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OPINION
Every adult eventually learns an uncomfortable truth: the people we love do not see the world as we do. Adulthood arrives with no manual for friendship, yet it quietly rewrites the rules. Friends who once shared a desk, a hostel room or a taxi fare now share only fragments of time, scattered across jobs, marriages, cities and responsibilities. Accepting this is part of maturity. Resenting it, and drafting a charge sheet against those who have drifted, is one of the most common and corrosive habits of our time.
Consider the grievances that now routinely end friendships of many years. A friend missed the birthday dinner. Another did not post a tribute on Facebook or a WhatsApp status. Someone skipped the housewarming, or the baby shower, or did not call during the week when everything seemed to be falling apart. Each complaint is understandable on its own. Taken together, and stripped of context, they amount to a verdict: you do not care about me. But is that verdict fair?
“Most people who go quiet in our lives are not abandoning us. They are surviving.”
What we rarely see is the weight other people carry. The friend who did not show up may be facing an eviction notice. They may be depressed, or financially stretched beyond what they can admit. A close relative may be fighting a serious illness while they quietly foot the hospital bills. They may be struggling with children, or with the private grief of infertility. They may be the breadwinner of an extended family, and may have spent days going to bed hungry so that others could eat. Some are weighed down by loans they have failed to clear, with the due date approaching like a tide. And some are fighting demons they cannot describe to anyone, for whom simply getting out of bed that morning took everything they had.
In societies where a single salary often supports many people, none of this is exaggeration. It is ordinary life. A missed celebration is not always indifference. Sometimes it is exhaustion, or the cost of transport, or the shame of arriving empty-handed.
We also misread silence. We assume that absence signals envy, coldness or pride, when more often it signals struggle. Many people withdraw precisely because they cannot bear to pretend and cannot afford to explain. Others say nothing because they know you are carrying a heavy load of your own, and they refuse to stack theirs on top. That silence is a form of consideration, and we mistake it for neglect.
The way many of us now conduct friendship is, frankly, disturbing. In Luganda there is a phrase for it: omukwano gwa mpa nkuwe, a friendship of “you give me, and I will give you.” Loyalty that lasts only as long as our own needs are met is not loyalty at all. It is an invoice, and we have grown very fond of issuing them.
There is a common saying that friends who cannot help you in your hour of trouble are not real friends. It contains some wisdom, but it is rarely turned around. So let us turn it around. When your friend last faced a crisis, what did you do? Did you notice? Did you ask? Did you call, or did you wait to be called? How many people have you helped in their hour of need, and how many have you merely judged for failing to help you in yours?
“A standard we apply to others but exempt ourselves from is not a principle. It is a convenience.”
Why must it always be about us? The instinct to read every absence as a personal slight is a form of self-centredness, even when it presents itself as hurt. It places our own calendar, our own milestones and our own stress at the centre of every relationship, and measures our friends by how well they orbit it.
Social media has sharpened this habit. Likes, tags and statuses have become the visible currency of friendship, and a friend who does not spend them is presumed to have gone bankrupt. But a status is not a measure of love. Some of the people who care for you most are absent from your timeline and present in your hardest moments, in ways you will never fully see.
None of this means friendship should be free of expectations. Care must be mutual, and some neglect is real. A friend who consistently exploits, belittles or disregards you does not deserve unlimited patience, and healthy boundaries matter. The discipline lies in telling apart a friend who has stopped caring from a friend who has run out of capacity. From the outside the two look alike. They are not alike at all.
The remedy is simple, though not always easy. Ask before assuming. A short message, “I have missed you; is everything alright?”, costs almost nothing and can reveal almost everything. Extend grace for lapses, particularly long ones. Show up in small ways: a call, a message, a shared meal, a few shillings sent without being asked. Celebrate without keeping score. And when we are the ones struggling, let us say so, because people cannot help with burdens they do not know exist.
Adult friendship does not demand that we share the same worldview, the same availability or the same way of showing affection. It demands understanding. Life is already hard enough; our friends should not become one more source of hardship. Before we cut off someone for what they failed to do, let us ask what they are carrying.
Let us learn to understand people.