Friendships can possibly last a lifetime if, as you grow together and find your own personalities, your own voices, each of you respects the differences that you are bound to reveal as you move forward in years.

I can tell you about Laura, who as a frightened little British girl on her first day of school, I met on a school bus in St Charles, Missouri in 1968, and even though I live thousands of miles away now, we will always be friends.

Or I can tell you about Dee, who, since we were young girls together, I supported through her most horrifying insecurities. I was best friend, nursemaid and therapist all rolled into one, for many years. And I can tell you that once Dee had achieved the status that she so desperately wanted in adulthood, which was a husband and children, a smug and patronising attitude too over when it was apparent that I was to remain unmarried and without children. Now, at the age of forty-seven, I don't belong' to her world any more I don't fit in' - and the friendship is over.

Can I tell you about Wendy, who I met in my first job, aged eighteen? She took me under her wing and from day one we were friends. At this very time she was heartbroken and every morning I would call for her at her home, then we would walk together to the bus stop as she cried. Every morning, for weeks, she cried, all the way to work, and I consoled and listened. We went down separate roads: she with marriage and children and I with career and a solo lifestyle. Her husband was as good a friend as she was, and her children were my children. She loved my lifestyle and made time to enjoy that with me. We respected each others lives and we saw each other almost daily. She died of a heart attack at the age of thirty-nine and I can tell you that my friendship with her DID last a lifetime.

I'd like to tell you about someone else, who sadly I have just fallen out with, who I have known since my early twenties when we met on a Greek island. She is Australian and I haven't seen her for ten years. She has a family life and her young children, who I had not met yet, are of course very important to her. We thought we would be friends forever, until the day I was supposed to be driving to London to see her while she was passing through on a whistle-stop tour with her European husband. The meeting place was arranged and the time was set. It turned out that her children were impatient and didn't want to wait for Aunty Jane, so my friend left our meeting place on their instruction, informing me, by text, to find her and her children across town in a children's play area. I was devastated that she wouldn't wait (I wasn't going to be late). I faced the horrifying reality and that I wasn't important enough, so I responded by text to enjoy her day with her children and I didn't see her. She got back to Australia and emailed me a scathing few paragraphs. She hadn't seen me for ten years - I'm afraid it was clear she didn't know me any more when I read her mis-guided words "I'm sorry you can't have children but don't take it out on me" - It ended our friendship there and then.

I could tell you SO many more stories: I have so many more examples - good and bad. Don't we all?

Learn more about this author, Jane E George.
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