This trip is dedicated to friendship. I’m basically going to leave my partner room for her activities and duties and also let her develop friendships of her own. On my side everything fell into place in a fortuitous way as well. A couple of weeks ago I declared for the first time in my life, mind you, my love for a friend. She’s in many aspects as close to my ideal human being as anybody can get and the fact that she is also a girl means that I’m defenceless. The declaration however was more one of friendship than mainstream love. There is no necessity, no urgency, no drama, I just made it clear that I wanted her to be an important pillar in my life from now on and that I want to spend as much time with her as possible. That’s about what I tried to say in one of the most tender conversations I ever had. Now her reaction also was a thing of indescriptible beauty. She said that she always saw me only as a very good friend and then over the next week or so, acted like hearing my feelings was actually the best thing that happened all year. I made the right choice in trusting her with my feelings, because now we are without any doubt important events in each other’s lives and can hope to grow and develop together in almost all circumstances. I’m convinced, this is the best possible outcome, friendship is, because I now believe we can talk about anything, including feelings, partners, weaknesses, the most personal things without jealousy, dishonesty, fear of missing out or any other toxic thoughts creeping up. I have the feeling this does not happen often and have a few ideas why. It is emotionally challenging. I’d say that I’m almost every day happy and also a bit sad, because I let her take up so much of my attention space. Feelings happen involuntarily and you have to think them into order. I actually enjoy both joy and melancholy and any feeling is better than their complete absence, because it makes e feel alive and like having purpose. I think you have to react strongly to anything you find important, that feelings will always fill the whole spectrum and that you are more vulnerable in this situation. But if you opt out of passion, purpose, enthusiasm, friendship, love, whatever the term might be, you won’t be the best version of yourself. It also takes time; it took 3 years to build up the foundations. Things went well since day 1, but they were also at a standstill for almost a year, caused tears and tasteless sadness, required readjusting, other people and friendships and so on. And like with any creative pursuit, you have no guarantee of an outcome. You make friendships like you compose music or do foundational science. You do it because you just can’t help it. I knew unconditional friendship existed, because my mom had a lifelong best friend with this intensity. But I thought it was impossible to replicate. I certainly never even had the urge before. Also I feel, without the philosophical scaffolding of my long term, let’s say romantic relationship, this kind of friendship would have been killed in its infancy. Because without any doubt, this new friend takes up more time and causes stronger emotions, curiosity and reactions. It is love, I have to reiterate the word and also acknowledge that love and friendship blend seamlessly. The best friend’s presence makes your life just markedly better and their prolonged absence is a catastrophic event. If you can imagine spending all of your time with them and the thought that for whatever reason this might not happen feels like seeing the last sunset, you love. I feel both, and I’d like to think, for the same reasons. Now, there is the typical topos of drama, where lovers cannot get together because of societal constraints. Generally constraints on the side of the woman, who was basically treated as damaged goods when entering a relationship she hasn’t been destined for by the people of her life, because for men there was always some grey zone, where you could basically do whatever, outside of morality. Needless to say, in most of the world this topos shouldn’t be interesting anymore. But from what I hear it is and might be in far above 50% of it. And even for the rest, people are guided by what they think is right, what they think people think, by the outside observer, which incidentally they love to be for their peers. Maybe now more than ever, society is again guided by unnuanced judgement of the masses. The plot might be less dramatic but how often have you seen something like this: should I hang out with friends or have kids? Should I have a serious relationship, or short, fun ones? Should I settle down, become an adult? Should I stay in a boring, safe job or try something risky on my own? Judgement based on misconceptions and wasted possibilities. How you love is just one aspect but really this is about freedom society still does not grant easily. People love to judge, fear to do and blame others by being unfair. In absence of the outside observer, things are really simple. You evaluate your situation, put ourself in a place where your actions impact only yourself, where the impact you have on others is openly discussed and then you act, justified by the consent of all concerned people. Forget about social media or AI as measures of development. The day people can openly articulate intent, negotiate and adapt freely, is the day we will have taken a step in the right direction.