Friend #38 - Sean
My writing buddy
Perhaps what has come to hurt me the most as I get older is that life is completely unfair. There are people I know who behave immorally and get everything they’ve ever wanted and others who consider everyone around them and suffer losses. People don’t get what they deserve. The just-world fallacy.
Sometimes when working on this project and especially now as I’m getting tired, I’ve thought to myself, “What’s the point of this?” And then I’ll receive an email from a reader and understand the impact of my work.
Sean and I met earlier this year. He lives in California but our virtual friendship has not prevented him from being an excellent supporter of this project. He values the discussion I’m creating around loneliness and often shares his personal experiences on the subject with me.
His first confession was that he cried in his room after his best friend’s wedding. “It was an overjoyous day,” says Sean but that didn’t take away from the fact that his friendship with this best friend would likely never be the same.
The two had met as freshmen in high school cross-country—a time when both were still in search of their identity. They went to college together and now live on opposite sides of the country.
“We Facetime every two to three weeks and meet two to three times a year in person,” says Sean.
Now living in San Francisco, Sean faces the question many of us encounter in friendship. How do we balance shared history with finding new friends who simply accept us as who we are today?
“San Francisco is a transient city and sometimes it’s hard to go deep. It took me three years to meet my people and we became close after a camping trip,” he says.
Both of us agree that everyone has substance but it’s difficult to know whether we may not have had the opportunity to get to know someone well enough in a certain environment or if we simply aren’t compatible.
“My ick is when people see friendship on a hierarchy,” says Sean. “People who only need acquaintances until they get friends and only need friends until they get love.”
He explains that he doesn’t appreciate when a friend who was distant suddenly becomes available after a romantic relationship is over and instead says that friends are like a pantry with all foods serving different purposes.
Sean has recently lost one of his good friends. She passed suddenly and was in her late-20s. An amazing person and a fabulous friend.
At the beginning of January, Sean met his girlfriend Bella. “I’m going to tell her I love her this weekend but I’ve actually never said it to anyone,” says Sean referring to romantic love.
“I’ve never said it either,” I say.
“Really? I was scared to admit that,” says Sean.
“Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will come back in another way”
—Franz Kafka
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I love it so much!! Thank you for taking the time to get a slice of my life and our friendship into your project :)