I’m starting to think that the secret to nourishing complete and enduring adult friendships is not asking to catch up, but asking to come over. It’s silly to think that asking to go grocery shopping with a friend who’s making dinner is more forward than asking to book a brunch three weeks out on Google Calendar, but I find it striking to ask to be a part of unplanned life moments by simply occupying their space. In a world of coffee chats and calendar events, the intimacy of sharing a life together is almost intrusive, and it’s exactly what we crave.
Something I found really beautiful in my philosophy class was just a quick sidebar on Aristotelian friendship, but I’ve been chewing on it for weeks. Aristotle describes the idea of a shared life as the core of friendship, in which one friend views the other as “another self,” or the term eudaimonia, seeing their goals and pursuits as your own.
Female friendships have been my anchors throughout middle school, girlhood, adulthood, and personhood — the everyday and the world ending. I’m a big believer in choosing your own family, and because of this outlook, there’s no doubt my friendships have impacted my values, my humor, my phrases, and my limits, making me the person I am today. Whenever I visit a hometown friend, I see flashes of how she was when we first met in high school, almost like a dead wife montage, flickering back to her present-day mature self. I think of how far we’ve come individually and as a pair, and I know that the younger version of herself would think she’s the coolest. Reminiscing makes me want to hold on to old friends a bit tighter to face the test of time, distance, and the demands of being ambitious women who hold each other accountable.
It starts out so simply: sitting together at lunch, painting nails at sleepovers, picking flowers at recess, and braiding hair for teammates or classmates. I used to think this dynamic existed only by virtue of proximity that phased out with the start of adulting, brunches, dinner parties, and fancy trips. But now I’m starting to see how this mundane closeness survives growing up and becomes a major theme that grounds me, because those long-term platonic friendships can witness you from a drastically different angle than any romantic partner can. We’re too grown to treat these friendships as appointments and act as if intimacy is only reserved for dating.
Learning how to show up through a shared life has become a priority for me, to maintain my current friendships and open myself to those yet to come. And it’s taken me a beat to appreciate the changing trajectory of what girlhood now looks like and feels like as a steady hum. If it’s not a quick errand trip together, it’s a walk-and-talk on the phone on the way to class or work. It’s been grocery shopping virtually, perusing the CVS makeup aisles on FaceTime, and asking if they’ve seen a certain product stocked before, as if they’re in person. Experiencing a routine virtually, rather than a neat retelling of the events that have now gone cold during a catch-up. There are so many ways to let people know you’re thinking of them, and it seems like every random selfie, Instagram Reel, or 8-ball message is an intentional bid that affirms there’s still skin in the game.
