Some friendships are maintained. Ours is just structural at this point — I'd have to rebuild my whole personality to get you out of it.
Friendship
Friendship messages that don't sound forwarded.
The hardest message to write is to someone who'd notice if you copied it. 100 here, in English, Hindi and Hinglish, sorted by what you're actually trying to say.
100messages
1collection
28Hindi & Hinglish
In a hurry
Three to send right now
One warm, one funny, one for the friend you haven't texted in months.
We don't talk every day. We talk like no day passed. That's the whole thing.
Short · Heartfelt · Distance
You're not my best friend because you're the best. You're my best friend because nobody else applied.
Roast · Short
Missing you today. Not for a reason — that's what makes it worth saying.
Short · Distance · Heartfelt
The best of them
Fifty worth sending
English, Hindi and Hinglish. Change one word before you send — it takes ten seconds and it is the whole difference.
We don't talk every day. We talk like no day passed. That's the whole thing.
Thank you for being the person I don't have to explain myself to. That's rarer than you think and I don't say it enough.
दोस्ती में हिसाब नहीं होता, बस एक कॉल पर आ जाना होता है।
Tu meri life ka woh insaan hai jise sab kuch pata hai — aur jo phir bhi mujhe judge nahi karta.
You've seen every bad decision I've made and stayed in the group chat anyway. That's loyalty.
Distance is the least interesting thing about our friendship. Nine hundred kilometres and you still know when something's wrong from one text.
ज़िंदगी में हज़ार लोग आते हैं, पर कुछ लोग आकर रुक जाते हैं। तुम उन्हीं में से हो।
I don't need you to fix anything. I just need you to say “that's rubbish” about the same things I think are rubbish. You always do.
Dosti woh nahi jo har din saath ho. Dosti woh hai jo saalon baad bhi wahi lage.
Happy Friendship Day. You're the one I'd call first, and the one I'd tell last, because you'd make me deal with it properly.
Ten years, three cities, two disasters and one very bad haircut. Still here. Happy Friendship Day.
सच्चा दोस्त वही है जो तुम्हारी ख़ामोशी भी समझ ले।
I'm not good at this so I'll say it plainly: you've made my life considerably better and I would have been a worse person without you in it.
Yaar tu bas ek call door hai — aur yahi baat sabse zyada matter karti hai.
You're the only person whose advice I ask for and then actually take. Congratulations, that's a record.
Missing you today. Not for a reason — that's what makes it worth saying.
दोस्त वो है जो बिना पूछे आ जाए, और बिना बताए समझ जाए।
Thank you for the night you didn't ask what happened and just kept sitting there. I've never said it. Saying it now.
Ek achha dost sau rishtedaaron pe bhaari hota hai. Tu mera woh dost hai.
We've been friends long enough that our arguments are reruns. I still enjoy them.
Happy Friendship Day to the person who has never once let me be dramatic in peace.
मुस्कुराहट दिल का सबसे अच्छा इलाज है, और तुम मेरी सबसे बड़ी वजह हो।
You moved cities and I assumed we'd fade. We didn't. That says more about you than about me.
Jab sab log advice de rahe the, tu sirf saath baitha tha. Wahi sabse zyada kaam aaya.
A friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself and then teases you about it forever. That's you.
हज़ारों दोस्त बनाना कोई कमाल नहीं, एक दोस्त को सालों निभाना कमाल है।
I'd help you move house. I would not help you move house twice. That's the honest limit of this friendship and I think it's healthy.
Happy Friendship Day, yaar. Ab tak nibhaya hai, aage bhi nibhayenge.
You know the version of me that existed before I got good at hiding things. That's why you're hard to lie to and why I stopped trying.
Some people are friends. Some people are infrastructure. You're the second one.
तुम्हारे साथ बिताया वक़्त कभी बर्बाद नहीं लगता — यही दोस्ती की सबसे बड़ी पहचान है।
Sorry for going quiet. Nothing happened, I just went quiet. Thanks for not making it a thing.
Teri dosti mein ek cheez sabse achhi hai — koi formality nahi.
Happy Friendship Day. I'd write something moving but you'd screenshot it and use it against me for a decade.
The best thing about you is that you don't need me to be doing well to want to hear from me.
दोस्ती की उम्र नहीं होती, बस नीयत होती है।
We were friends before either of us had any idea who we'd turn into, and somehow it still fits. That's luck and I know it.
Har mushkil mein ek naam yaad aata hai — tera. Shukriya, hamesha ke liye.
You are legally obliged to remain my friend. I have the photographs.
Checking in. No reason. Reply whenever — I know you're bad at this and I've made peace with it.
अच्छे दोस्त आईने की तरह होते हैं — सच दिखाते हैं, पर तोड़ते नहीं।
Congratulations. I'm not surprised, which is the nicest thing I can think to say about it.
Dost woh nahi jo tere saath chale, dost woh hai jo ruk kar tera intezaar kare.
I hope this year gives you the thing you've stopped telling people you want. I remember what it is.
Happy Friendship Day to the group chat. Individually you are all a lot. Together you are the only reason I check my phone.
सच्ची दोस्ती वो है जो दूरी से नहीं, नीयत से टूटती है — और हमारी नीयत साफ़ है।
You are the only person I let give me unsolicited advice, and I want you to know how much restraint that takes.
Thanks for calling. I didn't know I needed it until about four minutes in.
Zindagi mein hamesha haste raho — aur haste waqt mujhe yaad kar lena.
By collection
What kind of message is it?
Friendship messages split by register more than by occasion. The funny ones and the sincere ones are almost different languages.
By tone
How should it sound?
With friends the tone matters more than the words. Send in the register you already talk in.
Why friends are the hardest people to write to
A birthday wish to a colleague can be generic and nobody minds. Send the same thing to someone who has read fifteen years of your messages and they will know instantly — not because it is badly written, but because it does not sound like you. Friends have a reference sample. That is the whole difficulty.
It cuts the other way too, which is the useful part. Because they know your register, you do not need to be eloquent. A friend will take "oi, thinking about you" as more sincere than three careful sentences, because the careful sentences are evidence you were performing.
Friendship Day, and why it lands differently in India
Friendship Day falls on the first Sunday of August in India, and it is genuinely observed — bands tied on wrists, cards in school, the whole thing — in a way it is not in most of the world. That gives it a specific problem: on that one day everyone gets forty identical forwards, and yours is competing against volume rather than against nothing.
The move that works is not a better forward. It is sending yours a day early, or sending it at all on an ordinary Tuesday in November. A friendship message with no occasion attached is worth ten with one, precisely because there is no prompt explaining why you sent it.
Dosti, and writing in Hinglish
Dosti is the everyday Hindi word for friendship and it carries more weight than the English one does — a yaar is closer to family than to an acquaintance, and Hindi film and shayari tradition treats dosti as roughly the equal of romance rather than a lesser category.
Practically that means the Hinglish messages here are not translations. They are written the way people actually type to friends: Roman script, Hindi grammar, English words wherever English is faster. Sending a formal Devanagari line into a chat that runs in Hinglish reads as a change of voice, not as effort — so pick the script your conversation already uses.
The friend who moved away
The most common unsent message on this page's subject is to someone you stopped talking to for no reason at all. Not a fight — just distance, jobs, time zones, and then enough silence that reaching out felt like it needed a justification.
It does not. The single most effective friendship message is four words long and has no occasion: thinking of you today. It works because it asks for nothing, requires no reply, and explicitly does not explain the gap. Anything longer starts to read as an apology, and an apology makes the other person manage your guilt on top of everything else.
If you want the funnier register instead — the roasting kind, which is how a lot of friendships actually express affection — that collection is below and does the same job sideways.
The group chat is a different audience
Almost everything above assumes one recipient. A group chat changes the maths: a sincere message to twenty people reads as a broadcast even when it is not, and the person you actually meant it for cannot tell whether they were the reason you sent it.
So split the two. Put the joke in the group, where it will get replies and build the thing the group runs on, and send the sincere line separately to the one person. It costs an extra thirty seconds and it is the difference between contributing to a chat and reaching someone in it.
How to
Writing your own, in three moves
Friends are the hardest audience — they will spot a copied message instantly, because they know how you write.
1
Name the specific thing
Not "you're always there for me" — "you answered at 2am in March and didn't ask why". Friends can verify the detail, which is exactly why it works on them.
2
Match how you actually talk
If your chats are Hinglish and half-insults, a sincere English paragraph reads like someone else wrote it. Stay in register and put the sincerity inside it.
3
Don't explain the silence
If you have gone quiet for months, skip the apology paragraph. "Thinking about you, no reason" restarts a friendship faster than any explanation of why you didn't text.
Questions
Friendship message questions
What should I write in a friendship message?
One specific thing only the two of you would recognise, in the register you already talk in. Friends have fifteen years of your messages to compare against, so the risk is not being unpoetic — it is sounding like someone else wrote it.
When is Friendship Day in India?
The first Sunday of August. It is observed considerably more actively in India than in most countries, which also means everyone receives dozens of identical forwards that day — sending yours a day early, or on no occasion at all, lands better than competing with the volume.
What is the difference between dosti and friendship?
Dosti is the Hindi word and it carries more weight. A yaar sits closer to family than to an acquaintance, and Hindi film and shayari tradition treats dosti as roughly equal to romance rather than as a lesser bond.
How do I message a friend I haven't spoken to in years?
Skip the explanation. "Thinking of you today" works better than any account of why you went quiet, because it asks for nothing and doesn't make them manage your guilt. Explaining the gap turns a warm message into an apology they now have to respond to.
Should I send friendship messages in Hindi or English?
Whichever your chats already run in. If you talk in Hinglish, a formal English paragraph reads as a change of voice rather than as effort. The Hinglish messages here are written the way people type — Roman script, Hindi grammar — not translated from English.
Is it okay to send a funny message instead of a sincere one?
For a lot of friendships it is the more honest option. Teasing is how plenty of people express affection, and a joke that only works because you know each other says the same thing a sincere message does. The funny collection is built for exactly that.