My friends are a disappointment

My Dad

 

How are you? I was thinking this week about whether you were surrounded by friends who were doing their bit to keep you engaged and amused. I thought about your circle at the pub, but also about where you might turn for emotional support other than your Mum and Dad who you probably don’t want to worry.

I have to say that in the last 18 months virtually all my friends, some of whom I’ve known for 20 years have been a disappointment on the support stakes and I don’t have mega expectations. By and large these are middle class people from nice families who are not knee deep in personal crises themselves and I would say their pattern of conduct has been generally the same as when all was going swimmingly for me – i.e. I am the one who is consistent about monthly/bi-monthly contact. The most supportive has been Siobhan I met at photography evening classes about 9 years ago in Luton. Admittedly her husband left her 3 months after mine, but whether she is happy (she is about to move in with a new bloke) or sad, she contacts me nearly every week. I don’t know whether this is a cultural or religious thing but she worries about me not having ‘family’ nearby. My brothers, one of whom lives 20 minutes away, have been pretty disinterested. I think my Mum would have been saddened by that. I had a male friend of 8 years while I was married whom I met through work and supported through his divorce. When FH left and I wouldn’t marry him he just dropped me and married someone else within the year. I helped him get a consultancy job.

Even boyfriends have on the whole shown little concern in my personal wellbeing only in how it relates to them. I had one Irish boyfriend who couldn’t do enough for me in a practical sense which really touched me and another male friend who has been married 3 times, 2 committed adultery and the last left him so he can listen to feelings until the cows come home. Apart from them I must be a sh** friend myself or old fashioned because I see very little constancy in the rest. I still care about them all to bits – they’re just of limited use in a crisis! It seems that generally nowadays people are ‘friends’ with whoever is around them in a work or social context at a given time.

OK – I am going out in 10 minutes. What can I tell you in a third of a page? Things could be looking up on the divorce front. I plucked up the courage to ring FH on Thursday before he headed off to Israel and he says he has signed the papers so fingers crossed – we could get everything resolved in the next couple of months.

We have been having CPA assessment all week at work which is like Ofsted for councils. Great bureaucratic nonsense. The entire place has been redecorated. We’ve all had endless briefings about what to and what not to say – there was even a rumour that we were all getting £5 to clean our cars but that did not materialise. We did get daily emails, in red, to keep our desks tidy, report abandoned vehicles we saw on the way to work and any fly tipping. If we get a bad score none of the council high flyers will get head hunted in the immediate future!

Must go. If this gets too much you can text me to stop. I know it’s not intellectual, but I am telling you stuff that is meaningful to me. Big hug.