Liam Livings
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Why Long Term Friends Are Important

11/3/2014

9 Comments

 
‘I don’t keep long term friends!’ someone once said to me, like it was something to be proud of.

Well, I do.

I recently spent a week at Mum’s in the New Forest, catching up with old and new friends, and ending with a family weekend to a holiday park in Dorset, where I went skiing, ate an enormous amount of cheesecake and watched about 2 series of Frasier.

During this week, seeing my friends it was abundantly obvious that our lives have moved on since I met them, and if our lives were the same as in 1996, 1997 or 2001, I would be quite worried.

Friends do come and go.

Some people are what I call horse blinkers people: they’re only friends with the people who are right in front of their eyes. If that person moves out of their vision, which is restricted by their blinkers, they don’t keep in touch with that friend. All it takes for some is a new job, home, leaving university and that’s it, they lose their old group of friends, and move on to a new set.

OK, so I’ve not kept in touch with everyone since kindergarten. Obviously not. But am still in touch with friends from secondary school, previous jobs, university etc.

My friend, Hayley once said to me, ‘You out grow some friends’, hardly rocket science, and I do agree with her. I once sat at a table with friends from secondary school and they were all asking me the same questions about being gay they had asked five years before, when I came out to them. I didn’t see them again.

Hayley also said, which I think is less obvious, ‘With other friends you grow and mature with them through the seasons.’ This shows exactly what I mean about lives moving on.

I’m lucky to have so many friends who have done this with me. I’ve known these people before I came out, before children, before mortgages, before proper jobs. From a live of going clubbing and getting drunk in silver boob tubes and flares on a Friday night, rolling into Saturday jobs on three hours sleep, shopping for clothes like our lives depended on it, and spending £14 on a CD. Yes, £14 for a CD album!

And it’s having this shared sense of history with long term friends which makes them so important. Of course, you’ve got to keep the friendship alive, and not just revel in ‘remember when’ each times you meet. You’ve got to keep up with how each other grows and matures through the seasons and years. Sitting in friends’ homes, watching their children play, as I was introduced as ‘Mummy’s friend, Liam’ I smiled to myself, grateful for the boob tube clubbing drunken memories, and their link to me there and then stood in front of a small child, playing with a jigsaw. 

Do you have long term friends? Do you move on with groups of friends when your live moves on? I’d love to hear from you. 

I’ve used these experiences as inspiration for my first novel, Best Friends Perfect. If you’d like to read about how some friends come and go, about a time of essential combat trousers, arguments about if Steps were the ABBA for the nineties, and how some friends stay with you, book one of the Best Friends Perfect series out on 15 May.

Until next time,

Liam Livings xx 

9 Comments
Blaine D. Arden link
11/3/2014 06:25:20 am

Define long-term...

Though I can't answer that question with anything other than YES. I have long-term friends. For instance, this summer Jasper and I are celebrating our 10-yr friendaversary, and I have a small number of other long-term close friends.

I've also lost contact with some very close friends, through several reasons.

As for keeping in touch... I'm not the best person for that, mostly because I tend to be forgetful as well, and might not remember something that is important to a friend. (and I don't do that on purpose, really), but I do try.

Though... I tend to become standoffish if I feel I'm the only one keeping the contact going. I don't care if I only see friends once a year--a close friend of mine always said it's about quality, not quantity--but I'm not feeling the quantity if I'm always the one with the initiative...

As for the close friends I have now. I hope I can say they're still friends in another five or ten years :)

Reply
Liam Livings
11/3/2014 06:51:53 pm

Hi Blaine, good point! I suppose I mean staying in contact with someone for more than 5 years, but that's definitely me just licking my finger and sticking it in the air.
Friendship definitely has to be two way and both sides making an effort, I'd say.
Liam :-)

Reply
Blaine D. Arden link
12/3/2014 05:51:16 am

and yet... somehow... I often end up caving, and send a text/email or something...

I really need to stop that, I think...

Sam
11/3/2014 07:39:00 am

I have a friend who I have known since we were in nursery school. Maybe longer, our mums took us to the same baby groups etc. We call each other best friends, but i consider a person who I have only known for a few years (since 2006) to be my 'bestie'

I've lost touch with many older friends but the evolution of Facebook brought school friends back together again. People who I hardly knew at school I am now very good friends with because of it. The benefit of that is they didn't know me and I didn't really know them the first time around so now it feels less false and 'easier' then at school.

Reply
Liam Livings
11/3/2014 06:53:59 pm

Hi Sam, since 2006 is still 7 years, which is hardly a flash in the pan!
Facebook is great for getting back in touch with old school friends, it's like an internet address book for everyone you may have ever known as long as you know their surname. Liam

Reply
Carol
11/3/2014 08:33:01 am

A friend of mine once said there are three types of friends. Friends who are forever, friends for the moment and friends for a certain purpose/phase. I think it's probably good to have a few of each of these.

Reply
Liam Livings
11/3/2014 06:55:37 pm

Hi Carol,
I like that and I definitely agree it's good to have a few of each. What struck me as odd was someone being proud they had none of the more long term friends. It seems a bit unbalanced, somehow.
Liam :-)

Reply
Lisa Worrall link
14/3/2014 12:31:13 am

Brilliant post, Liam.

I have friends I've made through work, being a mum, being a writer, from all different paths I've traversed through my life up to this point, and there are many that I consider close friends. But there are those two friends I made in infant school, who have walked beside me on my journey... sometimes with huge gaps between visits when, as you said, life takes us in different directions... that I still refer to as my best friends and, when we meet up... it's as though we only saw each other yesterday. Those are the friends that I know I will have with me right up to the end and it's a comforting thought.

Reply
Liam Livings
14/3/2014 06:22:34 pm

Thanks, Lisa Worrall! Friends you can pick up even with big gaps as life's taken you in different directions, there's something easy, rare with people like that. I have friends I may only see once a year, but it's still just like we spoke the day before. Friendships like that are to be cherished, I think.

Reply



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    Liam Livings

    Gay romance & gay fiction author

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