Friends

I was having a conversation with a friend earlier in the week about the nature of friendships, and how they can be destroyed so easily over something so trivial, or not.

She told me about losing her best friend because the best friend lied to her then boyfriend. Her best friend later went out with the same boyfriend. Now she was probably young when this happened and the relationship wouldn't have lasted. Was it really worth losing a friendship over a boy? I wonder. It most definitely would have seemed like the right thing to do at the time but with the advantage of hindsight, I wonder.

It reminded me of a friendship I once lost. I had a childhood friend from the age of 5-17 and then it all went wrong. Her name was Nemone. I always liked the fact that she had an unusual name. In fact I sometimes imagined I might call a daughter of mine Nemone, but then you think things like that when you're young.

Remembering now, we used to call her Nem One and she was forever explaining how to spell and pronounce it.

We were best friends. We did everything together and sat next to one another in every classroom.

We both used to go Samantha Smith's house because she had more Sindy dolls and accessories than us. (And she had Mousetrap, Kerplunk and Downfall which I will own one day! )

We used to walk into Newton Abbot on a Saturday morning dressed like tramps (we thought we looked cool – we looked like trash).

And then I fancied her eldest brother Matthew. Nothing happening there.

And then I kissed her other brother Dominic, and after a little while we started to be boyfriend and girlfriend. After another little while we just sort of lost interest but neither told the other it was over. Eventually, on the verge of being in the arms of another guy, I called him from a phone box in a Torquay nightclub to tell him it was over. He seemed nonplussed and my conscience was clear (and he was married within a year).

Anyway, it was not long after this that something happened and Nemone was no longer my friend. I wanted to know what had happened, and a mutual friend told me "she says you've changed."

And that was it. No further explanation. I lost my friend of 12 years because I changed.

I probably had changed. People do change in their teens. But is that a good reason for a friendship to end?

Well if you know someone called Nemone, tell her I said "Hi" and I do often wonder what she's like now. I wonder what her children are like. I think she has a girl called Hannah, but I may have imagined that…