When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.All my life I’ve had intense friendships. Few if any were sustainable, but I dove in head first again and again. I wasn’t interested in anyone who wasn’t equally interested in drama, loyalty, betrayal, and forgiveness which was another way of saying goodbye. It was talk all night or not at all. It was sit at a cafe and never leave. It was a pack of cigarettes and then another. I don’t have a single drop left for all that. But I still wonder what it was: mania, fear, manufactured love, poetry, youth. I still wonder who I was.
What kind of friend are you?
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Betsy Lerner 
Loyal & low maintenance.
Sometimes I forget birthdays. Sometimes I’m not consistent with my attention. But always, always loving.
Conflicted. I like to think I’m a good friend, but not always.. There are some friends I’m still close with and genuinely happy to see or hear from and others I wonder how I could’ve missed seeing their duplicity. More than one “friend” has hit on or stolen away a girlfriend, which enters into a whole different realm of betrayal, one I’ve been guilty of a time or two as well.
It was youth.
i’m a better friend than i used to be. as an RCMP brat i was taught to move frequently, enter new friendships quickly out of necessity, and then move on with each transfer. this training did not serve me because i didn’t look for commonalities or interests, just quick acceptance. overall, i wasn’t true to myself; i adapted to others expectations.
throughout this time, when i did find a true friend, i was thrilled and needy, you know? this wasn’t healthy either. so i’ve learned to sit back and take a longer view. i mean, i don’t live the RCMP lifestyle and haven’t since i was 20, but old habits persist.
i try to be a good friend. there’s not much else i can do.
rea
Loyal and talky
Trustworthy, loyal, reliable, all the Boy Scout stuff. I have at times been unwise in my choice of friends, walked away, and there is no going back for me.
I control few things. Those I like, respect, love, or talk to are high on that list. To be vengeful is to remain connected, and there is only the willful disconnect.
“What kind of friend are you?”
I don’t know. You would have to ask my friends. If you see them, please tell them I said hello, and do think of them from time to time.
I guess I’m an okay friend, though I’ve had to ghost a few and others say I have excellent boundaries. I don’t seek out new friendships in my adult life as my established ones are enough.
It’s interesting your image for this post was a pack of cigarettes. That was so much a part of it. First squatting behind bushes in the parking lot at school — that group of kids who would do that became friends, then parties, clubs, bars, our apartment balcony my first apartment out of college with my two best friends. It was like it was a character along with whichever friend was at the table. And when I was alone, it was my friend too — driving in my car, singing songs to myself. I knew how bad it was for me and how addicted I was so I was able to stop. Thank goodness the friendships have survived. But even now where I am talking on the phone and zooming wth friends again, the hours and hours late into the night just chatting about…boys, bitchy popularity gossip — busyness is just so much more of a thing. I think even for highschoolers now.
Decent, I suppose. Perhaps I could remember friends’ birthdays – I’m not too good at that. I’m a good listener and confidante. I also hate confrontation. Some friends have been in my life a long, long time. Some I haven’t spoken to in a while, but the relationship is timeless – you can just pick-up where you left off, the bond is evergreen. Others have drifted. Different friends bring out different sides of myself–I can be funny with some, dead serious with others, such be human interaction.
Chilly and remote. I will make you work for it for years, if you have them.