Performative Frank

I only have one friend.

…is what would’ve been true according to my standards from last year for what a “friend” is.

I used to believe that a friend was someone who had to always be there. Someone who was always willing to reach out. Someone who cared.

And I had that one friend: someone who would always be willing to call me no matter how busy he was. Each call would last hours and it happened almost daily. And each call would always go until midnight. He always made time for me and I would do the same as well for him.

But when you have this one friend, you start thinking: in order for me to call someone a friend, everyone must be on the same caliber as him.

Subconsciously, I would filter out people from my life and say that they weren’t a friend because well, they weren’t him. I would pedestalize him as the best friend I could ever ask for. That he was perfect. But was he really? Even though I’ve had so many good moments and memories with other people in my life, I never really considered them as friends. I would just acknowledge them as… people. 

At the same time, I would always think: is there a point to calling people friends? Is there a reason that I need a label to stick onto someone for them to mean a lot to me? If not, then what is a friend and more importantly, who is a friend?

If the person who spent hours on call with me almost everyday until midnight was just a friend, then who were the people that I laughed with? The people I dedicated hours helping? The people who made me cry? Were they really just people? 

During senior year, I met a lot more people that I spent a lot of time with. But according to my standards, they were still just people. And to be honest, I don’t really think that’s true. They clearly mean a lot to me. So that’s when I decided that I needed a new definition of a friend. 

To me, a friend is someone who I spent a lot of time with and someone who has impacted my life greatly. But then with this definition, that would mean almost everyone on my Instagram following would be a friend and that’s too many friends right? Earlier this year, I was looking at the close friends feature on Instagram and had trouble figuring out who to put on it. I had a list at some point but decided that I would get rid of it because I was never satisfied with it. 

If that was my definition for a friend, who was a “close friend”? One definition that I tried to come up with was something like this: someone who I would open up to about the problems in my life with little to no hesitation. But I do that pretty easily. I tend to find myself always sharing my problems with a lot of people, even if I only just recently met them. In a sense, I would say that I set the vulnerability bar low.

Ok, then can I just say everyone is a friend and call it there? But I clearly care about some people more than others, so that doesn’t seem right to me. 

I guess this is something I haven’t figured out quite yet. As I make more friends in the future, I think I’ll eventually find out who I treasure the most and where I would draw the line between a friend and a “close friend”. 

Next Post: I Care but do They? (6/21/2026)

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Photo(s) of the Day

I went to the eye doctor today to do an eye exam so I could get lenses done on my new frames. Apparently my vision hasn’t changed much in the past two years, which is surprising to me because of the amount of times I’ve stared at my phone without lights on at 3 AM. I left a side by side comparison below of my old vs. new glasses. People said I look pretty much the same, but I’m curious what you guys think. Select one of the images and press submit to vote. Thanks! I’ll also leave a poll in Instagram.