As we get older, I can’t help but feel that we take for granted how simple forming friendships used to be. Going really far back, I admire the pre-school Harriet who could simply play with her toys next to someone without saying anything. I wouldn’t say boo to a goose at this age, but this didn’t matter because making a little buddy didn’t require any real effort. The most strenuous part was simply finding someone available to be a friend in that moment, and once found, making it happen just like that. Maybe not for the long-run, perhaps just for a matter of days, but there was always an easy fix when needed. Or maybe it’s because at that age, we’re brilliantly fearless and don’t understand the concept of rejection or judgement. The social ladder at pre-school is nothing like the ladder climbed later in life.
Growing older in school, I gained confidence and realised that the ability for my mouth to speak words, make noises or sing really badly, meant that it could in fact be used on other people for conversation. Luckily this happened, because progressing through the school system is when making friends starts to require some effort. A definitive process begins involving some initial awkward interactions, some serious trying to impress, growing together and then eventually not falling into a trap of complacency otherwise all the years of ground work could go to waste.
I’ve been fortunate enough to keep a fair few friends from my school days close, and hold them as some of my best friends now. A little group of us formed in infant school which continued into junior school and our parents were (and still are) all friends too. Then at secondary school, we remained and a few others joined the gang. I’m aware that this is extremely rare and I feel so lucky.
Needless to say, there have been times that I’ve veered dangerously close to the trap of feeling complacent, like nothing would go wrong with the friendship, so minimal effort could be expended. But this is not the case. If I could give advice to anyone about friendships, including my younger self, it would be to not forget about the ones that count when you have a partner. There were certainly times growing up in school (because Jordan and I met at 15) that my naïve excitement about having a boyfriend threatened to blur the line between two imperative parts of my life and cause an imbalance. The role friendships play in contributing to my happiness was nearly overturned by a teenage obsession of having a boyfriend (because obviously, this made me go from a moderately average 4/10 'cool' rating to a solid 7/10). School was bizarre. But I'm thankful for this lesson.
Further down the line from school, it’s said that University is where ‘best friends for life’ are made. And while these are definitely not the root of this saying, I find myself bizarrely missing those horrendous 'icebreaker' sessions they used to run in seminars to get people socialising; how USEFUL would these be in the real-world to avoid the bewildering puzzle that making friends can feel like? Nevertheless, I'm grateful to say that three of my best friends genuinely were found at University, but I do believe that framing it as the place to make your ride or die friends is an unrealistic statement to plant in people’s minds. It's also a heap of pressure to pile on top of an already intense situation.
The sad reality of friends formed in this way is that once the course finishes, the majority of people move back home, which means being miles away in physical distance from those brilliant friendships you became so accustomed to always being there. Yes, I could insert a thought-provoking statement here about the pandemic and how this has alerted everyone to the beauty of 'Zoom' calls and keeping relationships that are separated by distance very much alive through the power of technology - but the reality is, it's not the same.
Friends that were seen every day without fail, through the highs and lows of dissertation-land, turn into friends that are seen a few times each year – if lucky – and this is sad. There’s no denying how hard this is. Thankfully for me, these are the friendships where contact could be next to nothing for five months but as soon as we’re back together it’s like we’ve never been apart. If the work is put in, a friend from afar can absolutely be a friend that’s close to the heart.
So now school is over, that degree you started three years ago but swear feels like three months ago is completed and every friendship formed from these days is now...a little more sparse. What next? Worry of course!
I’ve spent many hours worrying that I don’t have one absolute ‘best’ friend. Does this make me weird as a 24 year-old? What about in the future when I have to choose someone to be my maid of honour? Yes, the overthinking really does go this far. But really, it’s not worth stressing about things that genuinely don’t matter. To have a smaller selection of equally close friends is just as fabulous, if not better.
We will however, all have down times when we feel we’ve got no friends to turn to and this can be a worrying thought. When we’ve not had a message from a friend in days or we feel that there’s nobody close by that could call in. I for one have had times where I’ve felt upset about something and, although I'm lucky enough to have friends around me, have felt I had nobody close enough for whatever I was going through.
Social media doesn’t help with this. According to my Instagram, countless girls have far more friends than me because of their follower count and the amount of photos they share with friends compared to me. It’s so hard, but I feel absolutely imperative, to remember how untrue this is. People share what they want to. If someone has a photo of them with a friend they’ve not featured on their Instagram feed before...they will usually post it to add to the perceived selection that we unwillingly compare to our (much shorter) list of WhatsApp contacts or Instagram likes. I always try to recite this to myself when I see such images because it suppresses my worry slightly; people show what they want to, it's not always the truth.
It’s mad that social media can have this effect, but it does and better yet, we’re aware of it. But still...here we are, worrying that we look friend-less because of our social media profile. The ‘popular’ cliques begin to form in secondary school, when so many would worry about how they’re viewed by them and would long to be liked, and really that’s what social media does now. We spend our school life wanting to be liked by the right people and we spend the rest of our life wanting to be liked by anyone.
The truth is, making and maintaining friendships when growing up demands more time and energy being thrust into them than ever before. And this is hard. It doesn’t feel natural anymore for some reason. There are only so many situations we find ourselves in where talking to other like-minded people on a consistent basis is possible. Plus, we're busy people and we move around a lot.
We won’t always live in the same place, work for the same company, partake in the same hobby or generally lead the same life as when a friendship was initiated. I think this is why friends are far harder to come by, and keep close, as we grow. As much as we tell ourselves how that friend we sat next to at work for three years absolutely got us through each day in the office, it doesn’t guarantee that the friendship won’t dwindle and eventually fizzle out. Someday, we'll find ourselves both sitting next to a new person who gets us through the day in a new office and that initial click that you were sure was unbeatable from the previous job becomes a memory. The text messages become fewer, and each meetup that is sworn to happen somehow gets postponed. It’s sad, but common. If we kept every person we’ve ever deemed a friend close, then we’d be inundated with people all the time and honestly - that just sounds tiring.
People’s situations change, and they aren’t going to stop making life changes because of a friend or the impact it may have on that relationship. People get married, have children, move abroad, split from their partner; all things that can simultaneously loosen the key chain linking a friendship together. If a change of this nature happens for one half of a friendship, but completely clashes with the other person’s situation, keeping the friendship afloat is surely going to be a challenge. For me, I always try to remember that I never know where I’ll be in the coming days, weeks, months or even years. I’ll always do what’s best for Jordan and I, and the friendships that are meant to stick will remain, whilst new ones can always be made. Right? There has to be a way...
Yes, of course there are ways to make friends as life progresses, but for some reason we feel silly trying to do just that, to ‘make friends’, past our teenage years. It's a hurdle that I'm trying to get over because I've come to terms with the fact that this is, quite frankly, going to be a reality for the foreseeable. People are always trying to make friends, ideally in a natural way, but realistically are going to have to put themselves through some perceivably awkward scenarios to do so. But, as I think I've mentioned on this blog already, the person on the receiving end has usually not even let the thought of how weird you're convinced you seem cross their mind.
I for one think that someone who has the guts to approach another person and start a friendly conversation in the most normal of places, like a supermarket, is admirable. I have heaps of respect for people who can go out for dinner alone, or simply sit in a coffee shop alone to enjoy a drink. Isn’t it weird that we can be so dumbfounded by this? But really, being too worried about what people think could ultimately stop the beginning of potential friendships.
Unfortunately, we need to be doing that awkward thing of initiating a conversation with someone we don't yet know if there’s any chance of a friendship blossoming. That same thing that seemed so easy all those years ago in pre-school. There are many situations that guarantee there to be like-minded people around which can make these initial conversations easier to approach, but it doesn’t mean the connection is bound to be stronger than with someone who’s quite the opposite on the surface. People can enter our lives at the most random times and from that day on, everything could be different. I believe that sometimes you just know, and taking the gamble to say something (that we convince ourselves is nothing short of dreadful) like "Hello, could you help me with this?" can absolutely pay off.
I remember my method at the beginning of University was to spot another girl standing alone outside of the lecture theatre I was waiting to go in, and simply pick them as my target (once I’d psyched myself up enough of course, to ultimately ask something painfully obvious like "Are you waiting for the Events Management lecture?") But still, it was something (OK?) There’s no denying how nerve-racking this can be. I consciously try now, when out and about, to say a simple hello or smile at people I pass because this can go a long way. If it’s on the same route that’s repeated every day, who knows how many times this could happen before phone numbers are swapped and coffees (98% hot chocolates for me) are drunk together.
These confusing explanations of how friends supposedly can be made doesn’t mean that it’s easy. It means that it’s absolutely possible, but we never really know when it’s going to happen. And if it does, how long it will last is unknown. That’s the sad reality, but it’s a fact of life. It’s a constant balance of not trying too hard, but also trying hard...and not always expecting it to happen but never missing opportunities to talk to someone new because you never know...I mean, what?! I salute anyone who has one friend based on the myriad of complex social games we continue to wing our way through.
Making friends should never be painted as something that’s easy just because it might have been in former years. Regardless of how confident someone may be when speaking to new people, it doesn’t mean that every person will want to know more about them and that could make the most outspoken person feel a little reserved. It’s a complete minefield that will, at times, leave us wishing the ground would swallow us whole there and then, but at other times could change the course of our lives forever.
Some friends last, some friends come and go after a few years, some don’t even stick around for your birthday and some friends haven’t been made yet.