Your long-term mates and your ups and downs with them

[shiftwork2]

Just that.  When friendships go on for far far longer than you had ever anticipated.

It doesn't really matter how long.  I'm pretty old now and I've known my best mates for 26 years.  You might be a lot younger (probably not considering the shit this forum pumps out) but even if you're just a bit younger, tell us stories about friendship longevity and its challenges.

Perhaps you've noticed I haven't really given up much but I will should this thread take off.

Over to you fucko

[Buelligan]

Had a friend forever, since we were kids at school.  Saw some amazing bands together.  Every Christmas he sends me chocolates from northern Europe.  Every birthday, I write to him, just a few lines about nothing.  He designs computer shit for space programmes.  We listen to jazz.  We will always be friends.

[Pink Gregory]

the one guy left from school makes the effort maybe once, twice a year.  Maybe that's enough.

the only other one had a fairly severe breakdown at University and briefly got back in contact, then disappeared again.  Last thing I said to him was that Bowie had died.  I think he'd have got dead into conspiracies, glad I wasn't around for it.

"You seem like a fairly popular chap, P.G."

You'd be right

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I post on here like forty times a day obviously I've got loads of mates

I ain't telling you SHIT though

[bgmnts]

Someone I've known 10 years but just amounts to the occasional message on my part and tepid response on their part.

Dunno if that counts but I count it.

[shoulders]

I never anticipated friendships would have a shelf-life, clearly not cynical enough.

But as people move away, have partners, new friendship circles you need to actively maintain the friendship rather than simply assuming it will always be there.

If you aren't conversing regularly it's much more difficult to restart.

The amount of people I know who are available to go to the cinema, come round and watch a film or play videogames, play pool or tennis or something, etc is decreasing to nearly zero because they're all too busy with family stuff or skint because of family stuff.

Back in 2010ish I was broke but had a group of reliable friends that would go out at least twice a week as well as socialising in other aspects.

2015 ish I probably had the highest numbers of acquaintances and friends you could call on to do social activities.

Life seems to be stubbornly consistent in its equal and opposite reactions to virtually everything you try and do.

[shiftwork2]

It isn't to do with a 'shelf life', more to do with the generally-experienced phenomenon of friendships fairly rarely thriving beyond several decades for whatever reason.  If they do then there have likely been challenges along the way and that is what this thread is about.

[madhair60]

my main friend I would argue is myself as if you do not like yourself you cannot expect anyone else to like you.

[jobotic]

Been friends with my boy J___ for 46 years now, since first day of primary school. Saw him last week and will again in a couple of weeks. Got a fairly hardcore group of friends from school in fact. We might not be mates if we didnt know each other and were thrown together now but we all get on despite being quite different.

Made a new group of friends locally a few years back through a guy who started at work. Great bunch but it's hard going out and always feeling a bit on the periphery.

[Steve Faeces]

I have three friends from thirty odd years ago that I went to school with.

I think because I went to uni and most of my school friends didn't go to sixth form and instead started work or on job training I lost touch with quite a lot of them in my early to mid 20s as our lives diverged. I was working in temp jobs and living in rented places and they had proper jobs and first houses or flats and some were married with kids. There was just very little common ground. The three I do still see I don't have much in common with life wise but they kept up with football and music and so we go to gigs and matches together.

My other mates are from university or stuff I've been involved with. A few ex colleagues.

I've properly fallen out with two friends. One was a stupid row over nothing really but both too proud and stupid to make up and I am not sure I can be bothered with the effort mending it now. The other one became completely radicalised by twitter and I couldn't stand their company any more.

[thenoise]

Always a bit of an outsider on friendship groups, never keep them up for long after moving out of the area or life change etc. Still got most of them on Facebook though, so I get to read their status updates and see their pictures. And that's a bit like having friends isn't it?

[The Culture Bunker]

My longest friendship goes back about 30+ years, as we went to the same junior school and lived near to each other. We wound up forming a band, then stayed in touch after we went to uni (me down South, him to Sheffield). We've had spells of not seeing each other for years, though there's always been messages at least every few months, usually about some new band. He got married, had two kids but now they're in their teens, we've met up a few times to see bands/football.

Him apart, I've never been good at staying in touch. Lost touch with everyone from uni within two years of graduation. I had a very close friend over 15 years from when I moved to Manchester, but they cut off ties just before I got married. I always wondered if there was some kind of resentment at play - when we met, we were both skint, living in shitty bedsits and scrimping from one temp job to another for £5 a hour. They never really managed to escape those circumstances, while I got steady job, the disposable income that comes with it then eventually a lasting relationship that made me happy. Or maybe it'd just run it's course, who knows.

Something I learned from Covid is that I really don't need friends that much, that I'm really quite content spending a lot of time alone.

[shoulders]

It isn't to do with a 'shelf life', more to do with the generally-experienced phenomenon of friendships fairly rarely thriving beyond several decades for whatever reason.  If they do then there have likely been challenges along the way and that is what this thread is about.

Currently not speaking to one of my long term friends as he shared that pro-Trump country music thing that went viral last year. I think he was expecting a big discussion but at the time I wasn't feeling enthused either way, so just said I couldn't get worked up about the song's message or its impact particularly.

It must have been the straw that broke the camel's back as his reaction was way out of line, really personal abusive stuff. Out of self-respect you have to draw a line somewhere so I politely told him what I thought about that and haven't heard from him since.

With his track record of apologies being worse than Trump himself I do wonder whether I will ever be contacted by him again.

[shiftwork2]

This is starting to land.

My longest friendship really goes back 40+ years but it's sort of on hold.  Myself and Phil grew up in the same road, 6 houses apart.  There's a bedrock of 1970s summer nights spent playing and climbing trees in the local park, and later of bikes razzing around the duckpond before the park keeper threw us out.  We had a few fights, him in his yellow six million dollar man t-shirt.  He was always more physical.  He probably beat me but not very hard.  His Dad moved out and life got more complicated but he was still my best mate until school.  It all got a bit fucked up after that as he got put in the REMO (remedial) class as he was a bit of a doper and I (surprisingly to you lot no doubt) got put with the clever kids with parents who played golf and got into swingerism.  Massive divergence after that.  The Comprehensive burden.  Poshos just wrote off old friends off like a psychopath wipes off blood.  It was much harder for real people.

Fast forward a long time and Phil (and family) has bought the house next door.  My mum's old now and I'm starting to worry a bit.  Fuck that though as I'm living overseas and earning megamoney.  Who cares about those bozos?  Years pass and I move back to the UK and I see Phil from time to time and we say hello, old mates but decades have gone by.  Plain awkward.  The time comes when my mum dies, in her sleep.  Plod have to go in and break the back door down and who is the person who breaks this news to me?  Phil.  He's utterly distraught and I have to reason with him and talk him down, saying it's how she wanted to go.  Later that year we go for a few pints, the first time as adults.  It's completely natural.  Why did we ever think it wouldn't be?  But it turns out that was the end.  We didn't do it again really as life conspired against us.  Basically - the circle opened and the circle closed.  It couldn't have been any other way.

[derek stitt]

Have a mate who I am currently and actively avoiding. The problem arose when both my parents died and he tried to tell me organising their funerals was less stressful than him having to pay a mortgage each month. Am too much of a coward to call him out on his thoughtlessness, selfishness and stupidity so just pretend to be busy when he wants to arrange meet ups etc. Mate is also a convert to GB news.

[TrenterPercenter]

One day, back when I was at school in PSHE, we were all asked if you could have one superpower what would it be? As we went round the group the usual answers came out, "fingerin", "infinite chips", "impregnate your mum, vision" but when it got to me I said emphatically "I would like to be able to make friends with anyone", once the laughter died down, one lad said "why not just be invisible and rob banks you dunce?", I looked at him and said "why would I need to be rich if I was already rich in friendship?", at that point a solemn thoughtful silence pervaded the entire classroom, until the bell went and I was promptly shoed over in the playground.

[benjitz]

Seem to have difficulty maintaining them, some my fault, some theirs. I'm in my 50s and have known all these people since I was a teenager. Had two close friends for a few decades, both borrowing money constantly, and paying back on time. Then one borrowed highest amount yet (£200) and I never heard from him again (though could probably get in touch if I could be arsed), other one I turned down on a loan and I never heard from him again either. This is after decades of close friendships, interesting.

I'm pretty shit at staying in contact so the other ones are weird. One moved back to city where I live after broken marriage and a decade away - needed a lot of help finding housing here from me initially, but now he actually lives here, I never see him. It's really odd as he was really super-sociable before. But on the times we met the first few times, it was clear we weren't really getting past the 'reminiscing' stage of a reunifications - unless you get together and create more memories, a friendship is looking like a dead duck really if all you talk about is the past.

I have a tendency to fall in love (more like limerence) with (some) mates who are the opposite sex so that never goes well, obviously - you fool yourself you can be friends, but you really, really can't.

And I've got another one who complains I don't keep in contact with him enough so I think he's boycotting me inviting out the past six months. He is right though, I am just shit at it. I don't really go out much but he thinks I am going out a lot but not inviting him, is the crux of it. I just don't really desire social interaction that much any more.

[Small Man Big Horse]

My longest friendship is apparently 48 years as she was born 11 months and 351 days after I was. My first memory of her was when I was about 5 years old and we were playing round the back of the garages and she said that if she could watch me do a wee, she'd do a shit. I have no idea why I agreed to it but after I urinated she curled out the biggest, more horrifying turd I'd ever seen, and I went off her for a bit. Then when I was 15 she became friends with one of one of my friends, and we've been close ever since. Sometimes we might only see each two or three times a year but we always pick up where we left off, and due to our both having mentally ill parents who have fucked us up and then some I'm pretty sure we always will be. But christ, whenever I picture that turd I do think about deleting her number from my phone.

[derek stitt]

My longest friendship is apparently 48 years as she was born 11 months and 351 days after I was. My first memory of her was when I was about 5 years old and we were playing round the back of the garages and she said that if she could watch me do a wee, she'd so a shit. I have no idea why I agreed to it but after I urinated she curled out the biggest, more horrifying turd I'd ever seen, and I went off her for a bit then. Then when I was 15 she became friends with one of one of my friends, and we've been close ever since. Sometimes we might only see each two or three times a year but we always pick up where we left off, and due to our both having mentally ill parents who have fucked us up and then some I'm pretty sure we always will be. But christ, whenever I picture that turd I do think about deleting her number from my phone.

So many childhood friendships start because of shared pee and poop moments. Haven't seen them in decades but still remember two kids who became best friends because one liked watching the shit come out of his bum when he took a crap outside. I shudder at the thought of that now but, it seemed so innocent 40 odd years ago. That said, I do occasionally think of what their internet search histories look like.

[shiftwork2]

So many childhood friendships start because of shared pee and poop moments. Haven't seen them in decades but still remember two kids who became best friends because one liked watching the shit come out of his bum when he took a crap outside. I shudder at the thought of that now but, it seemed so innocent 40 odd years ago. That said, I do occasionally think of what their internet search histories look like.

Thanks for this post.  It is what I had hoped this thread would reveal.

If you've got me on ignore then I forbid you from reading or replying to these posts.  Go on fuck off out of it, prick.

alright cheers lads

[dissolute ocelot]

I'm still friends with someone I met at school, united by a shared disdain for it all. And similar musical tastes. Pre-COVID we did a pub quiz most weeks, we still go to gigs together. Although his wife became good friends with the woman who's now my ex, so I'm no longer particularly welcome at their house. I've never seen him shit either.

[Jerrykeshton]

I have a few really good mates who I talk to most days via the magic of WhatsApp.

I've known one of them since I was 3 years old and he was one of the Best Men at my wedding. That's 42 years and counting.

The over best man I've known since I was 12 and I shared a house with him for 2 years.

I also have another mate from secondary school who doesn't get in touch as much (lives in Newquay) but generally see him whenever he's back to see his family. 

There are then another bunch (6 or 7 people) who were in bands with the first lot or friends of the people in bands). I talk to them quite a lot (from a few times a day to a few times a month) and we go out occasionally (3 or 4 times a year)

[Bingo Fury]

I fell in with a group of oddball stoners in 1984, and we've stayed friends ever since. There's never been a period when the core group have been out of touch, though the more peripheral members did drift away. I'd love to know what we'd have thought if you'd told us, that summer of wasterdom, that we'd still be part of each other's lives and meeting up for dinner 40 years hence. (Probably shrugged, and said, "Yeah, I can see that happening.")

As students, we were great devotees of weed and hallucinogens, and we lost one of our number to the smack scene in the late 80s, but although we had virtually no contact with her after that she still retained the status of a founder member in our hearts. She died just over a year ago, and four of us drove for a few hours to get to her funeral. As we made our way down the motorway, the journey took on this weird quality of like being inside an indie film: forty years on, a group of friends go on a road trip to salute the first of the gang to die, reminiscing, laughing, filling in the gaps in each other's memories, stopping off at a café-cum-gift-shop and revelling in its oddness and, as the light faded, revisiting some old haunts after four decades' absence. Were we chasing ghosts, or were we the ghosts, mere echoes of the people we once were? Aaaaaaah.

[gilbertharding]

I've managed to solve this problem by never seeing, or communicating with, any of my friends. Have also blocked them all on social media, just to be sure. It's great.

[madhair60]

Were we chasing ghosts, or were we the ghosts, mere echoes of the people we once were? Aaaaaaah.

well which was it

[JaDanketies]

I'm fed up with my two oldest friends. It's hard to not view them as losers. Both have kids that they don't see regularly and I don't think they're putting as much effort into seeing their kids as they ought to. They spend too much time getting drunk and taking drugs instead. One of them can't hold down a job and the other one can't hold on to any money. Seems like half the time they contact me it's to borrow money.

One of them Whatsapped me, Facebook messaged me and texted me over the course of a few hours to borrow £20, when he definitely just needed because he had bought cocaine and booze with money he needed for groceries, or because he wanted cocaine and booze. He then messages in a group chat a few days later trying to sell the ticket to a concert he'd already bought and we were all going to together cos he "can't afford it". Just don't buy cocaine one time mate.

The other one messaged me on like December 23rd asking for £65 for his kid's present, and has still not repaid me. And I've got to chase them for the money, which is even worse. I usually wouldn't give either any money but it was Christmas.

Anyway it feels like they are loser bums and I am becoming more and more unlike them. I increasingly don't find myself thinking about them with the words you might use to describe friends, instead I think they're pathetic wasters. I cut off another friend entirely because he abandoned his kids, which he blames on his mental health, which he does absolutely nothing to mitigate or control. And I'm starting to think my other friends might be just as shit dads.

I guess also I feel like your friends are a reflection of yourself, and I view 'being a good dad who is there for his kids' as a very important part of myself. If drinking less often and not putting powders up my nose would help me see my kids then it would be a no-brainer.

I actually was gutted that I didn't go to the Manchester meet because making new friends is actually a thing that I want to do now, it feels like it's increasingly important

[The Mollusk]

my main friend I would argue is myself as if you do not like yourself you cannot expect anyone else to like you.

alright rupaul

[Blinder Data]

i don't live in my hometown and my parents don't live there anymore, so my long-term mates are people i message very occasionally on WhatsApp and see every few years for weddings or other major life events. they've never visited me which reflects poorly on them and reaffirms my view that i don't need to spend too much time thinking of them. this arrangement seems to work fine for me. when i spend too much time with them, i am often embarrassed by their obnoxious behaviour and am glad not to fall back into bad old habits.

i've realised i'm generally OK at making new friends wherever i go. had a few lean years a while back, but moving to a smaller town and having children has helped massively. i've lived in a few places and made pretty good friendships, but they are hard to maintain. easier to forget and forge new ones, rinse and repeat. if my family were to move to the other side of the world, i'm hopeful we'd do all right with new ones and be content with Christmas Card relationships with old pals

there is one friend who i've known since primary school but we barely talk nowadays and i feel like we're different people. we started to drift during secondary school and that seemed to be the end, despite our shared history. didn't keep up with any other friends from primary school so it's a shame i didn't hold onto him.

but like the OP has pointed out, sometimes these relationships start up again years down the line, and sometime you reach a point when you know it's done. i hope it's the former. got to get kids out the way first! *crying laughing emoji*

[iamcoop]

I'm fed up with my two oldest friends. It's hard to not view them as losers. Both have kids that they don't see regularly and I don't think they're putting as much effort into seeing their kids as they ought to. They spend too much time getting drunk and taking drugs instead. One of them can't hold down a job and the other one can't hold on to any money. Seems like half the time they contact me it's to borrow money.

One of them Whatsapped me, Facebook messaged me and texted me over the course of a few hours to borrow £20, when he definitely just needed because he had bought cocaine and booze with money he needed for groceries, or because he wanted cocaine and booze. He then messages in a group chat a few days later trying to sell the ticket to a concert he'd already bought and we were all going to together cos he "can't afford it". Just don't buy cocaine one time mate.

The other one messaged me on like December 23rd asking for £65 for his kid's present, and has still not repaid me. And I've got to chase them for the money, which is even worse. I usually wouldn't give either any money but it was Christmas.

Anyway it feels like they are loser bums and I am becoming more and more unlike them. I increasingly don't find myself thinking about them with the words you might use to describe friends, instead I think they're pathetic wasters. I cut off another friend entirely because he abandoned his kids, which he blames on his mental health, which he does absolutely nothing to mitigate or control. And I'm starting to think my other friends might be just as shit dads.

I guess also I feel like your friends are a reflection of yourself, and I view 'being a good dad who is there for his kids' as a very important part of myself. If drinking less often and not putting powders up my nose would help me see my kids then it would be a no-brainer.

I actually was gutted that I didn't go to the Manchester meet because making new friends is actually a thing that I want to do now, it feels like it's increasingly important

I have a similar situation, in which one of my oldest friends from school is basically a complete waster. I made the decision about fifteen years ago to just to gently start cutting him out of my life as I found it too depressing to have to deal with him. We'd all spent the previous decade trying really hard to support him, inviting him to stuff, constantly defending him and having his back when he inevitably got wasted and pissed someone off. He's a good kid at heart, but once he'd made the decision to spend his life smoking weed in his bedroom (still lives with his mum and he's nearly 40) there wasn't much else we could do. We long since stopped trying to get him to go and talk to someone about it. Eventually you just have to move on. I try and ring him at Christmas and stuff (I find even that massively depressing) and all he does is moan about how everyone's abandoned him and moved on and that no one cares etc.

Last time I saw him in person was last year at a funeral for a mutual friend of ours, and he was staggering around outside the Church swigging a 3-litre bottle of cider at about 10am before the service had even begun. Pretty grim really.

[Beagle 2]

I met my oldest friend at primary school 33 years ago. I can date it by the release of Passion and Warfare by Steve Vai - I still remember our first conversation about our love of The Audience is Listening. It was a eight-year-old's idea of what the most rebellious rock and roll music on the planet was. He lives in Japan now but we still chat most days via WhatsApp.

I'm quite clingy and my family life was unhappy so I have tended to keep in regular contact with most of my friends going back years (whether they like that or not, you'd have to ask them). There's two very good friends who have fallen away, one I just drifted apart from because he went off and did something cool with his life and I failed to. The other moved abroad and went a bit odd. I think most people would shrug that sort of thing off, but it still bothers me. I think it reflects poorly on me that I feel like that really, it's much healthier to just move on.