Status Updates From Friendaholic: Confessions o...

They would look at me, these parents, with self-conscious concern on their brows and a baby clamped to their breast, and I could see the smugness in their eyes. They didn't mean to be smug, but they were… I discovered there was a difference between empathy and pity, between kind consideration and patronising sentiment. 251

Grief is uncomfortable and spiky to look at. People often don't know what to say and would therefore rather remain silent in order to avoid further hurt, as if grief can be heightened by an ill-judged comment. It can't. Grief is absolute. It can't be made any worse than it already is, any more than an animal can become less extinct. They now knew it was more important to say something than nothing.

Brené Brown says that 'shame cannot survive being spoken'." She was right. Once I had started speaking, I couldn't stop. My sense of personal failure dissipated.
Sharing became a necessity.

When you're facing this absence alone, it can feel unmooring: a dream-like state where you wonder if you made it all up.

What I had learned over the preceding years was that friendship, in these circumstances, was not about the doing as much as the being. It was so lovely to get those auber-gines and flowers, but the real meaning lay behind the action. It was the intent to mark and acknowledge what we were going through that was important.

This, then, was the place I found myself when my truest friends revealed themselves. Emma was constantly in touch via text and FaceTime. She also called Justin to see how I really was and, in the weeks that followed, the two of them kept a lovingly close eye on me. Others followed suit. Our friends Bette and Sinead immediately offered to do a grocery shop and leave it on the doorstep.

I think the reason a lot of gay men find the most comfortable people to develop friendships with to be straight women, or gay women, is because there's no sexual energy, except for the mutual interest in men. So there's something to talk about! But there's a comforta-bleness.

Not expecting anything in return meant that when I did feel seen and supported by him, it was a pleasant surprise rather than a measly sticking plaster applied too late over a wound that had festered for years.