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
Jan 24, 2022 • 16min
#16 - Stop Focusing on the Popular Group
This whole idea of "the in crowd" or "the popular crowd" comes up in questions I’ve received for many years.As a generality, I’m calling the issue in crowd vs out crowd, but let me clear, nobody uses that exactly language when they write to me. What I get instead are letters explaining how frustrated people are when they aren’t being welcomed into a certain group, or when their kids aren’t included to hang out with a certain group.Or perhaps a kid has encountered a "mean girls" situation where they were friends with a certain group and are now being excluded. In these various questions I get, so much rides on a particular group of people. As if being being part of that one special group will be the key to all the friendship problems without recognizing that being included in such a group can create new problems, like not trusting that these are your real friends. I find this worry comes especially from parents upset that their kids aren’t part of “that one group.”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!
Jan 10, 2022 • 29min
#15 - The Art of Small Talk and Body Language When Making New Friends with Ali Wenzke
Making small talk is an essential step of making friends. There's no avoiding it. All relationships, casual or deep, start with those first moments of small talk. I invited Ali Wenzke, author of The Art of Happy Moving, to give us lots of tips about making this kind of (sometimes) awkward conversation and how body language cues can help in making friends, too.You can find the show notes HERE.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!
Dec 13, 2021 • 29min
#14 - Making Deeper Connections With Friends with Jessica Smock
Jessica Smock, one of the co-creators, discusses the importance of creating opportunities for deeper connections with friends. The podcast explores strategies for building genuine friendships as an adult, including organizing pop-up events based on shared interests. It also emphasizes the value of forming new relationships through shared activities and being open to new possibilities. The chapter on evolving friendships highlights the importance of spending time with like-minded individuals.
Nov 29, 2021 • 31min
#13 - Get Out of Your Comfort Zone to Make New Friends with Michelle Platt
Making new friends as an adult is difficult whether it’s because you moved to a new city, you’re in a new stage of life, or you’re lonely and could use more friends. It takes tons of time to make casual friends you want to see repeatedly and even more time to make close friends. But it’s not impossible. Difficult? Yes. Takes consistent effort and work? Also yes. But it can be done.What helped me make friends in Minneapolis when I moved 20+ years ago in my 20s was accepting that I would often have to be the one to make the effort, and I'd have to do things out of my comfort zone. My guest, Michelle Platt, found she needed the same attitude when she moved to Minneapolis a few years ago in her 40s. This episode isn't only about Minneapolis! Moving anywhere at any age presents challenges. 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!
Nov 15, 2021 • 26min
#12 - Helping a Friend In Crisis and Asking For Help with Alissa Butterfass
The podcast explores how to help friends in crisis and the importance of asking for help. Topics discussed include providing support without being asked, organizing a meal train, supporting friends and family in crisis, and the significance of asking for help and supporting friends during difficult times.
Nov 1, 2021 • 19min
#11 - Lessons From Male Friendships with Dave Dluger
My brother-in-law, Dave Dluger, and I were talking after recording an episode, we got into a conversation about how male friendships seem to involve less drama and I realized we ought to record it as an episode. I loved getting a male perspective on some of the previous episodes.In addition to male friendships, we talked about friends being there for Dave and my sister during hard times, being aware of our personality foibles while with good friends, thoughts on friends ignoring our social media posts, and much 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!
Oct 24, 2021 • 3min
Mini-Episode: Friends Make Mistakes
Last week in episode #10 with author Jessica Speer who wrote BFF or NRF, we talked briefly about her nine friendship truths. We mainly focused on truth #9— which was “You choose which of your friendships to grow. Grow the healthy ones.” In this mini-episode I am focusing on Jessica's truth #6— "Everyone makes mistakes." If we want wiggle room to make mistakes with friends, we have to allow friends to make mistakes with us. Sounds obvious, but there are definitely people out there with a zero tolerance for others' mistakes (while allowing themselves room to mess up).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!
Oct 18, 2021 • 30min
#10 - My Kid Isn't Interested In Pursuing This Friendship with Jessica Speer
It's not easy to say no to a friendship. And it's just as hard to help our kids do the same. How do you handle it when you’re not interested in pursuing a friendship, but you don’t want to be unkind when subtly communicating that message to an acquaintance? And how do we help kids make decisions about which friendships to pursue? It's tricky to simultaneously teach kids to make their own decisions about friendships while teaching them to treat people with kindness. I have the perfect guest to help me dissect this issue of balancing kindness and inclusivity but also boundaries and independence in friendship decisions--author, Jessica Speer.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!
Oct 4, 2021 • 20min
#9 - Friends Will Hang Out Without You with Taryn Kessel
Accepting that friends will hang out without you is a key to happier adult friendships. My best friend Taryn Kessel and I discuss that truth. We also talked about how to balance the desire for smaller, intimate friend gatherings with the desire to never leave anyone out. If you've ever been excluded, you know how terrible it feels. But as we get older, we need to figure out how to be gracious about "letting" friends hang out without us, especially if we are also the types who value outings with a few friends at a time. In other words, everybody can't be invited to everything. Most of us know that, but it's too hard to accept.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!
Sep 27, 2021 • 5min
Mini-Episode: A Positive View on Friends Asking Personal Questions
A mini-ep to understand why friends ask personal or even intrusive questions, which came up in episode 8 with my mom: “How to handle friends’ questions you don’t want to answer." In that episode, my mom and I talked about strategies for avoiding giving away information, but we didn’t try to understand where intrusive/personal/intimate questions come from in the first place. Today's episode is a more positive view to consider.Let's connect! 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!
