Friendaholic

After my first miscarriage and subsequent divorce, I slowly began to realise that I had spent a whole chunk of my life trying to be someone I wasn’t. I’d wasted time trying to please others without ever working out who I was underneath that insatiable desire to be liked. I’d allowed my own needs to be silenced by whoever had the more confident voice. In short: I’d sold a lot of people a lie. I was, albeit unconsciously, acting a part in my own life. And I was deeply convincing.

A healthy friendship involves reciprocal stretching to accommodate each other’s shifting needs. But we don’t have to stretch if we don’t want to. Some relationships will be worth it and others won’t. If there’s too much stretching in one direction, the muscles of the friendship become out of whack.

In Kazakhstan, the nineteenth-century poet and philosopher Abai Qunanbaiuly had this to say about how to recognise true companionship: ‘A false friend is like a shadow: when the sun shines on you, you can’t get rid of him, but when clouds gather over you, he is nowhere to be seen.

It turns out I wasn’t just passionate about friendship: I was addicted to it. I had a physical and emotional dependence. I had an urge to pursue it, even when it came at a damaging cost to my own peace of mind. I was, in short, a friendaholic.