Menter Media

Author: kmenter

  • How Much Are You Supposed to Know About Your Friends’ Lives?

    How Much Are You Supposed to Know About Your Friends’ Lives?

    There’s a weird point in adult friendship when you realize you actually have no idea what your friends do all day.

    You know where they work, technically. You know their boyfriend’s name. You know they’ve been vaguely “stressed lately.” You know they went to the dentist on Tuesday because they sent you a picture from the waiting room. Yet if someone asked what their biggest problem was right now, what they’re saving money for, or what they’re genuinely excited about this year, you might have to guess.

    This doesn’t necessarily mean you’re bad friends. Adult friendship is just different. You’re no longer spending eight hours a day together at school or sitting on someone’s bedroom floor every weekend with absolutely nowhere else to be. People have jobs, partners, families, errands, pets, commutes, and entire routines that happen completely separately from yours.

    Still, there’s a difference between giving your friends space and slowly becoming people who only know the highlights of each other’s lives.

    You Don’t Need a Daily Recap

    Close friendship doesn’t require constant access.

    What matters more is whether you know the things that actually matter to them.

    Those are the details that make someone feel known.

    Knowing Someone Requires Asking Better Questions

    A lot of adult conversations accidentally become status reports.

    There’s nothing wrong with small talk, especially when you’re catching up. The problem is when you never get past it.

    Sometimes you have to ask the second question.

    Instead of just asking how work is, ask whether they still like their job. Ask what they would do if they could quit tomorrow. Ask whether they actually like the city they live in. Ask what they’ve been spending too much money on lately. Ask what they’re looking forward to.

    People are usually much more interesting than their updates.

    You Should Know Their Current Lore

    Every friend has ongoing storylines.

    Maybe your friend has been trying to get promoted for six months. Maybe there’s a coworker they absolutely cannot stand. Maybe their landlord has become their mortal enemy. Maybe they’ve gone on four dates with someone and still can’t decide whether they like them.

    Part of friendship is remembering the lore.

    You don’t need a spreadsheet. You should probably remember enough that your friend doesn’t have to introduce the same major character every time you talk.

    There is something deeply nice about someone asking, “Wait, what happened with that thing you told me about last week?”

    It says: I listened. I remembered. Your life continued to exist to me even when you weren’t standing in front of me.

    You Should Know the Big Stuff Without Knowing Everything

    There are parts of your friends’ lives that you probably should know if you’re genuinely close.

    You should have some idea of whether they’re happy. You should know when something major changes. You should probably know who the important people in their life are and what their relationship with those people is like. You should know what tends to stress them out, what they’re working toward, and what’s been taking up most of their brain lately.

    That doesn’t mean you’re entitled to everything.

    Your friends are allowed to have private thoughts, relationships you don’t fully understand, problems they aren’t ready to talk about, and parts of themselves that belong only to them.

    Being close to someone doesn’t mean having unrestricted access to their life. It means they’ve trusted you with some of it.

    Friendship Also Requires Volunteering Information

    There’s another side to this.

    If you constantly feel like your friends don’t know anything about your life, consider whether you’re actually telling them.

    Some people are natural question-askers. Others aren’t. That doesn’t automatically mean they don’t care.

    Sometimes we expect our friends to somehow uncover what’s happening with us through exactly the right sequence of questions. Meanwhile, we’re answering “How are you?” with “Good!” and then wondering why nobody knows we’re having an existential crisis.

    You’re allowed to just say, “Okay, I need to tell you what’s been going on.”

    Friendship requires curiosity, but it also requires letting yourself be known.

    The Best Friendships Have Continuity

    Maybe this is the real answer.

    You don’t need to know everything about your friends’ lives. You just want enough continuity that you aren’t meeting a brand-new version of them every six months.

    You know what they were worried about last time, so you ask how it turned out. You remember the person they started dating. You know they were thinking about changing careers. You remember that they wanted to start running, learn pottery, move apartments, adopt a dog, or finally take that trip.

    And sometimes you ask questions that have absolutely nothing to do with what anyone did that week.

    Because knowing someone isn’t just knowing what’s happening to them. It’s knowing how their brain works.

    Questions to Ask Your Friends That Aren’t “How’s Work?”

    Save these for road trips, dinner parties, long walks, nights when everyone has had exactly two drinks, or whenever the group chat desperately needs a new subject.

    Moral Dilemmas

    • The trolley problem: Would you pull a lever to save five people if doing so caused one person to die?
    • Would your answer to the trolley problem change if the one person were someone you loved?
    • Would you steal medicine you couldn’t afford to save someone you love?
    • If you found a wallet with $1,000 cash and no ID, what would you do?
    • If you knew your friend’s partner was cheating, would you tell them immediately?
    • Would you tell your friend you hated their fiancé if they asked?
    • If your best friend committed a serious crime, would you turn them in?
    • Is it worse to do something bad or watch someone do something bad when you could stop them?
    • Would you lie to protect a friend?
    • Would you tell someone an upsetting truth if knowing it couldn’t change anything?
    • If you could guarantee your own success by secretly causing a stranger to fail, would you?
    • Is there an amount of money someone could pay you to never speak to your best friend again?
    • Would you rather be forgiven for something you didn’t deserve forgiveness for or punished for something you didn’t do?
    • If someone does something good entirely for selfish reasons, does it still count as good?
    • Would you rather know someone lied to you or live happily never finding out?

    Questions That Reveal Way Too Much

    • What do you think people misunderstand about you?
    • What personality trait of yours gets worse when you’re stressed?
    • What is something you’re secretly competitive about?
    • What is your most irrational insecurity?
    • What compliment do you still remember?
    • What criticism do you still remember?
    • When do you feel most confident?
    • What do you wish people asked you about more?
    • What is something you’ve changed your mind about in the last five years?
    • What do you think you’re unusually good at?
    • What do you think you’re unusually bad at?
    • What’s something you’ve realized about yourself recently?
    • What do you think your biggest character flaw is?
    • What version of yourself do you miss?
    • What part of getting older are you actually excited about?
    • What is something you pretend not to care about but absolutely care about?
    • What is something you think you’ll regret if you never do it?
    • When was the last time you felt genuinely proud of yourself?
    • What do you wish you cared less about?
    • What do you wish you cared more about?

    Hypotheticals

    • If you could know the exact date you were going to die, would you want to know?
    • Would you rather know when you’re going to die or how?
    • If you could restart your life at age 18 with everything you know now, would you?
    • If you could see one statistic about your entire life, what would you choose?
    • If you could read one person’s mind for ten minutes, whose would you choose?
    • If you could see every time someone has talked about you when you weren’t there, would you?
    • If you could erase one memory, would you?
    • If you could relive one year of your life exactly as it happened, which year?
    • If you had to live in one place forever, where would you choose?
    • If money didn’t matter, what would your average Tuesday look like?
    • If you suddenly inherited $10 million, what’s the first thing about your current life you’d change?
    • If you had to change careers tomorrow, what would you do?
    • If you could instantly become an expert in one completely useless subject, what would it be?
    • If you could guarantee one thing about your future, what would you choose?
    • If you could see exactly where you’ll be in ten years, would you look?
    • If you could find out exactly what everyone thinks of you, would you?
    • If you could permanently remove one minor inconvenience from the world, what would it be?
    • If you had to become famous, what would you want to be famous for?
    • If you could trade lives with anyone you personally know for one month, who would it be?
    • If you could ask your future self one question and get an honest answer, what would you ask?

    Friendship Questions

    • What makes you feel closest to someone?
    • What makes you start pulling away from a friendship?
    • What makes you feel appreciated by your friends?
    • What do you think makes someone easy to be friends with?
    • What’s something a friend has done for you that you’ll never forget?
    • Do you think friendships need frequent communication to stay close?
    • What’s something you wish your friends understood about you without you having to explain it?
    • What kind of friend do you think you are?
    • What kind of friend do you want to be?
    • What’s something you think our friendship has taught you?
    • When did you realize we were actually friends?
    • What is your favorite memory of us?
    • What do you think we’ll be like when we’re 60?
    • What is something you think I would genuinely be good at?
    • What’s one thing you think I should do at least once in my life?

    Completely Unserious but Weirdly Revealing

    • If you had to be haunted by one celebrity ghost, who would you pick?
    • Which animal do you think you could beat in a fight?
    • If your personality were a restaurant, what kind would it be?
    • What’s the dumbest hill you’re willing to die on?
    • What conspiracy theory could someone most easily convince you of?
    • If you had to delete one food from existence, what would it be?
    • What’s the most embarrassing thing you would do for $10,000?
    • If you had to get a tattoo chosen by someone in this room, who would you trust?
    • Which person here would survive longest in a zombie apocalypse?
    • If your search history became public, what search would require the most explanation?
    • If aliens asked you to show them one movie to explain humanity, what would you pick?
    • If you could make one completely ridiculous law, what would it be?
    • What job would you be absolutely terrible at?
    • If you had to participate in an Olympic event tomorrow, which one gives you the best chance of not humiliating yourself?
    • What is your most unnecessary strong opinion?
    • If your life had a narrator, whose voice would you want?
    • What would your warning label say?
    • What is the pettiest reason you’ve ever disliked someone?
    • If you were banned from your current career, what bizarre backup career would you choose?
    • Which fictional universe would actually be terrible to live in despite looking fun?
    • If everyone had to wear one outfit for the rest of their lives, what would yours be?
    • What extremely minor thing would make you immediately reject a potential roommate?
    • If you had to give a 30-minute presentation right now with zero preparation, what could you talk about?
    • What is one thing you could probably win a world championship in if the category were specific enough?
    • If you were forced to open a business tomorrow, what would you sell?
    • What is the weirdest thing you genuinely believe you’re good at?
    • If your friends had to collectively choose your next romantic partner, would you trust them?

    You don’t have to know everything about your friends. You probably couldn’t, even if you tried. The goal isn’t constant access to someone else’s life. It’s continuing to be curious about it.

    Sometimes that means remembering to ask how their job interview went. Sometimes it means knowing they’re going through something before everyone else does.

    And sometimes it means spending 45 minutes arguing about whether you’d pull the trolley lever and learning significantly more about your friends than you expected.

  • What Makes Someone Easy to Be Friends With?

    What Makes Someone Easy to Be Friends With?

    There are people you can love very much who are surprisingly difficult to maintain a friendship with.

    Then there are people who seem to fit naturally into your life. You can invite them somewhere without overthinking it, or go a few weeks without talking and pick back up without wondering where you stand.

    They’re easy to be friends with. Not because they never ask anything of you, but because the friendship feels secure enough that you aren’t constantly managing it.

    They Understand That Everyone Has a Life

    Adult friendship has to coexist with work, relationships, family, money, pets, errands, travel, and sometimes simply wanting to stay home. Easy friends understand that being unavailable isn’t necessarily rejection.

    At the same time, “busy” can’t become a permanent excuse for never showing up. Good friendships find the space between demanding constant access to someone and expecting absolutely nothing from them.

    They Make Plans Too

    Friendship doesn’t have to be perfectly 50/50. One person might naturally be the planner while the other is better at calling, hosting, or showing up when something matters.

    Reciprocity is less about doing the exact same things and more about knowing the relationship wouldn’t disappear the second you stop doing all the work.

    They Can Do Casual

    Not every hangout needs reservations, tickets, an outfit, and four hours blocked off on the calendar. Some of the best adult friendship happens while walking the dog, running errands, sitting at someone’s kitchen counter, or getting coffee for 45 minutes.

    Being able to do ordinary life together makes it much easier to actually see each other.

    You Can Be Honest About Money

    As people get older, their financial situations can become very different. One friend might comfortably spend $150 on dinner while another is trying to save money or simply doesn’t want to.

    An easy friend can hear, “That’s a little expensive for me. Can we do somewhere else?” without making it weird. You shouldn’t have to spend beyond your comfort level just to participate in a friendship.

    They Let You Change

    People change careers, relationships, priorities, hobbies, cities, and ideas about what a fun Saturday night looks like.

    Good friendships leave room for that. You don’t need someone to remain exactly who they were when you first liked them. You just need to remain interested in who they’re becoming.

    They Can Handle Conflict Without Assuming the Worst

    Sometimes a friend hurts your feelings. Sometimes you’re the one who screwed up. Everyone eventually forgets something, responds poorly, cancels plans, or says something they didn’t mean quite the way it sounded. A good friendship can survive someone saying, “Hey, that bothered me,” without turning it into a crisis.

    Good friends can talk through misunderstandings, apologize when necessary, and distinguish between a bad moment and a pattern.

    They know you well enough to give you the benefit of the doubt while still being honest when something actually needs to be addressed.

    They Don’t Need to Be Invited to Everything

    Your friends have other friends, group chats, relationships, hobbies, and plans that don’t include you. That’s normal.

    Secure friendships don’t require constant evidence of their importance. Someone having fun without you doesn’t automatically mean something has changed between you.

    They Can Be Happy for You

    Friendship inevitably involves comparison. Someone gets engaged while you’re single. Someone gets promoted while you’re miserable at work. Someone buys a house while you’re worried about rent.

    You don’t have to be completely free of jealousy.

    You do need to be able to have complicated feelings without making someone else feel guilty for having something good happen to them.

    Easy Friendships Still Require Effort

    Ultimately, being easy to be friends with isn’t about always being available or never getting it wrong. It’s about making the friendship feel mutual, comfortable, and secure. You show up when it matters, give each other room to have separate lives, communicate when something feels off, and keep making space for each other as life changes.

    The best adult friendships aren’t necessarily the ones that require the least effort. They’re the ones where the effort feels worth making.<3

  • Why Do Restaurants Charge Cake-Cutting Fees?

    Why Do Restaurants Charge Cake-Cutting Fees?

    You make a dinner reservation for your birthday. You bring a cake. You order dinner, drinks, maybe even a few bottles of wine.

    Then the restaurant tells you there’s a $3, $5, or even $10-per-person fee to serve the cake you brought yourself.

    It can feel a little absurd. You already bought the cake. Why are you paying the restaurant to eat it?

    Because the fee usually isn’t really about cutting the cake.

    What Is a Cake-Cutting Fee?

    A cake-cutting fee is a charge some restaurants add when guests bring in an outside cake or dessert.

    It might be charged per person, per slice, or as one flat fee. The restaurant will typically store the cake until you’re ready for it, bring it out, cut it, plate it, provide silverware, serve it to everyone, and clean everything up afterward.

    So while “cake-cutting fee” sounds like you’re paying someone $50 to wield a knife for 30 seconds, there’s a little more happening behind the scenes.

    You’re Bringing in Food the Restaurant Didn’t Sell

    This is probably the biggest reason.

    Restaurants make money by selling food and drinks. When you bring your own dessert, the restaurant loses the opportunity to sell you theirs.

    Imagine a table of eight people who might otherwise order four desserts at $12 each. Instead, everyone eats the birthday cake brought from home.

    The restaurant is still providing the table, plates, forks, dishwasher, server and space for dessert. It just isn’t making the dessert sale.

    The cake fee helps make up for some of that.

    Someone Still Has to Serve It

    Your cake doesn’t magically appear sliced and plated.

    Depending on the restaurant, an employee may have to:

    • Find room for it in a refrigerator
    • Keep track of which cake belongs to which table
    • Bring it out at the right moment
    • Find candles and a lighter
    • Clear dinner plates
    • Cut the cake into enough portions
    • Plate every slice
    • Bring those plates to the table
    • Clear everything afterward
    • Wash all of the extra dishes and silverware

    For a table of two, that’s not much.

    For a birthday dinner with 15 people, it can become an actual service task.

    You’re Also Taking Up the Table Longer

    Dessert extends a meal.

    If a restaurant normally expects a table to dine for around 90 minutes or two hours, bringing out a birthday cake can add another 20 or 30 minutes.

    That matters, especially at busy restaurants where another reservation may be waiting for that table.

    The longer a table stays, the fewer times the restaurant can potentially seat that table during the night.

    It’s Basically Corkage, Except for Cake

    If you’ve heard of a corkage fee, it’s the same basic concept.

    Some restaurants allow you to bring your own bottle of wine but charge a fee for opening and serving it. You’re consuming something purchased elsewhere while using the restaurant’s glasses, staff and space.

    Cake fees work similarly.

    You’re allowed to bring something from outside, and the restaurant charges for the service surrounding it.

    Why Do Some Restaurants Charge Per Person?

    This is the part that can make a cake fee get expensive quickly.

    Restaurants often charge per person because the amount of work scales with the size of the party. Four guests means four plates, four forks and four slices. Twenty guests means twenty of everything.

    Still, this is exactly why it’s worth asking about the policy before showing up with a cake.

    Can You Avoid the Fee?

    Sometimes.

    Restaurants all handle outside desserts differently. Some don’t charge anything. Some charge a flat fee. Some waive the fee if you also order desserts from the restaurant. Others don’t allow outside food at all.

    If you’re planning to bring a cake, call ahead and ask:

    “Do you allow outside cakes, and is there a cake-cutting or outside dessert fee?”

    That’s it.

    Don’t wait until you arrive carrying a three-tiered buttercream situation to find out.

    And Yes, Sometimes the Fee Is Just High

    There isn’t always a complicated explanation.

    Restaurants set their own policies, and occasionally a cake fee really is expensive. A restaurant may intentionally price it high because they’d rather guests order dessert from their kitchen.

    That doesn’t necessarily make it a scam. It just means bringing your own cake might not make financial sense there.

    If the fee is $8 per person for a party of 12, you’re looking at $96. At that point, you may decide to eat cake somewhere else afterward.

    The Bottom Line

    You’re not really paying someone to cut a cake.

    You’re paying to bring outside food into a business that sells food, have the restaurant store and serve it, use its plates and silverware, occupy the table while you eat it, and have someone clean everything afterward.

    Once you think about it that way, the fee makes a lot more sense.

    Whether $10 per person makes sense is an entirely different conversation.