The Evolution of Friendships During a Pandemic and Beyond

I got a surprise birthday book from my mom a couple of days ago that contained a series of letters and photos from my friends and family throughout the years. It was really special, and I know she put a lot of thought into it.

As I was reading through the letters, a few of the lines that caught my eye went along the lines of,

“It’s the 20 year anniversary of you inviting me to your birthday when I didn’t speak English, and my mom and I drove around for hours looking for balloons on a mailbox. 20 years later and we’re best friends — it all seems fitting now.”

“I’m so glad our moms put us in swim class together when we were 12. We are so emotionally and spiritually connected now {{21 years later}}, I know we’re going to be friends forever and ever.”

It got me thinking about the first time you meet someone, and then how that relationship evolves over time. Relationships have so much kinetic energy that builds over time. The people we encounter end up being the voices that shape our lives.

Take my friend whom I met when she didn’t speak English, for example. It was seventh grade and we were in private school together. She had just moved from Germany, and I always had the urge to welcome new kids because I myself was the new kid in third grade at this same school. The environment was demanding, harsh. The uniforms were pristine grey skirts and collared white shirts pressed to the nines.

I was 8 and I remember feeling hairy. My hair snaked down to my back in a long braid and I had a hairy upper lip that I didn’t notice until I got contacts in middle school. At first people were excited to meet the new kid who joined in the winter semester. But that excitement quickly evaporated.

I read a lot, had nerdy glasses, and didn’t present as an alpha, I guess. I also had a surprisingly deep voice for my small frame, and that in itself I think was too shocking to pass the ranks.

So in middle school, whenever someone seemed “different”, I was drawn to them. I think I recognized myself in them.

When my now best friend joined our class in the winter semester, my birthday was in a few weeks and I remember seeing her in the cafeteria line struggling to order food, and I thought, “I should invite her!”

Keep in mind, what I was “inviting” her to was probably a 9 person basement party with two NSync CDs, kazoos, and a bright pink boom box. But at the time, that seemed cool and I thought she’d be excited.

“Hey, do you want to come to my 13th birthday this Saturday?”

Blank, bright green-eyes stared back at me.

I wrote my address on a little piece of paper with the date and time and gave it to her. Fast forward to her 30th birthday when she invited me to a yacht week in Croatia and we spent 9 days swimming, partying and reveling in sunshine and the company of 8 other women across the US and Europe.

Now in our early thirties, our years in NYC together are behind us. I now live in LA, and she in Munich. So we have monthly Whatsapp calls to catch up during which we also inadvertently swap life advice on how not to crumble under pressure as female business owners, and how to achieve the best version of ourselves.

Was this what I imagined at 13 when I saw her in the lunch line? No. I’m glad we both went out of our comfort zones and chose to take this friendship journey and evolve into leaders, together.

The friendships we choose become the voices that shape our lives.

During this pandemic, my relationships have been evolving. My childhood friends, many who are new moms, will occasionally Facetime me with their babies I haven’t met yet, and our worlds seem so far apart yet quintessentially the same. I’ve been watching them blossom into mothers over screens, and it’s fascinating. For one, they’re usually not wearing tops (go figure), and our conversations went from talking about brunching at Felix to sleep schedules and how their partners are as dads.

My friends who are single are less consistent. One day they’re at home in their Manhattan apartments, the next they’re at their parents’ house in Atlanta. Many have temporarily relocated to AirBnBs in Florida and it’s hard to keep track. I, myself, am in a relationship and we relocated to LA for the foreseeable future, so the time zones are varied and vast.

A childhood best friend — my swim class friend! — called me when she realized she had to put dating on hold and consequently, decided to freeze her eggs. I spent hours with her on the phone as she talked about how she couldn’t believe that she would have to hire a cab to come pick her up after the fact because the pandemic prohibited guests from coming in and most of her friends had left the city.

In that moment, I got to be there for her beyond ritual, beyond showing up to the egg freezing facility with a fruit basket. I listened to her innermost fears around loneliness, and in that, I realized I, myself, harbor many of the same ones. We now have the power to time our fertile destinies, but in that power lies the voice saying whispering, “Am I making the right decisions? Will I miss my time?”

As we shed layers, go inward, and express ourselves in ways more keeping with times — authentic over glossy — the kinetic energy between the people we stay in touch with is becoming more potent.

Then there are the friends I met over Zoom or in Clubhouse. I realized that some of the people I talk to the most now are people I have never met IRL.

“Pandemic-friends” is a phenomenon so unique to our time.

Some people I’ve e-met were customers of Sightworthy whom I got to know better simply because instead of meeting in stuffy conference rooms or loud, dressed up dinners, we were meeting in pajamas, on Zoom, while sitting on the couch with screaming children in the background (theirs not mine!). This accidental intimacy led to conversations about things like life without childcare, romantic relationship struggles, and secret anxieties we co-harbor.

As I observed our shared struggle, the voices in my head whispered, “You’re doing OK. Just keep going.”

The formality of once-distant voices dissolving into familial warmth kept me going back in March and April during NYC’s peak-pandemic — aka the apocalypse — when I thought I was losing my mind sipping Merlot for endless hours on the couch.

Other now-friends I met in Slack rooms or Clubhouse, an audio-based app I joined in November. When I started joining South Asian startup rooms and creative clubs, it opened up doors to people in LA that it would have taken me years to meet in such a spread out city.

As I felt the kinetic energy of fearless creatives seeping into me, I started shedding my ego and delving deeper into my creative work, writing and publishing several times a week.

This energy snowballed. I’ve since met professional writers, BiPOC-film-directors, founders interested in ethically growing startups, suddenly finding myself talking more openly about controversial topics I would be scared to bring up with people I’ve known forever.

There is something about the comfort of meeting people who don’t know your baggage, of not having to show your face over video or bother with the uncoordinated text conversation, that leads to the intimate — the deeply real — conversations almost immediately.

Gone are the days where are only friends are the people we went to school or worked professionally with, if we so choose that path. There are now millions of portals through which to meet like-minded energies and while everyone is at home, people are actually investing in them in a meaningful way.

Quarantine life has necessitated an opening of souls, at least for me, to stay sane. I lead with energy, rather than action, with purpose rather than obligation.

While I miss my old life, I have become acutely aware of the voices around me, and how they deeply impact the way I conduct my life. I am both curious and eternally grateful to see how these pandemic friendships, as well as rejuvenated and reformed childhood ones, will continue to progress and evolve.