Friends or Acquaintances?

The Jazzman and I were having a conversation about friends and marriage and divorce. Frequently when a couple is friends with another couple, a choice has to be made when divorce happens. Frequently, it's just too awkward for the foursome to stay friends all around.

I was telling him that with each divorce (and there have been so many!), I lost all my friends. His response was that they weren't really friends if they abandoned me simply because of the divorce.

Looking back, I really have, throughout my life, had only a handful of really good friends. I have more friends and a wider social circle now, in my 60s, than at any other time in my life. But note that I inherited them when the Jazzman and I became a couple. My best-friend-since-second-grade, my college piano-duet-partner, an FTU sorority sister, and my FSU sorority sister and subsequent roommate are the women I have been able to count on throughout my life. Another handful of dear friends were acquired during my years in Tucson. The latest friend who fits into the good friend category was "picked up" at the mall play area, when my grandchildren started playing with her daughter. She's the first person who became my friend when I moved to Youngstown (as opposed to all the friends I borrowed from my children when I moved in with them). If I'm going through a rough patch, these women are the ones who are there.

But there's a distinction to the groups. Some have known me since I wore bobby socks and saddle shoes. Some knew me before I became a widow. Some knew me when I was finding myself again in my 50s. And the most recent group knows me only as the Jazzman's girlfriend.

With the latest circle of friends, I sense that if the Jazzman and I were to decide to go our separate ways, these people would still be my friends.

The Jazzman's point in the conversation was that all these friends from marriages #1, #2 and #3 who ceased being my friends at the point of the divorce weren't really my friends to begin with.

I've learned to be more distinct when describing people within my sphere. They're our friends, or my chorus friends, or my Tucson friends, or my Washington friends, or my lifelong friends, or my …. Or they're my acquaintances.

There is a difference.

And I'm very grateful for all those whom I can call friends.