Anchorage Daily News

A few months ago, I rang up a long-distance friend to tell her I had good news.

Me: "I just won a journalism prize. I'm so excited! And, also, I need your address. I know I have it somewhere, but I want to send you something."

Her: "Oh. That's great. ... Um ... I was meaning to tell you, though, last time you sent me something, I noticed you spelled Sausalito wrong. Just thought you'd want to know."

We talked a while longer, I apologized for my spelling error, and then we hung up. I slid into analysis. I spelled Sausalito wrong? That was her reaction to my good news? I didn't need a parade, but what kind of a friend says something like that?

Josh, my co-worker, explained the next day.

"That would be a 'frene-my,' " he said.

A frenemy is someone you have a history with but now you don't really like one another. You go through the motions like old times, maybe you even think things will improve, but there's tension threaded through all your interactions. The worst part: You're no longer close enough to fight about it.

Long-distance frenemies, in particular, seemed to be a phenom of my late 20s, fed by the fact I'd moved back to Anchorage and so many people from childhood and college were so far away, their lives unfolding in different cities. The physical distance made for an emotional one. And there was 20-something insecurity dogging us as we tried to carve out our places in the world. We compared our jobs, relationships, mortgages. I judged them. They judged me. Quiet rivalries grew.

Cinamyn Ward was my first real friend. She lived across the street when I was 5. She had wide sleepy eyes and wore her hair in braids fastened with animal barrettes. We'd ride our Big Wheels to the corner and watch the traffic pass on the busy street that bordered our world. We didn't need to talk. Instead, we listened for the ice cream man.

As an adult, that kind of thing mystified me. When did relationships become so fraught with dynamics? Could I get back that old breezy knack for nurturing true, loyal pals? Or had I lost it somewhere in the dinner-party chatter of my 20s?

Of course there were plenty of perfectly kind, perfectly lovely people I knew. We'd meet for drinks or share a weekend outing, but we didn't often dip below the surface. Add in the frenemies and all my fake friends canceled out the few new ones.

I wanted peeps. Clean, simple Cinamyn friendships with people who didn't care how I spelled Sausalito, who didn't mind talking about their lives, who could drop by unannounced and have a glass of wine, even when my house was messy.

It was about then that I found Facebook.com, which, for those who aren't familiar, is a virtual world completely built on virtual relationships with virtual "friends."

Right away I posted a little manifesto about the type of friends I wanted to make, kind of like a personal ad: "Literate people with interesting secrets who are loyal, creative and game. Letter writers, cooks, storytellers, people who drop by, people who dress up, people who stay late, people who forgive easily and say what they mean. Critical thinkers. Thoughtful, imperfect, generous souls."

I imagined my new posse, with their secrets and foibles, recipes and inside jokes. Right away, I began collecting "friends," little square faces on my profile, each with a person attached.

We sent each other virtual stargazer lilies and wrote comments on vacation photos. No one, though, actually knocked on my door out of the blue. I decided I needed to take it to the next level.

One day, I logged on so I could cheat on The New York Times news quiz (I can't get an 80 percent! What would my "friends" think?) and I noticed a girl I've always thought was cool from a distance invited me to be her "friend." She was quirky and smart, and, I noticed reading her profile, she had a fancy degree in nonfiction writing. I wrote her and asked her to lunch.

"I'm really, really busy all the time," came her reply, two days later. "I don't ever eat lunch. Ever."

By then, I had 100 little faces staring at me when I logged on to Facebook, but I still felt peepless. Turning "friends" into friends wasn't any easier online than it was in the real world.

Then I went on vacation. In Palm Springs, I met up with Meg. Both of us worked at Kaladi Bros. on Tudor Road in college. She was on the register. I steamed the milk. She's a lawyer now. She lives in Brooklyn.

When I got off the plane, I saw Meg was already there, slouching over at the baggage claim, wearing shorts, running shoes and an ancient T-shirt that said "Coke is it!" I knew the look on her face. She was tired of traveling, sweaty, grouchy, probably hungry. It occurred to me that as you get older, friends, real friends, become rarer. In a way that makes them better. Maybe I didn't need peeps. Maybe I only needed a peep or two.

We piled into the rental car and rode to the house, where we immediately went to the backyard. An aqua-marine swimming pool beckoned us under the palm trees. We didn't need to talk. We both took a running start and jumped in.

Find Julia O'Malley online at adn.com/contact/jomalley or call 257-4591.

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