How to non-awkwardly make new friends
Oh, hi friends!
I call you all friends even if we’ve never met.
Maybe that’s a stretch.
But a question some people seem to have as we all get a little older and leave the playground or college life is…How can I make friends as an adult?
So that’s one of my tricks. Loosening the definition so much that everyone is caught in my friendship web. I am a friendly black widow and you cannot escape my gentle yet poisonous bite.
Small-talked in our neighboring seats at a Broadway show? Met in the elevator? Introduced over email by a mutual acquaintance? Whoops! Now we’re friends.
And then, you know, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Consider someone a friend, and perhaps they’ll start to think of you in the same way.
“Bushels worth of dormant stories restless to be told lurk everywhere in New York. Inspiring stories and melancholy stories and tender stories and nutty stories. Humanity as far as you can see. For most of these stories, New York is simply a location. They are about matters of life, pertinent anywhere.”
The final column “40 Years of Chronicling the Unnoticed” by New York Times reporter Nathan "Sonny" Kleinfield is beautiful. And led me down a maze of his stories, including one from 1991 about a short-order cook. One about a Bingo hall. And you might remember this from a few years back about George Bell, a man who died alone in New York City. These are the stories I like to read. They radiate with curiosity and empathy.
"If your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything."
—David Foster Wallace
This four-minute interview on ambition is worth watching.
(h/t the excellent Brainpickings)
PS — Oh hi, new friends!
This week, I wrote about how to construct the perfect email subject line for The New York Times’ Smarter Living section. (My favorite tip is to compliment the other person. Never fails!)
So if that sent you here, welcome! I’ll be in your inbox at 7:30 a.m. EST every weekday. (At least that's the goal!) Here’s my archive to give a sense of what you’re in for.
We won’t discuss the news, but we will talk about work and careers, productivity, balance, Sondheim songs, stories I find interesting, writing advice, and more. I pass along jobs that sound decent and good apartments in the city and videos that might make you laugh or think or cry. I’ll rip off the Band-Aid on my own creative failures and successes as a journalist, playwright, screenwriter, and Porg owner living in Brooklyn. (More about me.)
Basically, I want you to wake up and read this and have the best day possible.
And I’d be very glad to hear about your life! Because we’re all in this together. That's the whole point. So hit reply anytime.
Do you like these daily emails? Please share with a friend!
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara