Episode 19
Neurodivergent friends - the relationship trauma nobody talks about
Breakups Aren’t Just for Lovers: Why Losing Neurodivergent Friends Hurts So Damn Much
We don’t talk enough about the heartbreak of losing neurodivergent friends. For many of us, those friendships feel deeper than family. And when they end, the grief can be worse than any romantic breakup.
This Different Not Broken episode dives into the messy, under-discussed reality of neurodivergent friendships: why they click so intensely, why they sometimes vanish without warning, and why the grief lingers for years.
I'm doin' it. I'm getting real and raw, sharing my own story of losing a best friend—the late-night phone calls that suddenly stopped, the milestones missed, the ache that outlasted every past relationship breakup.
Why listen?
- If you’ve ever lost a neurodivergent friend and felt like no one understood how deep it cut.
- If you’ve wondered why friendship grief can feel sharper than heartbreak.
- If you’re tired of being told to “get over it.”
- Or if you just want to feel seen.
Because friendship breakups aren’t just side notes—they’re real grief.
And for neurodivergent friends, that loss can shake your world.
Hit play for a necessary, validating reminder: you’re not broken for hurting this bad.
Mentioned in this episode:
Build Your Better course
Build your better course - https://stan.store/elletwo/p/build-your-better
Transcript
I didn't actually die. It just felt like a part of me was dying. Like
Speaker:maybe this life is kind of cool. It was so
Speaker:much more devastating than any relationship breakup I have ever been through, by
Speaker:a margin of a huge amount.
Speaker:You are entitled to every feeling, even when you want to turn them off
Speaker:and never feel them again. But also, I think, like, we
Speaker:should normalize that this happens and that it's probably just
Speaker:part of growing up and growing older. But it still hurts. And
Speaker:it's allowed to hurt. All right, here we go. I'm gonna
Speaker:pretend I'm pushing record. Cause that feels right. Okay, I'm pressing record.
Speaker:Boop. Hi, everybody. I'm Lauren Howard. I
Speaker:go by L2. Yes, you can call me L2. Everybody does.
Speaker:It's a long story. It's actually not that long a story, but we'll save it
Speaker:for another time. Welcome to Different Not Broken,
Speaker:which is our podcast on exactly that. That there are a lot of
Speaker:people in this world walking around feeling broken. And the reality is you're just different.
Speaker:And that's.
Speaker:So I want to talk a little bit about
Speaker:breakups, but not the kind of breakup
Speaker:that you are probably thinking about, even though they're kind
Speaker:of all the same thing. But I just been thinking about this
Speaker:lately, and I've written about it before. I don't think I've ever talked about it
Speaker:before, like on a program or anything that we've done. But
Speaker:I think it's important. It came up in our super top secret
Speaker:project with the wonderful pilot participants who have been
Speaker:amazing to work with, but somebody brought it up like
Speaker:a week ago, just kind of the disintegration of certain
Speaker:relationships and how it seems to be, I don't want to say
Speaker:repetitive, but it's common, I think, especially in
Speaker:neurodivergent friendships and very hard to navigate, very hard
Speaker:to figure out. And so I've been through a couple of really ugly
Speaker:relationship breakups in my life. I think I was with
Speaker:somebody for a very long time before I met my husband. And
Speaker:everybody around us said that we were gonna get married. I think we were probably,
Speaker:eh. We were old enough, but not old enough. Like, I got married when
Speaker:I was 25, and I still think I wasn't old enough. We all treated it
Speaker:like it was a relationship. It was, it was. We were together a very long
Speaker:time. And it ended
Speaker:definitively. It wasn't like it kind of petered out and disappeared. It ended
Speaker:definitively. I was crushed. I thought I would never
Speaker:recover for what felt like eternity. And it really like
Speaker:a month. But this was a time in my life when
Speaker:38 was like, I'm never going to be 38. That's so
Speaker:old. Ouch, ouch. Younger me. But
Speaker:anyway, and it's funny, I remember I was
Speaker:working at a, a huge music store then and there was an
Speaker:album that came out with a song on it called Sober.
Speaker:And to this day, I don't know if it's about actual sobriety or just about
Speaker:healing, but she basically says, like, it's been three months and
Speaker:I'm still sober, meaning I'm still figuring
Speaker:this thing out. And they played it in the
Speaker:store while I was working. And I kind of looked up and went like,
Speaker:wait, I think it's been three months. And it had been like exactly three
Speaker:months that day. And it was just about how, you know, three months in,
Speaker:you could be better, but not there yet. And I was like, wow, I kind
Speaker:of, I really feel my life right in front of me. This is wild. And
Speaker:it just happened to be playing over 105,000 square
Speaker:feet of retail space while I was having this giant realization while
Speaker:ringing people out for their $10 CDs.
Speaker:I remember that being like a milestone where it was like, oh, okay,
Speaker:it's been three months and I'm not great, but I'm getting there. And then not
Speaker:that long after that, I was driving home and that song
Speaker:by, I think it's by Chris Daughtry came on. I think
Speaker:it's called over you. The few times in my life where I've like heard songs
Speaker:that I've heard before and realized either they
Speaker:meant something different to me then or they meant something different in
Speaker:general than what I had originally perceived. And I was listening to
Speaker:it as a person who, I think that was the moment where I was like,
Speaker:oh, wait a minute, I am living my life. I'm like super happy. I have
Speaker:friends, I'm busy. I don't need that person anymore. I think I did
Speaker:actually get over him. That's amazing. Awesome. And I felt
Speaker:very empowered as a 20 something year old
Speaker:minimum wage worker who wasn't quite out of college yet. I was like,
Speaker:oh, the future's in front of me. I don't need that person. That guy's a
Speaker:loser. And that was the first time I remember feeling that way. But that's like
Speaker:a very typical breakup trajectory. I was young enough that
Speaker:it felt like it mattered, but it really didn't matter. A couple years
Speaker:later, I met my husband. So that's kind of
Speaker:very typical relationship stuff. I think most People
Speaker:who have been in long term relationships or more than one long term relationship
Speaker:have had a similar experience where it ends,
Speaker:it's heartbreaking. You feel like your life is over and then
Speaker:one day you wake up and you're like, oh, I didn't
Speaker:actually die. It just felt like a part of me was dying. Like maybe this
Speaker:life is kind of cool. Maybe I'm going to stick with this thing. And you
Speaker:move in a different direction and eventually you meet someone new or you don't. Like
Speaker:that's not a requirement. As a person who's been
Speaker:happily married for a very long time, being single sounds kind of great.
Speaker:And I don't say that as a person who wants to be single, but seriously,
Speaker:like being single and living alone and like not having anybody
Speaker:who expects you to put pants on ever, that sounds delightful.
Speaker:Votive support for that. But also I
Speaker:love my husband and he's kind of neat and he makes fairy parties for my
Speaker:kids and so. But anyway, that's not even the kind of breakup I want to
Speaker:talk about because that was hard and difficult and felt devastating
Speaker:at the time. And I wasn't sure how I was going to go on with
Speaker:my life. And then I did and everything was fine and it got better as
Speaker:a result of it. And I'm very, very grateful that that person broke my
Speaker:heart. So it hasn't been a thing in a while, but
Speaker:as a person who has been through a real relationship breakup that
Speaker:truly in some ways change the trajectory of my life.
Speaker:That's still not the most substantial breakup I've ever been through.
Speaker:And I think this is probably really common for,
Speaker:you know, neurodivergent people who don't always find people they're
Speaker:comfortable with or who like click with someone and click
Speaker:really hard and then not having that anymore feels really
Speaker:bad. I was friends with somebody for a super long time.
Speaker:Like the kind of friend that I could like call while I was in the
Speaker:bathroom. Like that kind of close. Like there was no boundaries, there were no
Speaker:limits. We talked about everything. We.
Speaker:It was like everything inappropriate. And I'd known her for so
Speaker:long, certainly before we were adults and then we kind of went into
Speaker:adulthood together and you know, she really felt like the other half of my existence
Speaker:for a long time. Sometimes we'd go a couple weeks without talking
Speaker:just because life. But we were usually on the other end of
Speaker:the phone for each other. And she was my first phone call when something great
Speaker:happened and she was my first phone call when something awful happened and same thing.
Speaker:And we would Drop everything and drive to the other one. We lived a couple
Speaker:hours apart. It was a really important
Speaker:relationship in early adulthood because it was
Speaker:somebody who knew me well enough. I could make mistakes, I could say stupid things,
Speaker:I could do stupid things. You know, the kind of friend who would be like,
Speaker:I think this is dumb, but I'm down for it if that's what you want
Speaker:to do. Like, those friends are important when your prefrontal cortex is still
Speaker:developing. One day I woke up and she just kind of
Speaker:wasn't there anymore. And there wasn't, like,
Speaker:a fight. There wasn't an argument. I had been kind of
Speaker:hard to be friends with for a while, but to this
Speaker:day, I don't think that was it. We had gone through four years of infertility.
Speaker:And my social skills, anytime there's significant
Speaker:stress or trauma, my social skills are the first thing to go. You know, I'm
Speaker:sure I had not been a very connected friend during that time period, but also,
Speaker:like, she couldn't be involved in a daily basis because she didn't live here, but
Speaker:she was involved, and she knew what was happening, and she knew that it was
Speaker:hard. And she was also at kind of a different place in her life where,
Speaker:you know, when you're going through infertility, this is what I did. I don't know
Speaker:that anybody else does this, but when I went through infertility, I was like, any
Speaker:person of childbearing age who
Speaker:is potentially looking to have a child right now who is going to sneeze and
Speaker:get pregnant needs to get out of my life, because I've been doing this.
Speaker:We're years into this, and it has destroyed
Speaker:my entire brain and my entire body. And I think I didn't have
Speaker:the capacity to be a good friend during that time period. And maybe that was
Speaker:part of the problem. It's entirely possible that that was part of the problem. But,
Speaker:you know, I did eventually get pregnant, and I thought that would be the
Speaker:first really excited phone call. And I'm sure we talked.
Speaker:I don't remember the screaming excitement that I thought I
Speaker:would get from the person who I semi love most in
Speaker:this world. And then just, like, little things like,
Speaker:huh, I would have thought I would find out about that before I find
Speaker:out about it on the Internet. Okay, that's fine. Oh,
Speaker:I knew this thing was going to happen, and I thought she would call me
Speaker:and talk to me about it, and she didn't. Oh, okay. That's weird. Then
Speaker:you, like, gaslight yourself, right? You're like, I'm Making all this up. This is all
Speaker:in my head. This is not a thing. But then you're so far in your
Speaker:head about it that even though this is somebody who you can talk to about
Speaker:anything, you're like, I don't want to bring it up. I don't want to be
Speaker:the person who's making a thing out of nothing. I'm being overly sensitive.
Speaker:I'm six months pregnant. Of course I'm being overly sensitive. Everything's
Speaker:in my head. This hasn't changed. And then
Speaker:she didn't RSVP to my baby shower or something like that, like something that your
Speaker:best friend would be at. And I was like, okay, well, there's something
Speaker:there. But like, I'm going to give it time to breathe. I don't have the
Speaker:mental and emotional capacity to deal with this right now. At the time, obviously, I
Speaker:was very pregnant. My kid was six weeks early. And then my dad died when
Speaker:she was six weeks old, and he had been really sick for the whole year
Speaker:prior. And so it was just like there was a lot going on and that
Speaker:was not the thing that I was focused on. To her credit, when my dad
Speaker:did die, she did everything right. No question. She did everything
Speaker:right. So it's not a question of, like, whether she's a good person or not,
Speaker:because that's never been part of the considerations. I don't remember what happened, but
Speaker:I just remember finding out that I was being. I don't want to make it
Speaker:sound like it was about me. It wasn't about me, but I found out that
Speaker:they were doing something. I don't even remember what it was. Something that
Speaker:if we were still those friends, I would have been included
Speaker:in. And I had no idea about it. And I found out about it on
Speaker:the Internet and I finally sent a text that just said, I
Speaker:really would have thought you would have given me a heads up if you didn't
Speaker:want me involved in this. But I got the message now and I was like,
Speaker:my dad had just died or had died a couple of months prior.
Speaker:I'm at home with this, like, tiny premature baby.
Speaker:I'm grieving everything in my whole life. And then
Speaker:also this thing. And
Speaker:I certainly have never gotten over the grief of my dad dying. And that's something
Speaker:that I live with every day. And the kid is now nine,
Speaker:so she's slightly less troublesome in some ways and significantly
Speaker:more troublesome in others, like in good ways. But I don't know, it's like she's
Speaker:been raised by mouthy, irreverent people or something because she's mouthy and
Speaker:irreverent all the time. It was probably
Speaker:five years before it didn't
Speaker:render me to tears. Anytime I would think about
Speaker:took so long to
Speaker:start feeling like I was capable of making friends again. To start
Speaker:feeling like maybe that wasn't the only close female friendship I'll ever have.
Speaker:It was so much more devastating than any
Speaker:relationship breakup I have ever been through by a margin of a
Speaker:huge amount. And again, I say that as somebody who's been in
Speaker:serious relationships before, like relationships that were supposed to be forever.
Speaker:Relationships that broke up before I ended up in the one
Speaker:that didn't. So it's not like I don't have any experience with
Speaker:that kind of loss. But to this
Speaker:day, aside from my dad dying,
Speaker:nothing has ever hurt as bad. And I think that's something we
Speaker:don't talk about enough. I think we
Speaker:act like the only relationships you
Speaker:grieve or you have long term feelings about
Speaker:are romantic ones. Outside of romantic relationships that are designed for
Speaker:procreation and furthering of the species. You just pull up
Speaker:your bootstraps and get over it. That is not what happened.
Speaker:That is not what happened. So much so that
Speaker:at one point I finally reached out and was just like, I just need
Speaker:to know what happened. Like this was years later,
Speaker:years later. And I thought I was reaching out because I was
Speaker:healed enough to deal with it. And it was something that I had done tons
Speaker:of work on to try to feel better and more confident and less
Speaker:kind of traumatized by it. And the response that I
Speaker:got was not. It wasn't bad, it
Speaker:wasn't mean, it wasn't aggressive. It just was not. I think
Speaker:I still wanted to hear what five years later, that it
Speaker:was still all in my head.
Speaker:I think I still wanted to hear what five years later
Speaker:that it was still all in my head. What are you talking about? This has
Speaker:never changed. Nothing's changed. And obviously it had changed. Obviously it had
Speaker:changed. There was nobody I was calling from the
Speaker:bathroom anymore. Obviously it had changed.
Speaker:But when that wasn't the answer that I got and it shouldn't have been the
Speaker:answer that I got. Like that would have been a complete denial of reality, which
Speaker:would have been a totally different version of gaslighting that I don't know how I
Speaker:would have handled. I realized how not healed I was
Speaker:because I got so upset and so hurt by the response. And
Speaker:the response was reasonable. It was reasonable for
Speaker:somebody you hadn't talked to in a while who had not been that
Speaker:important to you. But then you start going through the like, maybe I was never
Speaker:as important to her as I thought I was. Maybe I misunderstood our
Speaker:friendship. Maybe I didn't understand 12 years
Speaker:of. Or 10 years or whatever it was. And that
Speaker:was five years in, and I still had a really visceral reaction to it.
Speaker:The reason this comes up, we've been working on a new project with
Speaker:some individuals, many of whom identify as neurodivergent, many of
Speaker:whom identify as femme. And this topic that keeps coming up is
Speaker:this idea of neurodivergent femme friendships and why
Speaker:they're so hard to keep and why so many of us feel like we have
Speaker:like a kind of a friend graveyard, for lack of a better term. They're still
Speaker:alive. Not that kind of graveyard, but just like a
Speaker:list of people you can look at. Oh, well, yeah, we were friends in high
Speaker:school, but we don't talk to anymore. Oh, yeah, we were really close during this
Speaker:period of my life. They don't carry through. They don't carry through. And
Speaker:I'm. I'm very fortunate. I do have friends who have carried through. My very best
Speaker:friend in my whole life. I've known since I was nine. And he and I
Speaker:can talk once a year. We talk usually more than that, but sometimes he
Speaker:sends me to voicemail. Don't send me to voicemail. You're the only person I call.
Speaker:It doesn't matter. Like, I could call him at 3 o' clock in the
Speaker:morning and be like, I need a smoothie. And he
Speaker:would be like, I don't know why you're calling me, you're an idiot. But like,
Speaker:how do we get you a smoothie? He doesn't live here, so he can't get
Speaker:me a smoothie. But if he lived nearby, he would. His mom is the first
Speaker:person I call. I call his mom before I call my mom. I'm very close
Speaker:with her. I talk with her more than I talk with him. But we've been
Speaker:best friends since we were nine and there is nothing that has ever
Speaker:like not talking there. Doesn't matter. It just means that we're both busy and
Speaker:we're gonna catch up eventually and he's gonna cut straight to the core of
Speaker:me because he's known me since I'm nine. And I'm gonna get really mad that
Speaker:he was able to reduce me so quickly. And then he's gonna do
Speaker:something amazing and I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna do something amazing and he's
Speaker:gonna show up and he was in a really horrific car accident.
Speaker:God, probably six years ago now. I can't believe that. So horrific that
Speaker:the police report said that it was vehicular
Speaker:homicide. And the police officer did not realize that he was still
Speaker:alive. And thankfully, the paramedics got there and
Speaker:realized that he was alive and got him to the hospital. And his neck was
Speaker:broken, and there was all sorts of really awful stuff, but he got through
Speaker:it. And he at one point, sent me a picture of him
Speaker:with his. It's called the halo. It's the thing that, like, keeps your neck
Speaker:straight, that they, like, literally drill into your skull after you've broken your spine.
Speaker:And he sent me a picture of him wearing that. And he had a tie
Speaker:tied around his head, and it looked so silly. I called
Speaker:him American Injury Warrior. I was really proud of myself for that one. And
Speaker:to this day, still very proud of myself for that one. But
Speaker:he will always be my best friend. The point that I was saying is that
Speaker:when he got into the accident, his sister called me.
Speaker:I saw the area code, and I was in a meeting,
Speaker:and I was like, well, that's weird. I haven't gotten a call from that area
Speaker:code in a while, but I sent it to voicemail. And then she called again,
Speaker:and I was like, oh, God, this is bad news. And so I picked up
Speaker:the phone, and the first thing she says is, okay, he's okay. They didn't know
Speaker:his status at that point. He was still in surgery. It was terrifying. And so
Speaker:I was like, I'm gonna jump on a plane. I'll be there in a couple
Speaker:hours. And you should know I don't fly. So that was,
Speaker:like, a big deal that I was like, all right, I'll be there in a
Speaker:couple hours. And his other sister was like, no, don't.
Speaker:That is when you guys show up for each other. If you show up here,
Speaker:he is gonna think that he has been given a death sentence.
Speaker:She was like, I will put you on the phone with him later. You guys
Speaker:can talk if you wanna come later, once we're through the worst of it.
Speaker:Absolutely. But if you're the person he sees when he wakes up,
Speaker:he will think he's dying. And I was like, yeah, that's. That's
Speaker:accurate. That's correct. So I did talk to him that night and told him that.
Speaker:And he, to this day, does not remember that conversation. But
Speaker:the drugs were good, as they should be when you've had your neck
Speaker:broken. Anyway, I have those relationships. I have those
Speaker:friendships. I know how devastated I would be if anything ever happened to him or
Speaker:if for some reason that relationship went away. But I also know that that relationship
Speaker:is not going anywhere. It's been my whole life. He would
Speaker:literally have to be body snatched for anything to change.
Speaker:And I think I thought this was that too. And
Speaker:that's probably why it was so devastating, because
Speaker:it wasn't. And I don't know what changed, but something changed. And she's right,
Speaker:something did change, but I don't know what it is. So it's come up a
Speaker:couple of times that there are a lot of neurodivergent women who feel like they
Speaker:can't maintain relationships with other females. Well, women,
Speaker:that part of the human experience is foreign to
Speaker:them. And it's not for lack of trying. It's not like they
Speaker:don't have any experience having friendships
Speaker:and maintaining relationships and whatever. It's not
Speaker:that. It's just for some reason this one part of the
Speaker:experience doesn't work out for them. And I identify
Speaker:with that so much because I can. Again, I can think back to this.
Speaker:I call it my montage of curly haired brunettes. Because for whatever reason, they're
Speaker:all curly haired brunettes. Like people who
Speaker:were so integral to my world and like the first phone call and
Speaker:then all of a sudden like, just not. That grieving
Speaker:process is as important as
Speaker:any other grieving process. It doesn't deserve less respect
Speaker:or less attention or less validation.
Speaker:Because it wasn't a relationship where you're expected to make
Speaker:babies. Not being your life partner does not mean you didn't expect them
Speaker:to be with you for life. I just think it's really important to say like
Speaker:that. I mean, we're probably almost
Speaker:10 years in now and finally in the last like two
Speaker:or three years, which is probably indicative of
Speaker:some of the bigger changes that I've made in my life as a whole. But
Speaker:finally, in the last two or three years, like, the burn has started to calm
Speaker:down. It doesn't sting quite as much. It doesn't pop into my
Speaker:head constantly. But that grieving
Speaker:process took longer than. It took
Speaker:longer than any other grieving process that I've ever
Speaker:been part of. My dad included. I'll always be grieving my dad. But I
Speaker:mean, people's dads die. And
Speaker:as much as I wish I could go back in time and have
Speaker:my dad not die, that is not a story that you don't hear
Speaker:of, like, people's dads die. And I understood he was
Speaker:sick. I knew all of his medical history. I knew that this was coming. Whether
Speaker:I wanted to admit it or not, it made sense. I could find
Speaker:the sense in it. As much as it was devastating and completely
Speaker:disarming and really, really almost felt
Speaker:impossible at times, it still made sense. Dads die and
Speaker:sick people die. I understand that
Speaker:it wasn't a part of my everyday. It didn't
Speaker:render me incapable on
Speaker:the regular after a certain point. I mean, it still creeps into my regular day
Speaker:to day thoughts, but it just. It just made sense. And I think I
Speaker:knew what to expect there and I felt comfortable with that
Speaker:process and that was okay. That was not
Speaker:what this was. The questions, the
Speaker:perseverations, the feeling really small,
Speaker:the feeling like I
Speaker:just wish I knew what happened. The feeling like I didn't have any answers.
Speaker:The feeling like I had lost the other end of the phone.
Speaker:You know, before there had always been somebody on the other end of the phone.
Speaker:And now it felt like that wasn't there. And that was really weird and uncomfortable,
Speaker:all of that. It took years. It took
Speaker:actual years. You know, we're talking about 10 years on. I'm at a
Speaker:place now where the sting's not there, but when I see it happening in other
Speaker:relationships, I feel that still. And it's not as dramatic, it's not
Speaker:as drawn out. I'm slightly more reasonable about it.
Speaker:I just think it's important to give yourself the
Speaker:space to recognize that
Speaker:relationships outside of romantic relationships matter. They sometimes matter
Speaker:more. That is a real grieving process. And it's not
Speaker:linear. Grief is never linear. It's not like one day you just wake up and
Speaker:you're like, oh, I'm good now. Or like there's a date on the calendar, like
Speaker:in 30 days I'm going to be fine. It's been 10 years, man.
Speaker:Maybe longer than that. I don't know. What's time? Time is
Speaker:irrelevant. But you got to give yourself space to grieve.
Speaker:Whatever your brain and body wants to grieve. And that could be
Speaker:an idea. It could be the idea of who you thought you were going to
Speaker:be. It could be a job. I've grieved
Speaker:jobs for way longer than I thought I would. It could be a
Speaker:loved one. It could be property. Like it could be the house that you thought
Speaker:you were gonna raise your kids in that you're not gonna get to have anymore.
Speaker:Everything is built to an idea and ideas have
Speaker:emotions attached to them. And when something that you hoped for
Speaker:and had wanted for and had dreamed of is not gonna happen, regardless what it
Speaker:is, you grieve that. And you should grieve that. And this idea
Speaker:that you just move on and grow up and get over it is not realistic.
Speaker:So if you are a fellow nerd or virgin
Speaker:weirdo like myself, and that is something that you have struggled
Speaker:with. One those really long, extended grief processes when
Speaker:you don't have answers and things feel really insecure. I
Speaker:see you. I get that. I experienced it.
Speaker:And you are entitled to every feeling, even when you want
Speaker:to turn them off and never feel them again. But also, I think, like, we
Speaker:should normalize that this happens and that it's probably just
Speaker:part of growing up and growing older. But it still hurts
Speaker:and it's allowed to hurt. There is nothing wrong with you
Speaker:if that's been part of your story. Because from the
Speaker:conversations I've had, this is really common. We don't talk
Speaker:about it enough so that we don't immediately internalize it as well.
Speaker:I'm just clearly a bad friend. Maybe you guys are just in different parts of
Speaker:your lives and there's no timeline on that. You don't have to wake up tomorrow
Speaker:and just be okay with it. Your brain will take as much time as it
Speaker:needs for
Speaker:this week's small talk again, Remember, this is something we do every week. I want
Speaker:to know something that you are super particular about
Speaker:and why is it pens? Because if I were to open
Speaker:the drawer of my desk, you would see easily 100 different
Speaker:pension in little bins. They're cute. They're organized. Some of them are markers, some of
Speaker:them are pens, some of them are sparkly. They're all some sort of fancy version
Speaker:of gel ink or felt tip
Speaker:or something. I cannot not buy a pen.
Speaker:I have a pen. I have a type of pen that is my favorite. It's
Speaker:a pilot precise V10RT. It also
Speaker:comes. This does not prove my point at all. It also comes in a
Speaker:stick version that I don't like as much. I don't know what's different, but
Speaker:something's different. But it's fine. I have plenty of these too. But it's Pilot Precise
Speaker:V10. It's a 1.0 tip and it's liquid
Speaker:ink and I have them in every color you can
Speaker:get them in. I don't have any blue around here and I know I
Speaker:can tell you where to get them. I can tell you where you can't get
Speaker:them. I have like a reorder button on Amazon because I buy them
Speaker:so often. I don't usually buy them from Amazon anymore. I try not to.
Speaker:They're more expensive there. And also I try to buy them other places, but they're
Speaker:hard to get. The refill ink costs as much as a whole new pen
Speaker:and they're expensive. So I know these are my favorite pens in
Speaker:the whole world and I have purchased them for many years and they are the
Speaker:best. And do not bring me a V7 or a V5. Get that nonsense
Speaker:out of my house. No. We are here for bold
Speaker:only. We are not fine people. It's not
Speaker:welcome here. If you put a V7 in my hand, I will
Speaker:have a visceral reaction when I write with it. And somehow some ended up in
Speaker:my collection. Every time I find one I like tossed at the nanny, I'm like,
Speaker:this one's for you. She's like, can you stop throwing pens at me? I don't
Speaker:actually throw it at her. She just doesn't mind and she likes them.
Speaker:Whereas I'm like, what is this traf? Trafe is Yiddish for non
Speaker:kosher food for the uninitiated in the house. Anyway, I will
Speaker:still buy all the pens. And I buy pens like literally weekly. I just bought
Speaker:a new pack of. I was scrolling and they popped up. And of course they're.
Speaker:They're fountain pens. They're kind of fancy. I like them. They're neat. They're not as
Speaker:good as these. I know I'm not going to like them as much. I still
Speaker:buy them. Something pops up that has a 1.0 ink, that's liquid, I will buy
Speaker:it. Don't show up with ballpoint pens. Nobody wants that nonsense in my house.
Speaker:Why did I need to buy glitter gel pens last week when I was school
Speaker:supply shopping for my children? I don't know. Anyway, I could talk about
Speaker:pens clearly for a very long time because I already have. So,
Speaker:1. What is your favorite pen? 2. What
Speaker:thing do you know lots about that other people just exist around.
Speaker:Send those to me and we'll read them. Thanks for being here, guys. Have a
Speaker:good day. Love you. Mean it.
Speaker:I have a whole stack of the black ones because I bought new ones to
Speaker:do these letter signings. I've gone through three of them in the last two days.
Speaker:That's how many letters I've signed in the event that anybody wants to forge
Speaker:my signature on a check.
