Friend #10 - Luigi
A classmate I never knew
Week 10. Luigi, my new friend, this was the greatest pleasure. If you’re interested in being featured on 52 Friends, please contact me at miriamsamdur@gmail.com. I’m specifically looking for stories on sensitive topics or interesting tales of nostalgia.
Sharing is tricky. Luigi reached out to me after he saw a piece that I wrote in December. He related to it and applauded my ability to gently write about a sensitive topic.
There is a misconception that when people share something difficult that they are looking for sympathy—someone to cry for them. That is narrow-minded. People share because they crave connection and the knowledge that they are not alone in the way in which they are struggling and maybe that does include having someone to cry to or someone to get ice cream with or someone to do nothing with—everyone is different.
Luigi and I were in the same university program. I’ve seen him in passing and we had classes together—I knew that his family owned a Maltese bakery. He knew me as a writer—the girl who had interviewed our school’s dean and made a joke about the chess player Kasparov.
“I had a combination of the highest highs and lowest lows in the past year so I know to some extent what swimming upriver while seemingly doing great from an outsider's perspective feels like,” his LinkedIn message reads.
“Let’s get coffee?” I write back.
Luigi admits that he is reserved. “I don’t have Instagram or Facebook or Snapchat,” he tells me, “and since deleting them I’m happier but in our three-hour conversation you know more than 99 percent of the people in my life.”
“I feel honoured, honestly, I’m not joking,” I reply.
In October of 2021, I was working remotely in Miami. I had a new job that allowed me to afford to rent a studio apartment in a trendy area, I was going to parties with people who had gone to the best schools in the country, and most importantly, I was happy. I would grab drinks with interesting men and have conversations with women who had lived more than I had.
In November of the following year, I sat in the same apartment contemplating not wanting to be. I was exhausted, lonely, and emotionally consumed after a period of making choices that were uncharacteristic. The life I had been living did not feel like my own and my mind saw no viable way out. “Miriam, I love you,” the texts began pouring in as friends became concerned when they didn’t hear from me.
My story is far from unique but maybe I am uniquely positioned to share. My depression started in a relationship. Not a fairytale that I was sad to leave but one where I was bullied.
“Of course, if someone you respect puts you down, it hurts,” Luigi tells me.
“It was like Charles and Diana,” I tell Luigi. “I liked him because I was young and it was all I knew but he questioned my intentions, always, like Charles.”
In the weeks and months that followed, I let what had happened consume me and isolate me from my friends. “I became what he thought of me until I realized that I had just associated with someone who isn’t nice,” I say.
My life then briefly followed the plot line of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel but it was a new friend who I met in October who said that the best way to make it out of this period was to meet a lot of new people. That’s what I’ve been doing and it’s working.
Every day someone loses a parent or gets a cancer diagnosis or worries about someone trapped in conflict or is the victim of human stupidity, but what helps get us through these times is comradery.
Luigi has a Mediterranean warmth that I quickly identify with. Before we met for coffee, I insisted that I could meet him closer to where he lives. “I can drive an extra ten minutes to your area,” he writes back. We finally agree on somewhere equally convenient.
He was born in Malta and immigrated to Canada with his parents in 2007. “The first person to invite me to a birthday party was this guy named David and we’re still best friends,” Luigi says.
He then recounts a trip that the two of them took to Lithuania and Georgia when they were both in the twelfth grade.
David has been a pillar of strength, “He’s always there for me and as we get older I’m more open with him and our bond strengthens,” Luigi shares. “Sometimes we need friends to remind us of the things that we can’t see in ourselves.”
One of the best books I read in 2022 was a Japanese one. It’s called The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. The authors believe that we should always see others as comrades until they have proven that they are enemies, foes, or malicious competitors. But it is a willingness to help that distinguishes a comrade from a stranger.
“Happy people help people,” Luigi and I both agree. I point out that the happiest people I know are the ones who are always willing to aid me personally or professionally and there is science that backs this up.
A course called The Science of Well-Being by Dr. Laurie R Santos at Yale University explains that the perfect body, money, or even true love will not bring you happiness but one of the things that will is social connection. Happy people spend more time with others. They stop their coworker to ask about their day or they help their neighbour with the garbage bin—my mom asks everyone about their dog.
“Years ago, I wouldn’t see the point in getting coffee with you today,” I say bluntly.
“Me too. I would have thought that I could better spend my time at the bakery or working on something,” Luigi confesses.
He encourages me to write down my goals for 2023.
“The one lesson I learned last year is to see every day as a new year but 52 Friends is going to be big,” I say.
“Of course, that’s why I chose a good story to share and avoided a picture of me with my mushroom haircut,” he says.
“This is the most important thing I have ever learned: the greatest thing you will ever do is be loved by another person.
I cannot emphasize this enough, especially to young people. Without friendship, a human being is lost. A friend is someone who reminds you to feel alive.” - Eddie Jaku
