On January 10th, I helped organize a party by human flesh artist, Doooo sponsored by Zora.

I invited a bunch of friends to the event, some who I see regularly and other that I hadn’t seen in a while.

One friend in particular who I hadn’t seen in close to 3 years unexpectedly accepted my invitation. I was excited. It was someone who I wanted to become much closer to at the time and thought had “best friend vibes,” but due to me being busy/them being busy just hadn’t been able to spend time with.

The person was around the same age as me, they were from the same region as my family in Japan, Kyushu and were also trying to break into Japanese hip-hop in a meaningful, just as I was. They liked the party just as much as I did and were also highly ambitious, with dreams of becoming a globally touring artist. The first time we met, we couldn’t stop talking to each other and ended up taking more tequila shots than I’m proud of, but those same shots had cemented enough trust between us that they were willing to come to a party that I had invited them to out of the blue.

So on the night of the 10th, at around 9pm, my friend arrives. Despite being Japanese, they’re a bigger hugger than most so after a “long time no see” embrace, we grab a drink. We chatted for a while, shared a few laughs and I also introduced them to a few of my friends. We agreed to meet up for a drink together in a few weeks and the next morning, they even sent me a thank you note for the invite and said they had a great time.

Nothing around the encounter was particularly abnormal and the person was just as kind as I’d remembered, but something was different. 

I had changed.

When I first met this person, I was still trying to find my footing in Japanese hip-hop. Having been a venture capitalist during the day, I didn’t have the same confidence I had in my side gig (running a Japanese hip-hop label) that I had as an investor. Today, though my goal is not to become an important hip-hop producer in Japan as it was then, I’ve found a group of artists that I have close relationships with that have made me feel accepted and part of something greater. In turn, you won’t find me at the club nearly as often as when I was still actively trying to extend my network of underground artists.

I was also single. Now, I’m also happily married to my loving wife and though I’m head down working on building Senspace, my off-time is spent taking our dog, Dub to a new dog friendly restaurant, curled up on the couch reading a book or writing a diary entry like this one. 

Being on year 9 in Japan now, I also don’t feel the need to find a “new best friend” in the same way that I did in year 6, when one of my closest friends in Tokyo at the time was getting serious with his girlfriend at the time (who is now his wife with whom he had a beautiful daughter). I’m lucky enough to have check that one off of the list :). See above!

Though two of my goals for 2025 are to make more friends and reconnect with close ones, these relationships may develop differently and be based on different things than they would have been when I was 5-10 years younger. At 23-28, these relationships may have been based on a mutual love of the Knicks, discussing professional ambitions, loving hip-hop or enjoying getting in the front row at a party. Now these friendships are more likely to be based on who is willing to wake up for early coffee with me, the ability to be more vulnerable than in our professional lives and a certain pragmatism around what our futures look like.

A scene at a party was not a great setting to dictate how close I might get with this friend going forward, but I’m excited to continue to get to know myself better through my relationships with others in this chapter of Ren :).