I’ve been fortunate to have met a lot of good people in my life. Wiseasses, creative freaks, the smartest of smarty pants, and my favorite: down-to-earth, genuine muthafuckers. And I’ve been alive long enough to know that friendships are more flexible and forgiving than romantic relationships—you can fall in and out and back again, sometimes when you least expect it—but that, like a relationship, as you get older, you have an easier time spotting a good candidate (of which there are less of) right away and that you date him/her, not just choose any proximate schmuck to get smashed and let loose with. You take the coffees, the dinners, the staying at home with a bottle of wine slow to build on something good.

Some friendships are about time and place; they have an expiration date and need to be let go. And others are limited from the start and that’s fine as long as you don’t expect a non-emoter to cry with you over spoonfuls of peanut butter and Cap’n Crunch or a professional-responsible type to talk smack with you until last call has indeed been called. And then there are the rare friends that get you. YOU. Black, white, green, speckled, hyper, neurotic, sentimental, messy hands-eating you. And after living in four cities in eleven years you also realize that just because that person may end up living miles away, it doesn’t mean the friendship ends. It just means you appreciate them more, quirks and all, and that a frienaissance is inevitable.