Friendshipping!

Friendshipping! is an advice show about friendship, carried by the voices of Jenn and Trin. The premise is simple. A listener's friendship has hit a snag, and the pair talk it through until they reach a position they are willing to defend. What sets the show apart is the road there. The conversation tends to wander first, through bits, stories and tangents that have nothing to do with the question, so by the time the question arrives it already sounds like two close friends catching up. Then the advice gets direct. In 'Tallahassee vs. The World', an asker who keeps sparring with someone called Tallahassee inside a four-person social setup is told to stop defaulting to the foursome, put up some distance and accept that it is possible to be respectful of a person without being their friend. Long back-and-forths, the pair agree, are not how adult friendships operate. Elsewhere, an asker worries after a friend named Clementine asked whether the asker was mad. Jenn and Trin read the question as proof that Clementine cares, note that she is likely in survival mode after a run of tragedies, and say it is fine for her to lean on people who will simply validate her. The show is comfortable taking sides. Faced with two friends who let an asker down on nearly every level, one voice flatly refuses to forgive them, while allowing that the asker might. The talk then shifts to recovery rather than bouncing back, and Dr. Emily Nagoski's book Come As You Are comes up as a useful account of how people process hard feelings. In 'Friendship Scones', the pair back an asker whose ex-partner is now a best friend, and Jenn compares the doubt that arrangement draws to the way people tend to react on hearing she met her husband in high school. People are different, runs the gist, and sometimes the unusual thing simply works. The register slides between dry comedy and grave sympathy without flagging the turn. A sung theme cautions against nasty subtweets, and the sign-off thanks the audience for listening before adding, 'you're welcome for talking.' Stray outtakes sometimes trail the credits, including one where the pair concede they are not as quick at improv as a good edit could make them sound. The back catalog is deep, and the company is the point: frank, affectionate advice from two people who sound firmly on the asker's side.