From the day I was first abandoned on the doorstep, I was popular. The doorstep was that of nursery school and, though I cried when mom walked away, I became the Big Man on NS Campus from the start. Grade school was more of the same: I stood out in most sports; the girls and teachers liked me, and schoolwork was a breeze.
Despite being yanked from neighborhood to neighborhood — New York State to the shores of Lake Michigan, to the northern boroughs of Toronto, and back — as my parents’ fortunes rose and fell; and despite having to make friends anew in each locale, I always had a best friend, a little knot or circle, and a wider, more dispersed group that morphed into cliques and clumps.Â
Photo by Fateme Shahabi
And I was always at, or near, the center, the nucleus, the kids who found other kids at my door asking, “hey, can Danny come out to play?”
Junior high ushered in my guitar-hero, star-of-the-school musical era. With it came the long hair and first whisps of mustache. I rocked. I rolled. I had my own circle and was welcome in others’, in the sports locker rooms, and even in my sister’s thriving high school set. I was a living Venn diagram of relationships.
The author (in yellow) with best friend, Steve DiBenedetto, Yorktown Heights, New York.[1]Â
Photo by Colin Kempner (1972).
But then, it got complicated. I was an adult now and suddenly, there were no schools to provide me with an endless stream of potential pals. No more sports teams or choral groups or parties after the Battle of the Bands.
I got married too, and there were financial stress, and little time or energy for play. Though I met people whose ideas or manner attracted me, it somehow wasn’t as easy to casually ask, as we did in the old neighborhood, “hey, you want to come out to play?” These were grownups, with cars and kids. And the muscles animating my get-to-know-yous seemed to have atrophied.Â
Photo by Natalie Parham.
I had divorced and when I remarried, it was to a woman who had a huge catalog of friends on two continents. She still chatted with her entire high school group back in Asia, along with her college group, neighborhood group, and a significant smattering of unaffiliated friends she’d made once in Boston. I had, at that time, exactly one friend. One. And wow, was I envious. But I seemed to have lost the chops.Â
This was, I eventually saw, a real emergency. Action was needed. The muscles and systems that created solid friendships had to be rebuilt. I went about it with gusto, taking the standard “Hi, how you doin?”s to the next level, namely, “Hey, would you like to have coffee?” and my circle grew. My fiftieth birthday saw a full house of people that felt, despite the addition of wrinkles and the subtraction of pot smoke, remarkably like the gatherings of my youth.
In the midst of this renaissance, my family — there were now three of us and a fourth on the way — moved to my wife’s home in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. I was again, for all local intents and purposes, friendless. I could befriend American expatriats, but we lived in another quarter and somehow I couldn’t crack that scene. The locals were thrilled to meet me but though I tried manfully to master Vietnamese that language, and its hideous tones, defeated me.
When I left that land, eight years later, no lasting friendships remained behind. Instead, for various good reasons, I took my little family to a place I’d never even seen before, a city where we knew no one: Sheffield, England.Â
Sheffield, England. Photo by Ben Elliott.
When I left that land, eight years later, I was still so. And the move this time was to a place I’d never even seen before, where I knew no one: Sheffield, England.Â
It’s time (sigh) to start all over again. Will it be a parent met while droppinga my daughters off at school? Will it be a neighbor? Perhaps Sri Lankan fellow I met charging his EV around the corner who said, “stop in any time.” Will I? If not him, then whom? Can those shriveled, weakened friend-making muscles be coaxed into action and pumped up once more?
Photo by Alicharmant.
We’ll see. But that is my clear task, my personal mission. I’m not alone, nor am I lonely. I have my wife, and my girls, and all sorts of people I see online. But a man should have friends nearby: men he can stroll with, play catch with; men he can meet for ‘a swift half’ down the pub. Men he can play a game of checkers with, men he can confide in. Or, in the best case, men he can just sit near while they read the paper.Â
Men need friends. I need friends. Wish me luck. And, oh yes… they speak English here.Â
References:
[1] Steve Dibenedetto, who used to borrow my father’s markers in order to doodle, is now a world-famous artist. He remains, though far away, a very good friend.
About the Author
Dan Kempner is the Executive Editor of MDI Legacy Magazine. He is a writer based in Sheffield, England, where he lives, works, and cultivates a tiny pear tree. He is very happily married with two young daughters.
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A Word on the Fronispiece...
Original photo of Steve DiBenedetto (Left) and Dan Kempner (Right). Photo by Colin Kempner.Â
The frontispiece is a copy which has been enhanced for detail clarity and graininess by ChatGTP ai.Â
