acquaintances & almost-friends

It’s a universal phenomenon, unavoidable on a planet of 7 billion people. You meet someone, you talk briefly, and there’s a spark—not necessarily a romantic one. Just a sudden awareness of connection, like the raw ends of two wires in your brain have just been put together and oh hey, this could mean something. Electricity flows from your smile to the hollow in your chest where the potential energy coils in a heady blend of hope and anxiety. Yes, this could be something. 

Maybe it’s in the way you catch each other’s eye at just the right moment and start laughing, or the way they say your name like they already know exactly who you are. Regardless, you feel it: this could be a friend. This could be someone you trust, another human being that you could genuinely care for. They grin at you, and the feeling moves through you with surprising certainty: this means something that could be important. Something elusively, indefinably true.

But you can’t quite put your finger on it, no matter how hard you try. You can’t pin down the moment and explain it, because you’re both conductors for a silent orchestra and no lightning rod could deflect the electricity of the music. It’s so implausible that it might not be real. And perhaps that thought ruins the dream like a pinch to the skin, because sure enough, you’re jolted out of the moment by some commonplace phrase like it was nice meeting you or let’s keep in touch. So you smile and nod and say the polite things, because that’s what we all do.

Maybe you both try to get to know each other—a text here and there (answered hours later), a coffee date (canceled at the last minute), or the rare antiquity of a phone call (missed). Inexplicably, as nebulous as its existence, the emotion that fueled your certainty so strongly is insufficient to drive the genesis of a friendship. You still feel the connection, but it’s frustratingly out of reach. It sparks in your hand testily as if to say, would you listen to me? I told you this person should be in your life, but when you open your mouth to spill honesty and step beyond the relational boundaries of hi how are you, it scurries away sheepishly into the ground. Uh…nevermind.

Because there are so many, so many excuses. You’re too tired to bring someone else into your life; you don’t have time for another friend; they might not be not what you think they are. And that last one is the one that takes hold, the one that your reluctance clings to like static. Your mind arrows ahead, past walking side by side and their head on your shoulder and breathless laughter at 1am. It shudders to a stop here, and everything goes wrong. Arguing until your throat tightens to hold in the vitriol. Maintaining a subconscious 3-foot distance at all times. Yawning, stretching, pretending they’re tired so you’ll leave them the hell alone. The hurt feelings swelling, the distance growing, and no, this isn’t what was supposed to happen. It’s not real, but the idea is enough of a buffer to stop yourself from changing everything. (“Really though, why aren’t we friends? Don’t you feel it?”) You can see the disastrous tableau in your head, and you pull out the scene like a projector slide every time you need a reminder: it probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.

And to be fair, some of the excuses are valid. Sometimes it’s necessary to ignore the initial spark of liking and turn to pessimism for advice; maybe you really don’t have time, or the two of you are logically not as compatible as your first impression said you were. Maybe that fence you’re putting up between you and them is high-voltage and certainly not meant to be climbed.

At least that’s what you tell yourself. Because even if your pessimistic brain is right, even if the connection you felt wouldn’t have been enough to preserve a friendship, there’s still an anxious ache in your chest when you walk away from the cursory hello-and-talk-to-you-later exchange. You still regret it. You still want to turn around and say no, let’s talk now. And even if it’s not worth it, why the hell not, because dammit, it could be. It could be.

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