Life has always – helpfully – presented me with friends. From the classroom to the lecture hall and the office, there they were, as if travelling towards me on a preordained conveyor belt, delivered joyfully into my world. I’ve never felt I’ve had to go looking for them.
Until now.
For the first time in my life, at the age of 35, I’m trying to make friends without the helping hand of external forces like jobs or school gates. I work from home, I don’t have kids, and I’ve moved to a new city where my nearest friend is an hour’s drive away. So now I’m actively trying to seek friends out – and without the confidence of my three-year-old niece who will happily chat to most people in the park.
Friend dating is incredibly intimidating. I look at people on the street and wonder how they would react if I asked if they fancied a coffee sometime. When we see a couple in a restaurant, my partner whispers, “catch their eye!”, as if we could simply flirt our way to dinners and pub drinks and country walks together.
I have been on a few friend-dates. These are mostly with friends of friends. After what I thought had been a lovely afternoon walking around the city, one friend-date announced that she was going for a drink with someone else, and in such a way that made it abundantly clear I was not invited. I walked back to the house wondering if I was a bad date, or if I wanted too much too soon.
In the early days of romantic dating, I had a terrible habit of sitting down opposite a date, and, despite all better judgment, trying to figure out instantly if this was my next life partner. This is a habit I’ve discovered I still have.
On friend-dates, I look at women and wonder if they could make me howl with laughter. I wonder if I could cry messily on their sofas, if we could talk for days, if they would remember my birthday, if we would send each other rambling voice notes full of fears and money worries, if we would go on holiday together, to festivals, the cinema, the supermarket. Over tea and a surface chat of general biographical fodder, I try to read them like leaves in the bottom of my cup, seeing if they hold my future.
One of my best friends, Natasha Lunn, (who I left behind in London), has written a book called Conversations on Love. In it, she interviews great writers, thinkers and psychologists about human relationships. There is a singular theme in the answers of all the different people she has interviewed: that one person can’t provide everything. Or as Philippa Perry puts it, “The idea connection has to come entirely from one other person is bollocks.”
Simply, we need friends. I particularly thrive off the company of women. The joint adventure of starting a new life here with my partner won’t be complete until we’ve done the hard graft of building connections beyond each other.
On a rainy Thursday, I met R in a coffee shop. A mutual friend had put us in touch. I worried I was wasting her time; most people complain of not having time for existing friends, let alone new ones. Worse than a friend date, I wondered if it was a sympathy date.
Tall and with waves of red hair, she smiled warmly when she walked in. I quickly noticed a cool pair of boots, and I tried not to get my hopes up. As we began to talk, the formulaic dance of questions about hometowns and siblings was quickly replaced with deep thoughts on a sense of vocation, finding purpose, and ambitions. I was enthralled by how many languages she spoke, and she had endless questions about my work. Two coffees later and we had been there nearly three hours.
When I got home, she texted me, inviting me and my partner to a summer party she’s having. And all of sudden, the idea of making friends at this stage in my life was no longer completely daunting. Instead, it began to feel like a thrilling adventure of its own, a new avenue to explore. For all the irreplaceable comfort of old friends, new friends, I’m learning, offer a sense of renewal and fresh starts. R is meeting the latest version of me. She knows me for who I am today, not who I was before. There is a liberation in that.
And so when I found myself walking with her along the canal on a Sunday morning, laughing and gasping and talking, I suddenly had a moment of realisation. I had made a friend.