Please Like Me (But Keep Away)

by Mindy Kaling

Part of it is that I am pretty judgmental myself, and always have been.

It’s confusing, because I love, even crave, the company of my friends and family. But if I don’t know the people well or have control over the situation, I feel uncomfortable and tense.

Catastrophizing is my general approach to all social events: how, when, and why it will implode are the first things I think about when I’m throwing a party.

Why is it that chatting with friends is energizing, but making small talk with acquaintances takes such monumental effort?

The problem was I didn’t want just anyone’s company. I wanted the company of funny, smart, like-minded people. That’s when I realized something about myself: I would rather be lonely than bored.

I had dreams of conquering my social anxiety and being a part of an inseparable group of girlfriends in Los Angeles. We would have stylish Sunday brunches with free-flowing Bellinis and, when one of us got engaged, a bachelorette night spent cruising down Sunset screaming woo-hoo from the back of a long white limousine. We would help each other through breakups and be instrumental to setups, but men would never be as important to us as one another. If that all seems basic, it’s because it is! It’s a basic human right for women to have female friends.

My barometer for making friends is that you can’t get to know someone by hearing about everything they like—you need to hear about what they don’t like. It’s only when you are willing to go out on a limb by admitting you’re not a fan of something that you’re vulnerable enough to earn my trust.

So my second realization was that I would rather be lonely than be friends with non-friends. Losing friends is hard, but losing fake friends, as it turns out, is pretty damn easy.