Friendship is like a mirror held up to the soul, one that breaks as often as it shows us who we really are. We start these relationships thinking we have the ability to plan out how they'll go, only to find ourselves lost in a bunch of contradictions.
The first crack: a razor-thin line between having high standards and being a total dick about it. Don't get me wrong, I have crazy high expectations, and that's actually fine; the problem begins when you demand them from friends but don't actually want to hold yourself to those same standards. That makes you an asshole.
It's not a game
Studies say friendship quality tanks when we feel there's an imbalance in support (source ), duh. But the bigger danger is when we silently keep score, that awful habit of mentally tracking favors like debt. Be careful, the difference between having healthy standards and emotional blackmail is quite thin, as I've found myself to be both the creditor and debtor in this toxic economy, holding grudges and resentments until the vault doors collapsed.
Communication (spoiler: we mostly all suck at it), is any relationship's BIGGEST problem. Overthinkers know this all too well. They (we) make up entire conversations in their head, rehearsing eloquent tirades and formulating complaints, only to realize weeks later they've never actually said anything out loud... It truly is a special kind of torture: waking up to find all that bravery gone like a dream you forgot about.
Albeit, brain science shows this freezing up isn't just cowardice but a biological response: our brains just treats emotional vulnerability like physical danger (source , source , source ). We become creators of amazing imaginary talks, building entire relationships and grand scenarios in our heads, then wonder why the real thing feels so disappointing. The real tragedy isn't what we say, but all the stuff we never say between our nervous laughs.
Don't feel bad
Feelings aren't right or wrong. They just exist. Understanding someone's feelings doesn't mean you're letting them off the hook. A mistake doesn't erase the hurt it causes, just like someone else's pain does not cancel out yours. This is the tricky balance of connection: two separate sides that should never be directly compared, because keeping track of hurts turns friendship into a business deal (cf. a few paragraphs above), and that just never works long term.
Looking for validation in friendship is like eating fast food: feels good right away but leaves you empty later. The more we treat friends as validation machines, the less real the connection will feel; you can't "manufacture" intimacy.
And yet... oh how often we treat friendship like a transaction. We trade acceptance for loyalty, fake vulnerability for attention, and wonder why our relations feels so empty and unfulfilling. In all fairness, social media is to blame for this: but you have to stop treating friends as an audience. The problem today isn't about having too few but too many shallow connections. We're drowning in digital connections yet starving for real ones, mistaking quantity for quality. We (my generation) built walls of Snapchat streaks and Discord servers while letting our real-world social skills get worse. 12% of adults now say they have no close friends (in 2021), three times more than in 1990 (source ).
Who are you?
Another ugly crack in the mirror: fake hierarchy. Calling someone a friend while hiding parts of yourself is like building a dam in a river. You might control the flow, yes, but the water will end up stagnant no matter what. That sneaky lie of « compartmentalized » friendship, the idea that we can neatly divide ourselves into different packages for different people, is straight up poison. For real connection to happen, all parties need to be fully present (source , source ).
If you let one friend see your mess and another only your polished side, you haven't created intimacy, you've created inequality. There's no neutral ground here. Holding back comes from distrust, resentment, or worse: not caring, which is the opposite of love, romantic or otherwise.
All relationships are, at their core, romantic: not in the dating sense, but in their shared belief. MRI scans show the same brain patterns when people think about close friends and romantic partners. This is why it hurts so damn much when friendships break: we're basically going through romantic breakups without society's permission to grieve openly (source , source , source ).
See something, say something!
That polite nod, the mumbled "Mhhh... I don't disagree" when your gut is screaming "this is SO wrong," these aren't acts of harmony but emotional cowardice. I've watched COUNTLESS friendships slowly burn out under the weight of conflicts nobody talked about, seen how buried disagreements turn into resentment.
Your job in friendship isn't to keep things comfortable, but to be honest. Speak your mind. Staying quiet when something feels wrong isn't kindness, but self-erasure. And let's not forget that listeners have an even bigger responsibility: to create safe spaces where honesty isn't punished with judgment or dismissal. A friend who responds to your pain by brushing it off or turns your vulnerability into a four-hour interrogation has broken the basic rules of connection, run.
Too many think friendship is about stability when it's really about courage. Courage to speak. Courage to listen. Courage to change. Depth requires friction. Silence becomes enabling, which destroys trust.
Plastic love
I've felt, again and again, that weird sting that comes not from outright rejection but from that in-between space of almost-friendship: being someone's collector's item rather than their confidant. The particular pain of watching the doors of genuine connection close while the appearance of friendship stays in place. It's watching others enjoy real connection while you're left pressing your face against the glass, seeing joy you're specifically not invited to share.
The worst rejection isn't being openly dismissed but being conditionally accepted, where your presence is on probation, your voice background noise until it perfectly matches everyone else's. Being the friend who's kept at a distance while watching others freely embrace is humiliation in its purest form. And even worse is the gaslighting that follows when you dare point it out: being told you're just being "negative" when you've simply noticed what everyone pretends not to see.
Don't be ashamed of these complex feelings of jealousy and anger; they're not petty or wrong. They do not make you "bad" or "unworthy". They're simply your brain's natural signal that you're experiencing exclusion, something we're deeply wired to avoid. Humans are social creatures, and the pain of being left out is a survival instinct, don't let anyone abuse that, it's never worth it.
Some people collect friends like trophies, praising your achievements publicly while privately keeping you at a distance to make sure you never truly belong. There's calculated cruelty in praising someone as an inspiration rather than embracing them as a full human being with flaws and needs. The desperate attention-seeker who posts their drunken typos as proof of having a social life while denying others the simple dignity of a real response reeks of emotional fraud and insecurity.
Ending friendships isn't failure but honest respect. That lingering toxic relationship, kept going out of guilt or nostalgia, does way more damage than a clean break. Did you know ambivalent relationships create more stress than purely negative ones (source )? My greatest peace came not from repairing broken connections but from letting them go, you just have to know when to call it.
To those who've turned friendship into a performance: you are pathetic, and the applause you hear is merely just your own.
This, then, is my statement. To the friends I've failed: know that my silence was never a judgment of your worth, but a failed attempt to outrun my own issues. To those I've loved poorly or left suddenly: I release you, not with some dramatic closure, but with the quiet thanks of a student who finally gets the lesson.
The past isn't a chain, but a wake-up call. We do not need more friends, we need the guts to demand honesty from the ones we have, the wisdom to know when bridges should burn, and the strength to rebuild on foundations of real connection rather than convenient proximity.
Let the bleeding guide us home.