Friends

One thing I've learnt in the past couple of years is that friends are important. I don't honestly think I would be here today without them all.  Whether it be from the drunken escapades with drunk phone calls to the other side of the world to the endless chats about anything and everything, I want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I'm not going to name names they know who they are and how much I value them.  It's been great not only looking to our shared past but also making plans for the future.

This year has seen me have some amazing days, Sam Fender at the Olympic Stadium, A cheese crawl around Soho and Covent Garden, ending up in the middle of a pro Palestine march, Marathon catch ups that lasted hours over dinner, Pub crawls that showed me that I can no longer drink like I used to (definitely a good thing),  West End shows, trips to the cinema, meals out. The problem is that all the people that I've shared these with are all over the country, I can't just phone someone up and ask if they fancy a quick drink after work or something, meets up have to be planned in advance and although there brilliant days I've always said that the best memories are normally made when you have nothing planned .

But that brings me onto a new problem. When I went through the breakup I lost a lot of local friends. All my bestest buddies are spread out throughout the country and so when I moved back to Boston all those years ago I knew very few people. I didn't expect to stay long and thought I'd soon be back down near them but after a while Jemma's friends became my friends and although alot of them have come out and said that they are still my friends we all know that it's just a little on the awkward side and that they were hers before mine. I don't begrudge them this and in all honesty if I was in there position I would have done the same. I bear them no ill will but it does lead me onto the thought of how does a 40+ year old make new friends?

I've always found it easy to talk to people, I have a wide set of interests and can normally find some common ground to talk about. I think it's best described as 'Codshit' from the brilliant film Human Traffic, starring a very young John Simms and Danny Dyer. The film based upon the race scene of the 1990's and all the drug related activities related to the scene. Now I went into the clubbing world very much towards the end of the period but it still resonates with me, I saw it from both sides of the coin, as a worker and a patron and  it's one of those films that I put down as a must watch. Now back from that slight tangent they have this concept of codshit, which is basically being able to talk absolute rubbish to anyone at any given time. Now people who know me will know that yes I can do that and do it well, I think it's something I inherited from my Dad who can be in the company of strangers and within minutes can strike up a conversation and become best friends if only for a few moments before he moves onto the next person.

The only problem with the Human Traffic analogy is that I don't do clubs anymore, there aren't any good ones around here for starters but I did to much of that thing in my younger days, enough to last a lifetime. The SubClub, Liquid, Batchwood Hall, Space, Caspers, The Edge, Charlie Browns all regular places that I used to visit and I feel no particular rush to go back to those days. I don't want to get off my face on a regular basis anymore, I don't think I could face doing it all again, and I don't think my bank balance could handle it these days either!

I've tried joining a walking football team as well, this was not a success. This was before the weight loss and my before the growth in my head making periods of exercise a no go at the minute. I didn't take well to the game, manly due to the fact that my entire game is based of harassing the opponent and being a bit physical with them. This is slightly frowned upon  and I found myself giving away a lot of fouls and not really enjoying the experience. I didn't quite click with the other's there either which didn't help really.

I will admit that the first port of call was the internet in my pursuit of new friends and it's true I've made a few on there in particular subjects. I'm a regular contributor to several forums and do engage in some friendly banter with my fellow Dwarfers and wrestling fans out there. I've also joined a few local sites to try and find some like minded geeks around my area but so far apart from a few stilted conversations over the web nothing has really materialised.

So here's the dilemma how do we make new friends later on in life? If you have the answer let me know, I'd appreciate it a lot!