Last week, I was walking friends back to the BART station only to be stopped by a brown-skinned dude who looked around my age, a big guy with sculpted muscles and slumped shoulders. "Can I ask you guys a question for a second of your time?"

He worked out most days, busted his butt off at the library, and was getting ready to graduate next year, but was so disappointed with what he saw as an artificiality that seemed to infiltrate every aspect of his life. Girls told him he wasn't good enough, co-workers and friends didn't seem to care, and his family seemed ill-equipped to deal with what he was going through.

"So just tell me," he expressed. It wasn't so much that he was ranting as he needed, urgently, to get this off his chest to someone, anyone who would listen, and genuinely listen.

"What else can I do," his eyes pleading, "to have a chance at all of this?"

I always expected to have two soulmates. Yes, I also noticed that at the end the guy always got the girl, but he also had his best friend around the corner, giving him one more bro hug and high five before they all sit down for pizza or ride off into the sunset. Maybe that was asking too much.

I've always felt at least a little bit different. I always seemed to be slightly uncalibrated with my friends - I was too weird, too normal, too Asian, or too white, and on, and on, and on. I figured though, that one day there'd be a point where I'd meet the One. I'm not referring to the romantic One because that'd be another article, but that one friend who would get me and laugh at my jokes and make me a better person. Where was my Lebron in Trainwreck, my Dory in Finding Nemo? In making friends, I often found myself worrying that I was the weak link, that I wasn't good enough or funny enough to be in their company or hang out with them.

And that's how I came to the concept of "unrequited friendship." They're the what-ifs - the friends we wish we could be closer to but aren't. Although we feel like if we just got to know them, and that we'd both realize how much we have in common or how much chemistry we have, there's still no dice. It gets more painful when friendship feels like a competition, and time passes and you don't become the go-to friend for hangouts and advice, and you're relegated to what seems like friendly sloppy seconds.

One of my friends told me that "there's enough room in my heart for all of my friends." While I admire the sentiment behind that statement, it can't be true. We may have tons of friends, but at the end of the day, we're imperfect beings who have a limited capacity to feel and protect, and all of the human functions we need to have our everyday relationships thrive. As much as we can try, we cannot love everyone equally or even the same. That might sound demoralizing, thinking about the vast limitations of the, your, human spirit. But it's also a call to arms, an opportunity.

Think about the relationships you have and treasure them. Be real and authentic, and be honest when your friends ask if you're doing alright. You can only handle so many friendships, so make sure that you're spending your time and energy on people that are worth it, and even sometimes, people that won't give back anything in return. Make sure that your friendships are not where you derive your worth from, and learn to be more patient when your friends inevitably mess up.

That's what I told him. I sounded assured of myself, but even within that interaction, I masked my own continuing insecurity. "Do my friends even care?" I wondered as I tried to give him some kind of comforting response, and continue to wonder. Would they be like the friends who had disappointed and left me in the past? Could I even take my own advice and weed out the friends that seemingly made no effort, or was I supposed to keep trying? Would I forever stay on the bench as a second-string friend?

But in that instant, I kept a warm smile on my face. I gave him my number because he seemed like he was looking for something real, and I knew what that felt like.

And with that, he walked off into the night.