"How do you make long distance friendships work?"
AMA #3 || Relationship Station
hi!! You’ve found yourself at dialoguing, a newsletter where I talk about life sometimes through the lens of my day job (I’m a psychotherapist) in the least clinical way possible. As the name of this newsletter suggests, I’m conscious of how we talk. to oneself, to each other, in and about pop culture.
One thing before we jump in, I show up very much as myself here. Myself first, and all my other labels are secondary. If a therapist speaking candidly feels like too much to your system, that is absolutely is OK and this may not be the best particular newsletter for you.1
Welcome to the third edition of our AMA series!!
If you missed the first two:
(Imagine this next part being said with the enthusiasm of Oprah giving out free shit)
Today we are talking about friendships!!!!
In the coming months, I’ll be answering other AMA ?’s about:
How I made mom friends 👯
How I learned to apologize and what it looks like now 🤟
Any advice I have for those considering a career as a therapist 🤓
My feelings on talking to LLM’s for therapeutic advice? 😵💫
How I decided I wanted to be a parent. 👶
and many, many more…
AMA form open—you can add your questions here.
💎 It seems like you have friends across several cities. How do you make long-distance friendships (LDF) work?
–Anonymous
When I saw this question come through I felt so amped to get into this topic because these are SUCH precious relationships to me.
Core memories.
Joyful bursts of color in my life.
Fits of belly laughter.
A closeness that feels cosmic.
Parts of me that only flourish around them.
Basically, give me friendship or give me death! You feel me?
After that swell of warmness dissipated, I realized I couldn’t answer this alone, so I emailed a few LDF—the gals who keep me afloat—for a performance review ;)2
You may think I’m a masochist for eliciting relational feedback so directly—and that’s always on the table as a possibility.
My working theory on how I—a person who quietly cried through every performance review she received in jobs prior to becoming self-employed3—have opened myself up to this kind of feedback all comes down to a podcast series that helped me get more curious about my own defensiveness.4 At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, it radically changed the way I look at giving and receiving feedback in relationships.
This doesn’t mean I don’t get defensive. As if. It just means I’m increasingly aware of when I do, what it means, and that my relationships will (likely) only get stronger when I ask the tough questions about what is happening within and between us.
Let’s meet the ladies who will be reviewing me today 😉
Morgan.
Bio: An Oregon-babe born and bred. Founder of mrcantile, (in her words) a marketing collective built specifically for small business owners who deserve the same level of strategic, creative marketing that the big guys get. The friend who got me to take dialoguing from an amorphous idea to the newsletter you’re now reading and the one who got me considering sobriety.
Meet cute: We met through a mutual dear friend at a dinner. I remember the night SO clearly. I said in the car to my husband on the ride home how much I connected with her. He was like “No, shit, it was pretty obvious.” Not only did we get along, our husbands slipped into a Detroit Lions infused bro-coma, and our kids fell in love, too.
Years known: 4.5 years.
Years long distance: 3 years
What do I do that helps you feel connected from afar?
