Friends

thoughts on the third type of relationship

This week I moved overseas and left all my friends behind. The sense of community I’ve built up over years spanning three Australian states.

A German colleague told me once that English does not have enough words for different types of friends. How do you tell between a work acquaintance and a friend you’ve loved dearly for years?

I’ve been meeting more and more young women aged 18-21, who openly say they don’t have friends. They’re not ashamed exactly, nor proud. More… confused? Like they don’t really know what a good friend is, how to get one, or be one. I ponder, are they okay? Can they not make friends, or do they choose not to? I ask my older women friends if they ever lived through a friendless phase. Perhaps when moving to a new place, they tell me, but never intentionally - people need people.

YouTube suggests me videos by young female content creators who openly and visibly do not have friends. They are alone, working on their passion. They have family connections, and colleagues, but no friends. They create content that is thought provoking but without close ones to share it with, it is posted online. Monetized.

We hear that there is an epidemic of loneliness. Sarah Wilson writes about friendship-lite, and Freya India observes that friendship has become something else to be done online. I notice increasingly friends send reels but not secrets. Memes but not feelings. Not struggles nor dreams. Friendship-lite. I delete the apps. I send bold texts like “How are you?”. I make a friend roster to phone call regularly. Quickly and easily we grow closer, more secure. I have friends who I’m their only friend and they look at me with awe. I think of all the other people who I know would love them too.

Girls seem to struggle making friends more than guys, I’m told repeatedly. “How do I make new friends?” A friend asks. “I try but people don’t follow through?”. You must make all the moves, I say. We’re all too sensitive to rejection and afraid of vulnerability. You basically have to platonically top them.

Other friends tell me they keep their family close and otherwise emphasise finding a romantic partner. Friends are too flimsy, they leave too easily. Younger women tell me of all the friendships lost over tiny reasons. No one tries to work things out anymore. No one wants to be challenged.

Friends disappear into obsession with a new partner. I wonder if friends are just platonic playmates on route to finding The One. Am I just a comforter until you find your boo? What happens when you divorce into a sea of lonely middle-aged singles? What happens when your kids can’t learn how to make friends because you have no friends to show them?

I treat my close friends like family. They treat me like a friend. A best friend moves overseas, and I am not considered. Do I want to be? I am moving overseas. I know that if I stayed, they’d move soon enough anyway.

A prolifically in-love friend tells me that platonic love is his favourite kind of love. Another tells me that everyone has a great love in their life, but that it needn’t be a person, his is a creative passion. I think I’m always a little bit in-love with my friends.

I want to build a life that includes friends. I want us to consider each other. I text: “should we start a commune?” I joke. But seriously, what if we tried to live in the same suburb?

Tell your friends you love them. Introduce them to each other. Don’t just tell them about your life, get in their lives. Be the glue. Look after them. I don’t know if I’m loving too hard but I’m going to keep doing it.

Roberta

Barcelona