Let's be friends. Best friends.

all I wanted was an all consuming friendship until I learnt what that entailed

There’s this quote from a book series I loved as a teenager that I identified with wholeheartedly:

When I read it, it was one of those quotes that gripped me by the throat and held me at choke point. At the time, all I wanted was an obsessive, all consuming friendship.

I feel I spent so much of my youth chasing after the sort of friendships that I read about. The friendship where you only wanted to speak to and be with each other. The friendship where no one was interesting outside of you. And I found those sorts of friendship — but they were always missing one key ingredient from the stories: they didn’t last for life.

This intensity wasn’t sustainable. Within a year or two, the friendship burnt out.

The want I had for these all-consuming friendships often left me chasing a feeling rather than substance in a friendship, so I’m not surprised they burnt out. These friendships were lopsided. I was often a passive participant once they tipped from fun to painful; doing everything I could to ensure they wouldn’t end because that would spell the loss of magic. I loved a larger than life personality. And I craved someone a little like me: someone who felt a bit broken and who believed we might fix each other.

Now, at the tender age of my mid-twenties, I no longer think that this might make the strongest friendship. At least not if it is the crux of it.

It is funny how much we talk about romantic love and how little we acknowledge the cracks that a tragic friendship fractures within you. I think most of my issues in my life have come from jagged friendships.

There is a kernel of loyalty and love that I can’t let go of, that has me clinging to protect these friendships in the light of day that is writing my own blog. But I also don’t know if that is my tendency to believe the worst in myself. My biggest fear is that I can make myself into the victim in any situation, and so I can be very generous with the benefit of the doubt.

My friendships now are so much more stable. They have each (so far) lasted the test of time. And I never end up in tears over something they’ve said to me. I don’t find myself doubting myself or their love for me.

As it turns out, you shouldn’t be afraid of a friend bad-mouthing you every time you’re not together.

It might just be because I’m not a teenager any more. Or a vulnerable university student. It might be the pandemic. Nothing has you reconsidering your friendships like who you’ll make time for when you’re actually forced to chose and friendships of convince don’t exist.

I love the level of my friendships now. I don’t always love how busy everyone can feel. Or the vastness of London. Or the fact that my friends are spread across the country, and we’re so far away from just being able to walk across the hall and fall into each other’s beds — to either lay there silently or start chatting about something mundane.

And when I close my eyes — sometimes those friendships of my youth still glitter a little bit golden. They’re chased down by drinks and maddening crushes, and the belief that the world is as big as the two of you chose to make it. The nostalgia only lasts so long before I realise that it’s rusted. And I wouldn’t trade anything to go back.