Deepening Friendships

Hello!

I have gone through so many instances of being bullied, rejected, excluded, betrayed, and many more things that left me feeling alone, abandoned, isolated, and neglected. Unfortunately for me, I got degrees in an industry where networking is everything (I know...that doesn't really narrow it down, but still), and double unfortunately for me, I met someone really important to me within 6 months of the most traumatic experience with people I've ever gone through. But since I graduated with my master's degree in May 2025 and slowly been getting my feet wet in my career, I have been growing a lot as a person, too-to the point where I'm ready to start thinking about this. Neither of us are college students anymore, so this will make this harder, but the hope is that any advice I get about this can be applied to every friendship I have.

One thing I want is the ride-or-die mentality: someone who can support me through good times and bad and who will let me support them the same way. Someone I can laugh with-possibly have inside jokes with while maintaining something deeper (see other points below).

I also want someone to check in on me. Unfortunately with a lot of my existing friendships, especially from college, I'm super scared that I'll get rejected. In my undergrad, I had this friend who I (thought I) was really close to and checked in on them occasionally. Turns out, they didn't want to be checked in at all; they actually ghosted me for an entire summer. So in grad school and beyond, I've kept my distance both in proximity and technologically until I really thought I liked a person's character (no matter how much potential I see).

Finally, I want depth in friendships. Back to my friend I met when I started grad school (a whole summer after I dealt with really horrible people): it's great that they've helped me professionally throughout those two years (and even saved my career by helping me get over imposter syndrome), and it's great that I am (sort of) keeping an eye out for good career opportunities for them in my local area. But, with them and others, I want something more than that. I want to know what they like/dislike, things that make them who they are, and encourage them to grow and for all that to be reciprocate back to me. This friend who saved my career has helped me grow so much over the past year without them even knowing-the amount of career things I am in because I stayed in the industry because they helped me get over imposter syndrome is pretty good for someone who graduated from college a little over a year ago.

Unfortunately, after my undergraduate trauma, I went from "proceed with caution" to having my walls be up all the time. I went from "innocent until proven guilty" mentality" to "guilty until proven innocent" mentality. Maybe that's good in some ways-considering how fake people are and the number of spam everything that's happening nowadays. I'm keeping my standards high.

Unfortunately, dealing with life on my own and people not wanting connections with me has been a lifelong issue; I've just handled it differently over the last few years after seeing someone I thought I could trust betray me and abandon me and let people assume things about me and spread untrue rumors about me. 

I would prefer if these friendships were long-distance (the only exception being if I can find something local for my friend who saved my career), and I know it's hard to do this that way, but it's what I got. What do you guys think I can do to improve?

(Sorry this was so long. TL; DR: I have a lot of truamas I went through. I care about people, and I suck at showing it bc I cannot go through another heartbreak. How do I improve?)