Everyone in their proper place

I've been seeing a lot of my friends recently.  In fact I've been seeing them as often as I get the opportunity to; with the start of BRNC only two weeks away and the looming knowledge that I'm not going to see some of them again for six months or maybe longer, I want to get as much time in with them as I can before I have to say my goodbyes.  Coincidentally these goodbye's, when they come, will be very short ones because I hate dragging things out and I don't want to get emotional about it because I AM A MAN! Grrrrr!

Now do not worry, I'm not going to wax lyrical for a few hundred words on how much I'll miss everyone, etc etc because who would want to read about that?  And anyway I'm saving that for next week's article.  No, what I want to talk about this week is the importance of the dynamics of friendship groups, the roles people play within them, and how everyone has a job to do to make a truly unbreakable set of friends.  Oh, and let me just clarify; I'm not talking about the kind of people who you work with and have awkward conversations with at the Christmas party, where the only saving grace is the presence of alcohol and the knowledge in your mind that YOU are one day going to make the great escape whilst THEY continue to flog frozen foods at discount prices for the rest of their lives!  I'm talking here about the sort of friends you have who you can all spend months/years apart and then get back together and feel like nothing’s changed.

Allow me to take, for example, my mates from uni.  Now with this lot nothing has changed at all, we were together only yesterday and I had been smacked round the back of the head within five minutes.  I’m not entirely sure what I’d done to deserve it, but I’ve learned with this person not to ask, but instead to thank them and ask for another! However, I digress, the importance of the dynamics of the group.  Now, I hasten to point out that these thoughts came to me yesterday when I was several glasses of Merlot and imported German beer to the good, so if they appear even more incoherent than usual I apologise!

Within that group of five people sat around the table there was “The Matriarch”, she knows who she is and I can already feel the slap winging its way towards me, “The Little Sister”, “The Diplomat” (and for “Diplomat” read:  “Sarcastically witty/wine philosopher”), “The Crazy Cat Lady” (love you sweetheart!), and me.  I would call myself “The Rogue” but I can already feel the scorn building up in the other four so my role probably is classed as “The Idiot/Goon/Battering Ram”.  Also not counted in that five because they couldn’t make it on the day were “The Dynamic Duo” of pneumatic-horse-riding-blondes who have the capacity to break men’s minds!

So, there’s the cast.  Sounds like a bunch of characters from a bad 80’s sit com right?  But the point I’m making, or trying to make without digressing our three and a half years of antics, is that this whole contrast of differing personalities makes the circle of friends, any circle of friends, what it is.  I know for a fact that if my friendship circle consisted of people who were all exactly the same it would be pretty bloody boring!  A mix of character results in unpredictability, which is good for a friendship; you have the knowledge that your mates will be there for you, but the reassurance that no two meetings will be the same.