what do you even do for work?
It’s funny how you can know someone for years and still have no idea what they actually do all day. I was talking to a few friends not long ago when I went to visit my mum, people I’ve known since I was 11 years old, and somehow the conversation landed on a simple question: “What do you even do for work?” At first it was a joke. The sort of thing you laugh about because you realise it sounds ridiculous. But the longer we spoke, the more it hit me. We genuinely didn’t know. We knew the broad stuff. We knew who seemed busy, who seemed stressed, who had bought a house, who travelled a lot, who was doing well for themselves. But the actual details? The thing they spend forty, fifty, sometimes sixty hours a week doing? Most of us hadn’t got a clue. And it made me realise how strange friendships become as you get older. When you’re younger, you know almost everything about your friends. You know what classes they’re taking, who they fancy, what they did at the weekend, what they’re worried a...