Tonight, I went to dinner with Chris, my two good friends, and their husband and boyfriend. We spent almost two hours chatting about a lot of random things, but really, it wasn’t like there was anything very substantial or serious we discussed. It was a really long talk with all sorts of tangents about seemingly nothing, yet the entire time, I was enjoying myself and the company of my friends. A talk about absolutely nothing was entirely satisfying to me, and the laughter that came out of it was genuine. And when it ended, I knew this experience would not happen again until the next time I’d come visit home, and it made me feel a little sad on the walk back to the hotel from South of Market. It made me realize that I really do miss having a friend group like this back in New York. I have individual friends I can catch up with there, but I don’t have the same dynamic with them the way I do with these two friends. We can’t really talk about nothing and have that be satisfying or sufficient for me. And then I thought, why is it that I haven’t made friends like that in my entire eight years in New York City? I guess I married my best friend (not that that’s a bad thing, of course). I guess I go through these same thoughts every few months, but it still makes me wistful. I could potentially leave New York City without a real friend group developed at all.

Or maybe the problem is really me. You can’t really expect to have the same dynamic with friends you just met as with the friends you’ve had for two decades, right? Maybe my expectation is too high. But can’t a satisfying talk about nothing occur between two strangers as easily as it can with two friends who’ve known each other for years?