In this heartfelt excerpt from How to Stop Overthinking Forever, Rithvik Singh reflects on his own journey of friendship, heartbreak, and self-worth — and shares a reminder we all need: you deserve people who truly value you.
Back in fifth grade, a day before Friendship Day, I remember my mother asking me how many bands I needed but I didn’t have an answer. She got me five bands regardless, but I only had one friend. The next day, I wore four of the bands to school so that everyone thought I had many friends and saved one for the only friend I knew I could give the band to. But when I offered him the friendship band with a smile on my face, he didn’t smile back. I realized he didn’t have a friendship band for me. ‘
I’m sorry, I only brought bands for my close friends. Let me see if I have an extra one,’ he said. I still remember his landline number; we went in the same school bus together and talked all day long, but he still didn’t consider me a friend. It shattered my heart. In the seventh grade, I made a friend who told me that while we could be friends, we could never be best friends, because he already had one. I thought we were best friends. When I switched schools in the eighth grade because my mother was transferred to another city, I thought to myself, this is the fresh start you were looking for. You’ll find friends here. I yearned for friendship with all my heart, but I just couldn’t make friends. Although I loved the school and the teachers, and talked to a lot of my classmates, I couldn’t find anyone I could truly consider a friend. In the eleventh standard, I switched schools again, because yet again, my mother had been transferred to another city.
This time, I went in with no expectations. But from the very first day, I realized people were warmer and nicer to me. I was still the same person who couldn’t make friends, but in that school, people were genuinely interested in talking to me. My best friend from the same school recently travelled for over 400 kilometres to surprise me at my book signing. Another friend of mine sends me presents every birthday, even though she lives in another country. Another one gives me a handwritten letter every time we meet. I now have friends who check in on me regularly, genuinely care about my success, want me to grow in life and love me wholeheartedly.
The point is, sometimes you cannot find the people who understand your heart, not because you’re the problem, but because you’re not surrounded by people who are like you. I kept wondering if I was boring or annoying or unworthy of being loved until I found people who made me feel loved without me having to ask them for it. It took me a long time, but I eventually found genuine friends whose sense of humour, mindset and hearts matched me. I conducted a poll online asking people if they believe their friends secretly dislike them. The results were shocking. Out of the 4811 participants, 3827 (79.5 per cent) believed their friends secretly disliked them. Only 984 (20.5 per cent) participants said ‘no’.
If you feel insecure in your friendships, this is your reminder that you’re not alone. So many of us feel the same way. We feel alone even when we have a lot of ‘friends’—mostly because we’ve not found the right set of people yet. If you’re someone who constantly overthinks because you do not have friends who feel like home to you, please know that you will find people who will cherish you for who you are and appreciate all your efforts. Just because you have been betrayed by people you thought were your friends in the past doesn’t mean you’ll be betrayed by everyone you come across in your life. I was ‘friends’ with people who didn’t return my calls, didn’t invite me to hang out with them, didn’t believe in my potential, didn’t laugh at my jokes and didn’t value my efforts. And I realized over time that I didn’t lose them. They lost someone who genuinely cared about them.
They lost someone who simply wanted a corner in their hearts and was willing to do anything for them in return. I didn’t stop giving my best in friendships because a bunch of ungrateful people don’t get to shape my perception of friendships. I knew I wasn’t the problem. I knew I’d find people who’d love me for thinking differently from them instead of judging me for it. People who’d understand my jokes and believe in my dreams. People who’d hate to see me hurt. People who’d hold my heart gently on my worst days. Sadly, what happens when you’re giving your best in a friendship and it’s not being reciprocated is that you begin to wonder what’s missing in you. You see them making efforts for other people and wonder what makes them better than you. But when you start realizing that the feeling of gratitude is rare and that not everyone knows how to value people, you stop getting affected by ungrateful people who couldn’t ever value your friendship. If someone thinks you’re not cool enough to be their friend, don’t be their friend.
If someone thinks you’re boring, let them find interesting people. If someone thinks you’re too sensitive or too clingy, let them choose someone who isn’t. You deserve friends who will love you for who you are and respect your feelings. Friends who know how to be gentle with your heart. This is what you need to remember if you’re yet to find genuine friends:
• Your worth isn’t determined by the size of your friend group.
• Your worth isn’t determined by the number of people who find you ‘interesting’.
• Your worth isn’t determined by the number of parties you’re invited to.
• Your worth isn’t determined by what you do on Saturday nights.
• Your worth isn’t determined by how many people sit with you during lunch breaks.
• Your worth isn’t determined by the actions of someone who doesn’t see the value of your efforts and always takes you for granted.
If you’re someone who truly cares about people— you’re there for them when they’re unwell or upset, you try to make their birthdays special, you try to keep in touch and make plans, you give them advice whenever they ask for it, you believe in their ambitions, you don’t say bad things about them behind their back, please know that you deserve friends who do exactly the same for you. And if, despite doing all this for your friends, they’re unable to see your worth, letting go of them is a prerequisite for restoring your self-esteem and confidence.
Always remember:
• If someone really cares about you, you will not overthink because of them. They will not make you anxious. They will not drain your energy. They will not make you feel bad about yourself.
• If a friend is making fun of you in front of others, there’s a huge possibility that it’s not a friend but a secret hater. Friends are supposed to pull each other’s leg in private, but yell at the top of their lungs to support their friends in public. You do not have to settle for being the laughing stock just because you’re scared of being alone.
• People will suggest that you shouldn’t have expectations in friendship. They will talk about low-maintenance friendships, but never forget that there’s a difference between low-maintenance friendships and low-quality friendships. Someone can be miles away from you and still manage to support you from a distance, and someone can be right next to you and still make you feel unwanted.
When you’re doing a lot for someone and they make you feel unwanted in return, you keep overthinking what exactly you have done to deserve the cold treatment, the ignorance, the neglect. If nobody has said this to you before, let me say it to you right now: you do not need to overthink because of someone who doesn’t care about you. Someone who is determined to ignore everything you do for them. Someone who always chooses other people over you. You deserve to feel loved, heard, appreciated and understood, and if a friendship doesn’t come with that, it’s not friendship at all.
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