friends of convenience - 3.12.26

lately i’ve been reflecting a lot on myself and the people i surround myself. since moving from the country i grew up in around three years ago, i feel like although a lot of the people i meet and friends i make are nice to me it also feels like we only interact because we just happened to be in the perfect place, at the perfect time, and have the perfect alignment of needs and wants. convenience. i’m not saying anyone needs to go out of their way to befriend me or that this is a bad way of making friends, but it would be nice if after i fulfilled my purpose that you still go out of your way to maintain our friendship.

i don’t know if what i’m saying is making sense or maybe i sound ungrateful for the people who have treated me with such warmth but it always feels cheap to me when they warmth they give as an expiry date. like after you stop having to see me at what was once the perfect time and place with the perfect alignment of wants and needs you see there’s no reason to keep me around and you stop contacting me. it’s like i’m an inferior good, someone who was only good for you when you had nothing but now that you can afford someone more interesting, suddenly i’m no good. this is kinda what i mean by a friend of convenience.

maybe it’s selfish but i really hate being an afterthought to a lot of my friends. i’ve started to believe that every action has some meaning to it, whether it be big or small, and maybe that’s my own fault, but its changed the way i perceive other people. i used to think that one of my friends was extremely generous, always sharing her food, buying me gifts, taking me out places. and i was grateful of course. but as time went on, i started to realize it really wasn’t something she did out of the pure kindness but more out of convenience. like the food she shared was because she was never going to finish it on her own, or that it was a flavor of a drink she didn’t really like, or that the gifts she got me were because she either had no use for it anymore and the one video game she bought me was so that she wouldn’t have to play alone. she only took me out to places because i’m the only one she knows here and she didn’t want to be seen going alone by strangers. it’s little things like this that dull the intention i once saw as altruistic.

maybe i'm rambling or maybe nothing i said makes sense or is even wrong, but i think at the end of the day, i just want to be someone's first choice they never abnadon and love wholeheartedly.