Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship

Alcohol is so woven into social life that choosing not to drink can change how you spend time with friends, which invitations come your way, and what you begin to notice about the way you connect.
My guest, Suzanne Warye is the author of The Sober Shift: An Empowering Exploration of Sobriety, Parenting, and the Joys of Alcohol-Free Living and the host of the popular podcast The Sober Mom Life. Suzanne's decision to stop drinking was not a “rock bottom” story. She could drink moderately, but she hated how much mental energy alcohol took up in her life as well as the after effects. Once Suzanne stopped drinking, she had to figure out what friendship and socializing looked like without it.
In the episode Suzanne and I spoke honestly about the friendships that remained strong, the friendships that faded, and the hurt of being left off an invitation because someone assumes a sober friend would not want to come.
We also discussed learning to sit through the first awkward minutes of a gathering without numbing your anxiety and why Suzanne’s standards for connection changed once alcohol was no longer the main event. We briefly chatted about THC drinks and gummies, phone use as another form of escape, and motherhood and “mommy wine culture.” And we talked about what happens when you start wanting your time with friends to feel more present and less "numb."
 
Past episodes related to this one:
#17. Friendship and Sobriety: Jen Veralle
#130: The Sober Curious Lifestyle and Your Friendships: Hallie Sawyer
 
Meet Suzanne:
Suzanne Warye is a sobriety influencer and the host of the popular podcast The Sober Mom Life. Residing on the North Shore of Chicago with her husband and three kids, Suzanne spends most of her time reheating her coffee and rocking her “whole heart, half ass” parenting philosophy. Her new book THE SOBER SHIFT:  A Modern-Day Guide to Living an Abundant Sober Life is currently available in hardcover, audio and e-book and the paperback will be available on Sept 29, 2026. To connect follow her on Instagram @suzannewarye or visit www.thesobermomlife.com 

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
🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events
🎈 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.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

I’m fresh off the "Dear Nina Live" event in Minneapolis to celebrate five years of the podcast. And after such a big week, I was ready to step away from my computer for a bit. So I said yes to mahjong (twice!), tennis, a walk, and time with friends. It was exactly the reset I was looking for, even though I'm WAY BEHIND on work now.
This short episode is a reminder to get out from behind the texts, emails, memes, and endless to-do list and spend some time with your friends in person. Say yes when you can, or make the plan yourself, and remember that even a walk or a cup of coffee counts. It can be that simple--short and sweet. 

And to everyone who came to the event in Minnesota--THANK YOU! 

LINKS MENTIONED:
Here's a 30-second reel of the live event in Minneapolis to celebrate 5 years of the podcast.
My spot on Twin Cities Live!
 
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
🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events
🎈 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.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

To mark five years of making this podcast, I invited the person who has heard every episode, encouraged every new idea, and occasionally reminded me to follow my own friendship advice. Welcome to my husband, Bryan!
Bryan hasn't been on Dear Nina since the first year! I brought him back to talk about what has surprised him after five years of listening to conversations about every aspect of friendship. He shared the theme he's been noticing beneath the friendship dilemmas: two people do not want the same type of friendship.
We also talk about one of the messages Bryan has heard me repeat the most: If you want to see a friend, reach out. Don’t sit back, keep score, or “match their energy.” That doesn’t mean giving everyone the same amount of time or continuing to chase people who never respond. Bryan puts it another way: Go where the heat is. Pay attention to the people who are glad to hear from you and who return your efforts in their own way.

We discuss:
Why uneven desire is behind so many friendship questions that come my way
Why Bryan believes “don’t wait” is some of the most useful advice from the show
What to do instead of "matching someone else’s energy"
Why electronic contact cannot fully replace phone calls and time together
A past episode that changed how Bryan thinks about what we give to a friendship
The friendship struggles I still have to work on myself!
Why couple friendships work best when both partners help keep them going
How Dear Nina grew from an advice column and listener letters into conversations with authors, researchers, therapists, and other friendship thinkers

A special thank-you to my brother-in-law, Dave Dluger, who helped me produce and edit the earliest Dear Nina episodes and convinced me I could learn how to make a podcast. And thank you to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs, who has become an essential part of nearly every podcast decision, guest conversation, and episode idea.
Listeners: Thank you for rooting for this show, sharing episodes with friends, sending your questions, and talking with me about friendship for so many years. This podcast would not be here without you!

Links mentioned:
Episode #24: Maintaining Boundaries Without Damaging Your Friendships (with Bryan)
Episode #37: The Benefits of Couple Friends (with Bryan)
Episode #9. Friends Will Hang Out Without You: (with Taryn Kessel)
Episode #73. I’m Just Not That Into This Friendship: (with Ruchi Koval)
Episode #139: How to Start a Podcast

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
🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events
🎈 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.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

Admissions counselor, Alexis White, on why 'fit over flex' should guide the college search
The college search puts a lot of pressure on families to find the “best” school. But the highest-ranked school (the hyper-focus for many) is not necessarily the place where a particular student will be happiest, most successful, or most likely to find their people.
My guest this week is Alexis White, an internationally recognized college admissions counselor, founder of A-List Tutoring Services and alexiscollegexpert.com, and host of the podcast Admit It with Alexis White. I love following Alexis online because she is candid, practical, and willing to say what many families need to hear: Choosing a college should be about “fit over flex.”
Alexis walks me through the five factors she considers when helping a student build a college list: size, location, academic offerings, philosophy, and vibe. We talk about why those factors matter not only academically, but also for making friends, building community, and feeling at home.
We also get into Greek life, competitive clubs, audition-based activities, and the reality that getting into a college does not guarantee getting into every community within it. What happens when a student expects to join a sorority, fraternity, business club, theater group, or sports team, but it does not work out? Alexis explains why students need more than one possible path to friendship and belonging.
Alexis also offers an important reminder for parents: Grades and scores are only part of the picture. A student’s resilience, independence, willingness to try new things, and ability to handle discomfort may tell us just as much about where they will thrive. And because social media makes everyone else’s freshman year look effortless, we talk honestly about how awkward and difficult that first year can be, even at the “right” school.
This episode will help families look beyond acceptance rates, rankings and prestige during the college search process!
 
LINKS:
Find Alexis on Instagram @collegexpert and TikTok @collegexpert!
Previous episodes of Alexis's podcast I especially liked: "College Rankings Don't Matter," "Brainwashed Into Choosing Your College"
Previous college admissions episode on Dear Nina: Episode #112, "Navigating Friendships During the College Admissions Process" with Kate Proger, #177: The Myth of Instant College Friends with Dr. Janice McCabe
Harlan Cohen on Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship! Episde #143: "The Law of Rejection in Friendships",
I brought up Gretchen Rubin several times in the episode, one of my favorite authors, podcasters, and thought leaders. Gretchen was my guest on episode #96.
 
Meet Alexis White:
Alexis White is a Los Angeles–based college admissions consultant and the founder of A-List Admissions and Tutoring and Alexiscollegexpert.com. Alexis has spent more than two decades guiding students and families through college selection, applications, essays, testing, and the many decisions that come with the admissions process. She has appeared as a college admissions expert on CBS, ABC News and elsewhere. Alexis is also the host of the podcast Admit It! with Alexis White and she gives admissions advice on social media to many thousands of followers on Instagram @collegexpert and TikTok @collegexpert.

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
🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events
🎈 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.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!

Group dynamics, feeling left out, and not waiting around for invitations
We have all felt that sting of not being invited. You see the pictures, hear about the dinner, find out there's a group chat, there was a weekend away—and you were not included. It can hurt, even when we know intellectually that every gathering cannot include every person. And even though we do not personally want 15 people at every thing we do.
This episode is a replay of a conversation I had with friendship educator Danielle Bayard Jackson, author of Fighting for Our Friendships: The Science and Art of Conflict and Connection in Women’s Relationships and host of the Friend Forward podcast. Danielle has such a clear, honest way of talking about the harder parts of female friendship, and this topic needed her voice.
Danielle and I spoke about why not being invited can feel so personal, why it sometimes has nothing to do with us, and why some gatherings are built around a specific purpose, convenience, shared history, or a smaller dynamic.
We also get into the harder question: are there times when our own patterns make people less likely to include us? Maybe we often say no, cancel, talk about how busy we are, dominate the conversation, make people feel judged, stay glued to our phones, bring too much conflict into group settings, or make planning harder than it needs to be. This is not about blaming people for being left out. It's about giving ourselves choices beyond spiraling, assuming the worst, or waiting around to be chosen.

In this episode, we discuss:
Why being left out hurts at every age
Why not every plan is meant to include every friend
Friendship patterns that may be worth examining
How to stop spiraling and start making plans yourself so you're not waiting for invitations
My visit to Danielle's podcast, Friend Forward, "Picking Your People: Choosing the Right Friends to Prioritize and Pursue" Apple, Spotify 

I'm SO grateful to Danielle for tackling this topic with me. It's a hard one—and she was exactly the right guest for it.

Meet Danielle Bayard Jackson
Danielle Bayard Jackson is a friendship educator, speaker, and author of Fighting for Our Friendships: The Science and Art of Conflict and Connection in Women’s Relationships. She is the host of the Friend Forward podcast, the founder of Tell Public Relations, and the director of the Women’s Relational Health Institute, where she conducts research and creates training to support stronger female relationships. Find links for working with Danielle and all of her social media links at betterfemalefriendships.com.

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
🔎 Information on any upcoming "Dear Nina Live" events
🎈 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.

Special thank you, as always, to my assistant producer, Rebekah Jacobs!