Not every friend will "like" your posts

There’s more than one way to show up

A troubling trend is emerging on social media. Content creators everywhere are trashing their offline friends who “can’t even be bothered” to like and share their posts, and in the same breath lavishing praise on all you strangers liking and sharing. How lovely. How supportive. How kind.

This line of reasoning didn’t seem problematic at first, but the ever-increasing vitriol with which my fellow creators are jumping on this bandwagon soon gave me pause: this isn’t right.

In fact, it’s rather silly.

Not every friend will “like” your posts

I have nothing against creators supporting each other’s work and commiserating with one another’s woes. I do it too. But I find this shared indignation against offline friends ridiculous, indulgent, borderline toxic.

Not every friend will “like” your posts, stories, status updates. It’s unreasonable to expect them to, and even more unreasonable to get offended when they don’t.

Of course, it’s nice when a friend supports your work. I love it when someone I know in real life “likes” my posts (OctopiCrunch I’m looking at you) and shares them and tells me how my writing resonates. But friendship isn’t reducible to a “like” on a post.

Friendship is wanting the best for you. It’s making time to meet up. It’s making sure you’re okay when you’re having a rough time. It’s wishing you “Happy Birthday” or “Happy Anniversary” or a simple “hello” to check in.

So what if your friend of fifteen years doesn’t “like” your posts? Does that negate a decade and a half of shared experiences, of laughter and tears, of encouraging words and comforting hugs and stern reminders when you’re going astray?

Exactly.

There’s more than one way to show up

There are many ways friends show up for one another. Some are more visible than others—like a “like” on a post—but none are any less valid.

I have a friend of eighteen years who barely replies to messages and whom I see twice a year at most, but the one time I needed her expertise she spent two hours on a weekday afternoon looking up obscure tax laws so she could advise me on how to deal with a pesky tenant. She showed up.

I have a friend of six months who I’ve met only twice but always has time to banter with me and have deep talk, sometimes simultaneously, in my Instagram DMs. He shows up.

I have a friend of seven years with whom I rarely chat but last month she reached out with her first-ever fundraising request and I immediately transferred what I could spare. I showed up.

There is no “friendship” playbook that everyone subscribes to. We all relate to, and show up for, our friends in our unique, snowflake ways.

Just because those outraged creators’ friends aren’t showing up by “liking” their posts, it doesn’t mean they’re not showing up in other, myriad ways.

If only they’d stop complaining long enough to notice.

What do you think?

How do your friends show up for you? How do you show up for them?

Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with a friend so they know you’re thinking of them.

Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val