So many motivational posters and Facebook posts focus on friendship as the pinnacle of success, even over having a family or getting a good job. Making someone who isn’t in anyway related to you like you, and hang out with you, is something we all strive for in one way or another. And most of us have at least one friend if not a few, or maybe 59, or 170.

Having a best friend can be easy. Someone you can Netflix and chill and actually Netflix and chill with them. You can go grocery shopping with them. Talk about boyfriends or politics or music or Japanese art. It’s easy to get a best friend, really- just find one or two people who care about you and are willing to take a bullet for you if need be.

But being someone’s best friend? Being someone that that person can draw on for support and comfort, for a laugh or a hug before they talk to anyone else?

It’s not as easy.

I have best friends, but I am no one’s best friend.

It’s a hard pill to swallow. You have to watch as people you trust and love tell you through social media they trust and love someone more than you. They take selfies with some other person you either barely know or know intimately. They go to bars with them, and not you. (If you ask where your invite was, they simply say they forgot to let you know, and placate you with promises of “you should come out the next time”!) All the rides, the shoulders to cry on, the hang outs that were offered by you and rejected by them- even if it was only a few times, even if they confided in you before- all that bubbles to the surface.

As a disclaimer, I must admit that this experience is exclusive to college. I have childhood friends that are like sisters to me, and I cherish their friendships, and I feel they can call me their best friends, or at the very least their good friends.

And of course, throughout four to five years of schooling, you grow as a person and outgrow certain aspects of a friend you drew more heavily on as a freshman or sophomore. I’d be lying if I said there aren’t people who I confided in and trusted and loved at the beginning of my college career that I barely talk to now. It happens. I understand.

But when did I become the person everyone outgrew?

Was it something I said? Was it something I did? Was there something in my teeth for four years?

As I said before, social media is a great reminder of your failings as a best friend.

I recently, at a party (in a slightly tipsy stupor, mind you) asked a friend why there were no pictures of me on her wall, when there were so many of so many others. She quickly responded that there had to be one up there, right? I didn’t see my tell tale Afrocentric hair sticking out of any Polaroids, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Later on, I saw her draw many others into snapchat selfies, but I was left out of this exclusive club. It got me thinking, as alcohol tends to do-when did I lose my membership? Did I ever have it? Do I still have to earn it?

It’s easy to blame it on others. Fuck them, you say, I’m a great person, I deserve to be loved, and they don’t deserve me. I can find another group of people that will love and cherish me for the beautiful, hilarious flower I am.

But then you start thinking. Was it when I loudly asked my friend why she didn’t like Koreans in a Korean restaurant? Was it when I accidentally blabbed that another friend was hooking up with a guy we mutually knew to his friend? Was it when I stayed home to avoid a party where everyone apparently bonded with each other?

What did I do wrong? When did I become the stagnant person people tolerate and invite to mass gatherings, but avoid having actual conversations with?

I’m a sensitive person. Things affect me more than they might affect others. I’ve cried over spilt milk more times than I can count. But somehow this hurts more than anything before. People I love don’t love me as much. People I trust don’t trust me as much.

People I care about don’t care about me as much.

This isn’t a whiny manifesto, not a personal attack against my friends, who are blameless. They know not what they do, and me forcing them to love me would not solve anything. I will continue going to parties, sharing in the fun as I always have. But there’s a voice in the back of my head, telling me these people don’t really care about me. It’s probably not true- “back of the head” voices tend to lie- but there’s always going to be a part of me striving to become that friend.

In the end, we all want to end like the Golden Girls- sassy elderly ladies rife with wit and wisdom, surrounded by a few good people to spend our remaining good years with.

Does someone want to sit at the table with me? I’ll make the cheesecake.