Friend #50 - Diana
My study buddy
Hey friend, my 51st and 52nd friends will be published on September 15, 2023. Please see this update from the Toronto Star.
I could never be completely sure if Diana liked me. I talked more than her—nonsense mainly to try to fill the space. Sometimes I thought she was too cool for me.
We met during our first year of university but in the third arranged our first semester schedule to have all of our classes together. It was comfortable knowing I’d have someone to sit with as I learned.
Then we struggled a bit—together. Diana found a tutor to help with statistics. I left for exchange to France in the winter and we eventually lost touch.
I knew through Instagram that she went on an exchange in the UK the following year. There she met a man named Aidan and married him in Chicago during the pandemic.
The two of us met for coffee earlier this year. We walked around Yorkdale Mall and caught up on the years that had passed. Without asking, I could tell that Diana, like many people, found humour in my project. It was only when I was first published in the Toronto Star that I think everyone realized I was onto something.
“Loneliness is a really big issue,” I would explain.
Now older, we understand one another more. I opened up about my nervous habits. Diana shared that she had been diagnosed with colitis when she was 18 and endured a flare-up once university ended.
“You have a family member with IBD so you get it,” Diana says referring to my father who has Crohn’s.
She then admits that she’s not one to come up to people and begin a conversation but that she’s happy to be included in one. It’s funny that so often we think someone may not be interested in speaking to us when it is in fact in those moments that they seek connection.
Diana came over a few weeks ago for a small party. The same one Cynthia and Christopher (Friend #47 & #48) were at. I thought for a while about who my 50th friend should be—who could be just the right send-off? I landed on Diana.
“Empathy is the most radical of human emotions.”
―Gloria Steinem
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