What's your attachment style? Special Guest Jessica Fern

Well hey there sweeties. Welcome back to Friendless, the only podcast that tries to teach you how to be a better friend by losing every friend you have. I'm your host James Avramenko. Back from what was supposed to be a two week holiday and turned into almost two months with a brand new batch of interviews to launch season five of the show. To kick things off, I've got an incredible guest joining me today the one the only Jessica Fern. Jessica is a psychotherapist, public speaker, trauma and relationships expert, and the author of one of the best books I read last year Polysecure. She's got a brand new book out called the Polysecure workbook that I cannot recommend enough. It maybe feels hyperbolic to say but she has fundamentally changed my life and it was an honour to get her on the show. Jessica and I discussed attachment styles, intimacy with friends, consensual platonic touch, and so much more. She is an absolutely incredible guest and I think you're going to absolutely love this interview. But don't take my word for it. That's enough for me, it's time to lean back. Get comfy, set your headphones at a reasonable level. And let's dive into my interview with the incomparable Jessica Fern here on Friendless. So you are a psychotherapist, public speaker, trauma and Relationship Expert, you are the author of one of my absolute favourite relationship books Polysecure. But for for audiences who maybe aren't familiar with your work. I'm wondering if you could give sort of a overview that's it's kind of a blunt question. But who are you? And what? What do you do in the world?

Totally, so professionally, and we can talk about, you know, non professionally as well. But right, I'm a therapist, I work with individuals, couples, and everything beyond that non traditional relationship orientations and structures. And yeah, non monogamy. And so in really, and I'm also a researcher by, you know, training and background so that kind of got combined together with the book Polysecure a really trying to help make sense of all these people in my office that were wanting non monogamy but struggling with it. Right, and sort of one of the several things I landed on was, oh, there's all this attachment stuff coming up. And of course, as I went to the attachment literature, it was like, Ooh, this is really, you know, mono normative. Some of its like, you know, subtle and some of its really overt and it pathologizes is non monogamy as an attachment disruption, you know, as it as an expression of attachment insecurity. And yet, that's not exactly what I was seeing in the actual research on attachment. And non monogamy doesn't show that it's an expression of, you know, insecurity. Right. So yeah, Polysecure was the first book to sort of bridge non monogamy and attachment theory.

Mm hmm. And it was, you know, that book. It just, it opened up my eyes to such a beautiful world of, you know, the discussion about the attachment styles. And that's something I'd like to ask you about in a moment, but, but I know, for me personally, just as a reader, it just, it gave me a lexicon, you know, and it gave me an understanding of, of not only myself, but of the people around me, and it's just, it's become such a valuable tool, you know, to that end, I think maybe, maybe we should set a couple of definitions just so that that that that listeners are sort of familiar with some of the terms. I think that the key one really is, through your research. What exactly is attachment? And do you think maybe you could do like a brief overview of the different attachment styles?

Yes. So a brief overview is, you know, an attachment theory comes from John Bowlby, and then the research of Mary Ainsworth, and it's many decades of research at this point, and it has its strengths. And then it's of course shortcomings. What we're talking about initially is the bond of the baby to its caretakers that there has to be this attachment. Where and the attachment needs that, you know, baby comes into this world expecting to be cared for, it needs to be cared for to survive, right? So our survival and attachment bonding is really, you know, merged together. And most of us think survival is just physical needs, but it's really attachment is about the emotional needs of feeling attunement and warmth and the availability and the responsiveness of our caretakers. Enough of the time, it's not about 100% of the time. And so depending on how able our caretakers were to, you know, meet those attachment needs and bond to us and us to them. And there can be many factors that were out of their control. It's not about parents blaming, right. But, you know, if there was able to be a secure bonds, then we have a secure attachment style, and we feel safe with the people around us, we feel safe in the world, and then we feel free to go and explore, right, so it's like, Oh, I know how to do connection and closeness. And I can also be independent. To me, right? It's like the best of both worlds.

The dream.

Right. And, you know, you can articulate your boundaries, you can ask for your needs to be met, you're happy to meet the needs of others, like, it's lots of wonderful things, there's, you know, high self esteem, all that comes from, you know, having more of a secure experience, right. And again, there's many factors of why, you know, we could not have it, so then there's the insecure styles, which, depending on you know, if our parents were rejecting or scary or very loving, but too focused on us actually, or inconsistent, like loves there, sometimes it's not there the other time, you know, are very sick focused on themselves. Or, you know, there's issues like there's racism or poverty that our parents are dealing with, right? Things like that, right? illness in the house, children with special needs, all that kind of stuff, we can have three different attachment styles that emerge. And those can be an avoidant dismissive, or someone's more pulled back, you know, and becomes more self reliant, they learn, I really can't rely on the people around me to meet my needs, basically. So I have to become more self reliant myself and usually shut down my attachment needs, right? So you'll have someone as an adult with that style that's usually very capable in the world, right. But when it comes to the interpersonal relationship, they tend to not be as in touch with their own feelings and needs and have trouble being attune to their partners, even if they really love them. Right, then the opposite end is the anxious preoccupied and that's someone who's very focused externally on their partner, usually at the expense of themselves, right, and there's a lot of anxiety. And instead of the shutting down of their attachment needs, their attachment needs are really, you know, kind of hyper, right. And then the third style is called disorganised or fearful, withdrawn. And that goes back and forth between the two. where someone is, you know, leaning in pulling back, grasping towards pushing away, right, and usually, that's when there's been more overt trauma. That's happened.

Yeah, that's the one that was describing me. That was the one I fell into as I as I was reading the book. Alright. Okay, so you've got me pegged. That's it.

Yeah, and it's the one that gets the most pathologized you know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it's also the one that I would identify with as well and had to work through. Yeah, yeah.

It's, it's funny, it's, you know, it's always fun to read these kinds of books and to, you know, when you encounter you know, these concepts that you've never really you know, seen before even knew really existed, and then you go, Oh, you, you have written about me without me ever

RIght like oh how did that happen? meeting you.

It's very validating but it's also kind of frightening, in a way at times, you know,

Totally to feel like, I mean, I've heard this with people with something like the Myers Briggs or the Enneagram, or their astrology, they're like, Oh, my goodness, am I just like a cliche?

Exactly. Yes, yeah. It's beautiful. Yeah. So, so, um, what exactly what drew you into this world of researching attachment and non monogamy and I guess what, what, you know, why did you choose this as a as a specialty?

I feel like it chose me. Quite literally, I feel like it you know, his clients coming to me who happen to be exploring non monogamy and they probably came to me because I was already very narrative therapy based Gotcha. which for those of those that know, narrative therapy or not, it's like really looking at what are the discourses and narratives at the societal and cultural levels that, you know, make us who we are? And looking to really deconstruct those right, am I living someone else's script or my own? Right so I already was in the framework of let's deconstruct things. Like let's not just take gender or binaries or sexual orientation, as you know, so it like the skill set I had made sense that you people exploring non monogamy would come to me and I'd go Oh, yeah, let's deconstruct monogamy. Right? Is that what you think you should do or not? You know? Yeah. Um, so then though as listening to people seeing that a lot of the challenges they were having were attachment based, right, that the opening up process would often activate insecure attachment styles within themselves, you know, or with their partner. And that just, you know, being non monogamous, even if it's not the newly opening up different transitions that people go through of escalations, de escalations, different levels of hierarchy, right, the introduction of a new partner into a poly kewl all of these are moments that then suddenly there can be increased attachment. Insecurity. Right? Right, because we have multiple attachment relationships happening.

Exactly. Yeah. And it's that interesting, navigating of of it. I'm sure you could find the words better than I can, but it's that it you know, it's treating each person as the individual rather than as some kind of prescriptive behaviour.

Yeah, exactly. So for people listening to you here, you know, you and I talked about the attachment styles to know like, that is not prescriptive, either that even one person can have more than one attachment style, throughout their life, even their attachment style can change in the same relationship. And that if you even if you have an insecure style or history, you can have secure functioning and like heal towards secure attachment.

Yes, that's and that's one thing I do hold on to is there is hope, you know, you can you can shift and you can change, right?

It really is. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I think that the other element of sort of for for, you know, sort of laying baseline or definitions of things like that is, you know, you've been using the the terms, polyamorous non monogamous things like that. One of the one of the sort of terms that I see pop up a lot, especially on you know, things like dating apps and things like that. And I'd like to ask further about that in a moment. But but the term, you see a lot is ethical, non monogamous. Right. And I guess, to start with, I'm wondering if you could give at least your sort of perspective on the definition of the difference between these kinds of of terms, and then I think the follow up is, is what exactly is ethical? Right, like, what is what how do you? How do you define that?

I love this question. Yeah. So I think most people are using consensual non monogamy and ethical non monogamy sort of synonymously. Right, as both being these umbrella terms to, you know, encompass the many different ways people are exploring or living or orient to non monogamy. Right. So swingers solo polyamory, polyamory, monogamish, open marriage, like all of that, you know, is sort of under that umbrella. Right? I struggle with the ethical non monogamy, because I think what you're getting at is it's like, well, whose ethics are we talking about? Right, and my sense of right, So first of all, we can have many different kinds of ethical orientations and ethical values. Um, but you know, there's some great developmental, like adult developmental research on different stages of moral and ethical development. You have people at all different stages, doing the same kind of thing, and it's expressed very differently, right? So I do I want to be careful of like, well, what is it? Whose ethics are you talking about? And what does it actually mean? You know, whereas consensual, to me feels a little bit more neutral, like, people know this is happening, or they don't, right. And they're consenting to be in non monogamy or they're not.

I mean, I love that nuance. That's beautiful. That's a beautiful little tweak. And as a writer, I'm someone who really values you know, precision of language, even though that can be that can be a slippery slope and itself, but

totally, and there's also something so some people use the phrase ethical non monogamy, and it's great, and it's like, very accurate, and they are really trying to be in integrity with their non monogamy. Yes. And there's a lot of people using that phrase. And it's like, the irony that they are so unethical in how they're practising is, just don't use that word.

Yes, yes.

Yeah. Like, they're often using that phrase to disregard people and actually, like, have this sort of more, you know, adolescent like, it's just my needs and my freedoms and I'll do whatever I want, and you just deal with it. Right? Yeah, it's not ethical,

right? Yeah. It is that and it comes into play as well as what the is it called? The Is it the the four four F's of the fight? Freeze fawn? Yeah, right. Right. And the idea of how, how does you know? Where are your boundaries for, for serving your personal needs? Along with the person that you're partnered with?

Right? Yeah, that's great. Right? Exactly. That people who tend to be in like fawn or freeze defence mechanisms, right thing there can often you know, can they really consent to certain things really? Yeah,

yeah, yeah. That sort of leads me into a couple of the more to sort of swing it into the, the sphere that friendless often falls into is because we often look a little bit less at at romantic relationships and more at sort of, you know, intimacy within friendship. And, and I think, an entryway into that, looking from the attachment style perspective. How in your work, do you observe attachment styles, factoring into building non romantic relationships and intimate friendship?

I think they absolutely do. Right. I do bring that up in the book that these are not our adult attachment relationships and our childhood attachment relationships, right are not just family, and they're not just romantic, right? Friends are huge in our attachment experiences, right? Whether traumatic or supportive and healing. What's interesting when I see though, is that what someone's romantic attachment style is, is not necessarily what their friend attachment style is. Right? And that it still fascinates me. Right? I have one of my dearest friends is quite anxious, with like, any male, right? Right away if it's a potential romantic, and then with me is mostly secure and with other friends is mostly avoidant.

Okay, yes, you're

right. So it's like, and I can see that with myself to like, oh, with certain friend with different friends, too, you know, I'm more secure. I'm more avoidant, you know, I tend not to be as disorganised with my friends. But you know, like, it can happen as well. So I think, yeah, don't assume that what your historical attachment style or romantic one is the same with your friends? But absolutely, you know,

and it's almost a question of something, I'm often sort of picking it and trying to unpack and, you know, this is from a, you know, Freelnce podcasts versus positive podcasts, his perspective. So, it's, it's a little less of a database. But you know, it's this, it's these, these desires for intimacy. That and like you say that there's different types of intimacy. And, and that really factors in I guess, I guess, something I'm trying to sort of pick out is, is there a way to, for someone to identify that internally? Or how would someone go about sort of identifying what these maybe these triggers? Or these kinds of things are in the different type of connections?

Yeah, I mean, just seeing like, with friends, right, how do I get triggered and activated? What kind of situations activate me and bring up anxiety? Or? Which ones are triggering stuff from my past? Or where do I like, hold people at arm's length? Or tend to avoid certain conversations? Right, so just where, like, the different ways it doesn't feel good in a certain friendship relationship? Yeah.

Yeah. And that leads me into I think this is a little bit of a reframing, I'm referring to the list of the questions I've written down for you. It's a little bit of reframing this question, but it's a little different perspective is, how do you find these attachment styles showing up? Are these attachment feelings kind of showing up in non sexual or non non?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's, it goes beyond these terms, but it's usually the people that we maybe consider our best friend, we might say, my platonic life partner, you know, queer communities have sort of had this framework for a long time of like, you know, right, platonic partners or poly intimates, things like that, right? Um, you know, family of choice, right. And it's, you know, it's the people that are go to people, the people that we would call our people is one of you know, like, um, you know, it's gendered language, but I just heard someone this morning be like, Oh, that's my soul sister, you know, and their way of sort of describing you know, this isn't an error. quotes, just a friendship, right? That's the theme. And I can look at as well. Why do we even say that? Yes. So we try to come up with these other ways of describing like deeper and twine men and intimacy. And yet it isn't. Well, and sometimes there can be romantic elements to it. Yes, right. I mean, I have two friends, two male friends. One of them I've known since I was 14, like one of my favourite humans from high school. And there's such a romantic like, Hi, sweetie, how are you? Dear? Like, there's just such an affectionate, like way of being that I do kind of have to like, if a partner sees those texts are like, what is this? Right. And I have to be like, yeah, there's like, deep platonic love that has a little like romantic language sprinkled on top, you know?

Well, and that definitely comes with the I find, and forgive me if I speak overly broadly about this, I'm trying to be as as you know, nuanced as possible. But I find often in especially sort of heteronormative male upbringing. You're only really encouraged to touch. If it's either through violence or with the intention of of penetrative sex. There's words basically, right? Yeah, exactly. You know, and so, it's, it's really hard, you know, you know, as, as a queer man who, you know, who, who, you know, I find attraction everywhere, it's very, it's very easy for me to, to dip into touch, but I know, with my straight friends, especially my really intimate friends, you know, I, I can feel them want something more, but there's a there's a blockage there. And, and it makes me kind of sad in a way that they're, they're hesitant for touch, which is something we very clearly need. And they're hesitant for for a type of intimacy, because they've been sort of led to believe the only goal of intimacy is sex.

Exactly. I think it's such a Yeah, it's so prevalent and so sad.

Yeah, it's very limiting. And yeah, sad really is the word for.

Yeah. And it happens, you know, with women as well. I mean, sometimes there's more affection, but sometimes there's still like that line of just like, oh, right, my touches sort of reserved for my partner sexually, and kind of it or my child and an affectionate platonic way, you know? Yeah. So even I see that among friends who are exploring just, you know, loving touch, are parties like these are ways of, right, why aren't we just loving each other up?

Yes, yes, that's exactly right. I love that you bring that up, because that's something that's become a real big topic in my friend group. A lot of people are talking about, you know, I've often had this joke for years about, like, we need to get on skin more right, you know, get get some skin on skin. Right. And, and that's becoming much more prevalent in the conversation. And I love it. I'm very relieved about that. Because, you know, obviously, coming back to the, the idea of consensual touch, don't just grab your friends because, you know, but, but encouraging them to be to be touched. I think it's so important.

Yeah, I mean, and that's the like, you know, first skin to skin contact is parent to child or caretaker child, and that's like that skin to skin time is so important. Right, not just through clothes, because like when it's skin to skin, oxytocin gets released, and that's the bonding hormone and, you know, there's all these beautiful benefits of oxytocin and right and we don't lose that need as adults. No, no wonder, analyse like you're saying, you know, right.

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. It gets compartmentalised. That's a perfect way of putting it and it makes me worried. It makes me wonder if, you know, I'm not someone who thinks like, if we solve this one social issue, everything would Domino, but it makes me wonder how much is being amplified because of our lack of touch or something like that.

Yeah, it reminds me of this story. It was over 20 years ago, it was like, between semesters in college, I went to Thailand. And yeah, and and I asked this woman, a Thai woman, like running the like hostel that I was staying and I was like, Where do I find this or that? And she just without, there was no it was just instinctual. She just took my hand and walked me halfway down the street holding my hands and then as she's showing me the rest of the way down the block, she has like her hand on my back. And I literally started to tear up I was like, this is more affectionate to me than my family like I just feel like cultural deficit, you know, and of like, of just friendly kind touch. Yeah. Yeah,

that's funny that that that makes me go a little off of script here. But that makes me think of I remember, I wish I could remember the exact numbers, but I remember reading a study about observing cultural touch. And they were they observed men in conversation around the world and how often the two men would touch each other during the conversation. And I remember I think it was the Brits touch the least, it was something like twice an hour. And I think it was Italians touched like 20 times an hour. And it's just that encouraging, you know, again, it's it's dismantling the fear of, of touch only being to either fight or fuck, right, you know, and instead being something more.

Yeah, I would love to see like, the level of touching correlated with just like longevity of life or happiness. Those kind of Yeah. Yeah.

swinging back onto something, actually, you know, we dipped our toes tiny, a tiny, tiny bit into discussing things like social media, dating apps and the effects of those. I'm wondering, in your in your work, how are you seeing the effects of these apps? You know, Tinder Hinge all these things? How are you seeing them affect not only romantic relationships, but also non romantic you know, friendships?

That's a great question. Yeah, I'm seeing it go in a lot of directions with romantic relationships. The positives are there's there's sort of a filtering out when you can identify as what your orientation is sexually or you know, if you're non monogamous if you're married, and not, you know, all those things. Like there's a filtering out that some people can do through the apps that is helpful, right? So when you start actually dialoguing with someone, you at least know there's enough shared something. Yeah, and yeah, right. But, and I've seen many people find access to partners that they never would have before, you know, because maybe they're three hours away. And that's like, the perfect situation for them. Or, I have a partner, we did meet on an app, and we're an hour and a half, I don't think we would have ever met in person, you know, since like, I'm so grateful. So it's sort of expanding our access to a lot of different humans, right. Um, but of course, a lot of people struggle with online dating, understandably, because, because we're not in person, there's a lot of just ghosting that happens, you know, things can turn really quickly. I mean, there's a lot of filtering through of people who's are not looking to actually start a conversation with you. Right, so there's people that it's like, really stressful, you know, and I've seen it lead to wonderful experiences. And like, last night with a client we were talking about, like, he has sort of dating app trauma at this point. And it's like, I can't do it anymore. Like, it's too humiliating, you know. And his self esteem is sort of just plummeted from the dating app experience. Right? So it's like, it can be anything. Yeah, friends is interesting. I mean, I've seen people meet friends online, obviously. And I've seen the benefit of certain social media sites where like, you would have never reconnected with a certain person. Right? From decades ago and you find each other on Facebook. Right? And it's amazing. You know, but then also, there's so much misrepresentation on social media, like, of what people's glamorous life actually isn't, you know, and right, there's the comparison, the FOMO, like, all of that stuff is difficult as well. No, no. So yeah, I think it's, we all have to find our relationship to it, right, of how much and how little is supportive, and like, why we're using it. Right and not using it because we're supposed to or think we should.

Oh, I love that. I love that. And that's something that's such a key key take on it, too, is the idea. I think a lot of people myself included, I think this is one of the roots of the show was realising how un-mindfully, I was using these tools, right. Oh, and I, there's it's so easy to be overwhelmed by them because they're so ubiquitous, and they're so ever present. And so you just go on them, you know, I can't tell you how many times I close Instagram, and then I immediately reopen it. Right, you know, I'm like, on to the next thing. Oh, better check Instagram. You have Oh, right. I was just on it, you know, and that's sort of like this almost dissociative behaviour of it.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, I mean, it's very addictive, and it's designed well, you know, to keep wanting that dopamine hit. Right. So, you know, and then like, how many of those connections are really fulfilling or not? All of that matters.

But I think I really love that you're also framing it, you know, I think it's really important to look at the positives as well. Right? Not, not from not from a, you know, everything's sunshine and rainbows. But I think it's really important to see the full spectrum of the experience. And I think, like you say that the the, the the worlds that it's opened up and the security that it does offer by being able to whether it's to vet or whether it's to be able to find people, I think it's such an invaluable tool. Yeah,

right, exactly. I mean, not to oversimplify, but it's like, We need water to live. And we can also drink ourselves to death and water, right? Yes, yes, food to survive, and we can also eat ourselves into Terminal health conditions, you know? Right. So it's like, what is our relationship to it? Right? And are we sort of staying? You know, in moderation? Is it in a nurturing experience? Versus when is it crossed the line until like, it's actually stressful or addictive or hurting our self esteem? Right through being on social media? Yeah. Do you?

In your work? Do you find have you? Do you have any sort of suggestions or tools? I know, you just mentioned now, you know, the moderation use? And so and that's sort of a personal that's sort of a personal dialogue to have with yourself, but but do you? Do you have any tools that you suggest for clients about processing that kind of stress?

Yeah, it's a great question. First, just the awareness, like how much of it like where are you at, sort of in the spectrum of this experience, right, of the social media being like, fun and entertaining and nourishing, versus the other end of it being like, disruptive, right? Right. So just sort of first, like doing a self assessment, you know, like, where am I at? And? And how is my mental health impacted by this or not? Or my sense of self or my other relationships? You know, like, are you choosing, you know, virtual experiences over in person experiences, and sometimes it's okay, sometimes let's look at why. Right. I think just exploring the awareness of where are you at, but I do have clients that like, I don't know, the names, you might know better than me. But there's certain, you know, like, you can have certain websites that control your usage, basically. Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I know a few people that have really found that extremely helpful. Yeah, or just even sometimes, like, literally just take a day off. You know, it doesn't have to be like huge grand changes, it can be like, or literally, at a certain time of the day, I'm done for the day, you know, just those kind of smaller things I've seen make a big impact. Yeah. And just that attitude of experiment with it.

That's exactly right. That's perfect way of putting it. I know for me, personally, because I was I was getting really, really, really overwhelmed with Twitter. And so I, instead of doing some kind of like you say, instead of doing some grand gesture of I'm done, I'm Yeah, I just took it off my phone. It's all you know, so I allow myself to check it on the browser if I feel like it, but I usually forget to and then and then, you know, in the couple months since then, it's like my stress levels have, like noticeably gone down. I wonder, I wonder how much that's correlated.

Right? That's a great when people take the app off their phone, or you can just mute the notifications that, like, you still have the app, but you have to go into it, you know, instead of the constant notifications. Alarming you? Right? Yeah.

This is just off the top of my head. But where where do you think it came to? Where do you think it became normal for us to check everything immediately? Because I remember, you know, I remember when these you know, when these things started, it would be Oh, we'd get to it or you know, when when email first came in, and was normalised you wouldn't, you weren't always checking your email, you would you would go you would check it and then you go on your day. And then as the years have progressed, it's become faster and faster and faster. And there's been this expectation of the moment you get a notification if you're not replying to it, you're somehow failing. And where do you think that that pressure has come from?

I mean, it's just the ever sort of accelerating pace of life. I mean, not from an attachment perspective. It's a very anxious orientation and preoccupied, hyper vigilant orientation and people take it personal. It's been 10 minutes. I haven't gotten a reply. Like there's all a very anxious attachment through the social media, right? Yeah. And I think it's like just because someone could then we like, could get look at the email or tax right away then. There's like all these expectations. And so funny a friend of mine came from Costa Rica and then didn't have her phone like you, she only could use it through Wi Fi. She wasn't working through your carrier for a minute. So she has, you know, my brain is just blinking storage unit. So she wanted me to meet her at the storage unit to help her load a truck, right? So she just gave me the address. And I was like, Great, I'll be there at this time. And then we had no more communication because she didn't have Wi Fi. And she was like, you're here, you found that you showed up? Like, we didn't have to text 20 times nor I'm on my way. 10 minutes away. It was hysterical. We're just like, Oh, yes. Like the 2000s. You know? You make a plan and someone shows up.

Yeah, yeah, I was thinking about that. Actually, I was thinking about that recently, about exactly that point about, you know, I remember growing up, and it would be we're going to meet at the movies, or we're going to meet at the mall, or we're going to meet here and you would just you would decide and you'd go right. You know, and sometimes, and this was part of the culture is sometimes people wouldn't show up, right? You know, sometimes you would get stood up, or you would get these things. But those were, in a way that almost, I don't want to say it was more impactful. But it's like, it's you know, you mentioned ghosting, and these kinds of things. You mentioned how easy it is to disconnect now. And, and and it's a strange. I don't even know what the exact word for it is. But it's like, you know, the standup of the 90s is a very different impact than the sort of ghosting of the 2020s. You know, and I'm not, I guess I'm not sure where that that shift is?

Well, I think because maybe, if that happened in the 90s, there was somewhat of a benefit of the doubt, like, oh, maybe their mom couldn't drive them or like, yeah, you could hold like, Oh, I'll find out later, like, what happens or something, you know, there was a little bit of that leeway. Whereas now you're like, Oh, you're just choosing to not communicate with me, because you can any moment basically communicate with me. Yeah,

that's it right there, isn't it? That's, that's a perfect observation. I love that.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny. And that's maybe one of the tools I use for people that when someone hasn't replied fast enough, right, and I go, Well, let's come up with three reasons why maybe they couldn't. And let's make one of them that they were abducted by aliens. Like, yeah, like, like, like, let's make one of them that they're like battery on their phone died, or they dropped it in the toilet, or they were abducted by aliens. And then what? Oh, they had a work meeting they had to go into or whatever their kid needed to get picked up. And it helps go Oh, right. I'm not the centre of the universe, basically, like, yes. And other people's behaviours might have nothing to do with me.

Right? Right. Isn't that always a revelation? Right, it's a helpful thought. But it's like, it's, you know, it's hard. It's these phones make us the main character.

They make us centre. I mean, we are the centre of our own world, usually, right? Yeah, yeah.

I'm relating back. This is a little bit of a spin back to something when when we were talking about, you know, the ethics and things like that, and I'm wondering, how do you find that personal ethics? And you know, as as you internally, define them for yourselves. How do you see in the research and in the work that effecting intimacy?

Hmm. personal ethics affecting intimacy? That's a great question. I think it can go either way. Right. I think this is what you're getting at, sort of like, Am I more oriented to meeting my personal needs and my personal freedoms being the priority? Versus Am I a little bit more oriented towards connection and, and I have personal needs and freedoms, but so do you and there's more of an interdependence? Exactly. So in the first, you know, where it's like, it's more about me and my needs and my freedoms, then intimacy gets, you know, can be compromised, because then people kind of become tools to meet our needs. Or they're controlling us if we don't feel free enough, you know, and like, right, we're not necessarily dropping into a certain intimacy. Yeah. Does that get out what you're

Yeah, yeah. No, and you just, you gave me what I was, call it space braid, your, that that answer gave me like 9000 thoughts. You know, and, and it's sort of it's at that simultaneously effective. I'm thinking about all them, but because of that, my brain kind of shut off, you know. But it's it really is that interesting. And I think that that might be at least for me, personally, I think that might be where I'm, I'm driven with the question of ethics is it becomes about the balance between the personal and the interpersonal. And where do you fall in taking care of yourself versus taken care of whether it's your your partner or your community or something like that? And how do you do you find? Again,

I like this though, too, I want to see the other end like the ethics of intimacy. This is like a probably a whole topic, right, that I never thought of in this way. So this conversation, but there's also people in the name of non monogamy, who are like jumping into a certain kind of intimacy. Yes. Like the structure of their life, their level of availability cannot actually like hold the container have that kind of intimacy. Right, exactly. So like, just because I have the personal like capacity to go real deep with someone and get real intimate in a certain moment. Like, should I do that if I actually can't follow through with that level of intimacy? Right.

Exactly. That's Yes. No, I'm sorry. I'm like, I want you to keep going. I'm just like, this is exactly a big question for me. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, what is my ethical moral obligation, you know, to not sort of like, because we can, we can lure people into certain intimate, emotional sexual experiences, but it's like, unless both people are three or four people are all like, Great, this can be a one off thing. And let's just drop in and go. Versus like, No, I want more than just a one time experience. Yeah. Or an occasional experience?

Exactly. Well, and this question of, like you say, about, if you have the capacity to go deep, that's still a different thing than if you should go deep. Right. And, and, you know, are you safe? Is the person safe? is, you know, there's so many questions about, one of the conversations that comes up a lot for me is is in sharing personal traumas, or personal stories or personal things and navigating? Is it is it a safe conversation to have right now? Is the other? Is the listener safe to hear it? And then also, am I sharing it just to share? Or am I sharing it for, you know, am I looking for free therapy? Or is it a connected, right, you know, like, like, what am I what am I trying to get out of sharing this story? And there's so many, there's so many factors to that. Right? And it's, it's hard, but it's fun. Right?

Right. Yeah, exactly. Or even compete, right? Like, Oh, you think you had it hard? I'll tell you.

No, actually, that's a that's a great that was Oh, my God that I mean, again, that is, that's an interview in itself. But you do you observe that, um, you know, or how do you observe that as, as a sort of behavioural trait of I know, in some of my reading about spectrum disorder and things like that, there's, there's often a, you sort of tell stories that may to a certain person sound like it's a competing story, when really, it's an attempt to the connection? And I'm wondering, do you see that sort of like those wires crossed often or?

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That it can be just like, it can be just even a style of conversation that people learned growing up, like this one upping and it's, sometimes it's not even conscious or intentional, but like, that's how you saw dialogue happen, you know, you have it hard. Well, I haven't heard and, you know, I've had it harder. And you know, and some people think that's a way of connecting, and some people really don't feel connected through that at all, because you're not sort of acknowledging the other and what they've gone through. Yeah. And it can be this competitive, like, Oh, you want me to listen to you? Or I need something like a meeting empathy, you know, which, of course, we all need, but instead of offering it to someone, you know, we're like, trying to get it ourselves. Yeah,

yes. Yeah. No, no, this is, so I've only got a couple of sort of like this, this leads into these these questions that I've got the last few I have, but I'm in a writer circle. And I mentioned that I was interviewing you and they sent me a couple of questions to ask, and I've already worked with a few of them in but this is the last one that I was asked to ask and and it sort of correlates to a lot of what we've been talking about. But I think it also links to the new book that you've put out with the Plysecure Workbook that you that you've put out and and it may even be a question that's answered within that so probably a chance to plug the book but but for someone who is is you know, either they are polyamorous or they are beginning to explore it or they're open ring that door for themselves and for their partners? How can they have these conversations about attachment or about these explorations? With people who may not be familiar with these these terms? These these, you know, I don't want to call them theories, but you know that this world, what's sort of what's an entry point for them to have these conversations?

Yeah, good question. Probably just sharing, like, Hey, I'm learning about this new thing. Can I talk about it with you, like, when I'm learning, you know, there's so many, like, pithy articles now, like, Hey, can I send you an article that you would read? Or listen to this podcast? Or, you know, right, um, or even just like, Hey, there's this whole idea that we have like attachment for years in our life, like, what do you think about that, you know, so just, like, touch it, you know, obviously, see if someone's interested in wanting to just talk about this kind of thing, you know. And then in the book, both Polly secure and the Polly's secure workbook, I get tonnes of questions for like, here's questions to sort of talk through with your partners about, you know, what kind of attachment level do we want? Do we even want to be attachment based partners? Okay, if so, what does that mean to each of us? It might not mean the same thing, right? Yeah. So if people are wanting to cultivate their attachment, and have more secure functioning, the book and workbook offer, like tonnes of prompts for that, yeah,

beautiful, beautiful, I will make sure for listeners, I will make sure that the links to those books are going to be in the show notes. So as soon as the interviews done, or if you can, if you can multitask, just, you know, pull up the show notes, buy them both, I cannot recommend it enough. So I just have to these are my my sort of universal questions of the show. And this is this will be our wrap up for it. I'm trying to adjust them slightly. I've been I've been reading a book about complex PTSD, and it was talking about the concept of good enough, right and the right and so rather than being good, it's like, well, what's good enough? And so, so I'm adjusting these questions to, to you. What does it mean to be a good enough friend? And then as a little follow up to that, what is one sort of actionable thing that listeners could do to try to be a good enough friend this week?

Oh, that's really sweet. And I'm, I need to ask you to remind me in a second, but what does it mean for me to be a good enough friends? That's a great question. I think part of it would be knowing this friend enough to know what matters to them. Like, the birthdays matter, the holidays matter or not, you know, are they love language of gifts? And like, how important is that or not, you know, just some of the things you know, and what it like, how they receive support, you know, like, and also sort of what the frequency is because with my friends, some some people I feel very close to we talk like, once a year and other people it's like, you know, we're messaging throughout the week. A few days without that contact, right. So sort of like, yeah, what is what is the frequency that people really want? You know,

Giving the the individual actual autonomy.

Yeah, and what's our unique chemistry? Yes, that chemists chemistry with romantic partners, but it's like, Oh, my goodness, friends, there's totally kind of, you know, a lot of chemistry are kind of flat or just, you know, or some people are more of our, like, comfort friends, other people are more of our exploratory go out. And, you know, do certain things with friends. So, yeah, yeah.

I love that. I love that. Thank you so much. That yeah, the follow up is, is what's one actionable thing listeners could try applying to their friendships this week to be to be a good enough friend this week?

That's a good question. I'm just it's off. Like, like, I don't know. I was just like oh like their photos, right? No, It's myself, like, what can I do to be a better friend? I'm like, well, I could send certain friends just like sweet Bitmojis are like a little like, Hey, I'm thinking of you are like, you know, okay, I have a friend that like, we keep saying, we want to get together and instead of me, like, waiting for them to initiate. I like after you and I get off and like, I will text them and just be like, Hey, does Wednesday work? Yes. Oh, yeah. I noticed this was one friend that there tends to be like, they won't respond to me until I respond to them. Like it has to be very transactional. And I feel so much differently supported when I have a friend who like maybe they were the last one that sent a message but then they haven't heard from me they're like, Hey, how you doing? You know, and it's and I'll do the same. So not to be in a transactional tit for tat with your friends. You know, like, reach out

up yeah be the one to initiate right

yeah take the initiation and of course if someone you keep initiating and you're not being reciprocated or met then you have to question is this you know, the level of friendship you want with that person but yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jessica for thank you so much. This has been just such a wonderful chance to finally get to talk with you the book is probably secure and the new one is probably secure workbook. The links are in there. Is there anything else is there anywhere you would like to direct listeners to find you and your work?

Yeah, they can just go to my website, Jessicafern.com. If they sign up for my mailing list, they'll get notifications of just when I have upcoming events. Polywise my next book is coming out later this year, which is sort of like you know the the even further looking into you know, the challenges and solutions of certain polyamorous stuff so yeah,

beautiful, beautiful. Well, thank you once more. i This has been such a such a blast. I'm finally I'm so glad we finally got to do

glad we did it. We and you usually unfriend I think we have too friend on social media now.

That's the thing. Yeah, I think that's my that's exactly right. Actually, I love these jobs that because that's like, I think that might be my next shift is like I think I'm gonna spin to the positive now I think I'm gonna make friends and that's it. Thank you once more to Jessica fucking Fern for coming on the show. I still can't believe I got to interview her. I've been floating on cloud nine since recording this interview. If you want to learn more about Jessica and her work, please go to Jessicafern.com Or buy her books Polysecure and the polysecure workbook. All of those links are in the show notes. And if you want to support friendless, why not sign up for the substack newsletter, you're gonna get a minimum one new piece of writing a month. And I'm actually currently working on expanding that but it's going to be packed to the gills with movie and book recommendations, writing prompts and tips on how to be a good enough friend. I'm also launching my side project currently titled Hey, sorry, I missed you in the substack it's a series of transcribed voicemails that may or may not be leading to longer form narrative, you're just gonna have to read to find out all of those links as well are in the show notes. But that's it for me. So I'm just going to wrap it up by saying thank you for listening. And I love you and I hope to catch you back here next week. But that's not something to worry about right now. Because that is then and this is now so for now we'll I'll just say I love you one more time and wish you well. But and safety sweeties