‘Don’t listen to Facebook, no one needs 2,000 friends’

The older I get, the more stressful it is trying to keep up with everyone

Does anyone else wish they had the same five friends to do everything with a la hit US TV series Friends? Their work, love and even home lives centre on the same inner circle and everyone else is peripheral.  Similarly with the four women from Sex And The City in which Samantha, Charlotte, Miranda and Carrie are each other's best friends. Their cocktail catch ups, supper soirees and later weddings and play dates, revolve around each other and this makes it so much easier. In my teens and 20s, I loved having loads of friends from different walks of life and my birthday parties are legendary for including different groups of friends from a cross section of various workplaces, schools and churches. Not to mention childhood friends and ones I have met randomly along the way (including one of my best male friends who I met on Tinder). But in my 30s, readers, I am tired.

We live in a world now where we are so connected that we are in touch with people we may not have seen for years or who have moved away and who we rarely hear from. But they are or once were, our friends and so if we post about an event in these public arenas, we are obligated to invite everyone and everyone is obligated to attend. Ideleted my Facebook account a few years ago but before I left I had something like 2,000 friends on there. Now I love social events as much as - in fact I’d go so far as to say more than - the average person. But no one needs two thousand friends. 

I’ve got friends I would consider “close” and yet they’ve never come to any of my birthdays and I’ve never been to any of theirs. This might be because they’re introverted and don’t do celebrations well, don’t have the time/money or that they tend to celebrate with a different set of friends. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s totally fine. It doesn’t make me think less of them or our friendship and when we do meet up it’s on a one-to-one basis and it’s lovely.

I didn’t actually celebrate my birthday this year the way I normally would because I was recovering from chemotherapy. But last year, I had supper with a few close childhood friends, and then a champagne picnic in the park the next day with a completely different set of friends. Compared to my previous extravagant events which have included a fashion show, disco yoga, a house party weekend and what I called a “surfday party”, this was relatively low key, low cost and very easy. I love all my friends but I don’t think any less of them because they could not or did not want to come hang out with a bunch of people they don’t know just to satisfy my desire to be the centre of attention for a few precious hours.

Look, I know I’m giving off grumpy old woman vibes and I’m probably about to be swiftly uninvited to every social occasion planned in 2022 (lol). I’m not saying I’m ready to live that hermit life. But please, cut me some slack if I say no. I love you, I really do. But I can’t go to everything.

Doll x