What playing Spotify Ping Pong with an old friend taught me about our friendship

Some friends stay a life without us being able to say exactly why. A few weeks ago, I learned something about such an old friendship. It’s about music and so much more.

Do you know what Spotify Ping Pong is? I didn’t know it until recently either. Actually, my friend invented this term.

At Spotify Ping Pong guys sit down with their smartphones and choose a song at Spotify. That’s all there is to it.

Passing the balls to each other

A few weeks ago I arranged to meet an old school friend again after a long time. Our school days have been over for twenty-five years, and we have seen each other about ten or twelve times in this time.

He now has a teenage daughter, and I have been married for twenty-two years. So most of our lives since school have been spent separately. Everyone had their own experience.

But when we saw each other somewhere every few years, it was as if hardly any time had passed since school. The years could not harm this feeling of solidarity.

So we made an appointment to drink a few beers somewhere and maybe dance in a club. But before that, we wanted to meet at his house, because he had brewed his own beer and wanted me to try it.

His wife and daughter were away that day, so we had the house all to ourselves.

After some time, he switched on a Bluetooth box and connected his smartphone to it. I did the same thing.

And then our Spotify Ping Pong started.

We drank beer, talked about old and new times, and played songs for each other.

Of course, there were a lot of songs from before, when we went to school together. With most of the other people from former times, it would probably have stayed with the old songs. But not with us.

None of us had gotten stuck in the old days

Nostalgia can be something wonderful in small doses, but if it gets too much, it can make you feel old.

How often do I see on Facebook other friends from the past who have no different theme than their past youth? There are old photos posted, You-Tube links to bands from the past and old hero stories told for the hundredth time.

These people, I always think, must really hate their lives today. They have stagnated and long to return to their youth.

New music is ignored and ridiculed, and one complains about the impossible musical taste of today’s youth.

But we both sat there with our smartphones, and every time one of us played an old song, the other one played something modern next.

We heard that night New Wave from the Eighties, Metal from the Nineties, German Hip Hop from today, comedy songs, dancehall, the current charts — just everything one of us liked.

So we sat together for about three hours before we called a taxi to drive us into town. We also had a lot of fun for the rest of the evening and half the night, but I remembered the Spotify Ping Pong.

When I thought the next day about what made our friendship so lasting, I suddenly knew: none of us had remained in the past. Both of us were never afraid of change and had remained open and curious.

That is the connection that holds us together. I am convinced of that.

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