What is up daddy gang? It is your founding father Alex Cooper with call her daddy.

Dr. Kermire welcome to call her daddy.

Hello, thanks for having me.

You are a clinical psychologist and a friend expert

and you are one of the few therapists who offers friendship therapy.

One of the most frequently asked questions and topics from my audience is how to maintain and navigate friendships.

And when we're kids, it seems pretty easy.

Is it normal to feel like friendships become more difficult to navigate in adulthood?

Yes, I mean the short answer is yes definitely and I think that you know anyone who has

had a friendship, been in a friendship has a friendship right now can relate to this to do a certain degree and not only does it get more difficult

the older we get our expectations for ourselves change and what can happen is there can be such a mismatch

between what we think our friendships should be like

or what we should be experiencing

or who we should have in our lives

and what that actually looks like.

So I mean we can go into all of this but I do want to normalize it because one of the things

that I see in my work is not only is it difficult, but there can be a real sense of

loneliness and even shame that comes when we do experience a friendship challenge,

whether it's difficulty making friends or maintaining friendships or going through a

friendship breakup, which I know is something that you've spoken about.

Those types of experiences can be painful in and of themselves and then even more so when we judge ourselves and feel like there's something wrong with us for going through that. It's so helpful to just hear that and normalize that because I think that probably every person listening

I know a lot of listeners are in their 20s and that is a huge stressor right? I think some people think that the number of friends you have is synonymous with how

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