Dear Diary 052: Making and Keeping Friends
The art of friendship
📚 Buy the Book → The Great Alone, Kristin Hannah
I became a person who journals all due to external pressure. NYU Stern has a “Work, Wisdom, and Happiness”. It’s a course on positive psychology adapted to the needs of students in NYU-Stern’s MBA program or students who are just sad about work and need help (is this me?).
In this class, one of the requirements is to begin the habit of journaling using 5-minute journals. The prompts are the same each day with different quotes about life at the top.
“I am grateful for…” kicks off each entry. When you begin journaling with prompts that are the same each day, you also begin to repeat the same things… common answers are family, friends, and health.
Recently, I’ve begun getting a bit more specific to break up the monotony of my daily answers. Today, I wrote about having someone to call/talk to.
Living in NYC, you’ll hear a lot of conversations that you didn’t sign up for.
At a restaurant (tables are too close).
In your bedroom (walls are too thin).
And on.
The majority of the conversations I hear are self-indulgent in their nature as it is only natural for us to be the star of our show. I’m a great example of this. I mean, look at this diary.
Today, I gave a call to a friend of mine. It’s a relationship that’s so old that you can’t exactly pinpoint when it became as deep as it is today.
I called to talk about… me. Surprise.
After that call, I couldn’t help but be thankful for having someone who would answer a call in the world of texts on a Sunday morning.
It’s a luxury to be so connected intimately with another person that the usual “updates” are not updates but a shared experience.
With inside jokes and references so obscure that they cannot possibly be eavesdropped on by others like speaking in code in plain sight.
I’ve drifted with some friends I had where our lives are now status updates or sporadic dinners that are too far apart in occurrence and too short in time spent to dig into anything really meaningful.
Creating an intimate friendship seems harder as we get older.
In the beginning, everything is based on proximity and abundance of time.
As you get older, variables change.
One thing I’ve learned about making close friends after 30:
It’s not equal in effort and I have to learn to not keep score.
Sometimes, I’ll reach out more than that person, I may have to listen and get involved first in their life (what a shock? I thought we only cared about me), and even go the extra mile to meet them under their preferred conditions. Hopefully, at some point, the tide will turn and become more fluid.
It’s hard striking up a new relationship as we don’t want to seem desperate or worse, creepy. There’s no way to disguise this. It is what it is.
If you are on the B-side, reaching out for a new friendship, I commend you for even doing so. As I know how vulnerable that feels and the courage it takes.
If you are on the A-side, being reached out to, I hope you are kind in reception as it is a great luxury to have someone want to take an interest in your life.
As awesome as I think I am and therefore my life. It’s really mundane.
Thank you to my friends who kept reaching out and were receptive when I reached out. As I know, you didn’t have to, but I’m glad that you did.
Life Happens Outside,
Su Hawn
🏕️ Wisdom from the Outpost: Make your own way. - Montana
