At least I don't think so. Friendship is something that needs to happen naturally. And the issue is the way in which that would happen naturally when you were younger was usually school, was usually the same kind of religious practice,

was usually a place where you would run into somebody over and over again. But now it's hard. It's the same problem we're dealing with with dating. It's hard to make friends. Part of it, too, can be that we're siloed. You go out, you need to buy toothpaste from H.E.B. You don't want to talk to anybody because your breath stank, one. Two, it's like weird.

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And that's the problem. How are you supposed to make friends when it's weird to communicate to somebody new? And also, I really felt this when I was going to college. there is a level of pride that you take in knowing people already, the friends that you do have. And when you lose that and you have to start over from zero, oh my goodness, it hits you like a truck, man. What do you mean I'm now in a position where I'm desperate,

where I don't know a single soul and I have to start from zero? This sucks. But again, even if you make friends, And you feel like, okay, I got my bearings. You know, I'm friends with the people that I work with. Oh, this is great. Why is it that something is always missing? There's a good chance that the expectation is ruining your friendship.

This is why. When you already go into a friendship expecting to build something together, expecting to work together, expecting to like, you know, send it together or whatever, I think you are putting a small amount of pressure that can oftentimes blow everything over. The truth is, we do not allow friendships to blossom on their own anymore. It's almost become this very predictable, dividable thing. So much of our life needs to be compartmentalized, right, to just survive. And so the idea of having friends naturally kind of becomes a little.

little bit more transactional. I'm going to hang out with this friend for this reason. I'm going to do this thing with this friend. And I think that that is great. But if your expectation of somebody that you meet at the gym is that you're going to be lifting partners and they're going to keep you in check for lifting, that's not a fair beginning to a friendship. You're not even allowing yourself to really feel this person out and have some kind of grassroot connection. It's just immediately, wait, I have this vision of what we could be.

Oh my goodness, this person inspires me. They make me feel less alone. I want to do this with them. I want to go trek the Patagonia with them. It's like, slow down. Especially with somebody brand new. Friendship is very much like a plant. You have to water it.

You have to change its soil. You have to look on like Chad. if you're doing a good job because I don't know. I don't know anything about gardening. It's very similar to that. And in a world that is so quick, at least we think it is, it is very easy to feel like, wait, I just like hit that like a horse. What?

Anyways, sorry, move on. It's very easy to just want an instantaneous connection with somebody. And that's not how it works. And I think you can burn yourself very, very quick. I think you, you know, you learn this when you go to school and you meet like your first kind of dorm friends. And it feels like, oh my gosh, we're going to be best friends together. There's a friend group. And then they all start, you know, hooking up with each other or whatever.

And then it's gone. It's over. That's how it that's how it ends. No, but there is kind of this sense of like, dude, we're going to be best friends. We're going to kick this off. And this is going to be great. and something you notice is that some friendships are good contextually. You have somebody that you went to college with, and they were great at that time, and you guys hung out all the time.

You'd go to the dining hall. You were eating biscuits and gravy or whatever. And then you move to a city. They moved to a city. That's silence. You send a little morse code text once in a while, see if they get. get it and you know I've also had to learn what it's like to let go of friendships and I've let go a lot a lot and I look at it not for a perspective of like what am I losing with all of our memories

I look at it at a perspective of I'm clearing out space in my life for somebody new to give somebody that I already know a little bit more and build a friendship or to meet somebody completely new That's going to be really cool. And I can feel like I am with for the right reason. Big thing too. People are in terrible friendships. And sometimes you don't even realize it until it's been a couple of years. You're listening to this person over coffee and some kind of diner that still has a, you know, a 50s interior that's in your hometown.

And they're just going on and on about it's like, yeah, I'm still dating the same guy. and it's just like, it's fine, I guess. But, you know, I just, I don't, I don't see myself in the future with him. And yet they've been together somehow for six years. They've been dating since the end of high school. And suddenly, you start to look at friendships that you've made that are way better, that happened quicker. I've had this happen where I was in college and I was like, dude, how does it get any better

than the people I know for my hometown. It gets a lot better. Because like I said, friendship is very contextual. And if you were a certain version of yourself in your hometown that was very much glass-ceilinged, very much you just kind of fit in, you did your job, you know,

you're going to be surrounded by those kinds of people. And when you left, maybe you started to realize, wait a minute, there's a whole world out here for me. I can do a lot more things. And at that point, you come back and you're just like, I'm not this person anymore. This doesn't fit me at all.

It's kind of like when you find some shoes, you know, that you used to wear in high school or something and you're like, ooh, the Jays. And you're wearing the Jays. And it's kind of like, I don't think this is me anymore. I don't even have an outfit that could look, you know, I don't have a hype beast off white outfit that could look fire with the with the leggings and the shorts. you know what I'm talking about. Dude, shout out hype beast culture one time, man. Oh my goodness, I used to go to sneaker cons. I used to resell shoes.

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Amazon Presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethe. Lately, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. But being in a terrible friendship will eat you up in a way that nothing else will because there is still that kind of emotional attachment and oftentimes we are so guilty

in leaving our friends. Of course, you should be. especially when somebody tells you, you know, don't leave me. Like, you're my best friend. Oh, oh, oh. Like, the honest truth is, if somebody truly loves you and somebody is there for you, they won't hold you back. They won't.

And if you find that your friends hold you back more than they build you up, we've got a problem. We've got a huge problem. How do you expect to go through this life being the same person? Do you honestly expect that? I don't think so. And why is it that every time you make a friend with somebody that's super similar to you, like identical, it fizzles out?

There's nothing that holds it together. Maybe you just weren't friends in the first place. You know how you can tell if somebody's truly your friend? When you go through a crisis that you've inflicted onto yourself, when you go and you drop the ball, they will help you not only pick the ball back up, but they will tell you how you can make sure it doesn't drop again. I have a core group of friends that have lifted me up.

They see my faults, crystal clear, and without fail every time I learned something from them when I confide in them. And I hate it. I will be the first to say it is such a oral loss in my mind that, oh, I have to go to somebody and be like, yo, I'm struggling with this. But I learned very quickly if I do not do this, I go crazy. And I lose the vision of what I'm supposed to do.

And when I'm unhappy, it bleeds into everything in my life that is important to me, my health, my friendships, my relationship, it just takes over all of that. Like a dictator. And I'm just like, oh, okay, like, I guess, you know, it's just a new normal. And it's not. You shouldn't feel like your emotions are ruling over everything.

And that's what friends are for. But also, friends are not there to just, you know, roll in on tanks into your life and terrorize all of your energy and passion and love because they're making the same mistake over and over and over again. And I've also, I'm, yeah, hi, that's me. I've done that. And we've all done that, I guess, is my point. We all have that ability to sometimes be too much.

We do. And that's something that you have. have to reflect on and kind of learn on your own is where is that line where is the line of like okay i'm just making the same mistake and then i'm going to my friends because it's comfortable but here's here's what i'll say about true friendship and and your role in it if you want real friends you have to be ready to wait it out and to also understand when it won't work stop force your friendships. Stop diluting yourself

into thinking, but we're so similar. We've got all this going and they treat me, it's just about their how I want to be treated, but they kind of forget about me. It's not the same. There's a mismatch. There is. And listen, that doesn't always

mean it's a communication thing where they're not texting you back right away. Oh, this means that they're not a good friend. No. What it actually could mean is that you two have different standing. of communication, you have a different expectation of how you need to talk to each other, and you have to learn how to match energy, especially if you want to keep long, distant friendships. Not every plant needs the same amount of water. Some plants, like an aloevara, it's a succulent, right?

You don't water it more than, like, once every couple of weeks. Some plants need to be watered daily, or like, you know, Monsterra needs once a week. Pothos, maybe a couple of times. you know, depends. Friendships are the same way. A friend that you have from college that now you do kind of a long-distance thing with, you might not need to talk every single day. And in fact, you probably don't have a lot

to talk about every single day. It's all contextual. In college, you're going through the same classes. You're going through the same kind of BS, right? The same routine in high school. Same thing. Oh, my goodness, you have so many... Have you heard about Mr.

professor fiddle finger like i can't believe you said that in class it's an easy thing to find shared experiences with that's another thing where do we make most of our friends shared experiences if you are not experiencing the world in a way that you want you will not make friends and this does not mean that is it's entirely in person people make friends online all the time through games, through communities. Happens, of course. I've made friends online plenty, probably most of my friends at this point,

which is kind of crazy to think about. Yeah, wouldn't meet my friends, if not for satellites, famously. It's from a Brockhampton song. Yeah, you need to live this life in a way that seems fun to you. And that is a branch that you can then grow into, a beautiful plant. I guess I don't know where I'm going with this analogy.

But it does build something tried and true when you just focus on you. It's the best. And friendships will eat you alive. And there's just so much pressure sometimes in the ones that are transactional or we think we can get something out of it, which I hate to admit happens more.

more than you think. And as you grow, man, people will want more and more of your time for various reasons. One, they'll want to waste it. Two, they'll want to latch on to you. No disclosure for something, for emotional support. And I do think that you should be a giver. I feel like I'm a giver. I like to give, you know, a lot of my energy.

And I like making people feel good. But I also know that there's just, there's a point where I can't, I can't, can't. I know my limit. And it's funny, like recently, actually, I've had to reel it back a little bit and examine what I'm doing in my life because I'm, I was starting to pressurize my existence in a lot of different ways and a lot of weird ways. But mainly I was feeling this kind of like discomfort with hanging out with people and friends and big part of friendship. You need time alone. You need time away to understand how good you have it with them.

Every single moment with somebody else, every single day with somebody else, it's not what it's cracked up to be. And you have to tend to yourself. You cannot be living your life for your friends if you want true friendship. It's not how that works. Time is valuable. You don't get it back. So you have to really think about who you're surrounding yourself with.

Why are you surrounding yourself with them? And what do they bring you? What are you getting from this? I think also a fourth thing. What are you giving? What are you giving up? Is it your time? Is it toil?

Is it just kind of mindless like hanging out? Because it's, you know, we work the same job. Or does it actually feel like you guys have conversation? something can kind of come out of this. You guys take trips. There's a feeling of adventure. I think that gets lost a lot. Is this kind of just, yeah, you know,

you go through the motions to go through the motions. You shouldn't do that. You really shouldn't do that, in my opinion. I had lunch with a mentor figure recently. And a huge thing that he kept harping on is. live this life with urgency, man. Because again, you blink and if this life is a road trip, you end up at like a gas station on the way

and you're like, how did I even get here? And you look back, you can kind of see where you went, but it does not feel like you traveled all that way until one day you have. Huge thing about that, the friends that you are around. The people that are still, steering you in the right direction, helping you on this road trip. Your car breaks down.

They give you a new catalytic converter. You know, they ensure that your doors lock mechanically because the auto function, the wiring is screwed up. That is who's going to bring you to where you want to go. But it does not happen if there isn't an ounce of intention. If there isn't like a little bit of, man, like, I don't know about you. I'm going to kind of stay away.

Yo, this person, super different, super weird. I like it. I like the fact that they're just themselves all the time. I really admire that about them. I want to double down and I want to build this friendship. The people that will make you feel the most uncomfortable and challenge your internal beliefs about not only the world, but yourself. Those are the people that you will build probably the strongest and most beautiful friendships with.

going back to Patrick, right? I think Patrick really made me think about myself in a different way. He kind of made me, you know, feel this like, you know, feel this threatening to my ego and be like, ah. But after that, it made me realize, wow, I can befriend somebody not just from a first impression, but from hanging out with them, laughing with them, playing FIFA with them. And man, you know, even though we have two completely different lives and we do completely different things, we still keep in touch and I still have the same love for that man that I

did when I first met him, you know? Don't squander your time trying to fill it with people that are just not worth it. Or are they just past the time? You'll be better off being a little bit alone and really working. at who you want to be. Don't hold yourself back. I don't think that's good either. But if you want real friends,

just know it doesn't come from trying to make something something it's not. Force a friendship into a direction it won't naturally go. And I really do wish all of you continue to have great friendships, continue to meet people that make you feel, special. Because a friend,

if they can do that, if they can make you feel like you matter in a way that not a lot of people do, I think there's something to be said about them being able to see something that maybe others can't and cultivating that into being able to champion characteristics

that other people, should she? Should she? She shouldn't. Should see. Real friends. How many? of us how many of us zirky show today's episode of the zirky show is filmed in beautiful austin texas sunrise mount benal you know the face is a little buffy i might have to get the roller roller dog

gum and bear but uh man austin's getting warm it's getting beautiful if you have somewhere you want to go for spring break consider austin it's really awesome you'll have a good time what more can i say Did you know that the Zirky Show is everywhere you go? That is correct. You can watch it, you can stream it, you can scroll it. The choice is yours if you want to tap in. It's the Zirky Show everywhere, and you found this video for a reason.

So there might be a reason to find some more. Tap in. Do the things that bring you joy. Train for a triathlon that your friend is running, because there's no other reason not to. Except, I mean, if you're going to hurt yourself, maybe don't do that. If you're trying something new,

just know that I believe in you and Zirky Show is, always, I'm sending you lots of love and peace.