The Friend Zone
Why is it so difficult to make and maintain meaningful friendships later in life?
Does it say something about you if you’re not part of a massive friendship group by the time you’re in your forties? Are you a failure if you didn’t hang on to your mates from Uni? I’ve been thinking about stuff like that a lot and digging into ‘The Friend Zone’… and actually trying to be in it…
*The names and identifying characteristics of some individuals have been changed.
The Long Meal Goodbye
Almost three hours had passed since Anna* and I sat down for dinner at 40 Maltby Street. Despite my clandestine efforts to extend our evening a little longer (such as slyly ordering extra small plates to share and suggesting another dessert), the time had come for us to say goodbye.
Neither of us realised how quickly the time had flown, which was one of the things I always loved about our Date Nights. We’d spend them immersed in laughter, good food, and a decent bottle of wine, filling in the juicy details from months of text messages we’d exchanged between our last real-life catch-ups. I couldn’t prolong the inevitable any further. I had to rush for the last Tube so I didn’t end up stranded south of the river, and Anna was driving to the Cotswolds in the morning with her young family for the Christmas holidays.
She wouldn’t be returning to London after that.
We hugged at Southwark Station, promising each other that the new distance between us wouldn’t hinder our friendship. We would only be a few hours apart by train, and Anna would occasionally be back in London for client meetings. She insisted I “escape from the madness of London life” and come and spend time with her and her family at their new home.
I knew this wasn’t the end of our friendship; of course, I would see Anna again and that endless stream of text messages we had going on would continue. But a familiar and painful emptiness set in as I sat on the Jubilee Line with just my thoughts for company. The realisation that the closest friend I had as an adult and saw regularly—which, for me, is no easy feat—wasn’t going to be in the same city anymore hit me like a tonne of bricks.
I was back to being alone again.
Friendship Never Ends
I don't mean to sound like I’m Thanos collecting Infinity Stones, but as a kid, I thought each set of friends I made would be the ones I would carry with me for life.
I truly believed the big gang I rode BMX bikes with around our housing estate after school would still be my mates when we all went off to secondary. It didn’t work out that way (especially as I went on to a different secondary school further out of the borough), so I hoped and prayed that wouldn’t be the case the second time around. I attended an all-girls school during the peak era of Girl Power. The likes of All Saints and the Spice Girls ruled everything, and there is no denying the major impact they had on how I formed relationships with those who would become ‘My Girls’ from Year 9 onwards. We were going to make it last forever because friendship never ends (after Year 11), right?
Well, almost.
Completely skipping over Sixthform (because that was a hot mess of clique-riddled bullshit), my time at university felt like the last throw of the ‘making friendships-forever’ dice. This was surely the place where those bonds would be forged. Despite not living in halls or being Whitley Gilbert (those of a certain vintage will know who I’m talking about), I socialised regularly on and off campus with an amazing group of friends I genuinely loved and felt so connected to. Those final three years of full-time education were formative—the last step before launching into the real world. These people—with whom I shared lows, highs, and heartbreaks and threw tasselled mortarboards in the air —would be the same friends whose birthday parties, group holidays, weddings and baby showers would fill up my calendar for years ahead.
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