Here you are, at the season finale of another series of 'Your Life". In an ideal world you will stand, surrounded by the key cast members, who listen in reverent, beautifully lit silence as you give a speech about everything you've learned in the series just gone. You will mourn your losses and celebrate your victories. Reflect on some of those really good episodes that defined your character's personal growth this year. Maybe you'll seed some of the major plot arcs of the next series. Then you'll all file out to watch the fireworks, but the camera will linger in the deserted room. And then fade to black. And credits.
In your mind, the new year is not just 'tomorrow'. It's a whole new series. A new title sequence, revamped sets, a brand new Big Bad and a fresh narrative direction. And it's in that new opening credit sequence that we see the biggest change of all. Unfamiliar names, as new cast members join the ranks of the show. And names that are missing from last year. Actors who have moved onto other projects, their characters written out or - like Mandy in the West Wing series 2 - just gone without comment.
Some of them are names I just skip over - faces on Facebook that no longer exist in my real life. Why are they still there? Should I delete them? No, we're still friends. Aren't we? Are we? I do click to like their posts once in a while... But if we are friends, why has the entirety of 2015 passed without me seeing their actual human aspect even once?
Some of them are people who I wish I still saw, but for whatever reason never get back to me. Maybe I did something terrible to offend them. That's not unlikely, actually. I'm often saying dumb stuff online. And because we don't see each other, they forget that most of what I say is subject to nuance, or irony, or part of a complicated set of evolving thought processes that can't really be summed up in a tweet or Facebook comment. And I forget that they are human beings, with thoughts and feelings, rather than abstract opinion on a screen, good for a critical kicking. So those friendships become part of a circular loop, whereby our lack of understanding of each other contributes to an exponential erosion of relationship.
I finally find someone I can agree with.
It's an oddness. And one that until a few years ago might have passed us by. We don't really have opening credits. Well, we might have, I suppose, but we don't get to see them because we're stuck inside the narrative. Buffy the Vampire Slayer never got to look at her opening titles and think "Oh good, Angel's in it this week - I'll spend a bit more time on my hair." And in the same way we can't step outside our own stories and say "Oh, I see they've dropped Sharon from the title sequence. I guess she's not that important any more. No Christmas present for her!"
No. What we have now that we didn't have until about ten years ago, is a list of 'Friends' on social media. Whereas once Sharon might have drifted out of my life without either of us noticing, now she has a virtual presence that exists as a constant reminder. Here's a human being that you used to know. She's still a 'friend', but you know that's not the truth. Because it turns out 'friends' is a complicated idea that doesn't really fit into that catch-all definition.
Some people have hundreds of online 'friends', don't they? Fair enough, obviously - they can do what they want. But that can't be 'friends' in the way that I define it. I get a bunch of friend requests each year from people I've never met. I'm sure you do too. People who seem to collect 'friends' like you might collect whisky bottles on a shelf or ticket stubs of gigs. Really odd.
Because friendship is about action, isn't it? About choosing how you relate to someone and what that means. It's not a state of being, that just exists in space without you doing anything. Yet that's how some people treat it. I had a conversation this year where someone told me that they couldn't spend any time with me because 'life moves on in different ways.' And I thought 'OK', because I knew there were circumstances behind this, but then I thought, "Actually, no, that's total horseshit. Life doesn't move you anywhere. You decide to do things. I've got friends - good friends - who have in the past been utterly furious with me for very stupid things I did. And they've forgiven me. And there's people who have made my life very difficult here and there, but whom I have learned to value and respect anyway, because that's where friendship comes from.
Picture of me and Ric Neale for no reason whatsoever.
I'm very glad that my friends are not a series of narratively useful characters, thrown at me by the scriptwriters of my life. These are not characters who find their way into the show because that's where life has led me. They are people who have chosen to spend time with me, despite my constant demands for wine and attention and my propensity to try stroking everyone to see what they feel like.
And I've chosen them. There's no point me pretending that I 'lost touch' with certain people, as if it just happened without my consent. If I don't keep in touch with you any more, that's because on some level - possibly subconsciously - I've decided to prioritise other things. That doesn't make me feel very good about myself, but it's a more honest evaluation of 'friendship' that generally seems to exist.
I think I did lose a few friends this year. Some are still 'friends' by the definitions of social media, but one or the other of us has decided not to make the effort. Some have probably deleted me and I haven't noticed, which means that the relationship didn't really exist any more anyway. One person deleted me and wrote me an essay on why. Credit to that person at least for making it an active choice and not just blaming the universe.
On the other hand, the friendships I do have are frankly amazing. I am constantly delighted that middle age has not consigned me to a dull circle of tired old forty-somethings, shaking their heads and saying, "No, I can't come out to play wizards, I have to stare at this wall all night and then die." I know a lot of funny, clever, creative people, from teenagers to pensioners, who definitely all deserve their place in the credits.
And then there's this.
This Summer I met up with two of my oldest friends. We hadn't been together as a threesome since we were teenagers. The intervening years have seen us drift apart to the point where we haven't really talked for at least 15 years. Marriage. Divorce. Careers, children, lost hair and expanding stomachs. Three people met up who were fundamentally different in almost every way to when they had last shared space.
We met up in the pub we used to go to in Bradford - the Malt Kiln. I got there first and sat alone, feeling some trepidation. What if it was like that programme Justin Lee Collins did when he tried to re-unite the actors from the A-Team in a pub? Mr T never showed and George Peppard was too dead to attend, leaving Dirk Benedict and Dwight Shultz to make uncomfortable small talk for half an hour. What if it was like that?
1988
A song came on. Forever Autumn, from Jeff Wayne's musical version of War of the Worlds. Unbelievably, this song had played 26 years ago, the last time I had been in the pub. If there are scriptwriters in my life, they are not ashamed of a bit of contrived coincidence.
Paul and Ian arrived. We ordered three pints of Purple Nasty - the drink that characterised our teenage foolishness. We talked for hours. I was loud and bossy. Paul was gently funny and self deprecating. Ian was in trouble with a woman. It was like no time had passed at all, and it was one of the best days of my year.
2015
Friendships are choices. No-one else is writing the credits of my show. I don't necessarily deserve the brilliant people that come into my life. But I am responsible for making those relationships work.
Thanks for putting up with me, everyone. Now bring me wine.
Happy New Year.
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