What It Took Me Nearly 50 Years To Figure Out

There is also the fact that I'm a little different from most of my friends. I shifted my diet significantly when I was around 30. It makes a huge difference in my health. I never think about weight anymore, and I have tremendous energy. My parents kept pushing me to eat what everyone else was eating. (Mostly, I think, because it would relieve them of the guilt that they might have for how many years I suffered.) Friends with their own dietary restrictions would invite me to their homes and not have a single thing I could enjoy. I stopped expecting accommodation. That turned out to be a useful practice for everything else.

What I was slowly learning, without having words for it, was that reciprocity is a fantasy we bring to friendship, not a feature of it. People are doing what they do. They are running on their own logic, their own limitations, their own interior weather. It's rarely about you.

A friendship that helped me understand this started at a movie screening, one of those painful ones where my future friend and I both fled before the post-film discussion could trap us. We bonded instantly over our mutual escape and disdain for the film. For the next two years we made attempts: museums, other screenings, the occasional meal together. We had things in common. We were both actors. We both had aging parents we worried about. Neither of us had kids or spouses. And yet the friendship never quite clicked. We drifted apart without any dramatic conversation about it.

Then, months later, I ran into her at another screening. We had a lovely catch-up. We both enjoyed the film. When it was time to leave she said something like, "I'll see you at one of these again sometime." No elaboration needed. I understood perfectly. We didn't need to try to make it more than what it was. The occasional warm run-in was exactly the right shape for us, and that was genuinely fine.

That moment cracked something open. I started to see that my married friends who rushed off to pick up a kid or handle something for a spouse weren't abandoning me; they were just living their lives. I started to see those, like the women who I joined at the pool, as people who are friends but not besties. I stopped looking for the perfectly aligned circle, the group that would get all of me, and started noticing what each person actually offered.

I have a friend who gave me the most thoughtful birthday gifts I've ever received. One year it was fun makeup she knew I'd love. The next, she took me out for coconut milk ice cream at a shop that uses only fruit as sweetener, so I could eat every single flavor. Those gestures meant the world to me, not because they were grand, but because she saw me. That's rarer than we're taught to expect, and sweeter for it.

I have movie-watching friends. Friends I can hike with. Friends I can talk about books with. None of them are my everything, and I am not theirs. What I've found, somewhat to my surprise, is that releasing the fantasy of the complete posse, that tight-knit group that knows all your business and shows up for every chapter of your life, creates a strange and genuine contentment. The moments with friends become something to savor rather than something to measure.

I finally got that there is nothing wrong with me for not having a squad. I’m not failing at friendship. It’s totally enough to enjoy people where they are and if things evolve naturally, that’s great. No apps needed to try and find or make connections that look like an episode of TV. I don’t need that kind of drama anyway.

It only took me nearly 50 years to figure that out.