Friendeavours: the power of ‘forced’ friendship

at school, it was pretty straightforward who you were going to be pals with: inevitably, the person sitting next to you. Maybe a few of the people in your class. And definitely the girl with psychic powers who could do a French plait. These formative connections are pressed upon us by proximity. I like to call them ‘institutionalised friendships’. In the nicest possible way. And a lot of the time, they work out OK. There is, after all, a lot to be said for having something in common – even if that’s a Latin teacher who spits on you (accidentally) and a passion for Garfield.

As we get older, we get to ‘choose’ our friends more often. There are fewer instances where we are forced to connect, but these instances still crop up. I’m thinking about working in offices, living in flats, baby classes, waiting at the school gates – hell, even being in Whatsapp groups when they get unwieldy enough. Those social situations that mean you have to show willing and embark upon DREADED SMALL TALK. Although I do have a tip for that, courtesy of Jessica Pan from her brilliant memoir, Sorry I’m

Late I Didn’t Want To Come, in which she advises us to go deep and weird in small-talk situations. So rather than talking about the weather, ask them if they’ve ever seen a dog in a wetsuit. What’s the worst that could happen?

Besides, every now and then, something that has a forced start grows into something beautiful. Rewind to December 2016. I am alone at home. I have a new baby, mastitis, and postnatal depression (although I don’t know it yet). Quite the trilogy. When the door buzzer goes I am agitated. I don’t like unexpected guests, and I look like shit, and feel like shit, and – I answer.

It is my new sort-of-almost-friend, Margot, from the NCT course. We met in a lift back in summer because we were both late for the first class, and tiptoed through 10 seconds of small talk. We’ve met a few times since then, and there is definitely a chemistry, but now I’m so tired it’s hard to tell. She had her baby a few weeks before I had mine and sent me messages from the frontline: TAKE THE EPIDURAL. Etc. Margot is French-canadian and full of joie de vivre. She calls me ‘buddy’. Even though I don’t know her that well, she seems to sense my hour of need. She comes in with her buggy, her baby and several bags. In the bags are special gifts, salt and flour, so I can make salt-dough impressions of my baby’s feet. She also brings sausages, kale and parsnip mash because ‘they were on offer’.

She sits next to the little white Christmas tree my partner has bought to try and cheer me up. I tell her she is like a Magi: one of the Three Wise (Wo)men. She gets out the gold: a box of deluxe mince pies. She says, ‘I think two each, don’t you?’ as she hands them to me. I eat. I laugh.

I feel better. Something shifts inside me. It’s the first positive feeling in a while.

Margot is a good mother – not just of her baby, but of her friends. And I realise she is a friend: someone I want to see after the reasons of convenience or confinement drop away.

Three years on, we have only got closer. There’s no one I’d rather be institutionalised with. She was worth every scrap of excruciating small talk.

Sometimes, something that has a forced start grows into something beautiful