What I Learned About Friendship When I Needed My Friends Most

How many friends do you have?

I don't even know how to count them anymore.

Not because there are so many, quite the opposite, but because I no longer know who still deserves the label "friend."

I know, that probably sounds a little bitter, and that's exactly why I've let this topic sit for a while before writing about it.

When everything with Harry was happening, I was obviously deeply shaken by it. But what shook me even more was the reaction of my "friends." I feel compelled to put that word in quotation marks because, for the time being, I'm no longer sure it fits the definition I always used to hold it to.

Let me explain how that happened. Because even though I might sound bitter right now, this is actually more a testimony to good fortune, up until Harry's accident. What do I mean by that? Well, apparently nothing had happened to me before that point serious enough to make me lean on my friends. If something came up, I could always go to Harry.

But now, now that I had witnessed the attack Harry suffered, the lead-up to it, and the devastating aftermath, I turned to my friends for support. I was, after all, completely alone abroad, I had a lot to arrange, and on top of that, Harry's family blamed me for all of it. That was the hardest part of all. Which is why I haven't talked about it here until now.

But... everything in its own time.

First, back to the "friends." Because what shocked me most was that I couldn't actually turn to them. Where, say, twenty or thirty years ago, it was completely normal to call your friends for support when something like this happened, that turned out no longer to be the case. Out of politeness, they'd let you tell your story once, and that was it. That they did it "out of politeness" is a conclusion I'm drawing myself. I never asked them what their motive was. But I did notice that — with a few exceptions — nobody really engaged, or asked questions. They let me tell my story, only to respond with something like, "Wow, that's rough, hang in there!"
(I've written more about that here.)

The reason I said earlier that this was more a testimony to good fortune is that, apparently, I'd been lucky enough to go all those decades without ever really needing to lean on my friends in that way. But now I had to face the fact that things work differently than they did twenty or thirty years ago, when I had much more of a sense that my friends actually cared, that they listened to my stories with genuine interest and empathy, were often moved by them, stayed engaged, and frequently even came up with concrete, practical suggestions. But now... none of that. I felt brushed off. And even rejected the next time I called.

So I stopped calling. Some people, I never called again. And now I have even fewer "friends" than before.

Even though I could no longer clearly say who still counted as a "friend," I obviously still had contacts. But now that I'd been through this trauma (and honestly, I'm not even sure which part was more traumatic: what happened to Harry, or the attitude of my "friends"), something in me had shifted. I started experiencing conversations differently. I wasn't just a participant in a conversation anymore, I was also observing it. And what struck me most from that point on is how many people simply don't listen. Sure, they hear that you're making sounds, and they pick up on a phrase here and there that catches their attention. But the whole context of what you're actually trying to convey never, ever lands. (I've also written more about that here.)

That's another thing I'd never consciously noticed before. I used to hold it against Harry, that he often didn't engage with what I said, so that we ended up running two monologues side by side rather than having a real dialogue. For years I thought that was just something specific to Harry. Now I've realized that a huge number of people communicate that way.

I decided that, going forward, I'd try to listen as much as possible in my interactions instead of wanting to talk. Because when I tell someone something, it's with the intention that it actually lands. And very often, it doesn't. So now, whenever someone interrupts me, I just let it go. If I have to compete for airtime, it seems pretty obvious to me that whoever I'm talking to isn't that interested in what I have to say anyway.

That's how I discovered that genuine interest in what someone else is saying is reciprocal. Because I noticed that once I just let others talk at me, barely getting a word in myself during these "conversations," my mind started to wander. Their story became a kind of background noise, one that I, in turn, found myself tuning out — interrupting them the moment something popped into my head, something that, usually, had absolutely nothing to do with what they'd been talking about.

And there was something else going on too.

Since I couldn't find support among my friends, I went looking for a therapist. But I couldn't find one of those either. Not because there aren't enough of them, quite the opposite: in my search I discovered there's practically one on every street corner in my area. Which is exactly why I found it so strange that almost all of them had waitlists of at least six months. I didn't get it: are there really that many people near me with that many, or that severe, psychological issues? I even brought it up with my rheumatology nurse. She'd noticed the same thing, but didn't have an explanation for it either.

It was my daughter who solved this mystery a few months later. A lot of people, apparently, find themselves needing to turn to a psychotherapist — just like I did. Not necessarily because they have an actual diagnosis, but because they don't have anyone to talk to. In fact, my daughter told me she herself sees a psychiatrist once a week, preventively. Not because she has any issues, but to keep herself from possibly developing them, in case she ever needs support and there's no one there to talk to.

I don't know what conclusion I'm supposed to draw from all this about who I can still call a "friend." Or maybe I do know, but I don't dare draw that conclusion. I am, however, bold enough to draw a different one. Because out of all this, one thing has become completely clear to me.

Listening.

That's a requirement for friendship.
There isn't a single person who doesn't want to feel heard.

Photo: Sam McNamara

P.S. You might also enjoy reading the SATURDAYS With Diana issue “Are Friends Still Really Friends?”