A friend and I were catching up over the phone the other day, and we ended up spending over three hours on the phone. I really didn’t think the call would last that long, maybe half as long at most. She’s my friend who wants to be friends with everyone, who wants to give everyone a chance to “hang out” because of her mindset that the more, the merrier. There were brief times in my life when I have agreed with this sentiment, but for the most part, I disagree.

She told me that as she has gotten older, she’s realized that sometimes she really doesn’t want to do any small talk to get to know a new person as bad as that sounded, that sometimes, she just wants to eat and drink with people she knows and ignore the people she doesn’t. Does that sound bad? She asked me.

Not really, I said. It just means you are getting older and have realize that you can’t be friends with everyone, nor do you want to be. It won’t bring more happiness. If anything, it just provides a false sense of security. How many of these people are going to really care or cry if we died tomorrow?

I really am a disappointed optimist.