A lot of women, when they're young, feel they have very good

Host: The city was alive that night, humming beneath a deep indigo sky, its lights scattered like forgotten stars. In a small café tucked between the worn bricks of an old street, the air was thick with the scent of espresso and rain. The windows glistened, fogged slightly from the warmth within, and the faint jazz drifting from the corner speaker painted the moment in a mood both intimate and fragile.

Host: Jack sat by the window, his gray eyes reflecting the wet pavement outside. A stack of old books lay beside his cup, pages half open as though they too had given up pretending to be read. Across from him, Jeeny leaned back in her chair, her black hair damp from the drizzle, her hands wrapped around a mug as though it held something heavier than coffee — perhaps memory.

Host: Between them, the faint echo of Zadie Smith’s words lingered like cigarette smoke:
“A lot of women, when they're young, feel they have very good friends, and find later on that friendship is complicated. It's easy to be friends when everyone's 18.”

Jeeny: “You know,” she began, her voice soft, almost wistful, “Zadie’s right. Friendship is easy when you’re young. Back then, all it takes is laughter and time. You don’t have to survive anything yet.”

Jack: “That’s because when you’re 18,” he said, stirring his drink absently, “you still believe life happens with people. Later, you realize it mostly happens to them — and to you. And that changes everything.”

Host: A moment of quiet passed. Outside, a couple ran laughing across the street, their shoes splashing through puddles. The sound of their youth was sharp and fleeting, like a photograph catching light before it fades.

Jeeny: “Friendship at 18 is like sunlight — bright, careless, everywhere. You think it’ll last forever. You don’t realize how fragile it is until the first shadow falls.”

Jack: “And then,” he said, “you start choosing friends the way you choose doctors — carefully, with questions about loyalty, cost, and side effects.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “You make it sound so transactional.”

Jack: “Isn’t it? We grow up, and suddenly friendship comes with terms. Distance, jobs, marriages, politics — all these small earthquakes shift the ground beneath the people you thought were constants. At 18, you share everything. At 35, you share only what’s safe.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s not cynicism. Maybe that’s survival.”

Host: She took a sip of her drink, the steam rising to blur her reflection in the window. Her eyes, though warm, carried the weight of knowing — the ache of someone who’s had to let go of people she once believed would stay forever.

Jeeny: “I used to think friendship was about how much you had in common. Now I think it’s about who still shows up when you’ve got nothing in common left.”

Jack: “That’s not friendship,” he said. “That’s faith.”

Jeeny: “Maybe they’re the same thing.”

Host: The light from the streetlamps flickered, casting them in shades of gold and shadow. Jack looked down at his hands, the faint scars on his knuckles catching the light like worn silver.

Jack: “You know,” he said, “men have it different. We don’t talk about friendship the way women do. We keep it under the surface. We bond over shared work, shared pain, not words. You can lose a friend and not even notice until something breaks inside you.”

Jeeny: “So you bury it under silence.”

Jack: “No,” he said, “we call it moving on.”

Jeeny: “You call it that because it sounds noble. But it’s still grief.”

Host: The words landed softly, but they carried weight. Jack’s jaw tightened. Outside, the rain started again — slow, deliberate, as if even the sky was reconsidering something it had already decided.

Jeeny: “For women, friendship feels like home — until it doesn’t. You grow, you change, and suddenly the person who knew you best is a stranger who remembers an earlier version of you. The one you’ve outgrown.”

Jack: “And that hurts worse than losing a lover, doesn’t it?”

Jeeny: “Sometimes. Because lovers come with expiration dates. Friendships come with promises.”

Host: The café door opened briefly, letting in a rush of wind and chatter, and then it closed again, returning the world to their small, suspended quiet.

Jack: “You think it’s inevitable? That friendships fade no matter what?”

Jeeny: “Not fade,” she said. “Transform. The ones that survive stop being about shared youth and start being about shared truth.”

Jack: “And what about the ones that don’t?”

Jeeny: “Then they become part of your biography — the chapter that taught you how to let go.”

Host: Jack leaned back, the leather of his chair creaking softly. He studied Jeeny the way you study something fragile — not out of pity, but reverence.

Jack: “You talk about friendship like it’s both a gift and a wound.”

Jeeny: “That’s exactly what it is.”

Host: She smiled then, a sad, knowing smile — the kind that only appears once you’ve loved deeply enough to lose.

Jeeny: “When I was 18, my friends and I used to sit under the same tree every day after class. We’d talk about everything — our futures, our fears, our plans to stay close forever. I thought those moments were permanent.”

Jack: “And now?”

Jeeny: “Now I visit that tree sometimes. It’s still there. But it feels taller, lonelier. Like it’s been waiting for people who don’t come anymore.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s what time does. It doesn’t take your friends away — it just changes the distance between your roots.”

Host: Outside, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. The café’s lights shimmered across the wet pavement like stained glass.

Jeeny: “Do you ever miss being 18?”

Jack: “No,” he said. “But I miss believing that every friendship would last forever.”

Jeeny: “That was the innocence of it — the belief. Maybe friendship isn’t supposed to stay easy. Maybe it’s supposed to grow complicated, because we do.”

Jack: “So what’s left when it gets hard?”

Jeeny: “The ones who stay.”

Host: Silence again — not empty this time, but full. The kind of silence that holds gratitude, memory, and the ache of acceptance.

Jack: “You think it’s still possible? To find that kind of friendship — the real kind — as adults?”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said softly. “But it takes more courage. You can’t just be open; you have to be honest. You have to let someone see who you’ve become, not just who you were.”

Jack: “That’s harder than it sounds.”

Jeeny: “Anything real is.”

Host: The lights dimmed slightly as the café prepared to close. The last notes of jazz lingered like an afterthought, wrapping around their words like smoke.

Jeeny: “It’s easy to be friends when you’re 18, Jack. You share laughter, rebellion, and dreams. But real friendship — grown-up friendship — that’s the one where you share silence, scars, and forgiveness.”

Jack: “And if you find that?”

Jeeny: “Then you’ve found your forever.”

Host: The rain stopped. Outside, the city shimmered under the streetlights — reflective, alive, forgiving. Jeeny stood, slipping her coat on, and smiled at him.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what we’re doing, Jack — learning to be the kind of friends we couldn’t be at 18.”

Jack: “And failing gracefully along the way.”

Host: They both laughed softly, a sound like the closing of an old book.

Host: As they stepped into the cool night, the door swung shut behind them, leaving the café empty but full of echoes — of youth remembered, of friendship redefined.

Host: And as the neon light flickered one last time, Zadie Smith’s words lingered in the air like a sigh from the past:

“It’s easy to be friends when everyone’s 18.”

Host: But the truth — the hard, human truth — is that it’s braver, rarer, and far more beautiful to stay friends when you’re not.