Of friends and friendships

*msn: It is, I think, conceptually impossible to think about nothing

Confession – I was a very sad little girl.

(I say was, and you shall agree, or I will be even sadder.)

I vaguely remember an incident which took place at one of those parents’ friends’ parties, the kind where everyone brings their children and puts them all around the same table and expects them to “bond” just because they’re children.

(Incidentally, I wonder what my mum would do if I brought her along to my friends’ parties and chucked her at their parents saying “Go! Have fun with Karen’s mum! Don’t come and disturb Daughter okay? Good girl!”.

Even more incidentally, I wonder what my friends would do.)

Anyway.

We were playing Follow The Leader, when suddenly the bossiest girl in the group (well she was 5 years older than the rest of us) decided I would be said Leader.

I was only 4, I think, or 5, and leadership was a foreign, and frankly terrifying prospect. Not to mention the feeling of 7 pairs of eyes staring at you, with hard bright-eyed stares, mimicking (seemingly mocking) your every move.

I (and this is quite shameful, really) cried and ran to Mummy. Obviously this was the pinnacle of Things Just Not Done, as it resulted in everyone else getting told off for “scaring the poor little girl”. (Don’t you snicker, you.)

Unfortunately, the party was only halfway through, and so I spent the remaining hour completely ostracized by the other children for being a Baby.

Nothing else has ever been quite so lonely.

In desperation I tried to weasel my way back into the group, but received nothing but pointed back-turnings and complete and utter disregard.

And then, (and this, more than anything, gives me that shuddery, go-away feeling you get when you remember something particularly bad) I spotted in the flowerbeds, hundreds of tiny multi-coloured bead-like particles, at which I triumphantly declared,

“If you all don’t friend me, I won’t give you any colourful stones!!!”

and then settled back to bask in my newfound glory.

Bossy Girl then gave me the most crushingly disdainful look I’d ever seen, adult or child, and said, scathingly,

“Stones? Why would we want YOUR stones? And anyway, they’re not even stones, they’re (wait for it) fertilizer.”

Everyone then turned away, never to look back again.

And that was it. I believe all my self-confidence issues and my desperate need to be liked stemmed from that very day.

And then along the way, I realized; I’m not alone.

Children try to ‘buy’ friends all the time. Giving stickers, gifts, showing off toys, cars (for the rich), and (for the truly vulgar) simply flashing the cash they carry around with them.

All very reprehensible, I’m sure, but then, when you come right down to it, isn’t any form of making friends a version of the above?

We make jokes -> people laugh -> people like.

We listen to problems -> people happy -> people like.

We give birthday gifts -> people get -> people like.

I wonder if it’s possible to make friends without trying to. To have conversations and not say all the things you know you’re obliged to say, like “How are you?”, to talk and not talk as and when you feel like it. To have people care about you because they want to, and yet not care if they do, but also care about them because you want to, and have them not care if you do.

Ugh.

I’m quite lost now, really. All I was trying to say was; are our crude attempts to ‘purchase friends’ in youth all that different from our sophisticated methods of ‘making friends’ now?

To my friends, should they be doubting now, I care about you, really. But I confess, I DO care about whether you care too. Yes, I’m needy. Love me!! Or you just might find a tub of fertilizer on your doorstep…