Despite it being her wedding day today, my friend decided to organize an out-of-town friends brunch at 10am. Although I felt that the idea would be very ambitious given that her wedding would be at 5pm, I selfishly hoped she’d follow through with it. It would give me more time to catch up with her, and also more time to get to know her friends from all over the place. Aside from me and our friendship from college, she had a friend and her boyfriend also travel from New York City, who she’d met in Beijing while working at a magazine after college; her high school best friend and his husband come from Minneapolis; and her middle school camp friend and her husband attend from Indianapolis. “You have someone representing each part of your life at this table!” her friend exclaimed.

My wariness over how well we’d get along immediately ended when her high school friend and I hugged and greeted each other, and we already knew who each other was because we’d heard so many stories from our mutual friend about each other. “I feel like I already knew you, but I just hadn’t met you yet!” he exclaimed. It’s like that Michael Buble song “Haven’t Met You Yet.” The entire group got along really well. Her friends were what I imagined — a varied bunch of intelligent, ambitious, witty, and very opinionated people from different parts of her life. We were all loud and laughed insanely, and we all had very strong opinions about Trump Nation, the current state of the union, and how racist and intolerant society was becoming because of this new leadership. We discussed cultural differences across the country and the nuances even in the same metro areas. We even discussed sex and cheating. That’s how much ground we covered over the course of brunch and then the wedding evening. It was a day of very intellectually stimulating and varied conversation. Meeting friends of friends doesn’t have to feel forced or be fake after all. I genuinely loved the entire day.