no, we cannot be friends

a contemplation on the lack of girlhood in my 20s (and honestly my whole life)

Mar 05, 2025

the absence of stable friendships has carved a cavity deep in my heart - one that echoes louder with each passing year.

my life is a track record of failed friendships; from being bullied as a little girl just entering the school system to fake and spiteful friends in high school, to experiencing friendships in university that initially seemed lovely and wholesome, but were in fact laced with insecurity, competition, and transactional intent. i find myself often questioning where i went wrong. how did i end up in a place where connection feels so distant and difficult to grasp?

my deprivation has compelled me into a state of solitude i had not imagined to be in, especially in my 20s, which are a period of endless laughter, carefree memories, and spontaneous adventures. instead, i spend weekends and holidays scrolling on instagram and tiktok, watching girls my age surrounded by their people. i feel the ache of my own invisibility. not just loneliness, but vulnerability. disconnection. a still embarrassment, burdened and unspoken.

embarrassed that at this stage of my life, when friendships should be established, effortless, and abundant, i struggle to form the most simplest connections. embarrassed that i don’t have years’ worth of inside jokes, the girl who knows me better than myself, or anyone to rely on for comfort when the weight of life becomes too heavy to bear. i look back and wish i had people to share the burden of heartbreak with, to remind me i was not alone in my struggles, to simply exist beside me in the weariness. but instead, i learn to bore it all in silence. learn to comfort myself because there is no one else to do it with me. i can feel the little girl in me - the one who was bullied and broken - slowly losing hope, realizing the belonging she longed for may never come. it may not be in her destiny.

the plethora of time i've had since graduating university has granted me the opportunity to replay the tape of my failed friendships - pausing at their eye rolls, their snarky comments disguised as jokes, their backhanded remarks - before i finally rewound further. past the university classmates who kept me as a token in their circle, the high school friends who picked apart my insecurities, and the playground taunts that convinced me i was devastatingly unlikeable, i found a segment that had been overlooked: the realization that i had been auditioning people for a role no one could fill. not because they weren’t enough, but because i was casting them as characters in a story they never agreed to be part of.

for so long, i deemed loneliness was in the absence of people. now, i see it as the absence of myself - the way i’d hollow out my boundaries to make space for their uncertainties, how i mistook obsession for connection, how i’d cling to crumbs for attention because i had forgot to feed myself. everytime i let someone cross a line, everytime i swallowed my anger to keep the peace, everytime i apologized for simply existing too loudly - i was whispering to the world, you can hurt me and i will let you, because i have always negotiated my worth for salvation.

The truth is, i was not searching for companions - i was searching for acceptance. for belonging. i was searching for saviors, the missing pieces to my own puzzle, the proof that i truly mattered. my desperation led me to the hands of those who did not garner the breadth to truly understand me - they were in fact not my people. not remotely close. i chose people who couldn’t choose me, not because i deserved their neglect, but because part of me still believed that little girl on the playground did. that if i stayed small enough, quiet enough, useful enough, i'd finally be “one of them.” i’d finally belong. however, the real wound was not the rejection, it was the way i abandoned myself - over and over - in hopes that someone would stay and prove me wrong to myself.

i’ve started leaving flowers on the graves of friendships that never lived. not out of sorrow, but closure. i think of the little girl on the playground, who fought to earn her place, constantly shrinking herself into something palatable. i whisper to her: “the world didn’t ruin you - it tried to. and still, you blossomed through the cracks.”

that little girl - once whimsical, carefree, and fiery - now lives in the marrow of my bones, not as a ghost, but as a compass. i’ve chiseled belonging out of my own abyss, tending to the hushed truths that unfurl in solitude: i am too intricate for unanchored hearts. too tamed for those who love in straight lines. my empathy is dissonant with their apathy. the ocean of my mind, the amplitude of my resplendent soul is far too expansive for their bleakness. no more contorting to fit fragile connections. let the world call me “too much.” i will keep rooting here, in the rich soil of my becoming, where my soul unfolds like a stubborn wildflower - unapologetic, radiant, and finally free. not waiting to be found, but ready to be seen by those who have dared to grow toward their own light.

no, we cannot be friends

a contemplation on the lack of girlhood in my 20s (and honestly my whole life)

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