Dear friend, I’m not your therapist...
On Growing Up, Growing Apart, and Still Wanting to Be Chosen
One of my early memories is from the fifth grade. I was writing down names in my blue diary with a lock. Friends a list I updated obsessively, drawing stars around names of my favorites.
My brain had a grade system even before I understood numbers. +2 if you saved me a seat during lunch breakups. -5 if you bullied me during hide and seek. I kept score. Not out of spite, just to make sense of things.
I wanted someone to choose me. Underneath the tantrums, playing it too cool, lied a deep buried desire. To be seen and heard.
My real best friends were soft toys and stars. I’d talk to them when the house went quiet. Tell them about my day. They happily listened without any interruptions. My summer afternoons were busy with Famous Five books I borrowed from the library nearby. Spent my vacation inside balcony forts with bedsheets for curtains. I waited to feel part of a friends group like that tight, loyal, simple.
Design school changed something though. It gave me people who didn’t make me feel like I had to explain myself. For the first time, I wasn’t performing for friendship. I was just… me. And that was enough. I had found my footing. Friendships that felt easy. Natural. Ones I could breathe in. And then life asked me to start over.
New continent, new time zones, new people. Trying to find my place again, but this time as an adult. Belonging has always been the wound. Moving to a third-culture country in my 20s didn’t heal it. It made it louder. Sharper. Harder to ignore.
No one prepares you how to make friends as adults. Reminds me of my favorite quote from Before Sunset, “You just believe there’ll be many people with whom you’ll connect with. Later in life, you realize it only happens a few times.” I think about that line a lot.
Lately, friendships have started to feel like trade routes. How are you? Busy. You?
And then we exchange updates, like emails. Something gets lost between the sending and receiving. Adult friendships are quieter and sometimes lonelier. They’re made of check-ins and cancellations. Happy birthdays in DMs and grieving in Instagram comments. Sometimes they’re deep, soulful, grounding. Sometimes they feel like paperwork.
Maybe it’s because we’ve all read the same posts about boundaries and emotional labor. Maybe also because we’ve all been to therapy. Or wish we could afford it. We’ve learned to name our feelings. To ask for what we need. Yet I wonder, Are we asking too much of each other?
We want our friends to be soft, attentive, available. We want to feel completely understood. But I don’t know if we were meant to understand each other perfectly. I don’t even know if that’s love.
In an age where AI has become the perfect listener, we’re getting used to orchestrated replies for our feelings. Always patient. Always present. A positively toxic cheerleader.
Suddenly, because I’ve grown used to these structured conversations human connection has started to feel messier.
Delayed replies sting. Missed cues feel personal. We start expecting our friends to be therapists. But what if they’re just tired people trying to live their own lives? What if showing up doesn’t always look like holding space? Safe space is overrated. Not every conversation needs to turn into a podcast nugget.
I know everyone is the main character yada yada and that’s okay. We need to rewrite stories with not just one protagonist. Nonlinear. Complicated. Human.
Friendship isn’t about dissecting every emotion. I don’t want to therapize every silence or narrate every feeling.
It’s going for a walk and talking about the sky, not your inner child. Not asking for updates, just saying “Wanna come sit on my bed and doom scroll ? Watching trashy TV together or sending selfie in bad lighting.
So, where does that take me with friendships in adulthood? Well, I’m still carrying my blue diary but intention of keeping the score has evolved. +2 if you send a voice note when I least expect it (minus points if you hear it on 2x speed tho lol). -5 if you forget my birthday, but I’ll forgive it. Eventually. Oh and +100000 for sending me a Tiramisu.
I don’t need a perfect circle of friends anymore. I just want a few people I don’t have to explain myself to.
The ones who see me, even across continents. The ones who know I’m still that kid, wanting to be chosen. And choose me anyway.
Thinking about you,
Simply Saloni