Have you ever forgotten to reply to a message from a friend then made things worse by ending up paralysed with anxiety instead of just apologising for the delay and moving on? I did it for just under eight years. I had this pal I’ll call “J” at university and, for a while, we were inseparable. My life was chaotic at that point and, on more than one occasion, the sofa in his flatshare ended up becoming my ramshackle but welcoming home – sometimes for weeks at a time.
We would text each other all day, every day, and see each other several times a week. Obviously, we assumed it would last forever. We actually gave it a decent go: we both graduated and he moved to Scotland for a while when we still stayed in touch. After that, we were both in London again, busy figuring out what to do with our lives, but we stayed in touch.
He moved to Belgium to be with his boyfriend a few years later but we… well, we remained in contact for a while, then I stopped replying. I couldn’t really explain why I did it: I guess I missed one message, then another, and after that the shame got so overwhelming that I just couldn’t find it in me to engage with him again. It felt easier to pretend he didn’t exist.
More broadly, I guess I just felt like our lives had become too different. It was the late 2010s, I was
neck-deep in Westminster, spending most of my time in or around Parliament, endlessly writing and arguing about Brexit and wholly absorbed by the unfolding political drama. What did we even have in common?
Sometimes the guilt would get to me again, but I became really good at pushing it back down. It did get worse a couple of years ago, though. I’d left SW1 by then and no longer had my old excuse. I felt like I’d just left a cult. Shouldn’t I be trying to make amends? It took a while for me to get over how mortified I felt about it all, but I managed it late last year. I messaged J, on a whim, apologising for disappearing from his life and saying that I’d love to see him if he were ever in London.
He didn’t reply for a while then, out of the blue, I heard from him last month: he was popping to Britain for a few days and did I want to have coffee next week? In the end, we only had an hour or so together, which was hardly enough to cover all the ground we’d missed. We did try, though, and were so pleased to see each other. Already, we’ve made plans to meet up again soon – this time in Belgium. I’ve not been to Antwerp since the last time I went to visit him and can’t wait to head back.
Our meeting also inspired me to get back in touch with another friend, with whom I’d once been close but who slowly left my life as she left her media career behind. We’ve now seen each other twice in two months, having spent years apart. Already, we’ve decided to organise more drinks next month. We may have fewer things in common now, as we’re no longer young journalists struggling in the same industry, but that doesn’t mean we’ve stopped getting along.
In fact, I suspect that our lives have already become richer for having the other person in it. Of course, it is that bit harder for us to be friends now than when we were teenagers or in our early 20s. There’s a natural rhythm to relationships in those years that mean you can wholly embrace someone without even really meaning to.
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Adult friendships, on the other hand, take actual work. We all have our jobs and many have families to think about; we don’t all live in the same neighbourhood, or cities, or countries, and most of us have too many plates spinning. Must we also spend time and energy trying to organise drinks or virtual catch-ups? Do we really have it in ourselves to try, again and again, to reach out to people who are just as busy as we are?
The pandemic put an end to many second- and third-order relationships, as people simply fell out of the habit of staying in touch with one another. Moreish, algorithmic social media filled the gap once occupied by meaningful relationships, and people either accepted it or didn’t really notice what was going on.
I wonder if they regret it now, or are slowly realising that the labour required to keep those flames alive is entirely worth it. If they do – if you do – then I bring you some joyous news: it’s not too late. The people who like you will always be happy to hear from you. Like Arctic plants, friendships really can be tenacious and surprisingly hard to kill. Just send that message or make that call. What do you have to lose?
