I want to stop catching up with my friends

Memories are made in the chaos of boredom and play, not just conversations.

I want to preface this with the acknowledgement that I love my friends. I love seeing them, having dinner parties with them, sharing esoteric TikToks, leaving fire emojis and 'stunning' comments on their Instagram posts, the lot.

But in the last five years, I've been seeing them a heck of a lot less. It's no one's fault, just life, I guess. Here are some ways we might remedy that.

---

In one of the later seasons of How I Met Your Mother (universally agreed to be the worst ones), there's a scene where Marshall and Lily, who have just had a baby, tell the rest of their friend group that only life news scoring above an eight is worth sharing.

To those not au fait with this show, it's about a bunch of 20/30-somethings who live in New York and inexplicably manage to see each other several times a day. Lily and Marshall are the first to step out of the group's dynamic, and given the chaos of having a newborn, can no longer bother with the mundaneness of their friends' lives; only important news must be shared with them. The rest of the group, Barney, Robin, and Ted, struggle with this – how do you share the big news without explaining the context of the little things that make it possible?

Being in my late 20s feels a little bit like that. I've written about my friends getting married when we were 25, and some of them have become mums now, so my life as a singleton feels very much out of step with theirs. To be clear, this isn't their fault, and I don't have any resentment towards them (I've said this before and I'll say it again, my friends' marriages are the biggest representations of happy marriages I've seen, may Allah grant them so much more inshallah!!). We’ve just splintered into several directions and I miss being bored with them.

Anyone in their mid to late 20s onwards will know the difficulties of friend dates – catch-ups, understandably, play second fiddle to work, relationships, family (for many of my friends, this means in-laws who you can't always say no to), and rest. We're all kind of in the same boat. In this time, I've also noticed a crop of memes and TikToks expressing the joy of having plans canceled, normalising the difficulty of scheduling group dates, and expressing surprise at having plans materialise out of the group chat. And truly, I get it. We're all so jaded by work and capitalism that two days of the weekend are not enough to let loose. From where are we supposed to muster the energy to socialise?

But we must. And the good news is, the best memories do not always come from the most high-maintenance activities. It's in the banality and even routine of life: running errands, cinema dates born out of boredom, stuffing 500 lavender pouches for wedding favours, watching crappy films that become inside jokes (Brahms, you there?), sleepovers, doing puzzles, smoking shisha indoors, eating a cheese board in bed, bumping into each other at the bus stop and deciding to watch Titanic for the 500th time, having iftar together, eating out during Ramadan when our periods sync up, calling up BBC Asian Network and requesting a song, then dancing joyfully when they play our song, drawing silly little images and saying 'that's you'. These have been some of my most favourite moments with my friends, and they weren't part of scheduled catch-ups where we run through the most noteworthy parts of our lives.

Far be it for me to defend men, but one thing I enjoy about a lot of guys, particularly in Muslim circles, is their dedication to playing football with their friends every week. Many attest to this being one of the best parts of the week. For various reasons, group sport isn't always a feasible option for Muslim women (lack of women's-only space, domestic duties, finding the time, a decent sports bra, etc.). Paying to kick a ball around for an hour might not sound like everyone's cup of tea, but the benefits of team play can't be overstated (I'm reminded of one of my friends whose football group bumped into Harry Styles at their local footy ground – is there anything more memorable?).

I read this wonderful piece in The Atlantic about how the way to remedy the problem of reduced memory-making in adult friendships is to look to children. Think of their attitude and zest for fun. They don't think about it, they run at it, unbridled, with open arms. In fact, their primary purpose each day is play. As grown-ups, we cherish these childhood things so much they form a permanent part of nostalgia that we covet for the rest of our lives.

Adult friendships are different, of course, as we just don't have the same time, proximity to friends, or priorities. But I think the key to being more playful is wanting to. Sure, friend catch-ups are lovely and cathartic, but they all end with the same earnest calls to 'do this again soon', with the gap inevitably going on for another three months.

If we want to unleash the child within us, we have to try and at least commit to it. No more doodle polls to arrange a mutual date, or a million back-and-forths to arrange an activity, and definitely no more new WhatsApp groups for a singular plan. Let’s talk on the phone on a random Tuesday, or go to the doctor's together, pick up a gift for a grandmother/relative, let’s help each other move house, or campaign for something, or jump in the car with one another just 'cause we were in the neighbourhood, let's do something silly or even schedule time for silliness like colour-themed food parties. I promise, we'll look back on it one day with fondness.