I was listening to a really old episode of the EveryBranch podcast with Brooke Snow and Sarah Bray the other day. They did an episode on friendship, and talked about how people who have lots of friends live longer than people who don’t. That statistic is especially pronounced for people who are more reclusive than your average introvert. Ahem.
I think I’d heard that little tidbit before, but for some reason it really struck me this time. I’m literally taking time (weeks? months? years?) off my life by sticking to myself instead of spending time with close friends.
Back when we lived in the surburbs, we had friends who lived right around the corner. They were the kinds of friends who could walk in your front door unannounced, flop down on your couch, and start talking. We spent hours together doing nothing, watching YouTube videos, drinking beer and lounging on our balcony on a Friday night when we didn’t have the energy to do anything else. It was great!
The surburbs ultimately weren’t the best fit for us, even though those friends totally were. When we moved into the city to be closer to professional development opportunities and the Philly tech scene, Chad was commuting to Manhattan every day, so it didn’t make sense to invest socially because he was exhausted. When he finally started working remotely, it seemed like we spent most of our time going to all the meetups! All the tech events! To some degree, for the first year or two we lived in the city, the Philly tech scene kind of filled the role of the church and deep friend base we had in the suburbs. I’ve made really wonderful acquaintances and friends from it, but it’s not the same as having family-level friends right around the corner. We’re all super busy working, organizing and attending event after event, building side projects, and learning more in our ever-dwindling free time.
As an often-too busy introvert, I work in an office with an open floor plan all week, have meetings or meetups or other obligations most evenings of the week, and I go out of town pretty often on the weekend. So when I do have downtime, I’d rather spend it watching The West Wing with Chad and our cats than organize a social activity with people I kinda-sorta know but want to get to know better.
But then I find myself, on a random chilly Sunday afternoon, wishing I had other people in my living room, drinking hot spiked cider and playing with my cats. In this dream scenario, we have no agenda. There’s no reason for these mythical other people to be in my house other than that we enjoy doing nothing in particular together.
And now, it does feel a little like a missed opportunity. Like maybe we did have hidden BFFs somewhere in this city who we just haven’t found. But it also seems a little late to start fervently looking for them and investing the time to find out if they’re “the ones.”
Do you have friends like these? How do you find them as an adult?
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