Withdrawal Symptoms

When your life falls out of step with that of a close friend, the relationship's demise can feel like a bereavement

Friday July 2, 2004
The Guardian

All my best friendships have had an absolute quality to them, a sheer intensity that could accommodate anything. They weren't just about fellow feeling, proximity, common interests and a liking for the same unsavoury nightspots. These friendships were ambitious, practically an art form.

They had an unwritten constitution in which both parties tacitly agreed to offer an all-weather, round-the-clock, five-star service. What a relief to know it was impossible to be too giving or too demanding.

The 3am heartbreak mercy dash across town on a night bus with tulips and a quarter bottle of whisky? No problem. Borrow my homework, my best jokes, my dress, my flat, my parents? It's the least I can do!

How could you begrudge someone something when you were practically the same person? Other people could shrug along blindly with their don't-mind-if-I-do friendships of convenience, but not me.

My earliest memory is of falling asleep next to my mother and of how my small, bended knees slotted perfectly into the little alcove created by her larger ones. My friendships have always had the same elemental flavour.

Yet when you try and usher the extreme closeness of early friendships into grown-up life, there are difficulties at every turn. An overworked barrister I know told me recently that she now has time to see her best friend only once a fortnight, and then it's so awkward, that it's painful: "It's as though we don't know how to be together in this ridiculously limited way. I'd almost rather not see her."

When your life and your friends' lives fall out of step, heart-wrenching negotiations may be required. I had so many friends who were unhappily single at the time of my wedding, that in the months leading up to the event I felt like an outcast with an unmentionable secret. Swamped by feelings of guilt at my defection, on the day itself I not only requested that the priest say a special prayer for all those who were feeling sad at heart, I asked the caterer what she thought of adding a few drops of Rescue Remedy to the drinks.

When children come along, all sorts of ruthless calculations need to be made. Is the occasional midnight visit to an ailing friend appropriate or even possible when you have a toddler who will wake at 2 and 6? It may not be, but what is worse is that a regular evening drink can be murder to arrange also.

To make matters worse, just when you need to talk, there's no one you can telephone any more without a great deal of thinking. Any fool knows not to ring after 10.30pm, but ring at tea time and you could be disturbing a feed - that baby could become seriously underweight and it would be all your fault. Ring at 9am and you could be ruining your friend's first lie-in of the millennium.

Sometimes it feels as though your friends are trying to keep a space for you, at least they think they are, but really what they are doing is silently requesting that you keep all your funniest stories and most awful calamities securely under your hat for a while, just until all their children are happily settled at secondary school.

It's a fact that when you have young children, a friend-not-in-need is a friend indeed. Yet how can you live a life where you are only friends with people who never have problems, how can you guarantee not to have any yourself?

If only it were possible to move all the people you love into your street. (I've circumnavigated this problem, partly, by becoming very friendly with my wonderful next-door neighbour. I've even dedicated my new novel to her. Next month she's moving.)

When the highly pitched intimacy of early friendships has almost defined the way you live, their demise can feel like a terrible threat to your identity, an unacceptable loss. Having to withdraw, or having your friend withdraw, can seem almost like a bereavement, especially when it feels as though there's no genuine reason for the separating out, especially when no one's feelings have changed. Yet seeing friends, for some of us, isn't a luxury, it's a need. After my daughter was born, I did not spend much time with my friends and it made me ill. An older friend reassures me that this is just a phase I'm going through. Friendships are often put on hold when you have small children to manage, but it's not permanent. It's hard to choose a night out with a friend over some sleep and it often feels as though you can't have both. You just need to be patient. "Children will grow and men will go," she added sadly. "But you'll see, you'll always have your friends." Oh.

When I was at university, Jacques Derrida came and gave a talk to us about friendship. When two friends meet, he said, whatever is said, both will have the same idea in the front of their minds. Both will be speculating privately about who will be the first to die. Wow, I thought, gazing at his attache case that was so highly polished you could see your face in it. When I meet with a friend, what obsesses me most is what a long time it may be before we have the chance to meet again.