i come in friendship

i come back into town after two months away. i'm having dinner with some acquaintances. a friend calls. where are you, he wants to know. having dinner with some friends, i say. ok, he replies, i’ll be right over.

no waiting for an invitation. no “are you free to meet up?”. no “is it okay if I join you?”. no questions. period.

and this is the most beautiful (and the most aggravating) thing about friendships. taking your friends for granted.

so you take calls at 4am in the morning. you be nice to their partner, who you might not like. you listen and dole out advice and tissues with equal elan. you invest time, energy and sometimes love into it. and on the whole take them as they come. because you know, they do the same.

not all of them, though. all of us have categories of friends. there are the sleep-over kinds, the drinking buddies, the ones who you have nothing in common with except the past, the childhood kinds, the ones you meet when they or you are passing through, the ones who listen and the ones who talk, the ones who you meet every single day, and ones, as Mr. Epstein describes in his book "friendship: an exposé", who play the role of best supporting friend.

some of them we definitely could live without. and some we have to live without. because they are traveling halfway across the world to be with their partner. or because they want to live by the sea and watch whales. or simply because they’ve gotta go.

yet I take solace in the fact, that friends, how ever far they go, they’ll just be one 4am phone call away.

and when they do call, there will be no questions.