“Why in the world do people take photos of their food and then post them up online?” my old friend L asked exasperatedly one night. Upon hearing this, I instantly refrained from taking another shot of this plate of pizza. She continued, “It must be some way for them to validate their existence or something.” I put my camera away. She had a point. I was guilty as charged.
And just before you think we got into a defensive argument over the matter, we didn’t. After twenty years of friendship, L and I knew each other well enough to be sharing our candid, most honest thoughts and jabbing one another. We’d always end up dying with laughter at the end.
That evening, I was left stranded at my workplace after having my car towed away to the workshop. N happened to be overseas for work so I had no choice but to take yet another expensive cab ride home. I thought of L and wished she was around for me to vent to. Talking to her would eventually lead me to make light of my problems and let out a sigh of relief.
The moment I thought of her, she rang me up. She happened to be in town for a job interview and told me to stay put until she arrives. We ended up chatting our way through our Italian dinner. Instead of having the usual-coffee-before-parting, we brought with us some leftover margherita pizza and hung out at my place until the wee hours of morning. We entertained ourselves with a cheesy horror picture and in between, revisited funny moments when we were growing up together. The whole affair was low-key and most of all, brilliantly nostalgic.
Remember those years when you could scoot over to a best friend’s place for a night in? In those days, the classic all-gals night took place at home instead of swanky clubs. The event was almost always treated as a ceremonious after-school special. When I was in high school, L and another friend of mine E used to have sleepovers at my place. We’d be in the bedroom in our nightwear and stayed up late gossiping about celebrity crushes (since we didn’t have actual boyfriends at the time), telling ghost stories in the dark or snacking on junk food while we play video games. Sometimes we’d watch marathons of movies beforehand.
Today, these all seem to be a distant memory. Now that most of my friends and I are in our thirties, it gets a tad bit difficult to even schedule a quick dinner or plan a day out. There used to be a time when we could just call each other up for a movie, karaoke session or a drink without much hassle. We were younger then and our jobs and casual relationships weren’t taking a toll on our social life so much. Sooner or later, we all grew up. For many of us, adulthood became a different game— one that’s more time consuming and complex.
Over time, we learn to understand our friends better especially when they can’t make it for a meet-up. We’re all in this grown-up business together. We get it. No half-baked explanations needed. Time indeed moves so fast these days compared to our more languid childhood years. So on the rare occasion we get to meet, we make the most out of that very moment. When L happened to be just around the corner while I was without my car, we knew we’d have to dive in and do something exciting. And by exciting, I’m not referring to grand, friendly gestures such as, say, watching a musical or spending a few days together at a rowdy beach party.
Just getting stuck in heavy traffic with L while we were on our way to have dinner was amazing in the grand scheme of things. We had the entire hour to catch up before we move on to other trifling matters. Spending a night-in with her, and having those long girl-chats and re-living our sleepover years over pizza, was even better. Eventually, I got to snap a photo of the pizza without her snickering in the background.
