I've known a number of writers, and as a class they are difficult to be friends with. If you can imagine most people being surrounded by a kind of spherical bub

I've known a number of writers, and as a class they are difficult to be friends with. If you can imagine most people being surrounded by a kind of spherical bubble, or maybe one with a few edges that represents their personal boundaries, a writer would have a kind of star shaped boundary, where in the crevasses they appear to have almost none, and at the tips they extend out further than normal and can be quite pointy. Fragile pricks even. I have no doubt people will ultimately say he was a good writer, a wit and wry observer, a fascinating person, even a fine husband or father, but I would wonder if anyone will say he was a good man, because friends are the only ones who can know that. I'd suspect that masculine friendship is something in particular that he's finding difficulty with, which is something there just aren't a lot of adequate words for, and what makes it such a complex and nuanced thing. Personally, I can enjoy months of relative solitude, but I also have dozens of people in my life who recognize me as a friend. The reason I was able to make friends is because I made personal boundaries that make friendships both viable and durable. There is something to be attracted to, but still very much an "other," that lets you be you and doesn't want your stuff, and we're all different enough that there is no danger from mimicking each other ("mimetic violence"). As a writer, Ford's entire stock in trade is in transgressing personal boundaries, and that is what makes friendship a kind of received concept for many writers. It's why I don't read the Guardian, as it tends to trade in a kind of sympathy that seduces readers into moralizing their feelings of inferiority by standing up straw men to take down with neurotic criticism, and that dynamic rewards the very things that make friendships difficult. To me, it's like some kind of Imposter Syndrome Daily. However, if he would like to be friends, I'm sure we could work something out.