We declutter our wardrobes, says Christabel Smith, so why not our friends?
There are friends who make you smile, then there are the ones who make you laugh until you are snorting, wheezing and wiping your mascara away with a table napkin. They are A-listers, the keepers.
As life rolls on, with all its 50-something pressures on time and resources, I’ve reached the conclusion that I don’t want to waste time on social commitments I’m not committed to.
The days when friends were on tap daily in the classroom/student bar/office/children’s school gates are gone. Keeping in contact requires a delicately negotiated ‘freedom pass’ from home, often travel, a restaurant reservation and many cocktail tokens. I want a return on that investment – a leap of the heart that confirms great times are ahead and life-affirming memories will be made.
Chat might start with a ‘right, you go first’, indicating a major download of news, or it could spark up by sharing an anecdote about the weird taxi driver you’ve just been talking to. Either way, you know she/he will get it because she/he gets you. You’ll cackle and sniffle in equal measure as you cover all the news, from ailing parents and pets to the latest exploits of your kids, throwing in a review of that brilliant serum from Aldi, which you agree is better than the one you used to buy that cost 10 times more.
Compare and contrast that goldstandard level with hours of squandered Netflixand-early-night time as you sit, stifling a yawn, with those who see a girls’ night as an opportunity for a verbal outpouring in lieu of good conversation.
Recently, I unearthed my Filofax, the ‘personal organiser’ that became an icon of the 80s. Between the woefully empty ‘financial’ and ‘projects’ sections lay the names and addresses of pretty much everyone I’d ever met until the day I bought my first iPhone and friends became digitalised ‘contacts’.
There were lots of scribbled additions of school friends’ offspring I’d never met, long-lost pals of exes, randomers I must have met on holiday in Greece circa 1995. Out fell a card sent by a college mate seven years ago, saying ‘we must meet soon’.
The urge to purge
Seizing a red pen, I started striking through names, ripping out pages. We declutter our wardrobes, I thought, why not our friends? Liberated, lighter and brighter, I didn’t want to stop. Time to wield my imaginary axe at my social media ‘friends’. All those I knew were out there hovering for gossip, but never commenting or posting, gone!
That former colleague who posted dodgy memes, the dog-walking acquaintance who swiped past the cute photos of my terrier in various headdresses with not even a like, boom! ‘Are you sure you want to delete this person?’ Facebook aske
