Am I My Friend's Groupie?

Self-helpy AF

Not a portrait of an ideal friendship! Photo by Sebastian Ervi on Unsplash

Welcome to an advice column by me, Sara Benincasa, a person with many opinions. This column will not diagnose or cure anything. Hopefully, reading it will entertain and perhaps comfort you. Think of it as soft pants that lovingly hug your butt. Send questions to saratoninnewsletter@gmail.com. If I use your question, I’ll  keep you anonymous.

Dear Sara,

I hesitate to write about this because I feel so stupid. My friend is a busy, successful person. I am a disabled, semi-shut-in person. I am far more attached to him than he is to me. He has little time for me and I suspect, little interest in making time.  He seems to like me fine, but would not go out of his way for me. Because I have too much time on my hands, I feel sad and wish there was a way to get together more. He is an engaging, entertaining person, and I feel very alive when I am around him. The relationship is horribly lopsided. It is like a rock star and a groupie. Do you have any advice for me? - The Shadow Friend

Dear TSF,

There is nothing stupid about your letter, about loneliness, or about low self-esteem.

I know plenty of folks who’ve had friendships in which they felt like the lesser being. I have had a few friendships where I felt not shiny enough, not pretty enough, not fit enough, not feminine enough, not masculine enough, not queer enough, not straight enough, not religious enough, not stylish enough, not rich enough, not successful enough, not bold enough, not tall enough, not funny enough, not fun enough, and just not cool enough.

You have the additional difficulty of dealing with life as a disabled person in a society that is not always set up to warmly welcome you, to put it mildly. I am sure this adds more barriers to socializing in person, particularly in the era of COVID-19.

Now, on to this friend. It doesn’t sound as if you idolize this person, but you do seem to idealize him to an extent. When we struggle with loving or even liking ourselves, it is natural to imagine that somebody else has all their shit together. Logically, we know this is not the case. But something we don’t want to see the flaws in the other person, because we’ve decided they are, well, ideal.

I don’t doubt your report that this man is engaging, entertaining, and successful. But for you, everything good about him is likely magnified in a way that obscures the not-so great things. Or perhaps you don't even get to see his less savory qualities because you are not very close to him.

Ask yourself if he has become less a friend and more a symbol of what you think a person ought to be. This may help you to see that you do have more power and agency in this situation than you think. More time with this friend wouldn’t make your life better, because his energy is just a temporary joy that goes away when he does. It is possible to get high off other people, in a sense. And there doesn’t seem to be a foundation of mutually supportive platonic intimacy here.

I can remember having crushes on people specifically because I thought that if they liked me as much as I liked them, it would prove my worth as a person. This happens with friendships sometimes, too. The other person becomes this gorgeous canvas onto which we project our own dreams.

If you ask me (which you did, hooray!) your main task is to learn to love and comfort yourself more. I think that therapy could help a great deal in this regard.

If you only focus on getting new friends and finding new hobbies, it will always be something of a superficial fix, no matter how great the friends and hobbies are. I do encourage you to connect with new people, online and in real life! But something inside you wants to be held, nurtured, and loved in a way that has not occurred in a long time, if ever. And I think that if you devote some time to that work, you will eventually find that you see this not-so-close friend in a different light. More importantly, you will love yourself more.

It is not easy to engage in the incremental work of learning to live with oneself and be one’s own best company. You will need to experiment with connecting with others as well as yourself. This needn’t be an extreme or dramatic endeavor. But you deserve a good guide to shine a light along the way.

I know therapy can be very expensive, and sometimes the first step is to pick a book and dive into it. Here are a few books that have helped me learn to live with myself and even like myself a bit more. Teachers come in many forms, after all.

Codependent No More by Melody Beattie

The Art of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh

No Mud, No Lotus by Thich Nhat Hanh

Finally, I want to wish you the best this season. Loneliness can speak to us very loudly during the holidays, when all the marketing spat at us seems to be about togetherness. I feel the heart of your concern is not about this specific friend, but about the need for genuine connection. I know you’ll find it, within yourself and others. Do not give up.