You Should Be Friends With People You Like

According to my inbox, that's not always obvious.

Nina Badzin

Aug 26

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Dear Nina: The Friendship Advice Column is back. And this time it lives in my Substack newsletter! Yes, it’s all very 2022.

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Dear Nina,

I realize that I do not have a clear perception of friendship and it has kept me from having true friends. My mother is often judgmental of those who truly like me and want to be my friend. She always finds something wrong about them. In high school and college, I made a group of friends that, for the most part, she approved of. It turned out, however, that they weren't truly my friends. It only took one incident for them to turn on me. I have since met people who I believe like me and want to get to know me better, but I look at them through my mother's eyes. In the back of my mind, she is saying, "She's too old/too young for you" or "Isn't she kind of strange?" How do I get past this and accept the people who have the potential to be true friends for who they are and embrace their friendship, flaws and all?

Thank you, Friendless

Dear Friendless,

My first piece of advice when it comes to making friends is this:

You should be friends with people you like.

Not the people you think are the most “popular” — a concept I rant about on episode 16 of the podcast. Not the people who can help you in some way. And certainly not the people your mom likes, which has already proven unhelpful for you.

You should be friends with people you like.

And while those words seem fairly obvious, I can attest from the many anonymous letters sitting in my inbox— a lot people out there have friends they do not like. Some people detest their friends. Really, they do.

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