Somebody from work invited me to a birthday dinner in Astoria, a long table at a Greek place off Ditmars, and I almost didn't go. I knew exactly one person. That math is my personal nightmare.
Making new friends at 24 is the thing nobody prepares you for. In college, friendship just happened — proximity, shared exhaustion, the same three lectures. Out here in New York you have to actually choose it, on purpose, while tired, on a Thursday.
I took the N train all the way out, rehearsing small talk like dialogue. What if I said something stupid. What if everyone already had their people and I was just a guest star in their group, like a side character in a long-running show.
But then the food came. Plate after plate, passed down the table the way my family passes rotis, no one keeping count. And a girl named Sofia asked me about Ahmedabad like she actually wanted to know, and a guy admitted he'd cried at the end of 3 Idiots, and suddenly I wasn't performing anymore. I was just there.
Making new friends at 24 is mostly the courage to stay past the awkward first hour. The magic doesn't live in the introductions. It lives somewhere around dessert.
We walked to get loukoumades after, hot and drowning in honey, and ate them on the sidewalk under the elevated train. The N rumbled overhead every few minutes and we kept talking right through it, louder, laughing.
There's a loneliness people don't admit to in this city. Everyone is so busy being impressive that we forget to just be available to each other. I almost stayed home with that loneliness tonight. Instead I got honey on my chin and three new numbers in my phone.
Friendship at 24 isn't given to you. You have to take the N train toward it.
Go to the dinner. You can always leave early. You probably won't.
Love,