The title should contain scare quotes, as in the "friendships" are not real, but technical constraints might force me to remove them. This is because those "friendships" are not healthy relationships at all, and the main commonality is that you do not feel like yourself when around those people, or to be more precise, you do not feel like you can expand into your higher self.
For instance, I find that most interactions happen far too quickly for me to process, think and speak clearly. Instead I feel like I am forced to react and respond instantly, as if I'm an automaton trying to produce certain reactions on the other person, such as making them laugh, making them like me, or entertaining them in one way or another. So instead of feeling like myself, around most people I feel like a bundle of reactions and canned responses, which I find incredibly tiring.
Maybe this is what people refer to when they talk about "introversion" or whatnot. I am not a fan of those premade labels which group many different experiences and possible causes together, but evidently, the labels still tend to point to useful phenomena. 1 It's simply tiring to pretend to be someone you are not, to not be seen for who you are for extended periods of time. Constricting relationships make you feel lonelier than being by yourself.
Here are some specific types of relationships, or at least interactions, which fall in the camp of contraction and fakeness.
§1. Time wasting friends. People with whom you hang out because there is no one else to be around, nothing else to do. Instead of having a good time together, or doing a specific activity that people are interested in, or growing together, these "friendships" are just born out of filling a certain void. Unsurprisingly, they tend to fizzle out quickly as soon as people start finding their own interests or genuine friends.
Time wasting friendships typically occur in school, since people are forced to go there for extended periods of time, and it feels really weird to be alone, but can also exist on the internet, where people for instance bond over the same livestream they are watching together
§2. Crabs in a bucket. In a sense an extension of the time wasting friends. Typically, the crabs in a bucket dynamic starts out as something beneficial, such as meeting people who are facing similar problems to you, which creates this experience of bonding and finally feeling seen. Over time however, some people feel compelled to change their life so as to address those problems in one way or another, whereas other people do not and simply want to stay in the ingroup because they want the feeling of belonging. From what I've seen, the latter subgroup tends to be the dominant one, and they usually see the former as some type of "fake" or "betrayer" because they are joining the "normies" or something.
§3. Remember when friends. Not my example, it comes from this piece by James Ellis, but definitely something I have experienced. When people you spend time with start saying "remember when we did this" on a loop, which depressingly can happen even to people in their 20s, though of course nostalgia tends to afflict older people far more. Underlying this dynamic is a sort of resignation from life, as if the group has given up from living and experiencing things together, and can only experience joy from playing the same old disc which reminds everyone of the "good old days"
§4. Parallel friends. When two people are in the same room, or in our times in the same call, and they might exchange words and a few glances, but they are not really together. In many ways this is similar to the dynamic of time wasting friends, but the way the parallel "friends" play out is quite chilling, and also fairly depressing, because it feels like two people using the other just to say or do things they would on their own, but feel less guilty because there is supposedly someone else with them. Instead of a conversation, you have two people waiting for the other to stop speaking so that they can say whatever they wanted to say. Or instead of two people who genuinely enjoy each other's company, one likes the other because they help them in their self-development or something similar, as if the other person was a convenient mirror in their life and not a flesh and bone human being.
I haven't focused on overtly toxic relationships in this one, such as people who straight up lie or abuse you, or at least constantly put you down, or the one-sided relationships with people who are incredibly self-centered and do not care about what you want or how you feel, because those tend to be more obvious due to their asymmetry.
What makes the constricting friendships more subtle is that there is sort of implicit deal behind them: I will accept to be with you because you validate this aspect about myself which I do not want to change, a covert agreement for two egos to maintain themselves.
The opposite of that points to a key quality in good friendships: not only do both people care about one another as they are, but they also allow each other to change, which includes the fact that the relationship may end if the two drift too far apart. Whereas a good parent will allow their son to follow his own path, even if they do not completely agree or feel confident in it, a constricting friend will want you to stay where you are because it's easier for them to justify their own life.
Constricting friendships are safe, and I would say that a world ruled by the law of "niceness" inevitably spawns those relationships which might seem happy on the surface, but which deep down are utterly hollow, and leave a test of ash in one's mouth. There is something incredibly sad about someone who never seems to be moved by anything, never seems to call out anyone or anything, and never follows their mad ambitions and follies. Which is probably women tend to be so repulsed by "nice" guys. Deep down they know that there is something incredibly constricting about this "niceness".
1 Same thing with: ADHD, depression, (social) anxiety, autism, trauma, narcissism
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Groupunhappiness Honesty Relationships Time
2025-09-14