No New Friends (Explicit)

I have a good friend named K, who often declares how meaningful his friends are to him. The first time I remember him making such a statement was when K recounted how he had explained to his new girlfriend that his friends (predominately female), were important to him, and he wouldn’t chose her over them. That made an impression on me at the time, especially seeing as we had been single for our entire lives so far.

He always makes an effort to see me when he’s in town and carefully maintain our long-distance friendship when he’s not. Recently, K made a slide deck about his friends for his new housemate in the way of an introduction. All this is in addition to the standard fun activities, heartfelt conversations, and unwavering support that I’ve come to expect from my friends. I’d like to think that my friends are just as important to me as they are to K.

Though not with the exact same degree of care, I treat the friends I have with consideration and attentiveness. For a handful of friends, this requires little effort. I message most of them weekly, if not virtually daily, with news, jokes, thoughts, and problems, big and small. For those with whom I trust and love equally, but have a different cadence of communication with, this takes a little more intention, especially during a lockdown. I try to schedule calls once in a while, maybe virtual parties, in addition to keeping them in mind as potential recipients of whatever electronic media I happen to be consuming.