“When was the last time I was here? The house feels more lived-in now,” one of our friends said, as she walked through the laundry and into our kitchen/living/dining.

I can’t remember when she last visited either, but I was just soaking in the compliment.

“Dylan hates buying all the unnecessary things, but I like making it feel homey,” I beamed. But more than that, I was just so grateful that she agreed to drive all the way to visit us.

We had yum cha at Springvale then drove together to Notting Hill to help her check out a bicycle we saw at Facebook Marketplace (which our friend ended up getting), but at 38 degrees celsius in autumn it was way too hot to enjoy a ride out. So we invited her to chill at our house until the sun won’t be frying our skin and we can enjoy a bit of a ride out.

It was going to be a 30-min drive back home for her but she didn’t mind. Not that any of that was brought up, but I’ve had other friends make me so conscious about how far their drive home was from ours that anyone else that doesn’t complain about it also stands out in whatever is the opposite of a sore thumb.

Rejection from other friends hurt, and I hate it. I hate it that they’ve made me feel lesser just because we don’t live in a 15-20 minute radius from their place of residence. Instead, we are a 35 minute drive.

“Tell me when they complained about it,” Dylan challenged me once, when we were arguing about why I felt so miserable because of some friends.

I couldn’t remember all of it at that time, I just feel sad and upset sometimes, but last night I did and I cried myself to sleep.

We had just enjoyed a barbecue at our house, probably the first since we didn’t have a charcoal grill or briquettes (and didn’t even know what was a briquette). Feeling high from enjoying the evening, Dylan excitedly said we should host one again next time and one of them laughed saying, “probably not,” we are too far.

The few words that swiftly and cleanly killed any excitement I had to finally be able to host friends in our own home.

I asked myself multiple times, is this a cultural thing? That my being Filipino makes these kinds of comments hurt? Because this was never really a thing I’ve ever heard or experienced from my friends back home.

“We haven’t met up in a while, bro,” Dylan said over the phone one day. He was the extrovert, always booking our social calendar last-minute because we had nothing better to do but mostly because he is easily bored.

“You guys are too far, we can’t invite you in short notice.”

Those small rejections build up and had really come to a head one day when they joked that they would FOMO Dylan because we lived so far.

He said it was just a joke but could only do so because at their standards, we are just not near enough. Just before this joke was made, I was even eager to share how we were recently hanging out more often with new friends we made from people we knew in our hood.

They were otherwise good friends whose words always lead me to a visceral reaction of hurt and misery every time I replay core memories in my head. An unfortunate side-effect of an introvert who never reacts in the moment and instead overthinks, remembers, and replays events I unwittingly remember in my solitude.

This is it, the cultural hurdle I agonisingly can’t “get over” that’s built up over time and in some ways I’m trying to overcompensate — how can I make myself enjoy my home again?

Cue the extra effort to make our house a warm, lived-in home.

Taking life survival tips from Korean dramas is on-brand for me, I guess.

Life is just all shades of grey. At the ripe old age of mid-30’s, I can’t be idealistic all the time. Getting hurt and rejected is a normal part of life and I can’t live in this world if I only know how to be sad.

Which is why–! There is nothing like splurging on my next holiday as a classic adult solution to adult problems. And getting new curtains. Or making new friends. Plus finding new hobbies. And reviving old ones.

2025. Just another year of adulting.