by Pete Davison

Created on: January 03, 2009

The coming and going of friendships is one of the strangest things about human interactions. One moment a person can be your best friend, the next, they can have left your life, never to be heard from again. One has to question that if this happens, is the person truly your best friend? There's not an easy answer to that. They may well have been the person you needed at that moment in your life, until a point where your paths were destined to diverge and you go your separate ways - it may sound awful to speak of a relationship fulfilling a "purpose" or a "function" but it's true - there is always a reason for our interactions with others, whether this be simple gratification and the pleasure of other people's company, mutual support in times of trouble or, in rare cases, long-lasting relationships with "soul mates".

I am no exception to this rule. My "best friend" has changed more times than I care to remember. Sometimes this is for the better, other times I feel bad about leaving certain people behind, but these people have always had a role to play and a function to perform as part of my life, as I am sure I have had for them also.

Let's reflect on these friends for a moment, starting at the beginning. My best friend in primary school was a boy we'll call M. His birthday was the day before mine, which in child-land is one of the most important things ever. We had similar interests, probably mainly due to the fact that our parents were friends and both our fathers worked in the field of computing. This meant we always had plenty of things to talk about, and M was one of the few people whose house I would go around to to play.

When secondary school came along, M and I had grown apart. M had taken to hanging around with another boy that I had an on-off friendship with. He was one of the "cool" kids and his feelings towards me ebbed and flowed like the tide - one moment he'd be inviting me to parties, the next he'd be kicking me in the balls as his cronies watched and laughed. The one time M was amongst these cronies as I lay on the ground gasping for breath I knew it was over.

My next best friend was E. It was a big moment when I moved seats in registration to sit next to E. It was a significant moment - leaving my past behind and starting a new era. It may sound over-dramatic but it's true. E was part of a group of friends who had all been to a different primary school to me, so they already had established relationships. However, I quickly found that we all shared

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