I don’t know if you believe in romantic friendships, I know the idea startles many of you or makes you feel uncomfortable – especially when the person asking the question – aka me, is queer. But if you enjoyed Firefly Lane as much as I did, you will have no room to argue that the friendship between the characters Tully and Kate was the greatest love of their life. For clarity – for some of my readers like my mum, who I know hasn’t watched the show, Tully and Kate met in school and saw each other through countless up’s and downs from adolescence right to the end. There were many expressions of love between the pair, who often described themselves as soulmates, however, physically, they were never intimate. There was never a time that I recall them crossing a boundary, per say, as in they never kissed, however the boundary was definitely blurry.
Some of you may have enjoyed it because of the fantasy it represents, an impossible dream of the ultimate friendship full of passion and love and commitment to withstand anything that life throws at you together, always united. Some of you may scoff at the idea for the same reasons. A lucky few, like me, may have had the pain and pleasure of such a bonding. Lifelong or not, pain and pleasure certainly do go hand in hand even if you and your soul sister do not. I have experienced both kinds, ones where those lines have been crossed, and ones that have always been blurred but never crossed. I can’t say one is better than the other, or that one is less confusing than the other either. What I can say is both are love, and when is that ever simple?
Ok, granted, it can be simple on a TV show, as Tully seems mostly not present for much of Kate’s daughters young life. Infact, TV shows have this way of brushing over this area of life and focusing on the before kids life, then rushing back to the teen years where kids are maybe not less demanding, but certainly more interesting at least, for the viewer. There are very few scenes that feature the time in Kate’s life where she wasn’t available to be Tully’s cheerleader because she had to be home for the bed bath dinner routine by 4pm, and many scenes where we have to assume Kate must have left the kid with someone else.
I raise this because the show spans over decades, zooming in and out of different points over the years and highlighting important moments for the characters, both together, and individually to help us get a more rounded understanding of how they came to be who they were and how they came to form the bond that they had. But it has the power of something bigger, that we don’t possess in our own friendships, and that is the perspective of time, looking backwards from the end point.
Many of my romantic friendships were strong and powerful and meaningful, just as theirs was, however, many of them also didn’t last and I don’t subscribe to the idea that this makes them less valuable or meaningful. Also, my life isn’t over, so I don’t know with whom I may rekindle after a fight as Tully and Kate did so many times, or who may blindside me with unimaginable hurt and betrayal either, as the characters also experienced. I cannot know the outcomes, the emotional reactions or the other characters who will inevitably come in and out of our lives and influence the people we become, the pathways of our lives and the bond we share.
Kate and Tully were almost always each other’s go to plus one, they mingled in the same circles, followed similar career paths and only brushed over long periods of absences. In real life, Tully would have been much busier and probably left Kate feeling much more neglected, and she would probably have ended up with a stronger relationship with Tully’s personal assistant, who seemed to be lacking in the show, because that narrative would have diluted their closeness. What if Tully had also had a husband and children? Would she still have spent every free moment with Kate? What if Kate had followed a career path into medicine and not journalism, would they still have had so much time and so much in common to connect over? Obvioulsy TV shows are unrealistic on purpose, that is why we enjoy the pure fantasy of them and their perfectness. It is enjoyable romanticized escapism. I don’t mind that, I enjoyed it every bit as much as you did, dear reader. But my point is that we shouldn’t strive for it or compare our own connections to this model, because this model was designed to escape all the narratives of reality, and in a perfect world, we would all have perfect friendships and houses and careers and kids and vacations and bank balances etc…. But you cannot blame yourself, or your friends, that the world you live in is not the one of dreams.
What’s important is that you do love your friends as powerfully as you can, or as your circumstances will allow. I know one of my romantic friendships thrives because my friend is single and at this stage of her life, childfree. So she is available for friendship dates and dinners, and can call me for long frivolous conversations about everything and nothing. And as I am a stay at home parent, of older children, I can accommodate those things that bring us both pleasure and keep us together. However, I am well aware that my friends intention to have a baby will change things considerably. She is good with babies and children, always has been. And so, I was lucky in that when mine were young she spent much time with us, and formed strong connections with them. She was always willing to accommodate including them in our time together, and easily accepted I came with 2 pretty annoying arguing small people, and our time together would invariably involve some sort of activity like mini golf or children’s movies and some sort of meal at a loud child friendly venue. Not everyone’s cup of tea, particularly when you work with children and most people would prefer to spend time off away from them given the choice. But our circumstances brought us together in ways that work wonders.
Now that my children are teenagers and my friend is embarking on an IVF journey to become a solo mother, I am not convinced I will be so accommodating as my friend was to me, because she loved children, wanted them desperately and deliberately dedicated her life to them, whereas I am enjoying some of the newfound freedoms that come with older children; adults movies past 6pm and not rushing home at 3pm to pick them up from the school gate! But that is only if circumstances even allow or dictate for me to be the friend to her that she was to me. She has talked about travelling the world with her retired mother and her child before it reaches school age, and I am not silly enough to think that distance wouldn’t dilute a once romantic friendship back down to a simmering acquaintance of someone you used to know. Similarly if I decided to return to work, I might be less available too. We don’t know what will happen. We have parted ways once before. We may again. All we know for sure is that right now, it works for us, it is meaningful and enjoyable, but that life doesn’t offer guarantees that it will always stay that way.
My other romantic friendship is with someone I have loved from my school days, someone who grew into a romantic relationship, then the relationship part eventually failed, but that romantic love we have for each other, the commitment and the loyalty hasn’t really ever faltered. Of course there was also a period of separation, and our lives are so different to how we both imagined back in school, but yet, we find ways to come together. We could do a similar montage as the show, fill a season or 2 and make it seem like we were never far from one another. It’s true, in many ways, we weren’t. But it would be a misrepresentation to say that we were heavily involved in the ins and outs of one another’s everyday lives, that we always had the latest gossip as it happened or that nobody else ever knew the big news before the other. Because we both have lives, both have kids on the spectrum, she has a job, we both have partners, other friendships and family relationships to maintain independently from each other, and housework and we live a good 45 minutes on a good day away from one another. So the reality is for many years we didn’t see each other much at all, but when we did, it was grand. Fun, laughter, deep sharing, food, connection, venting, kids playing, all the stuff from the highlight reel was there. Just not everyday, intensely, at the expense of all else, and years where we maybe only saw each other 4 times a year, and didn’t chat much in between….
I suppose my point is that romantic friendships are wonderful and possible, but you shouldn’t hold them to romanticized ideals represented in tv and movies. You have to allow room for reality, and the reason they don’t show that on the big screen is because it isn’t always pretty, there isn’t always a happy ending or closure and everything tied off in a neat little bow. In reality, Tully and Kate were codependent, unhealthy, possessive and exclusionary and it was only by imaginary circumstance that they stayed true. Strive to be like them all you like, but have realistic expectations or you’ll be disappointed. Friends can be soulmates, greatest loves of our lives, but we have to let each other lead those lives, independently too.
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
