That’s what Friends are for

After work today, I felt extremely tired as I was still recovering from my illness. While I knew rest would do me well, part of me wanted to wander aimlessly. At this point, I received an SMS from Josephine. This cheered me considerably and thanks to her, I’m home resting instead of subjecting my battered physical self to more stress.

Josephine and I call each other best friends. The funniest part is that we never believed in the term ‘best friends’ until we met each other. No, we’ve not known each other since childhood. Neither have we known each other for more than 10 years.

We met during the second week of freshman year in university, in an introductory lecture. That’s just seven years ago. We took two similar subjects out of three in our first year, which meant we became partners in crime together - attending lectures and tutorials, mugging for tests and exams, even taking afternoon breaks in between lectures by heading to Holland Village. She saw me through a bad break-up, and a year later, I held her as she sobbed over her break-up. We both stayed in different hostels in our second year but I remember the nights where we’ll shuffle to our regular supper haunt for our bitching sessions over nasi lemak and hot teh-si.

After graduation we saw less of each other - we worked in different industries, hung out with new friends outside of our regular group and had new boyfriends. Three years on and some of our then-new friends and regular group have fallen off our radar screens, and we’re single gals again. Through it all, we‘ve kept in touch and stayed together.

The surprising thing is that Josephine and I are totally different in character. I’m more out-going than she is, automatically striking up conversations with strangers while she’ll speak only if the other party speaks to her. I like to go dancing in clubs while she prefers quiet drinks at a decent bar. I don’t mind roughing it out but she’ll only do so for selected activities. Ultimately, it’s our concern for each other that has kept us close.

In the past three years, I’ve met people whom I call ‘drifters’ - they drift out of my life as quickly as they drifted in.

Those that I met while out partying fall into one group. They call me only when they go partying, as I’m fun to hang out with. I do the PR thing pretty well, possess a few impressive dance moves and won’t get inebriated too easily. The other group consists of friends’ friends who always exhort me to call them out for dinner or coffee. They won’t call you, you’ve to call them. When I do contact them, they’re normally busy. And they never return the call to ask if you would like to meet on another day instead.

It comes to a point where I’ll ask the person out only once. If he/she is free, great! We meet and have a good time together. If not, it’s now the other party’s initiative to return the call and arrange for meeting. But if he/she doesn’t return the call, that’s the end of it.

Ms Chow here is not going to keep asking you out and sound like a foolish, desperate and lonely lady. I’ve been single for so long (by choice, mind you!) that I’ve perfected the art of keeping myself occupied, with or without friends - Sunday picnics in the park or sun tanning at the beach, catching the latest movie or play, wandering around Borders bookshop or HMV, sipping coffee over an absorbing novel at Spinelli’s, volunteering for various activities.

So saying, Josephine is the only person that understands the theory of reciprocating an action. She may not be free to have dinner with me today, but she’ll ask me out for coffee a few days later. I may not be free to listen to her problems immediately but I’ll call the following day to make sure she’s okay.

This could be an understanding that we’ve developed in our seven years of friendship, or something that was taught to us by our parents. Whatever it is, we both feel that it’s the most basic thing to keep a friendship alive and growing strong.

It is also with this mutual and unspoken respect and love we have for each other that has convinced us that the term ‘best friends’ can be aptly used to describe our strong bond.