Friendship
12 August 2026
I’m dictating this, in contrast to many of the things that I write. And I’ll try not to edit it too much, so that it can be authentic to the way that I’m speaking it at this moment, which is on my way home. Just walking up towards Canley station now. I want to talk a little bit about friendship, and my friends.
Friendship is funny in that you only experience yours. And much like with family, this means It’s very difficult to generalise things. One thing I can say is that my friends are fantastic in many different ways. I’ll try and speak to the ways in which I appreciate them as a whole now. I think it’s fair to say that I’ve always been different from the people that I’ve surrounded myself with. This goes back as far as school, although at that point in my life I hadn’t experienced enough people to understand the ways in which I was different. But I certainly felt even then a sense that I was interacting with people who had completely different perspectives to me. Where I’m lucky is that starting at school and then thereafter, the following has never changed: I’ve always felt like I fit in. That is, I’ve been different, but I fit in. Like a tessellation. A tessellation does not need to have uniform constituents. And I think, in part, this was an individual thing that I sort of was able to come to terms with - the differences between myself and others. But it was in large part because I never felt like I was being made fun of for those differences, or very rarely at least. I think that those early moments of feeling at odds, but not feeling picked on - not feeling singled out - are really important for building a foundation of self-confidence and assurance that I would say I do have today.
But my point is that this wasn’t down to me, this was down to the openness and intrigue and curiosity of the people around me to at once identify that this was not a person who shared a great deal of life perspectives with them, a person who saw the world in a way that was sometimes not understandable, and yet wanted to bring me in and continue a relationship with me so that we could figure out life together. And all of my friendships, as I say, started with school, but moving forward throughout my life have worked in this way. It seemed that at some point the person, I don’t know, made a realisation that on certain things we weren’t talking the same language. But gave me enough leeway to try and figure some of those things out as we went along. This has resulted in a number of what I would call very robust friendships, in that I feel very comfortable acting in whichever way I feel fit and I hope they do too. We can - on the surface at least - be such different characters and yet create so much shared experience - build so much shared experience - that those initial differences become points of interest. So I want to just acknowledge that it takes a lot of patience and curiosity and kindness from the other person to push through moments of misunderstanding and potentially cavernous differences in life perspective.
I’ll give an example, or a couple perhaps. And one is that when I was growing up, I was pretty much always one of the only white people in the room at school. And does this mean that I had a different lived experience to my peers? Yes, it does. Absolutely it does. But it didn’t mean that we didn’t talk past those differences, and sometimes about those differences. It just was an interesting point of discussion. Because there’s a mutual trust that’s built up over years and years of reciprocation of love and respect it means that you can begin to peel away and access really emotionally charged topics with the care and attention they deserve. In part this is because we’ve known each other, well, I’ve known these people since before we all understood these concepts, at least explicitly. The childish naivety in a sense can get you over those hurdles. But this was only the first example. And when I went to university, I found almost the opposite, that I was interacting with a bunch of people who had not had anywhere near the experience that I had growing up in South London. And yet we had conversations, built relationships brick by brick. Then moving forward, I became interested in these adventures. I became a person who did silly things like walk 500 miles, camping all the way. And I think it would have been easy for my friends to belittle that or to lose their intrigue over it and they didn’t. My friends are generous. with their time that they give me and generous with the kindness that they give me and generous with the amount that they listen to what I’m saying. This is something that I’m continuously thankful for and surprised by because it doesn’t seem to be all that common. I try my hardest to return this kindness I receive but I am not sure I often hit the heights of those around me in this regard.
The trajectory I’ve followed means my friends are all so different from each other. I’ve often struggled to find what the thread is. The only seemingly common thread is me. But I think that there is something in the observation that all of my friends are willing and encouraging of me to whisk them away. This sounds very airy fairy - and it is - but it can either be a sort of curiosity - a more natural curiosity - or simply a willingness to be with me in my curiosity. The latter is probably, in a way, curiosity, but I just wanted to leave open the space for people who - and I know that for some of my friends this is the case - would not ordinarily be a super curious person and they have the things that they like and that they enjoy and they know themselves very well and they don’t feel the need to be exploratory in that manner. I happen to think this is a grand way of being, and very strong. But my friends for whom this is true seem to understand that this is not an option when you’re with me. So I know that there are lots of people who trust me in my curiosity. and are willing to go along with my wacky conversations even if it is not their normal. This, again, induces a gratitude.
I very rarely come across people - and I’m talking maybe a handful or so in my life - that I felt dismissed by. And yet there are many of my thoughts that might easily be dismissed. I would argue, of course, by the uncareful listener, but nonetheless, I’m often provoking people and introducing ideas that are unusual. I’m presenting a lifestyle that not everyone feels is accessible to them. In recent months and the last couple of years, I’ve been practicing conscious conversation. And by that I mean almost doing exercises in the conversation, playing games, defining constraints. And my friends have been unbelievably supportive of that and always take part with the seriousness and rigor that it almost doesn’t deserve. In some ways I’m a very easy person to be friends with. In some ways I’m low maintenance. But in other ways, I think that I’m actually quite high maintenance to be friends with. I think that your attention is needed. We’re not going to just be going through the motions. And I know that a lot of my friends give me the attention that they’re not necessarily able to give everyone. And I don’t always say thank you for that. So I’d like to start and say that I am forever grateful for the people that I have around me, for the people that have chosen for me to continue to be in their life. For the people who give me joy and the strength to move forward when it feels difficult to. And for the people who give me energy when it’s scarcely available. So to all of my friends, thank you.