On the Fragility (and Weight) of Circles

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about friendships; or at least, the kind of friendships that take shape when you have no real choice but to sit among the same people every day. They don’t quite feel like friendships in the truest sense of the word, though we often call them that for convenience.

They remind me of high school.

There is this quiet choreography they perform: deciding, silently, who belongs, who doesn’t. Who should be invited to lunch today, who should sit alone. They don’t say it outright, of course. That would require a kind of honesty they are not willing to risk. Instead, it happens in small, imperceptible gestures. A look. A pause. A sudden hush when someone enters the room.

These are not bad people. They are bright, competent, capable; often even kind, when it suits them. But their brilliance seems to shrink when tested by the messy humanity of others.

If you don’t fit just right into the shape of their expectations, they make sure you feel it—not through outright rejection, but through absence. They don’t invite you. They don’t speak to you unless necessary. You can feel yourself being erased, quietly, and yet somehow unmistakably.

If you try to speak up, they will dismiss you. Too sensitive, they say, like it’s an accusation. 

And yet, they themselves are not immune to the very things they mock. They are just better at hiding it, better at banding together, at convincing themselves their cruelty is a kind of righteousness.

Sometimes they talk about others behind their backs while smiling to their faces. Sometimes they compare people in ways that feel less like feedback and more like cruelty disguised as banter.

What confuses me most are the ones who hold influence—those admired for their confidence and charisma—yet lack the most basic decency when no one is watching. They play the victim when it serves them, demanding patience and empathy they refuse to offer in return. They want ease, comfort, forgiveness, but rarely extend it to anyone else.

And I wonder: how can people so capable fail to see the damage they do?

What strikes me, again and again, is how rarely they seem to strike a balance—between empathy and logic, kindness and competence. They seem to believe that being good at what they do absolves them from being good to those around them.

I find myself caught in the middle. Wanting to understand. Wanting to believe they don’t mean harm—that they are simply products of their environments, their traumas, their limited perspectives. And yet, at times, I can’t help but feel weary.

I am not blameless, either. I know I’ve been wrong before. I know I, too, have spoken carelessly at times, or failed to stand up when it mattered. But even so, I cannot shake the question: why are they so sure they are right? Why does it seem so easy for them to decide someone else’s worth?

Perhaps it is just human nature: this instinct to form tribes, to draw lines, to decide who is “us” and who is “them”. Perhaps it is how they learned to survive.

But still, I wonder.

Because to me, it seems that the cost of this kind of survival is too high.

We become smaller, not larger, when we exclude. We become harsher, not stronger, when we belittle others.

And yes, people like this will always exist. They are inevitable. They will appear in every room, every circle, every chapter of life. That is a truth I cannot change.

But what I can choose—what we all can choose—is who we become in the presence of that truth.

I don’t want to grow calloused in response. I don’t want to mirror their behavior, just to fit in. I don’t want to lose the part of me that still believes kindness matters; even when it seems futile, even when no one notices.

We are all flawed. We are all learning. And yes, people carry wounds we cannot see. They are shaped by disappointments and fears we will never fully understand. But the least we can do, I think, is try not to add to the weight they already carry.

We can choose to pause before we speak, to consider before we judge, to see before we dismiss.

And maybe—just maybe—we can remember that a circle does not have to be a closed one. That it does not have to exist just to keep others out.

Because what is the point of belonging if it comes at the cost of someone else’s dignity?

We all crave acceptance, but perhaps the truer measure of character is not how much we are loved by our circle, but how much we make room for others to feel loved, too.

And I hope—for myself, and for all of us—that we learn to draw bigger circles.

Circles that hold more light than shadow.

Circles that teach us how to stay soft even when it feels like the world wants us to harden.

Circles that remind us we can choose, always, to be better than we were yesterday.

After all, what good is a circle if it only teaches us to turn our backs?

In Transjakarta, July 17th 2025