IN REGARD TO FRIENDSHIP

by Joseph Farrugia

I’ve noticed over the years that good friendship is a harder luxury to find than an Hermés below retail in a somewhat acceptable condition and color that won’t clash with the entirety of your closet. People are phony, fleeting, or few are of quality. Whether it be that they are at their limit on the people they’re willing to invest in, or if they just don’t care enough to invest what it takes to build a solid foundation, who knows? But still, there’s something to be said about the effort of attending a gathering with a bottle of wine in hand (candles, candies, or a French pastry are acceptable substitutes if your Bushwick friend is recently sober-curious after weaning off their anti-depressant). There’s a certain je ne sais quois about genuine human connection and deep, ardent friendship. 

The arts of etiquette and halfway decent friendship are on death’s doorstep…or stoop. Consequences dire? We’re as sure of this as the effects of elf bars on our lungs. We know we should make a change, but what if we’re just okay with what we’re doing, regardless of the consequences? 

I’ve been lucky to find a gaggle of women who are fantastic friends. Acceptance, truth, trust – the whole nine yards within these women. That being said, I’ve spent years sifting through countless people who could genuinely care less if I dropped dead the next morning, as long as they had their weekend plans filled and an Uber they’d forget to pay back for. I once thought this was an epidemic somehow tangential to the state of Florida on account of its blistering heat.  I’m now petrified it’s closer to a pandemic for people of my generation, which is something we know about all too well. My mother raised me on three strict principles: never cancel on plans you made even if Jesus himself invited you to his birthday party, always bring a gift when invited to someone's home for a meal or a gathering that’s longer than a stop-in, and always be the friend you expect and want to have. Has social media hardened us to small acts of kindness? Has it forbidden us from crossing the threshold of platonic love, or just simplified us to surface-level interaction with those we call “friends” who truly should be categorized under the label of “acquaintance”?

This may be a stupid rant on something absolutely insignificant to the average person. Maybe people don’t need friends anymore in an era where you can find three friends with nine swipes and multiple clicks on a keyboard. Perhaps we’ve gotten so used to impersonality during our quarantine incubation periods that we’ve self-fulfilled a Darwinian adaptation of surviving without one another. I might have just consumed too much media of the late 90’s and early aughts when friendship was solid and impromptu. I just really wish people still showed up unannounced to my door with some Chinese takeout in tow.

But, I go back to that “bridal party” of girlfriends I have. Each one not only embraces me, but emphasizes a different facet of mine. I am a multitude of people with each of these great women. I worry that this feeling, one day, will become a rarity. Such love is so fulfilling and I hope the world can feel the way I do sitting on the couch in my boxers complaining about my day with one of these women. It feels the most like “home” I’ve ever felt. I pray there will be a renaissance of platonic love and an uptick in its importance.