There should be a word for the kind of friend you can go without seeing for years, then reconnect with as though no time has gone by. Martha calls those her “Anyway” friends, because they just pick right up with “Anyway…” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Anyway Friends”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, yes, this is Joan. I’m calling from Dallas, Texas.
Hi, Joan. How are you doing?
Hi, Joan.
Good, thanks. How are you guys doing?
All right, what’s up?
The question that I was calling about is, so I am kind of notorious for moving around a lot, and I have a lot of friends who live in different places. And so it’s, I know I may not see them, but like once a year. And so whenever I get up with them, I meet up with them, I was wondering if there’s a word for just meeting up with someone and reconnecting with them, just like you had seen them the day before, just kind of picking up where you left off.
I can give you a couple of words that I use to describe my friends like that.
Oh, perfect. Yeah, that’d be great.
Okay. One of the things that I call them, I call them my anyway friends.
Oh, nice.
Yeah, that’s a good one.
I get it. I get it immediately.
Yeah, I have a good friend who just moved across the border to Tijuana, and we haven’t seen each other in seven years. And we saw each other last week. And it was sort of like, anyway, blah, blah, blah, blah. I have a couple of those.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the other one that I just came up with last night, I was talking with my friend Carol, who has a tortoise. And I call them my tortoise friends. I was talking with my friend Carol, who has a tortoise. And she told me that in November, she puts her tortoise in the closet until March because they hibernate. And there’s nothing you can do for them.
I’ve heard people have put them in the refrigerator, in the crisper.
No, no, no. She just, she puts little Huey, Huey is 37 years old. She’s got a 37-year-old tortoise. She puts his tortoise in the closet and makes it comfortable. And then she doesn’t see it again until March. So they’re either my anyway friends or my tortoise friends.
I love it.
Oh, yeah.
But I love that feeling that you get. Like you were literally finishing a conversation that last was held in 2002.
Right.
And you just like pick up.
Yeah.
And you know everything about this person still because they’re essentially the same person you’ve always loved.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
Well, the only phrase that I’ve ever like come up with with kind of think of it is like that phrase, like riding a bike. Like you never forget to ride a bike.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So I had a talk with my friend Shannon who I hadn’t seen for a long time when she was visiting. And I was like, yes, being with you is like riding a bike. You know, we just kind of pick up where we left off.
That’s perfect.
That’s nice.
Yeah, I wasn’t sure if there was like an official phrase or an official word.
How about bike-like?
Bike-like.
My bike-like friend. You know, because old friend doesn’t quite cut it.
No.
Because that doesn’t express the idea that you’ve been separated for a while or that you can pick up where you left off no matter how much time is.
Yeah.
Well, we’re going to have to throw this out to the listeners and say, what do you call your friends who you haven’t seen in a while, but you can pick up a conversation at any time and it seems normal? There’s no distance, no weirdness.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
Joan, we’ll let you know what we find out, all right?
Yeah, don’t be a stranger.
Okay, all right.
Thank you so much.
Take care now.
Bye-bye.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
