A Wigwam for a Goose's Bridle

Watching “Miss Potter” the other night reminded me that one of the things I particularly love about period literature (and hence, I’m assuming, period culture) is the feminine approach to new friendships.  The scene in question was when Beatrix first meets Millie, and they insist they will be simply wonderful friends.  I can think of similar scenes in Austen novels, Bronte novels, Anne of Green Gables (hence the title of today’s post) etc.  I love the genuine openness that can lead someone (even if they are only fictitious) to announce to a new acquaintance, “I can tell that you and I are going to be the best of friends.”  

I wish that could happen more often these days.  I am finding, particularly in the world of medicine, that I meet so many wonderful people, but in short, professional settings.  I wish it wouldn’t be so socially awkward if I were to say, “I knew I liked you the moment I met you, we could have such an amazing friendship.” (And I really am referring here to “like” in the friendship sense, not at all in the romantic attraction sense, and 99% of the potential friends I have in mind in this context are the same gender as me.)  For example, we had one tutor in medical school for 3 weeks, and that is all we saw of her.  I spent, say, 8 hours in her presence, and I knew already we had so much in common.  I love the way she annotates the front of novels she buys, almost like a journal she said, with the day bought, the context, any thoughts, then when it was read, further context, further thoughts.  I liked her, as a person, already, but when I learnt that she did that I really thought to myself, here is a kindred spirit.  But how do you say to a doctor whom you know only in a teacher-student setting, who is at least 10 years older than you, “I know if we sat down over coffee, we’d hit it off immensely, and start a life-long friendship.”? And here I am, 6 or 7 years later, wishing I’d said something, wondering what she is up to with her life, and wondering if I’m missing out on a great friendship.

Social media makes things tricky too – I’m on Facebook pages where I feel like I know people even though I’ve never met them.   Some are local to me, and I can actually reach out and suggest a coffee.  Some, however, are so far away, and I never want to look like a weird stalker by offering Facebook “friendship” at the wrong time.

And all this thinking reminded me of a time before I learnt to abide by certain social expectations.  I remember the first day of kindergarten.  I’d seen Annie before, as her family went to our Church.  I think I’d talked to her maybe once, in Sunday school.  There was something about her I liked.  So 4 year old me walked straight up to her.  “Hello.  I’m Sarah.  We go to the same Church.  We’re going to be best friends.”  She looked at me doubtfully, quite unsure how to react to my unsolicited announcement, but we spent some time together.  I don’t remember now, maybe we just sat together at lunch that day or the like, and I was right.  We were best friends the whole way through primary school, despite her being one of the popular kids, and me being on the outside.  We stayed best friends, even when some of her other friends threatened to stop talking to her if she didn’t stop talking to me.  We used to stay at each other’s houses for entire weekends.  We lost contact, unfortunately, after I moved interstate for high school.  But modern technology can be a wonderful thing, and a couple of years ago now, I used Facebook to track her down, so we’re now back in touch.  I find it poetic that we both ended up in medicine.  Obviously, we’ve missed many years of each other’s lives, and you can no longer say we’re best friends, but I was right all those years ago to recognise the kindred spirit in her, and I’m so glad I had the uninhibited childish courage to act upon that recognition.