Leisa Reed: 00:01

Hey, besties. My name's Lisa.

Tamara Kindred: 00:03

And my name's Tamara, and we're BFFs.

Leisa Reed: 00:06

Tamara and I met when we were about 12 years old growing up in good old Fairbanks, Alaska.

Tamara Kindred: 00:11

And we've been best friends forever since.

Leisa Reed: 00:13

That's right. And that's why we've decided to have some fun, friendly conversations with the bestest of best friends.

Tamara Kindred: 00:18

We'll talk about how we became best friends, our experiences together, and have other best friends on the show to share how they met.

Leisa Reed: 00:26

Who knows? You never know when you'll meet your next BFF.

Tamara Kindred: 00:30

Now let's get into it, how I met my BFF.

Leisa Reed: 00:34

Welcome to another episode of how I met my BFF.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 00:38

Hi, Tamara. How are you?

Tamara Kindred: 00:40

Hey, Lisa. I'm good. How are you?

Leisa Reed: 00:42

I'm good. I can't wait to share with you. I for all of our besties out there, I got a new gynecologist. What? And I'm really excited because I got I know you totally wanna hear this.

Leisa Reed: 00:59

Right? You know, first thing in the morning. I got all these cool, new bioidentical hormone replacement, what, creams and pills and bells and whistles that I'm gonna I'm gonna start using. So I'm really, really excited about it.

Tamara Kindred: 01:16

Nice. I, yeah, I did not expect it to pivot this way. But I guess in the same boat, last week, I got pellets for the third time. This is my third hormone replacement pellets, and it's just amazing how quickly and how you can feel so much better. I highly recommend them.

Tamara Kindred: 01:38

It's pretty awesome. So, yeah, I feel you. I get you.

Leisa Reed: 01:42

I'm, like, deep in, like, doctor Mary Claire Haver's world. I finished, I think, since the like, over the last month, I've read two of her books and, like, deep diving, and I'm, like, on a mission for every woman over 40 to go find a doctor or medical professional who can support you in your hormone balancing and get that estrogen back to balance and whatever it is that you need to do. So that's our, like, public service announcement for today. Perfect. Go do it.

Leisa Reed: 02:15

And I am excited because we have a expert guest today, and her name is Susan Shapiro Barash, and she is an author of not just one, not two, but 17 books and an expert in friendship. Welcome, Susan. How are you today?

Susan Shapiro Barash: 02:33

Thank you for having me on. I'm good. Glad to be here.

Leisa Reed: 02:36

Yes. And so you just released your seventeenth book. Eighteenth. Eighteenth book. Oh my gosh.

Leisa Reed: 02:44

Okay. Eighteenth. Seventeen plus one is 18. Okay. So 18 books.

Leisa Reed: 02:48

It's I'd imagine why it would be hard to keep track of that after, you know, 17 kids that you've birthed. Right? Have your 18 Yeah. Absolutely. What's the title of your newest book that just came out?

Susan Shapiro Barash: 03:00

My new book just out is called Estranged, How Strained Female Friendships Are Mended or Ended.

Leisa Reed: 03:10

And so we're gonna do a deep dive into that today because I think that's probably a concept we mostly don't intentionally think about. Like, we have friends by happenstance or circumstance or proximity, and then it's not a relationship that has a formal ending necessarily. So I think I'm really excited to hear your expertise. One of the questions I had before we dive into this book is, like, what made you decide to study friendship at all? Because I read this is your eighteenth book.

Leisa Reed: 03:45

So why friendship?

Susan Shapiro Barash: 03:47

Well, so 14 of my books have been nonfiction written under my real name, and four books are written under my pen name, Susanna Marin. And those are and those novels really in terms of the characters and the secrets and what happens among friends and women is it's really a reflection of my research for my nonfiction books. So this is my book on friendship. I also wrote a book called toxic friends, and I also wrote a book called tripping the prom queen, the truth about women and rivalry. But I've also done several studies on the role of wife in America and what that entails.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 04:30

And I've looked at how women feel as mothers and daughters and mothers in law and daughters in law and single women and rivals and foes. But friendship is almost always an aspect of my studies of each study. Because even when I wrote about why these women would say, but the only person who really understands is my best friend or the person who betrayed me during, you know, the time I was contemplating divorce was actually someone I considered a friend. So we see friendships, female friendships, very important and very rewarding, but also the dark side is that some of these friendships can fail us and thus this study.

Leisa Reed: 05:19

Well, there of all the things that a person can study and all the things that you started to pay attention to, why personally do you think friendship stood out?

Susan Shapiro Barash: 05:32

Because we live in a patriarchal culture, Lisa. And in a patriarchy, there is not as much power as we all know that women can gain and sustain. And so we are multilayered, multitasking. We wear different hats. Our ambition is harder earned than for men because they have so much supremacy.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 06:01

And our female friendships are meant to be our safe harbor. And with these friendships, we're meant to be understood, respected, and recognized. So if it really fails us, then often women tell me they feel quite untethered and quite insecure. And, also, there's that salient question, what do we do? Because we're taught that we're best friends forever, and we hope to be best friends forever.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 06:36

But what if it's really not going that way?

Leisa Reed: 06:39

Yeah. I can imagine too that I would just was thinking as you were talking about sometimes I'll hear women say, oh, I don't get along with women or women are catty or, yeah, I'm more I'm more a person who hangs out with, you know, I have more male friends. And I well, for me, I'm very blessed that I've always had amazing female friendships, so I don't have that same thought. But I would imagine that's probably because they got hurt pretty bad at one point by a female relationship.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 07:13

That's very true based on my research because for this book, I interviewed a 50 women, a very diverse group in terms of age, race, ethnicity, level of education, you know, social strata where they live in the country. Tried to get every state. And whether women were 22 or 79 years old and all of the in between, the kind of grief that accompanies a failed female friendship is really, really a serious thing. And the sense of being disenfranchised, taken out of the group, or just left alone or unsupported accompanies that kind of breakup. And at the same time, we know how to leave an unhappy love partner.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 08:06

We know how to get divorced. We're not surprised to hear about it, but we don't know how to break up if the friendship is now on a negative heel instead of a positive one.

Leisa Reed: 08:18

And, you know, in your book, talk about, like, this suboptimal relationship. This friendship that started, and then it's it's something turned, and now it's not fruitful. How does someone know when they're in that? Like, when the friendship is suboptimal? How would you even know that that happened?

Susan Shapiro Barash: 08:40

Well, it can be subtle and cumulative, meaning, you know, because I have these different categories of friends that were devised for the book as a result of listening to the 50 women. And plus, I have a survey at the end, so it was a result of that. But but but what do women who have a kind of slow fade with a female friend feel is anxiety, no longer understood in the same way as if the person they're turning to isn't there for them any longer. So they realize how it's now descending. On the other hand, there are also these inciting incidents where you wouldn't stay with the friend after a certain egregious act, including stealing a boyfriend, stealing a really important idea at work, or being so separate in terms of your political beliefs, so so, you know, not on the same wavelength in a very divisive time in our history, These are much more latent neon signs.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 09:56

So these friendships can break up over either a very kind of long list of disappointments or something so specific.

Leisa Reed: 10:10

I'm gonna ask a self serving question, if that's okay. So I have friends on both sides of the political spectrum, and I I I and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has this question of, like, how do you just because we don't see eye to eye politically, that doesn't mean I want to end the friendship or, you know, vice versa. But how do we navigate that? I'm sure that's on a lot of people's minds right now. How do you how would you best approach that when you have a friend who's on a different side?

Susan Shapiro Barash: 10:42

It's a very complicated chapter. I've all chapter on that.

Leisa Reed: 10:46

Oh, it's the whole chapter. See? I knew it. Like, that's your next book. Book 19.

Leisa Reed: 10:50

It's

Susan Shapiro Barash: 10:50

the whole thing. And and what's so interesting about it is when when we're I call it diametrically opposed. When we're in that situation, some some women many women say, you know what? I care about this friend more than I care about her her beliefs that are not not mine. We don't share the same values anymore, but I care about the friendships the friendship.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 11:18

And other women say, I can't be with someone who feels this way. The other it's not just politics, but there was a lot about vaccine and and about raising children and they're being inoculated or not. And so I heard a lot of young women talking about that in this study and how, in the end, one of the two friends just in the dyad said, I I can't do this another minute. I can't be with someone who does it the way you do it. And other women say, I don't wanna lose the friend.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 11:58

So, like so we see both. I guess what really happens because I too have friends on both sides. What really happens is we pick and choose our conversations carefully when we're together so that there isn't all the tension that comes with these volatile issues.

Tamara Kindred: 12:17

I feel like it's getting just especially in this administration, it just feels more so much more difficult than ever before, because it everyone is so divided. I mean, we've been through many, you know, different parties through our our life and have but I I have to say in my experience, like, it's just gotten so huge and, you know, down you know, I I have a group of friends, and of them is just like, I just literally can't talk to this other person because the fact that she believes what she believes is just it's it's human it's unkind in, you know, humanity is her you know, like and so it's just been a very different climate.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 13:10

Do you still Tamara, do you still speak to her? I mean, do you still see each other, or do you feel like it's a wedge in their friendship? I'm just curious.

Tamara Kindred: 13:18

I do. I try to be the peacemaker. And like you said, not it's a it's more of friendship with a group of women. And and I try to be, I guess, more of the peacemaker and just like, let's just we don't you know, we're we know where each person stands on this, and we don't need to necessarily talk about it. But to where some other friends were like, this is our life, and we're going through this.

Tamara Kindred: 13:44

What do you mean we can't talk about it? And and it's like, yeah, I I under I completely understand. But, yeah, we are I feel like we're in a kind of right at a crossroads right now of, like especially if this is gonna continue for the next four years, you know, I can see some friendships completely dissolving because it it just feels like since January 21, things have gotten more stressed.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 14:11

Well, we we this is a this situation is so extreme. Yeah. It's so explosive that it really churns up our personal lives, and I think it has to be factored in. However, in this chapter I wrote, of course, politics as and worldview are a big part of it. But, also, I interviewed friends who had the same values and the same hopes for their lives and then became quite disparate.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 14:44

So let me give you an example. I spoke with two women who said that they had wanted us young women to really both marry have careers, marry, have children. And when their paths really veered and one ended up with that and the other did not, it would you know, so that each of them was attracted more to the mirroring friend, the friend who had the exact same relationship, to husband, children, or to work, singlehood, that they felt like they couldn't be close anymore to the point where sometimes it was a deal breaker. But what you said is correct, that the most, incendiary situation of all is really politics and what's happening in the country. And the big decision as of as friends is to look at your history and consider what the relationship means before and hopefully after.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 15:53

And some of these relationships, some of these friendships can be saved and some cannot.

Tamara Kindred: 15:58

What was Oh, go ahead.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 15:59

Sorry. Muneka.

Tamara Kindred: 16:01

Wives, what do you do if a friend that you're trying to communicate and work through this does not respond, essentially ghosts a person? How do you handle that?

Susan Shapiro Barash: 16:14

So I have a whole section on ghosting

Leisa Reed: 16:17

the book. Oh, man. So many more books to write.

Tamara Kindred: 16:19

This this also might help with dating as well.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 16:22

Yeah. Right? Yeah. The ghosting really affects female friendships. Very close ones.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 16:27

This book is not about the friend because you go to the gym the same time, three times a week. This is about a friend who has traded secrets, honored your your your your secrets. You the trust has been at the bottom and the center and the top of the friendship. These are really, really close friendships that we're looking at and why these end up often these days being ending up in estrangement. And so what I wanted to talk about is the because, Tamara, you described the friend as being reluctant as I just understood it to to face it more than you've and you feel more like it's there and it needs to be addressed.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 17:14

So for the estranged and so she's ghosting. The estranger, the one who estranges and can go sometimes to leave. There can be a blow up. Oftentimes, because women don't like conflict, it's a slow fade. But for the friendship to be tanking or at the worst or shape shifting in a serious way in a more moderate situation.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 17:44

The estranger is the one who's really getting it going, and the estrangee is the person at the end receiving the kind of ghosting or the you know, just all of the distance. And what's so interesting, I think, about the women with whom I spoke is that some of them, even as the estrangie being at the receiving end of this, they say, you know what? She probably did the right thing. We really had too much tension, or we weren't really authentic friends anymore. And the estranged also really suffers.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 18:20

I miss her, but there was nothing more there. I miss her, but we didn't look alike the same you know, whatever the story I've all different stories. But there are two things that are so important, I think. One is that we really feel it. It's a it's it has tremendous emotional impact to lose what you have with a friend who's so cherished.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 18:47

And, again, because we're female in a male dominated world, the friendship has so many so many things about it that keep us happy and and fulfilled. And then the other side of it, which is what I'm hearing that's really trending, which is I was empowered by leaving, and I and I never could have done it before. And I thought best friends were forever. I mentioned before, women believe that. But I'm actually finding healthier friendships on the other side of this.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 19:24

True best friends forever.

Leisa Reed: 19:28

How do you like, I'm so lucky that Tamara and I met when we were 12 and had plenty of time to hang out and do all the fun things to develop a relationship our friendship, you know, pretty easily and that it's maintained. But and I have a couple of newer best friends, but it's definitely been organic. Like, it's so if you're in a situation where you're like, I would love a best friend. How do I get one? Like, how how do you do that?

Leisa Reed: 20:00

How what advice would you have for people?

Susan Shapiro Barash: 20:03

Well, women really want to be included. They want to belong. Belonging is very essential for women. So sometimes, since you used the word organic, sometimes we meet new friends just by where we're at in our lives. And that's why the idea that this study started with women, like, say, early twenties and went all the way to 80 was really fascinating to me because whatever stage we're at, we're longing for the same kind of closeness among our female friends.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 20:41

And some female friends are really a duo, and some are very much a part of a group. And groups are trickier because sometimes they're hierarchical. And if you are unhappy with one of the friends in that group, you are risking belonging to the entire group. So it it's more nuanced, and it's it's there's more at risk and at stake in a way. But to find new friends is to really put yourself out there just as women often do for a love relationship.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 21:22

You know, it's interesting. I don't think there's a website. Hey. Would you be my new BFF?

Leisa Reed: 21:27

There should be.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 21:28

There should be.

Leisa Reed: 21:29

There literally should be a friendship, quote, unquote, dating site, meaning,

Susan Shapiro Barash: 21:33

like There is.

Tamara Kindred: 21:34

Is there a It's on Bumble.

Leisa Reed: 21:37

There is about this before, and I forgot. Yeah.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 21:41

But but but there should be also it's almost a test, you know, to really understand because so many of the women said, I didn't stay with this friend, this, you know, whole other part of the book. I didn't feel respected. And then other women say, you know, it was all they didn't use this word. I did. I'm hierarchical.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 22:01

You know? I'm important to her until she's with the new group. And then we grow apart some we just have completely different lives. And so we're all craving the closeness, but we're also moving into different stages. And and finding a new friend is often about being in a new town or being you know, maybe you join the newcomers group or work friends, a whole other thing, right, in terms of the level of trust and intimacy and what happens when you leave or she leaves or she gets promoted and you don't get promoted, of those frictions.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 22:42

But also, you know, a lot of women said, I met my best friends when my kids were three and they were all in preschool together. Or, you know, I met my best friend because she too didn't feel like getting married and have kids. And we just ended up having all these interests that we shared and no distractions or demands that the our other friends have. So there's a lot of do you know the theory of homogamy, you know, like with like? Mhmm.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 23:13

So we often, in female friendships, sort of cotton to the person who's reflective, who's similar to us. Oh, we're both from the Midwest but transplanted to New York. Oh, we both moved to LA because we thought, at first, we could get into the movie business. Whatever sort of dream you had that fits. So there's a lot of commonality, but then there are also friends where it's interesting where they're not at all alike, and yet they so appreciate each other.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 23:46

They're all

Leisa Reed: 23:47

like that. Yeah. With my we call it girls in the hood, and it's in our community. There's six of us, and we're very different. But we all live in the same community.

Leisa Reed: 23:59

So we support each other in different ways than having the the one thing we have in common is where we live.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 24:07

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Leisa Reed: 24:08

And that we are also looking out for each other. So we have that in common. Like like, it takes a community kind of mindset. But if you looked at us individually, you'd be like, wow. They don't have anything in common or they have very little in common.

Leisa Reed: 24:20

So, it's been really special to have this group form because I think I'm more like what you were saying before about, like, the one on one friendship. Like, I tend to have individual friendships, and maybe they all kinda know each other because they were at my birthday party one year, but then they don't really, like, interact too much together. Where Tamara has more the like, a group we have both. We both have both, but, like, you kinda always have a posse. Do I?

Leisa Reed: 24:50

I think so, but maybe not.

Tamara Kindred: 24:52

Yeah. I mean, I have a good group of friends from here, Hawaii. It would be fun to we a couple years ago, we, went to Italy, and there was 10 of us. And, talk about that would be an interesting to be a fly on the wall to watch that whole thing go down. It's not everyone.

Tamara Kindred: 25:12

It was mostly all the nine other people were all connected through me. Some had met each other, some had not. It was like and then we're traveling in a foreign country, and it was quite a interesting experiment and and experience. But I think we all came through on the other side as you know, I may not, like, reach out to each other all the time, but we're still that group that all got to go to Italy together.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 25:40

How did it go? No trauma?

Leisa Reed: 25:43

A little bit, but it wasn't I mean, considering those factors

Susan Shapiro Barash: 25:48

You there?

Leisa Reed: 25:49

Yeah. I was there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Leisa Reed: 25:51

That was fine. I think considering the factors that we were traveling, moving lots of moving parts, jet lag, all different kinds of activities that we did and the Right. Just of each other, I think we I would give us still, would give us, like, an maybe a minus. You know? Like, yes.

Leisa Reed: 26:07

There were some times where it was like, I can't take it anymore. What you know, we had a couple of minor snafus, I guess.

Tamara Kindred: 26:15

But wine also is a part of it, so that didn't help.

Leisa Reed: 26:19

But I think overall, I was really impressed because it could've gone really sideways in my opinion.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 26:25

Yeah. We like that. And we we see sometimes where you don't really know someone until you're put in a certain, you know, venue. So you discover things. I mean, maybe one of the friends was frightened of heights, and you were supposed to take a monorailer.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 26:49

You know, someone was more fearful about I don't know.

Leisa Reed: 26:54

Oh, we had seasickness, and so it was, like, half the group, which I am part of that group that gets seasick. Half some of them didn't know they got seasick until we were literally, like, in it. But Hello? I was so grateful that there were a bunch of other people who also wanted to get off the boat because Tamara can stay on the boat all day.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 27:14

But you see, this this really underscores the point how we learn about our friends through circumstances and their reactions. And often it works, but there are other you know, in this study, in my book, I'm also looking at friends who were shockingly betrayed by a friend, you know, sort of as I said before, the darker side or felt that the friend really no longer treated her well, which we talked about. But the I I have two chapters that are, you know, about really dicey friendships. One is called the the green eyed friend. So jealousy is something that you really don't want in these friendships and often takes a while to understand, you know, to really know that this friend is actually jealous or that you as their friend are jealous.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 28:09

So that's something that can be a real deal breaker. And and also the thieving friend where the friend takes your idea or, you know, the man in your life that or another friend. How about if she really in the group, she really decides that that one has to be her special friend while she while you brought her into the group. I interviewed a woman like that. So when it's really not kind treatment and yet you so trust this or trusted this person, that's that's when it really gets difficult.

Tamara Kindred: 28:52

Yeah. I did did you do any research on I mean, I'm just talking from my own experience, but I've lost two really good friends due to grief, I'd say, or death just in I my oldest daughter passed away. And I have two friends that you know, we've been friends for years, but they it just, like, they couldn't their words were, like, they just couldn't handle the sadness in my life even though I wasn't, like, in the corner huddled up, but, you know, maybe needed more than what I had needed before. And I've seen how grief can shatter relationships, which is so sad because, you know, that was probably the most time I needed friends. Did you do any type of have you looked into that?

Susan Shapiro Barash: 29:45

Yes. I interviewed. It it I'm so sorry for you Oh, thank you. For your family. I did.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 29:55

I interviewed one woman. I interviewed several, but the one that I decided to showcase was a woman who said that she had lost a very young daughter and that this friend was so not there for her. And that even the husbands were trying to explain it. She couldn't deal with it. It was she just couldn't be there because she was almost so traumatized.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 30:22

But the friend who had suffered the loss really needed the friend and found her not there in her hour of need. So for her, it was that the friend was no matter what the friend's story was, this woman was unspeakably aggrieved. And so she felt that that didn't didn't showcase a healthy, supportive, go beyond yourself kind of friendship that she needed. So, yeah, it was a deal breaker for her. So I understand exactly what you're saying.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 31:00

I believe in this life based on my research that in times of great need and in times of great joy, we learn who is really there for us. Because some of the women in the study, in my book, said that they felt that when they had great news, their friends couldn't be as enthused as they had hoped them to be, And that was sort of a red flag. So we that goes back to, is this friend really there for you? Mhmm. Is she really there through thick and thin?

Susan Shapiro Barash: 31:36

And now we're talking we just spoke about the worst thing ever. And then a woman was telling me about some really great news, and her friend wasn't there. And how about the friend in this book? The friends who kind of leave their friends behind when life gets better. So I spoke to a group of women.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 32:00

I spoke to this woman, and she represented her story as a group of women, all very close, all divorced with children struggling. And one of them found, like, the best job and the best man, and she was really transported. And the woman I interviewed said, all those years that we got each other through, could she not think maybe he had a friend? Could she not know that I couldn't even get scholarships for my kids to get into school? She knows.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 32:35

She knows what I wanted because they all wanted the same thing, and this one got it. So that kind of tension and this sense that you're not really important anymore, it is very it's again, you just lose the friend.

Leisa Reed: 32:52

And I know we've we've been talking about this book, which I'm imagining there's obviously way more than we've even chatted about today in the book, and it's called estranged. Just wanna share that with our besties. And we will put the link to that book in the show notes as well so you can get it. You can find it on Amazon or any other, you know, places that you can purchase a book, but it's called estranged. And it's by Susan Shapiro Barash, but you'll see that on there.

Leisa Reed: 33:20

I just wanna make sure and so people know where to get that. And the subtitle is how strained female friendships can be mended or ended. So, again, I love that. It's just bringing intentionality to your relationships. And I as, you know, Tamara and I are like, hey, man.

Leisa Reed: 33:38

Your best friend, that that friendship can be one of the most significant relationships in your life. And so you wanna have intention around it. So I really appreciate your

Susan Shapiro Barash: 33:50

These female friendships are so significant is because we choose. We don't choose family, including our sisters or siblings, but, you know, we're talking about females. We we seek out this friend. We bond by choice. So when it isn't really working, it can be devastating.

Tamara Kindred: 34:16

Well, on as to wrap up the show, I wanted to ask you, Susan, if you were with your best friend right now, what would you guys go and do?

Susan Shapiro Barash: 34:28

I love this question. Well, because I love museums and I love taking walks, I would say, let's go to a museum for an hour and then let's walk and talk.

Leisa Reed: 34:40

Oh, beautiful. Very nice. Sounds very calming, very enriching. And enriching is great. It is enriching.

Leisa Reed: 34:49

Of course, if we were in, say, a city, I would say and if we see a bookstore, like, a very nice clothing store, you know, nice window, we could maybe saunter in as well. I love it. That's so beautiful. Well, I'm excited that your book came out, and I think you are bringing a lot of needed conversation to society, to the world, and giving attention to women specifically. More of that is needed as you heard from our beginning opening of like, women need attention in all areas in our health and in our relationships, and we're not taken anywhere.

Leisa Reed: 35:25

We're not gonna be ignored.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 35:27

Yay.

Leisa Reed: 35:29

So women, and we love men too, and we love men supporting women. So yay. Thank you, and, you know, we're gonna wish you the best. And besties, we will see you on our next episode. So thank you, Susan.

Susan Shapiro Barash: 35:44

Thank you for having me on. So lovely to spend time with both of you.

Tamara Kindred: 35:48

Thank you.

Leisa Reed: 35:52

Hey, bestie. Thanks for listening. If you like this episode, be sure to hit that subscribe button to get notified of new episodes and check out cool Bestie gift ideas at howImetmybff.com.

Tamara Kindred: 36:03

That's right. And also leave us a review. Those reviews help us out a lot and are one of the best ways to support us.

Leisa Reed: 36:09

Yes. And if you have a fun story about how you met your BFF, send us an email at info@howImetmyBFF.com. We would love to hear about it.

Tamara Kindred: 36:18

Definitely. And, hey, maybe we'll have you on our next episode.

Leisa Reed: 36:22

That would be awesome. Until next time.

Tamara Kindred: 36:25

Love you, BFFs.