max friends(x), min connection(x). Solved 2025!

Connection between yourself and others is a hard feeling to describe, it’s much easier to sense. On a Sunday morning, sharing a coffee with an individual, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I felt so little connection.

I had spent time with this person, said agreeable things to them, never hurt their feelings, shared a sunset with them, yet I could not work out why I felt so distant. She sat there uncomfortably forcing conversation, while I had my first in-my-head moment in a very long time. I felt the distance just getting further and further as silence filled the air.

At her doorstep I awkwardly confessed to her “I’m struggling to move things from friends to more”, despite the obvious indications she had given me that she was interested in “more”. As I lay in my room mulling over this comment, the dots began to connect, and a sickening realisation dawned upon me.

Moving up to Auckland for the Summer, I entered an environment with no prior community. I was back to “social-square-one”, it was time to cook! I didn’t care who I clicked with, I was going to build a community up there!

With vast previous experience meeting people, I had no struggle assuming a “friends-with-everyone” persona and found what felt like unlimited friends! All I had to do was filter my genuine thoughts, indulge egos, bite my tongue, and I became the guy everyone knew! I felt like a zero-to-hero social weapon, the goat of social dynamics, no one could compare!

From those statements you can clearly see that my Ego was ruling my mind. It clouded the fact that there was no depth in these connections, the thing that makes connections actually worthwhile. My egotistic obsession with numbers had taken precedence over my genuine judgment. The only connection of any depth I had in Auckland, was sparked in a very “hazy” situation.

Now I don’t regret my approach over the Summer at all. If I had more time in Auckland, I’m sure I would’ve started to prioritise more “real” relationships over time, but the real problem occurred when I came back to Christchurch.

Christchurch, it’s a place I have lived for over three years. I have developed community galore through Sport, University, Halls, Events, Work, etc. down here. Socially I am as setup as it gets in Christchurch! I have all types of relationships with people, including very vulnerable ones.

Now there was no need for me to keep trying to make everyone like me, right? That didn’t seem to compute for the whole first term of this year. Even with my best friends, I was not myself once, just pleasing and conflict avoiding.

I wondered why all I wanted to do was go on long walks by myself, but in hindsight it was the only chance I got to be myself! The “persona” I had been projecting was draining my soul. The constant tongue biting, the “playing-the-role” feeling, it made me feel disconnected as fuck!

Back to lying on my bed, a visualisation came clear in my mind. A puppet-master, my "character" pleasing all, but polarising none. Where was my individuality? Where was I? I was trying to project a self for people to relate to, which I couldn’t even comprehend in the first place (because I don’t even believe in a “self”) thus making connection virtually impossible!

The realisation that I prioritised people pleasing over connection, and it costed me a “real one” sunk in. I couldn’t even sit there and say “we just weren’t compatible” because she never met me. I hid so much of what made me, me. Yet she said to me all she cares about is if someone is “real”. She is truly the realest for that.

Connection is a multivariate equation beyond our understanding. Despite that, this experience taught me that being authentic and honest are mandatory conditions for meaningful connection. Incompatibility can be a likely outcome, but I don’t fear encountering it anywhere near as much as I fear lost connections with genuine people now.

I am not one to regret at all, but I truly regret not being myself as of recent. Not only did I miss out on one of the “realest” girls I’ve met but I disregarded my personal philosophy. Violating that makes me feel so stupid! Experience is the greatest teacher, ultimately I am grateful, but damn that was a painful lesson!