Have friends or not have friends

That’s the problem(?)

If you said to someone you don’t have friends, that person would give you a weird look, he would say something like ‘Mmm..really?’ With a know-it-all expression on his/her face almost saying ‘weirdoooo’ because not have friends, or have very few, is a condition usually considered sad, not normal or not healthy. People without friends are perceived negatively, we think they are asocial, too shy, that may have social difficulties and we think they would be happier if they had friends; people always try to stimulate these persons and move them to socialise more. I happened to read a couple of posts on Instagram that said: 

I am no one’s favourite friend, I am the always welcome but rarely invited friend and I am never been the first choice.

I am now sitting here on my couch writing this post and thinking how many people on this planet can say to feel same way. I am thirty now; I lost several friends growing up, because of their disinterest on me, because they found a new friend, because for some reasons they stopped talking to me or because our mindset just changed; I felt betrayed on several occasions and couldn’t see other people effort in our friendship like I put mine. I’ve always been the weirdo, the one who loved art, mangas and couldn’t afford or simply didn’t like to party. All of this made me suffer a lot, so many times I cried alone in my bedroom during high school because I didn’t have anyone to talk with and I kept asking myself what was wrong with me, why was I so different from all the others? It took me years to understand that people may have different kind of friendship and relationships, that not everyone has tons of friends and to embrace my loneliness and so, be more kind to myself.

Dott.ssa Lucia Montesi Psychologist Psychotherapist in her article explains very well who are those people who, with little or no friends, are happy.

For someone superficial relationships like colleagues, neighbours, shop assistants are enough; they are satisfied even by short-term interactions and they don’t need to go further and strengthen the bond of friendship. They may be people who love spend time with themselves doing what they like without being with someone. People may find friendship in their partner or family members so they don’t need to enlarge their circle of friends. Introverts prefer to tide profound relations just with a few people, contrary to extroverts who need a large number of social relations; they relax easier alone and need time to spend in solitude to recharge from the too many stimulus they feel on social situations. Usually introverts have less friends and prefer to spend time with just one person per time and profoundly; they like friendships, but they need that those don’t invade the solitude spaces they need. According to some studies creative people feel less satisfied about themselves when they spend time with friends, because they feel limited in freely dedicate to their interests and they need to adapt to others needs. Sometimes these happy-with-no-friends people have a very high sense of friendship which distinguishes from occasional relationships and acquaintances. Someone just think to be too busy with work, home and life in general to find time to create friendships. Some people have particular interests and they can’t find someone to share them with and prefer to be on they own; or they get bored if they can’t talk about their interests. People who have been disappointed in the past from friends often don’t want to find new friends to protect themselves from new disappointments, they start to think that friendship doesn’t exist and so that is useless create new relationships; they often observe others friendship relations and see when are toxic, false, forced; when these people have suffered painful or traumatic experiences often feel insecure, they don’t trust people anymore and prefer to avoid the risk to suffer again. 

Having friends is something beautiful for who wants them; share experiences, life and create a community is for sure a nice thing…if is desired; we must consider that not everyone likes, or simply feels, to share intimate parts of his/her life with someone else, especially in large groups. I know people who have the same friends since they were five and kept the bond till the adulthood, but is not like this for everyone and is totally fine; too often I hear people saying that make friends is important, that we should all make the effort to know more people and bond, nevertheless we have to understand that not being social is not necessary a bad thing. In a society where everyone shares everyday what they eat, what they wear, which detergent they buy at the grocery store, if they prefer coffee or thè or matcha etc is inevitable that when someone doesn’t share the pic of his/her plate before eating is a ‘boomer’ (used in a derogatory way); we should leave people to live their life, with or without friends and let them choose what and if they want to share their experiences with others without considering them asocial, weird or loser. Embrace our solitude is a right and not a condition.