[Lifestyle] ‘It feels unconditional’: the secrets of lifelong friendships - according to lifelong friends

[BirSaNN]

‘It feels unconditional’: the secrets of lifelong friendships - according to lifelong friends
Friends are essential to our health and happiness, and even affect how long we live. But how do you keep a relationship alive when you are living in different places and can barely make time for yourself?

Emma Beddington

Trish and Mick started chatting about music on a staircase in 1970, when Trish and her flatmates (“strange, slightly hippy people,” Mick laughs) were trying to stop a neighbour’s party guests, including Mick, from getting into their flat. Julia and Susan found friendship when they became neighbours at the age of seven. Susan’s parents disapproved of Julia’s single mother’s lifestyle and forbade them to meet: “We developed a system of sound signals, found a place to hide notes to each other and met secretly in the local park,” Susan says. Ian and Roger bicker gently over which was the first Nottingham gig where they shared a bill in 1965, but say that Roger persuaded their bands (Tony D and the Shakeouts for Ian; The Sons of Adam for Roger) to jam together on stage.

Friendships start with these accidents – choosing a locker at school, who’s in the next room in your hall of residence, or attending the same protest – but staying friends over a lifetime can’t be accidental. “Friendships are a voluntary type of relationship,” says Mahzad Hojjat, a professor of psychology and friendship researcher at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. “In some ways they are the weakest tie, because you could just disconnect.” What stops friends from doing this? As new research shows that socialising helps people to live longer, I spoke to friendship lifers who have stayed close over decades of good and bad times and everything in between. Are there any secrets, and do they have advice for the rest of us?

We become friends with one another because there is something we like and have in common with someone: this is homophily, or the “birds of a feather” phenomenon. “These are relationships that are seen as ‘clicking’ from the start,” says Robin Dunbar, an emeritus professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford. Dunbar defines the “seven pillars of friendship” as similarities that predispose people to become friends: language or dialect, geography, educational experiences, hobbies and interests, moral or spiritual viewpoints, political views, sense of humour and taste in music. That holds for the lifelong friends I spoke to. Trish and Mick bonded over west coast American music; vocal harmony fans Roger and Ian went on to form a band together. For Susan and Julia, it was simply chatting: “We were able to have very long conversations and talking is one of my favourite things,” says Susan.

This is partly why many long-lasting friendships form in your late teens and early 20s, at a time of intense firsts and memorable experiences, shared circumstances and enthusiasms. That’s when Roger and Ian were gigging around the country in a Ford Transit van. Mick and Trish both had adventurous leanings. “We had an interest in travel, adventure, doing something different,” says Mick. In their 20s, Mick coupled up with Trish’s best friend, Sue; along with Trish and her then partner, Chris, they formed a tight friendship foursome, frequently travelling together. “We’d get in our old Morris Minor, drive to north Wales and end up in a field in the middle of nowhere,” Mick reminisces.

But life pulls friends in different directions, as a tight-knit group of friends told me. Patricia and Tracy went to nursery together, Zerlina joined them at school and Yvonne was their netball and track rival (“A fantastic little sprinter,” says Patricia; “Those days are long gone,” counters Yvonne). Patricia had already spotted her in town, as one of the few other Black girls in 1980s Doncaster. “We weren’t the po[CENSORED]r kids at school,” says Tracy. “We went against the grain, our youth culture was formed together.” They bonded, Zerlina notes, over not just hip-hop, but also their shared ambition and desire to get away: “Although we had great joy in that place – there was lots of fun and good times – we all had a hunger to leave. That was always on the cards.” They scattered to university and beyond, but have stayed very close. Zerlina says the strength of their bond means it has weathered waves of greater and lesser intensity of contact: “It feels unconditional, so it allows for space.”

link: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/mar/08/it-feels-unconditional-the-secrets-of-lifelong-friendships-according-to-lifelong-friends