I was a socially awkward child. I don’t know if that is the most accurate way to describe it now, but that was certainly how I understood myself then. I was usually happiest with one or two people, or sometimes by myself, doing whatever it was that interested me at the time. I could spend hours reading, watching something, making things, or simply being in my own little world. I didn’t need much to make a day feel full. But when you’re young, you don’t always know that there are different ways of being a person. You look around at everyone else and assume they have figured something out that you haven’t. So I wondered if perhaps I was antisocial, or weird, or just somehow bad at friendship.
What made it more confusing was that I actually loved people. I loved listening to them. I was interested in their stories and the things they believed in, the things they worried about, the things they wanted to become. I liked hearing about people’s lives, especially the parts they didn’t usually tell everyone. I just didn’t seem to have much interest in being surrounded by a lot of people all the time. What I wanted was something much quieter. I wanted one or two people I could become completely comfortable with. The kind of people with whom you could talk about something ridiculous one minute and then, somehow, end up talking about your childhood, your fears, your relationships, or the things you don’t know how to say to anyone else. I wanted those conversations. I wanted that kind of closeness. I just didn’t know how long it would take to find it.
For a while, I thought maybe the answer was to become a different person. I started pushing away the quieter parts of myself. I went out more. I embraced nights out and social gatherings and tried to convince myself that this was what growing up was supposed to look like. I thought perhaps I had simply spent too much time alone and needed to become more outgoing. And I did enjoy some of it. There were nights that were genuinely fun, people I was happy to meet, and memories I wouldn’t trade. But eventually I would come home and realize how much I missed being alone. I missed my books. I missed quiet evenings. I missed not having to talk. It took me a while to understand that enjoying people and needing a lot of time away from people weren’t contradictory things.
I think what I was really looking for all those years was not a big social life. I was looking for familiarity. I wanted to feel that I could be completely myself around someone without having to explain every part of myself first. I wanted the kind of friendship where vulnerability didn’t feel like an inconvenience. And because I didn’t find that easily, I sometimes wondered if I was asking for too much. There were moments when I would share something personal and immediately wonder if I had said too much. Maybe I had made the conversation too serious. Maybe I had made the other person uncomfortable. Maybe most people simply didn’t want the kind of friendship I wanted.
There were long stretches of my life when I didn’t really have my people. Looking back, I think I spent more time worrying about that than I needed to. It seemed like everyone else had a group. Everyone had plans, people to call, people to go out with. Meanwhile, I could go through an entire weekend perfectly content at home and then suddenly wonder if that was evidence that something was wrong with me. It is funny how easily we can turn ordinary differences into personal shortcomings. If everyone around you seems to enjoy something that you don’t, it is tempting to assume you are the problem.
Eventually, though, something changed. I stopped trying so hard to make my life look socially full.
I still wanted connection. I still enjoyed talking to people and forming relationships. I still wanted those rare friendships where you can talk for hours and feel like no time has passed. But I also began putting my energy into other things. I became more interested in my own work, my interests, my dreams, my family, the things I was curious about. I learned to enjoy my own company without constantly wondering whether someone else was supposed to be there.
And somewhere along the way, I realized that I didn’t mind solitude nearly as much as I thought I was supposed to.
Maybe that was the part I had been missing all along. I had spent so much time thinking about friendship as something I needed to acquire that I hadn’t really considered the possibility that a quieter life could still be a full one.
Of course, friendship matters. I don’t think I would have spent so much of my life thinking about it if it didn’t. Human beings need connection, and there are few things more comforting than having people who know you well. I am very grateful that, as I’ve gotten older, I have found people I can call friends. Some have come through work, some through different parts of my life, and some relationships have grown closer with time in ways I couldn’t have predicted. I’ve also become much more appreciative of the relationships within my own family. And there are days when simply being at home with my furbaby, watching a movie, reading something good, or spending time in nature feels like enough.
I suppose I have stopped measuring connection by how many people are around me.
There was a time when I thought friendship had to look a certain way. A group of friends. Frequent plans. A busy social calendar. Always having someone to call. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that kind of life at all. Some people genuinely thrive in it, and I admire people who can walk into a room and somehow make ten new friends before the evening is over. I have always found that ability fascinating. But it isn’t the only way to live, and it certainly isn’t the only indication that someone is happy or well-adjusted.
Some people have a huge circle and some have two people they would trust with everything. Some people see their friends every weekend, while others go months without seeing each other and simply pick up where they left off. Some people find their closest relationships at work. Others find them in their families. Some find them through a shared interest, a book club, a creative pursuit, a community, or somewhere they never expected. And for some people, the companionship of an animal can mean just as much.
I think we make friendship unnecessarily complicated when we decide there is one correct version of it.
There is also something to be said for the periods when you haven’t found your people yet. I used to see those periods as waiting rooms. I thought my real life would begin once I met the right friends, once I had the right circle, once I finally felt like I belonged somewhere. But life doesn’t really work that way. There are years when certain people are in your life and years when they aren’t. There are friendships that last, friendships that fade, friendships that arrive unexpectedly, and friendships that take a very long time to become what they eventually become.
Sometimes you simply have to let time do some of the work.
I think that is one of the things I understand better now than I did when I was younger. Not every empty space needs to be filled immediately. Sometimes you can just live your life while you’re waiting. You can read the books you want to read. Work on something that matters to you. Spend time with your family. Go somewhere alone. Watch a film. Take care of your pet. Learn something. Make something. Let yourself become more comfortable with who you are.
And then, every now and then, someone comes along who makes you think, Oh. There you are.
Maybe that’s what finding your people actually feels like. Not necessarily a grand entrance or an instant, cinematic friendship, but a quiet recognition that this person understands something about you that you didn’t have to explain.
The realization that there were other people who understood the need for solitude, the tendency to become overwhelmed, and the strange comfort of spending a lot of time inside your own head. It was reassuring to discover that some of the things I had interpreted as personal flaws were simply parts of how I experienced the world.
I think growing older has given me more patience with those parts of myself.
I don’t feel the same need anymore to prove that I am social enough, that I have enough friends, or that my life looks sufficiently full from the outside. I still love people. I still love a good conversation. I still treasure the friendships I have and hope to find more people I genuinely connect with as life goes on. But I also like my quiet days. I like having nowhere to go. I like being home. I like disappearing into a story for a few hours. And I no longer see those things as opposites.
Maybe some of us just take a little longer to find our people.
Maybe some of us were never meant to have many of them.
And maybe that’s okay, too.
I’ve come to realize that a good life isn’t necessarily the one that looks the fullest from the outside. Sometimes it is simply the one that feels like yours when you’re living it.