I thought a lot about this over the pandemic.

I was always shy in grade school (heck, who are we kidding, I'm still shy). We moved around a bunch and after we left what I consider the closest thing I have to a hometown, making friends was rough. There's only 4 people I talk to (occasionally at best) from childhood/adolescence. It's weird. People talk about having friends as adolescents and discovering themselves through their friend groups. Article calls out learning to be intimate as well. I honestly feel like I missed out on that. My self discovery was honestly done mostly alone for the most part as my passions formed a kind of constant I could depend on. I only really had surface level connections, mostly through video games.

College was a huge breakout moment for me. I was surrounded by people who were interested in the same kinds of things I was! I ended up building a major social presence on campus through our computing clubs. I just liked talking shop with people and would help with homework and personal projects. Made a lot of good friends. Now here I am, in the last months of my 20s, and I'm rather proud that I'm still in contact with the vast majority of them.

Being in a California school studying CS, most of them ended up in the Bay. Some immediately left for Seattle or Austin, others did later. I ended up in Irvine as I did an internship at the socal office of one of the tech companies.

It was hard. My entire social world imploded over a few months. Dozens of people to talk to on campus immediately went to zero once I started working. I liked my coworkers and it was fun to talk shop with them, but there was a big age gap that made it hard to form personal connections. There's only one in or two coworkers who I became close enough to to, say, ask for a ride to a doctor.

I'd wake up, and it'd be quiet. I'd get home from work, and it'd still be quiet.

Thankfully a few months in, a friend suggested we put together a discord server of all our collective friends from school. Started at 10 people nearly every night playing games and talking about work and life. Not everyone joined, as this was fairly gaming focused. I swear this Discord group was the only thing that kept me sane over the 4 years I was down there.

Then the pandemic. Work went indefinitely full-remote and I was still living alone (27 years old and I was still not happy enough with myself to try dating). I moved back in with family and cancelled my lease once it became apparent that it was going to last awhile.

That saw me back up near the Bay. I didn't see anyone in 2020 because we all took COVID seriously (discord group was our coping mechanism), but after the vaccines in 2021, work was still fully-remote so took advantage of my location to start regularly seeing friends I hadn't been able to see much since college.

I hadn't been that happy in a long time.

2022 comes around and offices start to reopen. I'm looking at the logistics of moving back to Irvine. One of my friends asks why I'm moving back to SoCal if I was clearly so much happier in the Bay. I was close to friends, close to family, etc. Why not try to stay.

Considering many at my company seemed to prefer remote work anyways, I figured that I should ask about making my relocation permanent and moving to the main office up here. Approved immediately with zero resistance - and I on top of that I got a sizeable raise for the cost of living increase.

So I found an apartment in city with good access to public transit. I see friends multiple times a week now. We have a weekly movie and game night, regularly meet up for dinner in the week or weekend, etc. People's spouses, girl/boyfriends, etc. are part of the friend group.

I feel like I regained something I thought I'd lost forever. It's been a surreal and happy six months since I've moved here.

Friends are important, at least to me. No one should tell you any different. There's a reason some call them found family.