Friendships are as bad (and good) as relationships.
I was an ardent believer in friendships when I was younger. They just seemed better than family. Two decades later, I’m not so sure.
I made my first adult friend on a Monday morning. I was 5 years old, in a classroom of other 5-year olds. A classmate walked up to me and said she didn’t like me.
I said, “That’s ok, there are others who do.”
“Oh, really? Let’s ask”, she replied.
And for the next ten minutes, she went around asking everyone who they’d be friends with — her or me? All but one chose her. Some even said because I’m black (a colloquial term used to denote dark-skin in India), they’d be friends with her, who was lighter-skinned and long-haired. I was dark-skinned with scanty hair.
When the class teacher walked in a little later, I went up to her and narrated in detail what had just happened.
She said, “I see. In that case, tell everyone that the class-teacher is your best friend and that you don’t need anyone else.”
I smiled widely, partly relieved and partly proud that a teacher — a grown-up was now my friend.
Since then, I have relived this experience in many different ways — of being rejected, by not one, not two, but at least 20 kids at once. And when I’m at my worst, I think they were right in hating me. I think there was (and is) something deeply hate-worthy about me.
The thought occurs often. Every time I hear a snarky remark from a loved one, every time I hear of a friend bad-mouthing me, every time there’s a crisis and no one’s around to help.
It’s like a wound that won’t heal — a gnawing, gaping tear.
I have tried to close it by seeking help. I have actively asked therapists, peers, and Google for clarifications. Perhaps even manuals that’d detail an SOP to acquire an unfailing friendship.
“Can you help me understand what healthy friendships look like? Do you think I have it in me to be a healthy friend?”
“Am I likable? Do I have toxic traits? Am I expecting too much?”
“How should I be, for them to like me? Like me enough to be my friend?”
A few weeks ago, I was alerted to this article that a friend had posted (What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?). They had shared it saying they were surprised that some still believed in friendships when heterosexuals tended to prioritize romantic partners over friends. I don’t consider myself a heterosexual, but it felt like the tweet was directed at people like me.
Those that marry off and leave. Those that abandon friendships for love.
I married a cis-straight man a year ago and this relationship has taken up a lot of my time and energy. I have prioritized living together with him. I have moved countries for him. I have, indeed, in many ways, made my partner, an important person in my life.
Yet, I’m not living a fairytale. In fact, I’m doing the opposite. My dream, naively so, was to live in a house with friends. Three, four rooms, maybe? With or without our partners, perhaps? Cook, clean, and raise children together, even?
That was my fairytale. A life with friends. Chai at 4, wine at 9, dinner with raucous laughter.
I got into fights with my family over friends. They couldn’t understand why I would do so much, feel so much, or be so much for my friends. Why would I take a flight to New Delhi, just for a weekend, to console a crying friend? Why would I always take my friends’ advice over theirs? Why would I spend hours and hours and hours talking to a friend, who wouldn’t be there when I need them?
My naivety that believed in the inherent goodness of friendships was also not ready for today’s social justice culture — a version that’s characterized by social media call-outs and short-lived outrage. I did not expect friends to spew personal hate in the name of political critique. I did not anticipate confidantes to turn on me in public. I wasn’t prepared for break-ups on digital streets.
It has taken two decades, several betrayals, at least two toxic friendships, and countless fall-outs to shake me from my reverie. It has taken innumerable interventions, from my mother and the few friends I have come to trust, to help me stay aware of my own unhealthy expectations and my inability to draw boundaries.
Thankfully, I have now stopped glorifying friendships as something sacred or superior to familial and romantic relationships.
I realize that friendships, like any other relationship, can be both bad and good. A lot of it depends on how much is given and how much is taken; on who’s asked to give and who’s allowed to take.
I have learned that unhealed trauma can show up in friendships in the ugliest of ways. I vividly remember a birthday of mine — the last one I had spent with my Father. My parents woke me up with a gift, a gold necklace they had bought with their savings.
I could see how big a deal it was for them. I could hear their heart beating for me. Yet, in that moment, I was so broken and so down, I said, “Thank you, appa, amma, but I don’t deserve to live. I’m worth nothing.”
The previous evening, I had had a huge fight with a close friend. I then waited the entire morning for them to wish me, hoping for their anger to have subsided, yearning to be friends again, praying that we go back to normalcy — whatever that was. No one else and no other wish mattered to me.
My father died, short of a year later. He didn’t live to see another birthday of mine.
I have learned that my tendency to over-invest, over-involve, and over-analyze has caused so much hurt to myself and others. I have learned that my toxic traits have wreaked emotional havoc in people. I have learned that bad friendships can ruin you in ways even romantic relationships can’t. I have learned that influence and control align perfectly with power and privilege in friendships.
It ain’t for nothing that light-skinned 5-year olds, the rich, the good-looking, the upper-castes, and cis-men have little trouble finding and keeping friends. They can get away with bad behavior and still be loved, while the rest of us can get banished for as much as a smirk.
I have learned that good friends draw boundaries, say yes, and say no. I have learned that good friends reciprocate. They give as much as they take. They answer your phone calls when you need them, knowing that you answer theirs when they need you. They don’t hit on your love interests. They don’t judge. They aren’t cruel. They don’t get consumed by hate and jealousy and resentment, so much so that you lose your will to live.
They value kindness. They don’t see it as weakness, ripe for leverage.
But I have also learned that bad friendships aren’t as rare as we think. They are surprisingly common because we’ve all been bad friends at some point, to someone. We are deeply selfish beings, we mostly only look out for ourselves, and we have personal drivers that determine why we do what we do to our loved ones.
Still, we must try. We must strive to do better — in relationships and in friendships. Not because one is more central than the other. But because people matter. Our lovers, our partners, our caregivers, our siblings, and our friends. That’s our community — all of them — and we need them all.