[right][h2]Jay’s Catharsis[/h2]
[@Stanifly][@silver21][@DaftJive][@Tlazolteotl][/right]
Jay smirked at Silver Blade’s answer. Because she was right: you don’t know. You can’t know. That was the whole problem wrapped up in three words.

But then Sirpa suggested they could just [i]ask[/i], and the smirk dimmed.

“Does an answer like ‘asking means you don’t trust me’ count as being weird about it? Or saying they ‘feel a kinship’ instead of just… saying we’re friends?”

It used to be easier to tell. Jay had always been better at reading people in person. There were cues in the voice, in the body language, in the half-second pause before a laugh that told you whether it was real. When they were younger, they could even feel the moment it happened. A spark, a buzz. Something that lit up in the chest when you knew you were on the same wavelength.

But that was harder to do through a screen. And whatever social instincts Jay used to have had gone down the drain during the pandemic. Not that their social skills had been [i]great[/i] before all that, but they’d been better than this. Functional, at least. Now every interaction felt like trying to read a book in a language they used to speak fluently but had half-forgotten.

“I think—” Jay paused, trying to find the shape of what they meant. “Okay, this is going to sound weird, but I think there are… levels? To friendship?”

They winced a little, already hearing how that might come across. Too late now.

Other cultures seemed to get this. Acquaintance meant one thing. Friend meant another. Americans just crammed everyone under “friend” and hoped for the best. [url=https://culturalmixology.com/relationship-building-are-you-a-peach-or-a-coconut/]Peach culture[/url], they call it.

“I have plenty of people I’m friendly with, but I’d only call a handful of them actual friends. Even fewer close ones.”

Jay exhaled.

“Friendship matters to me. A lot. When I call someone a friend, I mean it. I take it seriously. It’s not just my word for ‘someone I’m not enemies with.’”

Looking around at the others, Jay asked, “Do you guys have friends?”