With Medium Friends Like These

“What did I do that was so bad that people don’t like me?”

I didn’t know how to answer this question that a friend of mine asked me recently. I no longer associated with the friend group we had in common, so I didn’t have an inside track on any perceived or real issues. What I did think, however, was that maybe this was a medium friend situation.

I saw the term “medium friend” used in a New York Times article a couple months ago. Writer Lisa Miller explains that medium friends fall somewhere between acquaintances and friends. There might be a period of close connection that later fades away, due to outside circumstance or whatever, or there was never a close connection to begin with.

Medium friends are genuine friends. You share history (such as the same alma mater), circumstances (an employer) or interests (rude jokes, the royals, thrifting or squash). Medium friends make you laugh, bring news, offer insights or expertise. But, unlike the closest friends, medium friends test the limits of your time, love and energy. There are only so many dinners in a week, so many people with whom you can be incessantly texting. Medium friends prove the lie in any naïve attempt to be all things to all people.

And that is the problem with medium friends, the invisible lines you draw around them without ever being explicit — to them or even, possibly, to yourself. Reciprocity is the foundation of every friendship: mutual sharing and caring in a context of trust. The tension embedded in medium friendship is this absence of clarity, allowing for the possibility of what Claude Fischer, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, referred to in an interview as “asymmetric expectation”: You may like your medium friend less (or more) than they like you. With a lover, partner or a very close friend, you may negotiate imbalances, hash out wounds or betrayals. But somehow such conversations feel impossible in the medium realm.

I have a long memory for hurts and slights in my friendships. I remember being six or seven years old, watching my neighborhood friend group shucking corn in preparation for a crab feast, and trying so hard to act nonchalant about not being included, only to return home and cry in my room. At 13, I remember when a mutual neighborhood friend lied about Deena going out of town for Halloween so that we wouldn’t go out trick-or-treating together, only to later learn that Deena went out alone while I went to Chuck E. Cheese with a school friend. I remember finding out that a guy I’d liked in high school said very cruel, hurtful things about me to Rimi, but this was only revealed after I had done the same thing to her right before college graduation.

When I consider all those memories, I realize the common denominator is vulnerability: my resistance to being honest about my feelings for fear that I would be mocked or dismissed. By not speaking up, I missed out on moments of connection. Momcat often told me, “when someone hurts your feelings, you need to say OUCH!” but I think she also knew how very difficult it was for me to do that, especially in the moment. And it still is, when I consider the friendships I’ve moved into the medium friend category, all because I am either unwilling or unmotivated to have those conversations.

I’m aware of the folks who have put me on their medium friend list. Perhaps we were closer pre-pandemic, or we lived in the same city or state. We might have become friendly through a workshop or seminar. I had large friend groups in both SoCal and NorCal, and I’m still in touch with many of those folks, but often there’s not the same level of intimacy we had when we were able to spend time together in person. And that makes sense, because once that initial connection is gone, it’s harder to rebuild it, especially if the new connection pivots to being a virtual one.

I also have to consider how many of my medium friendships may be tied to overcompensating for my anxiety or depression. When I’ve desperately wanted to fit into a group or be liked by someone, I have said or done things that I assumed would make me more appealing as a friend. I have overextended myself and negated any boundaries, all because I craved connection. These approaches may work in the short-term, but the friendships lack the depth and resonance of one based on authenticity. Many times I have had to learn that if my choices or behavior are rooted in desperation, there are zero long-term benefits.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with medium friendships. A spectrum of interpersonal connection is an inevitable part of being human. And if we’re lucky, all our friendships morph as we learn how and when to yell OUCH! like Momcat advised, as we share the truth of who we are and allow others to share who they are.

As for those old hurts? They stopped hurting a long time ago. I reconnected with one of those childhood friends eight years ago, and she helped me find a place to live when I first moved back east. Deena and I are closer now than we have been, but due to geographic constraints we’re more of a high-medium friendship. Rimi’s work keeps her very busy, but we stay in touch as much as possible, and when we get together, there’s always plenty of laughter and sharing. We’re adults with enough life experience to understand that sometimes even the oldest of friendships will have a fallow, medium-friend season, and that doesn’t make them bad. That just makes them more real.