Hey friend,
Can I be honest with you about something?
After spending weeks thinking, writing and talking about group friendships, I have come to a realisation that still makes me laugh a little.
I am not actually a group friendship person.
I know. The irony is not lost on me.
But that is what this whole process has reconfirmed to me. Not just about friendships, but about myself. And I think that is the part I did not see coming.
When I started exploring this topic, I thought I was going to unpack group dynamics. The closeness, the distance, the loyalty, the moments that bring people together and the ones that pull them apart. And I did. But somewhere in the middle of all of that, I kept finding myself.
Group friendships have this particular way of holding up a mirror. When you are navigating multiple people at once, you start to notice things that one-on-one friendships can sometimes let you avoid. Your assumptions and insecurities tend to come up faster. Your need to feel included and understood becomes harder to ignore.
And if I am being honest, some of the most important things I have learned through friendships were never really about the other people. They were about me. My patterns. My expectations. The version of myself I was presenting.
We spend a lot of energy trying to figure out our friendships. Who is showing up, who is pulling back, what something means, whether a relationship is worth the effort. And those questions matter.
But underneath all of them is a more subtle, more important question.
What are my friendships showing me about me?
Because in my experience, when you start thinking about that question honestly, something changes. Not just in how you see your friends. In how you see yourself.
And that, I think, is where the real work begins.