Phases of Friendship

Growing up as a Chinese American in San Francisco, I was lucky enough always to be surrounded by Asians. I can remember as far back as preschool when being Asian was the norm, but this didn’t necessarily mean developing friendships was easy. 

People may see Asians as a monolithic group and that we relate to each other in every aspect. Sure, it’s great to have a mutual understanding of cultural traditions, such as removing your shoes before entering someone’s home and understanding the biases and microaggressions that we still endure in society today. Perhaps there was something innate in us to gravitate towards each other. But when it comes down to the different personalities of a person and social pressures, there are so many other factors to consider in friendships.

My first real friend was Filipino American Ann. She was an amazing artist. With pencils or pen, she drew realistic pictures of animals and graffitied block letters at the edges of her notebooks and colored beautiful fireworks at the corners of the covered textbooks. She made me want to be artistic just like her, so I picked up drawing manga, Pokémon characters, and whatever scenery came to mind. I wasn’t Picasso, but she brought out my creative side, and I loved being fascinated with creating something out of nothing. 

Ann also had a love of books. I remember spending time at the library before, at lunchtime, and sometimes after school. We didn’t care if this meant being labeled a nerd. We just loved being surrounded by the endless possibilities of stories that surrounded us. While kids were outside playing kickball and doing God knows what, we were rummaging through “The Berenstain Bears” in second grade. I remember these books were so intimidating with their big words and long stories. Perhaps we’d knock these out when we were in fifth grade. 

Eighth-grade graduation came, and as hard as we tried to keep in touch, the sparkle and divergence of different high schools ultimately pulled us apart. I’m grateful for this friendship because it taught me some of the things I loved in life and that it was OK to be different and not want to play in the schoolyard. Years have passed since we last talked, and my only hope was that I did a better job of keeping in contact. But now, we keep up with each other’s lives through Instagram posts and stories. 

Making High School Friends Was a Different Story

I went to an academically competitive high school with a population that was 98% Asian. In a school filled with pressure, everyone trying to outdo each other, I found a core of seven friends. We celebrated each other’s birthdays with decorated lockers and massive balloons from Lucky’s. As we got a bit older, we went out to dinners. 

We understood each other’s cultural traditions because, as it happened, we were all Chinese Americans. In high school, we were just trying to survive. I’m sure we annoyed each other to no end. As per usual, there was the girl drama, pettiness, cattiness, and gossip floating about each other. Although our dramas were not as dramatic as in the movies or TV shows, we experienced it all in our small group. There was a need, more than want, to hang on to each other because who would want to be known as the weirdo loner?

In our 20s, the group whittled down to four. We went through the hardships of growing up and being an adult and trying to figure out what to do with our lives. To be honest, I don’t think we supported each other the way we should have. We would gossip and critique each other behind the person’s back about the potential of each other’s failures, secretly hoping the other person would fail.  

These moments should have been a red flag to move on and find other friends, but we’ve known each other for 10 years — of course, we couldn’t ditch the group. We continued these friendships well into our 30s, where I finally figured out I was getting too old for all this bullshit. 

When a personal traumatic experience happened in 2020, I felt like I couldn’t tell any of them. It was as if I was trying to protect myself from the gossip that I knew would happen behind the scenes. I instinctively knew this wasn’t the friendship I needed or wanted. It was time to leave, and to no surprise, no one came after me. 

Eventually, I made new friends and even found a new best friend. Looking back at my younger self, I wish I could tell her to have the courage to leave those toxic friendships. I wish she knew it wasn’t too late to start over and that, in the future, she would find other people with the same energy. I don’t regret those earlier friendships because they taught me what I should look for in authentic relationships, and the old cliché is real — that everything indeed happens for a reason.