Not Shiny Enough

I was talking to my friend P recently about friendship.

More specifically, about those friendships where you never quite feel secure in your place.

I’ve had a few of them.

Donna was my best friend growing up, but there was always this strange feeling that I could be dropped like a hot potato the moment somebody else caught her attention.

Then years later there was Carlie, a more recent friend I’ve had to let go of.

Different friendship, similar feeling.

Plans could be cancelled at the last minute. I could be enormously important when there was a crisis and somehow much less important again once it had passed.

I was trying to explain all of this to P when she reminded me of a mutual friend we had years ago.

She was similar.

She could give you these wonderful little bursts of attention where, for a while, you felt completely chosen.

And then suddenly you weren’t.

Something else had caught her eye.

P said:

“There comes a point where you just have to realise you’re not shiny enough for that person.”

I thought that was perfect.

You’re just not shiny enough.

There is something almost comforting about saying it that way.

Because not shiny enough isn’t the same as not good enough.

Maybe there is absolutely nothing you could have done differently.

Maybe somebody simply wants something else from friendship. Different people. Different energy. Novelty. Whatever it is that catches their attention and keeps it there.

And maybe you’re just never going to be it.

I think I’ve spent quite a lot of my life believing there must be something I could do about that.

Try harder.

Be more understanding.

Be more available.

Be a better friend.

Somehow make myself sufficiently shiny that this time I wouldn’t be the one dropped when something else came along.

But P’s sentence removed all of that effort in an instant.

Maybe sometimes you aren’t going to cut it for somebody.

Not because you’re deficient.

You’re simply not what they’re looking for.

There is still rejection in that.

It still hurts to realise that someone you would happily choose does not choose you in quite the same way.

But I think I would rather be somebody’s ordinary, familiar, slightly tarnished person than spend my life polishing myself in the hope of catching someone’s eye.

Some people will always be looking for something shinier.

Eventually, perhaps, you just have to let them look.