On Friendships

Recently I've been thinking more about my friendships and what makes a good one, but I've also had the sad realisation that haven't made any new close friends in more than a decade, and spent very little time with those I already have.

This doesn't mean I'm lonely, and if you ask who my closest friend is, that's an easy answer; it's my lovely wife. We've now been married for eight years, living together for thirteen and together for fifteen. We have two children, a house and spend a lot of time together, even there's not as much 'quality' time as we'd like, given all the other demands. I'm also lucky to report that while very tired, we're still happy together.

When I'm thinking about friendships this isn't really one I'm thinking of; it is a friendship, but it's just very different from any other. It's a romantic relationship, but it's also orders of magnitude closer than any others, it's like comparing a candle with the sun. Being very different types of relationships also means that they're not interchangeable. Colleagues and family are different as well; I've had the luck of working with some great people, sometimes for long periods of time, but along with family that's somehow a different relationship to me, as something else is bringing you together.

Marriage aside, what do I think makes a close friend? There's not a hard boundary, in all cases there are degrees of friendship; but I think a 'close' friend is someone with whom you can talk for hours and not tire of it, talk about any subject, and make each other laugh and think. Someone who you actively choose to spend time with, are genuinely interested in them and want to support them.

I thought shared interests might be an important aspect, but when I think about my closer friendships, there are some overlapping interests, and music is a common one, but it's not essential. You meet people through shared interests or activities, and that's how you come together, and why shared interests seem important, but doesn't sustain the friendship.

For example, quite a few close friends are sports fans; show them any sport, even something completely new and after a few minutes they've understood the most important rules, can see the flow of the game, have opinions on the tactics and the players and become engrossed. I'm not one of those people. My opinion of football (soccer) is that if 22 people have fun chasing an inflated pig's bladder, that's fine with me, but I don't need to watch.

The times when I made the most new friends were in school, at the start of university and then immediately after university when I joined a graduate scheme. In school you're thrown together with a random¹ collection of people from the local area, and left to fend for yourself. At school there the fewest initial shared interests, you're all obliged to be there, if you like it or not, and hopefully you manage to find some people you get on with. There were many more people I don't get on with, or had no mutual interest in, but the school was large enough that I could find a couple. University and the graduate scheme were better starting points, because while perhaps not ideal, most of the people had chosen to be there.

In all those cases there were a lot of people in a new place, and few had existing friends there, so everyone is interested in making friends. You talk with a lot of people and start to narrow down to those that you get on with. The same is probably true in online environments² as well. I was lucky, not only did I get that at the start of university, but again at the start of the graduate scheme as many similar people moved to Bristol at the same time. Then you need the time to spend with people to get to know them and figure out who you get on well with.

From those experiences it appears to be a numbers game, combined with having the time to spend with people and the motivation to make new friends. Since moving to Hamburg I've not really had those chances, the main one being the lack of time. When I first moved I was doing a very intense job, which meant very little free time. Additionally, when you move somewhere new most people already there have an existing circle of friends, and aren't really thinking about making the effort to make new ones, given they're already pressed for time keeping up with their existing friends.

After I moved from that first role there was a brief period where I had a little more time, and a chance to recover, but then we started the next adventure of having children, which is not something that leaves you with much spare time or energy for your own friendships. I'd had hoped to make more friends in other parents, but a pandemic put a big hole in that, and again it's not like you spend a lot of time together, and when you do everyone is somewhat distracted by trying to make sure their own children aren't the ones currently crying, or trying to eat the contents of the sand-pit.

The saddest example is that for the last eight years a good friend, and ex-housemate, moved locally and also had children with his wife. This is the best possible scenario, but they're now moving away again, and in the time they've been here we've only met them about a half-dozen times - which feels like a huge missed opportunity. It is probably more of an statement on how hard it is to make time for anything that is not young children or work, and having the mental energy to socialise after that.

So that's what I'm missing, really getting to know some more people and them becoming closer confidants, and in the last ten years there hasn't been the time and opportunity to do that. It's probably 'just' the current phase of life, and previously I'd grown used to regular change, and opportunities to meet new people, which has dropped off as other demands on time take over, but even if that's the explanation, it doesn't make the situation any better.

There are some glimmers of hope. First those close friends I have, we seem to be able to keep our friendships ticking over with random short messages and other interactions, which are easier to do than anytime in the past. It's still not easy, but it's something. Normally a few WhatsApp messages here or there, sometimes a longer exchange when something relevant comes up, or perhaps music recommendation. Sadly close friends don't always correlate with people who are good at keeping in touch, but it's something, and hopefully one day there will be a chance to see each other again more regularly. Second is that recently I've been more in touch again with a couple people I haven't spoken to in a long time, and that's heartening.