Two "childless cat ladies" talk about how finding their childfree community has changed their lives. Join Maggie Dickens, a licensed therapist, and Kellie, a licensed architect and interior designer, as they dive into the topic of community and friendships within the childfree lifestyle. From hiking groups to tackling societal norms, they share personal stories and insights on finding meaningful connections in adulthood. Tune in to hear about building authentic relationships, navigating life's challenges, and fostering a supportive and inclusive community for those living the childfree dream
. Highlights:
🎙️ Introduction & Defining Community
💬 Navigating Friendships & Community Dynamics
🌐 Online Communities & Friendship Evolution
🙌 Memorable Moments & Building a Friend Group
💪 Personal Growth & Concluding Thoughts
💬 Share your experiences and insights in the comments section below, and let's continue the conversation!
🔔 Hit subscribe and notify so you don't miss out on valuable insights into creating a thriving childfree community.
———
⏰ ep. 016—Timestamps
00:00 Introduction and Casual Banter
00:21 Meet the Hosts: Maggie and Kellie
01:23 Defining Community
02:50 The Importance of Finding Like-Minded People
03:43 Navigating Friendships and Community Dynamics
05:13 Personal Stories and Community Impact
08:22 The Evolution of Friendships
09:45 Finding Support in Online Communities
15:36 Challenges and Changes in Friendships
17:39 Memorable Moments and Anecdotes
20:49 Confusing Math and Temperature Conversions
21:33 Reflecting on First Impressions
22:30 Building a Childfree Friend Group
24:09 Navigating Friendships with Parents
25:27 The Importance of Community
27:36 Personal Growth and Friendship Dynamics
29:54 The Value of Being Yourself in Friendships
31:22 Overcoming Social Anxiety
32:31 Effort in Friendships vs. Romantic Relationships
36:38 Concluding Thoughts and Future Topics
🔗 Links:
🎦 How to find Childfree Friends https://youtu.be/CJNEbcgatB4
📸 Instagram: https://unapologeticallychildfree.com/instagram
📧 Join my email list for additional Childfree Content: https://unapologeticallychildfree.com/email
📕 Childfree Woman’s Path: Friends not FOMO (My ebook and journal) https://unapologeticallychildfree.com/childfreepath
✅ All the Links: https://unapologeticallychildfree.com/links Unapologetically Childfree!
🎙️✨ Hey there, Maggie Dickens here, thrilled you’re part of the Unapologetically Childfree Community– your go-to spot for finding the childfree community you never knew existed and can no longer live without. We cover all things childfree, where we share laughs, explore, and embrace life without kids and without apologies.
🎙️ Our Vibe: Imagine a cozy chat with a friend who gets the childfree lifestyle – that's our channel. From breaking stereotypes to sharing hilarious experiences, we're a community celebrating life without kids. This isn't just a podcast; it's a place for friends. Our guests are our friends, mentors, authors, experts, and listeners. Real people, real stories, and real talk about choosing a childfree life. Get ready for inspiration, camaraderie, and a few "aha" moments.
🌟 Why Subscribe? Whether proudly childfree, considering the lifestyle, or curious, we've got something for you. Expect laughs, empowerment, and genuine stories from real people navigating life without kids.
🚨 Important Notice: Please Read I'm Maggie Dickens, your Childfree Hype Woman, and licensed therapist. While I bring you valuable insights and tips based on my education and personal experiences, it's crucial to clarify a few things.
🧠 This Is Not Therapy: - Although I'm a therapist, this channel is NOT a substitute for mental health care or therapy. The content provided is for educational and entertainment purposes only.
🌟 Your Well-being Matters: - Your mental and physical health are top priorities. If you're in crisis, please reach out to local emergency services or a mental health helpline immediately.
🦄 Childfree Journey Insights: - Unapologetically Childfree is centered around embracing the childfree lifestyle, offering tips, tricks, and real-world examples. It's a space for community, celebration, and sharing experiences. Thank you for being a part of this incredible community! Let's continue to support and uplift one another on our childfree journeys. ✨
🤖Disclaimer: This description was created in collaboration between me and AI.
📍 📍 📍 📍 We need, we need to do this with a glass of wine and have it just progressively go off the rails.
📍 I Think that's what's gonna end up happening The only reason why I'm not drinking right now I'm like, I don't need to pre-game.
That's okay. The water is something else. It's radioactive where I live
Anyway, I don't even know what we're talking about. It's fine.
Oh, you were talking about
oh, community. Duh.
📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 Hello, hello, and welcome to Unapologetically Child Free, the place where you find the childfree community that you never knew existed and now you can't live without.
I'm Maggie Dickens, a licensed therapist and your childfree hype woman, and we're going to talk today about all things communities, and you're also going to get to meet my great friend, Kellie.
And
I'm Kellie. I'm a licensed architect and registered interior designer living in the United States of America.
Far, far away
from me.
Far, far away. Living the childfree dream with my pack. So, my two dogs and my husband.
Oh, and, and my tortoise.
We have to
talk about forgetting her. We do have to talk You don't, shh, you can't let her know you forget about her. She's gonna get a complex. You know?
As everyone can hear already, Kellie and I have been friends for 9 million years. And,
um,
we are
But we've only been alive for 21.
I'm a therapist I think of an hour as 50 minutes. So, it's fine.
Let's just talk a little bit about what community in general, not just specific the childfree, but like when you think of community, like what comes up for you?
You know, and it's hard to find as an adult organically, I think of my specific examples of groups of people that I've
Mm
For me, it was the childfree community that I found at a time when I really, like, was doing the opposite.
Even here where I live, finding friends as an adult here where I live is really difficult, so. Finding that community of like minded people. So, for me, it's my group of hikers. We, we get together and we hike, and we have formed this really, really crazy bond that I was not expecting from a group of people that literally get up at the butt crack of dawn on weekends, you know, when we should be sleeping in.
Okay, normal people would sleep in and I tell these people all the time, I'm like, I obviously love all of you because I would not get up this early for just anybody on a Saturday. And you know, I think community is people , that support you, that build you up, you do the same for them.
lt's ike that friend that you find. at any stage of your life you feel like you've known them forever. a lot of the community that's been really helpful are people that you can just be yourself in and they accept you with open arms, all of your, all of your warts and all, all the craziness.
I think community people come together for one mission, but you're coming from all different directions to support that mission together.
So I guess another one that just came up is like, even in my town the animal rescue community, like that's a huge one. You know, community can be on different levels too.
thing that
having those tools to go back.
mm hmm,
I'm not describing the people, I'm saying like, it's a, it's a mechanism to pull you through.
being yourself, but also something that you mentioned before was like being there for each other. And you have mentioned like with your hiking group you don't want to wake up at the crack of dawn and you
Right, right.
and either you get something incredible, someone shares some
wisdom or you just get, you know, kind of pulled out of the funk or vice versa.
Someone's like, I really needed this and.
Right,
I find, like, with community is so many people think of, like, finding their people, find, I call them ride or dies. You're one of my ride or dies. It's not only, like, go to dinner, go to brunch, come hang out, you know, go to Taylor Swift, which we've done.
But we've done.
all of those things.
Right.
just the like, Hey, I need to complain about something or I need to just unload what my feelings are because I don't have any other place to put them. And if they stay in my brain, they're going to, they're going to eat at me. And sometimes friendships and community can feel as if it has to be like, I don't know, prescribed, it has to look a certain way, we have to do certain things, we can only talk about one thing or the other, and I'm like, nah, nah, nah, like,
absolutely not. And your community's gonna look different. It could be from hour to hour.
One of the things that you and I talk a lot about is appreciating as friendships. organically progress. There's this ebb and flow of getting to know someone to where like two years later, you're talking about something deep and you're like,
dang woman, I had no idea you meet these people and you know them so well.
Sometimes that happens instantaneously, but often it takes a long time
really know who somebody is or who, what the dynamics of a group are going to be or any of that.
Right,
I was going to say, I just think about, like, especially in the childfree community because, , one of the biggest tips I give people to find friendships as an adult You were mentioning how difficult it is in your specific area is you find your cheers or your perk place or whatever cultural
reference works for age group Go go find that place for you is hiking right showing up
every meetup or every you know hike or whatever
Going to the same place.
I did this when I moved to Portugal was You was this it was a book club, but it was really just people talking about books and drinking beer. And so I met a ton of people because I became a regular and then it was one of those things where you get to invite people and say, Oh, you're a new
person.
Every Thursday I go to this thing or every Saturday morning we go hiking. Would you like to come right and you get to bring people in instead of this like
pressure of like hi nice to meet you My name is Maggie. Here's my whole life story. You're gonna be my bestie now like
Well, that's it. That's the other thing. That's like, we talk about this all the time on, I mean, some of these hikes we go, we'll go on like an 18 mile hike on a, on a Sunday, right to the top of a mountain. And we joke that the people that are hiking with us at our pace are a captive audience. They can't get away.
They can't get away because, I mean, they could, they could walk off the side of the mountain so they could go back to their car, but you know, we have a mission to accomplish, so I've got a captive audience and I think too, it's, it's it's interesting to see, like, I'm a person that I'm an open book. I talk about everything and anything.
There is nothing off limits. And I like to test the boundaries of who I'm with, which sometimes has gotten me into trouble. I do, I do, and I'll say things to just kind of test the watch, but I'm, but I'm also like, like a people pleaser, so that is very conflicting for me. It's really interesting because like, I don't necessarily like.
To 100 percent be around people who think exactly like I do. I mean, hmm, mm
in my own family, you know, we have, we have some tensions, but we still manage to like absolutely be there for each other, despite all of that. And it's the same with my group of friends. Like not everybody is necessarily 100 percent on the same, the same wavelength, but we're, what we are on the same wavelength about is that we love each other's company.
Like with hiking, we have a mission, we have a mission to accomplish and we're there to do it together. You can always find common ground with someone. And I think that's huge.
You know, there's plenty of things that we can fight about. So why not fight and find the things that we can raise each other up with?
this is so important because
We have tiered friends and I don't mean like . first, second, third place. I talk about how like I have my favorite people. I struggle with the old language of like my best friends or my besties because I don't want to put one person above like a group of people. know, the people in our group chat, those are
my fit, you know, those are
Like everyone's your best friend there. Yeah. Like everybody. Yeah.
there's also this, and we'll talk about this in like other episodes of like how you can ebb and flow. But there's, in my mind, you've got like your top tier friends.
Like those are the people like at this moment in our friendship, where our friendship is like, this is the, this is the like hide the body friend, right? Like
these are the people who are going to be like, I, Are you gonna buy me dinner after this? Cause I'm not a fan, but I'm here for you. You know, like, that's like top tier ride or die friendships.
And
then there's, there's another
level, and that's the smallest group of people in our lives. And then you've got this, you've got this middle chunk, which is now kind of the middle section of size. And these are the people that some people will say are acquaintances, I don't think of it that way. I think of it as like, these are your friends who, if you're having an event and you want to share it with your people, that's going to be level one and level two and level three is kind of everybody else that's the biggest chunk of. the population because it's everybody else. And
people kind of filter through up and down. And I think that
Yeah, yeah,
you and I, when we first met a couple of years ago
it was a couple. Well, I know I found, I found you guys in 2016.
Yeah. So what, what Kellie's talking about finding y'all. Is that there were a couple of us online who had found each other in this space of our partners all had a similar job and it was kind of a weird one. And so we were all connecting and then we're like, we don't want to hear people talk about kids anymore.
Yeah.
own group? And there was like, I don't know, I think in the beginning there was like six of us. And it slowly grew and slowly grew. And I left that group years ago cause I'm not with that person anymore. But when I left, I think that group had morphed into hundreds and hundreds, if not encroaching upon, you know, a thousand or so.
So I don't know what it's at
Yeah. It got too big for its britches. Kind of
It did get too big for its britches. ,
Should I, could I talk about how I found you guys? Like I think that's because it was it's proof. So it it was a childfree community and like you said and my husband and I had been trying to have a baby and I had just found out that I was pregnant for the first time ever Grandpa died, and then I found out we were losing our baby, and then my other grandpa died.
Like, all within a month. And I'm like, oh, and we were buying our house and moving across country. And I'm like, it's like, could we, could we add another, like, is there anything else that we could add to this? Anyway, so like, this is what I'm going, and you know our phones are listening to us. Always listening.
They're always listening. ASMR and my Facebook recommendations, I logged into Facebook and it was, it was this community where I met you. And I was like, but okay, maybe. And it was funny because it was, you know, the dink lifestyle. It was the, I remember what the cover was the bumper sticker with, with the two people, the dogs, the cats, and then bags of money.
and all the bags of money. Yeah.
is this all about? And so it was childfree. And so I sheepishly asked to join because I'm like, they're never going to allow me to join. They're going to know I'm pregnant because I was still in the process of this all kind of resolving where, you know, we were without child.
And so I found this group and I'm like, Kind of, you know, just looking around meandering and everybody is amazing. Now there's a lot of women in that group and we still all stay in touch. That's community and Y'all don't even know how Necessary you were to get me through one of the toughest times in my life like it was that summer it was It was bizarre and you know, I have a partner that that is very much you know, this is life and it's sure it's, it sucks at times, but at times it's amazing.
And whatever you're going through right now, that's your life. So instead of running and hiding from it, you've got to figure out how to embrace it, make the most out of it. He was amazing through the whole process and you guys just seeing other women modeling. This lifestyle and the benefits of being in the position that we were in. That's also kind of where I was introduced to the idea of you know, labeling, well, your childless, not childfree.
That's another discussion for another day. We actually made friendships and met each other. And. Like, I've probably traveled to see you guys more than I've traveled to see some of my other friends.
And I think that there's a difference because, going back to you and I meeting and meeting in that, Facebook group a couple of us created
I think this was back in like 2012 or something when
I.
Like started looking for child free people and, and then one of the things about that group is, and people have asked me, they're like, how did you know to use the term childfree? I didn't. I just like typed it into Google and I didn't know the difference between all of these, all of these terms. And I have a, I have a different video on what these terms are.
Right.
And at the time it didn't matter. And in some settings. Yes, it does. , there's a place, a community called the Childless Collective and it is a beautiful place for women who are working through that grief process of I wanted a baby more than anything and now I'm not having one and I have to go through that grieving process and the grieving process never ends, it evolves. And I think that for me what I love to see and, and there are people who will disagree with me. I love to see when someone goes from those early stages of grief to embracing. Being a childfree person and saying, I don't have kids today, I'm not going to have kids in the future. And I'm, I'm pumped about that.
I'm jazzed about that. I'm looking forward to my life.
Like, was that the original plan? Maybe not for me. Always for you, it wasn't the original plan, but I know you and I have talked about it and you're like, nah, like I'm, I'm happy.
My husband and I both love kids, love them. He is a kid and that's, I think that's why kids are drawn to him. They're like, he's a big one of us, like the kid that can do his own stuff.
We've, we've kind of evolved from the, when are you having kids? And I think, cause when they find out our ages, they're like, Oh yeah, that's not happening. To it's evolved to now you would have been such good parents. And it's like, well, we are, can be good aunties and uncles.
We can be a part of the community of our friends who have kids. Before we moved , just about all of my friends back home. My close friends had kids and part of, my friendships with, with them evolved as they had kids.
It was so much fun to watch their families grow. I know that people have a lot of trouble maintaining friendships when there are huge life changes. And I mean, it
Mm hmm.
have to be kids. It can be marriage. You know, when someone gets married, everything
hmm.
It doesn't have to be that way, but I mean, I think it also has to do with the two people who were in the relationship to begin with.
Oh, for sure. I think about like me moving to Portugal and there are some friendships that went from like top tier
either second tier or third tier because for one reason or another, me moving that 5, 6, 7, 8 hour time difference or the decisions that I was making and how that like really went against the traditional grain, which is wild because.
I'm not necessarily a traditionalist but yeah, like major changes can change the way that a friendship kind of is because we're human. I want to go back to something though that you were talking about it like finding the community while you were going through a loss and how at the time, since that community was so unstructured and like, It was basically, you don't have children in your house?
Cool, you're a member
of our
cool, you're a part of it.
you're, you're not going to be talking about kids in every single post
or right. right, right. hang out with
I, loved the closeted pregnant women, too, that were in the group. I loved it.
I, what it does is to me, it validates., like I was never a cool
Yes!
Like my friends were cool. Oh my gosh.
📍 So there's this like side note. So there's this tick tock that has like videos of Taylor Swift during the ERAs tour and it has this like blurb and it says like, Taylor Swift is for the girls who were never in the group chat. Taylor Swift is for the girl who knew all of the popular kids, but it was never really popular.
And I'm like, that was fricking me.
My dogs are saying we were never popular.
📍 One of the things that I love about this community, let's take it back to the point one of the things I love about this community is I moved into a new place and I, I'm not handy. I'm not handy. I know what I want and I know when it's not the way that I want it.
And there was this, I don't know, credenza for lack of a better term. And it was bright white. And if anybody has ever met me before, they're like, Then it was perfect for you, right? Maggie was like, no, no, no, no. I want it blush colored, like the lightest, lightest blush pink in the world where you can barely tell that it's been painted, but I don't want it bright white. And like almost, almost like you take one drop of blush in five gallons of paint.
I think that's how they, they, how they mixed it.
Yeah, I think so.
they mixed it.
But you and she painted this thing. Which was, it was stressful for me to watch.
We broke down and did some yoga first dancing.
Yeah, I have, I have like 50 photos of you doing like random
Yoga poses.
and I can't get rid of them. I can't get rid of them.
Later that night , y'all met my partner for the
first time
That's right.
yeah, we, we had some margaritas at Ninfa's
that was good.
that was really good.
We had
a was the bar that we went downtown the last night that we were there?
Huh.
You, that was three years ago, three years ago.
Yeah.
gonna need more information. Oh, hearsay.
Yeah, I like you know.
Hearsay. Yeah, but we didn't go to the good one. We went to the not
good
but the one we went to was still pretty good. It was, hey, it's all I know. It was pretty cool to me. And then I had the panic attack at brunch because my husband tried to take the dogs on a walk. Do you remember that? he used the ring doorbell to communicate with me.
And, yeah. And he's like, I'm like, I told him that we have to always be vigilant for dogs off leash in our neighborhood. And he's like, he rang the doorbell while he was leaving. He's like, I'm taking the dogs on a walk. And I'm like, Oh boy. By like, not even five minutes later, he's back. There were dogs on the leash.
We had to come back. We had to come back. It was the scariest thing.
At the door.
At the Talk about a scary movie.
I'm going to have a panic attack. He did just fine with them. And he's, he does great with them when I'm gone, so, cause he doesn't try to walk them.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I've been on walks with your dogs. There's just, there's too many things going on. there's too many
too many. There's too much stuff. Too much. And it's too hot right now.
It's too hot here. It was like 32 degrees today. I don't either. Hold on, I've totally forgotten what, I think that's
like, I
it. Double it. Minus 10%, add 32. Yeah. Wait, wait, hold on. 32 64 minus 10% will say minus six, so we'll be at 58.
Wrong.
look really stupid. And then add 32 58 plus 32
don't know who that is.
is 90.
I mean, yeah, it was 89, yeah. That's the, that is, that is such a weird way of doing that. I don't feel
like, times 2 minus 10 percent
two minus 10 percent plus 32, because the 32 is the, the, the zero point.
That's so much
And then you do it backwards to go from Fahrenheit Celsius. I don't, I don't,
just all be on Celsius
what we should do is. We should form another country where we don't use the same scale that anyone uses in the rest of the world. Thank you,
I mean, thank you Founding Fathers. Oh my gosh. I don't even know, I don't even know what we've talked about. I don't even know what we've
Well, we were talking about, where we kept getting sidetracked was the, when we were all here and when, when we met for the first time in person, IRL.
yes. IRL, we did the thing. Right? Because that. That, oh my gosh, that visit, man.
What was your impression of me? What did you think about me?
You sounded like a New Yorker. This is where we all got started. This is where this conversation got started. Because I was like so confused. So confused when I met you. And I was like, Is she, I was like, Is she being funny? Is she being facetious? Like, Who, she's, she's from the Midwest, like why does she sound like she's from Long Island,
I must have been hanging out with the family, with my husband's family.
Let's use this trip as a really great example, right? So this was years and years ago
and it wasn't the first meetup that I had been a part of and it wasn't the last one. And one of the things that comes up in my comment sections on Instagram and what people ask me, comments on YouTube and all of that is, you know, do I only have childfree friends,
especially because.
I talk about starting to build my childfree friend group starting back in
2012. I would say that the vast majority of my friends are childfree and that is by my orchestration. Orchestration?
We'll see. You curated your friends
we're, we're we're going to use that word. Yes. That doesn't mean that I don't have friends that are parents. And there are
at least, I think, one person who's on that trip. who is a parent now. And I know that some people, I can just, I can already hear kind of the conversation about like, what is childfree versus like what I call a pre parent.
That's kind of this word that I use. I didn't know what that was before. I just started using that word like a year
ago. So,
Yeah.
I tell people like when you're looking for your people, one of the best things to do is to find two things that you have in
common.
So you filter down the whole world to these two things.
So maybe you have several million, maybe a hundred million people who now meet that criteria of those two things.
Right.
You've got to keep filtering. Yeah, you've got to keep
filtering.
Yeah, Maggie has ten million friends.
I mean, I have a lot of friends. And I think you were the one that called me like a super connector.
You don't have to be my ride or die. Like there's this middle ground of like, you know, the friend I'm thinking of she's two littles now and I visited the first time I visited her in at her home.
She was pregnant with her first and she hadn't told anybody. And. And we were going, oh, we were going to a concert. And, and she was like, I didn't want to tell you. Cause I didn't want you to not come. Cause I didn't want you to think that I wasn't going to have any fun, you know, cause she wasn't you know, going to be staying out late or,
you know, any of those things. And I was like, it's not, it's not that vibe. Like it's fine. And
then
like a dream.
right. And then the second time that I went to visit her. I kid you not We are. She's picking me up and she's like, so I need to tell you something. And I was
like, I'm gonna stop visiting you. I'm
you need to stop visiting.
So she had
to tell me, yeah, and we're friends.
Do we talk every day? No. And,
Yeah.
and it's, it's not because she has kids. It's that that's just the natural evolution of our friendship. I moved my life kind of hit the fan with my last relationship and all those things and moving into my new
life. And,
you're talking about like all of your friends being the exact same.
Right, right.
in my mind, that's boring and it also doesn't allow for people to be themselves. I think about mean girls, right? That movie really showed when everybody is following the one person's lead,
Right.
everybody else gets diluted.
Their personalities get diluted. So, at the end of Mean Girls, They have kind of broken up that group and they find new places where they fit and their personalities start to show and I think that's
Right.
when we have the two things that we have in common and then we start to really fine tune.
I think you and I are a great example of that. We met years ago and our relationship has ebbed and flowed and slowly gotten to the point of where like, we talk almost every day in one day.
one platform or another.
Right. Whether it's, it's individually or in the group chat or one of our 50 million chats that we're in
know. I know. I know video
it's okay.
or words only.
I'm telling you that those groups have been. Probably like not going to say don't go to therapy, but y'all have been very therapeutic.
to her trying to put me out
it helps that it helps that we have professionals in our group that this is what they do for a living.
No, it is. It is therapeutic to have your people and You know, I, I know I can think of a time. What was it? Two months ago I was like off the deep end. I don't know if it was hormones. I don't know
You were off the deep end.
was off the deep end.
tell that from thousands of miles away, Maggie's. Ha
Like I was in. I wonder if I was like channeling Taylor Swift and knew that
Tortured Poets was coming, because you know that part where she's like, I'd rather burn my whole life down than listen to, you know, one more minute
of this bitchin and moanin That's how I was.
I was like, I'm burning my whole life down. Like F it. I don't care. Something I had like some fire up something because I was, I was ready to just like.
Light a match to the whole thing. But anyway, you just listened to me, and like, the next day, you were like,
How you doing?
Jeckl and Hyde. Ha But it happens. I think people would be lying if they said that they didn't have periods in their life that were like that. I'm the type of friend, I will take a step back. I'm not going to like dig and dig.
And you know, sometimes you need the friends that'll dig and dig and dig and dig, but that's not me. That may have been why you seeked me out during
mm hmm,
mm hmm.
It's because you knew that Kellie was going to be aloof through the whole process.
You're not a loof, you're a listener. There's a difference between
Hmm. I've never been accused of being a listener. I will
ha, ha, ha.
tell you that. I will tell you that.
Well,
But I, I, I treat people and my, my doctor after my second pregnancy fail said, you know, I, she, and she gave me a recommendation for a therapist because of PTSD and some other stuff. And she said, you know, she's like, I really recommend that you call this woman.
But she said, if you choose not to, she said, You are the last person I'm worried about because you will tell anybody. Like I'll tell a lady in line at the grocery store. Like, like it is a fault of mine. Absolutely. It's TMI, but I will unload all of my crap onto someone else and then walk away. Woo!
And this is why you are a co host on the Unapologetically Child Free podcast, I am private. Like, I am like, mm, like, how many times I'm like, yeah, I was going through something and you're like, yeah, you're, you're a little off. And I was like, yeah, my world just fell apart. And you're like, oh, I never would have known.
Right? Like, like the facade
is so good.
And it's, it's, it's, you can, you're the kind of person that you're, it's nuanced if I'm really wanting to like key into things I can see in your texts, if I'm going through my own sh*t right now, I'm probably not going to see it, I feel like a sh*t friend quite often I get wrapped up in my own little world I'm super hyper aware of that. And I'm like, am I missing something? Because I see people like, you're very thoughtful. In our friend group, there's one, one particular person she's got her plate full and I'm like, how do you have the mental capacity to always be there for everybody else? I see that and I'm like, I wish I could be more like that.
So that's a, that's the other thing you find the right community. You're going to find people that make you aware of things about yourself that you may not have noticed before, either good or bad. Like me trying to steal people's accents, I remember when I was a kid, I had a friend that was really like, She was just very good at talking to strangers and like making people feel at ease.
And I was very shy. It was weird. It's like, bleh. Who would have thought?
you.
Hi. I was very, very shy. I noticed one time that she would say, like, for just passing someone, she'd say, hi. And she'd always say, how are you today? And I was like, that's all you have to do. That's it. Like that one thing of acknowledging, like whether you care how that person is doing that day or not, like just stopping and saying, smiling, saying, how are you today?
Like, I've even noticed a lot of people will say, no, one's even asked, no, one's even bothered to ask me.
Yeah.
know? Like I don't necessarily want an earful, but for someone to be seen. And that was something I learned through community. And I learned like, that was also a way to interact with other humans to further my community.
I like that one skill that I learned from her just from watching her interact. This woman. Could have walked into any room and made friends with anybody
And that's
you
now.
I do have a lot of social anxiety when I worked for my dad, he wanted me to do a lot of the marketing to go out and get more work and, and, you know, build our client list. We lived in a small town and I was so scared to join our local optimist club.
I was so scared because I mean, it was a small town. There weren't many women and there weren't many young people involved. By the time I left, we had more women. We had more young people, but , I volunteered to do like our 50 50 raffle every day just to make myself go around and, and just get to know everybody.
And that was, that was another community that I really miss. I learned a lot from them. I really did. And I was terrified of being a part of it. Some of, some of these communities you force yourself into. I kind of forced myself into that one, but they were receptive.
The thing that you're talking about is something that I talk a lot about, especially when I'm working with like single people who are looking for their community and they're also looking romantic partners. As I say, Often, we put so much more effort into finding a romantic partner.
You know, we're looking for our babe and, and we kind of just haphazardly fall into friendships the way that we did when we were, when we were little. And absolutely not. Because when I lived in the suburbs of Houston,
that street, you know, that street that I lived on. There was one person I clicked with and the rest we had nothing in common they were also stay at home moms.
So there, we also didn't have the same lifestyle. We didn't have the same time afforded to us those kinds of things. And so there was this kind of like this thing where if I had said only friendships are these ones of convenience. I would have been so lonely, but I already had y'all, and I was, had already learned from y'all and from building up that community from years ago. To be able to say It's front loaded effort the same way you do with a romantic partner of like you're gonna put in a ton of work Weeding through all the people that you don't want to be in a romantic relationship with right like People who are in the dating space, they're going on multiple dates a week, or they're going on multiple dates a month, they're meeting different people, they're talking to different people on apps and texting and all of this stuff, and how often are we doing that with friend groups?
We don't. We just say like, hey, you're cool, you like the same music, so we should be friends. And if it doesn't immediately click, and the relationship fizzles, that friendship fizzles.
And that's not how it works. We need to put in that effort, need to show up to the hiking group, show up to the book club, show up and be yourself. And the people who you are attracted to, more than likely are going to be attracted to you because you're being yourself and you're putting yourself out there.
And. And that's hard and that's scary because I know that there have been people who I'm like, ooh, she's so cool. I want her to be my friend. And I was not interesting to these people and they had no desire to get to know me. And that's, it's hard. It's rejection. And knowing that I don't like everybody, so everybody's not going to
like me either, pressure drops. And then it's just like, I'm going to put the effort into the people I like.
Well, and I think I think that's something too that every year that you have experience on this earth just recently I had to come to terms with the fact that it's okay if I Get the get a bad feeling from someone that's
Mm
It's okay if they don't like me, Like with dating, I was a bad, bad example because like, I never put effort into it. I fell into relationships and I, I happened to fall into a really good one.
I will say this though, like I think that having a sense of self helps and finding a sense of self, you can get through your friend group as well. Like I am
a completely different person than I was when I was in 2012, I'm a completely different person than I was in, you know, 2020 and true community and true friendship Groups are supposed to evolve and when we just put them into this box of like they're going to be the same from day one to the end,
missing so much.
If we think about
it,
like these are my people who, who they are human to. They have needs. They, I can't just ask them to show up for me all the time without,
giving, but I give the way that I give. I'm really good at like being out of the group chats for like days, maybe even a week. And then I pop back in and I'm like, There's 400 messages.
Somebody give me a summary. Like, I can't. Because I get overwhelmed. Because I just, I can't. And, and like, when you have your people and you have people who are like, yeah, that's just Maggie, and it's not personal, then we just keep going. Right.
And, And it's not this thing of like, you know, what's wrong with you or you know, you can't sit here You know or any of
those kinds of things, right.
One of the great things about Today is that we didn't follow the structure at all so It's just a fun You Just a fun day.
Um, for those of you who keep listening, we're gonna, we're gonna get better at this. We're going to get better at like, we had a structure.
It was pulled up in front of me. But I didn't look at it. So we're going to get
It's alright. It was organic, Maggie. It was
It was organic.
That means It costs certified organic.
Higher value.
They call it bio here all the organic is bio Mm hmm. I'm getting there. I'm getting there. Oh My gosh, thank you so much for joining as a co host We're gonna hang out with you what twice a month and we're gonna get to know you and your pack We're gonna talk about all things. I think we're getting into a juicier topic Next time, which is going to be in two weeks from now, we're going to talk about I'm terrified to be pregnant. Mm hmm. . So we're, we're going to talk about our stories
I'm going to get graphic.
do we have to put a content warning on there? I'm sure.
I might, I might have pictures. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
you just freaked me out like my heart
No,
I actually, I don't think I have access to the pictures. If that, ooh. Everyone's like, what is she talking about? No, no one wants them.
Yeah, not wrong crowd wrong crowd. No mm hmm. I I'm not your person on this I'm not your person. So come,
come and hang out with us in, in two weeks. voices.
she talking
I know, I know. We did not mean to set this up as like a full like cliffhanger,
No.
📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 And if you have any thoughts on community or anything that we talked about today, because I don't remember half of it just drop a comment and Kellie or I will be in the comments talking back.
Unless you're a jerk and we're just going to ignore you.
No, then I'll really talk back. No, I'm kidding. I won't. I'll ignore you.
Thank you all so much and tchau from Portugal.
and goodbye from the U. S.