Do you actually have friends? - by Aish - The Messy Middle

Sitting across from each other, sipping overpriced lattes, and trading life updates isn’t bonding - it’s just a status check. A way to keep the friendship on life support without actually doing anything to strength it. You’re not building friendships; you’re curating a highlight reel. A perfectly staged performance - smiling over eggs, nodding at each other’s updates, pretending like this means you’re best friends. But it’s not reality. It’s an illusion of depth, a hollowed-out version of what friendship is supposed to be. Think waaaayy back. In school, university, or those chaotic early career years, friendships were different. Because you were in the trenches together. You weren’t just swapping stories about struggles - you were living them, side by side. Pulling all-nighters. Figuring out how to pay rent. Panicking about your futures. You didn’t schedule time to be friends. You just were. Now, in adulthood, friendship is confined to third spaces: coffee shops, dinner tables, pottery

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• Qiao Zhang