I was thinking about friendships this morning. And about how we can use the word ‘friend’ rather loosely. It’s become a bit of a catch-all word when what we really mean to say more often is, ‘acquaintance’. The rise of social media has lulled us into thinking, I think, that we have more friends than we really do. And I realised that I have learned many lessons over the last 13 months about friends and friendships and their true nature.
I am on Facebook and Instagram, though I honestly don’t know why. I’m also on LinkedIn and have even less of an understanding as to why I’m on there. I have a presence on TikTok and a vague one on YouTube. Mostly with a view to promoting my writing which I have been singly terrible at. I keep on vowing to get better, but I don’t. But that’s not the purpose of this blog.
I thought about friendships this morning as a bit of a hangover from the weekend. On Friday night my husband and I inadvertently bumped into some ‘friends’ who were out celebrating my late father-in-law’s birthday. That’s fair enough, they knew him and it was the first birthday after his death. But what I found interesting was that when they spoke to my husband, they were less interested in how he was (they haven’t bothered to contact him since the funeral) and more interested in checking out the latest gossip about him, the business he has inherited and our lives. Trying to make sure not that they were correct in their gossip, but that they had more to add to the gossip mill going on. He was furious, frankly, and I don’t blame him. At one point in his life, he had counted these people amongst his friendship group but he began to realise just how toxic they were. How they loved to gossip about everyone – including my father-in-law at one point – and each other to everyone else. It’s sad and pathetic, not one of them is a true friend to anyone. Calling it all superficial would imply more depth than there is amongst all of them. And they have no care for the hurt they cause. I can’t help but wonder…why? What would anyone get out of that behaviour? How it nourishes their soul at all? Because of course, it doesn’t. It’s all just utterly vile yet they go around pretending there is a friendship in existence. Even acquaintance would be pushing it.
On social media, the events of the last 13 months of my life haven’t really played out. Yes, my heart attack was on there and that produced an interesting reaction from ‘friends’. People to whom you were once close but who you now can’t get to answer the phone. Who, upon hearing about your heart attack talked about how we should ‘get together more’ then proceeded to not answer the phone or call back. Why the platitudes? Why not be more honest and just say…’get well soon, sorry to hear your news’. I can respect that. The platitudes? Not so much.
I remember my grandmother saying to me when I was young that if you could count the number of true friends in your life on the fingers of one hand, you were lucky. She was of the very firm belief that one had at best one true friend in your life. Now this was a woman who was incredibly social, who could chat to a stranger in a queue and have them baring their soul to her in minutes. But she was very firmly of the view that friendship, real friendship, was rare. At the time, I didn’t believe her. I thought that I had best friends for life around me, ride or die people who would always have my back. I was utterly wrong. Not mostly for any malicious reason just that our lives diverged and we wouldn’t have a thing in common anymore. Geographic moves, career pivots, all manner of things meant that we are in a vague kind of contact on social media but that’s about it.
Over the past 13 months, I have become quite hardened to people’s approaches to friendship. Or, as I’ve come to realise it really is, finding out the gossip about my life. What disaster is befalling me now so some can gloat about the wonderfulness of their own lives compared to mine or so that some can sit and have a good old malicious gossip about it. And I have realised that my grandmother was bang on the money about friendship. There are, other than my husband, only two other people who know the minutiae of my life and only one who knows everything. There are some people I will be tremendously grateful to for the help they gave me and my family when we were at our most desperate, but I am not friends with them in that truest sense. They don’t know the real me, they only ever saw the facade I chose to present. And I won’t be in contact them in a year’s time for no other reason than, while I am grateful to them and will always be, on closer inspection I’m not that keen on them. That’s the brutal truth.
Because for me, a friend is someone you can take the mask off with. Someone you don’t always have to agree with but who you respect enough that you take their views into account because of that respect. A true friend is someone you can tell your secrets to and know they are safe, that they won’t be picked over like the flesh of a cadaver to try and find the juiciest bits. That your friend won’t even necessarily spend a lot of time talking to you about them if you don’t want to but understands that their role in that moment is to be a sounding board. And that as a true friend, you do the same for them. A true friend is someone who provides a safe space for you to be completely vulnerable in as you do for them. Without question or hesitation. And a true friend is someone you never have to walk on eggshells around.
If you know someone like that in your life, you know you are absolutely blessed. You hang on to them with everything you have because that relationship is rarer than hen’s teeth. How often do you think you’ve found it only to be brutally let down when you needed them most? Or when you realise that it’s actually all about them and never about you. Or when you realise that the line of communication is only running one way – you making the first move every time. I do have plenty of people like this in my life. And that’s fine, they’re acquaintances whose company I enjoy on occasion. Remembering that it’s that and not a friendship, that they are not people I can entrust my secrets to or expect reciprocal support is something I have learned over the past 13 months. And learning to focus my attention on those who are my friends first and foremost.
It’s been a very valuable lesson. A tough one at times, but one I will always be grateful for.
Louisa Simpson 