For much of my life, friendships were the singular sustenance that I experienced as consistent and reliable. When we lived in Canada, I spent all my time with a ragtag crew of friends who regularly got up to no good. I still refer to those years as my “shoplifting days” (gummy worms from a local candy shop, but thrillingly illegal all the same). I still have notebooks of confidences (some admittedly catty) from middle school. I still have photos from our senior year in high school when we spent all our time in Sanjiv’s garage, playing Halo (I mostly ran into walls and then in circles) and staying up late singing nonsense (“ooh baby baby”). My nostalgia hits hardest when I think about my friendships past.
I have this fuzzy theory on friendship. It’s something that I reference here and there, but especially in moments of transition, when I find myself uprooted or feel myself unsettled—and transition has been my state of being for the past ~8-months. In some ways, this theory developed in rebellion of the dreary doctrine that “different friends serve different purposes” or “there are friends for different seasons.” I don’t want that. I don’t believe that.
Friends can and should be all the things you need—and some things that you hadn’t realized you’d wanted. I believe this because I have these friends, scattered across the country—friends who’ve baptized my early-morning alter ego “Chilly Lily,” friends I can lose touch with for weeks, months, and then we FaceTime on a sunlit Tuesday afternoon and it feels like none of us ever left our shared apartment somewhere in another universe; friendships that are not without their complications or disagreements but that are rooted in a deep knowing and a deep loving of one other. Friendships will ebb and flow, but at their heart, they should be timeless.
When I moved to Los Angeles, I proclaimed that I would be deliberate about my newfound friendships. I knew, vaguely, that I wanted friends like the ones I already have—I want friends with whom I can spend hours philosophizing; backpack ten miles through Tuolumne Meadows; potato in silence when one of us comes undone; argue about who gets the bed at a wedding and then watch The Office together before falling asleep; laugh until our stomachs hurt, dance on a Brooklyn rooftop, or people-watch perched atop Havasupai Falls, drunk on psychedelics or just the certitude of being blissfully, implausibly alive. I want friends with whom I can be profoundly weird, with whom mutual roasting is a symbol of true love. I often find myself wistfully wishing I could take all these friends and move them within three city blocks from each other and we could live the way that we should. These are my people and I hope I can find them where I am.
We gravitate, initially, on impressions, to those who look and speak and behave like ourselves—people who use the same jargon, have a relatable context, a similar style, adjacent tastes, who’re into some of the same things, the same activities. This matters, of course, but not nearly as much as what lies beneath the permafrost—values, beliefs, ways of thinking.
These days, I’m asking myself:
What does this person believe in, stand for? (A lack of answer is an answer in itself.) Friends should share (most) of your values—kindness, generosity, authenticity, integrity, loyalty, and not taking yourself (too) seriously.
Is this person a character friend, rather than a situational—a utility or good-time—friend?
Can they meet you where you are? I want friends whose dimensions parallel my own—who can appreciate poetry and a chilled red or a festival weekend and the very real drama of the Real Housewives.
We meet a lot of people throughout our lives, and for each crossed path, there’s a juncture at which you have to decide, intentionally or subconsciously, whether your paths will continue to interweave. The time we have here, together, is really not so long. We owe it to ourselves and others to be purposeful in the friendships we choose, and in the friends that we are.
So good. this, unsurprisingly, sent me dipping into the soft sepia tones of my own childhood, and I agree with you on most fronts, but maybe not the main point, because whenever i let myself indulge in a nostalgic reexamination of my happiest moments, I usually find myself surrounded by a close group of friends. it strikes me that whenever you're part of a crew, there are always peripheral characters - the kid that you're not that close with, but you still see every day. and somehow those hangers-on are necessary. they fill out the room and add depth to the whole experience of friendship. i think, in their own way, they take the pressure off your 'deep' friendships, so that those friendships can evolve into something more complete and complex without the pressure of being perfect from the start.
i usually miss them but sometimes these pop up in my inbox; i don't remember when i subscribed but i always think you have insightful things to say. probably found on twitter. :)