I've never been the favorite friend

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The memory is so visceral I can still feel it.

Circa 2019, crying sobbing uncontrollably in bed one night with my then-fiancé. I had cried so hard that hundreds of broken capillaries dotted my face like tiny freckles. The next morning, our neighbor who shared our bedroom wall stopped me as I got in my car to ask if I was ok. I can only imagine what she thought was happening on the other side of the sheetrock.

What I bet she didn’t guess was that all that commotion was because I didn’t have any friends.

Not just not as many friends as I would like, or the types of friendship that I wanted, but no friends.

“Making friends as an adult is so hard” has become the rallying cry of a generation. It’s a sentiment shared by many and a phrase so overused that it has lost all meaning.

But back in 2019, I felt every word of it.

Deep friendship and connection were something I always struggled with, but it didn’t really come to my attention until I left for college. I was moving to Arizona, which was met with many a: I can’t wait to come visit’s! But from the moment I stepped on the plane, the only thing that visited me was radio silence.

I realized then that every friendship I thought I had was nothing more than a friendship of proximity and convenience. No one was actually choosing me, I was just… around. And it stung.

My social life continued to be one long cavernous echo since then.

I had always been envious of those groups of girlfriends who go on trips and have dinner parties and have group costumes and just casually hang out. But as I lay in that bed, crying my eyes out in my now husband’s arms after grappling with the fact that I couldn’t think of a single person to put in my wedding party, I had come to the bleak realization that I’ve never been the favorite friend.

In my adult life, there wasn’t a single friendship that didn’t fizzle away and die when I stopped initiating and put the ball in their court until very recently. And even still, it’s a struggle.

For a long time I wondered what was so wrong with me that, apparently, no one wanted to be my friend. Do I complain too much? Am I too intense? Too hard to relate to? Because I don’t drink (I have lost friends for this, but more on that another time)?Does everyone else just have more friends they’d rather hang out with that I slide to the bottom of the list? Have I just not found the right people?

I felt it so deeply that I moved.

And I know I’m not alone in feeling this way.

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I don’t say all of this to throw a pity party for myself. But rather to illustrate that if you’re lonely, I know how it feels. I know the weight of it.

There are so many factors that contribute to the epidemic levels of loneliness: Social media can create an illusion of filling up our social battery, zapping us of the energy that would be otherwise spent on real-life connections. The pandemic lockdowns turned self-isolation into a habit. Late-stage capitalism has us all in a cycle of constant production with little time or energy for much else, just to name a few.

Loneliness and I know each other intimately. But it’s something I’ve worked on. It was part of the conditions of me moving: if I’m going to move to find friendship, I better work on it. Finding friendship is not a game for the apathetic.

I haven’t been perfect at it, but I have made huge strides, and I wanted to share a few of the things and mindset shifts that have helped me go from being so lonely I worried the neighbors to having some budding friendships.

Stop identifying as a lonely person

The language you use to and about yourself is powerful. By constantly repeating that it’s hard for you to make friends, no one likes you, no one wants to be your friend, etc., this becomes a limiting belief—a narrative and a story that molds your reality. Humans are a story-telling species. With this story in place, you will constantly be looking for proof to reaffirm that story, and change will become really hard. It’s hard to make friends if you always show up with the assumption that they don’t want to be your friend. If you want to have more meaningful connections in your life, start by questioning your narrative.

Focus on the feeling

Sometimes, we get an idea in our head of the type of friend we want: what they’ll look like, their style, the types of activities they do, their worldview, etc. It can give us blinders and lead us to miss potentially fruitful friendships. Instead, focus on the feeling of the type of friendship you’d like to have. Contemplation mediation is a great tool for this.

Leave your house

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but to make friends, you’re going to have the leave your house. Go to where the people are. Let your interests guide you. Put yourself in situations where you’re likely to find other people who are also looking for friendship. Join a rec sports league, or a gym, volunteer at an organization you believe in, become a regular at a coffee shop; just please, for the love of god, get out of the house.

Loneliness is comfortable and predictable, and therefore preferable. Humans will choose what is familiar over what is good for us 9 out of 10 times. Hanging out at home is so easy these days—we work from home, have all the entertainment we want at home, and barely even have to leave the house for food. When we’re in the habit of being alone, the grooves of loneliness only get deeper and deeper.

This is something you’re going to treat like a job. Just like going to the gym or other healthy habits, you can’t wait until you feel like it, because you won’t. Don’t do it because it’s fun, do it because you need to. Make it non-negotiable. And when you are out and about, initiate conversation. Giving a compliment is a great gateway.

Remember, there’s a loneliness epidemic. Likely, the person you’re talking to could also use a friend.

Be brave

Along that same vein, you’re going to have to be brave. And bravery feels a lot like fear. Feel the fear and do it anyway. You’ll be required to put yourself in positions that feel vulnerable and scary, this is what you’re going for.

Not every friendship is meant to stick

Adjust your expectations. Some of the best advice I’ve ever heard is to treat finding friends like dating—not every person you’re going to meet is going to be an instant connection, let alone “the one”. But unlike dating, you’ll likely end up with a range of friends—some that are down to do your favorite activities with, some that share niche interests, and some that are good for casual coffee shop hangs or coworking. You’ll find friends you see every week, some you just see every couple of months, and you’ll find that, hey, maybe me and this person just don’t have a connection, and that’s ok.

Detach meaning

It’s important to remember as you put yourself out there that some of the connections you make just won’t stick or don’t live up to your idea of what you think they could be. There might be a person you feel you have a great connection with, but it seems one-sided, or it’s hard to pin them down to hang out. That’s ok. And it’s important to remember that it probably has very little to do with you. People are busy, they have their own lives to deal with, and if they don’t meet the friendship with the same level of enthusiasm that you do, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.

As humans, we want to make meaning out of everything, and we’re the center of our own universe. Naturally, it’s easy to make everything about us. But it rarely is. If a connection fizzles out, try not to spiral, it’s just a natural part of life.

Be yourself

It seems obvious, but take it from me as someone who’s made friendships with a version of myself I don’t like—it’s an exhausting facade to keep up, and because of that, the friendship won’t last. This might be simple, but learning to be yourself is not easy, especially if you’re a people pleaser like me. So often, we contort ourselves to be what we think other people will like. It’s a normal and natural thing to do—being liked and accepted by the tribe is the ultimate means of safety and security.

But when we do this when trying to make a genuine connection, the very foundation of the friendship is shaky from the start. If you know you’re someone who has a people-pleasing problem, then learning how to be yourself in social situations will be your primary task.

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What’s important to remember, is that friendship requires work. As we leave school and in-office work, as third spaces disappear, and as the world we live in is increasingly at odds with our biology, it’s an uphill battle. But it’s one you can win. I know you can. I know we can. I may never be the favorite friend, but I won’t have the opportunity if I don’t continue to try.

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