This summer, one of my favorite people married the woman of his dreams. The ceremony was immaculate, set in the foothills of Orange County at a ranch that appeared, and I later learned, yes, actually was, the backdrop for many classic films in Hollywood history. The outfits were on point, and the floral motifs were executed perfectly. While I didn’t know many of the people giving toasts, I still felt immense warmth, a combination of the history and love they had for the couple at the altar. And the food? The food was actually delicious, even as I’ve been conditioned to not expect too much from wedding catering. (Making pasta taste good for 200 people on a hot summer day seems like a genuinely Herculean task.) The bride looked like an angel, and the groom, one of my best friends, wore the biggest grin I had seen on him since Arsenal was within 2 points of the Premier League title. (Probably even bigger, honestly.) As the day turned to night, the drinks flowed and the music banged. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted someone sitting by themselves on the ledge of an ornate fountain. It was R. 

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R and I had been in the same fraternity in college, a hodgepodge of young men who achieved highly, drank constantly, and gardened on Sundays. He and I could not have been more different, and that was both the power and the charm of frat life, men coming together who would otherwise never cross paths. You didn’t have to be best friends with everyone, but a baseline, mutual respect always flowed. R was from San Diego, a true embodiment of a classic SoCal guy- laid back but passionate, untamed hair, and a knack for being outside whenever possible. He was a year younger and joined up right before Covid, so there wasn’t an abundance of time to really dig in and get to know each other. But I knew enough, and went up to join him at the fountain. 

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We chatted about the ceremony, and the groom’s mullet. It actually really works on him, R said. I genuinely agreed. I asked R how life was, how things worked out after our time at university. He seemed tired, not from the wedding, but an overarching exhaustion, one that became clear after he mentioned a recent move to New York. It’s all hustle and bustle out there, and R said that while he loved the energy, the city was weighing on him in such a way that building a life out there long-term was unsustainable, to say the least. He told me dating was tough, that there was a lot of “acting”. Being himself was paramount, and sometimes, that meant that he didn’t want to play the game of being coy, a common song and dance on first dates. I related to him deeply. Cheers to that brother, I told him, and we clinked beers in solidarity. He laughed and told me he thought that I always hated beer. I told him he wasn’t wrong- but we were at our fraternity brother's wedding, so hey… when in Rome.  

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Fast forward six months, R and I are sitting in a dimly lit bar in Bushwick, loudly talking over a couple of mezcal mules. We’re joined by our mutual friend, A. The three of us all live in New York, but haven’t ever gotten together, so there’s a palpable energy in the dank, smelly dive we’re all gathered at. 

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I told R how good it was to see him. I told him I remembered what he said to me at the fountain, how rigid and rough his life was here. I told him that A and I wanted to check in. To see if he was doing alright. We’re here for you, I told him. No matter how hard things get, you always have a couple of buddies here in the Big Apple. 

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I have never seen a man burst out laughing quite like this. Wait… what, R asked me? I reminded him about our time at the fountain, how I really respected him for opening up about his time out here. Yeah, that…. Could not have been me, man. I love my life here, he began to explain. With this, it was A who began laughing uncontrollably, joining R in a fit of hysterics. Wait, I thought you were like, hella depressed, I mumbled, finding myself slowly succumbing to a few chuckles. No dude… I like, have a really nice life here. I hang out with Emma Stone and talk about baseball for money, I’m living the dream, he replied. All three of us were now losing it. Who the hell did I talk to at the wedding? It had to be R, I was sure of it. I was sure he seemed a little down, I was positive. I frantically searched my memory, and I really couldn’t think it was anyone else. But maybe…maybe, there was a rip in the fabric of reality? My reality? I kept laughing. I guess it didn’t really matter.  

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I was a bit embarrassed, but I was still having fun. It was a good night, and a few hours later, we all agreed to go get dinner in a week or two. I was glad to be back up on Friendship Mountain. I have learned to love the mountain, and in turn, I believe it has eased up in its cold winds and icy crags. The climb is still steep, but it is more enjoyable than ever. I believe the sun shines down on my ascent because I do not force it to. 

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Male friendship is an interesting thing, especially as you get older. By “getting older”, I mean entering your mid to late 20’s, where life begins to creep up in a way that feels natural yet scary. An innate responsibility overcomes the average man, and suddenly, as if in the blink of an eye, most of the fellas are either engaged, in grad school, or moving to a new city. Some friends, like the one I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, are married. He has a new family. He has in-laws now. 

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So it’s more important than ever that we climb the mountain whenever we both find the time. A phone call one week, a short video of our morning walks the next. Sporadic texts about sports gambling, vacation plans, and how the Democratic Party has failed young people. While we live far away from each other, there’s rumblings of a summer trip somewhere, and of course, getting the groupchat to finally commit to a 2026 World Cup no-man-left-behind excursion.

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I moved to New York to start a new chapter in my life- professionally, sure, but also to test my pain threshold, and find a piece of who I really am. It’s been a little over three months, so the answers could be melting away slowly, revealing themselves under glaciers I haven’t noticed. Or they could be hurling themselves towards me, like a flaming meteor in low orbit. Maybe both. 

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A few things are starting to become clear, and one of them is that I love climbing the mountain. 

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