Welcome back! This is our second issue — but if you’re looking for a bit more information about us and Platonic Love, you can read more here.
Aliza’s Links:
During a long drive to visit a friend, I put on the new podcast Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
speaks with older women (Jane Fonda, Isabel Allende, et al.) about how to live a full and meaningful life. I’ve only listened to the first two interviews and have lost track of how many times I’ve teared up (!)Check out the newsletter Books + Bits from
, a London-based writer, broadcaster, and fellow mom. This piece is humble and inspiring (especially if you’re an aspiring book worm, like me), while this one is chock-full of shows I’m currently watching after J goes to bed. Can Americans start saying “telly” now too? 🥹
Aja’s Links:
This is one of those songs that’s inherently linked to summer for me, and now that the weather is getting warmer in Boston I’m excited to start listening to it again. This song is new to me but also perfect for summer. (A note from Aliza: both of these songs were new to me, and I’ve been loving them while I write!)
Linen pants are having a moment, which is good news if you like being super comfortable and stylish at the same time. I love this 100% linen pair (mainly because they have an elastic waist).
“Dear 114 Elm St. owner,” our cover letter began. “Sam and I are excited to apply to rent your beautiful home…”
We’d stepped foot inside 114 Elm St. forty-five minutes earlier. I started mentally composing our cover letter as soon as the realtor handed us his card and closed the door.
Boston’s rental market has gotten particularly bad post-COVID: record-low inventory meeting record-high prices. Judging by the number of other couples who’d been milling around 114 Elm, opening cupboards and flicking light switches, the competition would be tough.
And no wonder. This home was special. It had hardwood floors and exposed beams, an airy living room replete with windows, a gas-fired wood stove, and an entire backyard enclosed by pine trees. I wanted to live there so badly I could feel it in my teeth.
The application process was, frankly, ridiculous: we supplied a 70-page dossier of financial and personal details and sat down for a 40-minute interview.
And before all that was the cover letter, which I spent an hour perfecting. I described our “fantastic relationship with our current landlord” and commitment to “respecting and caring for the home” as the owner had “clearly respected and cared for it.” By the time I finished, it was 500 words. (When I applied to work at my current company, the cover letter was a mere 300.)
But we got the place!
When I moved in with Sam in 2018, all of our friends lived within the same two square miles. It was almost expected — although always charming — to run into two or three people we knew every time we walked down the main drag. The bars and restaurants we frequented were in the same area, and every weekend, we’d show up in a giddy mass and collect people as the night went on.
I took this summoning effect for granted. Wherever you went, there you had friends.
This made friendship the most straightforward part of my post-college life. Money, my career, even my personality now that I was an adult: these were confusing and the right answers perennially out of reach. But friends were easy.
In the hierarchy of relationships, friendships tend to rank below romantic ones. It wasn’t always this way. In Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make — and Keep — Friends, Marisa G. Franco explains friendships were once the ne plus ultra relationship.
“When Italian scholar Marsilio Ficino coined the term ‘platonic love’ in the fifteenth century, the word reflected Plato’s vision of a love so powerful it transcended the physical,” she writes. “Platonic love was not romantic love undergoing subtraction. It was a purer form…”
Since then, the dynamic has flipped. Society treats romantic love as our priority. When your grandparents ask you if you’ve “met someone,” they don’t mean a friend.
Gradually, and then suddenly, all of our friends left. The first to move went over the river, just a mile or so away. Then people started moving out-of-state: back to their hometowns, abroad for a few years, across the country because, yes, the weather is great.
“Platonic love was not romantic love undergoing subtraction. It was a purer form…”
Sam and I stayed. We loved our apartment and the neighborhood, but I also think we were still expecting friends to appear from thin air as we ran errands and took walks. It felt like being one of the last ones at a party.
Our current apartment. I’m going to miss that projector screen.
Community was no longer effortless. Several months of uninspired and semi-lonely weekends passed before I realized I needed a change.
I started joining activities and striking up conversations with strangers in the hopes we’d hit it off. (This actually worked once at hot yoga, but after I’d traded numbers with someone who seemed cool, she revealed she was moving to Denver the next day.) I pursued those “you should meet my friend, I think you’d like her” leads. I even went on several Bumble BFF meet-ups before realizing blind dates work best when you have chemical attraction to get you through the awkward or boring bits.
Moving means we’re finally putting on our shoes, saying goodnight, and leaving the party. 114 Elm St. is a mile from our current place; not too far geographically, but far enough we can do everything we need without ever straying into our old haunting grounds. It’s a house rather than an apartment, and our neighbors will be families — with children and pets and multiple cars — instead of college students making the communal staircase smell of weed.
I’ve started making new friends (hi, Aliza!) and getting back in touch with older ones, making the effort to plan hangouts, check in, and show up. I don’t bump into any of these friends on the street; we schedule things days if not weeks out.
It’s harder, but maybe more meaningful as a result.
P.S. For anyone else applying to apartments right now, I’ll save you an hour…
Dear [insert property address] owners,
We’re excited to apply to rent your beautiful home. Sam has lived in our current apartment for nearly nine years; I’ve lived here for five. We’ve been very happy in this apartment and have a fantastic relationship with our landlord, but are ready for a little more space and a backyard. We’re looking for a home we can live in for the next several years.
Sam and I both work in [insert industry]. He’s been at his company for a decade; I’ve worked at the same place for seven. (Can you tell we don’t move very often from the places we love?) He makes $XX per year and I make $YY. [More financial stuff here.] His credit score is [high!] and mine is [a little lower!].
We don’t smoke or have a pet. I like to [insert hobbies; e.g. do yoga, go on bike rides, read, and write], and Sam likes to [other hobbies; e.g. play basketball, produce music, and cook].
We love the details of your home, from the hardwood floors and ceiling beams to the built-ins and stained glass windows. We promise to respect and care for your home as you — and the tenants before us — have clearly respected and cared for it. Our apartment now is similar to your home in that the owners lived in it before renting it out. We’ve gotten to know them well and appreciate the personal relationship we have. The relationship you have with your current tenants (we heard about the Europe meet-up!) is exactly what we’re hoping to find. We’d like to offer $ZZ per month in rent.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Best,
Aja and Sam
And finally, thank you for the responses to our first newsletter last week. Aliza and I have been happy, excited, and grateful to hear how the idea of Platonic Love has resonated with so many of you.
The humbling apartment application process reminded us of similar slogs through San Francisco, Berkeley and Cambridge. Well done!
BTW, denim should receive equal time.
Can’t tell you two much much I’m enjoying this newsletter!! Looking forward to the next one already.
Would you guys consider discussing how to best support a close friend through pregnancy? Aliza, maybe what was most impactful and helpful when you were going through both the joyous and difficult times?
BTW, loved the linen pants suggestion. I live in New Orleans and have been looking for an appropriate pair for the unbearable heat! Thanks!