S. Hannon

At some point in a man's life, making friends becomes difficult. Not impossible, but it plateaus after college. I don't know if they stop having the friendship draft or what, but men seem to take inventory of their team and stop actively recruiting. Maybe it just gets weird to ask a man to hang out. From the ages of thirteen until death, men hone their social skills with women.  Maybe if the moons align, and you both find yourself in the same room, you'll drink a beer together, but otherwise you're just two lonely cacti on opposite sides of the desert.

Then there are those people you have no choice but to be friends with. Friends that you should have had your whole life, but you hadn't met yet.

The four kids I hung out with in middle school all went on to be artists and philosophers. We'd never discussed our future, or even understood what it meant to major in something, but it's not a coincidence. Something in punk rock and comic books made us a similar breed. We discovered the same records together, we grew out of fads at the same time, we grew out of the same petri dish. Our friendship was inevitable. As adults, we're formed. Our minds are made up and we find companionship in relationships. We go on to love and lose, and in the process forget what it means to find friends. When we're really lucky, companionship finds us. It seeks us out, reminding us that there are people just like us in the world.

I met Shannon as an adult. He and I lived parallel lives. When he makes a Street Fighter II reference, I wonder how many times we crossed each other in an aisle at Toys 'R Us before we met. He is responsible for my respect for boxing and love for the Rocky saga. Blocking down aisles at Costco, he was my relationship therapist and in the booths of In & Out, he was a friend. He is the Sto-mach, S. Hannon, and on Halo, CoryMatthews.

Love you, Buddy.