Ever since I was little, I’ve made it my mission to find friends and build the community I wanted.
Being the first to initiate a conversation, invite people over, or organize hangouts has always felt innate to me — it’s something my parents prioritized, too, so I picked up “planner friend” tendencies at a young age.
I started hosting my annual Halloween party when I was 11. In college, I always loved planning outings with friends after a long week of studying. These days, even though it’s harder to see loved ones as we get older, I do my best to keep my current group chats going.
Now that I’m almost 30, however, I’m starting to feel the weight of being the initiator and planner. They say you can’t pour from an empty cup. Unfortunately, the water had drained from mine a long time ago.
So, for the sake of my own well-being, I temporarily took a break from reaching out to loved ones and making plans.
After taking a step back, I saw my friends much less frequently
As much as I wanted to see my friends, I no longer had the energy to always text first — and I hoped others would take the reins and make an effort to initiate plans.
When I pulled back from my usual role, though, I was pretty disappointed to see that none of my friends really stepped up.
It wasn’t radio silence: A few people checked in here and there, while a couple of friends brought up the idea of “doing something,” but never executed a plan for it. As a result, I went a couple of months without seeing my friends, aside from once at a wedding.
I began to feel like something was wrong with me. I questioned whether I was being a burden or expecting too much from friends who already had too much on their plates.
Perhaps friendship felt more integral to me because I don’t really have an extended family or a partner to turn to, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe I just wasn’t an important part of my friends’ lives.
I realized that I missed making plans
At first, withdrawing from making plans gave me time to care for myself and prioritize my needs, but pulling back also posed one big problem: I wasn’t happy.
I genuinely enjoy hosting, making plans, and bringing my friends together. Not doing these things made it feel like something in my life was missing.
After a couple of months, I started sending check-in texts, scheduling FaceTimes, and asking friends to grab food and catch up. I immediately felt more connected with my social circle, and it seemed like most of my friends were happy to hear from me.
Still, I wish that making plans wouldn’t fall solely on me. I understand that my friends have busy schedules and need to prioritize other things, like work, partners, aging parents, and their own well-being.
Taking a break from texting first, though, taught me that I deeply value community and need to spend less energy on people who don’t see friendship the same way.
That doesn’t mean I love these friends any less or won’t ever reach out to make plans with them again. It does mean, however, that it’s time to try having some honest conversations with friends I’d like to see initiate more.
It’s also time to put a little less effort into relationships that could be draining my energy, and create space to make more friends who prioritize community the way I do.
I wish that more people understood the work that goes into being a planner friend
I’ve learned that humans — planners and non-planners alike — are social beings and need connection.
If your planner friends are like me, they might not always mind being the person who makes the plans. Letting the planners and initiators in your friend group know that their efforts are appreciated, though, can go a long way.
It also wouldn’t hurt if, on occasion, non-planners took a little bit of time to send the text first or plan the hangout. One 2022 study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and based on a series of preregistered experiments, found that people often underestimate how much even a quick text message can mean to a recipient.
Friendships take work, especially as we all get older and enter new life phases. I understand that sometimes, someone may not have the bandwidth to reach out, or they might be caught up with life’s ups and downs.
That said, taking a step back taught me that although I don’t need my relationships to be perfectly 50-50, they can’t be 100-zero, either.
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