Of friendship in your 40s
Vignettes (mine & yours)
These days, friendship looks like:
Messages that go straight to the point, that you need coffee, a listening ear, a quiet non-judgemental space (because what’s to be judged has been judged left right upside down already, and long accepted)
Memes on IG DMs (I don’t get them but I am grateful you thought of sending them to me)
“This is on sale; you were looking around for something similar right?”
Sleeping in your own hotel rooms when travelling because adult money and personal space
Bringing my concert soft toy merch out and displaying them on the dining table and you allowing me 15 seconds to snap a photo or five. One of you got sucked in to buying the merch when you don’t even listen to a particular group.
“I thought of you.”
Q: What does your friendship look like?
How do we navigate unfamiliar ground?
Building or finding community doesn’t stop at a certain age, or at a certain number of friends. But it certainly requires the right life season and the right mindset. In the past year, I have been scaling back my social engagements because of lowered energy levels. I feel guilty that people want to connect, but I actually don’t feel ready.
I even had to tell a friend that I’m not ready to hang out (sorry G, you asked me 2 times, and I only could appear at the 3rd ask). I also am learning that others also are going through similar seasons, and it’s really the case of it’s not you, it’s me.
It is wired in (most of) us to want to belong, but it’s clear these days that I need to be comfortable for myself, and as the months pass, the concept of selective belonging, where my values and energy are respected, is what allows me to feel rested and joyful.
Also, like eating alone, I have come to terms with going for concerts by myself (because of ticket and time availability), but I haven’t been able to yet squash the hope of “maybe I’ll find a friendly face there and then I can at least speak to them about something we both enjoy”. Which I did, 2 weekends ago at Day6’s Bangkok concert. Go, me!
Random things I’m mulling over
Tempeh chips which taste amazing; I am not a fan of tempeh, natto, japanese shiso, lady’s finger, but this tempeh chips I can get behind
Learning how different people use different LLMs. For me, I’ve been using GPT for bouncing off lesson plans for effective concept delivery grounded in reality. What’s your go-to, and why?
Kaiju No. 8 currently showing on Netflix and the right amount of self-deprecation, hard work and life’s uncertainties in a well-drawn anime series
Realising I never read The Dark Artifices trilogy (out since 2016) and that level of joy was unprecedented (equivalent to getting good concert tickets, that joyful!) and appreciating Libby over and over again but still finding the Kobo loading speed damn suss and the fact that some books don’t port over when I see them in my phone’s Libby app (call polis)
Already the start of Q4, gah!
Medhā