How to Make Friends as an Adult
On creating connections from someone who’s lived across three continents and nine different towns over the last 20 years
The two men waiting outside my apartment were an unlikely duo. Ishmael, the leader of the two, was a former cop, while his side-kick, Ventura, had the look and laugh of a seasoned criminal.
“Come on up,” I yelled through the intercom. “The front door’s open.” Then, as if I was preparing for a first date, I gave myself one last look in the mirror before making sure the coffee I’d made and the chocolate croissants I’d bought were arranged perfectly on my kitchen table.
Normally, I wouldn’t have gone to such extremes to accommodate a couple of guys I’d contracted to renovate the bathrooms in the apartment my wife and I had bought a few months prior. Being that we’d just moved to a new town in Spain though — and I was working from home and hadn’t yet met many new people—their non-stop banter over the preceding weeks had become a welcome reprieve from my normally lonely workdays.
But the moment Ishmael handed me the invoice and we said our goodbyes, a deep sadness washed over me. “Is this what it’s come down to?” I wondered to myself. “Is this what happens when you decide to work fully remote? You get excited about…
