I reeled back in horror the other day when I discovered via a British national newspaper that married men have fewer friends than their wives or partners. Immediately piqued by this random fact, I wondered why this might be the case and was this supposed fact actually true. I suppose that the definitive question to be asked when considering this assertion might be - “It all depends on your definition of friendship.” Or as I prefer to call it, the difference between friendship and merely being ‘friendly’ with someone of your acquaintance.
So then, do we need to differentiate between genuine friendship and merely being ‘friendly’ with someone you know? In the touchy-feely world in which we live, an amiable nod of recognition towards a guy who occasionally drinks in the same bar, does not constitute a sign of brotherhood, just a civilised acknowledgement of his existence and vice-versa. All this is a very tricky business for your average man, because by-and-large I don’t think we go around thinking - “I wonder who I can make friends with today?” It doesn’t work like that - and quite frankly, if it did, I would find it all a terrible worry. I don’t know if this mindset is an English ‘thing’ or maybe even a southern English thing. This is because our northern brethren, have for years, intimated that those of us born and bred south of Watford are both arrogant and unfriendly - and quite possibly repressed homosexuals as well.
As I write this piece, I am mentally counting my ‘proper’ friends; incidentally, if you want to annoy people at anytime, just say upon leaving their company - “See you later - I’m off to meet my proper mates.” My oldest friendship goes back 45 years and I haven’t seen the guy in over 5 years; the latest for less than 2 years, but friendship is never about a timeframe is it? Then there is the whole gender friendship business, that threaded its way through the film - ‘When Harry Met Sally.’ If you remember, the whole premise of the film was around the notion that - is it possible to have a platonic friendship with a member of the opposite sex without ‘you-know-what’ eventually getting in the way?
Unhappily, as I have got older, this state of affairs has sadly come to a premature end and I have women mates who would be appalled at the very thought of…well, you know! Nevertheless, I remember vividly a female friend and colleague introducing me to her husband years ago and then proceeding to say what good pals we were and how we shared the same sense of humour and I was her “bestest pal.” As hubby gave me a prolonged cold stare as she went into further raptures, I knew then he was considering the most painful way of killing me - but, still she carried on making me sound like a cross between Richard Gere, (I told you it was along time ago!) Stephen Fry and Mahatma Gandhi. Eventually, I freed myself from her verbal embrace, only to consider if my gal-pal was using our (soon to be over) friendship to goad her husband into occasioning violence upon my person? So then, pick your friends carefully, that’s what I say.