Opinion | It's never too late to start nurturing the gift of friendship
Kelly Yang says a story about a great friendship has inspired her to pay more attention to deepening ties outside the family
Two weeks ago, I came across the most extraordinary essay by Matthew Teague in magazine. Teague's wife was diagnosed with stage four cancer at the age of 34. The cancer was everywhere; "like somebody dipped a paintbrush in cancer and flicked it around her abdomen," he wrote. He and his wife have two little girls. To help him get through this devastating situation, Teague's best friend quit his job and moved in.
The first thing I thought after reading this extraordinary story was, "Wow, that's an amazing friend." That was followed by: I don't have a friend like that.
Ten years of being out here in Hong Kong will do that to a person. I've missed more weddings, baby showers and reunions of friends back home in the United States than I can count.
And while I do have friends in Hong Kong, here, we are tied together by geography, rather than mutual interests.
These days, hanging out with friends in Hong Kong consists of three or four people slumped on the couch or at a restaurant table, all checking their iPhones. Any talking that gets done takes place over WhatsApp and usually involves a multitude of emoticons. Why articulate your feelings when you can just slap on a smiley icon?
Not that any of that bothered me. But when I read Teague's article, suddenly, I got a gnawing feeling in my gut, a worry that if I didn't start making time for friends - real time, not just WhatsApp time - it was going to be too late for me.
