water your plants.

a story for old friends.

When I saw that Seanchoiche were doing a week’s tour for Christmas with the theme of ‘Togetherness’, I was chuffed to see that Belfast was included, cos honestly, who does Togetherness better than us?

Growing up in Northern Ireland is a very strange experience, the segregated nature of life that people who aren’t from here just don’t get. The distinct feeling of co-existence rather than togetherness is so woven into the fabric of our upbringings, that by the time you reach your twenties and actually befriend, the other side, you begin to wonder, what was all the fuss about?

My experience was slightly different in that respect. My dad is from Portrush, and growing up, the semi-regular drives from Tyrone up to the north coast through places like Garvagh with its red, white and blue kerbs and its flags on every lamppost, left me certain of one irrefutable truth. We, were secretly, Protestant. I absolutely couldn’t let anyone back home or at school find out. What exactly would happen, I wasn’t sure, but from what I gathered, it couldn’t be good. When we went on our annual cross-community trips to Parkanaur, I panicked. Could they tell I was one of them? Would they expose me?

I came out a few years ago, and since then, friends that were close to me growing up have asked what my experience was like and lamented that I felt like I couldn’t share anything with them during that period of time. Let me tell you, growing up as closeted gay kid in Northern Ireland is nothing on growing up thinking you’re a closeted Protestant.

In the end, I never had to come out that way. I confirmed, embarrassingly late into my teens, that I was not in fact a descendant of Billy. But luckily, I also grew up, I made it out of that weird childish mentality of ‘us and them’ that growing up here creates.

I went to uni and made lifelong best friends based entirely on the merit of peoples’ character and not their background, as life is meant to be, and I hope will continue to become even more the norm here as time goes on.

But, for all our hangups and the residual divisions that still structure our lives here, I do have to say we can’t take for granted just how open, warm and engaging the people from home are, regardless of which side you find yourself. This was something I realized in spades when I moved to London for a few years.

The stark contrast in social norms in a city like London is stifling, I think it is widely known to be one of the potentially loneliest places in the world to live, despite its heaving population. Now, I consider myself a very extroverted person, but as a kid I was no stranger to spending most evenings or weekends playing alone in my room or rolling around outside in the dirt, literally. Being a teenager and subsequently a student, however, you are constantly surrounded by people. And one incredibly nuanced element of growing up closeted (gay, not Protestant), especially in a place like here, is how switched on you have to be all the time when you’re with people. Constantly self monitoring your posture, your voice, your pitch, your responses and how you phrase them, your interests and opinions. You are constantly striving your best to project a mirror image of those around you in order to blend in, that along the way you kind of lose sight of who’s behind the mirror, the kid that was rolling around in the dirt.

So in a way, loneliness when I first moved to London was a bit of a blessing. I worked hard at my internship during the week, worked a bar job on weekend nights but the weekend day times were my own. I would pick a location on the map, set off early in the morning and keep walking til it was time to head back for my bar shift. I would sit on my own in coffee shops, in parks, sometimes I’d read, sometimes I’d draw, a lot of the time I would just observe. I would make myself laugh with my inner monologue, and sometimes laugh, then panic, when I realized it was actually my outer monologue.

But, as the saying goes, “how the hell are you going to love somebody else if you can’t love yourself?”. Having reached that point where I had rediscovered and fallen in love with that version of myself, I was ready to share that with people, to make friends that also grew to love that version of me. And I couldn’t do it. London is a cliquey place, and a lot of people tend to arrive in pre-packaged friendship groups.

I remember bitterly walking by picnics or birthday parties in parks as people threw their heads back in laughter, cheers’d cups or leaned in for photos. This was a personal attack and my inner old-man-shouts-at-sky would rise within me as I shook my fist upwards, “SOME. DAY.”

One distinct memory I have of this time is sitting on a bus on my way back to the bar from one of my daily excursions. It was raining, and overwhelmed by a day of this craving for human company, I googled, “loneliness in London” and started reading blog after blog, article after article and Reddit thread after Reddit thread about this phenomenon.

This had horrific consequences for my main character syndrome. I leaned my head up against the window as I read, raindrops slowly crawling down the outside. And even though I was likely driving through the somewhat grim backdrop of Hackney, in the movie of my life, every major London landmark whipped by the window in a blur.

At one point even the Colosseum rose up behind me, as smiling couples overtook the bus on their Vespas, subtitles appeared on screen, open brackets, ‘laughing in companionship’, close brackets. I felt so alive. I was certain I would win the Oscar for this scene alone.

At one point in this period of time, I thought I made a breakthrough. A singer that I really liked was going to be performing at a venue nearby and I thought to myself, “fuck it, I’m not missing this just because I don’t have anyone to go with”. So go, I went. And while I was stood precariously at the side of the room, watching everyone dancing and having a ball, out of the corner of my eye I spotted something, or should I say, someone. Another loner, just like me. Honestly, I can’t remember who spoke first, but after the awkward opening sentiments, we talked about our love for the singer, what brought us to London, where we were from etc. The gig finished, we followed each other on Instagram and I thought to myself, “This is it, my first London friend.”

We never spoke again.

However, we do still follow each other on Instagram. And so I had seen all about his move to Denmark, and how he has spent the last year preparing to open a very cool coffee shop in Copenhagen this summer. And so, when I serendipitously found myself at a professional residency in Denmark this summer myself, I would have a one day layover in Copenhagen on my journey home. I messaged him, very cool and casual after 6 years of silence, if I do say so myself, “Congrats on the launch, this is very cool. I’ll actually be in Copenhagen in August, I’ll try to drop by if I can.” In reality, I organized my entire day around it.

The day came and I made my way to the coffee shop. There he was behind the espresso machine, now a 2023 archetype with a 70's fro and a moustache, god he was thriving. Having come all this way, I couldn’t bring myself to engage him in conversation. I politely ordered my flat white from his colleague and sat in a seat in the back of the room. I decided to bide my time, and so I took out my sketchpad and started to draw some of the people sitting in the coffee shop. Then I drew his colleague, then I drew him, every stroke of his moustache carefully measured. He still hadn’t clocked me, my coffee was done, my time spent, it was now or never. I packed my things, pushed in my chair, and strode towards the counter, I walked right past it and out the door, FUCK.

This is fine, I’ll just message and say “Hey, dropped by, cool place, congrats. Oh you were there? I didn’t see you” NO WAIT! I’ll post a picture of my sketchbook to my story and tag his personal account so he knows that I actually was there, and that I’m a really cool person now who does hit and run drawings in coffee shops. I presented both options to the Council of Best Friends and had to have it spelled out for me the serial killer undertones of both. And so, in the end, I did nothing.

I think you’re grasping now why I struggle with making adult friendships.

It’s something I’ve really been contemplating a lot recently, friendships as an adult. This past few years has involved a lot of coming to terms with certain friendships fading, when geographical convenience no longer glues you together. But it helps highlight and consolidate those people that sit above that, the friends who you actively want to reaffirm and strengthen your connection with over time, even if your actual moments together may be few and far between.

I moved home from London this time last year and actually had the joy of reconnecting with friends that I’d drifted from in the last decade. Two friends in particular I was very close with in school, but having gone to study in different cities we naturally drifted as we grew older and went on with our lives, quietly observing through screens from afar.

When we met up again last year, nearly a full decade after having seen each other for the last time, nothing had changed. We had lived years of our lives apart, whole chapters of our stories separated, but here we were chatting and giggling like teenagers again. We had to be kicked out of cafes at closing time, and sit for a subsequent 3 hours in a freezing car because the conversation just kept flowing. We met for weekly morning walks before work. It was honestly magical, a return to something that you never could have predicted but has become such a normal element of my life again. Last week we went to one of their new homes for her first time hosting dinner, and afterwards we chatted, and boogied and laughed until 6am. At one point, one of them remarked, the last time we all drank together, we were 18.

Friendships are a bit like houseplants that you need to water, and I’ve had a lot die, but also managed to save a few, and there are a few people that are like ivy, they’ll always hang in there. Unlike houseplants, at Christmas time struggling in the dark and cold environment, friendships I think are blessed by the nature of us coming home, the opportunity to reconnect, to re-thread and re-tread the patterns of your past together. So I wish you all here a joyful season of watering your plants, and I hope they all continue to thrive.

[Originally read at Seanchoíche Belfast on 18th December 2023]