No matter what anyone says, it's important to have friends. It's important to have people in your life who've "got your back" - people who would drive you to Boston Logan International Airport at 3 a.m. in a borrowed car and people who you'd stand on a chair in the middle of a full cafeteria and lead a rousing rendition of 'Happy Birthday' for (erm, for the record, I don't really think those two things equate - one's a significantly bigger sacrifice than the other). Really important.
When I first moved to London, I had this many friends: 0. Now I have about 7 (that's 7 unique friends, as in, friends I made without the help of John, thank-you-very-much). I'm quite proud of that number. But when you can count the number of friends you have on one and not-quite-half hands, little changes can make a big difference. Say a friend moves out of London entirely, or just to another neighborhood, or changes jobs - you don't lose that friend, but you see a lot less of them. Suddenly, things begin to shift quite rapidly: the desk you used to look forward to working at isn't looking so appealing anymore, the journey on the tube from your familiar station is a little lonelier and maybe instead of dialing a number, you email instead, since that doesn't cost money on your phone plan.
And in a city like London (or New York, or Chicago, or Boston, or Seattle, as I'm sure you all know), that matters. As an adult, you sound so pathetic when you say something like, "I want to make more friends." Because everyone who's anyone already has friends - they already know each other and they don't need to make new ones. More importantly, as you discover, they went to uni (college) together - so why would they need to possibly meet anyone outside their circle of friends? Beats me too, I know.
But I do.
So I'm hoping that all these changes within my friendship circle will be positive ones - leading me to meet more new people and maybe even make new friends - as difficult as that is in a city like this.