Most people want to be liked. Most people want friends. I am certainly not different from most people in that respect. I watched Remember Me on Saturday night and was a little upset at the portrayal of bullying towards a really gifted young girl because she was different. I guess while I was pretty different at school, the last time there was any attempt at bullying towards me was when I was 9 – and even then I wasn’t having any of it. I remember the girl in question being very much bigger than me as I was quite the runt in my early days and while I was certainly beaten up in the fight, I made sure she knew there was a fight. Needless to say, after I became the second tallest girl in addition to the rough tomboy I have always been, there was never going to be a question of anyone bullying me.
This is not to say that I did not have my fair share of the popular girls throwing out insults because I was different but it pretty much meant that I evolved quickly into the person that I am now – someone who doesn’t care about people that have no positive impact in my life. As one of introverted disposition, I went through secondary school with the same 4 friends that I made at 9/10 and pretty much kept them as my closest mates – with 2 permanent additions as well as 3 or 4 temporary additions over the course of the subsequent 16 years until the last year or so. I suddenly find myself in the position of having made 5 or 6 proper friends in the last couple of years – a pretty amazing number in my book because after I read somewhere that most people make their friends up until university, I was convinced that my circle would remain 6 strong.
It got me wondering about the rules of friendship, how do some people get to be keepers while others don’t? After much musing, here’s what I think:
1. It’s a chemistry thing: I accept that there are people that will like me and there are people that won’t. I pretty much know within 15 minutes of meeting someone whether we will get along or not and so far I’ve only been wrong once – who could have predicted that the girl I grudgingly allowed to share an office with me and who I thought could not possibly have anything in common with me would turn out to be one of the most awesome people in my life?
2. There has to be reciprocity: A really good friend of mine had to write an essay when she was 8 or so about her best friend(s). She wrote a really nice composition about her two best friends only to be devastated when it turned out that they had both written about each other. Till this day she refuses to declare anyone as her best friend. Anyway, if I make all the effort to keep up the friendship, then it’s not really a friendship from my POV. If the other person’s making all the effort it just means I don’t really care.
3. Even if you haven’t seen each other for years, when you do see each other you pick up from where you last left off: This is indeed true with my friend JT. I could go for months without speaking to her (or indeed communicating with her in any way) yet when we meet up it’s just as though we were still living together in Mauldeth Road.
4. If you’re not sharing it’s not real: Back when I was in Benin, I went to visit one of the original four and she shocked me by saying “well you never tell us anything” when I asked why I was always the last to know the really private stuff in our group. I’m a little weird in this sense because I often think that if people want to know something about me they should ask me yet I think that if my friends want to share something with me they’ll tell me. I was also raised to believe that dirty laundry should not be aired in public so there’s a naturally secretive element to my personality. However, since she said that to me I made a conscious decision to share even the minutiae of my life with friends and ask them about theirs.
5. Do unto others as you would be done by: Ok I have twisted this a little bit because as a rule I am more chilled out than most people. If a friend stands me up, that’s Ok as long as it isn’t a regular occurrence. If a friend turns up late, provided they tell me in advance or have a good reason, I’m good too. I’m so laid back I’m horizontal but I realise that some people have higher expectations/different values than I do. I am Nigerian so I have an elastic view of time. While I always aim to be on time, I’m invariably 5 to 10 minutes late. However when a friend mentioned to me that she takes lateness personally, I started making the effort to turn up on time for her.
6. Don’t do things because you expect your friends to do them back: This might seem contrary to the reciprocity thing but I think it’s slightly different. I think that if my friend asks me to turn up at theirs because they have a crisis of any kind, I would do it in a heartbeat – as long as I was not physically unable to do so – but I don’t expect the same of my friends. I would love to say I was being selfless in this scenario but the truth is I get a high off of making the people I love happy and I accept that it is not necessarily the case with other people.
7. Call it as you see it: I am not tactful or subtle and neither am I a sensitive soul but I am either honest or I keep quiet. I remember a friend of mine once bought a coat with a fur collar and asked me if I liked it and while I was trying to think of a nice way to say no, my face was scrunched into a “don’t think so” look so she got the message and I burst out laughing. It was early days in the friendship hence the hesitation but I pretty much aim to be the friend that tells you the truth so you don’t have to find out from someone who wouldn’t be telling you with good intentions. Needless to say I love my friends to tell me the truth...even if it is bitter – I’d rather I heard I had kicking breath from them than find out when my date made a swift exit after leaning in for a kiss.
8. Accept your friend just the way they are: I think some people like their friends to be their clones. While it is lovely to meet people that are really similar, I think the differences make people interesting. Obviously if your ‘friend’ is throwing out snide comments behind your back or trying to engineer your downfall, hotfoot it out of that relationship ASAP! Like someone once told me, they knew they were in love with their (now) husband when they realised that didn’t mind the things that would normally annoy them. Friendship is love without the sex
I wonder if there are any more thoughts........ and I wonder if any of my friends think I’m chatting out of the wrong end of my body because I don’t follow these rules.
*DISCLAIMER: I consider all the people I am friendly with and hang out with who don't tick these boxes "acquaintances" for the purpose of this post. Don't be offended - I'm just telling calling a spade a spade.
