Hold on to your hat, something real freaky happened this weekend. I met new people! Like, by chance. And safely. Friends of a friend. Do you remember what that’s like? Casually being introduced, having a little chat, a laugh, and then going about your day, thinking “well, that was nice”? Yeah, I had forgotten how that feels, too.
Every single social interaction I have had since last summer has been one hundred and ten percent intentional. Carefully planned, scheduled and re-scheduled into the week, as one more thing on my to-do list. Even though I am grateful for every planned call, walk and dinner with my friends, keeping friendships alive over the past months has required work and dedication – meeting new people has been completely out of the picture.
I miss these chance encounters more than anything. I miss listening to new stories and new perspectives, exploring where we might connect. And no, social media cannot replace that. I miss light-hearted smalltalk in the toilet queue und deep philosophical discussions at the bar. I miss kissing strangers, but that’s a different story. I miss the notion that the world is big and you can find human connection anywhere.
Isn’t serendipity the essence of life? Never knowing who you might meet or what might happen next is what makes life exciting, at least for me. Right now, I know exactly what will happen: work, eat, sleep, some yoga, some running. And I know exactly who I’ll meet: The cashier at the supermarket and the friend I’m scheduled to go on today’s walk with.
The people I’ll definitely not meet are my “weak ties”. A term that I learned from Amanda Mull’s piece in the Atlantic this week, meaning the people I am friendly with but who are not part of my inner circle. Like co-workers who I regularly chatted with in the office kitchen, the neighbor I met for ping pong matches in the summer or the woman I shared looks of exhaustion with in spin class. I wouldn’t set up a Zoom call with these people, because our relationship relies on social serendipity or certain activities that bound us together.
Even before the pandemic, the role of friendships, weak or strong was much undervalued in our culture, which considers locking down a romantic partner the be-all and end-all of our relationships. However, new research has shown that casual friends and acquaintances are just as important to our well being as our closest bonds. It’s not only proven that new opportunities, like jobs or apartments, are often introduced to us through people on the periphery of our lives. But there’s something more existential about it:
“Peripheral connections tether us to the world at large; without them, people sink into the compounding sameness of closed networks. (…) People on the peripheries of our lives introduce us to new ideas, new information, new opportunities, and other new people. If variety is the spice of life, these relationships are the conduit for it.”
But I don’t just miss talking to strangers and running into acquaintances, I also miss the ease of my “Errand Friendships”, as Anne Helen Petersen calls them: unremarkable, unplanned time spent with good friends while getting something done along the way. Like making a trip to the post office, the bank or the grocery store together during lunch break. Simply sharing life. Petersen summarizes the beauty of it:
“Because Errand Friendship is rarely planned, it never feels like an obligation, or something you dream of canceling to free up time to just exhale, because the best Errand Friendship time feels as restorative as time alone. This is how we are meant to live: with each other, in and out of each other’s lives, attending to one person’s errands and daily routines and then, naturally, at some point in the future, the other’s.”
Right now, most of us are painfully deliberate with our friendships. We have to be. We are supposed to limit our contacts, so we don’t see each other nearly enough face-to-face and when we do, we try to make every meeting count. No distractions, diving straight into deep conversations about the state of the world and our mental health. And that’s great, but man, it’s intense.
I can’t wait for the days of just popping by because you were in the area, of booking last minute trains and the nights of “come join us, it’ll be fun”.
pop culture pleasures
Do you like nature writing? Memoirs? The North Atlantic? Then please get yourself a copy of “The Outrun” by Amy Liptrot. Having grown up on Orkney, she returns to the islands after ten years in London, trying to recover from addiction. It’s a tale about how nature, the sea and the moon can restore life and hope, without being woo-woo. I inhaled it.
Like most people, I have binged “Lupin” on Netflix and am a bit upset that they only released half a season. Omar Sy’s performance of the “gentleman thief” is simply phenomenal.
When it comes to recommending pop culture, music is the hardest category of them all, because it’s really all about timing. It’s so difficult that even the Spotify algorithm misses more often than it hits. But every once in a while, an “I think you might like this” finds you in the exact right mood for it to resonate, as it happened to me with Arlo Parks and her current record “Collapsed in Sunbeams”. And I think you might like this too if you think the world is fucked and people are strange, but it snowed and you’re feeling weirdly zen because joy is coming.
I knew I’d see myself in Pippa Bailey’s column as soon as I read the title: “Before I lived alone I thought I was an introvert. Now I realise I was simply exhausted”. That’s me, sister. Although I do still think I am an introvert, living alone has given me so much more energy to meet other people.
Annie Lord is the queen of dating columns and her latest one is a beauty. She asks how we decide which relationships are worth mourning and why a missed opportunity is sometimes harder to get over than a break up.
The most wholesome Twitter content I have seen lately is this photo thread of animals interrupting – and sometimes trying to eat – wildlife photographers.
The funniest Twitter content was this lady explaining hedge funds about as well as I could. For everyone who has been following the GameStop showdown, but also not really following:
That’ll be all for today, my friends. If you enjoyed this week’s letter, you can show it some love by liking, sharing and forwarding it. Thank you ❤️
Until next time,
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