Let's Talk About... Friendship

Friendship is a seemingly potent currency in today’s climate. We all want pictures of ourselves on the biggest and best girls night, wearing bright pink cowboy hats and drinking cosmos. All night, you and the girls are snapping pics that are flawless and perfectly in focus. The next day you wake up and casually post these to your instagram feed and walk to your front door to collect the matcha latte that you coolly ordered 15 minutes prior. YEP we all want that don’t we? WELL unfortunately, I am here to tell you that it doesn’t exist. It only exists in the world of constructed reality. Where everyone has a professional make-up artist and gets a blow-out once a week. So, what does having friends really mean if they aren’t for cool photo shoots in hot new clubs?

I didn’t really manage to make long lasting friendships in school. There were a lot of reasons I was unable to do this, which I recount to my therapist every week and won’t do so here. What I will say is that I was the product of an extremely chaotic upbringing and as we all know, that environment doesn't set you up very well for making meaningful, genuine and emotional connections with other human beings. As soon as I left school I lost touch with everyone who had been my friend.

No big hen dos followed by crazy weddings surrounded by people you have known for 10+ years for me. No coffee dates where you can reminisce over your school days. No one who has known you for over two years. It can make you feel very alone. Don’t get me wrong, I have friends. They just aren’t the people I went to school with. I started a job at a restaurant and soon realised that hospitality is the quickest way to make some of the best friends of your life. I became part of the most close-knit group of friends and it felt like a dream, a mirage, a magical orb that I had managed to infiltrate my way into.

BUT but but, no matter how hard I tried I always felt super insecure about having no real friends from school. I felt ashamed and embarrassed. Like something I’d done had driven 150 people away. (I would later enter therapy and realise, yes I had done some stuff, but that it was not my fault and was something I could heal from). One of my old school friends recently started liking my instagram pictures and I started liking hers back. This small action made me feel so comforted and my younger school self felt extremely validated. Then she replied to one of my stories, it was a small thing and I doubt she realised how healing that was for me. This little interaction meant so much to me and made me realise I wasn’t some horrendous swamp monster who no one wanted to be friends with.

So no, I don’t have a huge group of friends. The people in my life haven’t known me for decades. They can’t detail embarrassing stories of my awkward teen years. Sometimes it makes me feel silly and alone. However, the more I talk about it the more I feel like I am not the only one. We have to make new friends as we grow. We should be developing as human beings and that sometimes requires a new group of people around us. I’m working to accept this in myself. And so far, I think I’m doing okay.

Love from, Lily

PS. I’ll be your friend if you ever need one.