to have a village, you must be a villager
or, how inconvenience is the basis of friendship / friendship series part 2
This is part 2 of a series of essays I am writing on friendship. Although best read alongside other pieces in order, each essay can be read standalone.
Timing of events may be semantically off due to how long it has taken for me to get this to a point where I publish, so please bear that in mind. They are mostly written in the tense that was true at the time of writing.
Today S and I realized we’ve seen each other everyday for the last 6 days. Whether for a meal or movie, these hangouts were accelerated thanks to the impending departure of one of our friends, K, who was soon leaving to New York. We would do whatever we could to squeeze in time all together, knowing he was leaving.
I can’t remember the last time I saw someone for that amount of consecutive days without them being my roommate or family. It feels akin to high school: seeing the same people everyday for weeks on end, never having to fear a goodbye. In fact, when they don’t show up for a day, their absence is missed. It’s felt. Something that is almost rare in modern friendship.
In adulthood, absence is practically the baseline - an expectation rather than an anomaly. If anything, presence is celebrated. It is revered. It is seen as a miracle that we can all be free at the same time to hang out. When you invite someone to a party, it is normalized for people to respond with a maybe, or even RSVP as attending but never end up going.
We all claim to be too busy to make time for a friend, yet complain about how lonely we feel. We live in a world where everyone wants to have a village, but no one wants to be a villager.
You want to be in the group chat. Yet you don’t want to be the one who makes plans. You want someone to bring you soup when you’re sick. Yet you wouldn’t drive across town to do the same. If everyone has the same mindset, what then?
In part 1 we talked about how friendships start to blossom - how two people become close. Perhaps closeness isn’t defined by how often you see someone, but the intent behind how often you see someone. Are we seeing each other out of convenience or inconvenience?
Close friendship is the intentional act of choosing someone, over and over again. Amidst the inconvenience, the chaos, the messiness of it all. Especially amidst it all.
It is difficult to reveal the ugly, the messy. It is difficult to confront your friends. It is difficult to keep saying yes, to attempt to see your friends as they truly are. It is inconvenient to be a villager. But that is precisely why you need to be one.
To be deliberate and intentional. To take down any preconceived notions on what a hangout is supposed to look like. It doesn’t have to be dinner and drinks. If I don’t want to hang out because I want to save money or am on a diet, what can we do? When we strip it down, all we’re really trying to say is I just want to see you. I don’t care how or what, I just want to be in your presence. That’s all that really matters, isn’t it? Whether it’s only a 1 hour lunch break or even just 10 minutes while you walk your dog, to show up is an intentional choice of the relationships you choose to keep in your life and how much you want to keep choosing.
friendship rituals
One way I’ve been able to maintain my sanity amidst busy everyday life is being the stewardess of gatherings that brings people together. That is, bringing people from different parts of my life together and fostering an environment for them to become friends too. It makes it that much easier to hang out since everyone has met each other to some extent. In fact, I’m often surprised when two friends I see in a hangout have not met each other yet, because I quite often make it a point to introduce every friend of mine to every other friend of mine. I make this recurring too, where every week friends of mine know there is a guaranteed opportunity to see each other. It is something I do lovingly even if it inconveniences me at times, because it’s always worth it.
I appreciate the people in my life who also stewards some of these gatherings so I don’t have to. KV who organizes board game nights where we somehow collectively tolerate his made-up rules, KL who always gets the group together for dinner (especially when we don’t know where to eat). MM who hosts silly gatherings at her apartment. JR who throws a puzzle party and EL a subsequent pudding party. We’re whisking mango concentrate together, and suddenly it turns into a battle of who can whisk faster, determining the best technique for whisking. It can really be that simple.
“Each time you go to these annual/monthly/yearly gatherings it’ll be a slightly different group, but there will be a small group of faces that is there every time. That seems to be the way to create family: out of the people you see again and again. Showing up no matter what else is happening in your life, and believing that by the act of being there, something a little more sturdy will form, at least for the time being.”
~Kasra, from The problem of long-term close friendships
on showing up imperfectly
Some of my best friends are not people who I have “hit it off” with from day 1, per say. But rather, people who time and time again, continuously choose to show up. With me, and for me.
There are days where I feel like I need to be fully “myself” in order to greet my friends, thinking “oh I can’t come” because I’m not my best self at the moment, or I’m a little tired. But one thing I’ve learned from my friends is that the ones that matter don’t care. They’re people who will tell you to come anyways.
It is very special when you find this kind of connection with people - where the activity does not matter, where you do not need to prepare. All you need is to show up.
In my experience, I’ve always been better served by showing up, even if halfheartedly - even if imperfectly. I find that I never regret it afterwards, and I tend to gain energy rather than drain it. This might look like promising to attend an event for just 1 hour, or rolling out of bed in pajamas to uber to a friend’s house for an imromptu hangout. The former experience led me to wanting to stick around longer, the latter is something I didn’t do under the guise of wanting alone time but in reality I wish I did. I wish I went that day to see my friends, pajamas and all.
To know what is going on in someone’s day-to-day life, to make plans with them, and then reschedule those plans when someone inevitably gets sick, and then bring over Calpol or soup or an extra laptop charger. To water their plants while they’re away, to ask them for help getting rid of mice in your house. To show up for the walk you planned even when you’re a vulnerable anxious mess — this is all friction.
And friction is not just interrupting your day or life to help out a friend, but also admitting you need the kind of help you cannot pay for or order yourself. To pierce through your veil of seamless productivity and having-it-together to say: I need something from you, can you help me?”
~Rosie Spinks, from The friendship problem
“of course i’ll drive you home”
I don’t think people are asking enough favours from their friends. I think when I feel like I am bothering someone by asking them for a favour, they are not someone I have developed a deep enough bond with. Obviously there are some boundaries to this, as I try to never take my friends for granted or ask anything I think might be unreasonable. I also always try to be gracious, my mom raised me to never come to gatherings emptyhanded and to overall be giving to people who host you. But there’s sort of unspoken rules with some friends that go like: “Of course I’d drive you. Of course I’d walk home with you. Of course I’d invite you. Of course you can stay the night. Of course, of course, of course. Of course I would, because I love you.”
My friend Bonnie writes about this concept, where this level of intimacy is normalized with people you are close to, and made foreign to people you are less close to. With people we are close with, a favour is returned with “of course”, with people we have not yet become close to it’s “oh you really don’t have to!”
K will constantly invite me to plans, and when I deny them the first time he will ask again to get me to budge. He always wants me there. SL, when after being told I couldn’t hangout because he was too far and I had limited time in the city, got an Evo and drove 40 minutes to pick me up from my dentist appointment just to drive me back to the opposite end of town so we could hangout/co-work. C will actively make plans to see me when she’s in town, and always lets me stay over when I’m visiting NYC. E, who flew to Vancouver for 24h just to have lunch with me. N, who came over just to build furniture for me, then went home. M, who ordered me cheesecake when I had my first mental breakdown and hand delivered me congee while sick - the same M who has continued to call me from random hotel rooms/cafes/conferences all over the world every week for the last 4 (almost 5 now!) years. T, who gives me the keys to his makerspace whenever I need a space to host, and is constantly rooting for me. NG, who always drives me and listens to my crashouts. L, who I’ve had the privilege to build our friendship with in multiple cities and stages of life.
I feel incredibly lucky to be surrounded by such great people I love, who teach me what “of course” looks like. So grateful for everyone I’ve met that has led me to my life today and everyone I will continue to meet. So, so lucky to live in this village of mine, and I hope this can help you create the village you want to live in too.
life roundup 𐙚₊˚⊹
I feel like I should stop apologizing for delivering this newsletter late. I really don’t have any excuses, and I don’t think the quality of this piece is any different from me having posted today compared to if I posted it two months, because most of it was already written. For some reason something has been holding me back from posting. But alas, instead I will just say I will do my best to hold myself more accountable to releasing at a regular schedule! I do miss having a more consistent paper trail, it feels like I’ve been writing just to get something out in the recent pieces but I forget that the reason I write is so that I can remember. Remember this point in time, how I was feeling, what I was experiencing, how I was loving. I want to remember more this year.
I was attacked by violent illness over the holidays (the flu, but from my conversations with peers it was way worse than how they experienced it), and recovering from laryngitis that’s still lingering today. i don’t think i had ever been that sick in my life, and i never want to experience that again. it reminded me a lot about how important my health is and how much i just want to be healthy this year. my days have not been normal since december 2025. when everyone asked me how my holidays were or how i spent nye, it was pretty sad. though i am grateful to had been home during that time with loving parents who took care of me
the week leading up to the flu i was going out every day, which probably contributed to a part of it. but lots of fun things! i went to MM’s for a gingerbread making party, hosted a design tea party, attended a curated creatives event, hosted my usual private coworking sessions, went to my friend’s pop-up band event, went to L’s for jackbox games and subsequently going to a second holiday dinner that night.
since the year has started i’ve pretty much been engrossed in work and indoors 90% of the time as i’m still recovering. perhaps this is a good time to mention i’ve also started a new role! i’ve stepped away from freelancing but am not too far off now, as i’ve joined a design studio fulltime working on projects i’m excited about everyday :) everyday has been a joy to live and i am so lucky and grateful
I’m playing volleyball again and am reminded how alive I feel while doing so! competed in my first tournament and i fear i may be addicted to tournaments now
also, i renovated my personal website ! <3 or technically, took down my portfolio website and only included a fraction of it in the new one, as i wanted this new site to be more a reflection of me, which work is a part of but not all of me. forever a work in progress ~
media i’ve been loving╰(*´︶`*)╯♡
i’m getting into movies this year! as someone relatively new to movies (i’ve probably watched <100 movies in my lifetime), i’ve resolved to try to understand movies more / be more open to watching movies of different genres, and also watching my friends’ recommendations
this year so far i’ve watched 100 metres, cloud, the great flood, marty supreme, no other choice, perfect days, even if this love disappears tonight. i really enjoyed marty supreme and no other choice, and looved perfect days! i think i’d like to get better at describing what it is i like/dislike about movies and i hope to get closer to that by the end of the year. letterboxd here xd
i binged the kim seon ho / go youn jung new kdrama: Can this Love be Translated? and i absolutely adored it. took some patience but it paid off. also a frustrating bit was that for a series about translations and interpreting language, it’s ironic how bad the subtitles were (they didn’t even get the language right)
on the edge of my seat every week for singles inferno s5
rest of my media consumption on my site here!
shoutouts ⋆⭒˚｡⋆
my parents for tolerating my brattiness while i was sick
friends who sent me video/audio messages over xmas/the new year <3
friends who dropped off christmas gifts at my door when i couldn’t see them :’)
all the homies who inspired this post, much of which are in my credits (one of the benefits of setting up a personal website is being able to obnoxiously link it everywhere because it is such a dense representation of you as a person. link count in this piece alone: 3)
i loved this piece!! thanks for sharing <3
HEHEH so honoured to be backlinked 🤧