Neighbourliness

It's conventional wisdom that we should be friendly with all our neighbours so we can support each other in an emergency or whenever we need help - mowing the elderly neighbour's lawn, lending garden tools, watching the house while you're away, and so on.

But in practice it doesn't actually work like that. The neighbours might prefer to keep to themselves - especially if they have several kids and are fully occupied with parenting, or are just the reclusive type, or they decide you're not on their wavelength, or they don't want you to see the mess they surround themselves with. All sorts of hidden reasons in fact.

Then again you might think you're quite capable of dealing with emergencies and sorting out your problems without the neighbours poking their nose in, so why cultivate friendships you don't really need in the first place?

Although Jenny and I have been living here for ten years, we don't know the neighbours very well. Mostly we know their names and we say hello to each other but that's about it.

I take in parcels for the couple next door, and trim our joint hedge occasionally. The couple next to them are much friendlier and we've had some good chats since they moved in a few months back.

There's another neighbour a few doors up who looks after our house while we're on holiday, and we're very friendly with him and his wife and kids.

But the other neighbours keep themselves to themselves and I know next to nothing about them. I seldom meet them on the street as they travel everywhere by car.

I know much more about my Facebook friends than my neighbours, and that probably applies to most people. My Facebook friends may even give me helpful advice in a crisis my neighbours wouldn't even know about.

Well, so be it. I just take my neighbours as they come.

Short of chums

It's curious how some people have a natural talent for friendship, making friends effortlessly wherever they go, while others just never get the hang of it and potential friends come and go like ships in the night.

Being one of the latter, I'm always bemused by the friend-makers. I study them carefully, trying to work out what they're doing right and what I'm doing wrong, but I'm none the wiser. They just have an instinctive way of connecting with others that I seem to have been born without.

There's been no shortage of possible friends-to-be, people who on first encounter I seem to hit it off with. But after a few promising chats, the initial spark flickers out and it goes no further. If a friendship lasts six months, it's a miracle. Is it their fault? Is it my fault? Who can say?

It still bothers me that I'm so crap at making friends*. In a society where virtually everyone seems to have an impressive retinue of devoted buddies, my visible lack of them is embarrassing. I could of course fake a gang of bosom pals I'm gossiping away with every night of the week, but I don't think I could keep up the pretence for long. Why would I want to anyway?

I can tell myself a lack of friends has its advantages. Plenty of peace and quiet. Nobody ringing me in a state of hysterical despair at 2 am. Not having to sympathise with some course of action I secretly find idiotic. Not being expected to explain every domestic row to a dozen people.

But it's not very convincing. The fact is I'd quite like to soothe someone's hysterical despair or share my latest marital upset. I'd quite like to be that close to someone. It's not going to happen though.

"There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate" - Linda Grayson.

*With the notable exception of my long-time partner, of course.

Man hunt

Once again, people are saying there's a "crisis in masculinity", that men are paralysed by uncertainty, no longer knowing what it means to be masculine. They just can't function, the poor dears, without some clear-cut definitive gender role to help them on their way.

Well, pardon me, but I think this alleged crisis is pure bullshit. Who cares about masculinity anyway? Why are men so hung up on this irrelevant concept? What the hell does it mean in any case?

It's one of those nebulous terms that changes meaning about every five minutes. Ask a hundred people what it means and they'll all give you a different definition. It's about as clear-cut as San Francisco fog. If it means anything at all, it's mostly negative qualities like toughness, aggression, hardness, lack of emotion, insensitivity and stubbornness.

I've got a much better suggestion for all those men rushing after their elusive masculinity. Why not kiss it goodbye and concentrate on being a human being, a valued friend, a decent person, a caring citizen? Much easier to understand and it does everyone a lot more good. I mean, who would you prefer - someone "masculine" or a trusted friend who helps you through a tough time? Isn't that a no-brainer?

Who cares if  a man is "gender-confident"? I would just want him to be someone I can talk freely to, someone who understands my hang-ups and my complexities, someone who's encouraging and sympathetic, someone who accepts me for what I am. Isn't that what we're really searching for?

All these well-meaning pundits are missing the point. They're chasing after something that simply doesn't matter. It's not a crisis of masculinity, it's a crisis of character, of decency, of compassion. Let's start looking in the right place.

A whiff of paranoia

In general I'm not a paranoid person. I trust people. I believe in them. I don't assume they're going to cheat me or betray me. I don't secretly question their intentions towards me. I don't imagine they're full of hidden hatreds and grudges. But with one exception - I'm very paranoid about friendships.

Even with a long-established friendship, when I should have every confidence that the other person is not just going to dump me overnight, I still get fretful and anxious and imagine the worst if there's too long a silence, or if I keep leaving messages and they're not returned.

Supposedly this is a particularly female trait. Women need constant reassurance that the relationship is still healthy, that the other person still likes/ loves them and isn't drifting away. Whereas a bloke is always sure the relationship is solid as a rock and doesn't bat an eyelid if there's no contact for weeks.

Well, how female am I, then. If there's too long a silence my imagination runs riot. He/ she has gone off me, or I said something offensive, or I'm boring, or too needy. I dream up a dozen reasons why I must have put my foot in it and that's the end of a beautiful friendship.

Then of course the other person contacts me and just carries on as normal without the slightest hint of anything untoward. And I realise my feverish imaginings were just that - feverish imaginings.

Some day I'll learn to have more faith in my friendships and not overreact to quite routine interruptions and silences. I'll learn that friendships are more durable than I think, that they don't just crumble over some tactless remark or tetchy outburst. Good friends are not that fickle.

Trust

Friendship and trust are so closely linked. If you find it hard to trust people, it's going to be hard to make friends.

You have to believe the other person's basically good-natured and caring, that they'll treat you decently and won't hurt you or betray you. If you've had a lot of bad experiences with people and that confidence has been undermined, making friends becomes harder.

My trust in people was badly damaged as a child. I had a belligerent, cantankerous father who constantly criticised me and seldom encouraged me. Later I was sent to a boarding school where I was regularly bullied and made to feel I didn't fit in and was somehow odd.

By my late teens I had lost much of my trust in people and I no longer assumed they would treat me well. They had to do a lot to convince me they were well-meaning and not going to belittle me or look down on me. The slightest sign of condescension and I would withdraw. Opening up and being myself no longer came naturally.

You might think such distrust would gradually disappear, that I would meet people who would restore my trust and I could start to make normal friendships like anyone else. But that never really happened and my distrust stubbornly lingered. Occasionally I meet people so transparently warm-hearted my suspicions melt for a while, but sooner or later they return.

The fact is I've never fully revealed myself to anyone except Jenny. Large parts of me are forever hidden, like the dark side of the moon. And it's too late now to expect any radical change.

Unfortunately there are plenty of parents and schools out there still damaging children's sense of trust without realising the long-term consequences - possibly an entire lifetime of struggling to make the sort of relationships that luckier people just take for granted. We need to take the emotional well-being of children a lot more seriously.

Absent friends

A lot of women complain they can't find a suitable man - either they're stuck with a useless dickhead or they know a really bright, considerate guy who's giving them the brush-off.

Luckily I've fared pretty well with sexual relationships, but I have a similar problem when it comes to making friends - they're either liabilities or non-starters.

I really envy those people who have a wide circle of friends to give them support and encouragement at times of personal crisis or triumph. Right from my childhood I've never stumbled on the simple knack of forming deep and lasting friendships that go beyond the initial chatty bonhomie and light-hearted banter. There's a connective threshold I've never managed to cross.

I've tried often enough. Plenty of people have struck me as potential friends, people whose company would be rewarding and inspiring, but if we got together at all, too often it would be for weeks or months at best. Then inevitably something would go adrift, our meetings would lose their impetus and we would gradually lose touch.

On the few occasions when a friendship has lasted longer, the seeming friend's chronic unreliability, neediness or plain craziness has finally turned it sour.

I feel embarrassed and bemused that I lack this simple universal skill so routine to everyone else. It's discomforting when other people announce casually that they're "going out with friends" or they've "got a friend in a million", and I'm unable to reciprocate with my own happy tales of friendship. I always suspect they're secretly pitying me for my backward personality.

But no matter how much I watch other people effortlessly chattering to their friends, trying to work out how it's done, I'm left as baffled as ever by their social dexterity - like someone who's tone-deaf trying to understand music.

There it is, though, and I've learnt to be philosophical about my blind spot and to appreciate those gifts I do have. There are far worse traits than a failure to connect.

And at least I have one solid, enduring relationship that transcends friendship and gives so much extra meaning and significance to every aspect of my life. Jenny and I clicked instantly and we never looked back. A wee miracle.