“Mate, I haven’t seen you for ages, how are you!”

Un-expectantly running into a friend can be such a nice surprise – if you take away the guilt/anger you feel because the last time you ran into them about a year ago you/they said you would call next week for lunch…..

And, do you know what, for me anyway, that’s okay – because I got to see you just then, by accident in the street and I am going to be happy for that and not wreck the moment thinking about the year between our last chance meeting…. and of course not blaming you for not fulfilling your promise and not calling me…. but, then again I have a phone right!

I am pretty good at catching up with friends, checking on people, sending a card, even a quick text to say ‘thinking of you’….. but, only just lately I started to realise why am I doing this?

I wrote a few posts ago about writing letters, yes, I still do as some of you will attest to, and a big part of that was about writing the letters for the other person – I don’t expect a reply, I get the joy from thinking of the person and writing the letter… hoping they get joy from reading it (see – Better at Writing Letters).

The thing is with a letter, much like contacting friends, you are not really sure what is going on at the other end.  Nowadays, especially with a lot of my friends still working, when I call they are busy, on the way to meetings, or sometimes you can just hear it is not a good time – and again, that is okay….  I have mates who still answer not matter what and say, “Hey, a bit busy call you back” and I say ‘Yep, thanks” and hang up – often they don’t call back, and that is okay, because they answered and I respected they were busy and now was not a good time – I at least got to think about them, hear their voice and fulfil a little bit of keeping the contact going, even though not what I thought it was going to be.

I don’t play the ‘they could have called me game’, or it is their turn, or they said they were going to arrange it….. because, I always can.  I so often hear of friends just fading away because each is playing the ‘waiting for them to call game’ – what a bullshit game where actually no-body wins.

Of course their are ‘users’ that often only call because they want something – can you help me move, can I borrow this, I need your free professional advice on this….. oh, yeah and sorry to hear your Mum died 5 years ago….. and that is okay to, because I have a magic solution…. I just say no.  I don’t lie, I just say no.

“I can’t help you move because I can’t want to” (my friends don’t ask me anymore – but not helping people move, or build a retaining wall or borrow a tool is another post – which I may have already written?)

 

“I can’t give you that professional advice because that would be unprofessional giving it as a friend.”

 

“I can’t lend you that I am using it.” (I’m using it by protecting my possession of it hanging in my shed where I really want it….)

 

But of course this in not everyone – everyone is not everyone.  All my friends who I contact are different.  Some, it may be a year but seems like yesterday – some it may be a year and seems like it was and we take a bit of warming up – some it may be a year and I can’t recognise them…. and guess what if they are my friend I AM interested….

I found the best way to ensure that you catch up with your friends is to catch up with them… sometimes you have to change things, reschedule things, plan for a long phone call and get 3 seconds, write a letter and get a 5 character text in reply…

But, but, but….

If they really are your friends than none of this is a problem – yeah, sometimes it is a little frustrating, but really even that is not true: if they’re your real friends and things keep getting in the way and you are frustrated, surely that is a good thing and tells you that they are a friend that is worth a little frustration…..

I still remember about 30 years ago when my Dad, who has been dead 25 years now, keep putting of visiting one of his mates who had cancer (I can write a 1000 reasons why…) but in the end his mate died and Dad never saw him again – he had cancer for over a year…  I have done this too.

So, one day, or with some people 3 o’clock in the morning after 400 beers, I may think of you and call, or a week later you may receive a card in the post that you can’t read and has red wine spilt on it…. just smile, Im just good at catching up with friends….. in my own way.