The Soul Selects Her Own Society

That night, I looked over our guest list and realized that all our friends were either friends we’d had from college or friends we’d made in the first three years of moving to New York. Was Kenny’s fortune cookie right? Had our world become that small?

It made me think of this girl I knew at Bloomingdale’s. We briefly worked together in the sweater department. She was slightly zany and really sweet and we always had a great time together. She was only twenty-five years old but had already been married and divorced. One day she blurted out this statement, “I have more than enough friends. I just don’t have the time for any more.” I think she thought I was making overtures and wanted me to understand ours was a working friendship only. Even so, I couldn’t get what she said out of my head. It was so odd. On the one hand, I knew what she was saying. There was only so much time in a day. You should treat the friends you have well. Gathering more and more friends only spreads you out more and more, endangering the friendships you do have. But, on the other hand, friends weren’t sweaters you can coolly inventory. At least, I couldn’t. Isn’t there always room for more friends? At least, real friends, friends of the heart? I thought about that Emily Dickinson poem, “The Soul selects her own Society — Then — shuts the Door — ” Every time I read that poem, I could feel the door to my own heart shutting and there was something so final about it. So heart breaking, really.

Excerpt from Buy Her A Diamond Before It’s Too Late. Buy at Amazon, B&N, iBookStore, Kobo, etc.