When did we all stop just dropping by on our friends?
LAST weekend I did something that I hadn’t done for years – I knocked for a friend unexpectedly.
Just to clarify, this was not just unexpected for her, but also for me.
I was tootling around Roath looking for sow thistle, ribwort plantain and campanula for my tortoise Sleepy Gary (who I have subsequently found out is a girl).
After I stuffed some weeds into my plastic bag, hoping they were wet from rain and not the empty can of Special Brew nearby, I realised my wanderings had brought me to within a few metres of the house of my friends Rachel and Samantha. I then had a weird internal dilemma. I wanted to knock on their door to say hello but something held me back.
It was the realisation that I haven’t just knocked on a mate’s door unannounced for years. I think this is down to two things. Firstly, the mobile phone. It is so easy now to just fire off a text to a buddy saying “fancy a pint” or “what you up to”.
If your friends are anything like mine there is a fairly continuous WhatsApp conversation going which mostly involves links to memes and gifs.
The fact I can find out if my friends are free at the push of a button seems to have negated the need to give them a knock.
Secondly I think that becoming an adult adds some kind of social block to just rocking up at someone’s house (although apparently not using a phrase like “rocking up”).
What if they are busy? Surely I am imposing? All these questions were going through my mind which are quite frankly ridiculous.
I have known Rach and Sam for about eight years and have been on holiday with them.
In the end I opted to knock on their door (I won’t pretend the fact I had an incredibly full bladder didn’t carry the day).
Funnily enough my good friends were pleased to see me!
This got me wondering when did we stop just dropping by?
There is something indescribably lovely about having people just drop round.
On reflection, Jehovah’s Witnesses, The Green Party, the window cleaner, a bloke selling cloths and the Virgin Media engineer have all unexpectedly rung my doorbell more than my friends in the last year.
Hopefully this is more a reflection of how people arrange to meet rather than my chronic unpopularity.
When I was a kid, knocking for someone was the only way to gather a group for football.
If you wanted to play five-a-side you needed to knock on nine other doors to be able to rally the troops.
The only way you could reduce the amount of knocking you had to do was by calling on the Timms or Zajac households (prolific families that had almost produced a team on their own).
The only people I now know who are regular “drop-byers” are the members of my family over 75.
Various aunties have maintained the art by a combination of being overwhelming nosy and terrible with their smartphones (that said, they are able to notice I am still single on Facebook every time we meet).
My friends and I were discussing this on Sunday night in the Four Elms in Roath – after arranging it on WhatsApp I should add. We realised how hard it actually is to make friends after you leave education.
When you are at university, college or secondary school there is a social acceptance that people are open to making friends. As soon as you leave the only ways to really do it are through work (can be a risky), through hobbies (means you need hobbies) or through your kids (need a kid). A fourth way is inheriting them through your partner. The problems with this are the same as if you move into your partner’s home. If you break up, they were there first, and they get to keep it. The same is true with their friends. I think it can actually be tougher for guys than girls. Women (at least the ones I know) are far more forthcoming when it comes to grabbing a coffee to get to know each other.
Over the past five years or so my friends I knew from Cardiff have slowly moved to other places.
In some respects this is great – who doesn’t like a holiday in New Zealand?
However, in another way you lose the immediacy of face-to-face contact.
Interactions have to be booked in months in advance or revolve around funerals, stag parties, weddings and christenings.
I have therefore, along with a buddy, decided to embark on a series of matemaking ventures. The first up is salsa dancing.
I must admit I am a little apprehensive because the one and only dance class I attended ended in me having to be a woman as there were too many guys and I was the shortest.
At least that way it will be easier to make friends.
There is something indescribably lovely about having people just drop round