You're listening to the American Girl Podcast Network.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Smart Girls podcast.

I'm Shay.

And I'm Jess. And today we are talking about friendships.

Friendships and specifically good friendships.

Yes, good friendships because there's this

amazing book that the smart girls guy put out called Friendship Troubles. And what I love about this

book is because it talks about, you know, feeling left out and getting over fights and like

the struggle for popularity amongst friends. But Shea, you and I had this beautiful conversation

when we were conceiving of this episode where we talked about how important it is to know

what a good friendship is. Yeah. I think that is a really important thing to put your finger on.

And for me, a good friendship just feels like

pure happiness, like a warm hug when I'm with him. And every time I come away from hanging out

with that person, I feel actually energized rather than drained. That is really important for me.

Yeah, that's a really good sign. For me, a good friendship feels safe. Yeah. It feels like I could be fully who I am.

Yes. And I wanted to say this. I think a good friendship also feels like you can get over the

tough stuff together. You can communicate with them and not be scared to say things. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I think when I think about what we tell girls about friendships, though, I think there's some myths that we have to bust.

Oh, absolutely. A little bit. What would be a myth that you think is out there around friends?

A massive myth for me, especially in the elementary school and middle school years, is that you have to have a best friend and you can only have one best friend, which I think is so false.

I growing up and still now have always had multiple really close friends. It's never been just one.

And there are also years where I don't have a super close friend at all. And I just have like

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