This F'ing Guy: How to Come Through for an Old Friend

The lost art of the airport arrival.

Apr 24, 2025

“It's only been a week
The rush of being home in rapid fading
Failing to recall
What I was missing all that time in England
Has sent me aimlessly
On foot or by the help of transportation
To knock on windows where
A friend no longer live, I had forgotten”

-Remind Me, Röyksopp

Depending on the desires of ticket holders during this tense global time, travel season is set to begin, a time when baggage claim belts across the globe get a real workout. Recently, I was a guest on the podcast Embodied, where we talked about friendship, namely, the spaces where it quietly, powerfully lives. One of those spaces, I argued, is the international arrivals gate. That conversation brought me back to a story I told for Other Men Need Help, about heartbreak, old movies, and the aching beauty of waiting for someone at the airport. Today, I will make a small case to bring back the airport reunion.

My first big breakup happened in my mid-twenties. "Nadine" was my college sweetheart. When we ended, I had no barometer for how to manage the pain. So I did what made sense at the time: I sold my entire movie collection—VHS tapes and DVDs I had carefully curated over the years. A new man was en route who said, "Enough with these childhood relics."

Before each sale, I had a ritual. I'd rewatch the movie one last time while eating a heartbreak burrito: boxed rice and beans, a spoonful of tuna, all in a tortilla. That was dinner—every night.

Look, grief has a weird menu.

As I said goodbye to each film, I returned to a certain type of scene. The ones where men—gangsters, gunslingers, inmates—touched each other. Not in violent or comedic ways, but with care. Mobsters especially. Those guys love physical affection. One hand behind the neck. A smush to the cheek. A this fucking guy! as they pull each other close.

I didn't want to be in the mob. But I wanted a this fucking guy masculine embrace. That unspoken pass between men that says: I love you, brother, and I'm glad you're here.

I tried to think of where else I'd seen that embrace in real life. There was one place that felt anywhere close to that affection—the international arrival gate at Dulles International Airport.

When I was a kid, my mom and I picked up my dad from Dulles more times than I can count. He traveled abroad often, and his return flights always landed at confusing hours—11 p.m. departures from some foreign place somehow arriving at 11 p.m. local time. I showed up in pajamas. The food court was closed. The only people there were custodial staff and loved ones waiting at the international arrival gate.

That’s where I witnessed the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Stoic and tired men would transform the moment those doors opened. They craned their necks, looking for one face, and when they found it, they turned into kids again. They rushed forward. They embraced with arms tangled like vines and cheeks pressed into each other’s shoulders.

Hairy arms, shirts with pockets meant for cigars, toxic amounts of Old Spice cologne, and sometimes tears.

I watched these reunions like a stellar opera. No subtitles needed.

It wasn’t about catching a flight. It was about catching each other.

After my breakup, I decided to visit my college friend Fabian. We hadn’t seen each other in years, but I remembered how he put his arm around me and called me amigo, hermano, parcero. I didn’t grow up with many Latino friends, and something in me longed to feel that connection again.

I pictured it perfectly: I’d walk through the arrivals gate in Cartagena, and there he’d be—arms wide, huge smile, maybe even a second helmet for our motorcycle rides in hand. Who let this guy into the country?! he’d say, and we’d crash into each other like magnets.

Instead, he was sitting in a corner playing Snake on his phone. He gave me a nod, a cold fish side hug, and asked if I had money for parking.

We spent a week together. It wasn’t terrible. But it wasn’t opera.

Over the years, I’ve had better arrivals.

There was Edgar, who couldn’t meet me at the airport but sent a town car with coffee in the cup holder. There was a friend in Panama who nearly knocked me over with a bear hug. And Natty in Cape Town kept saying, “It’s good to see you, brother,” like a broken record skipping on the best melodic refrain.

I still believe in the airport reunion—one of the last sacred, unscripted rituals men can participate in without irony. We don’t need to wait for weddings or mob affiliation to say: I’m glad you’re here.

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