On Proximity and Friendship

We should buy into friendships, not rent.

The move is stressful.

For days, my mother and I sit at the dining table, making lists—who to call for help, what to let go of. It’s just the two of us; everyone else is away, so like birds preparing for migration, we uproot and rebuild our lives together. Days after our meetings, we pack and dust our old apartment, call carpenters to remove fixings on the walls, electricians to pluck bulbs, and disgorge wires. It takes a while, but soon, the rooms are empty, echoing with ghosts of our former selves.

On the second night in the new apartment, I lie in bed, staring at the trees outside the window. They are a deep swamp green under the navy sky, and something about their stillness settles me. A friend calls. We talk about relationships—specifically, how the landscape of our friendships are shifting, how the things that once held us together feel looser now.

One of these things is proximity.

When I was younger, friendship felt like buying a house. You came in and made yourself comfortable. The walls were yours to paint however you liked, the ceilings too. There was no tiptoeing, no treading lightly to avoid bothering the neighbors.

I used to think every friendship would last forever. On December 31st and Valentine’s Day, I would write letters to my friends, flooding WhatsApp with their pictures and long, passionate messages declaring my undying love and affection. I felt drunk in love, and yet, friendship required no performance. There were no scheduled check-ins, no awkward “let’s catch-up” texts that rarely made it out of the DMs. Friendship was casual, effortless, a fact of life.

Then I grew older, and friendship began to feel like renting an apartment. You pay for a set time, maybe a year, maybe more. The landlord gives you some leeway: a paint job, a few fixings on the walls, maybe a floor revamp, but a voice in your head reminds you: this home is not yours. Yes, you may want to install a POP ceiling, but it is too much of an investment to make given the impermanence of your stay, so you settle for what’s allowed, what you’ve been given.

More than once, a friend on the verge of a breakdown has called me, their voice laced with hesitation: "I’m sorry—are you busy?" "Are you working?" Or I’d find out that something big happened in their life after the fact, and their explanation would be heavy, bearing a layer of guilt, “I thought you would be busy; it’s why I didn’t tell you.”

I say all this, but I’m also guilty. I preemptively think for my friends sometimes. I don’t call, text, or ask questions, because I know how stressful adulting can be.

But here’s the thing: proximity isn’t just about physical closeness—it’s about effort. And effort is hard when you’re no longer bound by shared hostels and exam study sessions. You leave school and start wrestling with grown-up things like work, identity, and the exhaustion of being, so now your attempts at grasping at each other begin to feel more like maintenance than connection. Friendship stops feeling like an open door and starts to resemble something you have to remember to do.

The night of the move, I thought about how different this experience would have felt if we had been moving into a house we owned. I love our new apartment, but I know I will leave it someday. So I can’t change the ceilings or break the wall to fit in my oversized AC unit. I welcome this impermanence—what it means for me and my family.

And I wonder if this is what’s happening with my friendships, too. The quiet realization that some friendships now come with an expiry date, even if unstated. Even if we pretend not to see the fine print. There is no grand falling out, no cataclysmic betrayal—just a slow fading, a gentle unraveling, the way seasons shift with no single defining moment.

I tell my friend this, and he laughs softly, a knowing sound. “I miss it too,” he says. “The way we used to show up for each other without overthinking.”

We sit in silence for a while, both of us holding the weight of what we are saying. And yet, even in the ache of nostalgia, there is something tender about this conversation, about the fact that we are still here, still talking about the things we miss, still reaching out through airwaves to pull the threads of our friendship closer together.

I am encouraged to think of all the ways to fight the now, and buy into my friendships. All the ways I can stop acting like a tenant and exhibit more understanding of what being part of a person’s life truly means. It would mean calling on random Tuesday afternoons just to hear their voices. Visiting them, to sit on their couches, eat their snacks and stare at the ceiling like we did in Uni. It would mean running errands together and ditching the view that we can only be present when we’re fully prepared.

The other day, I saw a text on Instagram expressing that part of the reason we feel alienated in our friendships is that we have formalized our relationships so much. We don’t see, and when we try to, we plan dinner dates at expensive restaurants and meet our friends only as their “dinner selves” and then wonder why we’re unable to open up in front of the polished steak and glowy lights.

I think it’s true.

A good, fulfilling friendship requires proximity and effort. Requires you to come in, remove your shoes, and plop your leg on the couch like you own the house. Cry, talk, argue, and sometimes, walk around naked, baring the most vulnerable parts of you.

This is my submission—the glimmer of light I choose to hold onto.

Alongside this, I am also getting comfortable with the idea that maybe friendships, like homes, evolve. Maybe we don’t outgrow them so much as we learn to inhabit them differently. Maybe, if we are lucky, we will find the ones that still feel like home, even if the walls are thinner, even if the floors creak, even if we know we won’t live there forever—not for lack of effort, or proximity, but because sometimes there are earthquakes that pull down our homes—a bitter consequence of life.

And maybe—just maybe—some friendships are not meant to be houses or rentals, but something else entirely. A lighthouse, a place to return to, no matter how far apart we drift.

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This is the second part of this piece: Curiousity is a Form of Love.

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Treasure’s Corner.

Hello, hello, hello.

How are you guys doing? I hope you’re having a good day. I’ve been floating in and out of my head lately, so I’m constantly reminding myself to be where my feet are. I hope you are where yours are, too.

On media I have consumed lately:

1. I read The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang for the second time and I loved it. Maybe I should go back to reading romance novels? It felt so delicious, the writing was good, and I finished it all in a day. Reminded me of reading Wattpad novels and kicking my feet in high school. Recommend some for me.

2. I am watching Succession. I previously dropped it midway into season 1 in 2023, but I picked it up again, and I am loving it. They are all pieces of shit, but they are my pieces of shit. Bless Kendall Roy and the glistening sorrow in his eyes.

3. I haven’t really been listening to music. I don’t really feel like listening to things these days. I think it’s a phase. Yesterday though, I went through my Cunty Kpop playlist to feel something.

4. Before reading The Kiss Quotient, I read Lily Anolik’s Didion & Babitz, and honestly—the book did a huge disservice to Joan Didion. Morally, reading it felt like engaging in salacious gossip. The author is clearly not a reliable narrator (and she tells us that much anyway) so I can’t really be mad.

5. I’ve been reading Clarice Lispector lately. Read A Breath of Life and currently reading Agua Viva. A magical writer and person.

Have the most amazing week.
I’m always rooting for you.

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