“Am I the problem? Like, hi, is it me? Like, am I the problem?”
When my podcast guest Arpita Mehta said those words, I felt them in my bones. Because here’s the thing: if you’ve ever laid awake at night replaying a friendship interaction, wondering if you’re too much or not enough, wondering why maintaining adult friendships feels so damn hard… you’re not alone. And more importantly? It’s not your fault.
Let’s get real about something we don’t talk about enough: We were never actually taught how to be friends as adults. Think about it. We go to school for decades. We learn calculus, we memorize historical dates, we write essays on Shakespeare. But learning how to make and maintain meaningful friendships? That’s not in any curriculum.
As one of my listeners so beautifully put it: “Most of us have to learn through trial and error, through a life lived, which means a lot of failed friendships, as well as pain, regret, and loneliness along the way. What if it didn’t have to be that way, though?”
Here’s what I want you to know: You’re not bad at making friends. You’re just having to teach yourself. And when we teach ourselves anything, whether it’s cooking, investing, or navigating relationships, there are going to be trials, tribulations, failures, and disappointments. That’s not a character flaw. That’s just learning.
The Setup That Set Us Up to Fail
Picture this: You’re in your early twenties, maybe fresh out of college. For the past 16+ years of your life, friendship was… easy. You saw the same people every day at school. You had shared experiences, familiar routines, and built-in conversation starters. If you wanted to hang out, you just found them at lunch or between classes.
Then suddenly, you’re thrust into the “real world” where friendship requires intention, planning, vulnerability, and skills nobody ever taught you. Meanwhile, you’re bombarded with messages about what friendship should look like: the late-night phone calls, the spontaneous adventures, the ride-or-die loyalty we see in movies and social media.
But here’s what those Hallmark moments don’t show you: the work. The awkward conversations when someone’s feelings get hurt. The navigation of different life stages. The reality that not every friendship needs to be (or should be) your everything.
Arpita shared something so honest during our conversation that I think will resonate with a lot of you: “I thought that being a friend is not being at the center of the group, or trying to make everyone happy… It’s actually showing up and going out of your way for that one, two, or three people, whoever they are, who really need you, or who you connect with the most. But I never gave myself a chance to get to that point.”
Sound familiar? How many of us spent our twenties trying to be everything to everyone, wondering why we felt exhausted and unfulfilled in our friendships?
The “Am I the Problem?” Spiral
Here’s where things get really painful. When our friendships don’t look like what we think they should, when people don’t respond the way we hope, when relationships naturally shift or fade… we internalize it. We make it about us.
Arpita described this perfectly: “I was putting in a lot of effort. And it wasn’t being reciprocated. But I kept thinking something’s wrong with me… But it was just because I was putting that in, that doesn’t mean the other person needs to do that as well, because that person probably put me in a category in his or her life where I was like, you know, maybe tier B friend or tier C.”
Can we pause here for a second? Different levels of friendship are not a rejection of your worth. They’re just… different levels. Not everyone in your life needs to be your emotional confidant. Not every person you enjoy spending time with needs to know your deepest fears and biggest dreams.
But nobody taught us this. Instead, we got messages about “real friends” and “fake friends” with very little nuance in between. We learned to see friendship as binary: either you’re best friends or you’re nothing. Either someone loves all of you, or they don’t really care.
That’s not how human relationships actually work.
What We Can Learn from the Guys
Okay, controversial take incoming… but I think we need to talk about how men often approach friendship differently. And before you roll your eyes, hear me out.
Arpita made this observation: “I very much admire my husband and his group of friends… if this was a group of girls, the amount of hurt, the amount of emotion, the amount of chaos that would have ensued, but because guys deal with friendships so differently, they have been able to maintain a level of friendship that I think is so admirable.”
Here’s what I find interesting: men often value doing things together as much as (sometimes more than) talking about deep stuff. They’ll maintain friendships through shared activities like fantasy football leagues, pickup basketball, and working on cars together. And you know what? That’s connection too.
Meanwhile, women’s friendships often carry this expectation that the value comes from sharing deeply, being vulnerable, and processing emotions together. And while that’s beautiful and important… what if we also gave ourselves permission to just have fun sometimes? What if running errands together or trying on makeup at Sephora counted as quality time?
As Arpita said after one of these simpler hangouts: “I don’t know, that really filled my cup. And I didn’t think it would.”
The Real Truth About Adult Friendship
Here’s what I wish someone had told 20-something me (and maybe you need to hear this, too):
Adult friendship is supposed to feel different than childhood friendship. It’s supposed to require more intention. It’s supposed to involve navigating different life stages, schedules, and priorities. It’s supposed to include people who fulfill different needs and interests in your life.
You don’t need to be equally close to everyone. You don’t need to share everything with every friend. You don’t need to force connections that aren’t naturally deep. And you definitely don’t need to feel guilty about friendships that are more about shared activities than shared secrets.
The complete episode explores so much more about what it actually looks like to rebuild your friendship expectations and create connections that work for your real life. Arpita and I dive deeper into the specific moments when we had to unlearn old patterns and what that process of friendship “re-education” actually looks like day to day.
Small Actions, Big Shifts
The beautiful thing about releasing the shame around friendship struggles? It creates space to actually improve your friendship situation. Not through some massive overhaul, but through small, consistent actions.
As Arpita put it: “It’s in the small things. It’s in the small shifts that you make that you can start to see big things… nothing is like instant or overnight, and you can’t overhaul all your friends in one day.”
This might look like:
- ▪️ Texting someone just to say you’re thinking of them
- ▪️ Suggesting a simple activity instead of always defaulting to dinner and deep conversation
- ▪️ Being honest when you don’t have the capacity for heavy talks but still want to connect
- ▪️ Letting some friendships be lighter without feeling guilty about it
Remember: This area of your life is no different than getting your finances in order or training for a marathon. It’s the small, intentional actions that compound over time.
Permission to Start Over
If you’re reading this and thinking about all the friendship “mistakes” you made in your twenties, all the relationships that didn’t work out the way you hoped, all the times you felt like you weren’t good enough… I want you to know something.
You weren’t broken. You weren’t doing it wrong. You were just figuring it out.
And here’s the beautiful part: you get to keep figuring it out. You get to apply everything you’ve learned. You get to approach new friendships and existing relationships with more wisdom, more realistic expectations, and way less shame.
In the full episode, I share so much more about what this journey of friendship re-learning looks like, including some of my own cringe-worthy moments and the specific shifts that changed everything for me. Because this isn’t just about understanding why the struggle happened, it’s about what you do with that understanding moving forward.
You deserve friendships that feel good, that support different parts of who you are, that don’t require you to be perfect or have it all figured out. You deserve to stop carrying shame about your past friendship experiences and start building the connections you actually want.
Your friendship struggles in your twenties? They weren’t your fault. But your friendship joy in your thirties and beyond? That can absolutely be your choice.
What’s one friendship expectation you’re ready to let go of? I’d love to hear about it. And if this resonated with you, I’d be so grateful if you’d share it with someone who might need to hear it too.
Ready for more real talk about friendship? Listen to the full conversation with Arpita on Episode 63 of Friendship IRL, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss these honest conversations about building the relationships that actually matter.
