Falling in friend love for the many first time

Yesterday my Lottie had a friend over who hadn’t been to our house before. By the time she arrived at 10am, Lottie had made three outfit changes, four checks on what we were having for lunch, and one hair check. Does my hair look nice? Really? Does it look really, really nice?

When Alyce* sailed in the door, I knew immediately what all the fuss was about. She was tall, floaty, articulate and nice. She was really, really nice.

“Lottie can have Alyce over to stay anytime,” said Max, who usually makes it his full time job to despise any and all of Lottie’s friends. Just because they are young and Lottie’s friends.

“Alyce is painting my nails,” boasted Arabella, who unless it’s a party, usually won’t let nail polish anywhere near her.

“Would Alyce like another scroll?” I asked, trying not to bat my eyelashes, and failing miserably.

Fact is, we are all just a little bit in friend love with Alyce.

We don’t talk enough about being in love

Which got me thinking that we don’t talk about being in love enough. Oh sure, plenty has been written about being in love-love – sexual, loverly love. But hardly anything about the way we fall in love with friends, acquaintances… our seemingly daughter’s friends.

Of course, it’s just a #girlcrush right now, but I know the feeling of full-blown in-loveness with darling friends of my own. I don’t just love them, I’m in-love with them. I seek them out. They delight me. They make me feel good about myself. In fact, I’m more than a little giddy around them, despite years and years of friendship.

How much I love to hear from them. How they bring me out of myself and turn me around to see my funny, pretty, carefree, quirky self. Around them, I shine and bask in my own shininess.

Isn’t friend love wonderful?

Friend love is real love

That’s love, after all. It’s not really about the other person and their marvellous qualities. It’s really all about us. We love the way our special someones make us feel about, well, me, me, me.

I was telling Bart about the friend love thing – he whom I’m deeply, utterly, besotted with daily, oh, thank you universe. He agreed that we all have a lot of in-love to go around. Like me, he knew instantly the difference between the people we are in-love with and the people we simply love.

“It’s a physical thing,” he said. “When you’re that little bit in-love, there’s always the slight chance of goosebumps.”

Ah, isn’t it lovely? To want to be our very best to impress a person who we have no actual attraction to whatsoever. But we so want them to love us, because we friend love them so very much. They make us feel every glint of possibility. They make us fall in love with ourselves.

So, Alyce, come back and see us anytime. When you were here we were such a delightful family. Our best selves chatted and posed and laughed like tinkling glass. We wallowed in your golden attention and generously introduced your gloriousness to each other.

Thank you for reminding me that being in-love isn’t a once-in-a-lifetime thing. We actually get to fall in friend love for the many first time.

Feature image by Lauren Richmond; heart envelope by Debby Hudson; cute friends by Nathan Dumlao