The Meaning of Friendship

Friendship can be a strange thing in your forties. I see my closest friends twice a year if I am lucky. It doesn’t lessen our bond, though.

When we were in our late teens we were inseparable. We would spend seven nights a week together. Out interests were similar and when any of us were seeing someone, the expectation was that they joined the group. Whether we were invading one of our parents houses to play whatever games console one of us had or whether we were hanging about down some park or behind some abandoned building, we were always all together. Much of that was before mobile phones were common. You had to actually go wandering and find your friends. There were spots where you knew they would likely be but on some nights you could be wandering about yourself for an hour before you found them. We were out in all weathers. I don’t remember feeling the cold as much as a teenager.

Enter our twenties and things had moved on a bit. By then everyone had a mobile phone. You could stay in touch without pre planning where to meet. We were still together a lot but most of us had jobs. That often took up our day time, and a few of us had unfortunately taken jobs where shift work was the norm so sometimes one or two of us wouldn’t be about much when we were doing unsociable hours. Most of the time though, the majority of us would get together after work. By then I had my own place. I was one of the first to move out of my parents so everyone that was free came to my house. Those were the days where eating a takeaway every night for dinner had no real impact on waist size and heartburn didn’t cripple us. We still played consoles on week nights, we drank too often, as hangovers weren’t all that bad, and we really didn’t have jobs that we expected to be in for life. Most of us were working minimum wage jobs to get some beer tokens for the weekend. The mid-2000s was still a clubbing era, and that is exactly what we did. The weekends started on a Thursday for us and finished on a Sunday night. We might have had work but we went in with two hours sleep under our belts and pushed through. Some of the best bonds I have built with friends was suffering through long days in horrible jobs, just to get to the end of the shift. Pain brings people closer, even when it’s self-inflicted. In some ways my twenties felt like they stretched on forever, and in some ways they were too quick. It was definitely an era where friendship held prominence.

My thirties were a whole new game. By the time I turned thirty, most of my friends had kids and were well into long term relationships or married. I was very much a live life to the fullest guy and while I had a few relationships that ran a few years, I hadn’t found anyone that was an obvious life partner. At the age of thirty two I was to meet my best friend, though. The person that I would fall in love with, marry, and plan the rest of my life with. It was important to me that she met my closest friends, even though we had all gone our separate paths by this point. It was important that they got to see who I had chosen to be with and equally as important that she seen where I came from, the bonds I had grown and the types of people who I could now call lifelong friends, even if I hadn’t met most of them until high school. I read a quote once that said ‘Friends are the family that we chose for ourselves,’ and I believe that to be true.

As I mentioned earlier, my forties are a time where I don’t see my friends as often. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s not that those bonds have lessened. It’s not that any of us avoid each other. It’s simply that life takes over. We don’t all live as close to each other as we used to. In your younger days, most of the people you know live on your street or a few streets away. Now it can be a lengthy drive just to get to one of your friend’s house. Couple that with needing to find a time that you both have off of work. If they have kids they need a babysitter. Some of us run small businesses over and above a day job. Most of us have pets that can only be left alone for so long. Adulthood brings its own responsibilities that we never had in childhood or our teen years.

Friendship is not about seeing someone every week. That’s just how the relationship began. It grew to a place of trust as over the years you let go of the people who let you down. The ones who spoke about you behind your back or mistreated you in one way or another. True friends will always be there, no matter how little you see each other. That’s why when I walk into a room that a few of my friends are in, it’s like we have never been apart. Sure, there is some initial catching up to do, but it’s good times as always. Jokes are made at each other’s expense, but that’s what good friends do. It’s heart warming to be in a room with people you are so close to that you can laugh at each other’s misfortunes. It’s reassuring sitting with people who you can tell the things you would actively hide from others, just to see them laugh. Friendship isn’t about being together all the time. It’s about a comfort with each other that you feel deep inside.