I Don’t Know How To Be A Friend

Friendship is such a weird, beautiful thing.

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I was wrapping my presents for Christmas earlier and as I was sorting them into organised stacks, ready to distribute them to friends, family and colleagues, I thought of the bag of wrapped presents that lived in our family home’s loft for over 10 years.

When I was at secondary school, five girls and I quickly formed a friendship group. We were at school together and many of our predetermined class timetables overlapped so, by default, we spent several hours a day together. We had an unspoken tradition of swapping presents on our last day before Christmas break, often at somebody’s house or at Frankie & Benny’s one Saturday afternoon for a Christmas lunch. It was the sort of present-swapping where you’d ask Mum on the sly whether she could spare £20 so each of your four friends could have a cheap Boots 3 for 2 present, but it was nice and it made us all feel very grown-up indeed.

Until one year, when I’d I excitedly chosen and wrapped gifts ahead of time, wrote Christmas cards and tucked them away in my giant Topshop faux leather tote bag… and was never invited to the gathering.

The weekend passed and I tried not to think too much about it. Mum asked me why she didn’t have to give me a lift anymore and I sat quietly at home in the study, mindlessly scouring MySpace for new coding to learn or how to make a new glitter graphic. I saw photos flash up on MySpace of my ‘friends’ at their gift exchange. When Monday rolled around, I could hardly catch my breath thinking about what it’d be like walking through the gates up to where our pack hung out.

Friendships naturally change and evolve over time, and I came to realise that the whole friends can be for ‘reasons or seasons’ is absolutely true. Unlike the romcom and coming-of-age films we all grew up watching, many friendships don’t last forever and the Spice Girls completely had me fooled with their discography. Many of my personal essays mourn this empty expectation of mine: that I’d have friends for life to experience all my milestones with. Truth be told, I’m not sure I’ve ever had that.

And yet I know how to be a (good) friend. When a particularly perfect postcard spins ‘round on the annoyingly rattly stand in a good ol’ fashioned touristy souvenir shop, I’ll pick it up to send – even if snail mail is outdated. I knock just to say ‘hello’ if I’m in the area – read: anything within 10 miles. I send ‘just because’ treats in the post and write long notes in pretty cards even when it’s not their birthday. I drive ‘round and we order in on those odd Monday nights whenever somebody has decried: ‘today is sh*t’. I know what my friends love, and what puts a smile on their face.

What I don’t know is why no matter what I do, some friendships just don’t stick around. Some of my once-best friends simply stopped speaking to me one day. Another faded into obscurity after they decided I wasn’t catching up quick enough with their timeline. Others were laced with back-handed remarks and secretly snarky comments, pushing me all the way out of the door. Some are just fine: we pop out for meals and then I return home realising I was never asked once about my own life. It was just free therapy (for them).

What did I do?

I’m no stranger to being forgotten or passed up, anyway, I tell myself. I’d often be the kid they forgot at all-class birthday parties or when Christmas cards were passed out. No worries if not has echoed throughout my life. But perhaps I am worried. Perhaps, as I happily enjoy my thirties with a close-knit circle of friends, I am worried about being left behind, left out, again. I wait for the moment I’m not good enough anymore, not funny enough, not interesting enough. I am anxious for those all too familiar feelings of tapping through their photos and realising I wasn’t invited. I am scared of accidentally doing whatever I must’ve done wrong last time. Even though I think I know my friends are my friends, it feels like I’m watching sand disappear through my fingers. The friendship is running out, it must be – nobody has ever stayed for me before.

It’s been almost two decades since the forgotten presents, and the gifts lived in our loft for half of those years. They watched me move out of home to University and back again, land my very first job, watched me hunt for a suitable suitcase (because, duh, the loft is the land of suitcases and the Christmas tree) for a move abroad to Hong Kong, and back again. The presents remained all dressed up with nowhere to go, and that’s a little sad, isn’t it? (When we moved house five years ago, I donated them – still wrapped – to a local children’s charity.)

I don’t know how to be a friend.

But I’m always trying.