Don’t hold onto someone for what they could be
On being the long-term, long-distance, low-commitment casual ‘friend’
It was our first year as undergraduate students. When I first met him outside classes for a campus event we volunteered for, he smoked a cigarette—I was never fond of smokers. He’d hang out with people I didn’t click with and go to parties I wouldn’t go to either. We shared most of the same classes, but our conversations only revolved around assignments and exams.
Never had it crossed my mind that we’d soon share something bittersweet.
“…Don’t beat yourself too hard, besto friendo; you’ve done so much to be proud of, and you’re precious in your own way.”
“…Anyways, the past year has been a year of admiration. I am your proudest friend because all of you. All of your accomplished dreams, all of your failures, your hysterical rants at 3.00 am, all your hardships — your ups and downs. I know sometimes you’re unsure, but you’re perfect the way you are. And I know you’re getting closer to believing that you’re perfect just the way you are. You keep on growing and improving. Your willpower to become better, bigger, and the best version of yourself is beyond belief. No one inspires me more than you!! So thankful for having you by my side all this time. …Can’t wait what this year will bring to you. Can’t wait to see you soon!”
— The only things I still kept from him; excerpts from the letters he’d write me on my birthdays.
…and little did we know that we never got to see each other.
Weren’t we all lonely during COVID?
We had always given each other feedback on our essays and reports, and we promised ourselves that one day, we’d win case competitions — and we did. We were both high achievers. After endless Zoom calls of brainstorming sessions and pitch practices, we competed as a national finalist. At one point, we even labeled ourselves as ‘self-development buddies.’
We went through a similar routine for about two years. We’d wake up at 7 for class, and we’d text each other during lectures whenever it got boring, then chat in between classes, then after classes; he was the first person I’d talk to when I woke up and the last person I’d talk to before I fell asleep.
The conversation that started with a question on an assignment soon became about life. We’d talk until three AM about our childhood, friendships, families, thoughts on religion, favorite expansion packs on The Sims, aspirations, careers, life plans, and anything else you could think of.
Some of his favorite movies at that time were, stereotypically, Good Will Hunting, The Before Trilogies, and Crazy Stupid Love. He enjoyed reading books written by Greek philosophers, like Meditations. He recently became an avid soccer fan and loved Liverpool. At one point, he dreamed of retiring early so he could be there for his future children when they were in their developmental stages, and he was fond of open-space houses. I also admired his designs and how creative they were.
We’d easily talk for hours because we were opinionated on everything.
I’m an INFJ, and he was an ENFP. I know the Myers-Briggs test was known to be a pseudoscience, but I’d like to think it was pretty accurate. Even though we seemed like opposites to almost everyone, we bonded in terms of our intuition and feelings on the most random topics. And even when we had our differences, we’d always find a middle ground.
For most of my life, by nature, I had always been close with people who were very much alike to me. The kind who’d seem reserved from the outside but is actually talkative once you get to know them.
This person was different. He seemed extroverted, he looked like he had a lot of friends, he always knew how to lighten up the crowd, he was the kind of person everyone was friends with, and he was someone you’d think peaked in high school (though he always hated it when I tell him this). I don’t think we would’ve been friends if we went to the same high school.
To my inner child, that image was intimidating to me. In high school, I’d sit by myself because I was too shy to approach a group of people I barely talked to. Sometimes, I’d wait in the restroom because I never knew where my friends were, and I didn’t want to spend another minute sitting alone again during the breaks between classes. Ever since middle school, I was glued to the mindset that I would be at the bottom of the pyramid if there were a social hierarchy. Thus, the idea of being friends with someone whom I subconsciously put on a pedestal was something I found hard to believe.
This feeling became more difficult to ignore when he started telling me things he never told anyone else — I guess I was Tom Hansen in 500 Days of Summer. Although he knew many people, he was still very private about his life. I cherished our friendship so much that I didn’t want to lose him. I was always vocal about how much I appreciated him; I’d shower him with compliments, make him personalized stickers of the things he always said, send him a scrapbook of the things he loved, and give my full attention whenever we talked, no matter how mundane they were. All my friends knew how I lit up whenever I talked about him. I loved that there was always something new to learn about each other.
Whenever we talked about our insecurities, he has always been the person who encouraged me to be more confident. During Zoom classes, we had participation points. I was so terrified of raising my hand, but I knew I had to do it. When the professor presented a question, he’d text me to put my hand up and applaud me for doing so, even though it probably didn’t mean much to other people. I still couldn’t fathom why he was nice to me at that moment. Looking back, I guess I romanticized it because I would do the same to anyone. Eventually, my highly insecure self became dependent on this feedback.
Every time I was upset, I’d turn to him for reassurance.
…and it was healthy until it wasn’t.
The semester break was a time we started applying for internships. I applied to many companies but didn’t hear back from almost all of them while he had gone on interviews with a couple. When I heard his acceptance, I just burst out crying. I felt like we had this whole journey together, but I was left behind. I realized it was an irrational response to the situation. I genuinely wanted to be happy for him, but I couldn’t. I knew there was something wrong with me.
I had wanted to go to the psychologist for quite some time, and with his encouragement, I finally went. He even asked his relatives for free helplines and on dealing with people who struggle with mental health, which I will always appreciate. The result of my assessment was quite severe, so I was referred to a psychiatrist, was diagnosed with depression, and was prescribed a couple of antidepressants. Throughout everything that happened… no matter how many times I was so anxious he’d be annoyed with me or that he’d leave me because I felt like I was ‘too much’ to handle, he’d constantly reassure me that he’d stay.
“As much as you depend on me, I depend on you too.”
“Losing you is like losing a part of me too.”
“I don’t know how I’d be without you. You’ve been here for so long.”
“My high school friends are my ride or die, but some things just hit different when it’s with you.”— some of the texts I remember from him (though it’s not verbatim since I’ve deleted everything now).
He was the first person I’d share good or bad news with. He gave me a safe space to let all my emotions out, no matter how irrational they were. But little did I know that my negative assumptions and thoughts about him could hurt him, too. No matter how much he tried to be there and make time for me, sometimes these thoughts would consume me, and I’d feel like he wasn’t there when now I realize he was. This made him feel like he was never doing enough. We’d soon talk about this, apologize, and try to be better — all to fall back into the same cycle about a year later.
Back then, he would unintentionally gloss over the paragraphs I sent about my day and focus on the unimportant details. He also struggled with communicating his feelings, though I’ve always encouraged him that it’s completely okay to be vulnerable, and he has grown so much since then. Sometimes, he’d forget to respond and leave me on read for hours, which upset me. I’ve constantly told him that I needed a heads up if he was unavailable and I’d understand, but the cycle continued.
To me, our ‘fights’ didn’t feel platonic. I don’t think I’ve had issues like these with any of my friends because I didn’t have a whole life planned with them in my head. I was always overanalyzing his tone and intentions through his texts or calls, and at one point, I was tired of feeling like there were mixed signals.
All my life, I have never felt what it was like to have my (romantic) feelings reciprocated. And this time, I thought, I finally did.
I called to tell him I had developed feelings for him and wondered what we were. After the call, there were about four months when I was under the impression that he felt the same way. That was until I brought up how it seemed like he constantly steered away from the topic of ‘commitment’ in our conversations. He told me he was confused because he had always treated this as a friendship, while I treated it as something more. He told me he reciprocated my feelings because he felt like that was the right thing to say even when he didn’t feel that way.
I don’t know whether I was in denial or that he didn’t seem sure of his reasons. They were constantly changing whenever this topic surfaced once in a while. From family reasons, wanting to focus on himself, to thinking we weren’t a great fit romantically — I stayed for the potential that his feelings could change.
It has been a rollercoaster of emotions ever since. I couldn’t understand why he told me he was also hurt for not being able to reciprocate my feelings, but his feelings were valid. The details of this part of the story are now quite fuzzy, or I guess I just blocked my memory because of how much it hurt me.
Despite everything, we knew we still wanted to stay friends because we were convinced that we didn’t have anyone like each other. And to some extent… I still stand by that today. I’ll meet new people along the way, but our bond was incomparable. In the end, I think all friendships are like that, though. The bond you have — or you used to have — with someone will always be none like the other.
We did our studies abroad and always tried to make time for each other despite the 10-hour time difference.
We met a few days before and also called for a few hours the night before I left. He and my best friend were the only two friends who drove to the airport to see me, too.
One of the things I feared the most was what if we were just friends by circumstances? Just because we had classes together, were on the same event committee, and joined competitions together — would we still keep in touch if we had different lives?
The first month was a struggle, but he proposed having scheduled calls. We also thought this would manage our codependency by setting healthy boundaries. We decided not to talk to each other on the weekdays and catch up every Saturday at 7 PM AEST or 9 AM CET during our calls.
“I’m afraid that one day we’d run out of things to talk about… I don’t think my life is that interesting.” I said,
“Who cares if it’s not interesting? you’re interesting.” he replied,
— Something he said in one of our calls, which made me feel some type of way…
These calls became something I always looked forward to on the weekend. We’d talk for hours about our week while he air-fried some toast or tidied his room. I’d listen to stories of the people he was friends with on the other side of the globe. Even though I never knew them personally, it felt like a part of me was living life vicariously through him. I’d remember his exam dates and send him a text of encouragement on that day. We’d also call on Ramadhan while he had sahoor (Note to self: Please don’t do this again!).
I’ve always loved those we’re not really strangers type of questions too, and we’d end the call with a few of them to the point we could guess each other’s answers. I was also constantly in the process of unlearning not to jump to conclusions and catastrophize everything — though I tend to slip back once in a while.
I stopped taking my medications during my time abroad because I didn’t think I needed them anymore as I was having the time of my life. But it also meant that I had withdrawals. I became very sensitive whenever he was late to our calls, or again, whenever he was unavailable when I needed him the most.
It took me some time to fully accept and understand that he was never responsible for my emotional state to begin with.
I went to see the psychologist again, and she suggested letting loose on the scheduled calls and just calling each other when we felt like it. This is because having them scheduled sets a fixed expectation for me, and when left unfulfilled, triggers my emotional distress.
After eight months of these scheduled calls, we switched to regular chats for a few weeks... until everything fell apart.
I thought I could maintain the intensity of our friendship and ignore the elephant in the room, but I couldn’t.
For many months, I have tried to convince myself that I could separate my feelings from our friendship. I knew I would eventually get hurt when he found someone else, but I thought to myself, maybe we’ll just cross that bridge when we come at it.
Will I ever be ready to rip the bandaid off and save myself from an even bigger heartbreak in the future?
I prayed to God to give me the strength to end whatever this is if it wasn’t good for me. I have put so much of my time, energy, and emotions into maintaining something I don’t know is worth saving anymore.
I don’t know how, but not long after, I had the courage to end it.
This was an option always in the back of my mind, but I was afraid I might regret it. I tried to end things on a good note, and I’d like to believe that we did, although a small part of me still feels like we didn’t. My tipping point was when he said:
“I think the problem is you treating this as a relationship.”
We had a lot of things in common, but the one difference was how we saw each other. We were both stubborn. I’ve always felt that most of the things he said and did were only appropriate for something more than a friendship, but he believed he was simply making a kind gesture for a friend.
I didn’t want to block him, but I felt like I had to because I couldn’t function with the idea of him existing, and after all these years of growing together, we’d no longer be a part of each other’s lives. I deleted all the chats, pictures we shared, and journal entries about us since 2019. Everything here is purely written by memory.
“I hope we can meet each other when we’re both better.”
“It’s heartbreaking to have it end like this. Thank you for this.”
The first three days were beyond painful. I cried a lot, I felt like I couldn’t breathe, I went out a lot and surrounded myself with my friends, and I didn’t know if there would ever be a day when I’d fully recover from this heartbreak. For weeks, I wondered how he was doing. Is he okay? Does he have anyone to talk to? Am I doing the right thing? Is he mad at me?
I still carried the guilt for cutting ties.
About a little more than a month later, I asked if we could meet to tell him what I felt was left unsaid... I just wanted to apologize again and again. I planned a trip to Mecca, so I also wanted to go there with the feeling of a clean slate. But he didn’t want to see me because he told me he had carried on with his life.
It only took you one month to move on from whatever happened for the past few years?
His response was cold and short; it seemed like he just wanted to end the conversation and didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. I went through a series of emotions — sadness, anger, confusion, embarrassment, and everything in between. I had so many questions, only to leave me hurting even more.
I told him I was still here in case he changed his mind.
He never reached out to me, and I guess I was no longer needed anyway.
Four months later…
Four months have passed since this happened to me. My past self wouldn’t have thought I’d rewrite something I have tried so hard to forget. But I wrote this as a personal archive to reflect on my past mistakes and to remind myself of the person I once was.
Time does heal.
Although it took me longer to attain peace with the circumstances, I‘ve accepted that you were once a significant part of my life, now you’re not, and that’s okay. We were both immature, and there’s still a lot to learn. I have changed a lot since then — changes that I sometimes wish I could share with you. And I’m sure that somehow, you’ve changed too.
Sometimes, I wonder what might happen if we were still friends. You always boasted about how good of a cook you were, how you promised to cook me something when you got back, or all the paintings or potteries we thought we’d be making too.
Conversations with our mutual friends soon made me realize that maybe I never really knew you after all.
Because the person they described didn’t sound like the same person I fell in love with.
Was everything a façade?
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