I read an article recently about how the number of close friendships we have has dropped off since Covid. It’s pretty dramatic. According to several studies, only 13 percent of us have more than ten friends. If you think ten friends sounds like quite a lot, consider that as recently as 1990, 33 percent of us had that many close pals in our lives. What’s worse, 12 percent of people now say they have no real friends at all.
The thing is: We are each of us utterly alone in the world. Of course we are. We move through the portals of birth and death alone, and in between we are alone in our heads. It’s almost a miracle, when you think about it, that anyone ever gets close to anyone else. We all have such wildly different self-concepts. We use different language. We like different things.
Yet we keep reaching for each other. And thank god for that.
I’m feeling exceptionally grateful these days for the friends and friendships I’m lucky to have in my life, for the beautiful experience of feeling deeply known and cared for. I realize now that deep friendships don’t build themselves, and circles of friends are more fragile still. It’s never too late to make new friends, but it’s impossible to make new old friends. Those have to be earned over time.
Last September I went home to Vancouver to see my mom and my oldest friends before going in for a big surgery, the first surgery of my life. The city was at its best, briny and piney, fresh and green. It reminded me of all the places I’ve been, the things I’ve done, and the versions of myself that still haunt those beaches and parks and restaurants and street corners.
Here’s what that visit taught me about what friends are and what friends do, especially the ones who’ve traveled a fair stretch of your journey with you.
Old friends remind us not only of who we were in the past, where we come from and what we survived, but who we’ve been trying to become all along. The ideals we were born reaching for, and the dreams that live inside of us.
Friends will put you up and make you feel at home, letting your personal daily rhythms flow arounds theirs. They’ll put your favorite lotion on the bedside table in the spare room and dig out a coffee pot for you to use, even though they never touch the stuff.
Friends will hold your hand while walking through a city park at dusk. They will loan you their sweater and let you put your stuff in their purse. They know your themes and fixations. They will pick up a decades-old punchline and double over with laughter in the street.
They’ll say things like, “I like this perfume because it smells like you,” and “you would love that,” and “you would hate that!” And they are right every time.
Friends will celebrate your big wins with you with the enthusiasm of a parent in the bleachers. They’ll say, “I knew you could do it!” and clap their hands with joy. When you drop your big good news on them, they are inclined to jump up, pull you into a horah, and break into Hava Nagila with you.
An old friend will also make space for your Very Hard Things and devastating losses, and will be with you at the hospital, the courthouse, and the airport. They will pick you up with snacks in the car because they know you get hangry and the last thing you need to be worrying about right now is where to get a bite to eat.
They will give you their wisest, most insightful advice. And if you wince and say, “I really don’t think I want to be coached right now,” they will say, “Sorry my love, I’m listening, just tell me all your feelings,” and open their palms on the table between you.
Friends trust you with their hopeful heart, their tender fresh starts. They invite you to help them write their new chapter in life. They will run their business plans and Tinder matches past you, and show you their shy sketches.
A friend will ask — and answer — the question, “was I wrong?” with candor and humility and trust.
They will let you host a get-together in their kitchen at the last minute. They will bake you a special banana bread studded with grapes from their garden. Other old friends will show up to that get-together even though they’ve got a lot on their plate and can’t stay long. They will take lots of pictures, and they’ll even go to the trouble of sending those pictures to you.
They may or may not insist you have the last bite of a shared dish, and it’s fine with both of you either way.
Longstanding friends are the mirrors that you gaze into over the decades of your life, the reflection growing clearer and more true with each passing year. They hold the history of your body’s changes. They know the causes of all your scars, seen and unseen. They have known you broken and triumphant, and loved you just the same.
They are the message written on a wall, the initials carved in a tree.
I was here.
I lived.
I was known, even the parts of me that I try to hide from myself.
And I was loved.
I am grateful to have friends like this, and I hope you have them too. I hope that I have been a friend like this at times, and I hope I get better at it next year and the year after that.
My god, we need each other. We really do.
xo
We're all (alone) in this together
Your essay is universal and specific. Friendships like this do not come in double digits. They are all the things you said; they are lifelines.
Chills! I saw myself woven through that entry. I love you so my bff!!!!!!!!!!!