My wife and I count ourselves as fortunate to have more than a handful of lifelong friends – people whose company we have enjoyed for 30+ years. However, friendships can take many guises, cover many timescales and have many levels of intensity. They are difficult to define, there being grey areas between acquaintances and friends.They can also be asymmetrical, meaning more to one contributor than the other and range from one to one to group share. In the modern world, friendships are clearly facilitated by instant communication – as can the dissolution of friendships. It also has been well documented that the approach to friendships is gender differentiated – females generally being better at it. We all have various degrees of self dependency, being comfortable in our own skin, but there is a lot to be said for friendship.

No matter the likelihood of a friendship being long lasting, friendships should be cherished in the moment. The close interaction between two or more people is very enriching. If eventually those friendships fade, then there is still the likelihood of lasting benefit. Occasionally, friendships can implode – although at the time, hurt maybe the dominant emotion, eventually such occurrences yield some degree of learning.

One major catalyst of friendship perturbation is the “fork in the road”. There will always be those moments when our life circumstances change- recognizing these as a fork in the road allows us to be vigilant of the impact of these changes on others – and if appropriate take action to try and preserve friendship.

At the age of 9, my parents moved a few miles from one village to another- to take up the offer of a better house. Very soon, I met Michael, a few months older than me, he lived a couple of streets away. We became best friends. We both enjoyed sport , developed similar tastes in music, fumbled our way through puberty and everything that came with that. We just enjoyed each others company.

The first fork in the road came when he was 17 and decided that he had had enough of formal education and was successful in getting a trainee position in the civil service. Overnight he had a wage, money in his pocket, wore adult clothes, a new circle of relationships and limited time off work. I had pocket money, a school uniform, school holidays suddenly became a bit lonelier. Big differences – and a subtle divergence in our approach to life. He developed the notion of being cool, swapped our old haunts for the pub and girls became a reality. We were no longer inseparable.

The second fork came when I went off to university and the degrees of separation increased. Before I graduated, he was married and before I started work he had started a family. My first job separated us by 150 miles and although he and his family did visit us once in our new location – I guessed we both knew that the direction of our lives was going to be very different. The last time I was in contact with Michael was over 45 years ago.

I rarely think of Michael – I hope he has had a satisfying and fulfilling life. Although we are not relevant to each other today, our friendship was one of the most important parts of my life. We helped each other through the transition from child to adult. In todays world, with the power of instant communication we may still have been friends – who knows?

Over the years, my wife and I have had many forks in the road. Some have resulted in the attrition of friendships, whilst others have strengthened. These life events have been managed to the best of our ability, trying to keep important people involved in our lives, and us in theirs. In the last year we have been to weddings of the children of friends of 20+ and 40+ years standing ; celebrated with a golden wedding couple whom we have been friends for 47 years and shared 70th birthdays with a friend I met at University, 52 years ago. Equally well, there is a list of many where we could say “ wonder what such and such are doing now”.

As friends we all have our moment, all have our place, all have our meaning. Just because our time together may be short lived doesn’t mean that it is not important. Each of us will define what we believe are the important characteristics that bond us together. There is a lot of satisfaction in sharing an experience with someone, creating a happy memory. There is terrific utility in being able to talk through a problem with someone who knows and understands us really well. Both are examples of friendship.

Friendship and social interactions have been highlighted as important to our wellbeing. Just thinking of my own experiences, these take many forms – there is no standard formula and the approach can evolve over time. Many of my most notable and positive memories would not have occurred without the help of friends.