by Zoe Hyde
This year when visiting my family in Adelaide, I got to have a few glasses of Prosecco with an old friend. We instantaneously fell back into dancing the exact same steps of friendship from years ago, the laughter, stories, animated and exaggerated facial expressions and hand gestures. It was so wholesome. As the evening ended, this friend said to me, with an affectionate touch of my arm, that it was so good that we were catching up, and she doesn’t get what all this negativity online is about just having catch up friends.
“Sorry, what do you mean?” I responded, rather perplexed. She explained to me TikTok has made people aware of the friendship trap of just being ‘catch up friends’, where people don’t go and create ‘new memories’ and what a failure of a friendship the internet makes this out to be.
Alas, I sat with these statements for the next few weeks, as I travelled back across the country to live in a city without my family and most of my long-term friendships. This was a time that quickly became very isolating for a multitude of reasons. Granted, this friend I mentioned previously and I, do live on the other sides of a rather large continent, but that didn’t mean I diminished my decade long friendship with this girl to a mere title of ‘just my catch-up friend’. Essentially, the ‘catch up friend’ is when friends don’t make any new ‘memories’ together and just fall into the rhythm of catching up perhaps over a coffee and essentially exchanging the details of each other’s lives.
As you do with any friendship turbulence in life, whether it’s primary school or workplace I have lately been examining my friendships. I have reflected on those friendships that eventually made it out of designated shifts together, ones that began with an awkward yet warm smile in a backpacker’s hostel, those that developed from initial romantic chemistry into a platonic love, and those that have unfortunately fallen apart, sometimes without even any closure.
For me, I consider the friendships that I have maintained sacred. We all have a story, and it’s still unfolding for each of us. Amongst all of life’s surprises, geographical distance, uni, hobbies, work, interests and, having constantly groomed eyebrows, there are my friends, the people that feel like home. Yet now, the internet is telling me, that I’m also doing friendship wrong, as if my friends and I can only manage a periodic catch up and general life debrief. I disagree.
Yes, there was a time when we didn’t have to meticulously plan coffees and align our life rosters like secret service spies. Traditional school settings force us to be in a group of people of similar age, likely within a very close geographical distance to us. Of course, as social beings, we will want connection and relationships. However, adulting and friendships, that’s a whole other convoluted system to navigate. So TikTok is telling me that to have friendships where you sit or stroll as you digest life’s complexities and nuances is the symbol of a relationship breakdown? I also feel like this supposed ‘catch up friend trap’ we’re being warned about, is targeted to be a women’s issue, as I am not seeing or hearing any whispers about negative connotation aimed at men and the fact that them going out to ‘catch up over a beer’ is a hallmark of a failed friendship. Hmmm, interesting.
There are seasons in people’s lives. I believe some friendships, as with all relationships, only exist at certain times in our life to teach us something, often something we needed to uncover about ourselves. Just because a friendship doesn’t sustain the test of time doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t a real friendship, people change and outgrow each other, and maybe they were just a lesson. Yet, to have a friendship which may morph into just having catch ups, or even always having catch ups, opposed to not going on safari in South Africa or trekking in Nepal or even late nights out until 4AM or opulent weekend getaways, does NOT signify a failed friendship. Furthermore, there is something so peaceful and cosy in the nostalgia of a friendship which has seen you through all the versions of you and choses to still be there with you, navigating the garden path trail of adult life. We don’t have to label and define all our relationships. There’s so much nuance in life,. Sometimes, seeing a friend and having meaningful conversation built on genuine connection and vulnerability, far outweighs any music festival, wedding, or trip. These moments catching up with friends may occur in coffee shops, along boardwalks, in wine bars, for me lately, even in hospital as my wonderful friends flocked to visit me. However, I guess this all depends on what an individual values in a friendship. I don’t reflect on the days with more freedom in our schedules and sigh defeatedly about ‘when the going was good’. To have a genuine, sustained friendship, is really the best part, and what it is in fact all about.
