Why Finding 'Your Tribe' As An Adult Feels Impossible

Everybody talks about it. ‘Your tribe’. You are supposed to find your tribe. They are out there somewhere. The people who understand you, the people who share your interests, the people who are there for you no matter what. Your ride-or-die’s. Your fellow ‘weirdos’. Your people. The friends who make you realize why you had never found your tribe before, because this is finally it. This feels right.

I have had many tribes over the years. In my many walks of life, there have always been those people who just ‘got me’. Be that as a writer, as a queer person, as a film buff, what have you. They just got me. And they were the perfect tribe. They were and still are the type of people I have always envisaged I would be in a tribe with. I literally couldn’t have asked for anything better. Thankfully, most of them are still in my life and I have loved having them in my life ever since they came into it. They are still my perfect tribe. My crew. My people.

Others have faded away.

Other people who I thought would be part of my other perfect tribes, were not. Either we lost touch, or we lost the friendship altogether. Because when it comes to tribes, it’s not always like how you pictured it. It doesn’t always last forever. You don’t always get to live out your ‘sitcom friendship’ goals with everyone. Things happen and the friendship fizzles out. And you are back to square one. You’re back to finding your next tribe.

When my former best friend broke up with me about two years, I thought I would never find another friend like her. She had the same niche interests as me, namely being a massive classic movie buff, and she understood me on a deeper level than anybody I had ever met. We got each other. And we had each other’s backs, no matter what. She was also one of the nicest and kindest people I had ever met. A calming presence in my life. She was my tribe. And now she isn’t. I still remember getting her break-up text and how much it hurt. And how I knew we would never get back to where we were before, even if we tried. Even if, in that moment, she meant what she said about trying to be friends again the future. And I still haven’t found anyone like her. I still miss her.

Maybe there is no such thing as a tribe. Maybe we just idealize people because humans are, at their core, idealists. We idealize the people who mirror us, because deep down we want to feel some level of validation. Not just from them, but from ourselves. For those of us who have niche obsessions, quirky interests and unusual hobbies, finding someone who is like us is a rarity and a gift. And they are usually the people you want to keep in your life forever, because what are the odds of finding someone like that again? But the reality is, we are all just people, despite our common bonds. We all have disagreements. We all have the ability to fall out and never speak again. Maybe we all go through the honeymoon phase with the people we thought were our tribe, and like all honeymoon phases, it must come to an end at some point.

Or not. Some of us are lucky. I have been lucky to find, and still have, one of my perfect tribes. And I was heartbroken to lose another. Whichever tribe I find next, I hope it lasts. And if it doesn’t, that’s OK too.