『The Loneliness of Being the Friend Who Holds Everyone Together』のカバーアート

The Loneliness of Being the Friend Who Holds Everyone Together

The Loneliness of Being the Friend Who Holds Everyone Together

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10月19日まで。※適用条件あり
The Loneliness of Being the Friend Who Holds Everyone TogetherOne of the strangest parts of getting older is realizing that some of your closest friendships existed only because you made sure they did.I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship lately, particularly how much it changes as you get older. There are so many conversations about romantic relationships, choosing the right partner, knowing when to leave, and understanding what you deserve, but I don’t think we spend nearly enough time talking about the heartbreak that can come from friendship.And in some ways, I think friendship heartbreak can be more confusing because nobody really teaches us what to do when a friendship starts falling apart.There’s usually no big argument. Nobody sits you down and tells you they don’t want to be friends anymore. Sometimes you realize you haven’t spoken to someone in six months, and the last five conversations were all initiated by you.You start thinking about all the birthdays you remembered, the dinners you organized, the random messages you sent because something reminded you of them. Not because you expected anything in return, but because that’s what friendship looked like to you.Then life gets busy, or you’re going through something yourself, and you don’t have the same energy to maintain every relationship.You stop calling as much. You forget to send the usual check-in message. You assume someone will eventually reach out and ask how you’re doing.And sometimes, nobody does.I think that’s one of those realizations that can really change how you see a relationship. You start wondering whether you were actually as close as you thought, or whether you had simply become very good at keeping the friendship going.I think our 30s expose things we could ignore in our 20sWhen I think about friendship in my 20s, so much of it was built around access. You had friends from university, people you worked with, roommates, friends of friends, and people you could randomly meet for drinks on a Thursday night.You didn’t necessarily need to be intentional about seeing each other because your lives naturally overlapped.But your 30s are different. People start getting married, having children, moving countries, building careers, and dealing with responsibilities that didn’t exist ten years earlier. Even finding a date for dinner can sometimes require three weeks of planning.I don’t think this means people suddenly become bad friends. I actually think most people are trying their best to manage their lives.But I do think this stage of adulthood forces you to look at your relationships differently.You start noticing who makes time for you when it isn’t convenient. You notice who remembers what you’ve been going through, who follows up on something you mentioned weeks ago, and who reaches out simply because they want to know how you are.You also start noticing the friendships where you seem to be doing most of the work.And maybe the harder realization is that you’ve been doing it for so long that the other person doesn’t even recognize there’s an imbalance.They’ve never really had to think about calling you because you’ve always called them. They’ve never had to plan anything because you’re the person who makes the reservations. They’ve never had to ask when they’ll see you next because you’ve already put something on the calendar.Someone can genuinely care about you and still get very comfortable with you carrying the relationship.I think that’s where things get complicated.There’s something about being the dependable friendI have a theory that women who are used to being the dependable person in their families, careers, and relationships often end up playing the exact same role in their friendships.They’re the people everyone comes to for advice. They know how to fix things, introduce people, organize an event, remember an important date, or make someone feel better after a terrible week.And the interesting thing is that most of them genuinely enjoy being that person.I don’t think every woman who’s constantly giving is secretly resentful. Sometimes you really do love taking care of people. You enjoy creating experiences. You like knowing that the people in your life feel supported.But I wonder how many of us have become so accustomed to being the person everyone depends on that we’ve never really considered what happens when we’re the ones who need support.What happens when you’re going through a difficult season and don’t have the emotional capacity to check on everyone else?Do your friends know how to show up for you?Do they even know when something is wrong?Or have you spent so many years being the person who has everything together that people assume you don’t need the same care you’ve been giving them?I think this is especially interesting because being needed can make you feel very connected to people. You know their problems, their fears, their ...
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