A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You

Reflections on a lifetime of friendships

Goodbye Party, September ‘22

Those of you of a certain age may remember the picture book, A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You. Written by Joan Walsh Anglund, it’s a deceptively simple examination of our complex and vital need for connection. The author lets kids know that people may have different types of friends, and they don’t necessarily need to be human — pets, trees, books, for instance — and explains how to develop friendships.

My mother used to read this book to me at bedtime and I remember studying it intensely because I couldn’t figure out how this whole friendship thing worked. I was relieved when the author assured me that books could be friends, because I was surrounded by them. Literally. My bedroom had built-in shelves that wrapped around the bottom third of two walls, like a border. I was slow to read, but when I caught up, I couldn’t stop. I spent hours nestled against my pillows in bed, lost in the worlds that books created.

I was the caboose by ten years in my family, so kids my age seemed like strange creatures. I found playground politics byzantine and treacherous, and preferred the company of adults. While friendships with peers proved precarious — even through high school, I never knew which day I’d be “in” and which day I’d be “out” — books were always there to greet me, and welcome me back.

I arrived at college, at 17, confident in my academic abilities, but still stumbling about in the friendship arena. Because I was more comfortable with people who were older, I gravitated towards upperclassmen. In the first week I found myself sitting on the floor of a sophomore’s dorm room when a radiant young woman wearing cut-off denim shorts and french braids walked in and planted herself cross-legged next to me.

I marveled at how comfortable she seemed with herself, how skillfully she wove in and out of conversations, how easily she laughed. She hailed from Missouri and thought I was very exotic because I was from New Jersey. She asked me all kinds of questions about myself. I don’t remember much of what she actually said, but I do remember how she made me feel.

She was the first peer who saw what was different about me and made me consider that this difference was the thing that made me special. It was a life-changing moment, being seen and appreciated for the first time, and I was stunned when this effervescent young woman wanted to be my friend. I’d walk across the quad with her, watching her exclaim “Hey!” and strike up an animated conversation with just about anyone who crossed our path. She knew everyone on campus, and had a knack for connecting people. Through her, I acquired a group of friends.

Rhodes College, 1981

One night I went to dinner with Liz and our friend Wayne. We ate at a table in an old Victorian house, in front of a fireplace. A fortune teller who was working the room studied us for awhile, then suddenly appeared by our table. She announced with great solemnity that we were together for a reason, and we would always be in each other’s lives. Another friend was supposed to join us that night, but canceled. The three of us lost touch with that friend — but not with each other.

40 (!!!) years later

We all impact each other, even through the most minute interactions. But some people actually alter the course of your life. Liz is one of those people. She moved to Los Angeles before I did, and convinced me to move out from the east coast. As she did in college, she introduced me to a circle of friends, this time in L.A. One Saturday night, when I was tired and insisted I did not feel like going out, she dragged me to a party high up in a canyon where I met the man who would become my husband and the father of my two children.

The party was a celebration for the wrap of a USC student film. Liz was the female lead, my future ex-husband was the Director of Photography, and Lisa, the woman who wrote the film, and without whom the party never would have happened, would become another dear friend years later when our daughters became BFFs at the same preschool.

The Daughter, right, has always been a social butterfly

Just as Liz ushered me into Los Angeles, she gave me a grand exit last month when she threw me a combination 60th birthday/going-away party. My Hollywood friends, from the first half of my L.A. life were there, along with my therapist friends from the second. I was overcome with nostalgia — and, to be honest, just a smidgen of psilocybin as I was micro-dosing for the first time — so I felt outside myself, yet strangely connected, while I talked to the people who had become my touchstones at different times and to varying degrees.

When the last straggler left the party, I sprawled across Liz’s couch trying to ward off a panic attack that I realized had been creeping up on me for months. Decades spent building experiences and relationships were drawing to a close and I would be leaving my touchstones behind.

What would I do without them?

When you get to a certain age and you find yourself single, your life narrative is entwined not with a life partner, but with your friends: the ones who had babies when you did, the ones you hiked with, the ones you took weekend getaways with, the ones you communed with over cappuccinowithoatmilkdoubleshotplease, the ones who critiqued your first drafts in writers group, the ones you discussed cases with in clinical supervision, the ones whose Thanksgiving table you sat at year after year. I understood how to assemble the logistics of my exodus but it occurred to me I wasn’t sure how to do it emotionally.

I still have no idea.

What I do know is that I’m moving to a place that values community. L.A. doesn’t, really. It celebrates status and youth, not genuine connection. In Asheville, you just need to know one person who can vouch for you and then you’ll be welcomed by that person’s people. And I already know quite a few people: cousins, old family friends, newer acquaintances, and Gina, the sophomore who resided in that dorm room where I first met Liz — she ended up near Asheville too.

Montreat, NC

I’ve come a long way from the days when I hovered on the edge of a crowded playground with a pit in my stomach, studying the intricate geometric theorem that was other children. I grew up to enjoy entertaining and I love few things more than hanging out with friends. But if I’ve learned anything about friendship over the years, anything at all — it’s because I’ve had the very best teachers.

Were you shy as a kid? A social butterfly? Who taught you how to be a friend?