I Was Wrong About Friendship

Every now and then I admit I'm wrong about something, and I was very wrong about making friends.

Almost a year ago, I wrote an article that would change my life forever, taking me from a tech worker who occasionally wrote articles on Substack to (eventually) a full-time Substack writer. It was called, Why I’m Obsessed with Lonely Young People.

I wrote it because I had several commenters ask me why I was so preoccupied with the plight of single men and women, given that I was/am happily married. Some people insinuated I must not really be all that happy in my marriage if I was spending my time writing about dating dynamics. Some singles were offended that I was “talking down” to them and told me to stay in my lane. Of course, to some extent I just find sex and relationships fascinating—I majored in sociology (which at the time I feared might be useless) and my writing has always centered around all forms of social dynamics, even before Substack. But Why I’m Obsessed with Lonely Young People got into another reason I find this stuff interesting: while I’ve never been any flavor of incel or femcel, I have had tremendous difficulty making friends. In fact, I had so much trouble amassing bridesmaids for my wedding that I nearly recruited my stepmother to serve.

The aforementioned article gets into why friendship has been hard for me—it almost entirely boils down to my anxiety issues and difficulty reading social cues. Although I’ve never been formally diagnosed with autism (and I actually don’t think I’m autistic) I have been diagnosed with ADHD and OCD, both of which can cloud my brain and make it hard to connect with other people when I’m in the middle of a hyperfixation or anxiety spiral. My natural desire to be funny 24/7 also prevented me from showing genuine interest in other people’s lives, as I was too busy performing standup comedy for which nobody asked. I’m not a sociopath and I care about other people, but I have narcissistic tendencies that prevent me from stepping out of myself. I had to teach myself social skills in my late twenties. I also wrote about that. But looking back on the article that launched my career, I realize that my concept of friendship was almost entirely wrong.

At the time, I decided that it was too difficult to make real-life friends. I didn’t explicitly say I was giving up on that pursuit but I insinuated it. I wrote that it required too much energy from me, which was almost never reciprocated. I was tired of hosting people and never having the favor returned, or texting people and being told repeatedly that they were “out of town.” I concluded that I would spend my energy focusing on my family, while filling my “friendship cup” through around five long-term, long-distance friendships of mine with friends I made at other points in my life.

But at the beginning of 2025, I set a resolution for myself which would ultimately prove me wrong. I was wrong about friendship.