12 Comments
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Kathy Patalsky's avatar

Jordan I love this so much. I also read your entire Substack in friendship breakups just now and totally agree/relate as a newish mom who is also an HSP. My friendships hold so much weight in my heart. And I’m so careful about who I let in. But being a mom has made all of that so much more complex. And vibrant! And diverse. My social exhaustion from new mom friends and play dates is so real. And it feels both so good and SO HARD at times.

Anyways, I love all the conversations u start and love your heart as a writer. And the “friendship categories” thing is actually brilliant. I need to make. Chart on this asap 🤣🤣🤣

💛✨💛✨

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Kelly Michael's avatar

This one was tough for me to read because I am dealing with whether or not to cut out a friend at the moment who I have tried to cut out for years, but she reels me back in! I am a people pleaser and it feels so so hard to do it, but in my heart I feel like she takes advantage of my kindness.

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Nikki Novo's avatar

one of your best pieces yet!

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Morgan Shirey 🕊️'s avatar

Wow. Spot on! Something I am moving through at the moment

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Bryn Daylor's avatar

This is reaaaaally good

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authentically amanda's avatar

This is amazing and so relevant to me. I am a ride or die but find my friends keep setting more and more boundaries and cut me out if we have one misunderstanding. I respect them less

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Sara Trojanowski's avatar

This is such an incredible conversation!! You always have just the words that our hearts and minds need! 🤍🤍

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Kaleigh MacDonald's avatar

Jordan, I love this conversation, thank you for writing and sharing this piece. I’m so with you on this - more love, acceptance, forgiveness, and openness in a pure heart. What I struggle with most is energy, and how to reconcile appropriate reciprocation of energy, I’m always being the one to reach out and make plans or give updates, and in many of my long time friendships (most of which are long distance now) it is rarely or mostly never being done in return. I struggle with the resentment in this and how to speak up about it because otherwise the friendships will definitely end when I stop reaching out, and that hurts.

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Ella Capek's avatar

I relate to this a lot! I'm fortunate I have many friends that I love and cherish, with all sorts of opinions and from many walks of life. For the people I love I will give a thousand chances - I know their hearts and they're allowed to make many little mistakes. We're all only human, we're all learning. But I had a friend who kept making little mistakes: I was realising how judgy and gossipy she actually was, wasn't taking responsibility for her insecurities (projecting them onto me and blaming others without reason) and then, the straw on the camel's back for me, she completely forgot my heart and publicly shamed me. She was operating out of her own fears, but still. In instances like that, I'm like, "What am I doing in this friendship?" and I left the friendship. I'm very open with my heart to the people I love, so that was a shock and a non-negotiable for me.

Anyway, you've written such an important post and I hope people will learn the difference between occasionally being uncomfortable in friendships that are worth keeping, to friendships that actually DO cross your boundaries and suck your energy out.

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Alex De La Garza's avatar

LOVED this.

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Jane Younger's avatar

You are an amazing friend to so many and therefore you have so many amazing friends. I admire that about you so much❤️

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Jordan Younger's avatar

I only learned from the BEST!

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