Putting my writing out in public is difficult. Everything I can imagine saying or writing sounds cringey or content-free. I’m also terrible in the subtle art of nonstandard sentence construction. Instead of picking words that maximize meaning and value for the readers, I pick words that fit the metre and rhyme scheme. Yet, nobody cares. So here goes.
I got to read Ben’s sagely advice on blogging as an awesome avenue to gain even more awesome friendships. Social media, I don’t take to it as a way to forge meaningful friendships or connections (at least for me).
- Around 25% of his friends, he either first met them through one of his blogs
- His friendships was significantly reinforced by commenting on each other’s posts
- Another 25% or more he met indirectly through one of these people (who are disproportionately likely to have friends that he like a lot)
Looking back on the kinds of “friendships” that I’ve held on to, I got sick of going above and beyond (very loosely defined). The overcompensation here probably stemmed from some past introspection on how much I wasn’t showing up for others when I was younger. When effort didn’t translate into my desired outcomes, my mind linked the loss to my lowest self: “It happened because I wasn’t enough.” Because shouldn’t real friendships and kinships be resilient enough to withstand your hard times, at least a little? “Maybe I don’t weigh that high in their priority list.” That’s a brutal conclusion, and one that’s hard to unlearn. I sometimes envy those whose careers grew beside their friendships; how they built both craft and kinship in tandem.
Hierarchy of relationships
Romantic partners, parents, children — all these come first. 1
The poignant point about friendships lies in its inherent voluntary nature. There are no fail-safes in friendships, unlike in other kinds of relationships e.g., marriages, birth families, business partners. Our cultural script has taught that “family” is supposed to be the most natural, automatic, unconditional bond. But in reality, real connection requires shared values, emotional safety, and mutual curiosity. If that’s missing, even if people are kind or well-meaning, you can feel alone in the same room.
Our world is a high-dimensional one. Any number of factors could conceivably matter when it comes to the quality of a relationship between you and another party. The graph below helps when I’m stuck between pursuing or dropping this budding acquaintance-friendship.
Source: Wait But Why
Friendships are meant to be spaces where you feel more like yourself, not less. If being around people makes you feel like you’re hiding or enduring something, then it means you’re either with the wrong people, or still working on being safe enough with yourself to show up as you are. Or both.
Kinds of people that are “uh… Nah” for me
Those who listen only to respond, who compress others into neat categories for easier handling. They mistake earnestness for naivety. They often confuse quick judgment for discernment, and tend to flatten everything into a teachable moment. There’s a kind of quiet shoeboxing that happens, where a person’s complexity gets packed away into a single, comfortable label.
I find that conversations with such people rarely breathe. Everything becomes an evaluation instead of an exchange; a performance of understanding rather than the real thing. I prefer people who engage with things, not over them; who can hold curiosity without needing to assert hierarchy. It’s not that I need to be agreed with. I just need to feel that the other person is listening. I’m not asking for perfect sympathy, only reciprocity, a willingness to be surprised, to stay a little uncertain together.
Everybody worships
Based on personal experience, what they consciously decide has meaning and what doesn’t, is usually a direct forerunner to an estimate of their internal mental patterns i.e., curiosity, hilarity2 or verbal facility.
If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings. They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing. 3
What genuinely makes my inner world soften:
- Calm, slow energy, not hyper or performative
- Slightly awkward or introverted but self-aware
- Soft-spoken or thoughtful in conversation
- A quiet kind of confidence (not cocky, just settled)
- Makes space for my thoughts without needing to fix them
- Doesn’t over-praise, just sees me and treats that as enough
- Gives attention without making me feel scrutinized
- Generous in spirit, helps without making it a performance
- Taste4 and aesthetic sensibility
- Conflict tolerance - a capacity to handle disagreement constructively
- Doesn’t gossip to belittle others
The bottom line is basically somebody to talk to, someone to depend on and somebody to enjoy. Across the entire life course, these expectations remain the same, but the circumstances under which they’re accomplished change.
Relevant objections
It’s true that sometimes, we might be over presumptuous in holding some kinds of inclinations as superior to others. Who’s to decide which one is interesting/better? But I disagree that there are no boring people. I don’t mean to be binary about this. You can be simultaneously boring and unboring. People are mercifully, individuals with loves and hates,ambitions and generosity, potential and idlesness all mixed up inside them.
Sometimes, I get stuck in a group conversation with people I don’t find interesting. The topics, meh. The people, meh. The vibe, meh. I could be meh too. Some say that rather than changing from the inside out, you bring the outside in. You might have had some of these friendships that I’m about to touch on. Or currently, in some of them.
Actively draining friendships
These are the ones that actually chip away at your self-worth. You leave interactions feeling worse about yourself (anxious, small, dismissed). They may criticize, compete, gossip, or only reach out when they want something. You feel like you’re working during the friendship: managing their moods, overgiving, keeping peace.
Flat friendships
There’s no hostility, but also no spark. Conversations feel shallow or repetitive. You don’t feel seen in your real self. You don’t leave drained, just indifferent.
Granted, we might tip into over-critical / guilt-tripping territory. So, how do I minimize the extent of this? There are some behaviours I’m trying to default to.
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Instead of labeling someone as “bad”, I’m trying to consciously note it as a pattern that doesn’t match my values or energy. Does noticing this pattern drain me or help me decide where to invest? It’s healthy if it’s helping me choose where to spend energy. But if it’s ruminating or “ranking people” in my head, gotta pause and redirect.
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Start with curiosity rather than critique. When someone shows a minor ick, try a mental note: “Interesting, why do they do this?” Someone brags about xyz. Instead of “ugh”, it’s more “Hmm, they value status differently; I probably won’t connect here.”
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It’s important to reinforce positive judgement. When I see green flags, I appreciate them explicitly in your mind. So my radar stays constructive, not bitter.
Cities and Circuses
Is geographical location a key factor when it comes to the kinds of people you experience? According to PG, different cities whispers different things to you. The kind of conversations you overhear tell you the kinds of people you are around. Whether I like it or not, it’s hard not to be influenced by those around me. As Feynman once said, the first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.
A city speaks to you mostly by accident — in things you see through windows, in conversations you overhear. It’s not something you have to seek out, but something you can’t turn off. One of the occupational hazards of living in Cambridge is overhearing the conversations of people who use interrogative intonation in declarative sentences. But on average I’ll take Cambridge conversations over New York or Silicon Valley ones. 5
My efforts weren’t futile. I’ve learnt some lessons along the way which hopefully make this journey more worthwhile.
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Start from mutuality, not over-extension. Give small, see if it’s returned. If not, don’t scale up. Reciprocity is a foundation, not a reward I earn by overgiving. Look for consistency.
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Notice small acts. Do they hold space in conversation or bulldoze it? It’s okay to hope people will come through. But it’s vital to notice when they don’t.
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Listen to how they talk about others. Do they describe people with warmth or judgment?
Anyway, this first blog post is in hope of laying down a trail for others to follow, if they want to. That said, how reliable am I? Any first-person text has a narrator of questionable credibility because humans tend to rationalise, justify and explain away some of our conduct and decisions.
Footnotes
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To have a sense of humour is to be strong: to keep one’s sense of humour is to shrug off misfortunes, and to lose one’s sense of humour is to be wounded by them. See Paul Graham: Taste ↩
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The odds of people with good taste having more developed characters is greater. ↩