What stays with me most about friendship is that it rarely begins in grand ways. More often, it starts subtly— a question, a shared laugh, a common interest, a random seat beside someone who will one day become part of your life story.

Think about your best friend today and try to remember how your friendship started.

On my first day of pre-college course in 1995, I walked into the campus of University of Asia and the Pacific knowing absolutely no one. I was the only student from my high school who entered the program. It was a summer course meant to prepare us for college life — executive functions, time management, character formation, essay writing. At seventeen, those words sounded sophisticated and intimidating all at once.

Everything about that first day felt like stepping into another world. Our first paper was about college. Almost everyone wrote the same thing: college is the real world. The lecturer, Chuck Palenzuela, laughed at our answers. Not mockingly, but knowingly. He pointed out that none of us could actually explain what we meant by “the real world.”

But perhaps that was the point. At that age, there were simply no words big enough to explain what adulthood felt like from a distance. The real world was excitement and fear happening at the same time. It was the thrill of newfound freedom mixed with the quiet panic of realizing you were now expected to become responsible — to slowly become an adult.

The first person I met was Marco from La Salle. I still remember how grown-up he looked carrying a Filofax, that executive planner people used before phones took over our lives. There was also Mike — whose surname I can no longer remember — who eventually transferred to UP before the program ended. For a few days we shared lunch and stories together but nothing really prospered.

That month felt endless and fleeting at the same time.

Every day was a roulette wheel of people, conversations, and unexpected friendships. For reasons I still cannot explain, I somehow ended up spending most of my time with two people: Macoy and CJ. We became inseparable.

The picture you see was taken in Enchanted Kingdom in 1996, almost thirty years ago. It was for our AIS subject — Applied Integrated Studies, the forefather of what is now called Integration.

For our community service project, we decided to bring children from White Cross orphanage to Enchanted Kingdom. Looking back now, we were probably far too young and immature to be responsible for children, but that was part of the reckless confidence of youth. We thought we could handle anything.

Back then, seatbelts were not strictly required. Somewhere after the Sta. Rosa exit, CJ hit the brakes suddenly because of a large pothole. I was in the passenger seat, bracing myself against the dashboard. Macoy was at the back trying to hold onto the child seated beside him. In one chaotic second, the kid in the middle seat flew forward and hit the radio face first. There was silence. Then the child burst into tears. And we — three immature teenagers who had no idea what we were doing — panicked while simultaneously laughing out loud. There we were, apologizing, comforting, and trying to calm down a crying child while barely keeping ourselves together.

It sounds terrible now, but that moment somehow captures youth perfectly: reckless, chaotic, funny, and unforgettable all at once.

That same year, CJ left for Canada. Suddenly, our trio was no longer complete. Macoy and I remained in Manila while CJ built a new life abroad. But whenever he returned home, we would reunite as if no time had passed.

As I grew older, I began to realize that friendship also grows in stages. Friendship begins with discovering something shared. Sometimes it is music. Sometimes books. Sometimes sports.

In 1990, when I transferred schools in Grade 6, I knew no one. Everyone already had their circles and histories together. Being the new kid felt lonely. Then one student asked me a simple question:

“Do you play basketball?” I said yes. That afternoon after class, we played. And just like that, I was welcomed. Shared interests become bridges. They are often where friendship begins.

With CJ and Macoy, our shared interest was simpler: having immature fun, eating together, watching movies, going on random adventures, and trying new things. At that age, friendship was less about deep conversations and more about simply refusing to grow up too quickly.

But friendship deepens differently. It deepens through shared experiences — especially ridiculous ones. I loved pranking people back then. During a retreat in Batangas, CJ fell asleep in a non-airconditioned room one hot afternoon. While he slept, I smeared a generous amount of Bengay ointment on his neck and covered him with six blankets. An hour later he woke up drenched in sweat, his neck bright red, completely confused about what had happened.

Occasionally, beneath all the teasing and immaturity, CJ would express affection in quiet ways. Once, after coming home from a trip, he handed me a life vest as pasalubong. Yes, the one you get under the plane seat. Another time, he brought me into his room and pointed to several movie and commercial standees he had “kleptoed” and collected, telling me to choose whichever one I wanted to bring home.

Macoy suffered from my nonsense too. One time, while he was taking a bath in the common bathroom, I sneaked in and stole his towel. Moments later he emerged completely naked, desperately covering himself while shouting: “Jeff! Jeff!” He was shouting so loudly that a priest suddenly appeared and saw him standing there completely exposed. Macoy sprinted back into the bathroom in humiliation while I nearly died laughing.

But friendship is not built only through laughter. There were quieter moments too. Sometimes Macoy would unexpectedly show up at our house just to talk. He rarely asked for advice. Mostly, he just wanted someone to listen. And somehow that is one of the purest forms of friendship — being present without needing to solve anything.

Over time, we witnessed each other’s strengths, flaws, immaturity, fears, and growth. And I eventually realized this: The deepening of friendship does not lie merely in shared interests, because those are only beginnings. It is not even about the quantity of time spent together. Friendship deepens because of emotional memory — the laughter you shared, the pain you witnessed, the embarrassing moments you survived together, the silent understanding that forms after years of knowing someone.

Then comes the final stage: friendship beyond proximity. After graduation, life scattered us in different directions. CJ remained abroad. Macoy and I became busy building our futures. Years passed when we barely saw one another.

But true friendship survives distance. The space between friends allows each person to grow separately, like branches growing outward from the same tree trunk. Different directions, same roots. That is what reunions feel like after many years — not starting over, but continuing something unfinished.

After your thirties, friendship no longer comes as easily. By then, people have become more careful, more settled, more complete in themselves. The reckless freedom of youth fades, and with it the spontaneous adventures, foolish risks, and ridiculous moments that once turned strangers into lifelong friends. What made friendship effortless in youth was not just shared interests, but shared becoming — growing up together through mistakes, laughter, embarrassment, and uncertainty.

Then in December 2022, Macoy called me.

He asked if I wanted to join him in Portugal that February while he fixed some papers. We would meet CJ in Spain first before traveling together to Porto.

I immediately said yes.

And just like that, after decades of marriages, careers, responsibilities, failures, successes, and distance — our adventure continued.

Of course, no barkada adventure is ever complete without a prank and at least one near-disaster.

We flew from Madrid to Lisbon. The moment we stepped out of the airport, we hailed a cab, but the taxi was too small to fit the three of us and all our luggage, so CJ took a separate cab while Macoy and I headed ahead to our place near Praça do Rossio.

Macoy and I arrived first. We dragged our luggage upstairs, dropped everything off, and immediately started wandering around the area while waiting for CJ. Rossio was alive in that distinctly European way — cafés spilling into sidewalks, old buildings glowing under the late afternoon light, tourists moving around lazily as though nobody had urgent places to be.

About twenty minutes later, my phone rang.

It was CJ.

“Come,” he said. “I need help.”

There was something strange in his voice.

He told us to meet him at a café below our building. So Macoy and I hurried. As soon as we arrived, I saw CJ standing outside surrounded by three huge men who looked Middle Eastern. One of them — the biggest one, clearly the leader — was speaking aggressively while the other two stood beside him like bodyguards.

Macoy and I looked at each other.

I asked what was happening.

The leader looked at us calmly and said, “No problem. We’re just talking to your friend because he bought drugs from another gang. So now he has to pay us.”

At that exact moment, my mind went completely blank.

I remember thinking: We are in deep trouble.

CJ started walking away casually, pretending not to panic, and we followed him while trying not to make things worse. I quietly told Macoy to stay close behind them while I crossed toward the food market nearby to look for a police officer.

Everything suddenly felt cinematic.

Foreign country.

Unknown streets.

Three men following our friend.

And the terrifying realization that we were no longer teenagers pretending to be in trouble — this felt real.

Then CJ suddenly entered a café.

The three men waited outside.

Macoy stood at a distance pretending to observe casually while I kept scanning desperately for police.

A few moments later, CJ stepped out of the café, pointed behind the men, and shouted:

“POLICE!”

The three men instantly scattered in different directions and disappeared into the crowd.

Apparently, what happened was this: when CJ got out of the cab, he pulled out a wallet containing thousands of dollars to pay the driver. The men saw it and began following him, trying to intimidate and extort him.

That was only our third day together.

Somehow, despite the decades, CJ had not lost his supernatural talent for attracting mishaps. For no reason, people would come up to him asking for a fight. One time he was biking with a back up car yet still got into an accident. He found himself under and armored car. I love you still my friend.

A few days later, we left Lisbon for Porto.

Before our trip, we had breakfast at a small café. Exhausted from several days of walking and traveling, all three of us quickly fell asleep once we boarded the van.

About an hour into the trip, I woke up and instinctively reached into my jacket pocket to look for my phone.

But instead of my phone, I felt something strange.

Cold.

Soft.

Moist.

There were several small rectangular objects inside my pocket — maybe five or six of them — each about the size of those tiny sauce containers from fast-food restaurants.

Completely confused, I pulled them out one by one.

Butter.

Jam.

More butter.

Tiny hotel breakfast butter and jam packets.

I stared at them in disbelief while Macoy started laughing uncontrollably beside me, while CJ was sleeping on the 3^rd row.

For several days, apparently, he had been secretly collecting butter and jam packets from hotel breakfasts just to sneak them into my pocket.

Thirty years later, he had finally found his revenge for the Bengay prank.

And perhaps that is what friendship really becomes as you grow older.

Not daily conversations.

Not constant presence.

Not even shared interests anymore.

But a living archive of who you once were.

Because somewhere in the world are people who remember the version of you before life hardened you — before careers, responsibilities, losses, and survival taught you how to be careful.

People who remember your foolishness without judging it.

Your dreams before they became practical.

Your laughter before it became restrained.

People who can sit beside you after decades apart and make it feel like nothing important was ever lost.

When I think about CJ, Macoy, and those years, I no longer remember them in a straight timeline. I remember fragments instead:

a pager on a classroom desk,

a child crying inside a car in Sta. Rosa,

Bengay on a retreat afternoon,

a naked sprint across a seminary hallway,

three men outside a café in Lisbon,

blocks of butter melting quietly inside my jacket pocket on the way to Porto.

Small things.

Ridiculous things.

Beautiful things.

And maybe that is what friendship really is:

a long collection of shared memories with the rare people around whom you are free to be foolish, vulnerable, immature, and entirely yourself — without fear of losing their affection.

*I was asked to share my reflection on friendship to high school students and I chose this story of friendship because it is unique and the story is something the audience can relate to. I have other friends too whom I have formed deep relationships with.