Latest / Who’s Your Person?: Friendship, Trust & Belonging / From Roommates to Strangers: The Quiet Grief of City Friendships | Who’s Your Person?
Transcript
- You’re sitting three blocks away from the person who knows exactly how you take your coffee, and yet you have no idea what color their walls are today. It is the strangest kind of loneliness, isn’t it? Being physically close but emotionally miles apart. I want you to think about your college roommate for a second. Or maybe it was that friend you shared an apartment with in your early twenties. Think about the sheer, chaotic intimacy of that time. You knew when they were crying before they did. You knew which floorboard creaked so you could tiptoe past at 3 AM. You shared a bathroom sink that was always too small, a kitchen that smelled like stale ramen and hope, and a living room where everyone sat on the floor because there wasn't enough furniture. That proximity creates a bond that feels unbreakable because it’s built on survival. You survived the move-in day stress. You survived the broken heater. You survived each other. But then, graduation happens. Or maybe life just happens faster than you expected. You get jobs. You get leases in different zip codes. And suddenly, the geography changes. You’re still in the same city, maybe even the same neighborhood, but the path between your apartments doesn’t feel like a straight line anymore. It feels like a maze. And here is the thing that nobody warns you about: you don’t stop being friends overnight. You don’t have a dramatic fight or a blowout conversation where everything is said and done. You just… stop knowing. You stop knowing what they had for breakfast. You stop knowing what keeps them up at night. You become polite acquaintances in the most painful way possible. Let’s sit with that. Let’s really sit with the weight of those two words. Because eventually, you run into them. Maybe at a mutual friend’s birthday party, or maybe you bump into them at that coffee shop you used to go to every Tuesday. And the script kicks in. You know the script. We all do. It’s the choreography of the drifting friendship. You ask, 'So, how are things?' And they say, 'Good! Really good.' And you say, 'That’s great!' And you both smile. But inside, there’s this tiny, sharp pang of grief. Because you know they aren’t doing 'good.' You know they’re struggling with something, or maybe they’re bored, or maybe they’re just tired. But you can’t ask. Not really. Because the access has been revoked. The password changed. When you were roommates, you could just walk into their room and see the pile of laundry that signaled a crisis. Now, if you wanted to know, you’d have to send a text. And sending a text feels like asking for permission to enter someone else’s life again. So you keep smiling. You keep nodding. You perform the role of the supportive former roommate, while inside, you’re mourning the loss of the person who used to be your safe harbor. What did that cost you? The cost is the silence. The cost is the distance. And it’s heavy. There is a specific type of confusion that comes with this shift. It’s the illusion that because you are geographically close, you should still be emotionally close. We live in a city where we can meet anyone, anytime. Yet, we choose not to. Why? Because maintaining a friendship takes energy. And when you’re working full-time, paying rent, trying to date, or just trying to survive the week, that energy is scarce. I remember a few years ago, I lived ten minutes from my best friend from college. Ten minutes! On a bike, it’s four minutes. But we hadn’t spoken in three months. I kept thinking, 'It would be so easy to just pop over. I could bring wine. We could talk for an hour.' But the barrier wasn’t physical. It was psychological. I felt like I needed a reason. I felt like I needed to check in first. I needed to gauge if she had the bandwidth. And she probably felt the exact same way about me. We were both waiting for the other person to make the first move, to bridge the gap. But neither of us wanted to seem needy. Neither of us wanted to be the one who reached out when the connection felt fragile. So we stayed on our separate sides of the map, watching each other’s Instagram stories, liking photos, staying in the periphery. It’s safer there. It’s easier. But it’s also incredibly lonely. And here is the harder truth. Sometimes, we drift because we’re afraid of what we might find if we actually showed up. We fear that the person they’ve become isn’t the person we loved. Or worse, we fear that we’ve become someone they don’t recognize. In college, you were forming yourselves together. You were moldable. Now, you’re solidified. You have careers, opinions, routines. You are fully formed humans. And sometimes, meeting that fully formed version of someone requires a negotiation that feels exhausting. I think about this a lot regarding my own friendships. There was a period where I realized I didn’t miss the games we used to play together—remember that episode we talked about regarding childhood rituals? Well, adult friendships have their own games. The game of 'Who’s busy?' The game of 'When will we schedule?' The game of 'Did I forget to text back?' These games are exhausting. And when you’re tired, you drop them. You stop playing. And when you stop playing, the ball rolls away. And you realize you’re standing alone on the field. You’re allowed to outgrow them. You’re allowed to outgrow the dynamic. But that doesn’t mean the love wasn’t real. It just means the container for that love has changed shape. And you haven’t figured out how to fit into the new one yet. So, what do you do? How do you navigate this shift without letting it consume you with guilt? First, you have to acknowledge the grief. Don’t pretend it’s nothing. It’s okay to miss the ease of it. It’s okay to miss the person who knew your history before you even had to explain it. But then, you have to make a choice. Are you willing to rebuild? Rebuilding doesn’t mean going back to how things were. That ship has sailed. The ship sank, actually, and we’re swimming in the ocean now. Rebuilding means starting fresh. It means sending the text that says, 'I’m thinking of you. No pressure to reply. Just wanted to say hi.' It means accepting that the conversation might be awkward at first. It means being willing to be vulnerable enough to say, 'I feel like we’ve drifted, and I miss you.' This requires courage. It requires you to put down the defense mechanism of 'we’re just busy.' You have to admit that you’re scared. You have to admit that you care. And if they don’t meet you halfway, you have to be okay with that. You have to trust that you did your part. Authenticity over harmony. Sometimes, the most authentic thing you can do is reach out, even if the harmony isn’t there yet. Harmony will come later, if it’s meant to. But the reach-out? That’s the work. That’s the practice. Here’s the silver lining, and I promise it’s real. When you strip away the convenience of proximity and the history of shared rooms, you get to see who these people are when it’s just them. When you’re not roommates, you’re not bound by obligation. You’re connected by choice. And that choice is powerful. I’ve found that some of my deepest friendships now are with people I barely spoke to in college. Why? Because we chose each other as adults. We chose to share values, to support each other’s growth, to show up in ways that matter now. The college friendship might fade, or it might transform into a warm, occasional check-in. Both are valid. Both are beautiful in their own way. The key is to stop measuring the current relationship against the ghost of the past. Stop comparing the reality to the memory. The memory was perfect because it was simple. The reality is messy, but it’s also real. And there is a profound beauty in building something real, even if it starts from scratch. Even if it starts with a awkward coffee and a lot of silence. You can fill the silence together. You don’t have to rush. You just have to be there. Thank you for letting me into your space today. Take a breath. Look around your city. See the people who are close, and wonder if they’re feeling the same distance. Send a text. Be brave. I’ll be right here next week. Until then, take care of yourself, and take care of each other. Bye for now.