All the Right Friends

Blogs came up in conversation today and I had a sudden pang of guilt - I haven’t posted an entry since before the funeral, at least two weeks ago (’posted’ rather than ‘written’ is deliberate!). So last entry I was preparing madly to head off to Tom’s funeral. It was beautiful - heartbreaking and final and a real celebration all in one. He filled the church and its entrance hall - Tom would never believe that so many people would come up from all over the country just to say they loved him. That was great. Seeing the coffin sent my stomach spinning though: I don’t know how I imagined it to look but I’d forgotten he was so tall! It just seemed to continue for far longer than I’d expected; it dwarfed the men carrying it.

I was driving home from school today and was so bored of the radio that I flicked to my CD option. I’d forgotten what was in there - it was the CD that S made us for our ‘road trip’ to the funeral. It’s the first time I’ve listened to it since that drive. It’s full of songs which reminds us of each other, especially first year songs, and songs that Tom “secretly” loved, such as Avril Lavigne (he pretended he only had the albums because “she’s fit!”, but we knew better…). The CD made me laugh today though: so completely inappropriate for a funeral that Tom would have loved it (’I Just Died in Your Arms’, track 4…).

Still, once you’ve spent 3 years at uni with S & R you realise that there is no ‘inappropriate’, only conversation! They crack me up; their sense of humour is crude and obvious but it’s also witty and sometimes just downright fantastic.

I realised the other day that most of my friends are guys. They outnumber the girls by a huge ratio - probably around 1:4. In fact, my PGCE is the first place in a long time that I’ve found myself in a situation where my friends are predominantly girls - and that’s because there are only 4 boys on the course.

I think going to an all-girls school (the Dyke Factory) has a lot to do with this.

Someone told me once - I think it may have been a teacher - that secretly, all girls hate each other. A bit extreme, but there’s limited truth in it. Is that other girls are more threatening? In public places, if something goes wrong it will be a woman who comments. And often, a very personal comment: not “I wonder why we’re waiting?” but “Why are you so slow?”. In a shop, I’ll often hunt down the only male assistant to ask for his help. My girlfriends and I are unanimous in the fact that when we get our full-time jobs, we’d all prefer a male head of department. We all have problems with year 11 girls in our classes: they can be confrontational and bitchy in a nasty way that even the roughest lads don’t come close to. Something about the fact that in a room of people girls will immediately scan the room, check out the other girls and make instant decisions based on what they see. Girls can be so spiteful, harbouring lengthy grudges (often in secret). The lads’ approach of clearing the air with a quick argument followed by a night in the pub is far more refreshing.

I know from my friendships that girls’ friendships are deeply loyal - girls will defend their friends to the death if they feel they’ve been wronged - but they’re also very fragile. A completely unfounded “X said this about you” is often all it takes to inspire doubt which will later ruin that friendship. Saw it happen in school all the time - usually when one girl took a (probably unfounded) disliking to another and, rather than choose the fight-followed-by-beer approach, decided to alienate her.

Stereotype much? Yes, I know. I don’t know every girl or guy in the world. But of those I do know, the stereotypes are not wildly inaccurate (e.g. the second half of this blog title, definitely true). I remember reading somewhere about the biological differences in brains hardwiring them to process emotion, friendships, etc, differently - will Google it shortly and post a link.

The closest friends I’ve ever had are either men or lesbians (well, one was bisexual) - I wonder if that’s coincidence?