Smaller and Smaller Circles

The main metaphor of my life about friendships has always been a “revolving door.” People enter and leave as quickly as they came in. I’m no stranger to the countless hellos and goodbyes of strangers. I used to live on Omegle since 2013, man. “Stranger has disconnected” is my tagline when it comes to friends at this point. It’s funny because I’ve met people and then, after one conversation with some of them, they leave and stop responding within the same day.

I can get why some people and I just don’t click; I’ve done the same many, many times before as well. I just don’t click with them. But this is a pretty understandable feeling; not everyone clicks with everyone. Some people might find you too extra, too boring to talk to, too late to reply, and a bunch of other valid reasons. Despite all that, there is one special subset of people that I do talk to. The ones who stay until the next day, and for many months, years after. Friends. My friends.

While it’s common, and even expected, that some strangers come and go, seeing friends leave still hurts. I'm talking about people who actually do leave, not just ones who got busy and I haven't talked to in a few months. Even though I’ve considered this life to always “live in the temporary side of things,” having actual friends come and go hasn’t gotten easier.

Quiet circles are dead circles

I still have the same thinking as an adult as I originally had as a child about friends: you share your life with friends, and they share theirs in return. And I used to love to open up to anyone—or everyone—about what’s going on in my life. I still do, in a way, by keeping a public mood calendar. I’m pretty lowkey about it now, though, like people actually have to put an effort into visiting my website and reading. But recently, I’ve had some friends who just don’t want to hear or care about what I’m going through. Some of them got tired of listening to the same story of my life, and some just grew apathetic. They just stopped caring. While I totally understand that I’m not the focal point of my friends’ lives, it just sucks that I do care and, like, put an effort to ask how my friends are doing. Yet, some people just want to rant on and on about their life, while I don’t get a space to share back.

It’s happened a few times already. A quick litmus test for this is that I ask how a friend is doing. Usually, I’d ask, I’ll listen. And I would know they care when they ask me in return, “How are you doing as well?” I’d instantly know they care. If they don’t ask and just ramble, they don’t care, haha.

This became the case for a few friend groups and me. I have so many examples, but one is the RC. I treated them to Manam before in 2024, while I enjoyed their company, it was kind of disappointing to just be with a few close friends there, and yet none have asked how I really was doing. I’ve already been feeling estranged from them in the past couple of years, and inviting a big get-together (that Tiffany helped out with) was my idea of seeing if they still care. It turns out that they care enough to show up, but not enough to be close with them again.

My other friend groups followed the same formula: me listening or taking initiative, then they just focus on themselves.

Over the years, I’ve stopped opening up to people. It’s ironic, but any random Joe Schmoe on the Internet can read my journal and know more about me than actual friends I see and meet. The day I stopped opening up to friends and the day they stopped asking was the last day we were friends.

Frayed and broken circles

Some friendships have also worn out over the years. Things are piling up between us that haven’t been resolved, and some have just broken off entirely. It’s actually why I decided on writing this post. I’ve had one friend group actually break, even though I haven’t opened up much to that friend group; it was still sad to see it end.

I don’t think I cried, no. Part of me was disappointed. You know, I gave that friend group a lot of time and trust—things I’ll never get back—and to have it all end unceremoniously on a random Sunday just surprises me. I know my life moving forward is very temporary: nothing I build will last and will stay with me for more than a few years. But it, legit, doesn’t get any easier. I kept telling myself all day to, “just not mind it,” “everything is temporary,” and “people eventually leave.” But, my God, no amount of preparation can help when you’re faced with the actual thing.

It’s funny because I had an old friend group end just as I was hanging out with the most recent friend I’ve made.

The same went for my other friendships, too. I've lost many friends that way: to fraying, to misunderstanding. For a time, it started to seem like an inevitability. I got scared of meeting new people because they or I will say something that will end the whole thing. Another round of "hello" and "goodbye" again, round and round we go.

Circles come, circles go in a circular fashion

It’s funny that the revolving door metaphor still holds true. As people leave, other people enter. I should be no stranger to this fact of life, but I’m so surprised when people do leave. Like, dude, it makes me so sad because I put in effort for those people. I tried. To see it all crumble down so easily like that is just sad.

But it’s funny to think about how it could just crumble down. Like literal years of friendship, memories, times where I leaned on their shoulder and they leaned on mine—all those were worth just one or a few misunderstandings? If that was all that meant, then maybe it wasn’t worth much to them anyway. Maybe it wasn’t worth anything.

That’s also one of my silver linings, funny enough. I have other good friendships that don’t crumble down just like that. I have some friends who I haven’t talked to in months—years, for some—and I can still chat with them and start new stories with them. I did it for Erin when they left for Thailand, or when Bell and I hung out and saw Dear Evan Hansen together after years of being online friends. Or like Jaze, someone I haven’t meaningfully talked to since grade school, but now we often hang out, and they have proved to be a good, reliable friend once again, despite years of estrangement.

Just as I was writing this post, I got invited to a birthday party by the RC this Saturday. So, while I still have my distance towards them, it’s still nice to have them around.

And guess who circled back to this draft after writing about being invited? Me. I had just finished hanging out with friends that I had completely written off. And it went well.

Smaller and smaller circles

To be completely honest, I expected myself to turn into this brooding, edgy dude that says “fuck friends,” or like “I hate people, relationships are weak.” But I forgot who I was for a bit. That’s not who I actually am.

I’m human, just like everybody else. I love my friends. I care about them. I’m worried when they get hurt. I feel sad when they go through something horrible. I care about what they’re going through. I message them when I find something cool in their Story on Instagram. Losing people won’t change who I am.

I feel sad when my friends leave me. I think about them. And I still think about them, even if they left years ago.

And I still remember our memories. Our memories when we hung out at a specific place. Even the small times when a friend told me a joke, and I laughed at it. I still remember and share that time Angela and I went clubbing in URBN QC, and they helped me when I blacked out there. Or Jean, when she built many things for me in Minecraft. I even remember how Kat shared with me her zodiac signs and how she randomly decided to write something cute on a copy of my book (which I still have, by the way). I remember all that. I still do.

While I think it's sad to lose friends, I eventually realized that I'm sad because I care for my friends. I loved the friends who left. Still remembering our memories happily means that part of me still loves them and misses them. It's sad, sure, but we had our time in the sun. We smiled and laughed together, even if it was for a short time.

My circle of friends has grown smaller in the past couple of years, but I'm glad they're still there. I have many fun memories of them to share with you!

Okay, so, I said it earlier, but RC invited me on Saturday for a birthday get-together. And there's this fun memory of how I went out to Cavite to meet Jaze and Foz, plus Jaze and I often hang out again. We also played Apex Legends like before, that one time. There was also that funny time Kai stayed at my house, and we watched horror movies together; we even walked all the way to Poblacion on a random weekend evening. Speaking of Poblacion, I spent a night out with Raul and Ange there, too. Meeting LK once again was super fun, and meeting and hanging out with my new friend Mon, many, many times, was fun as well. I also had a great time hanging out with Belle in Venice Grand Canal Mall. There was that one time when I hung out with Exavier at his house, and that one time I went parasailing in Boracay with Nathan. I went to many places with Naomi, and she even introduced me to her girlfriend. I partied out with Nicole; we even reunited with John that one time. While on the topic of seeing college friends, I got Justin and Nathan to reunite, too. Obviously, my coworkers deserve a mention here because they've basically adopted me into their group, and we've been going out to eat at night a lot. We even went to Fusion Alley in Manila, and I even went out with a coworker to eat at Army Navy with him, even though he was far away in Quezon City. Watching Dear Evan Hansen with someone was fun, even playing Peak, Lethal Company, Phasmophobia, RV There Yet?, R.E.P.O., and many games with them, and Luan was so much fun. And I have so many more memories, with so many other friends, too.

I guess that's why I make friends! For all the fun, little memories that I'll write down about them. These days, I don't really mind that my circle of friends is quite small.

What matters the most to me is that I'm doing the same with my friends, which is making new memories with them that I'll cherish forever.