Hi, MHPH! This has been a thought (from a series of thoughts actually) that I have been pondering about this past few months.

To start, I am a 20 year old college pauser, currently working at a known BPO company as a recently promoted trainer.

Story goes, recently I have been fearing that I may not have any FRIENDS friends. Growing up, I have made great friends along the way to accompany me during the bestest of times during my youth; playing games, going places, you get the idea. But our family had to move out from our childhood town, and since then I’ve lost connection with my childhood friends and focused on studying.

During my junior high school days, I never had a consistent circle of friends. I always get placed to different sections every year, making all my friendships only really last during the school year. But fast forward to Grade 10, I have met some of the best people ever—those I really vibe with. I am very glad that we still keep the connection up to this day. However, since it’s our last year of high school, most of us had to move out for senior high school including me, and then the pandemic happened so we barely got to hang out and it felt like we grew apart a little bit. Although we meet as a complete friend group at least twice a year.

Same goes for my senior high school circle. It just felt like I always never have been given enough time to build friendships that last. The one-call away type of friendship that they were able to build with one another, well because they stayed together at school and I had to work.

And even though we have had small conversations here and there, and we tell that we miss each other, it always felt like those conversations were just created for the sole purpose of keeping a connection and not necessarily giving the feeling like “Hi, I’m a friend that you can always reach out to and I’d listen and understand you.”

Look, friendships go both ways and I haven’t been the best type of friend myself. I tend to reply late and is mostly just sending reactions through stories and not a full-blown conversation. But at the same time, I don’t have any idea about what to say. They’re at the university doing college things, while I’m at the office doing corporate things. It feels like it’s going to be awkward because we’re on different paths and I don’t know.

It just feels kind of lonely sometimes and thinking of my future milestones like not being confident sending invitations to my birthday, or casual hangouts because time passed without us having a consistent relationship and we all kind of don’t know each other so well anymore unlike before, or maybe we never really knew each other well.

NOTE: I have friends about my age in the office that have been amazing! And I have relatively young managers, around late-20s to early-30s, who have been great mature friends almost parent-like figures for me.

Maybe I just felt sad about failing to have the friendship circles I ever dreamt of having. Or maybe I’m just so out of touch and I may be with my life-long friends now and I just haven’t realized it yet.