Sometimes it takes getting out of your “place” to realize how it truly affects you. That happened to me last night as Sohrab and I sat in our 26th floor Las Vegas hotel room for CES 2017. I realized how incredibly lonely I have become in Los Angeles.
I want to talk to you guys about friendship. I have this problem, and it grows with every passing day. I feel like I might have no friends.
Now, looking at where I’ve been, I know that technically this is not true. I have friends! I have people who love and support me! And I’m sure you do too. But have you ever had that feeling in the pit of your stomach that you’re alone in a crowded room?
Perhaps it’s my introversion, perhaps it’s the “long drive” to my northern LA home. Perhaps it’s just the way LA Is. But seriously, what the hell? Why do I feel like I have no close friends in my hometown?
It feels like a paradox. I grew up in LA. I’m one of those rare “born and bred” types, who giggles at people who stare wide-eyed at this Los Angeles local like I’m in a zoo. I mean, LA is a zoo – so perhaps they’re not too far off. But I’m from here, and yet I feel like I only have proper acquaintances, rather than friendships. None of those “drop everything and come over to my house for a sleepover” kind of things. (Don’t worry, I know that’s not normal. I haven’t been 7 in 20 years.) I talked to Sohrab about it – my loneliness, the silly feeling that lurks in the back of my mind as I live in one of the largest and most populated cities in the world – and he agreed. We’re both introverts, mind you, but for the most part, it just feels like most everyone our age (ahem, millennials) always have some place better to be.
It’s a habit that my generation has popularized. RSVP “maybe” on the Facebook invite until the last minute – if responding at all – just to make sure there isn’t something more hip or groovy going on that night. (Yes, I just used the word groovy. No, it’s not the reason I’m lonely.) This is an infection that seeps from our online relationships into our in-person ones – from eternally unread Facebook messages to missed birthday parties.
Sohrab and I are the type of people to throw dinner parties, send Christmas gifts, and ask our friends to text us when they get home safe. We love surrounding ourselves with love, and yet it can be so difficult to curate a community when people have the habit of disappearing for weeks on end.
Perhaps it’s a fear of commitment. But I’m not interested in empty conversations, empty promises. Everyone has their lives so “planned out” that they can’t make any plans. Two weeks is too far out. Two days is too short notice. And so, we’re stuck in a loop.
The neverending circle of fervent typing: “Wine night soon?” “Wine night!” “It’s been too long!” “Wine!”
Sound familiar? We’re all guilty of it; we’ve all fallen victim to it. We’re all so engulfed in what’s happening at this very moment in space and time and the universe that we can’t be bothered to look around, take a breath, and actually enjoy it.
We’re too busy texting and typing that we want to get together, that we don’t actually spend the time to talk. Even a texting conversation is a conversation.
True friendship – filled with unabashed, beautiful, honest companionship – has become unpopular. It still exists, undoubtedly. But it’s rare. What have we become? Reach out to a friend. Start over. Clean slate. Have a wine night.
