A Judgement Worthy Amount of Potatoes
You’re standing in your apartment building’s lobby, arms full of potatoes—yes, potatoes, plural, because apparently watching Matt Damon science the shit out of survival in “The Martian” one too many times has influenced your grocery choices. And there you are, contemplating the elevator versus stairs debate that plagues every third-floor dweller, when she walks by, clearly fresh from her own Costco haul, carrying a massive box of groceries.
We’ll call her Marie for the purposes of this essay and definitely not because she’s a law student who might sue me for using her real name. (Wait. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the law student part either. Let’s pretend I didn’t say that.)
As she passes, she makes no attempt to hide an amused glance, and quips, “Wow, you must really like potatoes.”
It wasn’t what she said so much as how she said it. A perfectly practiced blend of sass and curiosity, just enough to acknowledge the absurdity of my situation without judgment.
Suddenly, without really meaning to, you’re climbing the stairs together, two strangers weighed down by friendly conversation, a pallet of assorted snacks and fruit, and enough root vegetables to survive the Martian winter. What starts as a quip about those potatoes turns into hours of talking—bonding over the wisdom of bulk shopping, the value of emotional support cats, and the freelance hustle or law school life (hypothetically, of course). Before you know it, the afternoon disappears like steam from a cup of coffee, and you realize you’re stepping into something—but what exactly, you’re not sure yet.
The Fog of Friendship
It’s funny how these encounters happen. You meet them on the edge of something—could be a coffee shop counter at the close of a long day, or at a gathering you almost didn’t attend. It’s always somewhere small, unassuming, as if the universe wanted you to notice each other for the simple, ordinary things. They say something that might seem insignificant in the moment, but later takes on the weight of destiny, like a half-formed thought you’d forgotten you needed to remember.
People like this slip into your life so quietly that you don’t see the shape of it right away. You’re both searching for something, though you might not call it that. You tell yourself it’s just good company or something to pass the time, but part of you suspects it’s more. Maybe you’re looking for a place to land, and they’re looking for a moment to catch their breath. You circle each other’s orbits, pulled by an invisible thread that only ever appears in hindsight.
As of the writing of this essay, Marie and I have met up a handful of times. Some food shared here, a drink or two there, a random “I’m by the pool, where are you?” tossed in between. When I inevitably mention this to my kids, they will probably call these meetups dates, but that word carries too much weight, too much expectation. These are more like… note-sharing sessions between two people who happened to be studying the same subject: life, in all its messy glory. The comfort lies in knowing she lives on the second floor—the temporary floor, where month-to-month leases house temporary residents like graduate students and visiting professionals. There’s a built-in expiration date, and somehow, that makes everything easier.
It’s Not You. Or Me.
These kinds of friendships are strange—familiar yet fleeting, almost as if you were meant to walk beside each other just long enough to bridge some gap in yourselves. You don’t share the same goals, the same dreams; maybe you don’t even share the same zip code for long. But in this brief stretch of time, it’s as if the differences disappear, like they’ve been rendered meaningless by the warmth of simply being seen.
For someone like me, who tends to interpret any form of separation as rejection, there’s something oddly therapeutic about this predetermined goodbye with Marie. Maybe that’s the gift of temporary friends—they teach us that not every departure is an abandonment, that some connections can be both brief and meaningful.
Best If Used By…
You can always feel the end approaching with these friendships, like the last few pages of a book you can’t put down but are almost too reluctant to finish. You tell yourself that it’s enough to have crossed paths, to be two strangers on the same stretch of road for a time. And maybe that’s all it needs to be—an encounter that exists outside the usual boundaries, something that doesn’t demand permanence to feel real.
I don’t know yet how the story with Marie ends. Maybe we’ll keep in touch after she moves, maybe we won’t. But I’m learning that’s not what matters most. What matters is that we showed up in each other’s lives at the right moment, carried by an unlikely conversation about potatoes and the comfort of shared laughter.
Because sometimes the right person isn’t the one who stays but the one who shows up just when you needed them, before disappearing like a leaf on a passing breeze. After all, stranger friends have happened. And sometimes, that’s exactly how they’re supposed to be.