Couch Friends

Will you come over, and just...not talk to me?

People are generally surprised when I tell them that I spend the majority of my time alone.

Like, I’m a really social person, but as I’ve gotten older the only people I want to spend more than 60 minutes with are couch friends.

Let me explain.

Y’all, I’m tired. You’re tired. We’re all tired. I’m at a point in my life where I know what I like, who I like and how I like to spend my time.

I’m always open to being pleasantly surprised, but I don’t leave a lot of room for it anymore (Dunbar’s theory is real).

I guess that happens when you spend 40 years learning how rare couch friends are - and when you find them, you keep them (you know who you are my bbs).

But a move like the one we made, across the ocean from a couch we thought was forever (true story, it was the RH cloud couch…IYKYK), was always going to shake things up.

Seats were going to empty.
Literally, because the couch is in a storage unit in California.
And emotionally, because distance has a very real and often painful way of revealing who was genuinely sitting with you,
and who was just there out of convenience.

This month will be a year since we moved to Portugal and I’ve made approximately one couch friend since then, Alex.

The move to Portugal had been a long time coming, but our honeymoon is when we got love drunk and delulu enough to think rural island life on the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira was our thing.

Gorgeous place. Absolutely stunning. Postcard-perfect.

We were also fucking miserable.

Google makes Madeira look like the inside of a fantasy film.
What you won’t see is me crying in our stone house while mold ruined everything we owned and the neighbor plotted our murder.

So yeah… it doesn’t matter how beautiful a place is.
Without couch friends, beauty is just another stupid stock screensaver.

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I met Alex playing a padel match and found out it was her birthday the next week.
And because wooing is my #1 Clifton Strength, obviously I brought her flowers 💐.

She liked that.
We became regular friends after that, not couch friends… yet. Just normal “see you when our schedules align and we’re both wearing hard pants” friends.

Then one day I had a few hours to kill in the only livable city on the floating flower pot and texted her:

“Hey… can I just come over and sit on your couch for a bit while I wait for Dan to finish whatever he’s doing during our weekly civilization day?”

She said yes immediately- yay!

So I showed up in soft pants with my dog, some snacks, and my laptop like a feral, yet always considerate houseguest.
We talked a little, worked a little, ignored each other a lot.
Her two dogs, her kid, husband, my dog… all of us just coexisting in one small living room and one giant couch like it was the most natural thing in the world.

At some point she set her glass of wine on the armrest, and I just blurted out:

“Alex… HOLY SHIT. You’re my first couch friend here.”

Because that moment, that ease, was the single thing I had been craving our entire time on that god damn beautiful yet incredibly lonely island in the middle of nowhere.

We’ve since moved to mainland Portugal (which is way more our vibe), and she’s visiting next week, proof that couch friends follow you, even when you change the couch.

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So, if you’re in a new place, a new season, or a new version of yourself and wondering why everything still feels a little…wobbly?

It’s not you.

You’re just in the part no one talks about,
the part where belonging hasn’t caught up to your courage yet.

Couch friends don’t show up overnight.
They show up slowly, through padel matches, dog walks, and tiny moments that don’t look like much until suddenly they do.

One real couch friend in a year?
While juggling immigration, buying a van that’s currently broken, a house, learning a new language and feeling like a 5-year old like, all the time?

I’ll take it.

One is enough to remind you that you’re building something real wherever you are.
One is enough to make a place start feeling like yours.
One is enough to keep going.

One is enough to help you have more good days.

PS: If you’re in your own “belonging hasn’t caught up to your courage yet” era… you’re my people. Come hang out 👇

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