{"id":291920,"date":"2025-04-24T12:15:34","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T17:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlslife.com\/?p=291920"},"modified":"2025-05-17T16:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T21:18:08","slug":"dear-carol-my-friends-dont-listen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/life\/291920\/dear-carol-my-friends-dont-listen\/","title":{"rendered":"“Dear Carol, My friends don’t listen”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Friend-drama-teen-advice\"<\/p>\n

Dear Carol,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

My friends all seem to have their own problems and dump them on me. However, when\u00a0I have *my* problems, they never listen and\u00a0always find a way to turn it back to them.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

– My friends don’t listen<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Dear My Friends Don\u2019t Listen,<\/span><\/p>\n

Conversations should be part listening, part\u00a0talking, and ideally you can also have one-on-one exchanges\u2014not just group discussions.\u00a0If you\u2019re a good listener, I don\u2019t blame you for\u00a0wanting your friends to be there when you\u2019re\u00a0the one who needs to vent. You may need\u00a0to make this clear: \u201cHey, I\u2019d really like your\u00a0thoughts on this, so let me tell you what\u2019s\u00a0going on.\u201d I hope you and your friends are\u00a0also laughing and having fun together, and\u00a0not just \u201cdumping\u201d on each other, to use\u00a0your verb. Sharing a pizza shouldn\u2019t always\u00a0feel like group therapy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Carol Weston is the author of 16 books including\u00a0Speed of Life\u00a0<\/em>(about a girl who writes to an advice columnist).\u00a0More at\u00a0carolweston.com<\/a>\u00a0and on Instagram\u00a0@carolwestonnyc<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Need more advice? Check out more Dear Carol here:
\n\ud83d\udc9e “Dear Carol, I Just Can’t Get Over My Crush”<\/a>
\n\ud83d\udc9e “Dear Carol, My Siblings Get All The Attention”<\/a>
\n\ud83d\udc9e “Dear Carol, I Like This Boy Who Doesn’t Know I Exist”<\/a>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

We want to hear from you!<\/span> Go<\/span>\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0to submit questions to Carol about every sticky sitch life throws at you.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Carol,<\/p>\n

My friends all seem to have their own problems and dump them on me. However, when I have *my* problems, they never listen and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":295504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[283,284,1153],"tags":[61062,61063,61059,61058,61048,61061,61064,42,7541,61060,61041,28802,285],"class_list":["post-291920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-dear-carol","category-friends","tag-advice-for-bff","tag-advice-for-friends","tag-advice-for-teen","tag-advice-for-teens","tag-bff-drama-advice","tag-bff-drama-advice-column","tag-bff-problem-advice","tag-dear-carol","tag-friend-advice","tag-friend-advice-column","tag-friend-drama-advice","tag-friend-problem-advice","tag-life"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}