There’s a common notion that if you don’t have many close friends from your childhood, there must be something wrong with you. You’re untrustworthy, perhaps even evil. This idea always made me chuckle, especially since I fall into that category. While I have a handful of cherished friends from my younger years, it feels like a large chunk of my early friendships were wiped clean from my personal history.
It wasn’t some sinister secret that led to this. I simply moved around a lot growing up, attending three different primary schools and three different secondary schools. This constant change made forming lasting friendships difficult. Plus, before iPhones and the ease of staying connected, maintaining relationships with friends who moved on was even harder.
But it wasn’t just the moving. I was also notoriously flaky as a kid, regularly bailing on plans. Now, I realize this was probably the result of social anxiety or introversion, but at the time, it understandably annoyed people. It wasn’t until I was about 21 that I grasped the importance of nurturing friendships. Like gardens, they need regular watering or they dry up.
University further complicated things. Attending a university close to home, I didn’t make much of an effort to integrate. I felt disconnected from the excitement of new beginnings that many of my peers were experiencing. And looking back, I was likely depressed, which made it even harder to build lasting connections.
While I have a wonderful group of friends now, who’ve seen me through various life stages, I sometimes feel a tinge of sadness about the lack of deep connections from my childhood. I do believe there’s a certain genuineness to friendships formed during those early years. But that doesn’t mean I’m a bad person or untrustworthy. It simply means my path to forming lasting friendships has been a little more winding than some others.
