reyjeffy:

“Back in Greece, your circle of friends grows larger and larger as you go through life. In America, the circle mostly shrinks or stays the same size.” “Why do you think that is?” “Time. Nobody has time here. It seems that every time you make a new friend, another friend has grown too busy or moved away.” - Humans of New York, August 24th, 2013

Every now and then, I come back to this HONY post and reflect on the fragile nature of friendship. Friendships, like any relationship, require investment and commitment and too often, we let blossoming friendships wither on the vine instead of ripening with age. In fact, it’s one of the top five regrets of the dying, that in the face of their mortality, people realize that the only things that matter are love and relationships. Internalizing this wisdom, I’ve resolved to adopt a Greek social life, with an ever-expanding network of friends. I joke with my parents that one of my life goals is to have friends all across the world, so wherever I travel, I can stay with friends or friends of friends and enjoy their local hospitality.

However, now several years out of the academic environment, I’ve realized how difficult it can be to make new friends outside of school. In class, friendships were often an arrangement of circumstance; classmates getting together to form study groups and jointly participating in lecture. Given the frequency of interactions, small wonder that many people form life-long friends in college, not to say the least of the dorm living experience. Comparatively, in the working world, interactions with colleagues can be severely limited. Unless one is working on team-based projects (or endless meetings…), the average workday is often majority solo labor at a desk in front of a computer. Of course this is dependent upon occupation but in general, most co-workers are just co-workers, treated with cool professionalism in the office but lacking the warmth of an intimate friendship.

Akin to the student clubs and other extracurriculars in college, there are many alternative venues to seek out new friendships outside of work, whether it be happy hours, activity-based meetups, or networking events. But so often, these meetings end up as one-time encounters, a Facebook friend request or LinkedIn invite the only memento of the conversation. Memorable discussions are far and few between as the topics of conversation are always the same: “What do you do?” “Where are you from?” “What brings you to DC?” I crave deeper, more meaningful conversations and the general networking circuit is not suited to meet my needs.

However, on Tumblr, I’ve discovered a community of deep thinkers, thoughtful, reflective individuals sharing their most personal thoughts and most vulnerable moments. The level of disclosure was unparalleled to what you could find in the public sphere or other social media platforms. Tumblr is a communal, semi-anonymous private diary, an oxymoron that somehow works. Reading through these journals, I bonded with strangers though their shared experiences and stories; I laughed with them, cried with them, and pondered with them on the vagaries of relationships and society. Though the magic of the absence of small talk, I found a virtual company of friends, scattered all across the US.

A few weeks ago, I received a notification from Facebook on my one-year friend anniversary with @ro-mantik. After dashing off a quick celebratory message to him, I scrolled through my list of Facebook friends that I made in the past year and it dawned on me that almost every other person was someone I met via Tumblr. There’s @sapiencespire whom I met in Japan and was there at my going-away-to-DC party and @gaysiannyc whom I grabbed lunch with near Wall Street. I’ve baked cookies with @thoughtsfromthewalkhome, grabbed boba with @shtsngigs, and dined on dim sum with @letters-to-charles. Last week when I was in SF, I attended @gregasaurus‘s food truck birthday party and learned a few interesting factoids about him (ask him how much money he spends on restaurant dining a year XD). And of course, @alostfish has been a wonderful collaborator for G3S and it has been an amazing journey thus far. I’ve yet to meet @meliorating, @ox-85, @medicasian, @puyo-blah, @titotito, and @quitepatrick but I’m hopeful that the time will come soon. You all have been very kind to me and I feel obliged to give back to a community that has given me so much: companionship in times of isolation, mentorship in times of uncertainty, and friendships to last a lifetime.

