I don’t. Yup, that’s it — that’s the truth. I no longer intentionally go out there and think: I need to make more friends. Truthfully, I just do not feel the need to, which is something I could never have imagined a few years ago.
If you know me personally, you know how I always ended up finding really good friends at any stage in life: middle school, high school, university, even in my 1 short year in London doing my Master’s.
I considered it my superpower. I still do. It’s just that at one point, I learned new ways to maintain my friendships, and re-evaluate what a good one looks like. 26 happened to mark all these changes.
1. I‘m okay with having only a few friends
It’s not that I’m blocking off all potential friendships. It’s more that I am extremely content with the circle I have. Those few girls and guys got me through some of the toughest moments in my life.
You know the saying: “When it rains, it pours”? That was my first two years working abroad: heartbreaks, bad friendships, burnout, and many drunken and late nights out — the unhealthy coping mechanism I had for myself.
Whenever something happened — bad, worse, or worst, I knew I was just one phone call away from them. I was messed up, sure, but they did not judge because they knew that wasn’t the real me.
When I didn’t love myself enough, they loved me for me. When nobody else was there, they were there for me.
This sounds shitty, but that was the first time I realized how solid they were — the friendships that I have.
2. Now, I will be the “rude” friend
I used to not intervene too much in my friends’ personal affairs. I regarded it as the “respect” I held for them: Who am I to tell anyone what they should and should not do? I let them live their lives and I lived mine.
I remember not knowing about my friend’s family and mental struggles until one year after it had passed. I remember only telling them about my ex-boyfriend 6 months after I broke up with him.
Because these things already happened so long before, our sharing was calm, reflective, and always somewhat positive. I must be quite good at maintaining friendships — or so I thought.
I didn’t realize all I was doing was being “the nice friend”. If I don’t share my opinions, we will never have to disagree. If we only talk when things have passed, we will not have to go through hard things.
Well, we still did, just individually. And I’m not sure if that’s better. Many things that happened to me in the difficult years, I wish someone could have told me: STOP
Stop hanging out with the bad friends.
Stop drinking and doing all these things to numb your feelings.
Stop pretending everything is okay.
Please, just stop.
You might think: “but you would not have listened”. That’s true, knowing me, maybe I wouldn’t, but maybe I would. Maybe if someone really had sat down with me, looked me in the eyes and said:
“I’m disappointed in how you’re dealing with things these days. I feel for you, but I hope you could rethink how all of this has affected your mental and physical health.”
Maybe at one point, having gone through some of that pain, I would have listened and ended things a bit earlier. I don’t know. They’re all hypotheticals now, but I know I would have appreciated that regardless.
I don’t blame my friends. I told you, I also didn’t share that much. They knew something was wrong, but they probably didn’t know how bad it was until much later. Now, I’ve learned to share more and ask for help.
Most importantly, I’ve learned to be the rude friend — the friend I wanted for myself back then. If I see you spiraling down the self-destructive route, whether you’re aware of it or not, I will call you out.
You might not listen. But now that I have knocked some sense into you, you at least know that you are making that decision for yourself. From my experience, our friends are probably much less stubborn than how we all used to be, now that we are 26.
So, I said it once here, and I’ll say it again: Niceness is overrated. Now, I cruise through life with a peace of mind that I don’t have to do it alone. My friends and family will be there to call me out when I step foot on the wrong path. And I’m grateful for it.
3. I do not intend to make more friends
I am not closed off to the idea of having more friends. I mean you guys know how lovable I am. Just kidding. What I mean is: I don’t rush and try to make friendships become friendships these days.
At 21, I remembered the first thing I did when coming back to Vietnam for summer is to text all my friends: let’s hang out. I couldn’t deal with the idea of doing nothing for one day.
That’s probably the reason for my obsession with mingling and developing friendships in my early 20s. And it took work. If we had a good time, I would schedule the next one, listen to them ranting, accommodate to certain things to “maintain” it.
Now, I just don’t have the energy to. This time coming home, I met up with my close friend three weeks after my arrival date. I meet with one person a week, sometimes none. I do my own things —writing, gymming, sleeping, watching movies, hanging out with my niece.
It’s good. It helps me have time to work on my dreams and make them come true — this blog is one of them. It helps me, for once since entering high school, get rid of my eye bags. And it makes each and every single hangout with people much more enjoyable.
I don’t put in the extra efforts to accommodate and in turn, expect a friendship to come out of it. I think it’s soothing and fun to see things develop. People take their time to observe and talk long before entering a relationship, why don’t we do the same for friendship?
For once we do become friends, we are friends (most likely) for life.
Instagram: @lifewithmido | Medium: Mido
You can directly subscribe to my Medium here
In case you have any questions or suggestions, let me know here.
