20 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {sloane citron} friendship. We talked from our souls with no encumbrances. Again, it’s the Larry David effect. With some of my oldest friends, I have found the same. They know I trust them, and they trust me. Plus, none of us cares if we are called out on something. We all have been successful, the kids are grown, and the dog has passed, so we have the joyful freedom of seeing it as we see it. Just recently, someone I knew moderately well at my prep school, Andover, reached out and we discovered that our lives are very much in sync. Though he is now a rather famous director, and our lives took somewhat different paths, right now, we are bonding in a great way. He is working on the same projects as I am, and our lives are dedicated to furthering those aims. There is the cliché that “a friend is someone you can tell everything to and they still like you.” It’s great to sit with one of these friends and say whatever is on our minds. We find that the more we open up, the more in depth we go, the more we end up talking about intimate things that I thought I’d never share with anyone. By doing so, we connect in meaningful ways that is certainly good for our mental health. Developing deep friendships at this point in life is liberating and invigorating. One thing that I have learned, whether on these pages as an essayist, in the public or talking with my friends, is the importance of being earnest and vulnerable— telling it like is, and not caring what people think. It’s all thanks to my inner Larry David. I’m a grandfather to seven young kids, so you might assume that I have learned what I will learn, know who I know and am done building friendships. But you’d be wrong. While my brother, Dan, and my sons, Josh and Coby, are my truly devoted friends, and I have five other close friendships that stretch back 30-plus years, something fascinating has happened. I call it the Larry David syndrome—being comfortable enough in your own skin to talk openly and honestly without caring too much about what others think. I have found that speaking genuinely and openly is liberating. I find myself speaking my mind when I’m out and about in daily life, whether at a car repair shop that did shoddy work or with the vendor at the Giants game who offered a smile. Whether a confrontational situation or a pleasant encounter, I work hard to interact in a direct and thoughtful way with anyone I encounter. But I find that I no longer fear frank confrontation, something I could never say about my younger self. These days, my close friends and I are able to talk about all the crap in our lives with impunity. Instead of having to prove ourselves (as we used to), we are now competing to see who has the most nonsense and annoyances in their lives. It’s a race to the bottom. I will say, especially in these polarizing times, that most of my friends and I share the same background and political opinions, though not all do. One of my newest friends, with whom I could talk for hours, is a rather pious Catholic and on the moderate side of the opposing party. We end up agreeing on most things and we never argue. I like hearing his views and learning from them. We are a metaphor for what government should be like. I have one friend whom I’ve known for decades. In those many years spent at dinners and events, I don’t think we ever met without our wives being present. Since he leads a more outgoing life and is involved in so many things, I always felt that he wouldn’t want to have a meal just with me. His sweet wife once causally suggested, as we were leaving their home, that her husband and I should have lunch, so we did. And we had a great time. I discovered that though he is this amazing guy, he puts up with as much nonsense in life as the rest of us. Sharing our intimate details was cathartic for us both and now we regularly get together. In another instance, an old client of mine, with whom I share many opinions and experiences, suggested we go have lunch on his large, beautiful boat in Redwood City’s incredible new Westpoint Harbor. Outside of an office setting, sitting on the shining wooden dock, we discovered the basis of true pretty, pretty good friends
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