I’ve been thinking a lot about this article about low-level friendships recently.

This week I went to a gig with a work colleague and met two acquaintances by chance. The experience did improve my feelings around the whole night for the better. Even in a big capital city I felt connected and liked, the opposite of the generally impersonal feeling necessary for thousands of people to live together.

It feels the same in your neighbourhood, if you hang round the same shops then the shopkeepers aren’t exactly your friends but you are known to one another and it feels like you belong in the neighbourhood.