Disclaimer: if you know me you probably know the people in this story but I have changed their names for their privacy, I normally don't use names at all but this time there were too many characters so I took some creative liberty.
I have never had a friendship group. Okay that is a bit of an exaggeration but I was speaking to a friend yesterday about friendships, and we stumbled upon the discussion surrounding friendship groups. Having your tribe of people you call your ride or die. This friend and I have had very different experiences with friendship groups, where she's got friends she has had from childhood, people she went to school who also ended up at the same university as her. She has had them as a constant, but now that she is studying as a postgrad for the first time in a decade she is all by herself. I have always been by myself. I had friends, I have always had friends, but I never really had a group of people I could trust with my deepest darkest secrets. During my early schooling years in Bangladesh, I had a best friend between ages five until ten, let’s call her Anna. Anna is an absolute sweetheart and I am going to start this with the disclaimer that there is no bad blood between us, I am sure she means no ill will towards me and neither do I, this is just me psychoanalysing my early childhood years.
Whilst I genuinely considered her my best friend, it felt like I was always her second choice, time and time again she would pick cooler people over me. I know it sounds silly but to a ten year old it was a big deal. So when she found new friends who were more into Winx Club than whatever it is I was watching and I wasn’t cool enough for her anymore but meh that was fine because I had Aaira. Aaira’s mum had taken a particular liking to my mother so when we sat next to each other and became close I figured I had finally found my person. But this was around 2010, when my dad was trying to immigrate to the UK, this meant for paperwork purposes, I had to spend at least three months of the year in England, I was still enrolled in Bangladesh so I missed a whole term of school in Class 4, my first day back to school I had to sit an end of year Maths test which I scored 11/20 on. I still vividly remember being absolutely devastated when I got that test paper back.
Anyways, back to Aaira, naturally she had to make friends and became closer to others when I wasn’t there for months on end, and some of the people she grew close to during that period of time were really toxic, consequently Aaira and I drifted apart, but we eventually found our way back to each other. We were each others persons. She was my best friend. Even now if Anna is mentioned she will get jealous even though Anna and I aren’t necessarily close friends. But I don’t think Aaira and I are either anymore. Not because neither of us wanted that but because we have lived in two different continents for the last eight years so as much as we wanted to be a part of each other’s live we are not. The last time I saw Aaira was the night before I flew out to the UK. I wasn’t even able to tell her I am leaving the next day (more on that another day) and she cried herself to sleep the next night when she found out I was gone. It was sudden, and whilst it may not have been something that was in my control it definitely changed the trajectory of my friendship with her. But that was that.
I was now in a new country, with a really strong accent and zero cultural context. I grew up exclusively on Bollywood movies and Star Plus dramas, because that is what my aunts watched. I felt really fucking out of place. Whilst I don’t think I ever really experienced bullying, kids are assholes, so I spent all of Year 9 trying to survive the move. I wasn’t concerned with making friends at school because I had more serious things at home that I had to worry about. I had people I hung out with but they weren’t necessarily my friends. I don’t think I truly had any of those until Year 12. I just had people I spent time with out of the sheer convenience of being at the same place at the same time. I was now in Sixthform and I think Fatiha was the first time I felt like I had a person after I moved to the UK. She was kind, funny and confident, she sat next to me in Maths on the first day of Year 12 and became one of my closest friends. It was my first real adult friendship. I learnt SO MUCH from her and that friendship, it meant everything to me but I was young and still hadn’t figured out how to communicate properly so when I went away to university I let that friendship fade away and blamed it on the universe instead of trying to nurture something that was really important to me.
And that brings us to my friendships at university, which you have already heard quite a bit about so I am not going to rehash that. But when I look back the timeline of my life, I have always had one person I considered my person. I have never really had a group of people I relied on. Group dynamics weren’t something I was good at, I am still not good at them, the two or three “friendship groups” I have been a part of crumbled down like a house of card at the first sign of crisis. This isn’t something anyone should publicly admit on the internet because what is wrong with me that I can’t keep a group of friends? But do I really want to call lots of people my friends even if deep down I know they aren’t good friends? No. I don't want to be friends with someone who is going to gossip and chat shit whenever something bothers them instead of addressing it straight on and moving forward, that happens a lot in group settings (at least that has been the case in my experience) and that is a non-negotiable for me. I genuinely believe that it is okay to not have friends than having bad friends. Or less dramatically, having a few genuine friends than having lots of friends who really are acquaintances.
People will always show you parts of them that they have perfected, parts that reflect on them favourably. Which means they won’t tell you about the messy parts, the parts where they barely know the people they party with every weekend. But you don’t need to really know a person if the only time you are hanging out is when it’s loud and dark in a club or a house party. You don’t need to know people if all you are going to do together is get high, drink and fuck. I am not shaming people for experimenting, everyone is entitled to do whatever it is they want. But in my first year of university when I had a friendship group who I did everything with, the everything exclusively boiled down to nights out so in retrospect I think I didn’t really know any of my “friends”. We spoke in gossip, danced the whole night and then slept through the day, rinse and repeat. It was a lot of fun but also really convenient, so I was very complacent. I didn’t make any new friends in first year that weren’t through these people, which also really limited my social circles. It was definitely no one else’s fault but mine, but I didn’t know any better at the time.
In my second year, I had a group of friends from my course I became really close with as one does when you spend so much of time with each other. It was exactly what I needed at that point in time. Second year was brutal for me, I have spoken about it in my previous essays, and those girls were really there for me when I was at my lowest. However, I changed a lot over the past year which means as time passed we have become really different people, so whilst I wish nothing but the best for them, I don’t necessarily think they have a place in my life anymore. My needs and wants from my friendships is now a lot different that what they want. So once again, I am on my own, I always have been.
But I am not. Just because I don’t think I have a friendship group doesn’t mean I don’t have friends. I have incredibly high standards for my friendships and I am incredibly grateful for the people I get to call friends. Obviously I haven’t mentioned all of my friends by their names (and I will refrain from it for their privacy) but you know who you are. So whilst for the past year I haven’t had the group of friends I can make plans with to go out and do things every week with, it has also been the year my friendships have really thrived. Like I can actually say I know all my friends, like really know them and as a result the quality of the people in my life has really risen.
My birthday this past year was one of the most joyful memories I have of celebrating my birthdays over the course of my life. It was a room full of people I had invited who I became friends with through various different ways. Most of the people in that room hadn’t known each other but we still had an amazing night because all my friends got along with my other friends. I have had so many people tell me how “amazing my friends are” and I take a lot of pride in being able to play friendship cupid on many occasions. So one of the things I have learnt over the years is that you are much better off picking out your own individual friends and making a patchwork quilt of personalities you like interacting with than having to put up with people you don’t get along with because you are supposed to have a group of friends. I know lots of people have them and it works amazingly for them, but everyone is different which means one size will not fit all. So it’s okay if you don’t have your massive group of friends all the way from Nursery who will be the bridesmaids at your wedding but that is completely fine. It also is to say you’ve got no reason to be afraid you really don’t need to have a group of friends, you just want one because everyone else seems to have one. But you’re on your own kid, you always have been.
Love Yourself,
Nashrah xo
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