I Ate Lunch Alone For a Year
I have 4 friends.
Not 4 close friends. 4 friends, full stop. And I’m being generous with one of them.
My definition is strict. A friend is someone who can hear the ugly, unedited version of your life and not flinch. Someone who doesn’t immediately try to fix you, reframe you, or pivot to their own story. Someone you can sit with and do absolutely nothing (no agenda, no occasion, no reason) and that’s enough.
And when they need the same from you, you show up without being asked. No questions, no conditions. You just show up.
A psychiatrist, but cheaper and with better drinks. Except this one you’d take a bullet for, too.
By that definition: 4. Maybe 3.5.
I also have 48,000 followers on LinkedIn.
Make of that what you will.
I learned what friendship actually is by losing it completely.
This was back in secondary school. A good friend decided, after a misunderstanding involving his ex-girlfriend, that I needed to be cancelled. He was thorough. One by one, the entire cohort stopped talking to me. For the better part of a year, I ate lunch alone every single day.
I told myself it recalibrated me. Made me tougher, more unfiltered, less dependent on approval. And maybe some of that is true. But the more honest version is that I built walls and called it character.
I only figured out how much it had actually cost me years later. I was at my kids’ art class, waiting at the holding area the way parents do, killing time by writing. I’ve been working on a book for them — something to leave behind, in case. My father died early. I don’t want them to have nothing if the same happens to me.
I got to the part about secondary school. And I just started crying. Not a quiet tear. The kind you feel in your chest before it reaches your face. I was sitting there trying to hide it from the other parents, pretending it was a running nose. I think even the blind could tell.
Thirty years. That’s how long it took for that lunch table to catch up with me.
Think of friendship as a long game of tennis. Two players. The ball goes back and forth at varying pace, varying intensity, but it always goes back and forth. That’s the whole point.
Most people, I’ve discovered, don’t want to play tennis. They want an audience.
And we’re apparently terrible at admitting it. An IPS poll found that young Singaporeans aged 21 to 34 reported the highest levels of social isolation and loneliness, and more than half felt anxious about talking to people in person, finding it easier to communicate online. We live in one of the most densely packed cities on earth. And we are lonely.
Turns out, 6 million people on a tiny island doesn’t actually solve anything.
Importantly, many people don’t really know how to be friends. Here’s what they actually are when some cosplay to be my friend.
The Ego Caddy. Every conversation circles back to their latest win. The new car, the promotion, the deal they just closed. Did you hear about the deal? I’ve sat across from people and felt genuinely relieved when they finally asked me something. Then the moment I paused to breathe, they were off again.
The Emotional ATM. Available whenever they need to withdraw. Gone the moment you show up at the counter. You’ve listened to their 2am spiral about their boss, their relationship, their existential dread - multiple times, no complaints. Then one day you need to unload something. Read receipt. Three days of silence. Then a meme.
The “Content” Creator. They come close fast. Ask the right questions, remember details, and make you feel genuinely seen. Then your darkest Tuesday ends up as their next “here’s what I learned about resilience” post. You weren’t a friend. You were a case study.
The Timed Reach-Out. You haven’t heard from someone in two years. Suddenly, they’re in your DMs asking how you’ve been. Between “how are you” and “actually, I wanted to share this incredible opportunity” is a very short distance. Either they’ve joined an MLM, started selling insurance, or found God. Sometimes all three simultaneously.
The 3.5 I’ve kept shares one quality. They don’t perform. They show up messy, let me do the same, and nobody keeps score.
That’s it. That’s the whole criterion.
48,000 followers. 3.5 friends. What do I know?
But I’ll tell you what I do know. I know exactly who shouldn’t be on that list.