I have had a great day today visiting my pal from Uni, Charlotte. I got to thinking on the way home about friends and what keeps you linked with people over the years, even though you don't see each other that often? I have no doubt, that if she lived down the road then we would be in and out of each other's kitchens drinking tea all the time, but she doesn't, so it could easily be a year before I see her again. At one point in my life, this would have made me really sad but nowadays it makes me happy as I don't think we will ever lose touch. So what is it that binds you to some people and not others? Shared values I have realised the older I get. I cannot hang around with people (and their kids) if we do not hit parenting from the same-ish angle. The number of times Zak has been told off for stuff he hasn't really been doing, to make a point to some vacant looking mother whose child is running riot. That is a whole other blog post however, and one I am sure I have already done! Charlotte and I used to live together at Uni too and there is something about having lived with somebody (if you got on that is!) that gives you a bond as you were the person who was there every single day, warts and all. It makes me laugh that when I see my other Uni friends that I lived with, (Clare and Lyns), we always end up getting into bed together in our pyjamas to chat in the mornings as we used to do when we were 20. When you are in the midst of a consuming friendship you can't imagine not telling that person every last thing you are doing but as you move on you realise that you can actually live your day-to-day life without them.
Shelley has always laughed at the fact that I have a new bezzie every five minutes and also that I feel the need to classify my friends in my head. She finds it hilarious that if questioned, (by her - always - who else gives a fuck?!), I can come up immediately with a current Top 3, Top 10, Top 20 list. Not quite sure why it's so surprising; I had a colour-coded list of boyfriends as I went through them as a teenager classified into 'I dumped him', 'he dumped me', 'mutual amicable split'. Don't even get me started on the point allocated spreadsheet I had to decide about our #seriouslynevergoingtohappennow third child. There was a positive and a negative column with a range of 1 - 3 points given for each consideration. E.g. a big negative three pointer was 'having to put sun cream on three children'. Serious stuff. I'm laughing on the other side of my face since Shelley got her new best-baby-mummy-mate, and just in case you ever meet her, we really don't like her by the way. ;-)
Then you have your nearest and dearest mates that decide to up and head off to sunnier climes. They are mainly both called Jenny. Again, it seemed like the end of the world at the time, but you adjust and it is then ridiculously exciting when they come back to visit.
You do end up sharing your day-to-day tribulations with work colleagues. Although I have made some lifelong friends through work, it always surprises me when you can end up not speaking to people quite easily ever again when for such a long time previously you knew every intimate intricacy of their lives. It proves we are all fickle creatures at heart really.
Stu gets cross when I get back from Sam's house and she phones me for an hour later on that evening. (I'm still not a big phone user but she knows that I just won't answer if I'm not in the mood - i.e. drunk.) I was saying to her the other day that there are some people who don't seem to need the relationship that she and I have where we know pretty much every little mundane detail of each other's dull lives. 'Ah', said she with wisdom in her voice, 'those are women who have husbands that want to sit down and talk to them'. Perish the thought.
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