The guide to people's person."

This guide is for those who feel like they are ‘‘too much’’ but never enough all at once.

 

Since childhood, we grew up watching Bollywood songs and movies reflecting “ride-or-die” friendship bonds. We always had this picture-perfect (almost unattainable) image of friendships in our heads. Friendship circles existing in sitcoms like “FRIENDS” or “Gossip Girl” have a kind of vibe. Anytime we share this dream with any of our existing friends, the dream (or delusion) is very gently torn apart by them by saying, “It's not reality, it simply exists in shows.”

 

 

In order to get other people to like us, we mold ourselves into different structures. We take up roles varying from being the smart one, the intellectual one, the fun one, the loud one, or the quiet, digestible one. We get desperate to be someone’s favorite one. To be the one who is chosen by at least one person without a split second’s thought.

 

 

Relational trauma around friendships is a perplexing teacher. It occurs after going through multiple friendship breakups, outgrowing, exclusion, and backstabbing. We treat every cancelled plan as a rejection, every unanswered text as evidence of you being a “problem”. It always seems like a tormenting experience when others seem to “unlock” the code of making friends and have one or more “ride-or-die friends”. While sitting on the outskirts of others’ lives, viewing it as a spectator.

 It is indeed a weird and difficult-to-describe experience, which others simply brush off as “everyone is busy, life happens, we are not kids anymore, etc.” However, every cancelled plan feels like evidence of your existing belief of “not important enough” for others. It simply doesn’t feel like a rejection, but an echo of our minds of never being “good enough” for others to be someone’s priority.

 

This fear or insecurity is a complex process; it starts with craving a close bond with people, it ends with the fear of losing them, so maintaining a safe distance, always waiting at the drop of a hat that the other person will see “our flaws” and vulnerability, thus our weakness. So, it always felt important to be in control of the situation. This implies leaving the other person before they leave us.

 

Making friends after such an ordeal is not a piece of cake. It means learning to trust that not everyone will leave. It means trusting whoever is meant for you will find a way to stay. And gradually, even before you know, you learn to hold people gently, not forcefully, to add on in your life, not to rescue you from it. With this mindset, you may (or may not) find a best friend, but surely you will become your own ;) And maybe that’s the point of life.