Your next best friend

Is probably someone you already know

A spread from Steal Like An Artist, photographed by the t-shirt’s creator, Chris Glass

Hey y’all,

One time I was riding my bike around town with my older neighbor, a self-described “loner,” and we kept running into people I knew.

“How many friends do you have?” he asked.

“Not enough!” I shouted back.

I bike several times a week with another friend of mine, who I jokingly refer to as “The Mayor” because he seems to know so many people.

Friendship is something I think about a lot. I grew up a pretty lonely kid. I had some good friends, but not a lot of them. So my whole life, I’ve been out to make friends. I even joked about it in Steal Like an Artist: “There’s only one reason I’m here: I’m here to make friends.”

Photo: Chris Glass

Boys and men have many issues, but a really big one is: they need better friendships. (A few years ago I read the Jungian analyst James Hollis’s description of “the inner state of the average man” and it sent chills down my spine.)

One of the really annoying things about getting older — if you should be so lucky — is that you find out how many of the clichés are true. It’s hard enough to make friends when you’re young, but it’s even harder to make friends as you get older. (I also try to keep in mind one of the top 5 regrets of the dying: “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”)

For a long time, I thought, I just need to meet more people — as many people as I can!

But then I started learning what Faith Hill writes about in her recent piece for The Atlantic, “You’ve Probably Already Met Your Next Best Friend.”

The problem with relationships is often one of quality rather than quantity. One firm believer in this principle is Shasta Nelson, who writes about friendship and hosts a podcast called Frientimacy. The title is a nod to what she believes many people are hungry for: not friends, per se, but real intimacy with those friends. “We don’t need to meet more people,” she told me. “We need to feel more met by the people we already know.”

Nelson argues that a friendship needs “consistency, positivity, and vulnerability.” I got to thinking about how a regularly scheduled bike ride is magic for growing one, and made a note to invite more friends on a ride soon.

“Nice tricks to make friends,” a zine I made in 2020

I kept thinking about this idea that your next best friend is somebody you already know. I got to wondering: Could the same be said of books?