January 2026
Today I watched a 40-something-year-old Italian man kick a soccer ball, watching it slowly roll toward another middle-aged Italian man sitting on a bench. I got the sense they hadn’t known each other previously, but the ball signaled a gesture of camaraderie as it sat between their feet while they traded life stories: a casual but meaningful conversation about upbringing, their shared love for San Francisco, a heartbreak, how the palm tree trunks are tallest in the park on Columbus Avenue, thoughts on architecture from a career in construction, and how they’re still too young to dream in nostalgia.
One of the biggest narratives in the post-grad circle is how do I meet new people, where everyone else seems to have already found their group, their people. We want to find meaning with new people and new perspectives. So we join run clubs, zip through Partifuls sent by a friend of a friend, when all it takes sometimes is just kicking a soccer ball.