Would someone reading this blog please tell us what exactly is friendship? Simply write something in the comments section and if anything really stands out I will include it in a future post, with commentary of course.
My own journey and experience of friendship has been, to say the least, a little bit weird. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail but will do what I can to give a general idea while protecting some rather delicate reputations.
I remember loud and clear (is it possible to remember something loud and clear?) my first childhood friends. They were two boys my age, one from more or less across the street, the other from three houses down. The boy across the street was large, not very bright and a bully. He took extreme pleasure in pushing me in the ditch (we lived in breathtakingly flat Richmond in those days and there were ditches everywhere. Great for catching frogs). The other had Dutch parents, seemed okay if a little lacklustre. We all began being friends when we were perhaps three or four years old. This was back in the Halcyon Days when children could roam freely and safely away from their homes and yards and no one would worry. We had a reasonably normal friendship, we would run around wildly, pretend things and make lots of noise. I liked the Dutch boy, who was gentle. The giant I soon came to loathe. I only wonder why it took more beatings and swimming lessons in the ditch than anyone could reasonably be expected to remember to convince me that this violent unthinking oaf was not any good for insurance premiums.
I hadn't been five for very long when I befriended the Asian boy down the road. He was the same age as me and my other friends. I saw him riding his tricycle in his family's driveway and I immediately was smitten. I walked over to him and told him my name and asked him his. I think he was my first friend and for a few years we were inseparable. I tended to be dominant and I believe that this led to the inevitable demise of our childhood bromance. I got on well with his parents and my own mother, despite her inbred racism came to like both my friend and his mom. What I couldn't understand was the fuss she seemed to make about his being Asian, like, I should know or even care. He was my friend and we liked each other.
The Asian boy soon replaced the stupid giant even though the Dutch boy seemed a little bit indifferent. I didn't care. They were both my friends and I loved them fiercely. Of course we all eventually grew apart. We moved out of the neighbourhood. The Asian kid and I still saw each other but not often. Sometimes during summer holidays he came over for lunch (I made it, Campbell's soup and sandwiches, not bad for an eleven year old, eh?) I don't know where my mother was, likely she was away at work or visiting friends. I was trusted to be alone at home from age ten more or less. Believe it or not, Gentle Reader, I never once gave Mom cause for regret. I'd swear on her grave if she had a grave. She was actually cremated and I scattered her ashes over the Salish Sea (now that sounds more romantic than the Strait of Georgia, eh?)
After grade six the Asian kid and I stopped seeing each other. The Dutch boy and I never stayed in touch. I had turned into a nerd and only wanted to read encyclopedias which along with my lack of interest in sports made me boring. My love of nature and the outdoors also made me suspect. I became very isolated, unable to find anyone to bond or connect with in my new neighbourhood. Other kids my age seemed to have similar problems. Even though we all hung out together in our neighbourhood there was little evidence that anyone really liked each other.
It was all very different for my brother, three years my senior. Socially he seemed genetically engineered for success. He started attending a different school and began making new friends immediately. He was always out "gallivanting" as my mother called it. He was almost always on the phone or his friends were almost always phoning him. I compared myself to him and found myself wanting. Only today has it occurred to me that it was very unfortunate that I was born into a family with such a type A alpha male for an older brother. I could not possibly compete or even begin to keep up with him. The sense of discouragement set in very deep and at a very early age.
Into junior high school I continued seeking friends, sometimes connecting but usually not. I was often bullied but eventually began to fight back. Then at fourteen I mysteriously morphed into one of the cool kids.
I will write more on this theme tomorrow, Gentle Reader. In the meantime, please by all means write something in the comments section about how you define friendship and I promise that in the very near future that you will be quoted and commented on (respectfully, I promise!)
Ta-ta!
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