← The Psychology of your 20s
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- [00:00]
Gemma Spaeg
This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. I'm Jemma Spa, the host of the psychology of your 20s. Have you ever been at the pharmacy counter and your mind goes blank when the pharmacist asks any questions? That is why you need to listen to beyond the script from CVS Pharmacy and iHeartMedia. Hosted by Dr. Jake Goodman, this podcast answers the questions you'd wished you'd asked, like which meds may not work well together, what what vaccines you might need before a holiday, and even some of the questions you're too embarrassed to say out loud. Listen to beyond the script on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I feel like in every episode I talk about how exhausted and overwhelmed I am because it's true. I'm trying to balance a lot and taking care of myself often falls off the list. That is where Premier Protein shakes come in. They have 3030 grams of protein, no added sugar, and tons of delicious flavors like cake batter, peaches and cream caramel. Premier protein shakes are a healthy choice you will actually want to make. Premier Protein powers you to say yes to more. Whether it's crushing a big presentation, building an epic fort, hitting the hiking trail with friends. Find your favorite flavor@premier protein.com when you.
- [01:19]
DJ Hester Prynne
Feel uncomfortable, what do you put on Biggie? You put on Biggie when you feel uncomfortable.
- [01:24]
Gemma Spaeg
Because I want to get confident.
- [01:25]
DJ Hester Prynne
This is DJ Hester Prince Music is Therapy, a new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist. 12 months, 12 areas of your life. Money, love, career, confidence. This isn't just a podcast. It's unconventional therapy for your entire year. Listen to DJ Hester Prynne's Music is Therapy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:49]
Gemma Spaeg
Hello my lovely listeners. By now you know the more knowledge we have about ourselves and the way our bodies work, the more empowered and in control we are. And this is also true when it comes to our sexual health and what to do after unprotected sex. That's where Plan B comes in. It's emergency contraception with no age requirement that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts. And because it works by only temporarily delaying ovulation, it won't impact your ability to get pregnant in the future. We love a backup plan that puts us in control because the more we know, the more power we have. Learn more@planb1step.com users directed. Hello everybody, I'm Gemma Spike, and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the Biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we, of course break down the psychology of our 20s. Sometimes we have these episodes where I just go, I cannot believe we have never spoken about this before. We are like 300, maybe even 400 episodes in and we have never spoken about this topic. Today we're going to talk about friendship trios. We know from, like, countless studies and even so many episodes that we've done just how important our friends are, not just for our mental health, but for our physical longevity even. But what kind of happens, what changes when it's not just you and another best friend? And it's not a huge friendship group either. It's like this weird middle ground. Three people, the trio that can get. And I know we've seen examples of this, like, really complicated. Not just because friendships are in themselves complicated, but because of this unique platonic triangle dynamic. It can be a beautiful one. You know, you get to call two people your best friend. It can also get really, really messy. One person always kind of made me feel slightly left behind or distant or like despair. There are moments of jealousy and resentment, and I guess it's really easy to see why it's not just two people navigating and bouncing their emotions between each other. Suddenly, it's like almost a bit of a project to keep three different bonds going at once, plus the entire friendship of the three of you at a whole. This is a perfect segue into a story that inspired this episode from a listener who wrote in with an experience exactly like this, looking for some advice. And I asked her, can I share this story for this episode? And she said, yes, please. So this was her message. I need some advice on whether it's time for me to leave my toxic friendship trio Some context. Me and my best friends have known each other since we were 8 years old. We're 24 now. We all went to college together, and we've obviously had our ups and downs, but always remained thick friends throughout it all. We even dated best friends. My friends were bridesmaids at my sister's wedding. It has kind of been a fairy tale friendship situation in many respects. Until last month. Last month, me and one of my friends had a small falling out after she showed up two hours late to my birthday dinner to go on a date with a guy. A second date, might I add. I expressed I was angry and then she proceeded to not talk to me for three days, but did speak to our other friend. We semi made up, but she didn't exactly apologise. And then flash forward to last weekend. I call up the girls to see what their Saturday plans are and the friend who, who remained neutral tells me that they are on a trip together with two of our other friends in New York City and they had simply forgotten to tell me. I was devastated. We do literally everything together and they know that going to New York was a dream of mine since even before we met, they said they made the plans in the three days me and my other friend were fighting. I hate to admit it, but I lost my cool and we haven't spoken since. I can tell I've been blocked from seeing their Instagram stories and I'm feeling so lost, angry, devastated and hurt. Please, any advice? Am I in the wrong or how do I salvage this friendship? I think this dynamic is the perfect example of what we're going to talk about today. And I think to give this listener a little bit of advice to begin with, like your reaction to both those situations of firstly, your friend not showing up to dinner and then this trip, like, that's fair to me. The exclusion, like, honestly, at this point feels deliberate, especially since you said you'd made up in the meantime. You said you'd been talking to them in the meantime and you are the one who was originally offended or I guess, like wronged. I think it's also hard because listening to that, like your friend saying, we just forgot to tell you. How can you forget to tell someone, let alone your best friend, that you're on a plane to their dream city without them when you otherwise talk, like every single day? I think your frustration is totally justified and you need to probably seriously consider what kind of apology you want, that you need, that you deserve, and whether you are willing to be the one who instigates that and reaches out or who waits. And I definitely think that at the very bare minimum, you need to send like a full kind of Dear John, like hard on your sleeve message of, like, I'm really hurt. And yes, my reaction may not have been neat and tidy, but it's because of how deeply I feel about you guys and about our bond and our friendship and also about the situation. I do feel like, you know, you need a proper apology and can those people give you that? We're going to talk through. We're going to talk through that in this episode. Like, that is my most basic in, like, very, very minor advice to you, but I think the concepts and the psychology we're going to discuss as we go further into this episode are probably going to answer this question for you. Are you going to be able to move forward? What is the dynamic of the friendship so far, or as it is now, and is it worth salvaging? We're going to discuss what it really means to be in a friendship trio, the role of the third wheel, how people often choose a specific role in a friendship trio, and how those roles evolve over time, and most importantly, how to avoid and how to deal with conflict when it inevitably comes up. So, without further ado, let's get into it. Honestly, friendship trios, I think they're pretty special. And I know that probably doesn't sound honest, given the story we just heard, but when we look at the pros, just for a second, you basically get two best friends. It works really nicely on a practical level. If one friend is burnt out, or if one friend is busy or going through it, there's double the support, but also double the options, double the people to hang out with. Arguably, it's more fun. There's more personality, strengths, perspectives, more things to kind of contribute to your worldview. The in jokes are also, like, arguably a lot better as well, because there's more shared. And something I don't hear people talk about a lot is there's something uniquely affirming about watching your two best friends love each other the way that you love them. You know, it's one thing to know that you think somebody else is wonderful, and it's another thing to see that mirrored back by someone else you also deeply care about. So they do have the potential to be these amazing, like, ecosystem ecosystems of friendship. But I think they are sabotaged by a few basic things. I will say most of the psychological research on close friendships or close relationships that you will come across is about dyads. So pairs of people, best friends, romantic partners, you and one other. The sociologist George Simel in the early 1900s, he was actually one of the first to say, like, hang on, what about a triad? What about a group of three that isn't the same dynamic as a dyad, plus an extra person thrown in there. The relationship behaves very differently because there are three people. And Simmel focused a lot on how the exact number of people within a relationship and a friendship just completely changes the dynamic of the relationship itself in a really unique way, like a chemical reaction in a dyad. You know, this is the most intimate kind of relationship or friendship you can have. It's also the most fragile. You know, if one person walks away, the relationship simply ceases to exist. You know, it is reliant on both of you choosing to be in the friendship and to show up and to make it work. All the attention, all the conflict, the repair, the reassurance moves directly between the two of you. So there's kind of nowhere to hide. There's no buffer in a dyad. Also, there is no majority. Like, it's just two individuals who need to work things out as people in a triad. However, a group of three, the group can actually survive the partial withdrawal of one member. Like the relationship between any two people is supported by the third person, but can exist by itself. And this makes the entire group kind of stable and supposedly, according to the research, a lot harder to break. You know, if two friends argue, the third person can step in and be a mediator. Or if one person leaves, the remaining two can continue the group. Social network researchers, particularly two researchers, Kenneth Gough and David Crockhart, they explore this with their idea of Somalian ties. And this is basically a close social tie that is embedded completely within a three person network. We form a similian tie when two people have a strong and mutual relationship with each other, and they also have a strong and mutual relationship with a third person who they have in common. What comes out of that is actually four relationships, not just one. When you have two people in a relationship, you have one relationship. When you have three people in a friendship, you actually have four. So you might be very close to friend A, who is friends with friend B, who then becomes your friend, your C. This creates an ab, B, C and CA relationship, but also an ABC relationship within one small group. Four relationships for three people and for one larger relationship. And that's incredibly complex. Something interesting that actually occurs in friendship trios is that every member typically takes on their own unique role. I think there are three main roles in every friendship trio. This isn't necessarily scientific. It's just something I've noticed by talking to people in my own life and with my researcher. The first is the bridge builder. Every single friendship trio has an organizer, has the center of command. They have this one person whose kind of calendar is like the guiding force of the friendship. They start the group chats, they remember the birthdays, they buy the football tickets, they book dinner. They tend to do a lot of, like, the practical maintenance that keeps these really intimate ties active and sustained. Then there is the emotional anchor. This is the person who everyone seems to turn to when things are tricky. They are very emotive They're a deep feeler. They're an advice giver. They also often end up being the mediator, the group mediator. I've noticed that the one who manages the emotions of the group is normally the one that's most likely to fall between the other two parties and is most likely to have to really deal with other people snarking about the other person and dealing with the other people venting about the other. The other person in the group. They might not do a lot of the practical load, they do a lot of the emotional load. So there's upsides and downsides with each role. The third role I often see is what I call the wild card or the energy bringer. These are the people that are just essentially the chaos. Like, they always have an outrageous story. They always make the last minute plans. They always have the unhinged voice notes. They might be less practically consistent, less emotionally consistent, but they are a source of what I would say is a huge amount of the group's fun spontaneity, maybe even entertainment. Now, of course, these roles can overlap. The organizer might also be the emotional anchor. The wild card might also be the bridge builder or the organizer. In a healthy trio, these roles are actually shared around. So there isn't one person doing all the emotional work all the time or all the planning all the time. But we tend to kind of fall into. If you're in a friendship trio, one of these three groups. And this dynamic can explain why trios can actually feel so comforting when they are working because, you know, everybody is kind of playing their part. It also kind of explains why small changes can feel really impactful because, you know, this entire social equilibrium will start to feel imbalanced if one person is angry or frustrated and stops playing their role. You know, if the planner suddenly stops planning, things are going to fall apart. If the energy giver gives too much chaos, everybody else is going to be frustrated. If the emotional anchor feels exhausted and doesn't feel supported themselves, they're going to stop wanting to be somebody that the other people can come to the hardest part. And the thing I think damages friendship trios the most is that dynamic when a minor, like frustration emerges and it starts to impact how every single member starts to see each other. Specifically, when two people start to hang out without a third, like the story we heard at the beginning, this is like the thing that I think destroys most friendship trios. That's where the feeling of being the third wheel starts to creep in. And this is like make or break this is when I think we see them collapse. I'm going to explain exactly why. Stick around to hear about it. We'll be right back after this short break. Foreign the host of the Psychology of your twenties have you ever been at the pharmacy counter and the pharmacist asks you do you have any questions? And suddenly your mind goes blank? That is exactly why you need to listen to beyond the Script from CVS Pharmacy and iHeartMedia. Hosted by Dr. Jay Goodman, a board certified psychiatrist and health educator, this show takes you behind the counter to answer the questions you'd wished you'd asked, like what medications might not mix well, what vaccines should you consider before a big trip, and even those questions you're a little bit too embarrassed to say out loud. Each episode busts myths, decodes health trends, and gives you real, trustworthy advice from the experts you see the most. Your neighborhood CVS pharmacist. No white coats, no lectures. Just real talk, real answers, and maybe a few laughs. Listen to beyond the script on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I feel like in every episode I talk about how exhausted and overwhelmed I am because it's true. I'm trying to balance a lot and taking care of myself often falls off the list. That is where Premier Protein shakes come in. They have 30 grams of protein, no added sugar, and tons of delicious flavors like cake batter, peaches and cream caramel. Premier Protein shakes are a healthy choice. You will actually want to Premier Protein powers you to say yes to more. Whether it's crushing a big presentation, building an epic fort, hitting the hiking trail with friends. Find your favorite flavor@premier protein.com if anyone understands how chaotic life can get and how important flexibility with your finances is, it's me. Especially as someone who was self employed. Some months are stacked, some months are not. That's why the Klarna card is such a smart tool for me. It's a debit card that lets you decide how to pay upfront like a normal debit card, or plan ahead to pay later. Choose how you want to pay before you buy so you're spending with purpose and staying in control. The Klarna card works anywhere Visa is accepted and there is no credit impact. To apply, sign up for the Klarna card by downloading the Klarna app or or learn more@klarna.com US KlarnaCard Klarna Card Pay later Plans issued by Webbank. Deposits in your balance account are held at Webbank Member FDIC anywhere Visa is accepted. Certain merchant products, goods and services restrict and supply. Some merchants do not accept virtual cards, physical card only included with the paid Klarna membership plan. Hello my lovely listeners. By now you know the more knowledge we have about ourselves and the way our bodies work, the more empowered and in control we are. And this is also true when it comes to our sexual health and what to do after unprotected sex. That's where Plan B comes in. It's emergency contraception with no age requirement that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts. And because it works by only temporarily delaying ovulation, it won't impact your ability to get pregnant in the future. We love a backup plan that puts us in control because the more we know, the more power we have. Learn more@planb1step.com users directed third wheel the term third wheel, it's honestly such a brutal phrase, but it captures a feeling I think most people recognize. It is this sense of being there but not actually feeling wanted, not feeling needed in a situation like the third wheel of a bike. Like we all know the bike can function just with two the third wheel knows the bike doesn't need it. What we're really describing, though, is social ostracism. That feeling of being ignored, excluded, or kind of sidelined out of a social group. There has been actual research on what this does to us psychologically, mainly by one American researcher called Kipling Williams. He and his colleagues basically created this experimental condition called cyberball. It's become very well known. This is what cyberball is. It's an experiment or experimental condition where participants are put into a group and they're told to throw the ball back and forth with two or three other people, either online or in person. They could be in a room. They could also be doing it as like a video game. At first they toss it to you and you toss it back to them and everybody's getting a bit of the ball. Then in this experimental condition, without explanation, all the other players just stop throwing to you. The other two people, the other three people. What you don't know is that they're imposters. The game carries on. You are never thrown the ball again. Like even talking about that feels like a school sports nightmare. But this study is really important in seeing the effects of being left out. And there was a meta analysis of I think like 120 specific cyberball studies. I think there was like 12,000 participants in these studies overall, which found that even this small artificial exclusion created a really large mental effect. Participants felt panicked they got angry, they started crying, they got confused. Sometimes they even reported like literal physical pain. And this effect, this deeply psychological effect, this happens even though there was no big drama, nobody was hurt, there was no insults. Just quietly being left out was enough to have a significant impact on these people. Let's bring that back to the trio, to our friend at the beginning of the episode. If this reaction in this cyber ball game happens with strangers who you don't know at all, no wonder you're feeling so upset when it's your best friends and they metaphorically stop passing the ball to you. The initial pain of exclusion, like that's just the first layer, right? The second layer is the self interrogation that comes with that. We could also call this like social specific rumination. But it's when you've been excluded and then you start to look for an explanation within your own behavior. So you start to replay conversations. You blame yourself. You're scanning all your memories for what went wrong. You're hyper analyzing your behavior. From an evolutionary standpoint, this might make perfect sense. Even though it's really frustrating, you basically want to know where you went wrong and how you can fix it. For most of human history, your survival depended on being part of a small group of food for protection, childcare information. Being socially excluded meant you would have less access to those resources, less protection, and a higher chance of literally dying. So it makes sense for natural selection to kind of build a brain that is hypersensitive to any signs of rejection, especially in a group, and even long before actual abandonment happens. In the 1995 paper titled need to Belong, it's one of our essential readings. The authors argue that belonging and feeling seen and included is just as fundamental as shelter, as security, as warmth. A lack of belonging is linked to literal health problems, increased risk of getting dementia, increased risk of getting sick more often, virus susceptibility. So researchers later took this further and they argued that social exclusion is processed using the same systems in our brain that handle physical pain. Basically, evolution has co opted the pain system to ensure that we pay attention to threats, to our sense of belonging and to being excluded. Feeling like the third wheel and having a deeply painful reaction to that is not stupid. You are not overreacting. There is scientific evidence here that this is like, this sucks. Like biologically, your body is primed to push back against this, and it really does. It hurts us on a physical level. I think it gets even more complicated with three people rather than with the big group, because you now have the minimum number you need for Alliances. In conflict situations, there is always going to be an odd one out, or when people are disagreeing, there's always going to be somebody who's left out. You can't split three evenly. Simple maths. Either the group splits three ways or more often, two pair off. And this is when the fact that there are three of you and there isn't quote, unquote, spare or an extra bonus member at any given time, that is when this becomes a deeper unraveling. For dynamics like this, there is a 2021 paper literally called Friendship Tools for Maintaining Friendships in the Face of Third Party Threats that was published in, I think it was the Journal of, must have been the Journal of Social Psychology. And what this paper shows so well is how when there is a third person, when you can see the threat of you being replaced, you act differently. Across 11 studies, researchers found that often friendship jealousy is uniquely triggered not just by the idea that your friend might not like you anymore or could be taken away, but by third party threats. So not just the idea of losing your friend, but losing them to someone else is more painful. And it makes us especially sensitive to cues of being replaced by the third person in the friendship. Because we can see this person. We can literally, we know that this person is a nice person. We know that these people have a good bond. It's very easy for us to imagine them existing and going on without us. Friendship trios, they just make this so apparent. And so there is this additional level of competition around who is getting the most contact time, who is getting the most enthusiasm, who is, who is everybody hanging out with, more or less, that kind of lingers. And it motivates what we call friendship guarding behaviors. These efforts to protect or keep the friendship between you and the one other person safe. When you perceive that the other person, the third person, is trying to take them from you, and how this manifests is again back to those behaviors. Suddenly, now that you're insecure, you stop telling the other person about your plans, you stop including them, you stop talking to them, even though you know what's wrong, even though you love them. When you feel a sense of threat, sometimes it's just how we naturally behave. And underneath all of this is this, like, quieter, I think, running calculation about fairness. Here's where I'm going to introduce one final framework here to show why friendship triggers can be so difficult. It is called the equity framework of relationships. This framework was developed by the researchers Elaine Hatfield and Susan Spretcher. And they suggested that in close relationships, we care a Lot about the balance between what we give, so time, care, love, money even, and what we get. Support, appreciation, reliability, gratitude back. Especially when there are other people involved in that same relationship, when that balance feels off. So when you feel you're not getting the same amount as that person who's not getting the same amount as this person who's giving that person more, this ultimately leads to that fear about again being replaced. It leads to relationship guarding behaviors. It leads to ostracism. That is what contributes to friendship breakdown. It's all interconnected and it all comes back to this deep human desire. We want to feel important, we want to feel seen. We want to feel like we matter in relationships. Is that just harder when you have a friendship trio? Is it just impossible to ever equally balance that just because of the nature, maybe the number of the friendship? Is that the outcome here? Like, do we just need to kill off the friendship trio? Do we just, like, not have social technology yet to have friendship trios? Personally, I actually don't think so. I know I've been quite pessimistic. I don't think so. I want to be optimistic here myself here. Like, I'm in a really healthy, fun, fulfilling friendship trio. I have been for like almost four years. So I want to believe that it's possible. But I think some of the reasons I do think it works come down to how that friendship operates and what I've kind of learned from. Also some of the mistakes we've made and the ways that we've kind of made the trio as healthy as possible. And I want to kind of share what those are with you guys who are in a friendship trio and wanting to make sure that, like, you've still got your friends in five years or that you guys don't have some, like, awful, heinous friendship breakup. So my first tip or way that I think friendship trios work is when you are able to acknowledge that sometimes you are just going to be jealous. And sometimes what's worse is that jealousy is maybe going to be justified. A healthy trio is not one where nobody ever feels left out. You know, hopefully you feel that way 95% of the time, but there are going to be times where it's just unavoidable, even if it is not true. Somebody might just perceive that they are being left out or that they weren't invited or that there was some hidden conversation happening, even if it's not true. And a healthy trio is, is one where those feelings are survivable because you a feel a deep sense of Trust in the other people that they're not doing that to you. And B, because you maintain direct communication rather than simply relying on the mediator to manage communication, or rather than just not saying anything at all and expecting it to be okay and for somebody to read your mind. You know what I think is a huge sign of true emotional maturity and frontal lobe development, especially in our 20s, it is not being afraid of conflict, because you know that avoiding it hurts everybody more. From a practical level, maybe you've even learned that lesson the hard way a few times. One of the easiest traps that trios slide into is that they have side conversations rather than shared ones. It definitely feels safer in the moment to be like, oh, my God, this person is really annoying me. She really pissed me off when she did that. But over time, little alliances do start to form. People start second guessing what's being said about them when they're not there. You start to think, like, if I'm having those conversations with that person, they're probably having those conversations about me. And so there's like this low level paranoia. Basically, what we are describing here is the stage right before resentment. And we know from many key leading relationship institutes and experts that resentment erodes relationships faster than probably nothing else. Whatever your impulse is to shove it down, to ignore it, you have to fight against that impulse. You have to swallow your pride, and you have to say something. Because two options come out of that. A, you get through it unharmed. You patch it up. You understand each other better. Now you. I really don't think you know somebody, especially a friend, until you've had a first fight. And so it's kind of a rite of passage. You guys get through it and it's amazing. Or B, you say something and you realize, like, this person was never going to be able to survive tough times with me anyways, and I can stop tiptoeing. Like, this was never gonna work because here, here is this opportunity we have to work through it, and they're not taking it. So I think if nothing else, and this is gonna sound so barbaric, but if nothing else, it's efficient. It's just purely efficient to talk to people about your problems. Okay, so we are going to take one more short break here before we get into my final three tips for maintaining friendship trios. The next one, by the way, is probably the most important of them all. So stay with us. I'm Gemma Spaeg, the host of the psychology of your 20s. Have you ever been at the pharmacy counter and the pharmacist asks you do you have any questions? And suddenly your mind goes blank. That is exactly why you need to listen to beyond the Script from CVS Pharmacy and iHeartMedia. Hosted by Dr. Jay Goodman, a board certified psychiatrist and health educator, this show takes you behind the counter to answer the questions you'd wish you'd asked, like what medications might not mix well, what vaccines should you consider before a big trip, and even those questions you're a little bit too embarrassed to say out loud. Each episode bust myths, decodes health trends, and gives you real trustworthy advice from the experts you see the most. Your neighborhood CVS pharmacist. No white coats, no lectures. Just real talk, real answers and maybe a few laughs. Listen to beyond the script on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A big priority for me in 2026 is to make healthier, better choices so I can take care of myself and just have more energy for my everyday life. That is, of course easier said than done when life is so chaotic all of the time. But that is where Premier Protein shakes come in. They have 30 grams of protein, no added sugar, and tons of delicious flavors from cake batter to peaches and cream caramel. They are a healthy choice you'll actually want to make because they never feel bo Focusing on fitness and health can be really overwhelming, but having 30 grams of protein immediately in the morning with Premier Protein can really get you moving and enjoying life. Premier Protein powers you to say yes to more, whether it's crushing a big presentation at work, building an epic fort with your kids, or hitting the hiking trail with friends. Find your favorite flavor at premier protein. Com, that's P R E M I E R protein.com or at Amazon, Walmart and other major retailers. If anyone understands how chaotic life can get and how important flexibility with your finances is, it's me. Especially as someone who was self employed. Some months are stacked, some months are not. That's why the Klarna card is such a smart tool for me. It's a debit card that lets you decide how to pay upfront like a normal debit card or or plan ahead to pay later. Choose how you want to pay before you buy so you're spending with purpose and staying in control. The Klarna card works anywhere Visa is accepted and there is no credit impact. To apply, sign up for the Klarna card by downloading the Klarna app or learn more@klarna.com US KlarnaCard Klarna Card Pay later plans issued by Webbank. Deposits in your balance account are held at Webbank. Member FDIC anywhere Visa is accepted. Certain merchant products, goods and services restrict and supply. Some merchants do not accept virtual physical card only included with a paid Klarna membership plan. Hello my lovely listeners. By now you know the more knowledge we have about ourselves and the way our bodies work, the more empowered and in control we are. And this is also true when it comes to our sexual health and what to do after unprotected sex. That's where Plan B comes in. It's emergency contraception with no age requirement that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts. And because it works by only temporarily delaying ovulation, it won't impact your ability to get pregnant in the future. Future we love a backup plan that puts us in control because the more we know, the more power we have. Learn more@planb1step.com users directed the next tip I have that I really recommend for Flourishing Friendship Trios. It's like a tongue twister. Flourishing friendship trios. That's not that bad. It's allowing the central or core person to change over time. Trios are naturally dynamic. Like we've talked about these roles, there will be phases when one person is more central. Whether that is because they are, I don't know, going through a breakup or because they're, you know, the ones who are organizing everything. Or, I don't know, like maybe they're like they're getting married or they're the ones with like the most energy at the time. Transitioning this over time and letting people flow into different roles and flow into like different seasons and be the one that takes on more and be the one that takes on less. I think prevents the resentment creeping in when you feel like you always have to show up in a certain way. If you feel like this is kind of weird and you're like, wait, things are changing. Wait, this person is just making his isn't making as many plans like blah blah blah. Maybe it is your time to step into that role yourself. It is easy to see change as this thing that is like life ending threatening is going to ruin the friendship. But if nothing major or dramatic has happened, it may be that you're just resettling into a new way of relating to each other or just your new roles. So accept that change in your friendship is going to happen and just see how things fit. It's like romantic relationships. People need to take turns being different versions of themselves in the relationship. It is super normal. So you have to accept that Just like you have to accept jealousy. My third tip might sound a little bit counterintuitive at first, but I cannot also stress the importance enough of investing in the individual friendships first. You might hear me say that and be like, wait, hold up. Aren't we talking about how friendship trios always collapse because people feel left out? Yes, sometimes. But if we think back to the concept of similian ties, the trio was built on three strong connections, plus the fourth big one. If these individual connections aren't well maintained, if you and the other person separately don't know each other or aren't really hanging out with each other well enough, the trio is going to start to weaken simply because the ties that make it up are weak as well. Obviously, don't take a private bloody trip to New York and not tell the other person, because that's insane. But, like, go and grab coffee just with one friend sometimes, or go for long walks. Go just with the other friend. It also stops you from becoming dependent on one person to carry the dynamic. If you're close to both people in the group, then this is good practice. It's not weird. It shouldn't be uncomfortable when one of you isn't available or when one of you just wants to do something with the other person. What it does mean, though, is that you've also you've got to be okay with your friends doing stuff without you from time to time. Because back to that big T word like you trust that you also have spaces where you are central to, and each relationship is equally as strong as the next one. Really? Like, it's a trust exercise. We're coming back to this again and again. At the end of the day, you have to know in your deepest of hearts that these people love you. They're not going to leave you out. Your friendship can survive change. Now, to wrap up this episode, let's return to the dilemma at the beginning. And what happens if none of this is working? Your friendship is just falling apart. It is in like a tailspin, like it is going down. What do we do then? What do we do when we're unsure if we want to continue the friendship trio or the friendship singular? My advice is for this person again, but also for all situations like this. In general, when you find yourself in a dynamic like this, where something has happened, a situation has occurred, please talk about it as quickly as possible. Do not ignore that advice. Do not let an emotional wound fester. If it has gotten to that point where, like, you guys are at a stalemate, be the bigger person and Reach out. And I know you probably don't want to hear that. You probably hate hearing that. But really, the question is this. Is this friendship worth it to you? Is it worth saving? How long have you been friends? Have you made similar mistakes in the past and been forgiven? Is this something I think that we can recover from? It doesn't have to be a mutual decision, but if you decide, like, hey, yeah, I actually love this person, I'm going to regret not trying to fix this. I care about them enough to do the hard thing. You've got to follow that instinct, and you've got to do it. Prepare to be honest, go in it with, like, your heart on your sleeve. But I think you cannot fix and you cannot get out of this if things aren't in the open. You need to seriously be like, this sucked, and I am really upset. And I'm going to let you guys also deal with the consequences of your actions through my emotions. I do want some kind of apology. I do want some kind of acknowledgment. But it doesn't mean that we can't get over this. Everybody in this situation. And I think this is what friendship trios and friendships in general, every single one of them will require this. At some point, somebody needs to swallow their pride. And if they do acknowledge it and they sincerely apologize, go. Don't forgive them straight away. Go away for a few days, see how you feel. Has that apology helped? What kind of changes are you expecting? What is going to be the line you don't want crossed and move on from there? If they don't apologize, if the radio silence continues, if they don't take accountability, I'm sorry, but I just don't think it's in your hands anymore. And I think that's nice that, you know, you tried. You were the one who was the bigger person. Maybe you just need to let the friendship rest for a bit. Nobody else can draw that line for you. But I think some red flags that often signal that the trio is doing more harm than good are when you do feel chronically left out, you do feel really anxious rather than excited or happy before seeing them after spending time together as well. You know, you regularly leave feeling smaller than when you arrived. You feel ganged up on, you feel belittled, you feel isolated. You might also feel kind of ashamed or overstimulated, like, you really had to put a lot of energy into this rather than just seeing your friends. And I think the biggest sign that the friendship is done is when you just don't like who you are when you shop with the group, maybe because it is making you feel defensive or jealous or needy. I think a lot of this is because often when we know something is wrong, we can sense it. When we know people are trying to exclude us, we can sense it. And so we become very hypervigilant out of fear. And that just makes us feel all these kinds of really irritated emotions to do with the friendship trio that just like bleeds in and destroys everything. If this friendship is making you feel exhausted rather than lighter, it's simply not worth it. And there will be more people out there who value you and value your time and will be receptive to you now that you have more time for them rather than for these people that might not care about you. The practical side of leaving can be really difficult. You know, you often feel like you're losing two friendships at once, plus the friendship of the three of you. And I feel for you and I'm really sorry. It doesn't mean the door is closed forever. What I would say is if you find yourself in this situation, try not to ghost. Don't just disappear and stop replying to your friends like it sounds like our listeners friends are doing to her. I know that that might be tempting and I think throughout this conversation there's been obvious easy routes that we can take. But you don't want to give people ammunition to say that you didn't try or say that it was your fault. You don't want to give people ammunition to justify shitty behavior. The the best you can do now is focus on living with the knowledge. I did what I could, I tried. There are no good and bad guys. But I'm definitely trying my hardest to be good in the situation to the people I love. Don't be too hard on yourself. Like again, you did your best. I will also say this one final word of advice. Their decisions and their actions will not be without remorse. If you've found a deeply important friendship trio or otherwise exploding, like not to sound threatening, but they will regret it. They will. Someday in the future they are going to think about you and they're going to think about the memories you're probably contemplating as well right now. And they're going to say to themselves like, oh my God, I really miss that person. I think I really screwed that up sometimes. What makes these situations hard is because we start to drive ourselves crazy thinking like, did they ever even care about me? Did I waste all this time kind of like we did with an ex and they do and they did and they will continue to care about you. It's up to you whether you want to leave the door open. I think that you should. I think there's always chances for redemption in even if it's not tomorrow, if it's in 10 years, or at least for reminiscing. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope that it was informative and it's helping you if you're in a hard time or situation like this. Our question for today if you have made it this far, thank you for listening. Thank you for being a loyal listener in the comments below. What is your favorite depiction of good friendship in a movie or TV show? I'll go first. Mine is Good Will Hunting for sure all time favorite movie depicting friendship. But drop yours below. Make sure you are also following us on Instagram or wherever you are listening. If you are subscribed, that's amazing. If you're not, what are you doing? Give us a five star review if you feel called to do so. And thank you as always to our researcher Libby Colbert for her contributions to this episode. She is marvelous. I don't know what we would do without her. Until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself and we will talk very, very soon. A big priority for me in 2026 is to make healthier, better choices so I can take care of myself and more energy for my everyday life. That is of course easier said than done when life is so chaotic all of the time. But that is where Premier Protein shakes come in. They have 30g of protein, no added sugar, and tons of delicious flavors from cake batter to peaches and cream caramel. They are a healthy choice you'll actually want to make because they never feel boring. Focusing on fitness and health can be really overwhelming, but having 30 grams of protein and immediately in the morning with Premier Protein can really get you moving and enjoying life. Premier Protein powers you to say yes to more. 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- [51:49]
DJ Hester Prynne
Uncomfortable, what do you put on Biggie? You put on Biggie when you feel uncomfortable.
- [51:53]
Gemma Spaeg
Because I want to get confident.
- [51:54]
DJ Hester Prynne
This is DJ Hester Prynne's Music is Therapy, a new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist. 12 months, 12 areas of your life Money, love, career, confidence. This is isn't just a podcast. It's unconventional therapy for your entire year. Listen to DJ Hester Prynne's Music is Therapy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [52:17]
Gemma Spaeg
This is an iHeart podcast guaranteed.