Six weeks in Berlin now, and this topic has been on my mind a lot.
Two friends moved to Berlin over the last couple of years, giving me two more friends in this city than I have in my hometown in India.
An optimistic start, and an emotional roller coaster since. This newsletter is a testimony of some of my inner musings about friendship:
About five weeks ago, a friend and an ex-resident of Berlin offered to put me in touch with his circle of friends. I declined.
Hey, don’t roll your eyes at me. Hear me out:
I am 29. In the past decade, I have moved my base five times: hopping from one metropolitan in India to the next (under somewhat dubious circumstances). Just before the pandemic, I turned to my family after quitting my last job in the capital. But in another year, at the height of the pandemic, I moved out again, this time, to a small, lifeless town in a different continent.
Through all the experiences gained over this rather eventful decade, I wanted to believe that I had learnt a few lessons in navigating friendships and relationships, and sought to practice in my own terms, in a brand new city in this post-pandemic world.
I wanted to slowly and organically make ways to find a set of friends, and in that attempt make Berlin, my own.
Fine, fine. You can roll your eyes now.
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Earlier this year, my sister moved to Delhi for work. While I was helping her with the transition, we had long chats about her finding friends outside of her workplace: for work-life balance and all that. Based on numerous internet pieces I had read on how to make friends as an adult, I suggested her to join some sports classes or find hobbies: a shared passion is often a good bridge for human connection.
When time came for me to make my move to this german capital, I took this nugget of advice and gulped it. I soon realised I couldn't afford pottery or sports class here; there were only so many historical walking tours one could go on; and running along the river was becoming boring and repetitive. Where do I find potential friends then?
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During my thesis research, I read a lot into diaspora literature, which stirs a profound longing for visibility, shared identity, politics, and nostalgia. In this big city, I had the opportunity to connect my old life with the new, find people to whom I wouldn’t have to contextualise Mihir Virani’s endless cycle of rebirth to make sense of a tweet, or explain what these mumbo-jumbos mean for a generation.
Hence, I set myself to find one South Asian friend in this faraway land. I was not in a rush. It was not ethno-centric, but rather a friendship that could also validate this part of us.
I was already visiting various political spaces, but now I was keen to find those that are also centred around south asian cultures. At an abolitionist gathering (@cafecrallekollektiv), we were organised in small groups and I met this gujju-american woman who on learning about my quest, suggested this local collective (@subkontinent). I followed them on Instagram and later that week, attended a film screening about Eelam Tamil migrants. A sister collective (@criticalpk) organised another event the following week, on post-partition 1960s cinema in Pakistan; there I learnt that the speaker’s forefathers migrated from my birth state (Jharkhand) to Pakistan during the partition and carried along with them some culinary memories in form of tilkut and sattu, food that are perhaps foreign even to my friends from other parts of my country. I hung around after, and met some others who told me about this Ind vs. Pak cricket screening at this cute leftist cafe (@cafe_karanfil_bar), so I went for the broadcast, met some more people over excellent biryani as we cheered each other’s downfall, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder.
The people I was meeting were closely aligned with my politics, and with the recently concluded lok sabha elections in India, the timing couldn’t be better. We endlessly spoke of our cathartic relief, as if we all unclenched our jaws for the first time in a decade. The joy and optimism was quite palpable in the diaspora.
We talked about cinema, poetry, politics, festivals, music and cricket. Over a couple of beers, seasoned desi berliners would generously share their tips and tricks to get around the city, and I would keenly jot them down in my phone.
Just like that, every weekend, I was spun into the web of the south asian network, in all its glorious diversity and our collective pop culture memories.
Every other morning, I sent voice notes to my best friend telling her of my latest encounters. It was exhilarating.
A bunch of names on my contact list are suffixed with “berlin” now, instagram is more vibrant and locally relevant, and my notes app is full of lists and interesting places to go to. I find immense support and visibility among them (not to undermine the underlying cause tied to a somewhat homogenous caste or class position: which is especially apparent in these concentrated diasporic spaces and interactions).
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But last week, as the dust settled on my initial excitement, I found myself aching even more. Despite all this effort, there was still a sense of missing out on belonging somewhere, perhaps lack of a steady friendship? I wondered if I was merely surfing on top of these creamy layers of interactions every weekend.
I was spoilt for thick bonds in Erfurt: over the last years, I developed some tight friendships. Some of my closest friends lived in my building, or the building next door. Those not in the neighbourhood, had a toothbrush with my name on it. We were bound together intimately: cooking and sharing meals, laying in the sun with our honig melon fritz, locking arms and taking long meandering walk, organising similar study schedule and library break times.
In great denial of how this dynamic took a lot of effort and intent, plus time-wise: years, to create, I kept ruing these days: seeking a quick-fix for my current problem.
Don’t get me wrong, I do love it here in Berlin.
But the perils of living in a big city also confront you with challenges related to mobility, time management, and of a wide variety of possibilities that cater to everyone’s niche interests. In all these permutations and combinations, how do we find friends?
I am increasingly overwhelmed with the idea of building friendships again. I know it is not my first time, and it certainly won’t be my last. But as we get jaded in the world, this uphill task is becoming steeper (Sisyphus who?). To see people as ‘friends’, and outside of the milieu we met each other in: something to do with being better informed about socialising protocols and compartmentalising them accordingly. It is a push-and-pull. And I ask myself, how do we develop a friendship under these precarious circumstances. Sometimes, despite it.
It is not to say that people within certain contexts can’t be good friends, but the window is smaller. The hierarchy of other social relationships sometimes trump the friendship: think work colleagues. I wonder if in our early-age friendship, there is no transaction, but a conscious choice one had to make, again and again. Perhaps it was still as fluid and precarious, and I am just looking at them with my rose-tinted sunglasses. I don’t know.
What I do know is our collective humanness in early stages of every friendship: we do not know and merely speculate if they think of us the same way that we think of them.
It is a rite of passage.
A case of Schrodinger’s cat.
So until people explicitly tell me they want to be my friend, I don’t get it. In the sense, if we have any previous hierarchy in our relationship, I stick to that, instead of wanting or trying to be friends.
Let me explain.
During my job hunting quest a couple of months ago, I connected with G on LinkedIn. She wrote to me first, expressing an interest in my thesis topic and then offered to organise a video call, where she generously shared her resources, and continued to help me beyond her means. After I moved to the city, we went out for a walk where G bought me coffee and showed me around, as we talked about our day jobs and dreams.
Last weekend, we met again at a job convention fair for which we had ambitiously set aside an entire saturday afternoon. It was a useless fair, but we had a free afternoon in our hands now. So we walked to a park nearby, sat under the tree canopy that allowed small pockets of sunlight to leak through it when the wind blew, and chatted endlessly. Our work-related discussions were interspersed with chats about our families and feelings. The entire afternoon passed in a jiffy. Soon, we had to leave.
While walking back from the park, I thought to myself that perhaps G & I are ‘friends’. Perhaps she thinks of me as one, and I would love to consider her too. But despite all that, I was not sure if I was being an imposition and a part of me wondered if she was just being kind.
How do we make friends with these thoughts? How do we find the fine line between ‘taking it slowly’ and ‘double-texting’ our new connections; between apathy and enthusiasm? How do we know they want to be friends too, and didn’t merely share their Instagram handle to be polite?
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In the past, I have been extremely fortunate with friendships: quite a few of which span over a decade or two. I have carefully collected them like Pokémon through teen, as young adult, and even lately. Between fights and arguments, belly laughs and late sunsets, we’ve braved many seasons of massive character development, and found ourselves in this contentment and assurance of each other’s company and presence.
My friends know my erratic texting patterns and they’re not surprised when they receive a sloppy voice note, once in a while.
I know who to reach out when I want to eat a good cake and be delulu about my latest situationship; who will give me bitter + good advice over a fritz cola in the park or the toilet stall; who will engage with my dance club shenanigans and when presented with an opportunity will climb up the tables; those with whom I can express my most radical political opinions and feel heard, even if we disagree; those who will be my reluctant muse because they know I like to photograph them more than they dislike being photographed; those who know exactly what I want to hear, even when I don’t know it myself.
It is not merely about what we give each other, but rather that we build together.
I look back and I can’t remember how most of these friendships started, I just know they lingered and braved the test of time, and they allow me to be my true self, and now we have seamlessly become a part of each other’s lives.
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But again, these friends are hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres away at this time, as I try to build my life in this new city.
On some days, I feel painfully lonely, and don’t know what to do with all these emotions that weigh heavily on me: this emptiness, absence of any friend in close proximity, inability to hug them, hold their hands, spill our heart’s joys and woes.
It is like one can’t remember any of the good time, but is also mourning all that’s lost – wondering if they’ll only ever be a sad sack for the rest of their life – questioning if they can sustain any relationship in the future.
On other days, they are gleaming with the possibilities that humanity holds.
And on days like today, they try to rationalise their feelings, and know for a fact that it is all, bole toh, chemical locha and our brains are just deceptive little fuckers. Month after month, these hormones really have the capability to make you feel like there’s no love or light left in the world.
I read somewhere that we keep creating or fabricating ‘permanence’ in our lives, and it is not a transient condition.
On good days, it is a great quote. On bad days, it is an awful one!
So, I ask again, what is the foundation of any friendship?
Is it in seeking kindness and generosity; proposing that we might have similar interest; or potential for a deeper connection, which may or may not work, because it is based on what? Vibes?
Perhaps we can only speculate.
Is the definition around other kinds of human relationships also so vague and ambiguous? How do we make friends, this voluntary act that is constrained neither by romantic love nor familiar ties? How do we assign these roles to people?
How do we get out of this soup and open our hearts to unknown, yet infinite possibilities?
Perhaps we can only try, and then try again.
Till next time,
V
I think the start of friendship, at least for me, is to fulfil my loneliness with the people around and share some common interests. At some time of my not long life, I could be so content with my own, basically had no friends. I mean, I had people to go to Mensa with me or go out to shop, but I was also completely fine if I do these alone. With luck and effort some friendships maintain, the act of voluntary commitment for friendship is not romantic but also somehow is, in the way that the act is also looking for counteracting ? Maybe we just keep trying, and try again 💕