Borrowed Summer and Inside Jokes I Don’t Get

Still not in therapy. Still socially buffering.

Summer vacations are supposed to feel like a break from yourself.

Mine didn’t.

Instead of my usual vacation fantasy – wandering through foreign streets, lingering in museum gift shops, sipping something cold on a sunlit terrace pretending I’m living in my own indie-movie montage – I spent a week in my partner’s hometown.

His streets. His shortcuts. His “that used to be a video store” nostalgia.

His friends, who’ve known him since he had braces and a Nokia brick that could survive the apocalypse.

They are a time capsule in human form.

Every joke, every “remember when”, every casual mention of someone named Greg or Jennifer feels like a door to a room I don’t have a key for. They swap stories about school trips, failed driving tests, and the party where someone allegedly passed out in a wheelbarrow. They speak fluent history, a language I don’t know.

Meanwhile, I orbit the group like a polite satellite. Plastic cup in hand. Smiling. Nodding. Pretending I, too, remember what it was like to skip class and eat vending machine candy in 2004.

Then came the barbecue, and with it, instant clarity: I was basically Julie, minus the Rachel sabotage.

Remember Julie? Ross’s nice girlfriend in Friends – sweet, polite, and never really part of the group. She laughs. She nods. She exists. But she’s always a guest star in someone else’s sitcom.

That was me.

The Friends’ Bubble

His friends are lovely. Truly.

They are the kind of people who show up with extra beer and mosquito spray, who remember to ask about your drive, who offer you a chair in the shade.

But they have a bubble. And the bubble is sealed with shared history.

They slip effortlessly into conversations that are basically a series of “Remember when?” strung together like fairy lights. High school cafeteria stories. Festival weekend. The infamous pool party of 2008. They laugh at jokes that need no setup because the punchline has existed for 17 years.

It’s a mixed group – guys and girls who’ve known each other since high school. Over the years, they’ve dated each other, married each other, and basically turned the friend group into one extended family. My partner is the only one who never dated anyone in the circle, which makes me the lone outsider by default. Walking in feels like stepping into a family photo where everyone already knows where to stand.

I sit on the patio, plastic cup sweating in my hand, orbiting their conversation. I nod. I smile. I try to inject an occasional “Oh wow!” or “That’s crazy!” in the right places.

Sometimes, I laugh 3 seconds late.

Sometimes, I laugh too soon and realize they were actually talking about someone’s knee surgery.

I know I should work on this – on developing relationships, making more effort, being less socially awkward, asking the follow-up questions to build bridges.

But I’m not really into… small talk.

Not polite hellos or “Nice weather, huh?” – I mean the endless social fluff that hovers around the edges of real connection.

I know I’d light up if the person in front of me actually seemed really interested in me – asked questions, acknowledged I was really there, saw me as more than just the polite plus-one orbiting their barbecue universe.

It’s not their fault. It’s not mine either, really. I’ve just never been good at this.

A Life Without a Band

Some people have a lifelong squad. I don’t.

I’ve had groups of friends – plural. Different ones over the years: school, college, work. For a while, I could blend in. Share playlists. Gossip. Take group photos where I leaned in from the edge, smiling like I belonged.

But they never last long.

Not because of some dramatic falling out – no screaming matches in parking lots, no “you’ve changed” speeches. More like slow fade-outs. A gentle, almost invisible unraveling.

I let friendships dissolve the way people let houseplants die – slowly, with guilt, and a lot of self-justification.

At first, I think, I should water this. Then, I’ll do it tomorrow. And before I know it, the leaves are crispy and I’m googling how to compost regret.

My phone contacts are basically 3 people.

I was never a “band” person. Never the kind of person who got tagged in every post or had a nickname that only made sense to the group.

Never in the loop – always orbiting the loop, like a polite moon hoping someone notices I exist.

I forget to keep in touch. I hesitate to send the first text. I tell myself, I’ll call next week. Next week becomes next season. And then, months later, I see a post on Facebook: the group is still together.

Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to have my own effortless Sex and the City crew. The brunches. The inside jokes. The emergency phone calls about breakups or bad dates. Four women in fabulous shoes who never, ever forget to include me. A Miranda to my Carrie, a Charlotte to my Samantha.

And then I imagine the exhaustion.

Because if I’m honest, I don’t just lack a squad – I lack the stamina for one.

The Small Talk Games

Some people treat small talk like a beach game – effortless, fun, a way to pass the time while flipping burgers.

I treat it like an Olympic event.

I have training strategies: rehearse potential topics, memorize 3 neutral questions about local events, smile like I’m not screaming inside.

And yet, inevitably, I find myself trapped in conversational cul-de-sacs.

“Is that a new grill?”

“Yes.”

“Cool.”

Dead air.

Meanwhile, my partner slips through the evening like he was born there – because he was. He fist-bumps someone, sinks a bottle cap into the trash from ten feet away, and is instantly absorbed in a story about the time someone crashed a scooter into a hedge.

I stand behind him like his very polite emotional support human, smiling in the background of someone else’s memory.

The Three Musketeers

Evenings stretch long in borrowed summers.

The light lingers, golden and sticky. Barbecue smoke swirls lazily. Beer bottles clink. A neighbor’s dog barks at nothing. It’s objectively lovely.

And yet, I feel like a tourist. Not in the town, but in the life.

My partner belongs here the way a key belongs to its lock.

I’m just the plus-one.

I smile. I clear plates. I nod like I also know what it was like to sneak behind the sports hall in 2005.

There’s one couple, in particular, that’s my partner’s longtime duo of friends. They’re nice. They like me – that’s what I was told. They smile, greet me politely… and then slide right back into their trio.

They have this well-rehearsed rhythm with my partner, a three-person bubble that clicks effortlessly into old memories and mutual references.

And trust me, trying to join their trio feels like merging onto a highway where no one slows down.

I hover at the edge of their trio, nodding, smiling, trying to step in without tripping over their choreography. I try to follow. I lean in. I laugh at the right moments. I even throw in a timid comment here and there, hoping to catch a moving piece of the story.

But the door never really opens.

Every time I attempt to insert myself into the conversation, I feel like I’m hopping onto a carousel that’s already spinning. I wave. I smile. I hold on for 2 seconds. And then I slide right off. The topic spins away, the laughter locks back into their trio, and I’m left on the edge again, sipping quietly from my plastic cup.

When the social battery runs dry, I slip inside for a private intermission.

The guilt pricks. I should be out there. I should be fun.

Instead, I am quietly recharging, like a phone left on low-power mode.

There’s a strange comfort in leaving a world that isn’t mine, even if it waved politely on my way out.

The Soft Exhale

When we finally drove home, the silence in the car felt like a soft exhale.

The air smelled like my own hoodie. The music was mine.

Relief is not the same as joy, but it’s close enough.

Vacations end. Friend groups stay.

Maybe next summer I’ll belong a little more.

Or maybe I’ll always be the guest star in someone else’s summer sitcom – polite, slightly off-camera, smiling in the background.

Either way, I’ll bring flip-flops, bug spray, and the kind of nod that says,

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I support you.”

Still not in therapy.

Still trying to pass Small Talk 101.

See you in the next overshare

♡