28. ADHD and Friendship: Why You Can't Send the Text (Even to People You Like)

There's a mum at pickup you really like. Ninety seconds every afternoon, one of those chats where you both go 'yeah, exactly' — and then the kids spill out, someone's swinging a backpack like a helicopter, someone's demanding the petrol station, and you're pulled away before you can even say goodbye. And every day you get back to the car thinking: I should have her over. We should do a barbecue. I'd love to actually talk to her for more than ninety seconds.

You got her number in January. It's the end of July. And you've made no progress at all. You've probably already filed that as proof you're flaky, cold, a bad friend. This episode is Jane taking that story apart — because the silence between you and someone you genuinely like usually isn't 'I don't want this.' It's 'I want this, but I have no hands to build it with.'

CHAPTERS

00:00 — Nat, the 90-second pickup chat, and the barbecue that never happens

02:29 — Got her number in January. It's July. No progress.

03:57 — 'I'm flaky, I'm cold, I'm a bad friend' — the personality we build around it

05:33 — The executive-function tax on turning a pickup mum into a real friend

06:36 — It's not that you need to try harder. It might be the fuel tank.

07:13 — The mum with the same life who still hosts the perfect Sunday barbecue

08:36 — Good girl conditioning: when friendship becomes your job to carry

10:45 — When you can't stand the silence — and what your brain files it as

12:09 — Why a late-diagnosed brain has had decades to build 'I ruin friendships'