Fast Friends Love Hard

I was never one for small talk – I jump straight into the big, non-linear talk. My too fast too soon approach is unnerving for some, but for the ones that are in for the ride; our conversations go places, fast. I place little emphasis on the correlation between time spent with someone and the strength of a bond. We establish a solid baseline of mutual interest, and build on it.

Strength of connection ≠ time knowing a person

Fast friends love hard for a multitude of reasons. The toughest one to explain is when a connection feels ancestral — it exists beyond a realm of questioning; best left to being felt. Other more tangible reasons are time and space compressions; i.e. traveling together, crashing someone’s place, visiting home. Earlier this week, I was “home” for the holidays; and found myself at lunch with my family and a fellow family. Our conversations were wide-ranging and varied, storytelling was personal and collective, connections were intergenerational and unbounded. We all left the three hour lunch stirred by the intensity of our connection; confused by the sense of familiarity. We hung out with the siblings incessantly over the next few days — as if trying to catch up with all the years of not knowing each other.

Having grown up in the lap of travel luxury – the youngest of four girls and a sister of a luxury travel designer – I never needed to crash anywhere. My first “crash on the couch” was in a beautiful townhouse in the Mission District in San Francisco, with a couple who have become family to me. I spent more time with them than the friend I initially went to visit — living proof of fast friends loving hard. It takes two to “make yourself at home” — I took that invitation to heart and really got comfortable. We “Leen’d” in with love, and I’ll just say it’s pleasantly peculiar that their firstborn daughter and I share a name.

I recently met a cute boy, after some non-linear conversations, I double-tapped him on his heart because I liked him (more on this later), and his response was more than satisfactory. We exchanged details, and what followed was a series of synchronicities — our interests and friend groups overlapped in more ways than one. He went from a crush, to a fast friend that appeared in art galleries, boats, planes, dance floors and dining tables. While the suitor’s “game” is supposedly different from a friend’s game, I wouldn’t trade our current connection for a game.

And when fast friendships are challenged by distance, WhatsApp and Instagram step in to bridge a bond – albeit loosely and sporadically. Not all connections are meant to last; but long-lasting fast friendships work like magic, short-lived ones also have their charm — as if suspended from reality.

To all my fast friends and my slow-unfurling friends; here’s to more, new, many friends who love hard and last lifetimes.