Friendship, cafés and endorphins

 

 

We tend to think about love and family as a kind of “coupling up” based on marriage and generations of parents and children. Of course this is the very basis of how our communities are set up, but something fundamental is changing about how we are living and relating to each other. We are making better friends and creating our own groups of people to form the family we choose as opposed to the family we are born into. 

I have been struck over and over again on the research about quality of life and what’s important in maintaining mental health and happiness. Surprising to say close ties with family are very important but a top factor in leading a happy life is having good friends. People who value friendship are less likely to experience depression and are more likely to live longer and more happily. 

Observing very young children, you can see the natural curiosity and desire for closeness that is part of how humans learn to make friends. Two toddlers in a room full of adults will very soon find a connection, a way to play, and by the end of the day will be firm pals. It’s not about having a bestie, it’s about being open to people when and how we encounter them.

Perhaps Ireland’s cultural success as having the greatest pubs in the world is because drinking together facilitated so many groups of friends to bond as drinking buddies. Now that this is also changing we are creating substitutes for going for a pint. Yes, because nowadays we go for coffee! 

One Sunday morning I was having a coffee outside Mollies in Tramore when a couple of young lads started chatting to me. “Lovely here” isn’t it, says I. One of the men then says, “We come down from Kilkenny every sunny weekend we can.”  

“Far from it we were reared” the other one piped up, staring out into the blue horizon. “Now if my old man found me drinking coffee at all, never mind on a Sunday morning when he would have been in the pub, he would have been scratching his head. He wouldn’t have had a clue how or why we were here!” We all laughed knowing how true that was.

Can you imagine what they would have thought of us all sitting out there in the cold paying so much for a tiny cup of coffee and nothing else! They would be convinced we had all lost the plot. While pub talk was a form of therapy especially for hard working men, stone cold sober coffee drinking may be an even better kind of connection because it relies on us knowing and remembering what is being said. 

Cafe culture, especially the post covid outdoor kind, has revolutionised our socialising. This kind of regular meet-up is now very common for most of us; older people, men, parents and teenagers. My own best buddies of over 40 years are a joy to get blown around the Prom with any day!

When you look at great male friendships of the past they tended to be men caught up in war, soldiers in battle dying for one another, comrades in arms etc. It’s a great thing to see more men out of the pubs, in peace and on the cafe culture circuit. (Is this why I am told that the gossiping that goes on in these “men who coffee” is second to none!)

But what about friendships between women? Well for thousands of years, in spite of the oppression, women have been building communities, close bonds and valuing friendship and support under the radar; staying in touch with old school friends (even the ones who went to the back of the bike sheds for the first illicit fag), remembering the ones who cried on each other’s shoulders when everything went wrong, the women who took the kids for the weekend while you simply stayed at home and slept, the ones who made them dinner when you couldn’t get out of bed, the ones who celebrated when something great happened for you! 

Friends are also people who you have fallen out too. The ones who have disagreed and walked off in a huff or who had to disappear out of your life without explanation. Because friendship is about forgiveness and being in the moment and doing your best. It’s not about making everything perfect. Imagine how boring that would be!

It’s also part of friendship that we are all more connected online. WhatsApp counts as helping to create close bonds. I doubt that a day goes by when I don’t chat to someone online. It makes maintaining friendships around the world even easier than the days of airmail stamps on skinny papered letters. It’s even possible to measure increased endorphins in our bodies simply from seeing loved ones on a screen or in a photograph! 

Over and over again the research and the evidence points to social interaction, friendship and even talking to strangers will impact positively on our health and wellbeing. Being more creative about spending time together by walking, hiking, swimming, eating, travelling, dancing, working, or just messing, will double the impact. 

Now to figure out how to marry two cravings, the one for peace and solitude and the one for fun and friendship. Endless life enhancing possibilities!

 

First published in my Waterford News and Star column As I see it