True Friendship

Takes a long time… or takes just a moment. It’s a tricky concept this friendship thing. True friendship breaks through the pain barriers – that stiff, awkward feeling that often goes before a real friendship is struck. Some lucky mortals don’t appear to go through that stage: the life and soul of the party from that first moment, easy-going conversation, rapport, lack of self-consciousness… But, in reality, probably we all have a pain barrier to go through in pursuit of that warm, feel-good factor of real friendship. Some of us just hide it better than others.

Some of my best, closest, most relaxed friendships were forged before I even knew how to spell ‘worry’. They were the easy ones. “Would you like to play with my dolls?” “Yes” – easy! Teenage friends were less easy. Hard to be cool sometimes. In my twenties and thirties I knew more of that community feel than at any other time. It’s maybe a thing I hanker after even now. Sitting on the floor, sharing a coffee or a glass of wine, pouring out your heart (in the days before you knew it was dangerous to do so), laughing, crying… That’s what true friendship can be made of. Forged out of crises, struggles, good times, bad times. Shared experiences while the kids were growing up…

But sometimes it was quick as a flash. We just hit it off. We shared a sense of humour. We got angry about the same things… Who knows? But it worked. The chemistry was there. An instant friendship of that kind once led to sharing a flat with a girlfriend. We hardly knew each other and yet, after that first long evening of endless cups of coffee and endless chatter, we just knew – we could be friends. It would work. And it did. Just as well – we had only one room between us and no money!

Then I fell in love. When we got married she was my bridesmaid. I gave her my teddy bear to make up for moving on! I didn’t need it any more; she did. I had found another true friend. Thirty-seven years later, she’s thrown out the bear, she told me, but I still have my best friend. He was a true friend, it seems. You can weather a lot of storms with a true friend. They’re hard to find but, when you find one, it’s worth hanging on in there, despite the ups and downs. They don’t come along all that often.