Friendship

How not to be a hedgehog

This week I was looking at my diary for the next few months trying to give some free dates to friends so we could meet up and found that we were pretty much booked out at weekends until September.  When I told my Dad this he commented that he knew I’d much prefer it that way than months of no plans at all, and of course he is right.  Since my daughter died my friends have been an incredible support to me.  She died during the Omicron wave of Covid in November 2021, and her funeral was the first time we had seen many of our friends for such a long time.  They have continued to be there for me over the past eighteen months, and my approach to friendship has changed as I have come to value the importance of friendship in a way that I never had before.  In fact, I often wonder whether the isolation that the pandemic forced on us would have become my default state, just simply by being out of practice of seeing friends in real life.

Those of you who read my post on being an introvert last week will understand when I say that even though I am the one that has filled my diary with social activities, when those dates come around sometimes there is still a temptation to cancel, but I know that too much time by myself isn’t helpful, and once I’m out there, I never regret it.  Anna Mather in her book Mind over mother writes;

Isolation is that hedgehog reaction. You may use it when the going gets tough and you fancy curling up like a hedgehog into a small, spiky ball. The aim is to protect yourself from engaging with the world around you and the emotions inside you.

I don’t know about you, but when I isolate myself, my thoughts get bigger and louder. When we shut off from others physically, there are fewer reassuring voices and familiar faces to ground us. We need other people to balance us sometimes, to offer different insights, energy, moods, words and acts of support.

I’m currently halfway through reading The Life Council, 10 Friends Every Woman Needs by Laura Tremaine.  She starts by outlining her friendship philosophies which include “Just Go.”  She says;

Sometimes we may need the self-care that comes with not going. But when we do go—even if it costs us some sleep or some money or is inconvenient—our very presence opens the door to connection and memory-making and being known as a person who shows up. Because we cannot replace face-to-face time. Technology has given us a million ways to stay in touch and post photos and make video calls, which is better than not connecting at all. But nothing beats a hug, an in-person congratulations, or a shared conversation with every nuance of body language, laughter, and eye contact.

Another of her friendship philosophies is “Friendship Is a To-Do” and what she admits about herself on this really resonates with me;

This is a new practice for me, but it’s one of the things I believe most helped my friendships over the last couple of years: Friendship is an item on your To Do list, just like cleaning the bathroom or getting your oil changed. I do not want this to be true. I want to be a person who does friendship organically and wholeheartedly, a person who is generous and loving and known for her strong relational priorities. Alas, I’m actually an anxious, introverted working mother with a screen addiction and a tendency toward procrastination. The in-person, fun part of friendship comes naturally to me. The mundane work of it does not. The truth is, friendship is work. People don’t talk about that enough….When I started thinking about my closest friendships as part of my to-do list—not as a chore, but as a priority that needed to be attended to—my friendships changed.

After a couple of weekends with no plans I’m reminded that too much time alone with just my thoughts for company is really not good for me.  I might curl up into an isolating hedgehog spiky ball still every now and then, but I only end up hurting myself.