We are not friends we are strangers with memories, inspired by HBO’s Girls Jameela Jamil Company column (March 2013).
Saturday 16 March 2013
I sat down to write something about Girls, something about the relatable characters and scenarios, the little intrinsic moments that define them that I had felt defined me and how brilliantly written and directed it is. However, ever since the episode ‘Boys’ and bells rung after reading Jameela Jamil’s March Company column I’ve been thinking about friends and growing out of them.
Towards the end of the ‘Boys’
episode Hannah calls Marnie after she left Booth’s party apparently inspired to
work on her eBook. I wanted them to
console each other rather than the lie but it was obvious that wasn’t going to
happen. Marnie hid that she had just discovered that she was not a girlfriend
but a mere hostess to Booth Jonathan yet she claimed that she was in his garden watching
fireflies rather than seeking comfort from Hannah. What struck me was that
although long standing friends are meant to be people you lean on in times like
those it didn’t shock me that they didn’t, because I would do exactly the same
with certain friends. It wouldn’t be because I no longer liked the person or
because of an argument but that we had just grown away from each other and Jameela
put perfectly:
Suddenly you are looking at that
person you once considered one of your limbs and you just think. ‘I have no
idea who you are.’
Ever since Marnie moved out they
had no reason to converse as they had nothing else left in common except the
decency to try to keep to their lengthy friendship. And I am feeling this now:
“But why
doesn’t anyone prepare you for outgrowing your friends as adults? And why is it
so much more awkward and politically incorrect than when you want to break up
with a lover?”
You know to break up with a boy
if you no longer have anything in common so why does this not happen with
friends? It is as if we feel some sort of loyalty to our memories yet the relationship
weakens to the point where you either are just trying to impress each other or
rely upon reliving memories for conversation. We may lack problems with these
friends but we still don’t want them to know if we are doing as well as we once
were, regardless of what is was, and why is that? Why feel the need to put up a
fake exterior? I find myself taking comments I would never stand for and
keeping myself to myself all to be the old me, so I wonder if they putting up the old them?
Don’t get me wrong, I love these
people and cherish the memories we have together, but with some of them it is
all we have left and you can have as many lovely reminiscent evenings as you
want but that isn’t going to sustain the friendship it once was. I think since school, since uni we all find what we
want, what we like and who we are so we surround ourselves with people that
support that. So whilst at school or uni those friends fitted and they will
always be a part of that.
So why didn’t anyone tell me this before? We get life
chats about sex and boys but never about friends or what to do when you start
to outgrow friends, but after 21 years I think I am starting to get it, if only
a wee bit!
