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Has anyone else spent years trying to fit into group friendships when they’re really more of a one-on-one friendship person?
For years, I assumed that having a close-knit friend group was the goal. Because group friendships never felt natural to me, I thought I was somehow doing friendship wrong.
But then something subtle happened.
I made a friend.
And then another one.
And then, one December, I found myself out for happy hour with a small group, having a blast.
That’s when I realized the problem wasn’t that I was bad at friendship.
The problem was the model of friendship I had been measuring myself against. This realization eventually led me to what I now call the Friendship Gap.
Not everyone experiences connection the same way.
Some people thrive in group friendships, while others feel most connected in one-on-one relationships. For those people, groups can feel surprisingly exhausting, even when everyone is perfectly nice.
When I stopped trying to fit myself into someone else’s version of friendship and started building one-on-one friendships, I stopped feeling like I was failing at something everyone else had figured out.
I’m curious how others experience friendship.
If you’ve struggled with group friendships, what has friendship looked like for you? Have you found that one-on-one friendships fit you better? Or are you still trying to make the group model work?
Want to understand your own friendship style? Not everyone experiences connection the same way. If you’ve ever wondered what type of friendship fits you best, take my Friendship Style Quiz and discover the strengths that shape how you connect with others.
