Conflicts in Friendships

Hi, welcome back to Eat Your Cress Podcast. I'm Crystal. And I'm G-Soo. I feel like I fucked up my intro, but that's okay. Today we wanted to talk about conflicts in friendships. Actually, one of our listeners had asked us if we could talk about this topic. And we thought it was a great idea, so we finally were able to fit it into the schedule. I think conflicts in friendship is a pretty unique topic and situation, because it's often and very naturally compared to romantic relationship conflicts. And for some reason, it's just never as serious, I guess. Maybe serious isn't the right word, but it's easier sometimes to skip over friendship conflicts just because I don't even know why, but it just like happens. And it's nice to remember once in a while that it's totally normal to have conflicts and it's okay to talk about. So to start us off, how do you think conflicts have changed as we've aged? I think they've changed a lot over the years. It takes me back to fights that I would have with friends in middle school or high school, where for some reason, everything felt very high stakes back then. And I feel like there was not constant, but maybe just more frequent tension or things that would occur because we're all stressed out students, we're seeing each other all the time, we're hormonal teenagers, so the threshold for conflict was very low. But I think starting from college to my early to mid-20s, I felt like the conflicts that happened were kind of friendship evaluating conflicts. In high school, friendships were kind of, like, do I like hanging out with this person and do I have classes with this person? And then in college to 20s, I think it was kind of understanding how often I wanted to see someone and whether this person had a space in my life and whether I had a space in this person's life and long-term compatibility. From late 20s to 30s, I don't think I really necessarily have as many conflicts anymore, but if I had to point something out that was maybe even a small point of contention, it could be a communication style or the amount of space that we hold in each other's friendships. So I think even what is causing the conflict has changed a lot over the years. I totally agree. I'm thinking back to high school and back then it was like, oh, so-and-so is mad at so-and-so because of some random trivial thing. Either you talk it out or you don't. And if you talk it out, usually it solves it. I don't know if there was ever a time where you talk it out and it doesn't in my personal experience. Or if you don't talk it out, then it just festers and then maybe you have to move on from that friendship. And I feel like another key part about that was the trivialness of it all. A lot of situations back then probably wouldn't upset us as much now. But I think I can totally agree with how you kind of laid out your thoughts on 20s versus now as well. There's a lot of change happening throughout college in our 20s. Yeah, it is kind of like evaluating. Is this person worth my time when I have so many things happening? Meeting new people or doing new things is this where I want my energy to go essentially? And then now we're more settled. So it's more like, oh yeah, I've already kind of chosen the people around me. Maybe that's also a reason why there's a little less conflict that happens in our regular day to day. True. I wonder if it's also like the skills that we have learned for ourselves and like managing relationships over the years because I feel like thinking back to when I was younger, I had a really hard time managing expectations. Whether it was my own expectations or a friend, I felt like I was always wondering if I was living up to like a friend's expectations while simultaneously trying to evaluate if someone was living up to my expectations of a friend and like trying to see where that clash was versus the older you get, you already know your expectations and you know your boundary. So if you are having a really good time with someone, this wouldn't be top of mind. But when a conflict occurs, I would have my own boundaries of like, oh, okay, this person is crossing my boundaries. So I know what the next steps are. This is when you're younger and you don't know what your boundaries are. It's just distressing. And that's it. Like there's no like path forward from that. Oh, that's true. Like some of it is within your control and you're able to deal with your own feelings. Right. I didn't even think about that, but you're totally right. Because if someone just does something that maybe bothers you this one time, it's kind of like, oh, well, it's fine. It's like just this one time. Right. I can control my emotions and I know what upset me if it were to happen again. Maybe I have next steps ready. Yeah, exactly. Maybe it's also that being able to categorize something that happened that, for example, made you generally unhappy. When I was younger, I think all of that would go into one bucket. But then when you're older, it's like, oh, that was slightly annoying, but whatever versus this is like a deal breaker and a friendship. You know, it's like very opposite sides of the spectrum, but you're able to categorize it versus when you're younger, it's like everything is equally important. Yeah. Wait. Oh my god. I need to know. Do you think you have deal breakers and friendships now that are like very clear in your own mind? Yeah. I think I do have friendship deal breakers, but it's not as like, I guess, strict as a relationship deal breaker. Like those feel more high stakes for some reason. Yeah. Like friendship deal breakers are like, you would have to be like a terrible person or something. That makes a lot of sense. I think it makes sense as well that we would have more deal breakers for a partner, just because you're most likely going to live with them or spend a lot of time with them. And that just means there's more things that you have to like compromise or tolerate. Yeah. And so there's only so much you can do before you reach a deal breaker. True. Actually, that makes me wonder, do you think you have more friendship deal breakers or more friendship barriers to entry? Oh. Is it harder to get hired or easier to get fired? Damn. Wait, that is such a good question. Let me think. Okay. This is a little hard because I think the hiring process is a long process. Like multiple stages. Yeah. Because like, you know, you get to know people over time. And sometimes in the beginning, it can be as simple as like, I vibe with them. So maybe they're like, hard part time. But then as you get to know them more, maybe some more things come to light and you're like, Oh, shoot, I do vibe with them. But they have this one inherent value that just does not match mine. Right. Maybe they're off the roster. Okay. So I guess during the hiring process, you're already categorizing them or vibing them out to see if they're compatible with you. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. But maybe like if they passed that first stage, which is not too difficult, maybe I kind of already like them a bit. So it's harder to fall out of favor. That's true. Because you have a good screening process unless they do something terrible. Right. Right. I don't know. Is my screening process good? I'm like, yeah, you have good vibes. But I think maybe that's also what it is. Maybe we have less conflicts with friends when we're older because we've already screened out people that aren't as compatible. And then the vibe checking process is a little bit better now. I think it also helps because it's very common for us nowadays to meet people through people. It's a little harder to just randomly meet someone as an adult. The people that we meet through others are already screened in a way as well. That's true. It's like a LinkedIn connection. But let's go back to deal breakers. Do you think you have like just clear deal breakers or are some of the deal breakers kind of a build up? Ooh. I think that's a good way of phrasing it. My deal breakers are probably more of a build up. And generally, I would say lack of trust is probably a deal breaker. There's many roads to get to like untrustworthiness. It could be like being not dependable in terms of logistical stuff, like flaking all the time, being super unresponsive for long stretches of time, that kind of thing. Or it could be lack of trustworthiness and other aspects. I don't know. Being able to keep a secret or just showing up as a friend when you need them. So I think that is probably a deal breaker. But something like that, it takes a while to even prove that you're untrustworthy. It's not like a one and done major conflict kind of a process. I think, maybe it's hard to get fired as a friend. [laughs] Okay, I have a follow-up for this. So let's use one of the dealbreakers as an example. Because I totally agree with the ones that you have shared. I think they're also on my red flag dealbreaker friendship category as well. Let's say you have this long-time friend, and suddenly they're being really flaky. So now it's a conflict, right? True. Do you bring it up or how do you approach this? Damn, this is hard. I think it depends on the friend. Because certain people are more receptive to conversations like that and might even find it constructive. While I feel like for other friends it might make them feel attacked and might make them crawl back into a hole and feel defensive about it. I think I would have to evaluate how this person would want to communicate about something like this in the friendship. But the toxic thing that I would do. I can be like a big spiruler. And I can also be someone that kind of gets in my head about things. So my toxic trait would be that I would take this situation and run through every scenario. I'm like, okay, is this person flaky because they fucking hate me? Is it because they're going through something? Is it because I'm being a bad friend? I would run through all the scenarios and make it a huge deal in my head for like a month before I would even think to bring it up. I see. So clearly I have something I need to work through. You know, if it were a romantic relationship, for some reason it feels easier to be like, yeah, of course I would bring it up. But I think I'm similar to you in that if you were a friendship, I would also take time to think about it in my own head and be like, oh, like is something going on with this person? You know, maybe they'll be better next time. I'll give it another chance. You know, that kind of thought process before probably some point has to be the tipping point where you just bring it up. Like, hey, notice you've been flaking a lot. What's up? Yeah. I mean, I think for something like flaking for both of us, I feel like our first thought would be like concern. Is everything okay over there? I think sometimes when you are concerned, it can make it even harder to bring it up. If it was a conflict where someone is doing something that feels antagonistic or something, for example, or like, spiteful, then it's easier to call things out like that. But what I've learned over the years is like, sometimes there is something very serious happening. And then that makes me even more cautious to bring it up. I would also wonder, is this person ready to talk about it? Or sometimes it's the skill of giving your friend space to bring it up themselves? And I think that also begs the question, like, if you are going through something in your life and you are being flaky, and you knew you're being flaky, would you want your friend to call you out on it or would you want your friend to wait until you brought it up? I think it depends on how they bring it up. Because if they bring it up from a place of care, then I think that's totally okay. I'd probably be like, oh my god, yeah, I know, sorry. Things have just been, you know, all of all is going on and then we'll have the space to talk about it. But if it's more just like, hey, like, we need to talk. I feel like, what the fuck is going on? Right? Right. So yeah, I think it's like, if they're able to craft their words well, if they're able to bring it up in a good way, then they're actually bringing a safe space to you to be able to talk about this problem. When maybe because you're occupied or something, you haven't had the time to create that space to talk with your friend yet. Yeah, that's true. And I also feel like being able to move forward or like make progress when conflicts happen in a friendship also builds your friendship up a lot actually. Like it creates even more trust between you guys. It almost like sets up precedent for future conflicts because there's like a proven process. You know, it's like, oh, we've moved on from this when this was awkward or touchy or heavy and then we still have maintained our friendship. So in the grand scheme of things, I feel like conflict is not necessarily always bad. But to be able to get to that skill level of being able to like delicately talk about these things with your friend can be very challenging. I feel like there are friendships that I have personally lost in my early 20s because I didn't have this skill yet or maybe my friend didn't have this skill yet or we just both collectively like our friendship wasn't there. It wasn't at that level or compatible enough to like move on from things like that. So for me, those have been big learnings. Because I think usually a lot of people come from a good place but it really is being able to word things delicately that is so hard. Yeah, I've been like brainstorming ways to bring it up in this situation that we've been talking about. And I feel like a tactic that I kind of use at work might be helpful. Because you know at work, we are working with deadlines and we have responsibilities. So ultimately, it's really easy for us to default to those responsibilities. Like hey, I needed this thing from you a couple days ago. But then like a suggestion that I was once offered was hey, don't forget that you're still working with people. So just beyond bringing up the issue also put in some realness or even your own vulnerability, right? Hey, I know it's been really busy lately. Like just wanted to check in to make sure you're okay. How's the progress going on this, whatever project? And then that's like so much different than like a hey, I needed this two days ago, right? True. So I feel like that's probably a similar approach that you would want to take with friends as well. Like instead of being like hey notice you've been flaking a lot of recent. You can be like hey, just wanted to check in. Is everything all right? Notice that you haven't been able to come through to a lot of things. Just want to make sure if you need to talk like I'm there or something like that. And I feel like that's generally how a lot of people in our friend group at least approach things as well. You know, I was kind of thinking while you were saying that because it is very true like sometimes there's just something going on in people's lives and it causes them to maybe act differently or pull away from a friendship or just want to be more reclusive. I think we've all had experiences where we've personally gone through stuff and it makes us act exactly the same way. And I think showing up with empathy is something that is just kind of required for the rest of your life because my mom had an experience where one of her friends was going through a lot in her personal life. Especially when you get to like our parents age, you're dealing with much bigger problems, right? Whether it's like a parent passing away or you're going through divorce or something financial like crises that are much bigger than just things that we've gone through in high school of like feeling an exam or some shit. Yeah, I remember my mom was like, "Oh, you know, my friend has been maybe not as kind in her words or maybe more emotional or more volatile but it's because she's going through a lot in her personal life." So I'm going to give her like the next three to five years to come back to normal and I was like, "Holy shit, three to five years." And I remember she was telling me this when I was in like maybe late high school or something. And I just thought it was so insane because, you know, the younger that I was, I had less empathy and less patience than what I have now. So to me, even like a month or something was very long at the time. But I realized, yeah, if it's someone that you really care about and someone you've had decades of friendship with, for example, it isn't actually preposterous to give someone like three to five years, you know, and granted if someone is being really fucking terrible to you, you have a good enough reason to walk away if you wanted to. But if it is a really important friend, then it's not so crazy to think that you would give them that much time. So I was like, "Okay, good friendship is something that you give to someone even when you're a lot older than we currently are." You know, yeah. Oh my God, I'm just also thinking about that time frame when you're in high school. You're like, "That's longer than high school." That's a whole lifetime. That's so true. But yeah, that totally makes sense. Whoa, actually, now that I think about it, maybe you told me this story before off the pod. Because a couple of years ago, my mom's parents passed away and I remember worrying about that and I was like, "Oh my God, will she be really emotional for the next few years?" And I think I kind of mentally had that in my head too. Like, "Okay, I'll give it like a couple of years and see how she reacts to everything." So maybe I was inspired by your story. You're like, "Oh, okay, three to five years." But yeah, I feel like it's hard to because sometimes people don't want to share yet. Maybe this is like what differentiates a really close friendship with a not as close friendship where the trust is already there. So maybe they didn't bring it up in the first place, but when you prod them gently, they'll be willing to share with you. And then you'll be like, oh, okay. So that's what's going on. Now I know what's happening and that's already kind of like conflict resolution in a way. That's true. Like getting the context and knowing what's happening in your friend's life. Because I think even if it's something petty, that's kind of bothering you when you bring it up and you understand why your friend might be acting that way, it's so hard to even stay mad. It's like, oh my god, I'm so sorry you're going through that. Whatever. Okay. Actually, since we're talking about sharing. I've actually had an experience in college where I didn't share something with one of my closer friends. They shared with me that they felt hurt. I didn't share that information with them. They were like kind of a newer friend too, like a friend that I made in college. I realized that some things they didn't know about me yet. So it was like very good that they brought that up because one, it made me think about my actions where I was like, yeah, why didn't I share this? I have no issues sharing it with them. But I just shared my thoughts with them. I was like, yes, I already like, I'm just kind of more of a private person. So I think I was getting there, but I wasn't there yet too. It was good because then we both learned something about each other. This person doesn't like to be in the dark about things going on. That could affect the friendship. And also they feel close enough to me that they can bring this situation up and also that if they had been in my situation, they would have shared. And I feel like that almost improves the friendship a bit. Like, oh my god, they feel that way about me. I just like, why have I not been feeling that way? It makes you feel more receptive to it all too. Wow. That's actually really brave of your friend because you mentioned that it was a slightly newer friendship. And I feel like it could be challenging, entering a new friendship and being able to communicate these expectations or feeling left out or something. It feels easier in like longer term friendships for some reason, maybe because you have that trust that, oh, okay, this friendship has survived the last 10 years. Like, it surely will survive the next 10. But newer friendships feel more delicate. So I think the way you break it down makes it feel less scary to bring up something like that. I still think it's a little scary. If it helps, we got drunk that night. That definitely helps. I think we were drinking and then we went out towards the end of the night. So maybe she was mustering up the courage. She was like, by the way, I didn't feel great about how you didn't share this with me personally and I heard about it through someone else. And I was like, oh god, no. Like, I would have shared it with you eventually. I'm just a little private about these things. So yeah. Okay. I have a question for you. Yeah. Do you think it's harder to navigate being the person bringing up a conflict in a friendship or getting the conflict brought up to you in a friendship? Okay. My immediate thought is that I think it's a little harder to bring up conflict. But I think it also depends on if you're the conflictee, I guess. Was it on your mind already? And so in my example, it was in the back of my mind where I was like, oh, eventually I'm going to share this with more people. But I just like, I'm not ready yet. And so when my friend brought it up to me, I was like, oh, I know exactly what you're talking about. And I know on my side that it was something on my mind. But if it's like you're bringing up conflict that someone maybe didn't even think about, so it catches them off guard, then maybe it's harder for them to respond because they didn't even know it was a conflict to begin with. That's true. And I think that's the danger of, or not danger, but sometimes it can be challenging when a conflict feels more like one-sided. Something might be bothering one person in the friendship, not the other person. And to be able to bridge that gap can be really hard because then that kind of calls out a difference in expectation of maybe this friend wants this to be an ongoing requirement or something to consider in the friendship, but the other person might not have even thought about it. Sometimes I think that's what also scares me. Am I wanting too much from this friendship or too little from this friendship and how do you move on from there? Yeah. I mean, I do think at the base of a lot of what we've talked about is just like communication. So I don't think it's too much to ask for communication. Even if that communication is, thanks for checking in, something is going on, but I just don't feel ready to share yet. Right. Yeah, I feel like that's already enough. Sometimes where you're like, okay, I know to give you space then from that answer. And I wouldn't have known if we didn't communicate. I just have this imagery of when you're in a friendship, you guys are like in a box, like in some sort of container. And then every time you have these conversations or even the conflicts actually, you're starting to see where the borders of your friendship are. Actually, knowing the shape of the container is very helpful because then it helps you like navigate where your collective boundaries are, but it's kind of like a no man's land when you don't know where the borders are. Maybe that's where more friction happens because you feel like you're constantly bumping into the like sides of the box, even though that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just helping you find the like shape of your friendship like this. Yeah, that's a really good way of putting it. I like that. Once you have it more mapped out, then you know better. And that's why like the longer friendships, it might be a bit easier to bring up harder topics. Or even just like broach a topic in general because you're like, okay, I know I've stood here before at this side of the shape or the box. Right. Well, this brings me to our next question, which I think we've talked a lot about conflicts where we want to sit down and kind of have a conversation with our friend. But I think there are maybe smaller or like petier conflicts that occur where it's in the grey zone. It's not necessarily something that I'm very, very happy to let go. It doesn't even bother me. But it's also not something where I'm like, this is worth having a full, fled serious conversation with a friend about. So when things are in the grey zone, how do you move on from that? I think I have to evaluate, is this something that is going to bother me long term? Actually, okay. I think there's two things to evaluate. One is like, are my feelings hurt from this? I think if my feelings are hurt from it, then maybe it might be worth considering bringing up, especially if it were to happen more than once. And then the other thing is like, if I guess no feelings are hurt, is it something that is a big annoyance? I won't be able to stand it if it just keeps going on. Or is it like, okay, whatever, honestly, you know, I'm fine. That kind of vibe. So I think it's like definitely an evaluation of it all. And okay, this might sound kind of bad, but I do think there can be friendships where you have a great time together, but maybe you're not as compatible as some of your other friendships. So you can only spend so much time with a person at once. And sometimes it's recognizing that and I guess implementing that for your own sake. That's interesting. So you're like, is there something bigger than the situation that I can evaluate and like execute that helps me move on from the conflict without necessarily having to sit down and have that chat? Yeah. I guess as an example, I'm more like mellow person on average, but if there's someone who's like really, really strong extroverted energy as in like, they don't even like ever turn it off, I guess. I'm not sure I could survive, you know? Yeah. So maybe I can only hang out with them every now and then. But I'm like ready for it. And that doesn't mean that they're a bad friend, but maybe just like sometimes our energy doesn't align where I could hang out with them every single day of the week. Because then by the end, I would be exhausted. That makes sense. Because I guess it also comes down to like, even if we did have this chat, would this person be able to change anything? Like am I requesting change that is not even possible? Because it's all like you can sit this friend down and be like, be less extroverted. Yeah. Like that's just fundamentally who they are. Right? That's a good way of thinking about it. What is in my control and what is not? And if doing things in my control can help the situation, then might as well do that first. Yeah. Another thing that sometimes I personally do is, okay, not to sound like a record keeper or anything, but this is just how I'm going to do it. my brain works. I have to have structural processes. I think sometimes I try to contextualize things by seeing what the like score card is. So say there's something petty that a friend is doing that bothers me and I know it's not like a big thing but it is just something petty that just has been on my mind. Sometimes it really helps me is I try to take a step back and think about all the annoying things that I do. And I literally sit down and I count it. I was like okay I was annoying last week when I brought up the story in front of everyone and I thought this could have really pissed this person off or I'm really annoying when sometimes I take a long time to respond and I like go and sit there all the annoying things that I do and I count it and then I measure it up against this one annoying thing that this person does and if I feel like my annoying counter is higher I'm like okay we move on and it's also bad but I think it just helps me because I can get really in my head and sometimes I get like fixated on something right but the reality is that if your friend is doing one annoying thing you are likely doing even more annoying things. So I think it helps bring me back down to earth and I'm like okay we're all annoying here and I can be even worse so maybe not even worth bringing it up. You know what I do kind of like that. At first I was cautious when you said scorecard but I think the way you described it makes sense to me. It's like you got to remind yourself that no one's gonna be perfect every single time. You probably annoy your friend sometimes and they do little things that might annoy you sometimes and that's just how it's gonna be. Yeah. There's no way that everyone's just gonna be perfect. Yes and you know no one ever remembers when they're the ones being annoyed. So true. So you just got to remind yourself. That is very true and yeah I think it keeps you real too for yourself. You're like okay yeah like if I were someone else and I saw someone doing what I just did. Yeah baby. I got a rain in it. Yeah it's a stay humble reminder. I think like as long as you're not actually keeping scored. Yeah. Where it's like oh they annoyed me two times last week so I don't know if it's two times as sweet. That is probably when it devolves into a bit of a maybe we don't do that but if it's like a yeah you know I'm probably annoying too during these times so whatever. That feels very reasonable to me. You know it's very scary. Every time I do the count I'm always the one who's more annoying so terrifying statistics. I think interestingly though I've also found that friendships with different context actually matters in like how easy or difficult it can be to bring up a conflict. Interestingly enough I think friendships that are just formed like randomly are harder to bring up conflict in because they're kind of just formed from like hanging out together and maybe there was no initial goal or like task to be done it was just like oh you're cool and I like you so we're friends now. But then I've noticed different contexts can change things. So for example if you have friends who you just play a lot of teamwork games together with like co-op games or or even like just team games together you are friends with them in the context of having a goal and sometimes that makes conflict easier to bring up like hey we want to win this game you need to listen to what I'm saying. Yeah or hey we're trying to like beat this other team speak up if you have important information to share in the during the game you know things like that and it feels very normal and like yeah we're all working towards the school so I'm more receptive even if maybe it's brought up in a more like direct less soft way and I think that's like just really interesting. Whoa I guess because there's like a bigger picture yeah we're all working towards the bigger picture so it's okay to bring up conflicts if it means it's gonna improve the goal achievement. So I have like a pretty interesting example. Yeah I'm like doing this sport that requires teams and when we form a team we literally have to sit down and talk about like our communication styles. Whoa. Like hey what are you comfortable with when let's say like you did something poorly in a game. How do you want to be comforted? Do you want people to say something to you? Do they do you want like a high five from a teammate or do you just want don't look at me don't talk to me for the next like 10 seconds you know or if it's like you notice your teammate is doing something not well or maybe like something that needs improvement. Do you tell them during the game or do you tell them after the game? Hey maybe this is something you need to you can look into practicing more just all these kinds of things and then you also need to talk about like your goals. What are your ultimate goals for this? Like wow is winning enough or is there something like other stuff that you want out of this team as well and I was like wow you really just get forced into like laying it all out to begin with. Dude I don't even know if I could answer these questions about myself. Like I would have to do a lot of self-reflection before I could even enter this conversation. Did you find it hard to like describe what you wanted? Honestly sometimes yeah I was like what do I do if I feel like I did poorly? Yeah and how would I react in these different situations? What is the best way for teammates to approach me? It's definitely a lot of like self-reflection. Do you think having those conversations inspired you with your non-sports-related friendships? I'm not sure but I think it just definitely made me realize like oh sometimes if your friendship is goalless not that that's a bad thing but like it was not built on top of like a common goal. Then you just don't talk about these things so there's no like context that you can lean on when you bring up conflict so it's a little harder. Especially with like legacy friendships right? Like people you've known since you were like in middle school or something. Granted over the like decades of friendship you probably have your own like SOP drawn out for this friendship already but it's not like explicitly stated. Yeah it seems like this other friendship is. Yeah it's very interesting. And I feel like also maybe you might feel it too at work. People who are your friends at work are probably more open to feedback because you deal with that more in your day-to-day. But I wonder if there's like I guess fake structures or like fake sports that you do that can help inspire these conversations or like these thought processes and like a normal friendship. If you play beer pong with your friend and you notice that every time they miss they need a hug or they need you to cheer them up or they like look away and avoid eye contact or something maybe that's how you kind of contextualize it. Dude honestly yeah I think having a consistent BP partner it does contextualize some things right. Actually okay I have an example so whenever we pair up we always just gas each other up. And I feel like that works either one of us misses we're just like oh don't worry like you got the next one. Yeah we're locked in you know but then it is different with different partners. Maybe the baseline or the most common is like you just gas each other up. But I feel like sometimes some people thrive off of the opposite where you're kind of like talking to the book you met you like you're better than that and then you're like you're looking right like I call lock-in and then like get the next one. So I think definitely if you stop and think about it you're like oh okay I can see how these different people react in a team situation or when when working towards a goal. True. It actually makes me think of our golf for some where James and our friend Brian will like just shit talk each other at the entire time no matter what game we play it's like golf when we play beach folly folly. They're just constantly shit talking each other and we're always raising each other up to the point where they'll be like oh my god stop glazing each other. Wait so true I feel like whenever I play with James in any way like if he's my teammate or if he's my competition I feel like I can always shit talk him. And that's like how he prefers into like visiting on my team I can be like dude how'd you miss that like come on in. Like lock in and then if he is on the opposite team you're just like yeah you like natural shit talking and he'll get better. So sometimes I'm like should I be complimenting him. That's the real shit talking. Oh nice try nice try. I'll get the next one. It's like what the book. I would fully rage me. I'm very sure. It's actually very funny to an extent I think games like this do stress test the friendship almost in a good where you can like see how people react. under tension or like stressful situations. I think it's cool that in a more sports or goal-oriented context, you just like speed through that process a little bit. You just like explicitly lay it out instead of having to play like 50 BP games. It's so true. We're like we're gonna sit down and talk about this instead of we're gonna observe each other for five years and feel what we like. Exactly. And I wonder if that just makes you feel closer. It's like a level of intimacy that you have in a short period of time. I think it does force a certain like sped up intimacy in certain ways. But then other parts definitely still have to like grow naturally to the vibe checks. The OG screening process. Well initially when we talked about sitting down to address the topic of conflicts and friendships, I was like thinking back through all of my conflicts and it made me kind of nervous in a way because it's not easy talking about you know tense topics like this. But I think talking through it with you, Crystal. I'm coming out of this episode in a more like hopeful/positive way because it made me feel like conflicts are a little bit less scary and they can be actually really constructive and productive for a friendship. So thank you Crystal for sitting down today and talking through a mildly tough topic of conflicts and friendships. And for our listeners out there, if there's any hot tips that you have of resolving conflicts with friendships or moving on from them, then definitely let us know. We have Instagram @eatyourchispod and we also have email @[email protected]. I'll be expecting some texts from you like hey by the way actually when you did all of this it bothered me. I'm like hey I ran this scorecard today. Yeah so for our listeners don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. We upload new episodes every other Wednesday morning. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to eat your crust. (upbeat music)