Yesterday, I was walking through a grizzly cold Amsterdam, thinking about the concept of friendship.

Sometimes, when you meet someone for the first time, you instantly reveal everything about your life.

Not in a dramatic way.

Not as a confession.

Just… naturally.

As if the usual filters don’t bother switching on. You talk about where you’re from, what broke you, what rebuilt you, what you’re still figuring out.

It’s almost funny.

You’ve known this person for minutes.

And yet your nervous system seems entirely unconcerned with this fact.

There’s no sense of exposure.

No inner voice saying “too much.”

Just a quiet ease, as if your body has already decided this is a safe place to land.

We tend to call moments like this chemistry. Luck. A rare click.

…or love at first sight.

But what if it’s something else?

What if this is what recognition feels like, not intellectually, but biologically?

When the Body Decides Before the Mind Does

These instant connections aren’t mysterious.

They’re moments of rapid safety assessment.

Your nervous system is constantly scanning the world for cues.

Tone of voice, eye contact, rhythm, humour, posture.

When enough of these signals align, the body makes a decision before the mind catches up.

Cortisol stays low.

Oxytocin can rise.

The social defence system stands down.

And suddenly, openness doesn’t feel risky. It feels efficient.

This is why you can speak freely to someone you’ve just met.

Not because you lack boundaries, but because your body doesn’t feel the need to protect itself.

These moments are rare, and they matter.

But they’ve also quietly misled us.

The Myth of Effortless Friendship

Because once you’ve experienced an instant click, it’s easy to believe that this is how friendship is supposed to work.

Fast. Effortless. Obvious.

So when connection doesn’t come instantly, when it feels awkward, slow, or uncertain, we interpret that as failure.

We retreat.

We assume incompatibility.

We tell ourselves we’re “bad at making friends.”

But friendship isn’t built on sparks.

It’s built on repetition.

Long-term friendship forms when the nervous system learns one simple thing: this person keeps showing up.

Safety isn’t created through intensity.

It’s created through reliability, through seeing the same face again, sharing ordinary time, building small and predictable rhythms, and experiencing repair instead of disappearance. The body learns, slowly and quietly, that closeness doesn’t come with consequences.

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This is why weekly routines matter more than deep conversations.

And why casual check-ins often do more than grand gestures ever could.

Friendship settles into the nervous system not through emotional highs, but through consistency.

Because friendship regulates the body.

Time spent with people we feel safe with lowers stress hormones, stabilises heartrate variability, improves sleep, and supports recovery.

Loneliness does the opposite,  not loudly, but persistently, raising the baseline level of tension just enough to wear us down over time.

Friendship is not a luxury.

It’s part of our biological infrastructure.

Why Making Friends Feels Harder Than Ever

Most of us haven’t forgotten how to care.

We’ve forgotten how to linger.

Modern life is efficient, optimised, and tightly scheduled. Interactions are purposeful. Time is protected. Everything is designed to move forward.

Friendship, however, forms sideways.

It needs inefficiency.

Looseness.

Slightly unnecessary time together.

We wait to be invited. We hesitate to initiate. We fear being the one who wants more.

And slowly, without drama, the conditions friendship needs disappear.

Friendship Is a Practice, Not a Trait

Some people aren’t “naturally good” at friendship.

They’re simply willing to stay.

They suggest the next coffee. They return after silence. They tolerate the awkward middle phase where nothing is quite defined yet.

They also accept the rejection.

Friendship isn’t built by vulnerability alone.

It’s built by familiarity.

And familiarity only comes from repetition.

Let’s WrapThis Up

Some connections arrive fully formed.

Most don’t.

Both are real.

Friendship isn’t something we simply stumble into, it’s something we practice.

It shapes how safe we feel in the world, how well our nervous systems recover, and how human life feels from the inside.

If you want more friendship in your life, don’t start by asking why it feels hard.

Start by noticing where you could show up regularly, who you already recognise but haven’t stayed with, and what small rhythm you could commit to even when it feels slightly inconvenient.

Friendship doesn’t require grand gestures.

It requires time, presence, and the courage to remain.

Taken regularly.

Side effects may include regulation, laughter, and a sense of belonging your nervous system has been quietly craving all along.

Lots of love,

Stina

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