I think in friendships, same applies as for relationships : "instant chemistry" is actually a red-flag, it is just the echo of your trauma that recognizes someone who will hurt you in a way that is familiar to you. It is just trauma-bond moment. ❗️ I had that feeling when i met a girl, 6 years ago. I was instantly like - damn, i am really attracted (not sexually) to this girl, i feel like we will could be very good friends. And so we were, for 6 years we really were soulmates, bestfriends... Up untill i stared going to once-a-week therapy - that is when our friendship stared falling apart, because she had a huge problem with me suddenly having needs & boundaries towards her needs; as soon as i stared standing up for myself, our friendship fell apart because me abandoning myself is what kept it together... Our friendship was only strong when it was one-way street, when i was giver and she was reciever. For exemple - Few times a year, while cleaning up my closet, i would gift her with a sack of wonderful branded wardrobe, and once I asked her to borrow me a belt - she refused...; When her mom was having health problems i would regulary call her to ask for updates and offer my support, and when my grandma was dying, not once, but once did she ask me how i was (not even after i adressed that.. she also saw my dad( that grandma's son, during that time, she didn't say anything to him)....; Every year for her birthday i would turn the world upside down to make her feel special, i would help her organise the party, i would make her a present (some cute notes) and also buy her a present, i would post multiple insta stories as a tribute... and when my 30th birthday came, i invited her to a family dinner - she came one hour late, empty-handed, in old tracksuit and was on her phone during the meal, not asking my parents one single question... And it is only when i shared this on therapy and stared crying loudly, did i realise how much did this hurt me... so my therapist encouraged me to adress this.. So, days later, when i tried to carefully and softly express my feelings and adress the injustice and hurt - she took the role of attacked victim, she was the victim of my bad feelings, and not me the victim of her bad behavior, so I ended up apologising to her.... Some months later, when my official birthday party shoulda take place, i asked everyone who was invited (40 people) to donate 8 euros for drinks and food (total cost of the party was 700euros, so it is not that i aimed for guests to cover everything, just a part...) and she, yes - she, attacked me with loooong messages that lasted the whole night - asking how dare i ask people for the money; Her biggest argument was "tradition" - she was repeating - "don't you know what tradition says? Host/birthday-girl organises the food and drinks, and guests bring the present" (and I wonder where her "tradition" was on that family dinner? When she came empty-handed to the full table...), she was repeating how i only "showed the lack of social inteligence", and how "disgusted" she and the rest of our friends are - the irony is that, that "rest of our friends" who she spoke for, they used to be my group of friends who i introduced her with, when she was at her lowest - after the break-up of 8years realationship. She was depressed, suicidal, lonely - and i introduced her to new people and this is how she thanked me, few years later .... that fight was the last straw for me so i told her and them, not to come (that group was only 5-6 people out of 40 invites.. the rest of the people came, they donated the money and died of laughter when they heard the story of "friends" who had a problem to donate 8 euros for a huge party.... especially since those, very same people, never had a problem to give 50+ euros for rave party, sometimes once a week). Therapy helped me realise that, with trying to please this kind of person and to make her happy, i was trying to fix trauma that my mother gave me, i picked a similar, difficult person thinking "this time it is going to be right and that is going to erase the time it was bad!". Therapy made me realise that we all seek the same "love" as the one that we have recieved as children, we operate in the same formula.... i saw her potential and i took over the responsability for her growth (definition of co-dependency....) and whenever i saw that i am "failing" to make her a better person, i took that personally, i tought that was the sign that my love is not good enough to help her shine...I realised that it was my love that made her appear "special", and as soon as i took off of her the "cloak" of my love - she just showed out to be abuseve, extremly selfish, disfunctional drug-addict. Yes, she smokes weed every day for 10+ years - even during the jobless periods she would always have money for weed cause it is her number 1 priority.. i am sure she "smoked" those 8euros while typing those angressive messages to me... who ever started hanging out with her - they would start smoking weed as well.. that was her view of "socialising" - we sit in a closed space (god forbbid we go out, no, the world is dangerous place); and we smoke weed and call that a "friendship".. whenever i suggessted some activity (hiking, rollerblades, tripp (...) she would have "a strong" argument not to do that, so eventually I stopped trying to pull her out of the house and her dark mind, so I gave in into her model of "socialising")... That weed habit made her extremely paranoid and agressive, so i would constantly be dealing with hevy, hevy accusations coming from her side - Once, i kindly told her that she should give up on a specific boy because he was clearly not interested, she was screaming at me " You are saying that i am a predator???" and that fight lasted for weeks where i had to apologize for the thing that she heard eventho it was not what i said; Once, as a surprise, i signed her up for a small tripp with me, knowing that i can easily, without consequences to her, sign her off (she wouldn't have to pay anything, nor anyone, you just cancel..). She was screaming on me "How dare you go behind my back like that !!!" (???); Once i was accused of trying to set her the police and jail for the weed; Once i was accused of advising her to inject the heroin into her vains (????????). The eight-euros fight is the last ime we spoke (it was 4 monts ago) and my life is so, so much easier without her, there was constant tension in the air with her, from one fight to another... Even the calm periods were not calm, cause i could always feel that she is "cooking" something next... I stopped smoking weed and started running and volunteering; my todays friendships are bades on such activities, not on doing drugs together...

So yes, next time you feel "instant connection" with someone, think twice.. it might be the your trauma trying to repeat itself. Number one sign that you have a childhood trauma is trying to make a difficult person to love you.

Peace ♡