Last year, my friend Kirsty and I made a deal. We agreed to speak once a week on the phone. We felt as though we were drifting, and it panicked us both. At first it felt silly; strategic, even. Too much like the proverbial ‘date night’ (aargh). But we lived at opposite ends of the country, we were getting busier, the months were flying by and we were out of touch with each other’s lives.
I didn’t know she’d gone on antidepressants. She didn’t know I was planning to move cities. Big life stuff. Some friendships naturally start to slide and it feels right to let them go. This didn’t. It felt wrong and painful. ‘We need to formalise our friendship,’ Kirsty said. ‘We need to diarise our chats. Book them in and honour that.’ ‘A sort of contract,’ I said. ‘Like therapy.’ ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘or the gym.’
And like therapy – and the gym – it worked. Kirsty and I got close again – our shorthand came back; our intuition for each other’s needs came back – and I realised how much I’d missed that intimacy with her. Establishing that new regime was the first time I had consciously ‘worked’ at a friendship. It felt like we’d evolved.
Other friendships have needed other kinds of work. For example, a group of uni mates used to get together a few times a year for a drink and a catch-up – and, invariably, an argument about politics. Each time we met up, the group was like a ticking time bomb. Everyone always left fuming, then woke up with the Booze Fear. It was no good.
Then one of the group suggested employing a safety word: ‘snood’. A ridiculous word, to be used like a big soft cushion of WAKE UP AND BE NICE TO THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE. So now, when there is the slightest sniff of things getting heated, someone will yell SNOOD! and we’ll revert to talking about things that don’t make us hate each other.
When it comes to new friends – it’s not so much ‘Do I have room for you in my life?’ so much as ‘Do I have room for you in my heart?’
Making adjustments like this is good ol’-fashioned maintenance. It feels radical to me to apply maintenance to a friendship context rather than, you know, a car. But the older we get, the more responsibility-laden life gets, the more we need it. It’s good to take stock, see what’s working and what isn’t.
Smaller tweaks I’ve made in the last year: I am constantly thankful, verbally, to my friends. I always tell them that I appreciate their time – whether it’s a thoughtful text or a bunch of flowers or an edifying night out.
As for bad habits I’ve left behind – I don’t fall for the same things when I meet people. I used to fall head over heels for a ‘character’ and let too much bad behaviour slide, whereas now I value kindness above all else. A lot of the lessons I’ve learned about love and what I really need (versus what I think I want) can be applied to my relationships across the board.
When it comes to new friends – it’s not so much ‘Do I have room for you in my life?’ so much as ‘Do I have room for you in my heart?’ – because your heart can expand to fit the right people who nourish you back. Your heart grows with the right friendships. It is infinite, unlike your diary.
There is one type of potential ‘friend’ I’m savvy to these days: the Sexy Male Penpal. By this I mean men you meet who want to flirt via text and email. Anyone else seem to attract those? They’re vaguely flattering and mildly titillating, especially if you pride yourself on your word play, but I nip them in the bud now. Who has the time?
Maybe all this renovation is because in your thirties and forties friendship doesn’t just ‘happen’ any more, the way it did in your twenties. You can’t leave it to chance, in the hope you might collide in the same bar at the weekend. You have to partake. This year, let’s remember that friendship is a creative act, and there is pleasure and reward in that work. And if in doubt, just call snood.
Emma’s new book Adults (£12.99, The Borough Press) is out 30 January
READ MORE: I'm Really Sorry, I'm At Friendship Capacity Right Now