Even among friends, differences exist. These wouldn't be a big problem unless you sort of join a working committee at work or in your home community. Then these differences could be an issue if you have fundamentally different approaches to how you would do a project.
In 'The Welfare State' by Nell Zink, published in The New Yorker on December 21, 2025, we see how two friends kinda fell out over fundamental differences. The 62-year-old author is an American, and moved to Germany in 2000 and lives near Berlin.
Two women who have been friends for two decades live in the same small town of Bavaria. One is Julia, an American, and the other Vroni, is German. One day they went on a short holiday. As they chatted and walked along the peak of Mt Niesen in the Swiss Alps dressed in utterly unsuitable clothing, their differences came to a head. And it was the end of their friendship. Wow.
Their minds were very different. Julia read fiction and talked about the news, while Vroni read classics of societal analysis (a favorite was Marilyn Strathern’s “The Gender of the Gift”) and talked about her own life. Vroni seemed to Julia never to have consumed a mass medium of any kind. She had no internet at home, for the sake of the children. When she needed to look something up, she went to her office.
Julia had longed to be an educated mother like Vroni, but there was never a serviceable father in view, so she had limited herself to being educated, first as an autodidact—via unsystematic reading of primary material, the classic works of fiction and philosophy—and then by moving to Germany, where knowledge could be acquired tuition-free. She began too late.
The conversation topics of the two women centered around their lives, sure. But it also held social critique of the systems of America and Germany, as seen through the life choices of Julia and Vroni. Stereotypes of nationality are overturned here. i.e the rigid German versus the American liberal with nary a care in the world. The two women aren't those stereotypes. They were the other way around.
The story implied that Vroni is able to live a carefree life because Germany is a welfare state. In an interview with the author, she explained that there are always stereotypes between countries, and Germany vs America isn't different. She cited examples of friends and their fears and hopes.
Should we take it as both literal and metaphorical that, on the mountaintop, Julia feels as if she were about to fall into an abyss while Vroni bounds around like a chamois, fully convinced of her own safety?
Right now all my American pals who aren’t retirement age are afraid of losing their jobs. They work in fields that are downsizing, like journalism, social work, and global-health advocacy. Many own guns, which they keep loaded and within reach when I’m sleeping in their homes, to my extremely amazed trepidation. Julia’s first instinct is to fear the unknown, because life in America can be over so fast, both figuratively and literally. One little tax-evasion case goes against you, one mug shot for an alleged misdemeanor, and you’re unemployable, at least if you have an unusual name like mine. In Germany, you can discreetly serve time for murder—generally fifteen years, with time off for good behavior—which cuts down on your motivation to take out as many people as possible in one fell swoop, before turning the gun on yourself. I say that Julia consumes news stories—which contributes to her anxiety—and happy-go-lucky Vroni doesn’t, but the unpredictability in the U.S. is getting close enough to touch.
Hmmmm. Two decades of friendship and all that. Do we have these kinds of friends? Or do old friends just fade away because we grow up, become older and we change our opinions and perhaps even our fundamental outlook on life and all our values?
Do we just abandon old friends if our objectives and viewpoints of the world begin to diverge? It's entirely possible that life and its burdens hit different people differently, and we end up not having the same outlook on life anymore at 50 years old. Or even at 60 years old.
I dunno. How do we deal with friends who have been with us for decades? I certainly don't bother remaining friends with schoolmates when we only have school experiences as a moderator or as a shared form of bond. But friends who are still friends today, are something to be treasured. At least I don't have any toxic friends I know of. I always ditch toxic people. Ooof.
The ending of this story is kinda shocking. Sort of dramatic — for this to happen on a holiday. I guess Vroni had enough of being judged by Julia for her lifestyle, state of her marriage, choice of a husband and who she is. So she rejected Julia, and said it to her face. Although they live in the same town, they no longer speak, and are most certainly no longer friends. Julia still didn't understand what happened between them or why Vroni rejected her.
“There’s something I want to say,” Vroni said, after they sat down. “I’m sick and tired of you.” She unwrapped the blanket from her shoulders and wadded it up, like worthless trash, to hand it back to Julia.
Julia gulped, coughed, and said, “What?”
“I feel as if I know nothing about you, but you keep wanting to get closer, demanding more. You’re possessive and judgmental, but you act like I’m in charge, like with those cattle just now. Our conversations are so superficial. I want to have real friends. I’ve tried with you. I’m a polite person, so I know I’m surprising you, but I don’t think we should see each other again. I’ve been wanting to say this to you for a long time, almost twenty years. Something about your making me come here makes it easy.” Vroni gestured toward the emptiness beyond the windows. “I wish you all good things, but I don’t want to know what ‘good’ means to you.” She waited for a reaction. Then she took off her cap to comb out her dull, dusty mane with dirty fingers stained brown, killing time with desultory self-care as though unobserved. She tucked her hair up again and took a swig of water from the canteen in her bag.
Julia stared. Had Vroni lost her marbles? Was this what people were asking for when they complained about being ghosted—an explicit jilting, rich in memorable detail? If Vroni’s independent, pragmatic mind differed greatly from her own, as she sincerely believed it did and had always found to be a big plus, it might never be possible for her to comprehend what Vroni had just said. Or anything else, either. The whole world might be functionally a hallucination—that was what cognitive neuroscience said. A hallucination with pointy tentacles.
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