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Walterrrrrrrrrrrsssssssss!!!!!!!!!! and I stood on the grassy hill in the University of Virginia football stadium for the final time together as students. Maybe we’d stand again later as graduates, maybe we’d sit together in seats later like proper old men, or maybe neither. Who knew how often my former dormmate and I would see each other again, which meant this shouting contest between us on a sunny and crisp Saturday afternoon in late October was critical.

At 6’5”, Walterrrrrrrrrrrsssssssss!!!!!!!!!! had a voice with enough bass to scare away some monsters, though not enough to frighten a cancerslayer. I was up for our final shouting contest despite being far from 6’5” or having the voice typical of someone that tall.

The contest went like this: before our Cavaliers kicker kicked off to start the game, the Cavalier players on the field lined up behind the ball. At that point, Walterrrrrrrrrrrsssssssss!!!!!!!!! and inhaled as much oxygen as our lungs could hold. His lungs were larger, but I always killed it on pulmonary function tests, so I was no slouch. Then, our single-breath screams began as quiet and low-toned “ohs.”

The kicker raised his right arm, signifying he was about to kick. Walterrrrrrrrrrrsssssssss!!!!!!!!!! and I raised our decibel levels like any Christopher Nolan film just before its climax. Matthew McConaughey found the black hole in Interstellar. I would find shouting glory.

The players’ feet began moving. I shouted louder. They began sprinting towards the ball’s plane. My vocal cords unleashed fury on the air and students around me. The kicker wound up his leg and made contact, lifting the football high into the bright blue sky. A screech exited my throat so loud I considered I was in the process of causing an aneurysm. But, I accepted that risk, and as the ball made its descent towards the NC State University Wolfpack players across the field, we finished our shouts and our contest ended.

“Who won?” I asked our impartial friend Dirty-D as I tried regaining equilibrium and a normal blood pressure.

Dirty-D laughed. “It was a valiant effort, Benjy,” he said, and left it at that.

That was almost 11 years ago, and Walterrrrrrrrrrrsssssssss!!!!!!!!!! and I haven’t attended a game together or had a shouting match since. He served our country in the Navy, traveling around the world in submarines with ceilings not nearly tall enough, married and had three kids. We saw each other when we could, including a few nights ago when he came up to D.C. for training. We tried pinpointing the last time we’d seen each other. At first we feared it had been over six years and then we got excited when I recalled the time I visited him at his parents’ house before his latest nine-month deployment. That was about four years ago.

Suddenly, four years since our last encounter was a good thing. Considering family, jobs, the accumulation of obligations and new friends, that made sense and didn’t sound that bad. As Tim Urban wrote in Wait But Why, he sees the friends who live in his city 10 times more often than he sees friends who live somewhere else.

Who knew how often Walterrrrrrrrrrrsssssssss!!!!!!!!!! and I would see each other again, so we made it count: no phones except his one call to his wife and the few times I logged a beer tasting in Untappd; no TV except to check the scores of the Orioles and Nationals’ games; and no debating who really won our shouting match (me).

The next time you’re with a friend who lives outside your town or city: put away your distractions for a few hours and make it count.

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