anyway, its about old friends

from: stockholm

i have a habit of watching when harry met sally when new years comes around. there is just something about nora ephron and new york in wintertime that does it for me. that, and the fact that for a long while ive been thinking a lot about friends. 

new and old. 

during my months here in italy i have had time to contemplate on both, uprooted and severed as i’ve been from all of my old relationships, submerged in solely new ones. it’s a strange thing, i think, to learn how to nurture old friendships over the phone and cultivate new ones by a continuous physical presence. it asks a lot from somebody, to be completely cut off and exposed at the same time.

in these six months i’ve come to learn a lot about the two modes of being. how it is to stay committed to scheduled face-times and how to show up at parties where you only know the name of the person that’s invited you. its two separate artforms, two different rules of comportment.

let me share some pointers from my own handbooks.

living in the land of exchange students is a special one. nothing seems quite real, everything feels a little removed from reality. the 2€ drinks and the 1€ pizza aside, within the social circle of erasmus there is a phenomenon that resides in no other place – except maybe an aa meeting – which is one of openness. now, we may not go around telling each other our deepest darkest substance abusing secrets, but there is a welcoming – an unparalleled curiosity and eagerness – when engaging with new people. maybe it is down to the fact that everyone comes here alone, and hence everyone is intent on quickly making friends. a classmate of mine proposed a more psychological reasoning: that everyone applying to study abroad are a little more daring, a little more willing to take risks, and hence better in new social settings. i prefer the former, not believing solely extroverts decide to go abroad. behaviorism aside, let me introduce the template of how to engage with new people.

when strangers meet – in class, at the club, or the anarchist pub – there are the three questions every party must answer: how long are you staying? where are you from? what do you study? now, we would never admit it, but it is on these subsequent answers we base our ensuing relationship. a full year-er would never pick up a relationship with a six-month-er (thats placing all your eggs in a soon to be disappearing basket), a swede would never befriend a dane (exempting exceptional circumstances – ie similar answers on question number one and three), and you’d never see an economist propose an aperitivo to a humanist. 

it is sad, but true. slightly exaggerated, but somewhat accurate.

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i remember the only house party i ever went to. the house party that only ever happened because all of the roommates were best-friends. it was that kind of party where you don’t really know anyone, but are familiar with almost everyone. knowing faces, names and gaits but not knowing anything deeper. this was a party where i walked around alone and kept repeating the same three phrases: no i’m only staying six months. from a small town in the north of sweden. literature and gender studies. with each half-hearted repetition i found myself missing my old friends more and more. i know comparison is a deadly trap but i was in its grips that night, comparing old laughs, seeing familiar faces on strangers. but the thing about comparison is once you’re stuck in it there is no winning, there is no chance given to the new circumstance which is being compared, you simply walk around with an occupied mind and an empty smile. at 2 am the carabinieri came and shut the whole thing down. the best-friends had to pay a 250€ euro fine. i did what i do best and snuck out unseen, composing sentences on my bike ride home, a private postmortem. 

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concerning old friends, the rules of engagement is different. being so far removed from each other not only by distance but by time could be an obstacle too big for many to navigate. it is easy to let things slip like sand through ones fingers, not being as keen for the scheduled zoom-session when 10pm rolls around and all you want to do is go to sleep. when exam season is around the corner and you feel too stressed to even look at your phone. texting, calling, and scrolling through each others close-friend stories is ultimately not the same as being in each others vicinity. you’re only getting the highlight reel, the top ten news. what you’re missing is the everyday minutia that isn’t minutia at all: the drama in their ceramics class, how their commute was, that funny thing their dad said and what song their currently listening to on repeat.

you miss seeing their faces everyday, their gait you could recognize in an instant. not being there for after-work drinks and sunday morning coffee. its as if the relationship is placed on ice, and how can you count on the fact that it will thaw to reveal the dynamic it held before? maybe some friendships are doomed to perish. some you know without any empirical evidence that they will always be there, some you loose sleep over trying to figure out how to keep alive. that is part of the deal. you have exchanged a new city for old friends and you will continue to brood over this choice you’ve made, whether it is the right one.

and this is an interesting question.

do you chose your home based on the city or the people? for so long i’ve chosen the former, thinking the latter will always be there. but now i don’t know if there is a right or wrong answer. perhaps there isn’t. i remember that on the wall of my grandparents old house there used to hang an old brocade, hand-stitched letters by my grandmother spindly fingers: home is where the heart is. but where does the heart reside? on the open road, in-between train rides and city skies? or in the dimples of old friends, at the circumference of year-old inside jokes and shared sweaters? perhaps i will never be able to figure this one out, however much id like to ask seventy year old me for the right answer. perhaps there simply isn’t one; there is just the choice between one life or the other. 

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of course there is the beauty of when you begin to recognize each of your roommates footsteps. stompy, light-heeled, and rushed. when the post-lecture wednesday coffee goes from a one-time thing to an unspoken routine. when the resistance of asking a new friend out for a drink no longer is that big of a hurdle to get over. when the schedule becomes intuitive and the new a given. its a nice feeling, this familiarizing of the foreign. but you don’t have to ask old friends for a fry of their plate, a sip of their drink. you just grab it and welcome the light punch on the shoulder, that sometimes accompanying false disapproving look. you already know that they hate pickles and they’re already giving you theirs. with new relationships there is the awkwardness of being polite: may i have a sip of your drink? would you like to try my pasta? of course politeness is a social necessity for not behaving like a brute around new people, but sometimes i think it functions as a wall rather than an opening. in the graces of curiosity and kindness and newness, wouldn’t you rather live with the drawbridge let down rather than held up? 

it was back home, after paris, after christmas, that i was reunited with my old friends. i felt nervous and on edge (what if things weren’t the same? what if we didn’t recognize each other?) but as i stepped through the door, saw their smiling faces, felt their arms around my back, their familiar voices reverberating from the next room – all the layers peeled away. what had i to be nervous about? these were old ties. deep connections. bonds that a few months of physical absence could not undo. we fell wonderfully into step, picked up where we left of – re-using old inside jokes and polishing off new ones. 

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the night passed in that glowy neon light that tends to hover over new years eve. there was the buffet, where (like always) everyone brought too many desserts. getting a sugar rush on key lime pies and cheesecake, heading out into the snowy night drunk on gin and glucose. there was the bus ride into the city, more crowded than the bus in amalfi. there was arriving to the edge of the south and looking out over the stockholm skyline, standing under the velvet night-sky with the fireworks over our heads, like their own fleeting artificial stars. it was like the aura of the alex dimitrov poem. it was harry and sally standing under the falling confetti. it was laughter and recognition and new years wishes. then it was dancing and screaming and stumbling home in the small hours of the morning, falling sleep in a jumble of limbs and blankets. then there was the obligatory 1st of january nauseating pizza at veronas. the usual search for the only open coffee-place. the communal train ride home and the public postmortem examination of events.

then it is rewatching a nora ephron movie. the nora ephron movie, and laying there in ones own self-inflicted hangover, a little tired, a little nostalgic, but most importantly: happy. 

i don’t think it means we should forget old acquaintances. we should remember that we can forget them, but that the act of forgetting is always up to us. who do i not want to forget? that answer is one of love. 

i want to dedicate this newsletter to the friends ive made,

and the friends that are still here. 

the friends that i’ve yet to meet,

and the ones that i’ve chosen to forget.

until next time, new year –

love,

e.