Well Colonial Sanders ( for those of you under 20 he was the "face" of KFC when it was Kentucky Fried Chicken) I have to disagree with you. I do categorise my friends. Now I don't want this to turn into a "oh my god, I have sooooo many friends," but when I think about it, I have made some awesome friends in my 42 years. I have also lost some amazing friends as well. The older I get though I realise that maybe friends come into your life when you need them. The friendship may not last forever, just as long as it needs to last.
So if I had to break down friendship groups, mine would go like this.
School friends- these are my school friends. The ones I went to school with. These friends are unique because you may not see them often but when you do it is like you saw them yesterday. These are the people who you had your first alcoholic drink with (Jim Beam for the record).They also know lots of your little secrets so it is probably best not to upset these ones. They are also the ones that when you hear a song from 1988 it will take you straight back to them.
Uni friends. These are the ones you meet at Uni/ Tafe. You spend a lot of time together, but as you get older you tend to drift, and thats ok. You are still really happy to see and speak to them when you see them, but don't really go out of your way.
Your work friends. I have two close groups of work friends. I have my work friends and then my work friends. The interesting thing is that even though we work in the same place, the two groups actually never mix. Work friends are the bomb because you get to bitch moan and discuss other people that you work with and you know everything they are talking about. You have almost a silent language. You understand each other like no one else would. In teaching your work friends are very important. Because in any other field if you walked in and said " Bloody hell these kids are little fuckers" people would be horrified. Teachers just nod their heads in silent agreement.
Your "boy"friends. These are your friends who are boys. I have some "boy" friends at work. We tend to do crazy athletic things together, like run marathons, go skiing and 100km runs. You can make fun of them, and they make fun of you. I guess it also helps that my husband is friends with my "boy" friends, otherwise it could be awkward.
Your kids school friends. This group is interesting, because this is the group that you don't really see coming. You are bound together by your children and you may often never had though you would have had much in common but you manage to cultivate some amazing friendships. The other interesting thing is that you tend to bond with your eldest kids friends parents and not your youngest. Unless of course you have a third 10 years after your first. Then the whole thing starts again from the beginning. These friends are usually life long ones,although you are not always super close you will still have a fab time when you catch up. They also tend to be the ones who you go out with on boozy nights, when you kids or husband or all of the above are annoying you so they are know things about you like how good you are at singing karaoke. In Korean. They may also still have the video, so perhaps best not to piss them off.
Your Facebook friends. Facebook friends I think fall into three quite distinct categories. There are you casual Facebook friends. These are the ones that you happily add and are genuinely interested in their life, but maybe not so interested that if you see them at Coles you would say hi. These are the friends that you both make the mad dash to look the other way when you see them out in public, or you try and hide behind the barbecue shapes display, or stick your head in the freezer and pretend to be fascinated by the fact that they sell pretend meat vegetarian meatballs. (Actually that does fascinate me.Why?) It is, however, perfectly acceptable to post on their wall that you saw them in Coles, but wasn't sure if it was them. Then their are the "OMG you frustrate the hell out of me and your posts get me really fired up, but I can't bare to unfriend you because then I would have nothing to be annoyed about." You know the ones. And then there are you Facebook friend friends. These are the ones that get your jokes, and are your genuine friends. These are the ones that if they don't either, like your posts or comment you think you must have upset them.
There are your exercise friends. These are the people that you see everyday , have no idea what their names are or what they do, would probably never recognise them with their clothes on ( no hang on that sounds wrong, I mean with their non running clothes on.) But you nod and say good morning everyday. Hell you even see these people more often than you see your family.
Finally there are your Best, Best friends. These are the people who may come from any of the above categories, who have come into your life and now you don't quite know how you would survive with out them. These know everything about you. They laugh when you do dumb drunk things (and don't feel the need to tell you about the dumb things the next day.) They know all your little secrets, they can tell when you are sad without even asking, they will listen to you when you hate your husband/ children/ animals/ the world. They get your dumb sense of humour and you can have pointless conversations about nothing. These also fit into the 'I can never NOT be your friends, because if some of the stuff you knew about me got out it would not end well."
So next time you are feeling a little lonely or sad just think about all the amazing people you have in your life.
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