Best Friends

I have the best friends in the world.  I mean that.  

In one's life, "best" friends come and go.  Right?  Well, maybe not.  If you search about on the internet, I'm sure that numerous sites and google hits will tell you that there's only a certain number of friend that a person may have.  I'm not interested in those supposed facts.  In the end, I might come up against that upper threshold, sure.  But for now?  

Rather than just 'make friends', I'm much more interested in building a community.  I guess it's a combination of not just my Autism, but also the covertly (or perhaps overtly) Jewish upbringing I've had.  On a good day, it's quite easy for me to make new acquaintances - high-functioning days can best well, almost anything; it doesn't matter where I am or who I'm with, there's a feeling... no, I know that I'm Indestructible.  But this isn't about just that, is it?  This is all about my friends, and what they mean to me.

Even from School, from my VIth form days, my best friends still stand.  The Doctor, The Drum, The Royalty and The Bishop are all people I feel that are all at not just my beck and call, but also I am at theirs.  They are definitive.  After over half a decade, we can still come back together.  Indeed, we are all well overdue a true reunion, and what I would do for us all to be together is... well, unthought of.  My time in VIth form was a light prelude to what I am now, even after three years of university education and a small number of romantic relationships.  I owe apologies to my friends who have already been named above as well; as much time as I have wanted to spend with them I have just been unable to do so, needing to spend my weekends in Truro means I can often not travel too far if at all, which can feel unfair.  Also my lack of personal funds makes things ever so slightly difficult, and that nasty habit I have of blaming myself.  

Leaving home for University can be a truly gut-wrenching experience, as I'm sure my readers might already know...and if you don't, that's what's in store - everything will change, one way or another.  The implications may not be immediately apparent from this poor narrative, but eventually it will become obvious.  Like the conversation I had with the Big Man about this time last year - before I applied I had never even heard of Truro as a city, let alone a Cathedral choir; all sorts of things have happened in the last two years, not considering the previous three at University,  that I would not even have thought to have predicted, and that is what will happen to you, regardless of anything.  If you do not keep your promises, you are done for.

I am still in contact overall with my best friends from school.  I'm sure that in years, and perhaps decades to come, their friendship will prove to mean just as much.  However, the cut and thrust of this post will be about the friends I made at University, and perhaps most about those I met in my third year, and just why they mean so much to me, and I hope to them as well.  My third year was much more telling than perhaps my first year, possibly because so I felt that so much more was at stake: the repercussions of a terrible second year (in academic results alone, before anything else) and the social expectations I felt of being an old man in halls.  It turned out to be a bumper year for both actually, and I will stand up for my flatmates beyond the pale in fact, seeing as almost all twenty of us between the two flats (linked by a common porch) actually had something to do with my success, even down to the very lovely girl who lived in the room directly opposite who very graciously allowed my use of her colour printer (a degree saving printing as far as deadline meeting was concerned, and some thing I am still grateful for).

But let's turn to that third year, to the people I am still in touch with, that I think about on a daily basis.  The Admiral, Grasshopper, The Waltzer, The Chief, The Entertainer, and my Sensei.  These persons, nameless though they may be, make up the core of what happened all in the end, when it really mattered.  Sensei particularly was there for my dissertation, and his role at that time cannot be underestimated.  Cider be damned.  There is little need to detail their exploits in an episodic fashion either, quite a lot of what I have written before on here has been down to them... Why else is the 2012 archive so thin?  There will be more posts this month when I'm done with the #BEDM challenge then were for the whole of that year.  The inspiration of living with these amazing people can only really be felt when it is not there any more, like now.  I cannot truly express how much I enjoyed living in halls with my flatmates in the academic year of 2010-2011.  Everything about that year, the lows but also the highs that made up for them, were a real and lasting milestone in my life so far.  What makes them special is..well, the fact that they are people who made a choice, not only to remain important to me, but to make me important to them as well.

I like to say that once somebody has become accepted to me and has become an important friend in my life, that they are always welcome at my table.  This has echoes of Judaism, and the Passover meal, but really it means they will always be welcome, no matter what.  I guess at best estimate there a re still less than 50 of these persons today, but I feel that this list grows every year.  This is pleasing, in a way, showing that I can build lasting relationships with new people.  It's not like I've bandied this sentiment about though; there are plenty of people who would not take me up on that sort of offer even if I dared breathe it near them.  I wonder whether I should really name the names behind the nicknames, having always prized anonymity of other as a characteristic of this blog... I only broke that habit for my five favourite blogs, and I shan't be doing so again anytime soon.  As I stated near the very beginning of this blog, names are changed not just to protect the identity of others, but also myself.  What's in a name?  One's identity balances so thinly on just names anyway.

But really now, just what do my friends mean to me?  On the spot and at point black range, what do I say?  Well, simply...everything.  A lot of my friends mean as much to me as family does to you.  Having grown up with a mother who suffers with a range of disabilities, a father who gives in to alcoholism, a brother who moved out way back in my youth, one can understand my minimal family when I was younger (coupled with my difficulties in making friends who meant, well, anything), and why I should want to cast deeper relationships than might usually be sought.  And indeed, the older I have got, the more of a two-way street I appreciate relationships to be - either by the long haul or otherwise.  My best friends are those I can rely on, often no matter what.  Indeed, I often said that The Admiral was my handler, somebody who knew when to pull my metaphorical leash when I was getting a bit out of hand.  My best friends are those I can trust; all of my best friends from VIth form, and even Mickey from Truro and The Loser from Norwich, have faith placed in them that I have difficulty expressing so is had to understand - they have earned it through means not measured in any rational way.  Some of my best friends have been through one horror after another, and I like to think I have been their anchor, sometimes more actively than others (and this is done without hope of future reward, because, well, they're my friend and just because they need help sometimes doesn't make them any less of a person or worthy of any good treatment regardless).  Spread about both the country and in some cases, the world, my very best pals are all over the place, as I'm sure many people's are too.

Sometimes we write to each other, sometimes we use short message servicing, or a telephone call, or maybe Skype, and sometimes we don't speak for months on end... But it doesn't often change how I feel about this community of mad men and women I have built over the years, whom not only allow me the honour of calling them friends, but also return it.  I will back them all they way, just because my life is made so much better by having them there.

That's all.  For now.