Off The Record: Issue 01 Friendships

I am not kidding when I say my biggest heartbreaks haven't been boys; they have been people I was once friends with. It's ridiculous, really, to think that people I genuinely pictured at my wedding are now strangers whom I know nothing about. Friendships in adulthood are so hard to navigate, and I do think it is a universal experience.

I grew up in a small town where everyone knew each other. I went to an all-girls school for 10 years, ages 7 to 17. All the friendships that I'd had up to the point I left home were stable and had withstood the test of time. This made me believe every friendship needed to be close and all-consuming. If we weren't best friends, that friendship was "shallow" or surface-level, or just not worth having. Well, after many humbling experiences, it's safe to say I couldn't have been more wrong.

When I first moved to Belfast, I had a very misguided idea of what university life would look like. I imagined having a tight-knit friend group that hung out all the time and went on holidays together, and if I didn't have that, I wasn't truly having the true "uni experience". I would go on Instagram and compare my life to other people's, who seemed to be having so much more fun than I was, and think, why can't I have that? I always thought of myself as a good friend, easy to be around, reliable. So why wasn't I worthy of the "dream" university experience I yearned for so deeply?

Turns out, I was going about it all wrong. When I got here, I found some people I somewhat got along with and latched on to them with all my might. I put so much pressure on those relationships that when they inevitably didn't meet my expectations, I was completely crushed. I did this a few times throughout uni, btw, so I clearly didn't learn from the first experience. I was so desperate to imitate the close friendships I have with my best friends back home that I forced closeness that wasn't really there, and I truly lost myself in the process. It wasn't until my boyfriend asked me, "Why don't you go out anymore?"

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Reciprocity matters, and it's not about being calculative or tit for tat, so to speak. I often use this metaphor: Imagine yourself as a jug of water; if you keep pouring so much of yourself into people who don't pour back into you, you will be left empty and drained. I invested so much in friendships that didn't serve me that I became completely tunnel-visioned and basically forgot I could meet more people. So when those friendships that didn't quite fit eventually ended, I didn't know how to put myself out there anymore, like I used to. I became reclusive, alone, and accepted my fate as someone with no friends. I tried to put a funny spin on it whenever my parents or friends from home asked how uni was going, telling them, "Oh yeah, I am just a grandma who needs to be in bed by 9 pm every day!" but deep down, grandma did feel really lonely and sad.

I finally realised that in adulthood, these supposed "surface-level" friendships were actually really good for me. I started putting myself out there again, and yes, it was awkward and uncomfortable at first, but the more people I met and talked to, the better I felt. Like all things, the more you do it, the easier it gets. I am the type of person who loves to jump the gun, and I have learnt the hard way that by casting a wide net and interacting with many different people, I stopped hyper-fixating on each individual connection. By doing this, you are bound to meet at least one person you click with, and a friendship can naturally blossom from there, without feeling like something you're chasing out of sheer desperation. Sure, not everyone I have interacted with has become my ride-or-die best friend, but I realised not every friendship needs to be that way. Not every friendship is meant to be be-all or end-all. It's nice to have people to sit with in class, to go to a party with, to have the occasional dinner or coffee with. We may not be the closest of friends, but I do have special people in my life I cherish deeply, and I love our relationship as it is. I have also stopped putting so much pressure on myself and comparing every friendship to my friendships from home, because the dynamics are completely different. 

I do think it is very common to go through this. We struggle to shift from the high school friendship dynamic to the adulthood and university friendship dynamic. But if you cast a wide enough net, you will meet some spectacular people and build your own unique friendship with them that's unlike any other. And hey, I'm only human. I still get the pang of "omg, I want us to be best friends!" whenever I have a really good conversation with someone I've just met, but then I remind myself of this beautiful Substack quote I found: 

I think adulthood would be less lonely if we stopped insisting that every worthwhile relationship must eventually become a close friendship. The neighbour you occasionally gossip with, the colleague whose lunch break you enjoy, the woman at the salon who knows the broad outline of your dating life, the person at your bus stop you've slowly started nodding hello to, all these relationships used to be allowed to exist without being upgraded. We have become so obsessed with finding 'our people’ that we underestimate how much happiness comes from simply having people. - Apoorvaa S Raghavan

I'll leave you with that for today. Friendships in adulthood are tough, I can guarantee that, but not impossible. Trust me, I know. 

All my love,

Kisha Xx