Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship
Nina Badzin
Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship is a top 1% podcast that dives into the complicated feelings behind adult friendship—why it’s harder than we expect and how to navigate it with clarity, honesty, and intention.Whether you've agonized over a text, wondered why you're always the one reaching out, or found yourself drifting away from an old friend—this show gets it and we're here to discuss it all. Note--these are conversations, not classic interviews. We're serious, but we laugh a lot too!"Dear Nina" is hosted by longtime friendship advice columnist Nina Badzin, and every episode digs into the messy, meaningful, and sometimes maddening questions adults don't always want to ask out loud. How do you make real friends as an adult? How do you handle a one-sided friendship? Should you salvage a friendship that's fading or let it be? How do you kindly turn down an acquaintance who wants to be closer, but you're just not feeling the same chemistry? Why don't your friends like your social media posts, but they definitely support other friends there?We talk about being the single friend in a coupled-up world, navigating friendship after divorce, the grief of losing a friend to illness or a falling out, and what it means to be included in a friend group but not quite feel like you belong—whether that's happening to you or to your kid. And yes, we talk about what happens when your kids used to be good friends and now can't stand each other. (It's a whole thing.)Nina has been writing about adult friendship for over a decade, and her advice has been featured in NPR, Real Simple Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, Time Magazine, The Skimm, and more. Each episode draws from real listener letters (hence "Dear Nina"), relatable dilemmas, and thoughtful guests.Every episode leaves room for the fact that there are no perfect answers. There's only real talk here, a lot of warmth, and the reminder that if you're overthinking your friendships, you're probably just someone who cares deeply about the people in your life.That's a good thing. Social connections MATTER! Let's talk about it.ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO!! Catch up on all Dear Nina episodes on Apple and Spotify📢 How to promote your service, business, or book on Dear Nina🎈 Celebrate your friend on the show by dedicating a week of episodes!📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack❤️ Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, & the Dear Nina Facebook group📪 Ask an anonymous friendship question📪 email: dearninapodcast@gmail.com🔎 Want to work with me on your podcast, your friendships, or need another link? That’s probably here.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Apr 27, 2023 • 31min
#53 - It's Never Too Late to Make New Friends with Megan Tamte
Evereve's co-founder and co-CEO, Megan Tamte, joins me to discuss making new, very close friends later in life. And by later, we mean any time in adult life. We talked about how to reach out to potential friends, how to hear "no," how to say "no," reaching out to old friends, and real friends vs. deal friends. Megan also gave me some emergency fashion advice at the end.I recently saw a story on the Today Show about two women who traveled around the world together. They promised they would do this for their 80th birthdays. While I was interested in the framing of this story as two best friends making this commitment and keeping it, it was the line that said they'd been friends for 20 years that really got me excited. They met when they were 60! It is never too late to make new, close friends, but we need to be in the right frame of mind and right time of life to let those friendships soar. Megan and I discussed this new frame of mind and time of life. And Megan also stepped in with some much-needed fashion advice for me! Meet Megan TamteMegan Tamte is a visionary entrepreneur. Twenty-some years ago, a dressing room disaster inspired her to reimagine the women’s shopping experience, and today, she’s the co-founder, co-CEO , and Chief Brand Officer of EVEREVE, a contemporary fashion retailer with over one million customers, 100+ stores in 30+ states, a booming e-commerce business and a fast-growing subscription box service, Trendsend.When she’s not leading EVEREVE with her co-CEO and husband, Mike, Megan is sharing her retail knowledge and expertise with aspiring entrepreneurs, and proudly serving four other organizations, as Board member of the Chicago-based Common Ground Foundation, a board member of Warners' Stellian & Jaxen Grey fellow Minnesota-based retailesr, and the Global Leadership Network. Megan recently joined a team that welcomes refugees to Minnesota through the organization, Arrive Ministries.Find Megan on Instagram. ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO📢 This week’s fabulous sponsor + how to purchase ad space on Dear Nina📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack❤️ Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, the Dear Nina Facebook group📪 Ask an anonymous friendship question🔎 Want to work with me or need another link? That’s probably here.Our sponsor this week is Esther Goldenberg, author of THE SONG OF THE BLUE BIRD, sold everywhere you love to buy books.
Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!
Apr 19, 2023 • 34min
#52 - Choosing a New Expat Life After a Tragedy with Jen Zwinck
Today on Dear Nina I have a guest with a harrowing and inspiring story to share about starting a new life with new friends after a horrific tragedy. This is unlike any story I've heard firsthand, and I'm grateful for Jen's candor and honesty.Jen Zwinck wrote to me:After my husband was killed, I moved with my daughter to a small island in the Caribbean where I didn't know a single person. I went there to heal. What surprised me was the friendships that I formed while I was there, these women who came into my life, divinely, I believe, became my angels and my 'stand-in' family. We shared the bond of being expats and I'm still close with them to this day.Jen Zwinck is a co-founder of the Widow Squad online community, a widow advocate, and an author. She has interviewed over 100 widows and coached hundreds of widows through her courses and online programs. She lives outside of New Orleans. ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO📢 This week’s fabulous sponsor + how to purchase ad space on Dear Nina📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack❤️ Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, the Dear Nina Facebook group📪 Ask an anonymous friendship question🔎 Want to work with me or need another link? That’s probably here.Our sponsor this week is Esther Goldenberg, author of THE SONG OF THE BLUE BIRD, sold everywhere you love to buy books.
Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!
Apr 10, 2023 • 30min
#51 - How to Recognize a Toxic Friendship with Michelle Anderson and Lauren Massarella
First thing to know, not all friendships with issues are "toxic." I'm not sure there's a more overused word on the internet. That said, it's something we need to discuss on a friendship podcast. Recognizing a toxic friendship and what to do about it sounds like a serious thing to discuss. And it is! But my two guests are so fun and delightful that you could almost forget how unhappy these kinds of friendships can make people. Get ready for a lot of Midwestern accents on this episode, starting with mine. Then add Michelle Anderson and Lauren Massarella from The Sister Project, and you have a spirited, helpful, personal episode of Dear Nina.About The Sister Project Podcast:Hosted by the founders of The Sister Project blog, Midwest sisters and wellness lifestyle enthusiasts, Michelle Anderson and Lauren Massarella, deliver a conversational style podcast that makes the listener feel as though they are part of an intimate sisterhood inner circle. You will learn a little and laugh a lot. The podcast airs on a weekly basis and covers everyday life experiences, pop culture, and current events. Find Cozy Conversations with The Sister Project anywhere you get your podcasts. And find them on Instagram too!ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO📢 This week’s fabulous sponsor + how to purchase ad space on Dear Nina📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack❤️ Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, the Dear Nina Facebook group📪 Ask an anonymous friendship question🔎 Want to work with me or need another link? That’s probably here.Our sponsor this week is Esther Goldenberg, author of THE SONG OF THE BLUE BIRD, sold everywhere you love to buy books.
Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!
Apr 3, 2023 • 19min
#50 - How Friendship Changes With Age and Overlooking Foibles (with my mom)
I'm thrilled to welcome my mom back to Dear Nina. My mom, Kathy Sackheim, has been an instrumental part of the Dear Nina friendship universe. I quote her often in the column and the podcast. In this 20-minute episode she answered some questions that came in from the Dear Nina Facebook group. We covered the ways she's seen attitudes about friendship change through the decades, whether parents and kids can be friends, whether parents should get involved in teens' friendship issues, handling other parents' opinions of us, letting go of trying to control your older kids as they leave for college (and earlier and later!), and lots more. ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO📢 This week’s fabulous sponsor + how to purchase ad space on Dear Nina📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack❤️ Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, the Dear Nina Facebook group📪 Ask an anonymous friendship question🔎 Want to work with me or need another link? That’s probably here.Our sponsor this week is Esther Goldenberg, author of THE SONG OF THE BLUE BIRD, sold everywhere you love to buy books.
Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!
Mar 27, 2023 • 38min
#49 - Unexpected Friends and the Key to Long-term Friendship with Will Schwalbe
Author, Will Schwalbe, joins the show today with some of these thoughts and more: It's better to say something than nothing. Make the hard phone call. Donate to the cause. Let friends help you. Ask questions. Look past what you think you know about people. Assume the best. These are all keys to long-term friendship I discussed with Will, author of We Should Not Be Friends: The Story of a Friendship.The first part of the episode is a natural continuation of last week's episode about the benefit of having friends with different points of view and backgrounds. I inadvertently made a series! And in the second half, Will and I talked about the real work of maintaining a decades long, sometimes challenging friendship and why we should bother. Will and I discussed the quote he chose for the book's epigraph by British poet, David Whyte: "All friendships of any length are based on a continued mutual forgiveness. Without tolerance and mercy, all friendships die." We Should Not Be Friends will challenge your assumptions about friendship. Two of Will's previous books include Books for Living and The End of Your Life Book Club, which I know many people out there have loved. Will has worked in book publishing (currently as an editor at Macmillan); in digital media; and as a journalist, writing for various publications, including The New York Times and the South China Morning Post. He lives in New York.ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO📢 This week’s fabulous sponsor + how to purchase ad space on Dear Nina📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack❤️ Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, the Dear Nina Facebook group📪 Ask an anonymous friendship question🔎 Want to work with me or need another link? That’s probably here.Our sponsor this week is Esther Goldenberg, author of THE SONG OF THE BLUE BIRD, sold everywhere you love to buy books.
Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!
Mar 19, 2023 • 32min
#48 - Friendship Despite Philosophical (or other) Disagreements with Chaya Leah Sufrin and Yael Bar Tur
There is so much value to having friends with different points of view and backgrounds. I love witnessing a friendship between people whose differences should make their connection unlikely, but instead their ability to discuss their experiences leads to greater understanding and closeness. Challenge and disagreement can be an enriching aspect of a friendship rather than something to avoid at all costs. It's not about convincing the next person; it's about diversity of experience and opinion in your life. My guests are the hosts of the Ask a Jew podcast and writers of a Substack newsletter by the same name. Their bio for Ask a Jew is this: Yael Bar Tur, secular sinner, and Chaya Leah Sufrin, pious Haredi, ask each other the hard questions from Torah to Tinder. What a description!I loved our conversation! We represented three very different Jewish backgrounds, discussed being active in the process of making friends and issuing invitations, thinking of others instead of over-protecting our boundaries at all times, showing up as your full self in a friendship, and disagreeing with friends without condescension or ruining the friendship. It was a great chat!ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO📢 This week’s fabulous sponsor + how to purchase ad space on Dear Nina📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack❤️ Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, the Dear Nina Facebook group📪 Ask an anonymous friendship question🔎 Want to work with me or need another link? That’s probably here.Our sponsor this week is Esther Goldenberg, author of THE SONG OF THE BLUE BIRD, sold everywhere you love to buy books.
Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!
Mar 13, 2023 • 5min
Bonus: Friendship Mistakes on She's Got Issues
In an episode with Jill Smokler, formally THE Scary Mommy of the famous Scary Mommy, and currently the host of the podcast, She's Got Issues, you’re going to hear about the most common mistakes people make in friendships, and the hard learned lessons. You will also hear an all around honest chat between old college friends and some regrets from that time. Jill and I went to WashU together! She's been kind of enough to now have me on her show for a second time.We covered lots of friendship issues in just under 40 minutes. It amazes me that we managed that because every issue we discussed could be its own episode on Dear Nina, but we managed to get to the heart of important topics efficiently, and we were very real. Find SHE'S GOT ISSUES: "Friendship-- Mistakes & Hard Learned Lessons" anywhere you listen to podcasts!But to help you: here it is on Apple & SpotifyALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO📢 This week’s fabulous sponsor + how to purchase ad space on Dear Nina📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack❤️ Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, the Dear Nina Facebook group📪 Ask an anonymous friendship question🔎 Want to work with me or need another link? That’s probably here.Our sponsor this week is Esther Goldenberg, author of THE SONG OF THE BLUE BIRD, sold everywhere you love to buy books.
Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!
Mar 6, 2023 • 34min
#47 - Friendship Triangles, Envy, Competition, and Ghosting with Christie Tate
I have author, Christie Tate, back on the show! I have been so eager for this conversation. We are talking about Christie's newest memoir, B.F.F.: A Memoir of Friendship Lost and Found. We're focusing on friendship triangles, envy, jealousy, competition, and ghosting--all issues that come up in the book.You might know Christie as the author of the fantastic memoir Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life. It was a New York Times bestseller and a Reese Witherspoon book club pick. You might know her from a previous episode of this podcast (ep #4) where we talked about revealing too much too soon with new friends. I can't wait for you to hear our newest chat.ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO📢 This week’s fabulous sponsor + how to purchase ad space on Dear Nina📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack❤️ Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, the Dear Nina Facebook group📪 Ask an anonymous friendship question🔎 Want to work with me or need another link? That’s probably here.Our sponsor this week is Esther Goldenberg, author of THE SONG OF THE BLUE BIRD, sold everywhere you love to buy books.
Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!
Feb 27, 2023 • 25min
#46 - The Importance of Casual Friendships with Shari Leid
This week's episode with guest, Shari Leid, focuses on wisdom she’s gained after meeting with 144 of her friends. Our episode makes the case for the casual friendship. We also talked about expanding your friendship network by putting yourself out there to connect with new and old friends, giving friends grace, having intentional conversations to deepen friendships, and considering whether your "bar for entry” to friendship is too high.Meet Guest, Shari LeidFormer litigator, Shari Leid, currently operates An Imperfectly Perfect Life, LLC, a professional mindset coaching business primarily serving clients who feel stuck and helping them to create the life of their dreams. She is a national speaker and author of The Friendship Series, including The 50/50 Friendship Flow: Life Lessons From and For My Girlfriends, Make Your Mess Your Message: More Life Lessons From and For My Girlfriends and Ask Yourself This: Ultimate Life Lessons From and For My Girlfriends (September 2022). Throughout 2023, she is traveling to all 50 states where she’ll share a meal with 50 different women (one woman per state). Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn. ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO📢 This week’s fabulous sponsor + how to purchase ad space on Dear Nina📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack❤️ Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, the Dear Nina Facebook group📪 Ask an anonymous friendship question🔎 Want to work with me or need another link? That’s probably here.Our sponsor this week is Esther Goldenberg, author of THE SONG OF THE BLUE BIRD, sold everywhere you love to buy books.
Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!
Feb 13, 2023 • 28min
#45 - Learning From Our Parents' Friendships with Linda Pressman
Do your adult friendships mirror what you saw growing up in your household, or did you set out to do the exact opposite in your adult social life? I spoke to author, Linda Pressman, about her experiences growing up as the child of Holocaust survivors, her parents' friends, and her own adult take on friendship.Meet Linda PressmanLinda Pressman is the author of the recently published memoir, Jewish Girls Gone Wild. Her previous memoir, Looking Up: A Memoir of Sisters, Survivors and Skokie won the Grand Prize in the Writer’s Digest 20th Annual Contest and is part of the permanent collections of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and the National Library of Israel. Her freelance writing has appeared in Newsweek, the Times of Israel, on Kveller, and other venues. She is a book coach and teaches memoir on an individual basis and through Scottsdale Arts. Linda can be reached through her website: http://lindajpressman.com. ALL THE DEAR NINA LINKS + CONTACT INFO📢 This week’s fabulous sponsor + how to purchase ad space on Dear Nina📱 Subscribe to my newsletter “Conversations About Friendship” on Substack❤️ Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, the Dear Nina Facebook group📪 Ask an anonymous friendship question🔎 Want to work with me or need another link? That’s probably here.Our sponsor this week is Esther Goldenberg, author of THE SONG OF THE BLUE BIRD, sold everywhere you love to buy books.
Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!
