Make a list... and lose your friends

WHAT DO you make of this notion of easing the lockdown by having us all nominate the 10 friends and family members with whom we would be allowed to consort, all together, at the same time?

It’s unworkable. How would you choose them? It’s like when you’re in the business of throwing children’s birthday parties. You quickly learn you must invite the whole class or risk social death by picking a select few to come round for pass-theparcel and a party bag.

What’s more, this “friends and family” idea assumes that each of us belongs to a big, happy, cuddly group who in normal times are forever popping in and out of each other’s houses to borrow a cup of sugar.

That isn’t how friendships work. And let’s not even start on those strained family relationships where close relatives just can’t bear to be in the same room though they may be on perfectly cordial terms with others in the clan. As in Aunty Vi may detest her sister Aunty Flo, but they both dote on younger members of the same family.

Most of us have friends whom we would never dream of introducing to others. Not out of embarrassment but out of tact.they simply wouldn’t hit it off, perhaps because one’s rich and one’s poor, perhaps because one’s a Leaver and one’s a Remainer, perhaps because one of them is an ex and... it’s complicated.

You can be very fond of someone whose ideas on certain subjects you are happy to park and ignore. But you know that inflicting him/her on others would be a big mistake.

We have instincts about social mixing. You just know when it would be wrong. And sometimes you have such an intense friendship with one person or group that the idea of inviting anyone else into the magic circle is unthinkable. A newcomer wouldn’t share the same history, the same references.

Each of us presents ourselves differently within different cliques. It’s doesn’t mean we’re deceitful or schizophrenic. It’s because we really are different people depending on the company we’re in.

When I’m with my elderly aunt I’m a different person from the one I am when I’m having a drink with my outrageous gay friend who once worked as a male prostitute. Come to think of it, they might get on like a house on fire but it’s a meeting that ain’t going to happen.

A survey found that the average adult has 40 friends, including two besties, four close chums and five work buddies. They also have nine other friends, 15 acquaintances and five also-rans.

That’s probably about right. But how do you whittle that list down to a statesanctioned group of 10, especially if it must include close family as well?

Let’s file this idea under T for Terrible.

Picture: ENDA BOWE/BBC NORMAL People, based on Sally Rooney’s novel which won the Costa Book Award last year, was what we used to call watercooler TV – what you talked about in the office. Now none of us is discussing anything in the office. But with the whole series available on BBC iplayer it’s the nearest thing we have to event telly. It’s all about young love – two teenagers, Marianne and Connell, left, navigating their way through their first big romance. Great performances all round even though Paul Mescal, who plays Connell, looks somewhat older than the actress playing his mum. And it’s refreshing to have a TV drama that doesn’t involve child murder or a woman being tortured in a cellar. The characters really are normal people. It makes a pleasant change.