Paul Hopkins

The Fact OfThe Matter

PAUL HOPKINS PAUL HOPKINS

With ‘friends’ like these, I’ll opt for fewer...

SOMEONE once described friendship as a relationship with no strings attached except the ones you choose to tie; one that’s just about being there, as best you can. It was the great thinker Aristotle who said Man is by nature a social animal. In e ect, we are not a species of solitary beings. We need each other and cannot live in isolation. e pandemic has shown us that. We have spent the last 18 months missing each other. Pertinently, the lockdowns have had me thinking big time about ‘friends’ and the nature of friendship.

Rob Reiner’s classic lm Stand By Me, about four boys who share everything one summer in the 1950s, has it exact when the Stephen King character Gordie, looking back as a man in his late 30s, in the lm’s nal line says: “I never had friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?”

Is true friendship the prerogative of the young? at time of endless, circular conversations and life-and-death adventures? at getting older, and beyond, means forgoing all that intimacy and connection, at least with people outside your family or a marriage — with its innumerable joys, family dramas, and day trips?

Where we were once coming of age, the Old Gang and I, with all the attendant comedy and drama those special years imply, now, 50 odd years on, with a lot of living under our belts, we paint a (not-always pretty) picture of a motley crew of colourful chin-wigged characters. An assortment of potbellies, grey hair, no hair and occasional limps and peculiar gaits.

Some of those true friends of my teenage years, with whom I shared all my darkest secrets, I have not seen in many a year, save, sadly, at the funerals, which these days seem to come often. In the last decade or so, seven of the original score have moved on — to God-knows what.

Nostalgia for the close friendships of our youth is very real. Studies show the number of close friends we have begins to fall from our mid-20s as work and relationships — and Life — take hold, and the foibles that once forti ed us fall apart. Technology, too, has turbocharged friendship’s decline, making it easy to cancel plans and disengage — modern communication, paradoxically, a form of ‘disconnected connection’.

If truth be told, I haven’t had too many friends, save that score or so over the years, and far fewer still close friends. Good friends I’ve learnt, particularly in the last 18 months, are indeed few and far between.

My daughter — perhaps, in the truest sense, a real friend — once said to me that she spent more time on social network with her friends than she did actually meeting them. And just how true is that of the pandemic?

We may ‘friend’ more people on Facebook, but we have fewer real friends — the kind who would help us out in tough times, listen sympathetically no matter what, lend us money or give us a place to stay if we needed it, keep a secret if we shared one. is pandemic shows us — me at any rate — who real friends are. Who reaches out and who doesn’t. Who makes the e ort to maintain contact, and who doesn’t.

In the beginning, I made a point of phoning or texting, on a weekly rota, family and friends and ‘close acquaintances’ to see how they were coping. en, some time later, I realised some never, ever returned the favour. So I stopped calling them, stopped reaching out.

As Mark Twain would have it: “ e trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in nding a friend worth dying for.” at said, there are those few who have, in these strange days, reached out further that I would have imagined. ey are now on my list of who to re-engage with, face to face, and, who knows, forge an even greater bond.

And then there are those I am now cutting loose, life being just too darn short. Priorities are shifting. Like Jay Gatsby, I have learnt the past 18 months that I will never x it like it was before.

I may never have had friends later in life like the ones I had when I was a teenager – but the few I now have are people I truly chose, and who I keep choosing to share life with, changed and all as it may prove to be...

‘I never had friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12...’ ”

Overcoming vaccination needle fear

ANDREW MCDONALD HYPNOTHERAPIST

NEEDLES are not something any of us looks forward to. Fortunately, unless we have an ongoing health concern, most of us don’t have to face them that often. Many people go years without having to get an injection. en along comes a worldwide pandemic, we get the good news of there being a vaccine but the kick in the teeth is it is administered through a syringe. In fact, the only immunisation I can ever remember getting which wasn’t delivered in that fashion was for polio which came on a spoon. Personally, I preferred that but beggars can’t be choosers.

Most of us don’t like the idea of getting an injection. I de nitely don’t but my fear is mild. I can think of a million and one things I’d rather do but it is something I can grit my teeth and bear.

For others though, the mere sight of a needle can be enough to induce serious stress and feelings of dread. Symptoms of trypanophobia (fear of injections) include dizziness, fainting, insomnia, anxiety, panic attacks, high blood pressure, racing heart rate and running away from medical care.

If you’re one of those people, maybe you’re really keen to protect yourself against covid, particularly with the more dangerous variants developing but you can’t bring yourself to actually go through with vaccination. e good news is there is help.

For the milder end of the spectrum, being clear with the healthcare sta engaged in your vaccination can be enough to get the support you need to help you through the process. I do this with my current dentist. He is aware that, because of previous negative experiences with other dental practitioners, I’m something of a nervous patient when it comes to my teeth. He takes this into account and works with me to get me through what needs doing in as comfortable a manner as possible. Healthcare sta are trained to deal with patients who feel anxious and the overwhelming majority will want to help you as best they can.

If you’re at the more severe end of the scale, the whole idea of getting vaccinated is probably terrifying you. Talking to your GP about medication to help calm you enough to receive an injection is a good rst step. Your doctor will know of a range of suitable options he or she can prescribe for you. ese are likely to be a quick, temporary solution but may well be just what is needed to get you through the process.

Alternatively, if you’re looking for a longer term solution, CBT or hypnotherapy are likely to provide more permanent xes. CBT functions by exploring what causes your fear of needles and helps you to develop techinques to overcome your anxiety. Hypnotherapy works by changing your subconscious reaction to getting an injection from one of fear to one of calm and uses triggers to relax you.

With the options out there, not protecting yourself shouldn’t be one of them.