Problematic Pals

High school and sixth form friendships; they string together the visceral, formative experiences that we often like to hold close to our hearts to remind us of our adolescence. It’s always the case that these times are littered with anecdotes that we all swear could’ve come straight out of The Inbetweeners or Skins. It must’ve been something about the formal setting of it all. The full-time education combined with the brutal immaturity of our teenage years. A partnership that just had an amazing knack for turning out pure gold when it came to stories. For many of us, it won’t matter how many VK-fuelled Wednesday nights at the SU we have, it can’t compare to the utter carnage of our after-proms when we were 16 or 18. If you’ve known these friends for a long time too, some almost two decades, it becomes even funnier still. I remember seeing somebody who used to get his PE teacher to do his tie for him, getting carried around on a strangers’ shoulders in a pub garden somewhere during the 2018 World Cup. That’s another thing.

For me, and I do not doubt many others, the summer of 2018 is the pinnacle of nostalgia for our pre-university lives. I finished my A-levels on my 18th birthday and that night initiated what was to be an immaculate summer before university. And as the years start going past, I got into a habit of seeing those times through an increasingly clouded lens. This lens that we now put on those summers, and more importantly our friends at the time, can often set ourselves up for a fall. In the words of Echo and the Bunnymen, “nothing lasts forever”. You and your friends will go your separate ways and to your different universities. But now I’m in the third year of university, and as others will tell you, this doesn’t mean the end for those friendships. Every student falls into the same pattern: term time is for university but then in the holidays you parade back to your old home, your old local, and of course, your old friends. You then proceed to sit around like old men chatting rubbish about “the good old days”, sounding about 80 to the 18-yearolds knocking about who you “swear are like 12”. However, once you’ve done this for a few years, seeing old friends this way on and off, a divide between you will often emerge. The further away we inevitably get from that last day of A-levels, the wider that split becomes between you as people. You might have been very similar people in sixth form, with similar interests and ideals, but after all, you have to remember it’s no longer 2017, it’s 2020, and the last three years have bred an intensely divisive and sometimes ugly atmosphere politically.

This atmosphere can often split us down the middle, and even pit old friends against each other whilst they’re sat down over a pint. Many of us will try and cling on to those old friendships, chasing them like a four-year old who has lost a balloon. This isn’t a bad thing and many of you will be able to pass off these debates as insignificant and continue on reminiscing. However, what can happen is a line can get crossed where your old friend might say something problematic or downright offensive. This is where it gets awkward. This is where we might start wondering if chasing after that balloon is the right thing to do. I have had pretty brutal conversations with friends about issues such as the Climate Emergency, the Black Lives Matter Movement, and of course everyone’s favourite angry uncle, Brexit. I think for some of us, the coronavirus pandemic might have extended this rift further. So, hopefully this article can help you or other people navigate how awful those conversations can be and show you my

mistakes, so you don’t have to make them. Firstly, when you go into an awkward conversation about any loaded topic, know what you hope to achieve from it. This can vary a huge amount from person to person because only you know how far these people have crossed the line. If it has reached a grotesque level, you may want to cut ties immediately. But in the majority of cases, people will say problematic things without even knowing or understanding that they are. Therefore, you’ve got to go in hoping to help them understand or change their minds. To do this, hostility has to be kept to a minimum, and this can be hard. I know it is very easy to get heated and start going full

Jeremy Kyle on the whole situation, especially after a couple of Jäger bombs. Keep your cool and your point stays intact. If you lose it they just won’t listen, no matter how right you are (trust me I’ve been there).

Secondly, know the clichés and the taglines. I think we all know the ones. Those snappy little phrases you see typed up in full capitals all over Twitter or shared on Facebook by elderly relatives. Most conversations of this type will include some of these phrases. When you hear them, break them down. This can be as simple as taking your friend to one side, putting a pint of lager in their hands, preventing escalation, and just appealing to them personally. More likely or not you will know that person, you’ll know their families and their background. Appeal to those, don’t just shun them. Lastly, let them know that it’s okay to be wrong. This is difficult as human beings, since being wrong is seen as not only embarrassing but also as a sign of weakness. It’s your job to change that. Often you’ll have to make the first step, apologise if you got ratty or if you startedgetting personal in the wrong way. Usually, if you don’t get too awkward in it all, they’ll understand your meaning. Hopefully, that means you get to tether the balloon.

words by: Craig Strachan design by: Madeline Howell