Thanks to my friend Jordan Getz for this title. Stole it directly from him.
Hi friends! I apologize for the absence and long time since my last post. I have been very busy lately, but unfortunately none of it is really worth writing about.
One unforeseen side effect of “funemployment” is actually gaining a social life! So that’s what I’ve been up to. I’ve been spending time with a lot of friends, and actually reconnecting with a lot of my OLD ones, even friends I haven’t seen in 5+ years. It’s been great.
Proximity Friendships
Remember when you were in school, how easy it was to make friends? Or how easy it is to maintain friendships with coworkers? Well that’s really because you’ve developed a proximity friendship – basically a friendship of convenience from being in the same place at the same time as a bunch of other people.
When you aren’t in school or aren’t working with these people any more, I’ve found it gets that much harder to maintain the relationship. Sure you might genuinely like your school and work friends, but you’re no longer forced to be near them for most of your waking life.
People become interested in different things, they get significant others, they move away. Turns out they have their own lives outside of your friendship (who knew).
I’ve even had party friendships, where I only see certain friends at parties or in drinking situations. We acted like we were best buddies, friends for life, but when we weren’t drinking? It’s like we didn’t exist to one another. These are the saddest friendships I’ve had because it’s shown me how superficial some relationships can be, despite feeling otherwise at the time.
But what if you DO keep some of your friends outside of these situations? Well……. maybe those are the good friendships.
The Good Ones
You know the ones I’m talking about.
The people you can go years without seeing and when you finally meet up again it’s like you were never apart.
I have a handful of friends that this is true with, and I imagine we will always have this kind of thing.
We go a while without seeing each other but we know that we will always be friends. Even though some of us have different life goals and hobbies now, we still get along on a fundamental level and enjoy spending time together. It’s great! I hope to have more friendships like this as I get older.
Rekindling Friendships
But I’ve actually spent more time lately rekindling friendships with people I haven’t seen or talked to in many years. Like my friend Jordan I mentioned above! We went to Junior High and High School together, saw each other sparingly during University, and have just been social media buddies since. But we’ve definitely rekindled our friendship and I love it! There are some other people I’ve met up with too but I feel like I have to specifically mention Jordan since he gave me the title of this post.
Anyway, I told you it wasn’t super exciting stuff I’ve been up to. This is just a quick update and some of my thoughts around friends.
Also here is a terrible photo of me and Jordan from 2010:
