Nice To Meet You

A Story by T. Greyman

For Rebecca Kyriakides and all the friends I made in the last year.

There comes a time when you really decide who your true friends are. They may not be around forever, but you know they've made a huge impact on your life. This time came for me last summer, a summer I'll always remember as the first step in determining my true sense of self.

Before that summer, I'd just broken up with my ex girlfriend and, not too long before that, my ex-boyfriend. So suffice to say, I was in a bad area of my life. I found it hard to bother with anything, college, friends, literally anything. Now the friends I had at that point are just silhouettes in the distance that had a name at one point. They're not to blame, I turned away from them.

Last summer, I decided to stop moping about and actually go out and meet new people. Before I made that decision I was practically a hermit, sitting inside playing games or lurking on the internet for days on end. I was invited to a friend of a friend's birthday party, hundreds of people were invited and it turns out that was to be the first of many gatherings over the summer of 50+ people. I honestly believe that going to that birthday party was the best move I've made for quite a while. I met so many interesting people that night, became known as the massive, musical joker after I was handed speakers, I put on some Skrillex since I knew the kids would like it and after someone claimed it was the most loud, bassy music ever made, I put on some Speedcore for s***s and giggles.

I like being the funny guy, you meet other funny guys and you end up dividing into your own little groups. I stayed with Sophie Riches, Sophie Phoenix and Zohar Houston, others joined our little group later throughout the year and over the last few months we became the little stoner group and we did everything together, we even came up with a name for our group, but to save embarrassment, I won't tell it. We'd go to raves, we'd open up to each other over Facebook and in person, go shopping together and now we're planning on moving in together. There's literally no way I can describe how close we are through these words on your screen, we've become a little family. We discovered who we are, grown more independent thanks to each other. There are points where some of the people I know feel like they're slipping away, but we're comfortable enough with each other to be able to bring that up and tie that connection we have back together. I'd hate to lose any of those friends I've made over the last year.

I won't go into detail about every person in our group, because this isn't just about them. I'd recently started talking to someone I'd met that summer, we never really talked before but now whenever we do, we can't shut up. We talk about all sorts, but it's never boring. Now I've invited her to hang out with me and my little group of friends because I'm sure she'll fit in perfectly. She's jokey, has a brilliant personality, a better smile and she hasn't smoked weed since September and she misses it. She has no idea what she's in for!

The beautiful thing about friendship is that it starts without you really noticing it, you say "Nice to meet you.", you introduce yourself and you start talking about all sorts of things personal to both of you that deepens your connection with them, and you open up. Even with all the things that went wrong in your life, a simple slip of the tongue that was taken in the wrong way, a mistake you made that you can never take back, a decision you made that cut the road to your progress short, your friends will accept them. They accept who you are and the kind of person you was before without hesitating, and they love you even more for sharing something you felt was holding you back as a person. They'll even open up to you and help you through hard times, because you've done the same for them and will continue to do so over the many inevitable hardships you or they will go through throughout your relationship with them.

Rebecca, I doubt I can be the perfect person you imagine me to be, but you'll never know until you decide to take a plunge into the lives of the people you meet. I can't say that we'll be friends forever or that neither of us will make a mistake that puts us at each others throats, because anything's possible. But I will say this.

It's nice to meet you.

For Kyriakuddlez.