Why Friendships Are Underrated (And Relationships Are Overrated)

In the most general sense, in modern day Sri Lanka, a ‘relationship’ doesn’t mean familial, platonic, professional, etc, a ‘relationship’ means, to put in the words of the aunties and uncles, “That one is carrying on with this one,” and that phrase is typically responded to with gushes, chees, and aneys. I don’t know much about these relationships, my only interaction with other living beings is me cooing and tickling my pets’ stomachs, and with my debate and MUN teams (gosh what a nerd,) so you’re going to assume I’m a bitter single teen that’s in denial of this oh so gargantuan void in my life, but heh, Pizza fills it. Although my, so to say, ‘love life,’ isn’t active, I’ve made several observations of close friends, family (yes Aiyya you) and come to various conclusions on what I believe are just grounds to call relationships overrated. This piece of writing was initially going to be a long (very long) list of reasons why I believe teenage-in-school relationships, just don’t work, but that’s a tad depressing. So in honour of National Friendship Day, I only thought it was appropriate to write about how unnoticed, unappreciated and underrated friendships are- like cheesecake- because life without friends, would be as bad as life without cheesecake *dramatic gasp*

Friendships are an extremely unique part of life, because as much as you believe you chose your friends, you really don’t. Think about it- “He’s really weird, no seriously, he’s psycho, how did we even meet…” are the thoughts that run through most our minds as we look at this human we like to call a 7 letter word and laugh with- sometimes, laugh at- most of the time. But, isn’t that what’s so great about it? That its luck, or chance, or fate, and its not up to us at all. It could be that you happened to be seated next to them in form period, or out of the 1 out of 3 days of weekly cricket practice of an entire year, you happened to be paired with them for a drill. But the most wonderful kinds are the unconventional ones, with the odds against your favour, when you almost conquer fate, (or does fate conquer you?) Those friendships that start out as sworn enemies because “Teacher he pushed me..” “She totally copied my hairstyle…” “He thinks he’s better than me…” I don’t mean to be a friendship-ist, but we all discriminate sometimes, and this is my favourite kind of friendship- when you swear you will never look at that “bloody bugger’s bloody face ever again,” and tell your mother never to ask how he/she is doing, because angry pangry never get friendly. And as much as I put this into a pre-school context, its happened to all of us, regardless of your age. There’s that one person in your life, you’re meant to despise- your competition, your rival, the villain in your life, that you end up sharing a Cheese Koththu with at 3am on a terrible Friday-night-become-Saturday-morning. And it hits you, an epiphany (also the chilli chicken) and you ask yourself why you wasted so much time and energy hating this one person, when the two of you could have hated the rest of the world together all this time. And that’s precisely why friendships are underrated. It could be the most unlikely pairing, the most odd combination, but you find yourself, and from there its only as good as Iced Milo.

Regardless of the background of your friendship-story (if we can have love stories we can have these too okay,) and the hows and whereabouts, there are some things in every friendship that go unnoticed, or unappreciated, and most often, they’re the little things. As much as we’d like to live in a world where Tumblr posts become reality and we make grand gestures at 2am armed with ice cream and a GOT disc, our domestic reality is quite the opposite. Too much credit is given to these tangible, grand gestures, and too little credit is given to the sentimental ones, the ones that matter. In a friendship there is no barrier- (100% anti-judgemental) not in terms of appropriateness, morality, societal norms, appearance, in a friendship, no filter, is the best filter. In a friendship, you’re in a safe haven. A secure place that’s impenetrable by gossip, rumours, secrets, lies, because you trust in him and he trusts in you, and that’s all you need. Its so simple, and you know it works. Little things like, just being there and being tolerant, “you’re annoying machang, but yeah I’ll stay,” not saying “I told you so” immediately, (of course we’re going to say it the next day,) teasing you about every single thing under the sun (except your insecurities, because we know how much that affects you,) reassuring you that you’re not insane (because they would have reacted the same way,) and overall, accepting you for who you are. In friendships there’s no premise to be self-conscious and insecure, since this weird dude likes you because you’re as weird as him. You don’t need to impress them, because I’d like to think, if they’re being this tolerant, there’s something consistently impressive about you (even if it is your ability to burp the alphabet.) Friendship is a bond you share without having to force it, and it doesn’t receive enough credit.

Regardless of the countless amazing things about friendships, the one thing that never ceases to disappoint me is the lack of responsibility friends take for one another. Most people (at least in my generation,) don’t realise that a friendship is not something you should take for granted. We’re so occupied with devoting our lives and concerns to satisfying a significant other, you forget about the most significant other/s- your friends. We tend to prioritise people in our life not according to how much we mutually mean to one another but rather, how much society tells us we should mean to each other. You rarely find platonic friendships (particularly between two people of the opposite sex) that survive, because of the tornado of rumours and gossip that persistently hit you every single day, as to how you can never be “just friends.” I have always, always been curious as to why this fallacy of a misconception exists, and I realised- its our fault. We’re the ones that tell each other that “friends don’t do such nice things for one another,” “If you hang out all the time its obviously more than a friendship,” and a sequence of “friends don’t..friends don’t…” But seriously, why not? Friends should do nice things for one another: if your best friend is feeling down (even if they’re of the opposite sex- such taboo) take them out, bring them ice cream (please), tell them you love them, annoy them and make them laugh- not only because, of course, you’re genuinely concerned, but because you’re obligated to. Its your responsibility to make sure he or she never goes to bed with anything but a glimmer of happiness in their eyes and that side smirk that brightens your day. The problem with gestures towards your friends is the existing stigma that “friends don’t do that,” and that is precisely the social stigma that we need to overcome- that your responsibility is only to the person in your romantic relationship. When you enter a friendship there is a non-verbal agreement, that you will always, always, have their back, and its far too often that people say this, but never live up to it. At the grass-root level the misconception is that love and effort is an equivalent to romance and therefore love and friendship are mutually exclusive, but they’re not. Love and effort in all your relationships, whether romantic, familial, platonic, is the most important thing that maintains the bond, and we need to start expressing this love, and making this effort wherever its due.

Appreciate your friends, but also smack them in the head and stare them down when they’re about to do something stupid- and when they do that stupid thing despite your intimidating look (I promise its intimidating I’ll show you someday), lecture them, and then stand by them. We most often make the mistake of stranding our friends when they need us the most. Even if they’re going through a bad time in their life and assume they should be left alone, whether its a silly thing they got into trouble for, even if they did something you’re completely against, ditching them is not going to make your life better (their mum made a killer Lasagna), nor their’s better. Explain to them why you disagree, fight it out, yell at each other if you have to, its not going to go back to normal immediately (unless your fight was about who gets the bigger slice of cake and you realise there’s more cake.) An extremely important part of any relationship is talking about things, telling each other what’s wrong, confronting and acknowledging your mistakes and helping each other grow, as opposed to slowing down each other’s growth. To be as cheesy as France- there’s always a rainbow after a storm and in this case, the rainbow is a stronger, even more impenetrable friendship.

Friendships are hard work, its like parenthood- except with a grown fool who can’t eat Spaghetti without staining their t-shirt (I’m sorry cutlery isn’t convenient for left-handers) instead of a child, but the hardest part of a friendship is when it ends. Those whose friendships end because of a fight or a wrong-doing are the more fortunate ones, because most often, friends just drift apart, or don’t confront one another about a problem and ultimately stop speaking — which hurts more than a fight. There’s a lack of closure, resolution and clarity about everything, that devours you from the inside. The persistent “what did I do wrong?” followed by nagging questions from your parents as to why you don’t talk anymore, and the worst part- when you miss them, and you can’t tell yourself you’re better off without them, because you don’t know if it was all your fault (*tear rolls down cheek*) But the thing is, in the best, real friendships there’s no ego or selfish pride that will hinder this sort of communication, so if they fail to “Bro, I’m really mad at you, what you did wasn’t funny…” then are they really your bro? The chances are, if they ignore you, neglect your friendship and avoid confrontation with you, they don’t believe your friendship is worth fighting for, so really, you’re better off without them.

Finally, I’d like to end on a happier note, in celebration of World Friendship Day, share this with your friends, your squad, your homeboys or “whatever these kids are calling it these days,” tell them how much you appreciate them and keep doing it every day if you haven’t been already. They’ve always said that blood is thicker than water, but we forget that water is what nourishes every inch of our body, so like water, friends are a necessity, and a good dosage of them can keep the doctor away (even the tap water like ones ;) )

Wishing you the best friendship day,

Your bezt friend. ❤