I Celebrated a Friendship Made in an Airplane

I’m in a stage of believing that making friends is considered to be a harder task compared to make a living. Work consumes most of my daily energy, 8 hours of communicating with working partners drain my force, and as a self-proclaimed introvert, I dislike most of the social events.

Life as an adult is lonely; it’s not the time for making friends, what you have to do is to maintain the ones you made back when you were younger, but that’s easier said than done. I only have very few friends from school that I still consider as ‘friends,’ and sadly they are too, busy with their own life. Sometimes I blame my lack of social skills as the reason for my solitude, sometimes I blame marriage that taking away what left in my friend directory, sometimes I just wondering how to find new ones.

This is a story of an unexpected friend-making event that happened 1 year and 1 day ago on a flight to my hometown.

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January 2019, I flew to Singapore to escaped the reality of my failing relationship and to seek consolation from my best friend who lived there. I stayed there for a week, and by my time in Singapore was up, I was so firm with my decision to let go of my ex and move on.

Still, I was so tense and grim on my flight back home; I used my handkerchief to cover my nose because I was on the verge of tearing at any moment. At first, I didn’t realize the guy who was sitting next to me, but then because I looked so ‘pissed’ he politely asked me, “Are you okay?” That simple question actually woke me up from my reverie, in the end, I spent the whole 2 hours talking with this random Singaporean guy.

In the beginning, I thought that my interaction with this ‘rando’ would end once we touched down to our destination, but then when we were lining up for the immigration process, he was so confused on how to fill up the immigration card and in the end I found out that he had no slightest idea about what kind of place Bandung is. He hadn’t book any single accommodation and had no internet connection to did so. And if you ever heard on how extra-friendly Indonesians are, you are probably correct, because at that time I knew that I can’t leave this guy alone. So in the end, I helped him find a hotel, got an Indonesian sim card, and took him for lunch.

So, he stayed for 5 days and I took him around 2 times during that period. In the next 5 months after our first encounter, he actually did visit me in Bandung 2 more times and we were mostly just hung out and grabbed lunch or something. When I traveled, I often sent him postcards and sometimes he did the same too.

And now it’s 2020 already. I still am friends with the flight-guy and we are still talking and hang out once in a while. I am so good with remembering dates and I texted him yesterday to celebrate our first year of friendship.

Wait, was that actually a cue for me to fly more in the future?

xx