At like 39.8 years old I feel like you shouldn’t be getting bamboozled by social dynamics like you’re still in 5th grade.

A friend told me I should come to a show with him and a couple other people when I saw him on Sunday. Messaged him last night, made plans to meet them at the bar, and when I got there became increasingly aware how much I was pushing the convo.

Weird, I think.

I’m asking him questions, making an effort to get to know his new beau, and realize to my creeping horror that I’m not getting… anything in return. The ratio is 30 words from me and two words in return, sometimes one. It’s like I’m trying to pick up a stranger who is patently not interested. From the people who invited me?

What is happening.

Get into the bar and the group, people I’ve hung out with numerous times, and generally had a great time with — although usually with John there, oh god — are all more or less… stonewalling me. I spend almost an hour with backs turned to me and only the meagerest pleasantries lobbed over the wall once or twice. “Hey haven’t seen you in a while. You good?”

I’m… spiralling. This dread, this stupid fucking loser-kid trauma. Sitting in the elementary school library with the group you’ve tagged along with and realizing suddenly that you are NOT their friend? That they actually wish you were not there at all? That you’ve miscalculated this whole equation, that you’re the kicked puppy. How is this happening. I am an adult.

After an hour plus, and the show still not started, I just… leave. I tell myself all kinds of prudent excuses: this show is almost an hour late to get going, it’s a work night, etc etc etc. When actually, as is excruciatingly clear when I get back to the silence of the car, it’s the crystal clear recognition that no one cares if I’m there or not. I get no texts asking where I went. I wake up to none the following day.

It’s… an education. I realize that these people are not… friends? That they are acquaintances, and honestly, really John’s acquaintances that I think are cool, and we occasionally have a laugh together. Where my ability to make them laugh feels like a fee I pay to get to be included. This is a recurring theme for me lately, which means it is … probably a me problem.

I’m so tired of feeling like I have to like, tapdance and put on a show to pay my way when I’m out with people I think of as friends. I guess I just don’t get the… math? Why don’t they ever ask me questions about me? Why aren’t they interested in what I’m up to? How have we hung out for 2 years but they don’t know what I do for work today, but I know like… what college they attended? They’ve come over for dinner. I’ve made them dinner. Multiple times. I’ve paid into this bank account of friendship for ages and find that I am never able to make a withdrawal. This feels tragic. I’m embarrassed for me.

I do not really know how to transition into this phase of adulthood. How do you make friends at 40. How do you find people who are as interested in getting to know you, as you are in getting to know them. What does it mean when the people you spend 80% of your free time with have never seen you sad? or angry? what does it mean when you’ve never had a disagreement with any of them?

It seems so… impossible. What are the odds of finding more than one person who not only has similar hobbies or interests, or even just complementary hobbies or interests, who also wants to hang, who can have a convo with you and wants to? I don’t feel like it’s fair to dump that all on a partner, it’s too much for one person.

But I just… cannot feel like I did last night again. It was humiliating, in the most banal sense of the word. I laughed out loud after sitting still in the car for 20 minutes in total silence. Incredible.