we live in a house made of each other

or, a better way to spend a Friday night

Some time in November or December, before or after seeing the works of Gustav Klimt at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna with my family, I went on a small digital shopping spree. Inspired by the city that seemed to ooze culture, I decided to visit The Paris Review’s online store, where I bought not only a two-year subscription to the esteemed literary magazine but also a hat and a mockneck emblazoned with the logotype. I conjured visions of myself wearing the matching set to literary events, minting me as a member of the literati and setting me up to receive moos and murmurs of approval from my newfound peers. At these sorts of events (and generally), I found it hard to feel like I belonged and struggled to start conversations, but the branded fabric would save me.

When I returned to San Francisco, I wore the hat out and found myself sitting on a bench in Alamo Square Park, holding a record that I’d bought at the local store. And as if I’d summoned him, an older man walking a Chihuahua stopped by and struck up a conversation about the Paris Review. He told me about how he remembered stories about George Plimpton, the first editor-in-chief of the magazine, known for learning how to be a circus performer and playing in an NFL preseason game to write about it. We chatted for a bit longer about Family Feud and the state of Georgia until he went along on his walk, gone like a whisper.

I reflected on the man I met, someone who wanted to chat just for the fun of it and has me still thinking about him weeks later. Without knowing it, he validated my fantasies of striking up conversations with a hat I owned. Was it even a notable moment for him? Did the hat even matter as much as his desire to chat? As someone from an older generation, was it simply a commonplace thing to chat with strangers for a beat or two? Or, is it the experience one gains from living a lot of life and learning from a lot of people, noticing opportunities for connection as they come and seizing them for moments, however brief? 

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Esteemed SF-based writer and community builder Jasmine Sun tells me that friends Venmo-ing each other for small amounts is an anti-social behavior, compared to the more pro-social act of knowing that the other will fulfill their debt through the purchase of a coffee or another shared car sometime after. I’m inclined to agree, maybe because the money owed is less of a debt and more of a small promise — we will see each other again, I will do something for you just as you’ve done for me.

What are other pro-social behaviors, small actions that sow the seeds of positive human interaction? There are the obvious ones, like smiling at strangers and walking around without headphones. The opposites of these actions are obviously anti-social since it’s doubtful that anyone would want to talk with someone frowning with headphones on. 

With friends, there are myriad pro-social behaviors that happen naturally: hugs as greetings, filling up each other’s Brita filters when drinking water, bringing fruit or pastries when dropping by. It’s the sum of these small behaviors and the time spent — the laughter over the hilarious and the tragic, the stupid and the dramatic. Ultimately, we find ways to show up for each other, like the sun for the trees. We do these things without realizing after a while, but at one point we had to learn how and we learned from each other. From friendship, we learn to be better people, more social, and connected to others. 

What was I before I learned to be a friend? Beyond my self-identification as an antisocial misanthrope, I was deeply lonely and disconnected, burrowed deep into my head and busy forming ideas about people based on delusion. I built a fortress of poor stories, uncovering the things that were wrong with both me and others, a pincer attack of blame underlaid by anxieties and fear. Socializing is not in the cards for me, my fate is sealed, especially since I’m so inherently different from everyone else in the world, thought the kid who knew nothing about life beyond his bedroom. It was frigid inside the fortress, and silent except for the echoes of my own pacing footsteps and ramblings divorced from reality. The maelstrom of negativity made me a flake, hiding my vulnerability and insecurity.

But it came to an end. The small kindnesses from many friends, current and past, tore down the walls and turned the cold fortress into a home, piece by piece. It was the classmate in high school who would have long text conversations with me until I learned how, to speak about my feelings, it was the rock climber in college who would drive me to his favorite concerts to show me how to share my love for art, it was the designer with dyed hair who hosted people with intention and generosity, it was my mother always bringing something when invited to someone’s home, it was my friend (and accomplished DJ and producer) Priscilla who would always invite me to things even when I disappeared from the world for a while and held the door open for me whenever I felt ready to return.

I learned, and I learned, and I’m still learning how to be more than an individual, what feels more naturally human. I’m applying these lessons over and over again. These days, I talk about my feelings and effusively share my love of art and gather pastries for guests and take in-season fruit to everyone’s homes and I don’t flake very much anymore. Whenever someone does something nice for me, I think about it for a long time and try to figure out how I can return the favor and carry it forward. I pour water for everyone at restaurants after seeing Jonathan do it. I wonder if anything I can make will ever make someone feel as cared for as Ching’s veggie pot pie on New Year’s made me feel. I want to host more events so I can return the hospitality for all of the times that my friends have hosted me.

I’m trying to show up for my friends like they’ve shown up for me. I want to show up with such intensity and ferocity that their loneliness can never look anything like mine once did. I’m trying and I won’t always succeed because that’s also being human, but I’m trying and will keep trying. And I want it to extend further.

I am growing more alive with feeling and tenderness towards strangers too. My eyes dampen as strangers make faces at a baby, as the streaks of gray in a busgoer’s hair shimmer in the sun. I see flashes of my friends in so many people I meet and I want to hold them close, stare into their eyes, and see if I can understand them like I understand those I already love so dearly. Starting to know people — spending time with them even when they’re annoying or incomprehensible or when you’re annoying and incomprehensible — only clarifies the undeniable similarities between all of us.

So, on Friday, I’m at Phonobar, a local bar known for its great sound system, and I’m bouncing, swaying, etc., to the music. The DJ is excellent, good enough to make me stay at the bar after my friends had left so I could listen longer by myself. I’m hooting and hollering at the good transitions, I’m giving a compliment when he’s going to the bathroom, I may not see him again, but in him, I see all of my artistic friends. In him, I see those who spend their free time languishing in the creative process, searching for divinity or salvation or something else entirely in an impossible task.

Another Friday in the past, I would’ve gone home with my friends and had a perfectly fine night. Instead, I gave up some sleep and a tiny bit of my pride to let loose and dance alone and give strangers compliments and somehow leave with my heart fuller by emptying out what was in my head. And hopefully, others are better off because of it.

On this Friday night, I am walking home through Alamo Square Park past midnight, and in the dark, silhouettes are walking their small dogs past the bench where I sat before, and I am taking pictures of the moon and the clouds and it all glows brighter than night should be, but now, everything seems to make sense.

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💧 Drops of the Week 💧

• PLAYLIST - mar 24 - crazy mix, mainly a bunch of tracks pulled from new albums that came out this month or I discovered this month

• POEM - “Tiny Glowing Screens Pt 2” by Watsky - one of the first poems that stuck with me, and where I pulled the title from (a line that just never leaves you)