A True Friend

“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.”
~ Bernard Meltzer

I was bullied at school. I was shy and quiet and basically a bit lost. I had no idea where I fitted or who I fitted with. No one seemed to be my type of person. All my bullies were women, well girls, they made life a misery and I loathed every moment of school. The day I left was one of the happiest ever.

After school I tried anew to find and make friends. There were some mild successes along the way but I now know that my experiences at school at made me very distrusting of people but particularly women. They were bitchy and mean and unpredictable and if you told them your thoughts and secrets the chances are everyone would end up knowing them. The best way seemed to be to not confide in people.

Of course looking back now I realise that I was right about not fitting in and although there were some friendships along the way it wasn’t until I found my kink and started blogging that I really made connections with people but even then those school years have definitely left a mark on me because, despite the fact I write very openly here, I can in many ways still be very guarded with people but when you find your people, well that changes everything.

I am sure many people would be bemused by my friendship with Cara Thereon, after all she is basically my husbands girlfriend but over the last 2 or so years me and her have developed a really close friendship. I really couldn’t have asked for a better women to share with. She is kind and thoughtful and funny and intelligent and caring and wise. She fits into our lives so perfectly, seamlessly in fact and I miss her when she is busy at work or away and we don’t get to see her on Skype. As much as she is Michael’s girlfriend she is also my friend and one that I value so very much. I mean how many people do you get to naked naked photos with? OK well maybe us in the sex blogging community the answer is quite a few but that is one of the joyous things about the friendships I have made through blogging.

We are very different people in many ways but in so many ways we are also similar. Like me she tends towards the introvert and like me she has very few really close friends. We both like and need time and space to ourselves. One of the things I learned very early on in our poly dynamic was to not to compare myself to her. That way only leads to your mind telling you that someone is more/better/different to you. What I realised was that our differences are our strengths. That she brings things to him that I don’t and that is not a reflection of me lacking something but that like all our relationships we connect with different people for different reasons. After all, are all your friends that same? Probably not, maybe their is a core of who they are that connects them all and why you like them but surely as individuals they are different and bring different things to your life and friendship. That is why we can have close friends that don’t actually like each other. The same is true of poly relationships. Loving something about one person does not mean that you love another person any less it means you love them for the things they bring to your relationship.

It is so easy to fall into the trap of comparison. We do it all the time. In fact vast sections of the retail and beauty industry is reliant on us doing it. She has better hair than me, I should buy the shampoo she uses. She is thinner than me, I should follow her diet plan. Her skin is lovely, I want mine to be like that. You get the picture. The biggest problem with this is we lose sight of our own value and beauty. Off course that is good news if you want people to buy your make up product or whatever but it is mostly bad news for us as individuals because no matter what make up you buy or holiday you do on or car you own at the end of the day you are still you and being happy with who you are is something that I have found to be really fucking liberating. I can’t say I have cracked it, there are days when I hate my body or beat myself up for not getting enough work done etc but compared to how I felt about myself in my 20’s and early 30’s, well it can’t really be compared at all.

When Michael started out on his relationship with Cara I never could have predicted that one of the most amazing outcomes from it would be that I would gain a best friend from it but that is absolutely the truth of the matter and my life is definitely richer for having her in it.