A few years ago I had one unexpected, glorious day with a friend whose new corporate job had swallowed him whole.

I was between jobs – and he had allergies which gummed up his eyes with goo. It was his company’s headshot day and he looked too hideous to photograph, so he called in sick.

It was a beautiful Melbourne day. We rode our bikes around Fitzroy and into the city, lay in a park, popped into the supreme court to watch an hour of a random case, then had a long lunch, a game of pingpong in another park, then on to a pub where we played chess by a fire.

It felt decadent, wasteful even, to spend a day like that rolling around town. No work was done and nothing was achieved. But on a deeper level it felt deeply satisfying to just spend a whole day hanging out, moving aimlessly around the city.

We vowed to have more days like that but we never did.

Last week a piece mourning the death of hanging out with friends hit a chord and went viral.

Everyone entering their 30s goes through it – the dawning realisation that time with your friends changes. You betray each other in all the ways that friends do, getting serious jobs, working multiple jobs to pay a mortgage or save for a deposit, falling in love, getting married and having a family, or – increasingly – just ditching catchups because you’re exhausted and it’s easier to spend time........

© The Guardian