I have not seen Holly's home for close to a year, since she held her housewarming, and am curious how it has changed for this loft-warming. From Social media, I knew for this year that Holly saw other people and smiled for the couple of pictures, but Holly was a distant friend a town away. I have no real illusions that the reason she is more socially active - which is to of course mean "social with me where I can directly experience it" - is because Ken has given her the impetus to reach out.

Ken's recording and editing equipment has taken up the corners of Holly's living room, though she brags that he fits into three drawers in a dresser and that is what a woman really wants in a man. I don't think she sees the contradiction and far be it for me to make an audible note. Her aesthetic, while not strict minimalism, is at least not crowded. As an artist, she chooses carefully the visuals with which to surround herself. Functional though it is, there is something insectile about Ken's rig.

I forget that many of Holly's friends, at least if those who populate this Party may be taken as a representative sample, are decades older than me, not ideal for the unstated purposes of striking up an independent friendship. As people evidently do not exclusively exist for the pleasure of my latest psychological whim and personal challenge, I suppose I can forgive them their lack of suitability for potential companionship. Maybe some younger blood would come later in the evening. Maybe only retirees and indolent writers show up at the time stated on the invitation, uncertain how many hours we might have left.

For want of a better strategy, I stand in the kitchen, beside the food. A man, whose name I miss, mentions that only he and I have the right idea.

"It's like no one else has heard of filling your mouth with crudit?s because you don't know what to say!" As soon as I've offered this observation, I see that my joke has landed poorly. He does not speak directly to me for the remainder of the party.

I later talk to a woman, a veteran of the educational system, about how I work in juvenile justice and how the system is racist and fails the kids, and thus is failing a society that would be improved with rehabilitated teens instead of future inmates, but this conversation can only go on so long between two socially liberal people, nodding our heads at the injustice but having no realistic solutions, particularly not ones that can or should be hashed out in a kitchen during a party.

I feel that I do not have a place here prior to Amber's arrival from work, at which point my place is at her side, twittering to one another references obscure enough to constitute a dialect. I do not put enough effort more than my innate capacity for sociability into engaging people with whom I do not sense mutual relevance.

When I return for more snacks, someone comments that they made a peach cobbler with Holly in mind, since she is vegan.

"She is?" I ask immediately.

The woman looks with faint distaste that I do not know this about our hostess. I knew Holly was not an eater of meat or fond of most food in general, but it did not occur to me that she might have forsaken the entire products of the animal kingdom or I would have tried to accommodate her needs at our party the week before. Accidental slights are still slights, though better intentioned.

Holly asks what I think of her loft, a triangular nook with her bed beneath both skylights and fairy lights, and I tell her I love it, but what would she do if I didn't? Would she brick the whole thing up?

She laughs. "And what about Ken?"

"What would you say if I hated him?"

She considers it a second. "I would tell you to suck it."

"He is fine. I do not get evil vibes off him. I don't really know him." I was immediately unnerved by her ex and floated to Amber whether this was cause to decline further encounters, but we liked Holly enough to tip the scales in her favor. Ken has been warm regarding Holly and appropriate with the guests with whom he conversed -- he wasn't clumsily trying to hit on them or ask if their engagement was "serious," for instance. He is motivated toward his work, presently working on the campaign videos of a southern Democrat. He is not slothful or, from what I can tell, entitled. There was no mention that he was borrowing money from Holly with no intention of paying it back. Though it is likely unfair to judge his against his romantic predecessor, it also provides a low bar to clear. So, he will remain acceptable in my eyes (if hasty), until such a time as he isn't, by which point I do not think anything short of police intervention will do the trick.

The next day, I go to Veronica's party, though without Amber, who had worked long days this weekend, had to pack for our annual vacation in Lake George, and wanted some time in the apartment alone to decompress.

This is a housewarming, but only in the sense that this is now legally their house; they had been renting it for years before this deal closed. I had never visited before. Though I've known her for twenty years in some capacity, my friendship with Veronica has increased gradually over the course of the last five, from inviting me to do programs with kids when she worked at the Tivoli Library to coming to my apartment to write together to having her over for parties. I like her company, especially now that it is decoupled from billing her library, and want to know her better. I am in the market for closer friends and social attachments, so she and her partner JD may certainly do.

Her children are around, but they pay little attention to the adults, too occupied killing one another in Fortnite as they should be.

The house is lived-in, etched with the people they are and the life they lead. Housewarmings are otherwise strange affairs, with a whiff of cardboard boxes and packing tape. Nothing is settled. More people should hold housewarmings after years of occupancy.

I immediately seat myself on the back porch, because that is where Veronica is and I am not prepared to mingle with strangers without a buffer. I do not know anyone else in the house, all older relations. In time, where I have settled becomes the Tom Corner, as other Toms make their way to it, though one points out that I am a Thomm and he can hear the H in my name. Aside from scooping pasta salad and veggie loaf onto my plate, I am not ready to cede my territory.

Coley, whom I have known fractionally longer than Veronica, who I dated twice when I was a teenager, arrives after a half hour. I would like to be her friend again because it would do me good and I believe her to be a wonderful person based on however little I have gleaned about her in the last few years of social media and occasion parties we have coincidentally attended. I could rattle off my version of her story without much hesitation, but it would not be the same as being her story. I've always liked her and remember our initial fondness, decades prior, as one of the few I am sorry I lost.

The cluster of us on the back porch is convivial, though the conversation seems dominated by a woman who can't place my age when she complains about young people and her husband who teaches at Bard. So many people around me are professors of one stripe or other.

In parting, just before they start playing a card game, I assert to Veronica that I would like to see her more often. She is geographically close and is a kind and sweet person. Our conversations do not lag or fill with awkward silence.

Then, feeling Veronica might mean it when she says she would like to see me more often, I push my luck, turning to Coley and her husband Tom and say I would like to see them again, sooner than random chance or a party, which they do not seem against. When I get home, I friend Tom on social media, though I have been following Coley's Instagram for years. It is awkward to need these digital crutches to maintain contact, especially as I want less time spent in front of screen, but it is the only way invitations are going to flow.

I want instant friendships, an immediate equilibrium of fondness, but that takes work (usually, though I feel that Susan and I were great friends within a couple of letters and I think of her warmly far than I see her).

As I have discovered recently, social contact energizes me, even as it once drained me when I was more in my head and found the effort to turn outward exhausting. This was true even though I have played activity planner as long as I can remember. Now, when I have recently seen novel people and particularly when I have done something worth remembering, something other than sitting around and watching a movie (though that has its place), my mental health is near perfect. There are few clearer messages than that. This is a benevolent selfishness, because I want to do things that others will enjoy so I will make me feel better. I get what I want by giving others what they do.

There was a time not so far past when I would have eschewed Veronica's party because Amber wouldn't be there. Amber and I couldn't be independent. Since Amber has started working, her hours are such that we cannot always be together. My options were to mope about this or enjoy the time on my own, something I have not given myself since the two of us became a couple, and certainly since we moved in together. But I relish being on my own. It was one of the revelations I reached literally days before meeting her and it is one I am just now remembering. No one wants to be a burden to one's lover or have them feel beholden to one's socializing. I wanted to go to Veronica's party and would have stayed longer if I didn't have to prepare for our trip the following day. Amber will be fine on her own. If she wouldn't, our relationship is hobbling her, nothing I could ever want.

I have rarely resisted the jealousy that other people seem capable of fostering a group of friends into their late thirties, as I have found it difficult. Or, if it is not, it is that these friends all live very different lives. Where once I knew I could call up a dozen people and be having adventures within the hour, those people are now across the country, emotionally distant, or dead. I have not successfully renewed new friendships, or possibly accepted them into my life. I can throw a party and trust that close to half of those invited will show up -- always good odds for one of my parties -- but I wouldn't find it as easy to spontaneously arrange a road trip. As I have bemoaned, I do not think I have many people in my orbit in whom I can confide, which never ceases to be an irony because I have no issue writing these intimate concerns here for strangers to theoretically read. (I know people don't read these things, but I like the narrative lens over my life and occasionally dip back into these entries to prop up my fiction.)

Veronica has her close friends, some going back as far as high school. Holly hers, though some of them could be my parents. Chris was away this week on a man-cation with college friend, who meet annually to rent a cabin and hike and swims. Susan doesn't ever seem lonely, though I don't know this for certain. I hope she is not, because I find her to be wonderful and crave her company. Amber doesn't need much that she doesn't get through my attempts to gather people; she was raised to be content with less social activity.

I don't want to rush friendships along, but my need for them is more visceral than psychological at this point. Though the coin of my friendship is not accepted everywhere, it is valuable in the right quarters; I am not imposing on others by inviting them to spend time with me.

It's a lesson I think I have mostly learned.