‘Word by Word’ is a column by Garima Behal on learning to ride the highs and lows of everyday life

“You have… like a million friends!”

“Are you sure you’re an introvert?”

I’ve heard these things enough times to admit that I’m a people person. Those who know me know that I am the friend who plans the monthly get-togethers, the hugger in virtually every group, and a sucker for affection in all its sweet and satisfying forms. 

My friends mean everything to me. On their birthdays, I want to shower them with the choicest gifts. When they’re leaving for far-off places, you’ll find me seeing them off at airports. And when they can’t take the highway to meet me, I can be spotted on a train that’s speeding right up to their city. 

My friendships are the one thing I’ve got right in a life otherwise fraught with flaws, missteps, and errors of judgment. I am proud of them. 

When affection turns into affliction

Or at least I was, till my longest-standing one broke. As a hopeless romantic, I believed this was just the opportunity for metaphorically practicing Kintsugi—using molten gold to fill in the cracks of broken pottery—the way the Japanese do. 

Life, however, had other plans. They included my best friend of two decades calling me crazy for writing on LinkedIn every day, telling me she had unfollowed me, accusing me of dating a guy she liked, and then demanding to see me because she wanted me to be there for her. OUCH. 

I felt a lot of things after that phone call. The entire spectrum of emotions from disappointment to disillusionment. I questioned my self-worth, my writing, my passion, even my existence—because who was I if I couldn’t be a good friend?

Luckily, the shame spiral gave way to some life lessons. About growing up and outgrowing relationships. About ego and love. About selfishness and kindness. About what friendships should and shouldn’t look like.

If my life were a Bildungsroman, this incident would be the inflection point. The one thing that made me infinitely better at something I thought I didn’t need before—establishing boundaries.

Since that day, I’ve sometimes waited for an apology. At other times, I have understood the futility of waiting. I’ve wrestled with the desire to reach out. And placated myself by whispering that she doesn’t care. Because if she did, even a little bit, I feel, she would have made an effort to not let me vanish like a puff of smoke, a ghost of a memory from our long, shared past with a text, ‘Ok. Bye’. 

The ingredients for flavorful friendships

Effort. The life vest that can keep even sinking relationships afloat. A friendship without effort, to me, at least, is one minus its magical iridescence, its delicious coziness, and its irreplaceable intimacy. 

Think about it. The person without whom we never had lunch in school, the person we always sat next to in college, the person with whom we could talk for hours on the landline, the person who was there each time someone we loved left. Where are they today? Growing up is indeed growing apart. But what if we called them one of these days at lunch just to say hi and share a morsel over Facetime? What if we invited them to sit next to us in the car on a road trip? What if we texted them we needed their shoulder this night because it was deeply dark and lonely in the room by ourselves?

Maybe time isn’t what makes a difference between the things that last and the ones that don’t. Maybe it’s us. Choosing to not do even the bare minimum when we need to do better.

If she didn’t reach out, I could have. Yet, sometimes, holding on to the connection feels like ascending a steep mountain: there’s far too much gravity in pain, and after a while, your heart simply refuses to cooperate. 

In such a situation, I make more of an effort. But choose to direct it to friendships that make my soul sing in a meadow of sunshiny green flanked by snow-white mountains. I choose to reserve my very scarce time and energy for friendships that feel like a rejuvenating break for my tired body and a warm hug for my tired soul. Not for ones that smother me.

I invest myself into sending 3-minute-long voice notes to the stranger-turned-friend I met on a flight in April 2022 and who has checked in with me every week since. I fix up long-distance video calls with erstwhile virtual friends who invited me to their homes, introduced me to new cultures and cuisines alike, and who inexplicably became my destined family. I decide to be there just for the ones who have been there for me, without making me feel like I owe them the biggest pieces of myself. Isn’t that what friendship means?

I now have a yardstick to measure all my friendships by. And I can sum it up in one word. Mutuality. Everything else may be a show worthy of Instagram, but it will not be worthy of the sacred space of my mind, body, and soul.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of MyndStories.