I’m trying a little experiment as I write this week. Normally I’d be tapping away in my office or I’d have dragged the laptop outside, cappuccino in hand, to take the sun, but now that autumn has set in, I’m feeling curled-up and comfy mode coming on. So today I’m emulating one of my favourite authors, SARK, by writing in bed. She does all her writing tucked up under the duvet, in PJs, and that just has to be the most admirable work ethic of all. Personally, I would recommend silk pyjamas for literary inspiration, but today I’ve just propped myself up with a bunch of pillows in my usual day gear. It’s a little too early for PJs, even by my louche standards!
This week has also brought the liberation of wireless working, so I have managed to run my little office from a Prada briefcase in my favourite restaurant, which is pretty much my ideal life. I hate being chained to a desk and as I grew up on tales of Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir scribbling away in Parisian left bank cafés, I do have a rather romanticised view of the writing life. Perhaps they did it out of necessity, rather like JK Rowling, who wrote in cafés because she couldn’t afford the heating in the merciless Scottish winters. However, I prefer to believe that they took their inspiration from life and liked to be surrounded by it when working on their art.
Writing is such a strange occupation anyway, because, like any other artist, there’s no useful explanation for where the ideas come from or what makes a writer see things in a different way from others. That goes for all artists – something in them is always searching for a depth of meaning that most people are comfortable to live without.
Anyway, enough with the navel-gazing – let’s get down to business. As you know, I tend to write about the themes that crop up for those around me and I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of tension around friendships of late. Life seems to have been quite difficult for a lot of us lately and that can have a knock-on effect on the quality of our friendships too, as we struggle to cope with simmering tensions.
Sometimes it’s just general life stuff, but sometimes we have to face the fact that a friendship is somehow altered and might be reaching its use-by date. Friends was a great sitcom, but hardly a documentary. None of us are that cheery, supportive or generally all-round good guys all the time. We don’t have little flare-ups and then see them die down in five minutes, to be completely forgotten in ten. We’re also probably on the other side of the city to our closest friends, not right next door, so even keeping in touch can be a challenge.
Television has a lot to answer for, because – like it or not – the cultural images we hold about relationships are often more a product of the small screen than reality or our own experience. Movies, too, give us romanticised versions of friendships that last lifetimes without even a glimmer of a bad hair day. They might make great stories, but they do perpetuate the myth that human relationships are meant to be havens of eternal sunshine. The last time you looked, could you find any friendship that was enduringly and everlastingly upbeat? The answer is no, because it just doesn’t work that way.
Friendships are meant to be uplifting and supportive the majority of the time, but expecting perfection is not only unrealistic but downright destructive. If you cannot accept the vulnerability of humanity in another, you won’t be able to accept it in yourself. Friendships don’t continue on a single note either – they grow and evolve just as you do, and then again sometimes they don’t. Just as in romantic relationships, sometimes you grow together and sometimes you grow apart. It’s not a judgement on the friend, but just an acknowledgement that your paths have diverged.
Rather like the ideal of the marriage that lasts a lifetime, we’ve also bought into the myth of friendships that do the same. Yet our experience differs enormously from that ideal. The more we move around and try different jobs or locations, the more our friendships reflect our interests of the time. Some will last and some won’t. We’ve all had the experience of bonding with people at work, only to discover once we’ve moved on that the only thing we had in common was the job – and usually the habit of moaning about it, as nothing binds people together better than a good whinge about the boss! Friendships come in all shapes and sizes – some burn brightly, then fade away, while others endure in some shape or form for many years. I’ve seen many friendships change character over time, as the closeness inexplicably diminishes only to suddenly resurrect itself as mysteriously as it went.
Perhaps the hardest thing to deal with is knowing that a friendship is really over. We don’t have any useful role models for this, so it’s a tricky one to negotiate – when was the last time you saw a movie scene where two friends came to the amicable realisation that they no longer had anything in common? For the most part, we end up having a bust-up or simply letting the friendship fade away. Neither approach is ideal, but culturally perhaps we’re not quite ready for the level of honesty, self-knowledge and self-worth it would require to have that kind of conversation and still leave both parties feeling good about themselves.
This week, my fabulous friends, I encourage you to take a good look at your friendships and treat them like investments. If they’re not giving you a return, maybe you should think about cashing them in. Maybe you’ve outgrown what they have to offer or maybe you’re just not in that line of business anymore. Look to see what is working and what isn’t. Where’s your secret stash of gold? Who’s the friend you really treasure, but maybe haven’t realised lately just how great they are? Now would be a good time to tell them. Where are you spending your energy – with the ones who are ‘golden’ or the ones where you’re getting nothing back? This isn’t a call to be ruthless, but a reminder that in the long run friendships need to offer something to both parties.
In a good friendship, there’s give and take over the life of the friendship, even if it looks a little lop-sided every now and then. We all have tough times and we all need a little extra support from time to time. A great friendship can embrace the ups and downs, the times of closeness and the times of distance and still manage to stay on track. If you’ve got one of those, recognise just how lucky you are. Truly fabulous friends are few and far between, so count your blessings to have them in your life. And if you want to be a fabulous friend yourself, be compassionate with the ones you love – be willing to overlook the occasional bout of thoughtless behaviour, because we all do it. Just don’t let anyone make a habit of it - you need to be a fabulous friend to yourself too.
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All material © 2006 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 2 Oct 06)
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