Proximity Is The Essence Of Adulthood

It seems like we don’t acknowledge this enough.

I was walking my dog earlier and thought about this. I wanted to try and turn it into a post. Let’s see how successfully that can be done. Seems like this needs to begin with definitions and boxes/categories, because that’s how people conceptualize stuff. For this topic, I’d say you’re looking at:

• Physical proximity
• Emotional proximity
• Life proximity

Let’s see what we can do here.

Physical Proximity

This would refer to living in the same town or city, or even neighborhood or block, as someone else. If you have physical proximity to someone, there’s no guarantee you will be friends, of course. But there’s a much higher likelihood.

I think about this kind of stuff all the time. I had a pretty good friend in college, who is from Georgia but moved around to San Francisco, NYC, and DC (where he is now). Over time, our relationship just kind of eroded. I am sure it is a mix of things each of us did and the passage of time. Around 2019–2020, though, I would sometimes text him about major life events, or even call him, and get nothing in return. At first, and maybe even periodically now still, I got angry about that…