The Empty Call List

I'll never tire of saying this: friendships are the foundation of every facet of my life. Being an extrovert, this has always been the case. In recent years, my friends shaped how my pandemic years went, how college opened up a new dimension of hanging out with friends, and high school was easier to get through with friends by my side.

My friends make my life so much better and they leave behind memories I'll never forget. They can turn around a disastrous out-of-town getaway into a fun escape from the dumpster fire. A boring Saturday night into a spontaneous trip to Tagaytay. Lonely days isolated during the pandemic into the most fun days I've had in recent history.

These days, though, I'm left scrolling through an old call list, wondering who, if anyone, will pick up.

Who used to pick up the phone?

I used to pride myself as the guy who had many friends and was in so many social circles. I had made many unlikely friends throughout my life, like that girl who randomly sat behind me on the school field trip bus that I gave chocolates. Jeramil the popular girl in high school who was quiet and reserved, but I found a friend in and they actually listened to me rant and talk about my problems on Twitter. Or even Jaze, a friend I hadn't meaningfully talked with since elementary but I reconnected with during the pandemic.

2 years ago, I was proud of the friendships I had fostered. I reconnected my old high school and elementary friends to a shared Discord server. I had a girl best friend that I used to have platonic hangouts with and I would often stay/visit their place because they felt comfortable with me. I was extremely happy to have met LK, who gave me so much wisdom and faith in me to do better and made me strive to be a better person.

Back then, Jaze and I would just hang out. We would talk about our lives at 3 a.m. at the 7-Eleven in McKinley Hill, after ordering from Assi Fresh Plaza. I ran to them when I had problems or when I wasn't sure of a life decision. I also listened to them when they had issues and I often paid for the food that we ate when we went out.

I think that's what helped me feel okay the most: to have someone physically sit by my side and just listen to me or talk life with me. Batao also did that during the nights we went out, and it was just so fun to have 2 very close, attentive friends who just offered an ear when I was feeling down or unsure about my life.

The RC was also a solid friend group at the time. We would have sleepovers and hangouts late into the night and spend the night in one of our friends' houses. Rey and Jaymz were some of the realest ones in that group for me, they gave me tough advice delivered in a brotherly way. In a way, RC was like the brothers I've never had.

I was genuinely thankful for all of my friends, and there are so many more to list. Like Meryll and Max who I had an overnight Airbnb with, and who were constantly there for my romantic problems. Elaine, who had been a big sister figure since high school is still featured on my Instagram account. Or Loy had been a big help for me and who I have the most inside jokes with.

The list of friends I'm thankful for just goes on and on, and I'm still thankful for them. Those friends were my lifeline, my "phone a friend." This is why it kinda sucks to say that I tugged on the phone line too hard and ended up ripping off the cord by relying on them too much.

Line disconnected

I knew friends were my lifeline, but I overrelied on them which ended up burning some of them out due to how I made so many mistakes repeatedly.

When my high school friends kept hearing of the same girl problems, they just turned on me. One guy, who was a newcomer in the group that I wanted to invite (but Frits and the others didn't want to invite), eventually made the group turn on me. They kept calling me names like "simp," and were overall just toxic to me. They were weirdly interested in becoming the main server admin of the Discord group I had created, the friend group from which I gathered random people in high school.

It took so much effort for me to build up that friend group from just Loy and me talking on a Discord server. It had become an active Discord server where we would host game nights and now some guy just kept harassing me and washing his hands whenever I called him out. He even got mad at me for liking the girl I liked, which didn't even make sense because the guy and I weren't close. I don't know why he felt like he had the right to judge me, but whatever.

In my other high school friend group, the RC, the situation was as bad as my other one. I essentially found out that Rey had been telling an old friend of mine the things I've been telling only to him, and he had spread it to that old friend and the RC. That old friend of mine was just the worst, they had delusions about me trying to follow them from high school to college, even though I only went to APC because it was the closest I had applied to and the other college choice I had was in Alabang (which was literally 2 cities away). And even the RC got tired and started labeling me for the decisions I've made.

I was also losing friends left and right during this time. 2022 was a reckoning that made me break contact with the friends I had once deeply treasured. I tried ringing lines left and right and, to my surprise, some friends just hung up on me and most just didn't answer the phone.

"The number you are trying to call is not reachable"

The people who I thought were my friends were just gone.

Jaze tried his best to apologize to me and I still felt burned at his betrayal. He knew that this new guy in our Discord was talking shit about me, but he didn't really fight back nor stick up for me. When the new guy created a new Discord group without me, he just blindly followed and silently agreed.

I didn't think I could trust Rey anymore after I found out he was telling my secrets to other friends. I stopped talking to the RC about my life problems as well and I was only there for the fun times. Sure, I had sleepovers with them, but never "damayan" sessions where people would just hear my problems and understand.

It's sad, but I saw another RC member get into girl problems and they just stuck by his side. Even Loy, my guy best friend, has shifted his mindset after joining the military and told me to just "suck it up" and that "civilians whine too much" while I listen to him ramble on and on about his own life and relationship problems.

People I called my brothers and my closest friends were just numbers in a phonebook that I couldn't contact. And for those that I could, well, I just couldn't connect with them anymore.

Dust on an antiquated handset

These days, I don't even think about calling anyone to vent my problems to. I'd love to call my friends and tell them about the things going on in my life, but I'd rather be vague or sweep things under the rug.

Words like "I'm busy with my career" or "I actually don't have any problems" are just hollow words that I parrot every time I'm asked how I'm doing.

I don't think I truly have a safe space right now.

I try my best to offer my friends a safe space. I listen to them for hours and hours on Discord or in person, I visit them when they have horrible thoughts, or even give them something to make them feel better.

But I don't have a person like that for me anymore. I do try to be a best friend for myself, but even so, it's not working out great. Talking to strangers online about my problems doesn't help either. It just becomes this whole "Hi, I'm Dartegnian" thing and I have to explain everything starting from the top, over and over. All that effort for a new person who I won't talk to/see anymore in 5 months time.

I really did want to call someone last week and talk about my problems. I looked at all of the people on my contacts list and I sadly found no one I think I could call and talk to.

These days, I genuinely feel alone. It sucks, but no one really knows how I'm doing in life. No one has really cared to check up or ask how things are genuinely going. I haven't vented to any one of my friends in a long time, but I don't blame them. Everyone has their own lives to live and not everyone can just listen for hours and hours. No one owes me a therapist, of course. But I just wish I had a friend sit by and talk to me about things.

At the end of the day, I don't blame my friends for leaving or not being there. I don't think any negative they did for one time will outweigh all the times they've been kind and courteous with me. With how my life is going right now, I just have to forgive and forget.

Roaming charges may apply

Like I said in my last post, Lost in Transition, my life is currently in a transitory state. I'm stuck with growing out of things from the past and finding the future hard to reach right now. There's a price I have to pay and a cost I have to settle before I actually get to the next stage in my life.

One of those costs is being alone for now as the dust settles in my life and I try to get things organized for my new life and new friends. There's still a future to look forward to and I've yet to meet the people I'll stay up long nights with, play games with, and spend more "forever days" with. They won't meet the me of today, they'll meet the me of tomorrow.

While it sucks that those future days come at the cost of my daily status quo, I have to admit that my present isn't working out for me anymore. I've tried, I really have. I'm with someone and other friends, too, but I feel like no one knows me on a deeper level or how I'm personally doing. I think this post is, funnily enough, a call for help.

And who's there to say that there isn't space for my current friends, even acquaintances, to make a massive comeback and be a big part of my life in the future? LK, my high school prom partner, and I have only reconnected when I was an adult and she's been a big influence since then. I'll put faith in the idea that my friends still have that bond and the capacity to be better companions in the future.

But regardless, wherever I'm going in life, I just hope I get to that future soon. I hope the place I'm supposed to be is right around the corner. But what I hope for the most is to just have someone I can call a friend.