Friends I’ll Never Meet
There’s this person whose work you follow, whose voice or vision or style has been part of your thinking for years, and you feel like you know them. You’ve spent hours with what they’ve made. You’ve laughed at their jokes, cried at their stories, been moved by something they created when they had no idea you existed. And that’s it. That’s the whole relationship. You’ll never have coffee with them, never exchange a real conversation, never become actual friends. It’s not sad exactly—it’s just the shape of modern admiration. You’re grateful for what they’ve put into the world, and they’ll never know your name. There’s something clean about it, actually. No disappointment, no awkwardness, just the pure fact of their work mattering to you. I think that’s enough.