Friend #21 - Raza
A fellow oversharer
Raza, thank you for reminding me that it’s okay to be “too much.” 52 Friends is on Instagram @52.Friends.
As I continue to meet people, I’ve noticed that the happiest ones are those who are comfortable with all sides of themselves. Whether that be loud and passionate or even selfish and petty. They allow all parts to exist and accept both their positive and negative attributes.
Raza has a zest for life that is contagious. The first time we met in October 2022, he shared his whole life story within our 40-minute conversation and I knew then that we were similar.
We reconnected over Zoom last week. Raza peddled his stationary bicycle as we spoke.
“Can we catch up?” he says. “Are you still in Miami?”
I explain to him that I returned to Toronto at the end of December. “Last year was rough,” I say. When I got to Miami in 2021, I had just turned 24. I made my adult friends and adjusted to my new found independence but my plan was only to spend four months in the city.
“When I got back to Toronto, I felt like I didn’t have a life here or there. So I spent most of 24 really sad. Then I went back because I missed my life there but it wasn’t the same,” I tell Raza.
He’s understanding and relates. “The same thing happened to me when I was 23. I was at Western and there was a period of time when I had no friends and on New Years I posted a poll on Facebook asking people what they were doing but I went to sleep at like 10 pm,” he says.
Raza uses business analogies to explain his ideas and compliments the work that I am doing with 52 Friends by saying, “SaaS companies use Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) to predict what their Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) will be. So right now, if we look at your past month, we know that this year is projected to be better than last year.”
As we age, the time we have for our friends decreases. Many of us end up carrying a bit of guilt around this. Raza is in a happy relationship and lives in Calgary with his girlfriend. His best friend is his brother and he’s close with two other friends from high school and university. Still, his friendly nature allows him to bond with co-workers and he calls his current colleagues “the gold standard of people.”
My brother is also one of my best friends. “Everything that I want for myself, I want more for him,” I tell Raza.
“I feel the same way. When I was four years old, I begged my mom for a brother and then finally when I got him, I shut up,” he jokes.
“I have an ignorant optimism,” he continues. “I assume that everyone wants to be my friend.” It’s evident in the way Raza asks me questions that he cares about the details of people’s lives—the personal stuff. The business stuff comes after in his opinion.
“Are you an introvert or extrovert?” he asks me.
“An introvert,” I reply.
“I would have never thought that,” Raza says.
I think there is a misconception when it comes to introverts that we are antisocial or terrible conversationalists—that’s not the case. It primarily has to do with how we recharge. “I had a dinner party the other week and I was talking the entire time but I knocked out after,” I tell Raza. “I know that an outing can energize someone.”
Then we talk about passion. “Remind me how you convinced your girlfriend to make long distance work?”
“I made a business case with a roadmap and the pros and cons. It’s a bit obsessive, but that’s me,” says Raza. “Some people like buying things at the convenience store. I’m willing to do the work for the best, maybe that means paying $60 in shipping.”
“Is she like you?” I ask.
“She’s calmer, I’m always nervous,” Raza says.
“I’m also always nervous,” I say.
“What did you learn from your dating experience last year?” he asks.
“To be more chill, I think.”
“No,” he says. “People like us who have a spark for life are so rare, that’s part of your value prop. If you hold back it would be like asking LeBron James to play a different sport.”
“I had never thought of it that way but you’re right I can only pretend to be calm and cool for so long.”
In December of 2022, I met a girl in Miami named Claire, Friend #6. She had moved to the city on an 18 month contract to work in marketing for a real estate company but quickly realized that she didn’t see herself in Miami and decided she would return to Dijon at the end of the month.
Her departure would mean the end of a four-month relationship with a Brazilian-American named Igor. As we walked around the Pérez Art Museum, she shared that she told Igor that if she were to stay in Miami, she could see herself falling in love with him. She had no intention of continuing the relationship but she wanted him to know because she saw the beauty in her vulnerability.
My Friend #9, Severine has a tattoo on her thigh that reads, “No time for the regret.” It is with that attitude that I aspire to live each and everyday of my life.
“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
―Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Love this honest take and shoutout to fellow introverts