A few days ago I caught myself staring at my phone after sending yet another message that started with “So, who’s in?”. It wasn’t a dramatic moment. No one had rejected anything. No one had said no. The message just floated there, quietly aging. And I suddenly realized I knew exactly what would happen. A few forced responses, a few non-answers. Maybe a half-commitment. And if I didn’t follow up, push, remind, or reshape the plan, it would disappear.
Over the last year I’ve started noticing something that makes me deeply uncomfortable: if I stop initiating, most of my social life quietly evaporates. I am usually the one suggesting the climbing session, setting up the gaming night, creating the group, nudging the plan into existence. And when people show up, it’s good. It’s genuinely good. We laugh, we talk, we enjoy each other. But there is almost never a second move that doesn’t come from me. No “next time at my place.” No spontaneous continuation. If I don’t provide momentum, momentum dies. For a while I told myself that this simply means I’m proactive. That I like organizing. That I’m a natural initiator. But at some point you have to ask whether you enjoy building things or whether you’ve just accepted that without you there is nothing to build. That distinction is painful because it exposes a dynamic I would rather not see.
What makes it worse is that I don’t actually want events. I want continuity. I want to feel that something exists beyond a single evening and beyond my effort. Most people, however, seem perfectly content with occasional moments that fit conveniently between work and whatever else demands their attention. They want to participate, not maintain. They want something pleasant, not something alive. And I cannot even blame them. That is an easy, low-friction way to live socially. But I have started to realize that I am not frustrated because people reject my invitations. I am frustrated because they treat everything I try to build as optional background noise. If it aligns with their comfort, they show up. If it requires effort, risk, or even mild inconvenience, it dissolves. The hard truth is that I am trying to create infrastructure in rooms designed for leisure.
There is also an uncomfortable social layer to this. A lot of bonding runs on shared stagnation. Complaining about work, about money, about how tired everyone is. It creates a stable equilibrium. No one is exposed. No one is forced to move. But I tend to move. I change things that don’t fit. I take trips that stretch me. I buy tools that allow me to create rather than just consume. I leave environments that drain me instead of turning them into permanent topics of complaint. I am not heroic about it. I just act. And acting subtly disrupts the comfort of shared inertia. When you remove yourself from the misery loop, you stop validating it. You unintentionally remind people that alternatives exist. That can be inspiring. It can also be irritating. Movement is often interpreted as judgment even when it isn’t.
The hardest part to admit is that I might simply be misaligned with the rooms I’m standing in. If none of these friendships evolved, if they stayed exactly as they are now, I am not sure I would choose them again in their current form. I would miss the history. I would miss the version of us that existed in my head. But history is not momentum. And nostalgia is not reciprocity. I cannot keep over-carrying something just to preserve a memory of how it once felt. At some point you have to acknowledge that trying to turn spectators into builders is exhausting, especially when they never asked for tools in the first place.
This is the uncomfortable conclusion: not everyone wants to build. Not everyone wants rhythm, depth, or mutual momentum. Some people genuinely prefer comfort, predictability, and low effort. And I can either keep pretending that this is temporary, or I can accept that this is structural. Reducing effort is not a strategy. It is an experiment. If something collapses without me pushing it, then it was never mutual to begin with. That might leave fewer people in the room. But at least the room will finally feel real.