On the 16th of February I turned 37 years old. Despite this I still have no idea whats going on.
Growing up I always thought that adults were like Gods. All knowing, always right, strong. Mine were protective of their little boy, who, for much of his younger years, was being tormented by bullies and struggling to fit in. Our parents in many ways are our only friends when we are very young. Until we start to distinguish authority from friendship.
Then we hit puberty and doubt hits. Why are these people bossing me around? Everything I've known is just two people, older than me, telling me how to act, what to believe, how to be a human being. Our social circles expand, outside of what our parents can control, for the first time. Sure! We had a few friends earlier, but it felt a little curated. There was never a freedom to just be yourself with other people who want to be themselves. And if you're like me and had a divorced family with both parents in new unhealthy relationships during this period of your life then you would understand the importance of your high school friends. Now as a teen, that kind of connection with people starts to appear. We would start to overly care about our image, our silly little teenage reputations; I'm tough, I'm cool, look at my hair, look at my clothes, don't look at my Dad's crappy old Volvo. But we did it to continue this amazing feeling of being 'liked'.
The most mischief and the most trouble I got myself in was between the ages of 15 and 22, and almost always to impress my friends. Proving I can hold my drink would usually lead to most of the trouble. For context my upbringing happened in the rougher Northern Suburbs of Adelaide, Australia - I say this as my experience with friendship dynamics is based on my cultural environment. This completely changed when in 2009, at age 20, I went to Europe. After a month of travelling a good chunk of Western Europe with mostly other Australians, I arrived back in London with very little money. A work visa had been organised prior and I had planned to get a job but London was far too expensive, so I moved to the the city of Nottingham in the East-Midlands and got a job in the Backpackers Hostel I had booked. In a short time I had befriended the owners daughter, some of her friends, and a few of the long-term guests. The next 12 months I spent living and working in Nottingham, like the stereotypical Aussie traveller I was.
The people I had come to consider 'close' were different than the friends I had at home in Adelaide. They were far more emotionally invested in the friendship. I formed genuine and meaningful connections with these people I had only just met. Granted, this was partially because I had no-one else in the entire Northern Hemisphere if the Earth, but mostly because they were open and willing the be all the things a friend should be; vulnerable, trusting, understanding, reliable, empathetic. Of course I had to earn these things by giving them in return but it happened so much more naturally than it had happened before. I still to this day, years after slowly losing contact with them, wonder if it was a cultural difference? That subconscious thing inside us that controls how we approach friendships is entirely different between Brits and Aussies. Nottingham city centre and the Northern Suburbs of Adelaide are both rough places. The people I formed friendships with on both sides of the planet were similar in type. But why such a fundamental difference in approach?
Since coming home and the 15 years since, I have had many shallow friendships and few close ones. The other major move in my life was four years ago when I moved my life to Melbourne after exiting an abusive relationship. I found the culture was slightly different from Adelaide; Melbourne people are a bit more socially active than Adelaide people. But it goes deeper than that.
Something I would be keen for the reader to ponder is whether the same soul-eating questions run through your head as it does mine when I find myself ruminating on the subject. Is it cultural? Are Australian friendships different from British, American, New Zealand, Irish, Canadian friendships? Is it maybe about age; is it harder to make meaningful friends the older you get?
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