Is Everyone Having Friendsgiving But Me?

“Friendsgiving is one of my favorite things because you’re spending time with your chosen family over delicious food,” said Selena Gomez this week. “And who doesn’t love that?”

Everyone loves that! Everyone wants that! No one would turn down a night of rosy-cheeked best friends looking like a goddamn Aritzia ad, give or take 17 aluminum casserole dishes. Friendsgiving is a feast in which a group of friends gather to eat heavy foods and celebrate their closeness. It is not unlike a wedding, only with more Tupperware, and everyone is in love with everyone. To have a Friendsgiving you have to have the ultimate social media accessory, something more precious than a beach vacation or a nice ass: a friend group.

Not several friends, but a Friend Group. A group of people who love and care for each other, all at once, for years and years. It’s what every single feel-good comedy has told us we should have: Friends, Seinfeld, How I Met Your Mother, New Girl, Sex and the City, The Big Bang Theory, It’s Always Sunny, Parks and Rec, Happy Endings, Community. Maybe no one told you life was going to be this way, but definitely no one told me how rare it is to actually have a friend group, not just an assortment of friends.

Watching video after video of Friendsgivings on TikTok, I keep thinking, “Wow! You all really created a rustic yet luxurious aesthetic!” But I also think, “How do these people have so many friends?” I also wonder, “How did you convince all of your friends to be friends with each other? How are you all so organized and responsible? Why are you all so good looking?”

I have friends. To me, a friend is a person with whom you can get together after work or on the weekend and complain about your life. My friends are not friends with each other, because mostly I met them individually and nurtured our friendships by inviting them to one-on-one coffees or drinks where we took turns describing our anxiety disorders until the check came. My friends do not get into hilarious high jinks and throw elaborate dinner parties. We mostly send each other screenshots of funny things from the internet. I feel good about my social life if once every financial quarter I get together with two friends and together we demolish a single store-bought tub of hummus. I have never made a place mat for a friend.

But look around, and it seems everyone else has a friend group and Friendsgiving plan and Friendsgiving menu and Friendsgiving inside jokes. Lauren Conrad said she and her friends have a Friendsgiving every year. JoJo Siwa is doing some kind of promotional Friendsgiving event. TacoBell is selling Friendsgiving Party Packs and Urban Outfitters is having a Friendsgiving sale. People you know from high school and college and summer camp are posting carefully spontaneous photos of themselves in cable knits and corduroy, laughing into a bowl of mashed yams, with the caption “gr8ful.”