One day, I was sat in my friends car and, on a very rare occasion, she finally decided to let me connect my phone and blast my playlist on our journey.
We had the windows open, hair blowing in the wind, screaming at the top of our lungs. My playlist was completely muddled. It went from electronic, fist bumping tunes to sad, almost spooky, enchanting melodies.
Nirvana’s Something in the Way came on.
Just before I went to skip it, my friend turned to me and said “I didn’t know you liked this song”. I looked at her and almost scoffed. “Nirvana?” I replied. “I’ve listened to them since I was, like, 13”.
“I literally had no idea”.
Now, this interaction was very brief. A blip in time. Probably something my friend would never think to fixate on. But it unleashed a wave of emotions I’ve already felt for a long time: I feel unseen by some of my friends.
How can this be? This is a nearly 10 year friendship, and you don’t know something that intimate about me? My favourite music? Songs I like? This revelation almost made me spiral.
Sometimes there’s something lonelier than being alone. It’s being surrounded by people who only know their version of you. Not the true version.
If you asked some of my friends what I love, they might hesitate, and I think that pause says everything.
What I think hurt wasn’t that she didn’t know I liked Nirvana. It was what that moment symbolised. The slow realisation that there are entire rooms inside of me that some of my friends have never walked into. Not because they’re locked. But because no one’s ever knocked.
No one’s ever taken the time to know me.
This doesn’t turn into anger for me. It turns into curiosity. I begin piecing together why this could be? Part of me thinks it’s because I’ve always been the therapist friend. The one who listens to everyone’s problems, offers solutions, the loyal one, the one that’s always here to help. So how do I let myself be seen more clearly? Do I speak louder about what I love, or do I accept that not everyone is listening?
I could tell you my friends’ favourite films without thinking. Their comfort shows. The music they play when they’re sad. I know the names of men who’ve hurt them. I know their work dramas. I know who’s texting them, who’s ghosted them, who’s back from the dead again.
With some of my friends, I realised something:
1. We talk, we don’t discuss.
Talking is easy. Talking is updates, recaps, headlines. Discussing is intimate. It requires curiosity. It means staying with a thought long enough to pull it apart. It means asking why someone loves something, not just nodding and moving on.
2. We catch up. We don’t experience.
Catching up is transactional. It’s “what’s new?” and “what’s changed?” Experiencing is shared inner worlds.
This isn’t intended to be cruel. I think it’s about the culture of catching up. We meet or we Facetime, we trade summaries. We exchange updates like bullet points. Who are you seeing? How’s the job? How’s your mental health, but, like… lightly. We talk at each other, not with each other. Conversations orbit romance and work because they’re easy, socially sanctioned, endlessly renewable topics. There’s always a new guy my friend is talking to. There’s always a new problem.
And I listen. Clearly, at my own detriment.
With some of my friends, I realised we don’t build memories, we exchange information. I know what’s happening to them, but not what’s happening inside them, and they don’t know that about me either. There’s no “this made me think of you” moments. Just a loop of life admin.
And I perform a version of myself that fits neatly into a catch-up. I don’t bring my full interior world because there’s nowhere to put it.
There isn’t any space.
Space to ask: what moves you? What film wrecked you? What song makes you feel understood? What are you obsessed with right now? What do you love that has nothing to do with a man or a job?
Maybe this is the cost of a world that talks constantly but rarely listens. We live in a world that rewards being easy to summarise, where depth feels inconvenient.
If 2026 brings anything new to the table, I hope it’s the yearning to go deeper with friendships. Exploring each other outside of men and work.
Beautifully written and chord striking. Whilst reading this I realized something - I´m that friend that doesn´t really ask questions. Not because I don´t want or care to know, I just think it´s impolite to pry. I wait for my friends to share things with me, not because they have to, but because they want to. So not to minimize or present argument per se, but maybe these doors haven´t been knocked on because all these people in your life don´t want the door to open, maybe they want an invitation? Perhaps I´m just wearing my rose tinted glasses..
I love the way you unpack friendships, and I'm loving reading your articles. The things you mention are just insanely accurate. It is definitely tough to realise that even though you are surrounded by people, sometimes you just do not have true friends, and its a hard pill to swallow. This is especially true if you know you're the kind of friend who would inquire and go above and beyond, but it is not reciprocated to you.