Friendship rejection

and why it hurts (me) so badly

I was coming home from the local co-op tonight (I was sent on an errand to acquire golden potatoes for dinner) and I got to thinking that it was probably about 10 years ago that I tried to make a local friend and it burned out fantastically. Why my brain decides to serve these things up to me on a semi-regular basis I’ll never quire know, but this is one that I’ve hashed and rehashed many times in the intervening years.

I was 44 and he was probably about a decade younger than me, give or take a few years. We lived in the same neighborhood(ish) and we had some common interests so I thought what the heck. I had asked him a couple times if he would like to grab coffee but he was always a little non-committal (which, in hindsight, should have been my first clue) but in January of 2017, I asked again and he said he would go. We met at a local coffee place on a Saturday morning before I had to go to work. The time limit on it was attractive because sometimes these things don’t go the way you want and you need an escape hatch. Fortunately, that wasn’t necessary because we had a really nice time talking about a lot of things - exactly what I don’t really remember, but we never lacked for conversation that morning. I remember thinking wow, it’s really kinda cool and rare to find a new friend in your 40s. In fact, I tweeted as much once I got to work and then a year later, when I was still using Timehop, I was reminded of that precise tweet.

Thanks to social media, we can be reminded of all our greatest hits and biggest missteps. Glad to know it has our back.

I remember feeling so good after that coffee “date” for lack of a better work. Back then, I always prided myself in the fact that I was willing to step outside my comfort zone and try to get to know people because I didn’t want to be like what I perceive my father to be - lonely in his retirement. with my mom as his only friend. I didn’t want to graduate from working life and not have friends I could meet for coffee or lunch or whatever. And at that point in my life, I had a handful of good, local friends that I knew I could count on for various things. And then 2020 and the pandemic happened and well, that just kind of blew everything up.

As for the potential friend from ten years ago, I tried to engage in various ways in the ensuing weeks, but things just didn’t go like I thought they would. I figured we’d text and maybe make plans for a second get-together like we said we wanted to when we left. I realize now that that was just a nicety. Turns out I didn’t need the escape hatch, he did. I still see this guy in various settings and capacities - he’s usually at the neighborhood 4th of July picnic - and we are friendly and get along, but I would not count us as “friends” in the classical sense of the word. Mere acquaintances is more like it.

I remember thinking it must be something about me. There must be something innate in me that is repulsive and that’s why this particular new friendship didn’t take, whereas others did. I talked to a friend about this feeling in the aftermath, right around the time Timehop reminded me of it, and he convinced me that sometimes things aren’t meant to be. Sometimes people aren’t ready for that level of intimacy, which is sad because I think so many men in their middle age and later are really very lonely and afraid to show just that shade of vulnerability that is needed to not be lonely. I probably misread him as being more ready for a friendship that didn’t involve athletic events or woodworking. It is not the first time I’ve been wrong.

As a rule, growing up I tried to avoid super close friendships with other guys because of my fledgling queerness - it always seemed to mess things up. My first truly good friend in high school that I felt comfortable talking to was when I was 15. It kind of set the bar for all friendships that came after it. Basically I was never satisfied with a surface level friendship. But naturally, that level of intimacy with him caused me to “fall in love” with him, not that I knew what love was or anything like that. It continued through my high school years and then probably came to a boiling point with my roommate in college, who I was head over heels for but he was not even a very good friend to me. But he gave me just enough to keep me hooked and coming back for more of his friendship, only to pull the rug out from underneath me and not talk to me for days. Present day me would never tolerate such a thing, but sad, anxious, depressed and deeply closeted 21 year-old me thought if he wasn’t my friend then no one would be.

So friendship-level rejection stirs up all those old emotions and activates that sad, anxious, depressed and deeply closeted me that still exists in my body with me. And I remember how I felt once I figured out that it was not going to work out and I was, in fact, NOT making a new friend in my 40s. It was pretty much identical to how I felt in college.

Well fast forward to 2026 and joke’s on that other guy because not only am I making a new friend in my 50s but he’s a coworker who could easily be my son but for some reason he thinks I’m cool and I’m enjoying getting to know him. The opportunities are always there, and you miss 100% of the chances you don’t take. And when the opportunities aren’t there, you have to make them, which is so much easier said than done. But who among us can’t use another friend, especially one willing to be vulnerable enough to push through the macho bullshit?