On Friendships: Quality vs Quantity

When I was younger my mother would always tell me “it’s the quality not quantity of friends you have”. I would laugh at her and say there’s no way that is true.

I believed that the more friends you had, the more popular you were, the more popular you were, the happier you would be.

I started to define myself by the number of friends I had. My feelings towards myself would fluctuate based on how many friends I had … oh I MUST be a good person, I must be happy look how many friends I have, look at how many people like me. Or on the flip side — there must be something wrong with me because I don’t have a lot of friends and no one is interested in me.

What I believed to be my “friendships” we’re actually incredibly surface level. We never discussed anything meaningful, and I thought that was ok. I thought feelings were meant to stay inside of me and your friends you just discussed random things with — the weather, celebrity gossip, food, makeup, what you ate today.

BOY WAS I WRONG.

I started to feel like Meredith in Grey’s Anatomy “Pick me. Choose Me. Love me.” At some point, all these “friendships” became very one sided. I was the one making the effort, I was the one asking the other person to hang out, I was the one reaching out. And I was putting all that effort in — and getting little to nothing in return. And the result was me feeling depleted — emotionally, mentally, physically. I felt like I was not enough, not enough to warrant a response, not…