How did you meet your closest, longest-lasting friends?A few weeks ago I had a wonderful, three-hour meal, but it was the company not the food that made it so special. I hadn’t seen Peggy for thirty years. We had a lot of catching up to do.
Peggy is not an old girlfriend, but she is one of the key players in a significant circle of friends that were part of my life at the time I left home three decades ago to chase a dream. Our reminiscing reminded me of how random social connections can be.
For me, Peggy, Melanie, Sherry, John, Tommy and Jeanne formed the core of this group, which probably totaled a couple dozen people. As part of our catching up conversation, Peggy and I tried to remember how the people in this circle met each other. Peggy, Melanie and Sherry met at work. Melanie, Tommy and John lived in the same apartment complex when they first met. I’m not sure how Tommy and Jeanne met, but by the time I met them they were a married couple.
My connection to this group is just as accidental: we met at a pizza parlor. I was a DJ playing oldies in the backroom bar, perhaps the oddest job I’ve ever had, and they discovered me while waiting for pizza one Saturday. They became regulars and we all became friends.
It still amazes me how random and accidental these meetings were and how some of these interconnected friendships continue across time and distance. A little more randomness: Sherry, John and I all left Louisiana within a year of each other, heading for three different parts of the country. Sherry and John both eventually lived in the same part of California, where Sherry introduced him to Kate, his future wife. It turns out both John and Kate grew up in Illinois, they got married there and I made it to the wedding because by that time I was living in that area. Sherry might now be the best connected and organized of us all because she has managed to keep all of us in touch, even though she now lives in Hawaii.
Confused? I’ll spare you the rest.
The point is that some of our best lifelong connections begin accidentally.
Mobility is a boomer-era trend that conspires to separate lifelong friends; we keep moving across the country and around the world. But two boomer-era inventions help keep the connections alive: cell phones and the internet.
It is no accident that I am getting back in touch with old friends – it was a goal I set on my 50th birthday. Maybe it is no accident that after decades of individual personal growth and change, some accidental friendships continue to exist even though the original span of face-to-face friendship time was only a few years.
All philosophy aside, it was great to see Peggy again and to know that she is happy.
1 comment:
that is so nice...wow...thirty years! i just saw a childhood friend that i hadn't seen in over a decade. it was...so weird. we talked like no time had elapsed at all. you make me want to go seek out some of my old friends.
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