Friends

Last night I dreamt I was on a train travelling through my past. I excitedly pressed my face against the window as we passed my infant school. Glancing across the carriage I noticed faded faces from another life, faces I had not seen since I was 6 or 7 years old. Frozen in time, they merely smiled and waved their tiny hands before disembarking among the chaos caused by my secondary school friends who pushed, shoved, and elbowed their way on board. The journey continued, the only constants being my family, who happily came round checking tickets, and a handful of close long term friends, who offered passengers tea, coffee, and a selection of snack foods. I silently watched the ever changing carriage. I awoke tainted with a sadness for those transitory friendships that used to mean so much but have now become mere spectres in the corridors of my memory.

The dream caused me to wonder about the lifespan of a friendship, from its conception and maintenance to its death - and sometimes the rebirth of this remarkable relationship. A blanket definition of friendship is impossible to devise as each of us has very different expectations as to what true friendship is. Some believe a friend is anyone who will subscribe to their way of thinking. Unfortunately, I know people who surround themselves with a small group of sycophants who are too scared to express their honest opinion for fear of offending their leader. Others like to pluck out a person to be their next "best friend" and then put all their energies into moulding them into a carbon copy of themselves. Both these strategies lack any form of imagination, loyalty, or trust, and these so called friends provide so little that they could quite easily be replaced with an affectionate alsatian.

True friendships and popularity are separate beasts; many people who are superficially liked lack the ability to form deep human bonds. As popularity is associated with having many friends it is not surprising that some people become obsessed with the pursuit of acquiring "friends" as though they were shells on a beach. Some even go to the great lengths of even inventing their own confidants. This is the case with Pippa, an unpopular and unsavoury character. She will shriek in a theatrical fashion |P`Oh Gemma! I have known Gemma for absolutely ages. We are like sisters, practically grew up together, you know.|P' Strangely, the Gemma in question seems to have no recollection of ever knowing a Pippa, of any description. She only vaguely remembers a chilling encounter with a short, prune faced, bespectacled girl of the same name who once accosted her at a party. Like a fish she flailed frantically in order to escape Pippa's snare. She was subjected to an ugly torrent of nonsense and medical terminology with which Pippa insists on peppering her sentences in order to paste over the flaws in her intellect. Eventually Gemma happily escaped and lived to tell the tale, while Pippa left the party under the delusion that she had just secured a new "best friend."

All too often friendship is viewed as the younger, plainer sister of romantic love and so has often lurked in her shadows. However, friendship is a precious commodity simply because it is uncluttered by the chains of romantic love and the handcuffs of heredity, but instead perilously hangs on the thread of conscious choice as we decide if a person is worthy of our tenderness. It is for this reason that the vine of friendships which initially entangles individuals and causes acquaintances to bleed into friends all too often withers and dies without proper nurturing.

As we travel through this great train journey of life we will see many passengers. Some we shall come closer to, others will drift and remain as unfinished stories. But a friendship can never truly die. Past friends, like past lovers, shall continue to carry a small fragments of each other, containing shared secrets and lies, throughout the rest of their natural lives.

Debashis Singh, fourth year medical student, University of Leicester


studentBMJ 1999;07:394-436 November ISSN 0966-6494