Being the youngest in my family unit, I have often had to rely on people outwith the unit for my social interaction.
I can’t tell you all the time I spent waiting on the trampoline to play X Factor while my older sister My Spaced or whatever the hell it was millennials did.
But from this, I have fostered some really incredible relationships and while they may not be my biological family, they are for sure my logical family and I want to dedicate a piece of writing to them.
I have been lucky to have friends that have carried me and lifted me up in the moments that I have most needed them. They have made me cooler, funnier and nicer to be around.
One literally changed the way I have gotten on and off of buses.
In life, time feels limitless and quickly passing at the same time. We have so many things we want to say to each other, but we can say it tomorrow. More often than not tomorrow never comes.
Friendship is so important that I cannot wait until tomorrow.
It is not just nice to have a friend, I think it is invaluable.
Enough with the woke nonsense.
On with the essay.
Abbey was the first person I met at university.
She had moved through to our university city while I didn’t because of Covid.
Abbey was one of my first real examples of someone actually wanting me somewhere.
She would invite me to every god awful party at her god awful flat.
She included me in anyway she could.
Her kindness shocked me, not because it was her but because I had never really seen it before.
Her kindness continued when I was flatless and looking for somewhere to live. So after three years of knowing each other we would finally be flatmates.
I have now known Abbey for nearly seven years. We have seen each other through every chapter from 18-24. Some stories I imagine both us wish the other would forget.
I shudder to think that someone in my life who is not in my family has known me since I was a shit bag of a teenager.
But that brings me to Orla.
I met Orla at the most vulnerable point of my life.
I had finally moved to university, living in halls as a second year- I felt more like I was going as an OAP rather than a 19 year old student.
As a child, being fairly misunderstood, I had imagined a friend like Orla.
You know, the person you would phone if you were arrested.
The person that would walk over hot coals for you.
She is the first person who has ever described themselves as my best friend.
She would look someone dead in the eyes and admit that she was best friends with Hugh Sloane.
I think I saw Orla 355 days of the year during uni.
The memories I have with her are ones that I hope get told at birthdays and Christmases for the rest of my life and I don’t think this will happen just because we got matching stick and poke tattoos of each others names or because there are stories that we both know about one another that could send us both to prison.
After all these years she remains the name I look for on my phone, she is the first person I think of when Beyonce is brought up and she is the person who has held my hand through the hardest moments of my young adulthood who I hope can one day hold my hand when I actually am an OAP.
Orla introduced me to Jess.
Jess has been someone I wished I was since I met her.
She was effortlessly cool.
The only way I can describe it is cool as a cucumber.
Or “Pressure? What pressure?”
In a real profound- I don’t give a granular fuck- kind of way.
The only way I discovered she could do this, was because our Jess only gives a fuck about things that truly warrant it.
I don’t think I have ever seen her so much as raise her voice.
She has been driven and hard working and as I like to remind her, she is 6 months older than me.
So every year, I see her turn the age I am worried to turn.
For some reason in your 20s how young you feel really fluctuates.
But Jess made me feel brave about the future. She is someone who inspires me a lot and I think of her often when I am in big moments.
Her general couth nature is something we should all strive for.
I met Florence when I started my job at Calvin Klein.
I kid you not when I first saw her there was a genuine golden hue surrounding her.
She commanded the room despite her desire to go unnoticed.
She has a laugh and a spirit that I truly don’t think can be ignored, despite her best efforts.
Florence is kind to everyone she meets.
I remember going for a drink with her for the first time and then busing home with her and hearing how she spoke to bar staff, the bus driver, the girl who loved her jacket- I truly did feel a serious shift in who I was going to be.
I know that sounds profound, but I met Flo when I was 19 and here was this radiant, glowing, kind person who altered my view on how I want to be.
Not that I want to be Flo however I would not protest, one of my truest wishes is to be as kind as Flo.
She reminded me so much of our colleague Jodie. Jodie profoundly changed the way I spoke about myself.
As I feel like anyone will attest- Jodie has got the presence of a young Stevie Nicks and is strikingly intelligent and articulate. Whilst we worked together for many years, she was the person who had to hear my rambling’s the most.
When she would tell me what she thought about my writing I would literally hold my breath and when she would say she loved it she gave me the confidence to do more.
At the start of this year, Jodie and I fantasied about lives that we both wanted.
She wanted to live in London. I wanted to be a writer.
Here I am writing this while she lives in London with her gorgeous boyfriend.
I then met Katie and Rachel and as with the rest of my list- they were initiation by fire.
We met the day we moved in with each other.
Well they had met before but I had not met either of them.
Rachel and Katie are women I would consider naming my children after.
Rachel is the person who I have lived with the longest since leaving home. For a very long formative part of my 20s, Rach was home for me. We would literally tell each other everything.
I think back to all the nights sat on each others beds, talking about boys, uni work, then our real actual jobs, her real actual boyfriend (who I love) and my real actual abstinence.
She also works in a way that I have always admired, I watched her leap into freelance work after uni, not her plan but where she landed. She also makes me brave about all this, not because I am as talented, but because I now have someone who understands not only my fear, but me.
Katie on the other hand very much whips me into shape.
Katie is someone I don’t really remember getting to know.
I just very much remember her entering my life and kind of just accepting that yes this is the person I now listen to.
If Katie said it, that is what went and not because Katie is particularly scary, she is just particularly right which can be frustrating- especially in regards to situationships.
She has seen me build myself up and destroy myself more times than I care to admit.
She is someone I have never felt judged by.
Katie’s annoying superpower is, she can watch me text my ex two minutes after telling her I wouldn’t, yet she would sit and listen to me every time I proclaimed it and never would she judge or turn her back on me.
Lastly is the person I think I least expected.
I have never really cared for platonic male friendships because really what the hell are we going to speak about?
Sometimes I see straight men and wonder in what order they would fuck up my shit.
But Jake entered into my life somewhat like a bull in a china shop.
When he moved into my flat share a couple of years ago, I was wholly uninterested, I was convinced this was just going to be yet another flat mate.
However, what has resulted is a friendship with a man who I don’t only live with but who I now regard as one of my closest friends.
A man.
One of my closest friends.
Jake has included me in things that I never in a million years would have ever done before, mainly holding a conversation with a man but also 37km bike rides come to mind and not being as raging of a bitch also does.
He has pushed me to want better for myself, he pushes me to succeed and not for any other reason than he too wants to see me do better and succeed.
I feel the need to cut the emotional sincerity here by saying cunt or something because I know in no way will he care for this woke shit.
But truly there is something profound about me having a best mate that is a boy.
That is not really something that is offered to you when you’re an effeminate poof from Dundee.
I guess unlike the boys I knew growing up Jake isn’t scared of being nice, kind, funny and yes a little bit problematic. But I guess the key to life is balance.
I think what I have realised in writing all of this is that I don’t actually know how much of me is completely mine.
There are ways I speak to strangers because I watched Florence do it first.
There are moments I have believed in my writing because Jodie believed in it before I did.
There are ages I have been less scared to turn because Jess got there six months before me and appeared to survive.
There are terrible decisions I have eventually stopped making because Katie got bored of being right about them.
There are places I have been because Abbey wanted me there first.
There are parts of adulthood that felt like home because Rachel was sitting on the other bed.
There are things I have done because Jake told me I could.
And there is probably a Beyoncé song playing somewhere right now because Orla is involved.
I don’t think any of us really exist in a vacuum.
We pick things up from people.
A phrase. A habit. A song. A way of treating strangers. A little bit of confidence. A slightly better understanding of ourselves.
Eventually you can’t really remember which bits were yours to begin with.
I couldn’t possibly be the man I am today without the buildup of these people and thankfully so many others as well.
They all bring a balance, a kindness, a love and respect that I don’t think I could’ve found if I spent the rest of my life cross legged on the trampoline waiting sing Cher Lloyd.
But what I do know, is when the time comes to sing Swagger Jagger I have a legion of day ones to tear that shit up with me and I am convinced that is the whole point.
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