I have two Whatsapp messages saved on my phone which are key to giving me a giggle on these dull autumn days. Both are from a friend who shall remain nameless.
One was written before, and the other after, a night out we had a few weeks ago.
The first reads: “I have found a cure for hangovers: Dioralyte. They only give it to sick people though, so now I’ve to go out to the pharmacy at lunch and convince them I have acute diarrhoea.”
Little did my forward-thinking comrade realise that feigning her excessive bowel movements was an unnecessary evil in her preparation for avoiding a hangover.
“She just asked me did I want citrus or blackcurrant – grand!”
What she also failed to realise, on that Friday afternoon, was that it would take much more than a sachet of powdered electrolytes to erase all traces of the previous night’s carnage.
And here comes the second saved message, sent the day after the night out: “I think I’m barred from [well-known Dublin pub] – if you can even be barred for being whiney and annoying.”
Memories of the Friday night incident came flooding back to me. Without divulging too much detail, my comrade in arms had been refused entry to the pub after a pretty harmless incident involving naggins, angry bouncers and requests to speak to a manager.
She stood annoying the bouncers for so long that one of them actually picked her up by the shoulders and moved her out of earshot. I can’t imagine that went down too well – hence the requests to speak to a manager.
There are days when you realise why you gravitate towards some people and not others.
When it comes to my dear naggin-wielding accomplice, that was one of those days when I realised why she was my friend.
We grew up together but have never been inseparable, never lived together or went to the same college – never declared each other as best friends or went on holidays with one another.
Our friendship has never felt strained, with no expectations or dependency on one another. It was always easily maintained. It is one of the few friendships I have which has never really changed over the years; but not all are built the same – and that does not diminish their value.
As I mature a little (very, very little) I begin to realise that friendship is not the same construct which I had previously thought – there is no cookie cutter mould for what is an ideal platonic relationship.
There is a pressure now to be part of a “squad” – a girl crew, a big gang of mates – and I’m not sure if that is unique to our generation or a condition which has affected many generations of 20-somethings.
Yet we must remember true friendship is not validated by the number of check-ins on Facebook, or appearances in Snapchat stories.
Its value is not calculated by an aggregate of nights out or day trips, nor should it be dependent on your membership of a particular group.
Large groups of friends are often borne out of circumstance and convenience, and not necessarily a symmetry of values and interests. They inevitably begin to fade a little, not necessarily due to any wrongdoing or malice, but simply due to differences in life circumstance and proximity to one another.
A group which may have formed in school or college or in a previous workplace can be very difficult to maintain when you are no longer in the same circumstance which formed the friendship in the first place.
This changing dynamic of friendship can be difficult to accept. It can be lonely, isolating and hard to come to terms with. What you should remember, though, is this isn’t happening because you are a bad person, not because you are undesirable or unwanted.
It is simply a fact of life that friendship by its very nature is ever-evolving and you must be open to that change.
There is room for different kinds of friendships at different stages of your life – from the short, intense ones to the casual pals and the life-long, easily-kept friendships. However, most of the bonds you form in early adulthood will always be there, either simmering in the background or as a major part of your life. That is the ebb and flow of fraternity.
So, instead of worrying about not being part of a “squad” of 10-plus equally good friends, I think we should make a resolution to make to appreciate the great ones we have. They may not be equally good friends with each other, many of them may not live nearby and you may not see them every day or even every month – but that does not mean they aren’t there.
What is there, though, is a handful of very good friends. And they should be cherished.