Personally, I'm most content and productive when alone. Even having my overly friendly cat around (love em to death), can throw me off and drain my mental/physi

Personally, I'm most content and productive when alone. Even having my overly friendly cat around (love em to death), can throw me off and drain my mental/physical energy. I rarely open up to others outside of our group/online/irl, but with that said, I love my tight knit group of friends as if they're brothers and sisters, and I don't know where or who I'd be today without them. We've all openly shared and continue to share that sentiment to this day. Speaking for myself, growing together in our late teens/early 20s till now (early 30s) has been one of the best experiences in life and one of the most important factors to my personal development/growth. Not only have we been supportive of one another through thick and thin, but we've also helped one another to acknowledge and be critical of our individual faults, perspectives, project concepts/execution, but always backing with constructive feedback that has only helped each other flourish. Over the years some have gotten married, moved into some big/high visibility positions, received public recognition for their work, left the city (nyc) to find peace of mind, have financial independence, have relative stability in career, have faced chaos in career, struggled with addictions, went to rehab, had near death experiences, faced incredible family tensions, dealt with loss of loved ones, the whole gamut. But we've all always been there for one another through all of it, unconditionally and without judgement. Whenever we meet up (or nowadays connect via online game or video chat) between everyone's hectic schedules, it's as if no time has passed since we last hungout/spoke, and without hesitation the ball busting commences. I'm an introvert who, pre-March stayed inside all weekend, and post-March for a week or so at a time recharging, and am not what one would call a "people person" (not a misanthrope, just more comfortable outside of social/noisy settings, otherwise I need headphones and ambient/Warp Records music to focus). And about half of us in our group are introverts, but when we hit each other up and time permits, we're there. It's hard to find these kinds of friends, and before meeting any of them, I felt more or less alone in the world in thoughts, interests, etc, and figured I'd just live in my own company with all the feelings and limitations that come with that. But I was wrong to think of or to be fine with that. It's corny/cliche to say, but friends like them can't be sought out, forced, or "networked", they come naturally and unexpectedly in chance moments, at the right time, in the right setting. And when you find them, you'll know and will see that they're invaluable and inimitable in so many positive ways, and that together, through giving/sharing each other's thoughts/sentiments/perspectives/concepts/kindness/humor/honesty/love/etc, everyone has something to give and to gain just in the name of doing so.