I’ll never make friends this way
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I went to a book fair to make a friend.
In hindsight, this is the absolute worst place in the world to try and meet people. It’s a bunch of introverts looking at books. Or when not looking at a book, gazing at their shoes or their phones.
It’s one of my goals this year to make a new friend or two. Someone to grab a beer with and have an interesting conversation. Play some tennis. Get matching ouroboros tattoos in Bali. Whatever it is that adult friends do.
So I’m pushing myself to do something each week to get out there, rub shoulders, catch covid, run back home and watch a movie with my cat.
That’s how I found myself on Saturday morning, looking through LA events, landing on a book fair in the arts district of downtown Los Angeles.
I like books. I’ll go.
But first, an awkward confession.
Before I left I watched a couple YouTube videos.
On how to make friends as an adult.
That seems so ridiculous — like, I’m 40 and watching videos on how to make friends??
But it’s seriously so hard!
I’ve never been good at making friends.
I was an only child.
I was beat up in the locker room.
In high school my friends group decided one day to just kick me out.
They announced this by throwing my backpack onto the roof.
It got easier in my 20’s, but then as an entrepreneur it got harder, and lonelier.
This is how I ended up at a book fair, with a goal of making a friend, in an almost impossible situation.
I walked through the book fair, talking to the various publishers, watching the interestingly dressed people.
“Oh, my husband,” a woman says as I walk past, “he is SUCH an autodidact.”
Too high IQ projection, I think. Pass.
A crowd gathers around a 12 year old boy, and he’s telling some story, and the women are all smiling and sort of cooing around him.
“He’s so smart,” one says to the mother, “he’ll do well at Fancy Name Private School, I’m sure I can help him get in.”
Too parent-y, I think.
A man dressed in a bright yellow jumpsuit. Fun. I get closer and overhear him: “I know I’m just a middle-aged white guy, but if they’re not interested, then they can just get the fuck out of here!”
Whoa, too aggressive, I think.
I end up sitting at a table, holding a parasol (because they have them?), eating a taco.
A woman writing in a notebook in front of me, writing so very small, even smaller than me, and she smiles and I smile back — but it was the comfortable silence of two people comfortable being alone.
An elderly woman sits next to me. She tells me “she pretends to be a writer.” I say that’s what all writers say. She’s writing a children’s book. I encourage her to talk to the publishers there, give some tips on finding an affordable illustrator, and wish her well as she needs to head back soon to Union Station to take the train back home.
AND THEN I FOUND MY FRIEND!!!!
They opened up to me like a book.
I knew they were the one.
…because it was a book.
And I like books.
It was not all that interesting from the cover, but as I paged through it, I was compelled to buy it and start reading it right then.
It treats graphic design as a liberal art, and goes in-depth on the history from a very practical perspective. And it even dives into watch design and computer interface design! This is my kind of book.
My introvert battery now being depleted, I left. I walked out of the building, berating myself. You idiot, you dolt, you shit-for-brains, you didn’t achieve your singular goal. You have zero new potential friends. All you have is another book, and you have enough books. Failure, failure, failure!
But you took a step, another voice says, you talked to some people, you walked around, you sort-of-kind-of mingled. And you found a cool new book. Be proud of yourself, be gentle on yourself, and do a little better next time.
A 42-hour… lecture?
As I drove home, listening to Pachinko, my mind kept wandering to one of the first things referenced in the book, a 42 hour lecture by on everything Buckminster Fuller learned in his life.
Whaaaaaaaaat.
Hobbes is always under my books ^
I found the lectures online and started listening to it on my evening walk.
Bucky mentions his father would take business trips to South America and India.
Each trip would be take 2 to 3 months.
A single trip back then, I thought, is longer than all my international trips combined.
When I was in Spain for two weeks last year it felt like forever. I was getting homesick.
Two weeks!
I was inspired to make a TikTok about this crazy long lecture, and I was blown away by the interest. Lots of comments asked me to share my learnings about it.
I’m considering going through the whole thing as an intellectual exercise, but I haven’t yet committed to it. We’ll see.
Weekly wanderings
🫖 Turn Studio makes incredible pottery that animates as you rotate it. I’ve never seen anything like this, it’s mesmerizing.
🪞 People Selling Mirrors: my new favorite twitter account. When selling a mirror, people are faced with a terrible challenge… how to take a picture without being in it.
🧩 Jigzilla: the automatic puzzle solving machine, or “I made a robot to have fun for me (part 1)” ****I love so much about this video. It’s really a phenomenal way of showing how to build something from scratch — both the fun and the knock-your-head-against-the-wall. But Shane succeeds at building a machine that puts together jigsaw puzzles! Also, I learned about telecentric lenses. Maybe next time he can try a Blue Kazoo puzzle!
💪 Healthspan. This is a new word for me, and I learned it from Dr. Matt Kaeberlein on Tim Ferris’s podcast. Basically just because your lifespan goes up doesn’t mean it’s a great time to be alive. Increasing healthspan might be more important than increasing lifespan. This year I’ve been working out almost every day towards this goal.
🥔 Take better pictures of potatoes. This is a great primer on taking better pictures of an object with an iPhone. At this point taking good pics is all about simple techniques that anyone can learn — we all have the technology in our pockets to take incredible pictures.
// Josh
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