I have always believed in nurturing friendships. As an ambivert who takes time to pour her heart out, I have never viewed friendships as a numbers game. For me, it has always been about quality over quantity. Perhaps that is why, whenever I meet new people, my instinct is to hold back a little. Not out of arrogance or distrust, but out of habit. I take my time to understand people before allowing them access to my emotional world.
So when someone unexpectedly enters my life and immediately showers me with warmth, I acknowledge and appreciate it. But the appreciation does not instantly translate into friendship for me. My observant and emotionally protective self only lets people in after we have weathered enough highs and lows together. When an equation survives the test of time, I take it as the universe nudging me to finally let my guard down.
It is, in fact, an organic process; even calling it a “process” feels too calculated. This is simply how I allow bonds to bloom: naturally, gradually, and without force. And isn’t friendship supposed to feel that way? Perhaps not in today’s world.
Increasingly, people seem eager to fast-track emotional intimacy, not necessarily because they genuinely value connection, but because they enjoy the convenience and perks that come with friendship. They overwhelm you with generosity in the earliest stages of acquaintance, even while you are still trying to understand your comfort level with them. They go overboard, not to make you feel at home, but to burden you.
And the moment a connection feels like an obligation rather than a comfort, that is your cue to pause and reassess.
Healthy friendships feel unmeasured. Conversations flow without pressure, silences are comfortable, and there is no constant need to prove loyalty. On the other hand, when interactions begin to feel emotionally taxing, when plans start feeling like duties, when you find yourself avoiding meet-ups, or when words and actions constantly contradict each other, it may be time to reevaluate the bond.
The biggest red flag, however, is convenience disguised as closeness. Take a common workplace example. Someone gradually befriends you and begins showering you with unnecessary care and attention. They insist on paying for meals, expect you to bring food for them, get offended if they are excluded from your plans, and repeatedly invite you over to their house. On the surface, these gestures appear affectionate. Yet internally, you feel overwhelmed, almost pressured to match an emotional intensity you never agreed to.
Still, many of us ignore our instincts because we do not want to appear ungrateful. We continue valuing their “kindness,” even when it begins to feel performative.
The turning point usually arrives when their words are tested against reality. Imagine someone pestering you for months to visit their home, only to make you feel unwelcome the moment you finally do. The warmth disappears. The hospitality vanishes. You feel less like a guest and more like an inconvenience. Suddenly, all those grand gestures begin to feel hollow.
The final nail in the coffin often comes during moments of emotional vulnerability. You open up about something deeply personal, hoping for comfort or empathy, only to realise they are emotionally absent. When confronted, their response is indifferent: “Main kya bolun?”
And in that moment, the illusion shatters. You realise the bond was never as deep as it appeared. You were not valued; you were merely convenient. A backup plan. Someone to fill the empty spaces. The painful part is that your instincts probably sensed it from the very beginning. But like most people, you gave them the benefit of the doubt.
You ignored the discomfort when they ordered food for you without asking, insisted on paying on your behalf, borrowed your belongings under the guise of friendship, or subtly imposed emotional expectations before trust had even formed. All the while, a small voice in your head kept asking: ‘Are we really that close as friends?’ These are the red flags we often overlook because we confuse familiarity with friendship.
The truth is that friendship should never feel forced. It should not demand emotional indebtedness. Real bonds are built slowly, through consistency, respect, and mutual emotional safety,
As PR professional Nupur Redkar points out, this dynamic is especially common in corporate spaces, where colleagues often “claim” friendship long before genuine closeness develops.
She recalls joining a company where she bonded with a group of female colleagues over lunch breaks and shared commutes. However, when one of her closest college friends later joined the same workplace through her reference, her priorities naturally shifted. She spent more time with her old friend, helping her settle into the new environment.
“One of my colleagues called me a hypocrite for this,” Redkar says. “She expected me to prioritise her over someone who had already been a part of my life for years. I had known these colleagues for only a few months, while my friend had been with me through significant phases of my life. Naturally, my priorities reflected that.”
For Shambhavi Singh Sengar, who is currently on sabbatical, the experience was even more emotionally draining. “I became a victim of friend bombing during my college days,” she shares. “Some people seemed extremely trustworthy at first, and I became deeply emotionally attached to them. But over time, they slowly sidelined me.” The emotional fallout left her “devastated.”
“I was naïve back then,” she says. “I cried, apologised, and kept wondering if I had done something wrong. I used to post stories celebrating these friendships because I genuinely believed I had found ‘my people.’ But eventually, I realised I was the only one emotionally invested.”
The experience, she says, took a serious toll on her mental health. “It took me a very long time to heal and accept that if I am constantly being sidelined somewhere, then maybe I simply do not belong there.”
According to Dr Pavitra Shankar, Associate Consultant in Psychiatry at Aakash Healthcare, , the rise of “friend bombing” reflects a larger emotional void many people are experiencing today.
“People who engage in friend bombing often create intense emotional closeness very quickly through constant messaging, excessive praise, emotional dependence, and urgency,” she explains. “It may appear affectionate initially, but it can actually be an attempt to gain emotional control, validation, or quick access to someone’s vulnerabilities.”
Dr Shankar notes that not everyone who exhibits such behaviour is consciously manipulative. In many cases, it stems from loneliness, insecurity, or a fear of rejection. “The concern begins when affection becomes conditional, boundaries are repeatedly crossed, or guilt and pressure replace respect,” she says.
According to Dr Shankar, the answer lies in boundaries. Healthy friendships allow space for individuality, delayed responses, disagreements, and separate priorities. They are not threatened by distance or occasional absence. Trust develops naturally over time.
Friend bombing, however, accelerates emotional intensity too quickly. Instead of making you feel emotionally safe, it makes you feel emotionally obligated.
“One of the strongest indicators,” Dr Shankar explains, “is whether the relationship remains secure even after you say ‘no,’ take a step back, or assert a boundary. Genuine friendships survive space. Manipulative ones often collapse under it.”
Communication specialist Myron Braganza also draws parallels between friend-bombing and love-bombing. “It started quietly,” he recalls. “There was no dramatic entry, just someone who became important very quickly. There were gifts, grand gestures, emotional urgency after fights, and constant reminders of our connection. At first, it felt flattering.”
But over time, the intensity became suffocating. “The same behaviour that initially felt comforting slowly began to feel overwhelming,” he says. “Every disagreement was followed by emotional flooding, messages, dramatic reconciliations, and attempts to pull me back in.”
Years later, when the same person reappeared with the same pattern of intense affection, Braganza recognised the cycle instantly. “What once felt like connection revealed itself as a pattern, intense, cyclical, and emotionally imbalanced,” he reflects. “This time, I chose to break the pattern.”
Perhaps that is the lesson many of us eventually learn the hard way. Some people offer warmth to create a sense of dependence. Others confuse attention with intimacy. And sometimes, the most important thing we can do for ourselves is trust the discomfort we feel long before the truth fully reveals itself. Because real friendship does not rush. It earns its place in your life, gently,
