Conversations with Friends

by Sally Rooney

employment, I certainly never fantasised about a radiant future where I was paid to perform an economic role. Sometimes this felt like a failure to take an interest in my own life, which depressed me. On the other hand, I felt that my disinterest in wealth was ideologically healthy.

Things matter to me more than they do to normal people, I thought. I need to relax and let things go. I should experiment with drugs.

It seemed as though what he was really saying was: there’s something beautiful about the way you think and feel, or the way that you experience the world is beautiful in some way.

Yeah, men love telling me I’m cool, I said. They just want me to act like I’ve never heard it before. Melissa really did laugh then. I was surprised I could make her laugh like that.

We could give you a fringe, said Bobbi. No, people mix us up too much already. It’s offensive to me how offensive that is to you.

I couldn’t begin to phrase the explanation of what the doctor had told me, because there were so many parts to it, and it would take so long, and involve so many individual words and sentences. The thought of saying so many words about it made me feel physically sick. Out loud I heard myself say: oh, he said the ultrasound was clear.

I thought about all the things I had never told Nick about myself, and I started to feel better then, as if my privacy extended all around me like a barrier protecting my body. I was a very autonomous and independent person with an inner life