I let go of all my old friends when I got married – and I don’t regret it

Research published last week found that women choose their friends by smell. Not body odour, but “diplomatic odour”, which gathers about a person through the choices they make in their daily life: what they eat, wash their clothes and hair with, their perfume and so on. Women, the research from Cornell University in New York went on to say, use this and other social cues to know whether they are going to be friends with another woman within four minutes. It made me sit back and wonder how exactly I choose my friends. Is it really smell? Do I even actually choose my friends? I’m not sure I do. I think I am friends with people who choose me. I wasn’t always this way. In my teens and twenties I relentlessly pursued people I liked the look of, who were funny and charismatic. It mattered to me so much that my friends were funny and charismatic. I was happy to sacrifice quantity for quality and also, frankly, to humiliate myself by always being at their beck and call. Their glamour reflected well on me, you see. Even though I was the less pretty, less exciting friend I still had a seat at the table. It was just two inches shorter than everyone else’s. (Photo: Supplied).

Marriage wrecked my friendships

Permanently single, or with boys who didn’t especially like me, I was free to rush to break-up vigils, pub birthdays and last-minute invitations, putting out of my mind that I was obviously the last-minute, back-up option. That dynamic worked fine for me for years. But then to everyone’s surprise – no one was more surprised than me because my love life had been permanently so tragic – I got married, at 29. I moved in with my husband nine months after we met (I arrived with two large bags and never left), and we got married after two years. We will have been married for 15 years this week. It feels like thirty. Marriage wrecked all my existing friendships, because a working dynamic was turned on its head. Not only was I suddenly not available, I was also in a big relationship with someone who didn’t understand why I allowed myself to be treated like I didn’t matter. I saw my friendships through his eyes and they didn’t look that great. And I started to think, well, I wasn’t my husband’s back-up option, so why should I be anyone else’s? (Photo: Getty).

Finding myself friendless

I let friendships fall away and it was so easy. Without me making them happen, they didn’t. I felt a bit bad for having no regrets. And I did see that getting stuck in that sort of handmaiden role was mostly my fault and I vowed to change my attitude. So I found myself, aged 30, married and then with a baby, completely friendless. And in a way, although it was a bit disorientating, it was actually fine. Because life is so completely re-wired when you start a family that it’s almost easier to start from scratch rather than somehow mesh these two totally separate universes together. How do you integrate a person, who you were only friends with because you used to drink too much together, into a life with tiny babies, strict bedtimes and a huge identity crisis? (Photo: Getty).

Mutual understanding with other parents

When your children are small, it is also much easier to be friends with other parents, who live nearby. They automatically understand that they may not hear from you for weeks, or that sometimes you might sound completely deranged, or that you will cancel plans at the last minute because of “kid stuff”, which may well just be short for being so off your head with exhaustion that you are slurring your words. Other parents also find it quite normal to have real, rounded and fulfilling friendships via WhatsApp alone and feel no need to meet in person more than twice a year. (Photo: Getty).

Setting myself new promises

I promised myself, as I set about building myself a new social life, that this time round, I was not going to run after women I superficially just thought looked glamorous or, as Cornell University would have me believe, I just liked the smell of. I didn’t frantically suggest coffee or meet-ups to everyone or push for intense friendship too soon – a great flaw of mine – but always tried my best to be friendly and open. Using this playbook meant it took years for me to scrape together some local friendships, but time I had. And now they all feel distinctly more sane and even-handed than the ones I had in my teens and twenties. Smells that I like on people are: biscuits and laundry powder. I’m not sure any of my friends smell like that. And one of my friends smells distinctly and strongly weird – not bad, just weird – but I like her anyway. Shows what scientists know. (Photo: Getty).