You know who your friends are when it’s dark out, Wednesday night, thirty-six degrees, occasionally snowing, and you’re eighteen miles into the woods – eighteen miles from any sign of a phone signal – and the first thing your friend says is, “Hey, man, it’s no big deal,” after you tell him you just locked the keys in the car along with most of your gear.
About a week ago I thought I would write this longer essay about friendship, particularly new friendships. I planned to start with a conversation I had a week earlier with a different friend, sitting outside a bar, when I asked him when was the last time he made a new friend and he was stumped. He said he couldn’t remember, perhaps it was me, six years ago?
So, that was the plan. But then I locked the keys in the car.
There’s an adage that it’s hard to make new friends as an adult. I know I’ve said it, though I don’t think I really believed it – I think it’s something that’s convenient, easy to find evidence for in many adult lives, but that doesn’t make it more law than theory. When was it ever easy to make friends? It wasn’t in my childhood. College was a little better, then in workplaces, if the group was small and circumstances required tolerance, cooperation – a shared challenge might lead to socializing, a coffee, perhaps more. Of course, some friendships end. And the impulse to go out and make a new friendship doesn’t naturally kick in. I think a more accurate saying might be that it’s hard to remember to make new friends when old ones fade away.
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