Some of you may know me as someone who is a bit of a planner. You could say I put the “J” in MBTI. A lot of the things I end up planning are social events—like board games at my apartment or bowling for my community. I also tend to be the one who reaches out and organises catch-ups with friends. Usually, I prefer organising one-on-ones because it’s simply easier that way—no juggling multiple conflicting schedules.
From time to time, videos pop up on my feed (example post) that talk about the idea that if your friends aren’t reaching out on their own—if they’re not putting in the effort to plan or even just initiate a conversation—then they’re not good friends. In fact, some of these videos suggest these are the kinds of friends you should consider cutting off.
Over the years, I’ve had different thoughts about this. And part of the reason I’m writing this article now is to capture how I currently feel about it.
In my ideal world, there would be a balanced give-and-take in friendships. I would reach out and organise one hangout, then my friend would initiate the next. It wouldn’t have to be a strict back-and-forth, but on average, there would be a sense of reciprocity—something approaching a 50/50 split.
But reflecting on my own friendships, I’d say most—if not all—of them are almost entirely driven by me. I’m the one who reaches out. I’m the one making the plans. So does that mean all my friends are awful and I should cut them off?
At the moment, I don’t think so.
What matters to me in a friendship, especially when it comes to effort and care, is that the other person makes the time to show up. If I want to hang out for dinner sometime, I appreciate it when someone is willing to work with me to find a time that suits us both. It doesn’t have to be next week, or even next month, but the willingness to coordinate and follow through matters a lot.
Red flags
That said, there are a few things I do find frustrating.
One is slow response times—by which I mean more than 24 hours. If I don’t get a response within a day, they’re usually either the kind of person who replies very infrequently (3 - 7 business days) or… doesn’t reply at all. I find this to be the hardest kind of connection to maintain because if I can’t even get in contact with you, then I can’t feel the friendship at all. An intrusive thought I have is if I reached out and said I was having a really hard time and I needed to talk to them, would they respond? In all honestly, I think if they wouldn’t respond to a regular message then they wouldn’t respond to this either and that’s what really concerns me.
The second issue is when someone is really busy. They might only be free once a month, once a year. Hell we might not even live in the same country and honestly, that’s fine—as long as they’re still willing to carve out some time to catch up. What becomes more problematic is when someone is unwilling to make the time. If they can’t make the time to catch up in person, surely you could spare the time to text me or call me right? If it feels like they simply don’t want to make time for me, then I do think that’s a point where I’d need to reconsider the relationship. Why are we even friends if you don’t want to spend time together?
On the other hand, if someone’s just disorganised or struggles with planning ahead—maybe they don’t use a calendar or can only hang out spontaneously—that’s something I’m more understanding of. It makes regular catch-ups more difficult, but I recognise that this is just how some people are. It’s not necessarily a dealbreaker for me.
So, in summary, I don’t think a friend needs to proactively reach out or plan things. But I do expect a friend to make time—and to show up.
By “show up” I mean don’t flake out. If you commit to going, then actually come. I understand if you’re sick or if something came up, but the important thing in that case is to be proactive. If I’m the one asking you if you’re still coming a day before the event and you reply that you have a conflict that you already knew about then I would need to rethink our friendship.
Losing the motivation
It’s quite disheartening being the one that always reaches out.
It just felt so…I don’t know…one-sided. If you knocked, Shimamura would open the door…but otherwise, she never came out.
That was as far as our friendship ever went.
Adachi from Adachi and Shimamura Vol 1
That’s why I resonate so much with the feeling of letters that are never answered in Youth of May. It’s a feeling that slowly whittles away at me, day after day. Eventually for some friendships there will be a breaking point and I won’t find the motivation to keep sending one-way letters.