On Complicated Connections, Hot and Cold Energy, and the Few Who Stay Anyway
Let me tell you something I do not say out loud often.
Friendship does not come naturally to me. Not the way it seems to come to other people — easily, organically, with a casualness I have never quite been able to replicate. For me it has always been work. Sometimes joyful work. Sometimes exhausting work. Sometimes the kind of work where I have to actively remind myself to reach out, to check in, to care about things that matter to someone else even when my mind is somewhere else entirely.
I am working on it. I have been working on it my whole life.
Where It Started
I was raised in an environment where having close friendships was seen as suspect. My mother was skeptical about real relationships with others — the kind where you let people in, where you share, where you become vulnerable to someone outside the family.
Our relationship remained complicated and close until her dementia took over about five years ago. But the imprint was made long before that. My first experience of relationship was soaked in people pleasing, in the fear of rejection, in trying too hard and still not getting it right. That does not just disappear when you grow up. It follows you into every connection you try to build afterward.
So here I am. An adult woman who analyzes and then over-analyzes her friendships. Who pulls back when she feels someone is not showing up enough — while simultaneously not sharing a whole lot herself. Who knows this is somewhat contradictory and does it anyway.
Weird? Yes. All about vibe? Absolutely.
What I Actually Bring To The Table
I am assertive. Sometimes aggressive. Helpful to a fault and then suddenly distant. Willing to sit and talk for hours and also perfectly content to go weeks without contact. Hot and cold in ways that are genuinely not for everybody — and I have made my peace with that.
What I am, without question, is loyal. Old school loyal. If you hurt someone I love, I carry that forever. I will go to bat for my friends. I will show up when it matters. I will notice when something is off and tap in before you have to ask. Sometimes that sentiment is returned. Sometimes it is not. I have had to learn to live with that asymmetry without letting it make me bitter.
I am still learning.
The Emotional Load Question
Some friends require a lot. Not occasionally — consistently. There is always a crisis, always a problem, always something that needs to be processed out loud and at length. I love those friends. And I have had to get very honest about what I can actually give them.
The version of me they get depends entirely on what I have in surplus that day.
Family drained me in ways that took years to fully reckon with — the kind of draining where you give until there is nothing left and then find more because you feel like you have to. I cannot do that with friendships. I will not.
Giving from my surplus is the only sustainable model. If I am full that week, I can show up for your crisis without resentment. If I am not, the most honest thing I can do is show up at whatever level I actually have — or not at all. That is not abandonment. That is self-preservation.
I have been drained too many times to leave myself bare for someone else’s emotional highs and lows. My peace is not a luxury. It is the thing that makes me capable of being anyone’s friend at all.
The Ones Who Stayed
The friends who have remained understand my weirdness. They are not thrown by the distance. They do not take the silence personally. They know that when I show up, I am fully present — and that when I disappear for a while, it is not about them.
Many people I consider close friends I talk to sporadically. Not daily. Sometimes not monthly. But they know exactly what kind of engagement I need, and I tap in when I sense they need me. No pressure. No performance. Just genuine connection that does not require constant maintenance to stay real.
The ones who fell away mostly could not reconcile the hot and the cold. I understand that. I do not blame them. Not everyone is equipped to be friends with someone like me, and I am not equipped to be friends with everyone either.
The Part I Am Still Figuring Out
I do not know how much of this is my upbringing and how much is just who I am. Probably both.
Over-analyzing friendships is my default. I run the tape. I notice who showed up and who did not. I pull back quietly when something feels off and rarely explain why. I give people my full loyalty and then wonder if I am expecting too much in return.
I am not sure I need to fix all of it. Some of it is protection that served me well for a long time. Some of it is leftover wiring from a childhood that did not model easy connection.
What I know for certain is this — the people who have stayed, who show up in their own quiet and consistent way, are some of the most important people in my life. I do not say that to them often enough.
Maybe that is the work. Not becoming someone different. Just saying the thing out loud a little more.
