Who are your current most favorite people?

When I read this prompt I think that people are going to take it a couple of different ways, starting with “People you know personally” and “People you don’t know personally” because we live in an age of parasocial relationships.

I preface my answer this way because I won’t pick celebrities, social media “influencers” or the like. I might like them for one reason or another, but I don’t KNOW them, and they likely don’t know I exist at all! Which is just fine. The general track record of those people makes it hard to rationalize wanting to be part of their social circle.

So, anyways. My actual favorite people. People I know much more personally. I won’t rank them, but I’ll start with those I’ve known the longest.

• My family
• My roommates
• Friends from college who I still talk to frequently
• My tabletop gaming buddies
• Friends from my time working at Target
• Some coworkers from my current job
• My friends from Twitch

That last one is important for a couple of reasons, and is part of why I made the preface about parasocial relationships. The vast majority of them I haven’t met in person, but I’ve had plenty of back and forth interactions with them. I’ve spent countless hours playing games with some of them, helped them with charity events, had one-on-one conversations where we’ve emotionally opened up and been vulnerable. Those are the same kinds of things you would expect from friends and relationships you have in person and that’s what I’ve had with every group on the list, so that is why I count those online friends in the same way.

Nearly every group on that list I talk to daily. That’s a big part of why they’re my favorites. Because we’re so strongly connected.