As I have gotten older, the meaning of friendship has changed dramatically. I have not always found the social aspects of life very easy and a misconceived idea of popularity equalling friendship, has in the past left me feeling like the only friendships I could keep were the ones where I was responsible for its upkeep.

Friendships are an equal responsibility. They are not situational, they exist in spite of distance and in spite of hardship. Both parties hold the responsibility to keep it alive and breathing from day to day. If the balance goes awry, then it can become strained or broken, and the more invested person can often feel put upon or pressured by the weight of maintaining it. 

In my case, friendships with men has been a hard thing to tackle. Scarred from some past friendships, it’s hard to bypass the trauma of those experiences and be open to  the possibilities and positivity of male bonding. I often feel that my life would be richer for more sustained friendships with other men, the camaraderie, the support, the shared experience. But maintaining that friendship is hard when your demons are so exposed.

I had a friend. Well, to be transparent, someone who I thought was a friend. They included me in their circle, and to this day some of that wider group are some of my favourite people in the world. But this central friendship was harmful. As time went on, I needed that friendship and the other person treated me as an inconvenience. They had a drink problem, but that is no excuse for their treatment of me. They would tell me that they were responsible for my popularity and that I would have no-one if it wasn’t for them. They expressed that they only drank heavily because I drove them to it, and that their life would be better without me in it. 

They would plan trips and exclude me from them, but would expect me to drop everything when required to, for their benefit.

One time they got into trouble for damaging a car and called me to come out to where they were and negotiate with the car owner who was an angry and potentially dangerous man – holding him there until he got money for the damage. 

At the time I didn’t drive, so I had to get there by convincing a bus driver to go off route to get me to where the incident happened. 

I got no thanks. No apology. He just demanded that I buy a bottle of whiskey for him to drink, which I did.

This was my life within the friendship. We became flatmates and I was stuck. Trapped in his cycle of drinking and emotional damage. 

It took me a long time to be able to look back on this time. I realised that I became socially very awkward, I would skirt the walls at parties and find excuses to separate my self. I would do the washing up, or tidy or hide away, in the hope that people would leave me alone. Or I would get blackout drunk to ensure that I had the courage to socialise. If I damaged myself then I could avoid the damage that others could do to me. 

Over the years though I found I could keep a friendship ticking along, as long as I put in all of the effort. I would text, call, arrange and organise to hold onto these relationships from one day to the next. But I also knew that so many of them were due to proximity, the minute I didn’t work with that person anymore or when they moved away, I couldn’t hold onto them all by myself – the weight of the relationship was too strong. 

For years I fell into the same pattern. Grasping tightly to those who I wanted in my life and knowing that there was little to no reciprocation. It’s exhausting. 

I had to make a conscious decision to stop. This meant that I wouldn’t be “popular” any more. Only those people who contributed their part to our friendship, could stay. 

That doesn’t mean that I wish any harm to those people who can’t or don’t want to put the effort in. Gosh, some of them are my favourite people in the world — but they know where I am. They know how to contact me and that’s ok. I just needed to step back from holding all of the baggage by myself.

The few friendships I now have, are reciprocal. The weight is shared between us, and together we are stronger than our individual parts. I am lucky that I am married to my best friend, in the world and my son is every bit the most special person a guy could ask for. My heart is full. 

The rest are those people who give me time and know that I have time for them too. 

We enrich each other, and that to me is what a friendship is about.

I do wish I had had the capacity to build more lasting friendships with other men. I think there is a unique shared experience which I lack socially, because the damage made these bonds harder to build. 

It’s taken a long time to finally get these words on the page. This is not a “woe is me”story, I am ever grateful for the incredible people I have in my life. There’s just always a thought in the back of my mind about how this shaped the landscapes of my friendships. 

And what I realised is that whilst it’s awesome to be surrounded by friends, the few genuine friendships carry more weight than being the life and soul of the party in a room full of acquaintances. Just a thought. 

TIB