Lets Talk About Friendship

Throughout my life, I have been lucky enough to meet a lot of lovely people. Be it through work, dating, friends of friends or musical endeavors, I’ve met a lot of people and the vast majority of them have been lovely.

But what constitutes a friend in today’s world? Is it as simple as adding someone to your social media page? We live in a world where it is so easy to stay in touch with almost everyone - but does that mean you should?

I’ve known my best friend since I was six years old. In that time, we’ve grown up together, fought like cats and dogs at times and somehow stuck together despite being very different people. We have one main thing in common and that’s music – it inspired us to write our own from a young age and that helped us grow as friends and as people. In fact, I’ve always thought of him as a slightly older brother.

Other fantastic friends of mine are or have been band mates over the years – the camaraderie of hours spent in sweaty practice rooms, sore throats and even more painful headaches the next morning forging a bond that, even when we go months without seeing each other, seems like it’ll exist forever.

Another of my closest friends was married into the family of a girl I once dated. We both left the “family circle” (so to speak) around the same time and bonded over nothing in particular. We just gravitated to becoming fantastic friends. To this day we have very little in common but we enjoy each other’s company all the same.

Other friends I have, I haven’t seen in years. But I know that should I strike up a conversation with them on social media, we can chat for hours.

Having not had a particularly happy time at Primary or Secondary school until the end, I used to fear that I’d have to continually pester people so that I wasn’t forgotten, so that I can stay relevant to the conversation. The truth is that if someone is worthy of your friendship, they will make you relevant. I may not have spoken to person “X” for years, but a chance meeting while shopping or a “Hello” on Twitter can open the gateway to re-engaging.

I spent the last few years of my life attempting to re-connect with people who didn’t want to know me anymore. That was a sobering realisation but it made me realise that the friends I do have are friends for life. Henceforth I won’t be letting my anxieties about being lonely push me into a corner where I’m wasting time on people who don’t deserve it.

So go out, text a friend you haven’t text in ages, or better yet give them a call. Ask someone what’s new in their life, or reminisce about times gone by. But above all else, remember you’re not alone.