6 hours ago
6
Last week I went to a beloved friend’s 40th birthday, and I got to witness something I deeply believe about friendship distilled in one room.
Sitting around a table full of mutual friends, screaming and laughing in a way that would usually be annoying, the subject of how everyone had become friends with the birthday boy came up. I’ll call him Ben.
To my great pleasure, a lot of them said they had first met him through me. I don’t say this to brag about my skills as a friendship maker (although I am exemplary at it), but rather to express how completely stoked it made me. A warm feeling flooded my body (it could have been the beer). All I did was introduce them, and they did the rest, but nothing brings me more joy than connecting two people I love, who I know will love each other – and then watching the friendship take off.
I’ve never understood guarding friends from others. Each friend augments the experience of being friends; each friend expands the friendship universe.
I recently saw something CS Lewis wrote on the topic:
“In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.”
Sitting at this table of beautiful people and talking about our friendships was a perfect example of this. Those who came to know Ben through me each have their own individual and specific connection with him, and I with them, and them with each other. My girlfriend loves to talk for hours about books with him. A bunch of them regularly play some nerdy desktop role-play game for hours. For his birthday, one of our mutual friends is adding a tattoo to their collection in honour of their friendship. Such things don’t necessarily appeal to me, but they bring my friends joy, and help to cement their own special closeness. It also means I don’t have to play board games.
It is such a pleasure to watch these relationships deepen through the unique and freaky ways my friends connect to each other. I don’t need to be at the centre of the friendships to value them. I get the privilege of witnessing people I care about become more fully known, and more loved.
At Ben’s birthday, one of his closest friends who lives out of town did a lovely (and smart) speech about their own story. Not only did I deeply recognise parts of him in what she was saying, nodding sagely along with her insights (and learning how to pronounce interlocutor), but I also learned fresh aspects of him, his interests, and how he connects with others. I got a new and delightful perspective on this man I love, from someone who equally loves him. I know him more now because of her, which is wonderful.
Something being queer has taught me is that it’s never too late to make new friends. I had friends, but it wasn’t until later in my life that I found the ones I feel completely at home with.
It can take a long time to find your people, especially if you don’t fit into social norms, and especially if you haven’t been living as your full self, so it’s important to remain open to the possibilities. I went through a very bad depressive episode this year, and my girlfriend secretly got a bunch of my friends to send videos saying that they love me, they are here for me, they don’t need me to be at my best in order to want to spend time with me, and various other nice things that made me cry. There were messages of support from friends of a decade, there were some that were messages from friends of a year. There was a friend who pretended to be sending his video from a toilet where he had just pooed – the joys of knowing comedians. They all helped equally. I felt cradled by friendship, supported by all these people who all support each other too.
I know I’m privileged to have this love, this circle of friends, but I also think it happens because we actively grow the circle. We try to let people in. We try to connect people who may recognise themselves in each other. It’s intentional. In this world that is tough and getting tougher, it’s vital to cultivate real-life connections, nurturing the friendships you have, and remaining open to all the people out there who could expand your life. Building support systems for ourselves necessarily means building support for the people around us too. Friendship asks for time, presence, care. In a world determined to isolate us, friendship may be one of the most important ways we keep each other alive.
Now, have you met my friend Ben?
-
Rebecca Shaw is a writer based in Sydney
