Last updated: December 6, 2024
I’m going to tell you a story about making a new friend.
She’s next to me now and I’m writing these notes in a yoga class in Bangalore, India.
Here is what it feels like to make a fast friend:
The closeness comes quick.
You talk, you play, you laugh, you share little glances of understanding.
You feel like you’re both on the same wavelength. You have an unspoken understanding.
It feels like a cheat code.
Do you know what I mean?
Have you ever had this with someone new?
You jump around topics and the eye contact is solid.
You interrupt each other and tell stories and jokes.
It feels so good and it feels like home.
It is rare but I want you to know it can happen.
I think about my friends like Sameer, Codie, Hailee, Neville, Tynan, Mallory, Nina, Zach, Derek, Michael, and a dozen others.
And how I’m warm in my heart to meet a new fast friend here in a faraway land.
This is Alicia and she lives in Bangalore.
She’s a famous artist and illustrator.
She’s also an excellent yapper and chatter.
Our mutual friend Derek Sivers introduced us.
First we met for coffee then I join her for yoga.
She invites me to pick up her son from school and then we’ll visit her home and her husband.
In the car I ask her about why we’ve become new fast friends.
“It takes two,” she says, “and some people invite it. Plus chattiness helps and you’re good at that.”
I wonder if this can be learned.
Can you can teach someone how to chat and to yap?
Asking questions is important but you can’t ask too many. You can’t make it an interview. You have to tell your own stories.
The gift of gab comes with practice.
Alicia is an introvert and yet she loves 1-on-1 conversations. She and I are in a bubble now. We have talked for hours.
“I hate parties,” she tells me, “I could never do what you do.”
But I hate most parties, too, and that’s why I wrote my book The 2-Hour Cocktail Party.
The next day we meet and I’m still thinking about this. I ask her: What makes someone special and like you want to see them again?
“I like people who are strange and people who are different. That’s how we learn and grow to get new perspectives.”
Alicia is always smiling.
She has a tiny turquoise stud on her nose.
I push her to tell me more about friendship because I want something to write about here.
She tells me about a best friend that she doesn’t get to meet as often.
“You have kids and then for some people, everything changes. I thought I knew about life but this one I never predicted.”
They both got married, had kids, COVID, a new job, a new part of town.
The best friend just sort of regressed to an acquaintance. It wasn’t planned or malicious. It was just circumstance.
The thing that she misses most is not knowing how she’s doing.
“I give her that grace when I reach out and I don’t need her to reply. We’re just not friends anymore. But I do wonder how she’s doing.”
I ask Alicia if it is like a breakup and if she misses her now.
“No,” she tells me. “I missed her but I didn’t feel it was a hole in my life… it is not like with a lover where that is your heart and soul.”
I’ve had my own losses and feeling like someone I could love was slipping away.
“What I miss is that we had this thing,” she tells me. “We had this ritual of yoga and dosa and gossip. It was set in our schedule almost every week. I craved it like no other. That meeting with her was a star on my timeline.”
We sit in silence and I think to myself and I’m sad for those transitions.
But Alicia is always smiling.
“That’s change and it’s fine! I still love her as a person and the new life she’s made. Our lives don’t intertwine like they used to. But she’s still a phone call away.”
So that is making a new friend and losing a bestie. Both are experiences of the human condition.
I tell Alicia a quote I once heard:
You can be friends with someone for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.
We know that not all friendships have to last forever. Some are single-serving and they can light up your life.
Fast friends are priceless and they feel so good. And then some can get so deep that their inevitable loss might make you sad.
The lesson I hope to share is to look for the fire and to lean in when you can. And then to be thankful for the good times when life moves on.
Hi from Nick! Originally published on Twitter / X. I’ve been doing these interviews with people like this one and posting them on my Instagram and Twitter / X. I’ll add some others into the Profiles category. Leave me a comment if you liked this and I’ll try to add some more.