The friends that you have and keep

It's 9:30am, I'm ready to have a shower (to start my day), I should do my bed and wash my breakfast dishes. My family have gone to take my great aunt to the airport, she was visiting us for a few days. I'm supposed to be at a football game, cheering on my team at a friendly, but I stayed at home because 1) I thought it was going to rain and I'm not going to support them in the rain like I did last year, 2) I needed to wake up at 6am to get ready and go, 3) I REALLY need to do some work for my research otherwise I'll be just incredibly lazy and a pointless student.

1) Turns out, it didn't rain, 2) I woke up at 6am to have my elderly aunt shouting down the stairs but was really woken up by my grandmother shushing her loudly, 3) I've been awake for 3 and a half hours and still haven't gotten any work done. Oh well!

I should have started working yesterday, but I felt like leaving the house and doing other things that didn't entail work, like meeting friends, taking pictures, having a relaxing day in the sun, walking from Wardour Street to Liverpool Street Station. I'd spent three weeks inside my house working my ass off. Everyone I knew or would talk to on a regular basis was not in the country or was busy with their own projects. Those three weeks were quite lonely. It's not because I split from BD. But it was because while everyone was away I took stock of the friends that I have here in London. The cold hard fact was, still is, I have more male friends than I do girlfriends. There is only one person who I keep up with religiously and that's it. All my girlfriends are in other places in the world, and it occured to me that my studies are also isolating me.

I know for a fact that's not the real excuse *ehem* I mean reason! I just can't always keep up with people. I'm lazy, I'm not one to be popular. Back home I had two main girlfriends who I would keep up with, and one of the reasons is because I worked with them. But I loved them, and still do. We didn't need to go out and party all the time, we'd go out for dinner, go to each other's houses, go for a coffee and bitch about work. I loved them. They were laid back and sorted. I knew that if I didn't talk to them for a few weeks, that I could pick up where I left off when I came back. I could trust them implicitly about everything in my life. I knew no matter what I did or said they would never judge me. Actually I know 5 people like that, and really those are the kind of people I like. That's the type of person I am. I don't phone people all the time. People don't know what's going on in my life at every second unless they live in my house, or in my pocket (on speed dial)!

When I first came to England, I have to admit. I had a large group of friends. But they weren't really mine, and you can't always have loyalties with friends that come as a package. I realised that they were not the kind of people who I was and that their demeanor was making me slightly paranoid. It wasn't until something terrible happened that I decided to change things. My phone contract had ended and I decided to start afresh. I changed my number and changed my friends. I ended up having three true friends by the time that I finished my MA, but when I handed it my dissertation and celebrated with my class I also realised I was saying goodbye to some really great people who I wanted to keep as friends.

Maybe that's it. I keep up with people who are within reach and those people who I can trust. Those people who I feel comfortable with. I have few friends because it's less people to keep track of and less people to worry about gossiping about you. It's not that I'm unfriendly, I just know who I like to be friends with, I know who I like and enjoy hanging out with, I know who I can trust and I know who I could turn to when I need help or someone to talk to. So what if I'm not popular? I know who my real friends are!