Dendrochronology is the method by which you date a tree by analysing its patterns and age rings. It is derived from the Greek word dendron which translates as ‘tree limb’. On Friday I noticed @lovelustlondon tweet that this weekend he adds another age ring to his chronology. As I’d so far only published one shot from our April walk in the park I thought a birthday Sinful Sunday was in order. Happy Birthday!
This time last year I’d just been dumped. Not quite ghosted but not far off. In the year since it happened I’ve trodden the well-worn post-break-up path; there’s been shock, disbelief, ‘what did I do wrong?’ wondering, looking at their social media feeds, sadness, anger and bitching. The only good thing about it all is that I haven’t been going through it alone. You see, I wasn’t dumped by a lover, I was dumped by a friend and Jedi Hamster and Charlotte Brown were dumped at the same time.
The screen grab opposite is the message that dropped into our WhatsApp group (and yes, don’t judge, we did also have a separate for-spoiler-avoidance GBBO chat!) and then ‘xx left’. Just like that. Actually, probably not ‘just like that’. In hindsight the signs had been there for a while: subtle and not-so-subtle silences that would smart; an air of disapproval and judgement; casual criticism of things we’d always enjoyed together that felt like a point being made; and sometimes just undeniably mean behaviour.
But why am I using this language? Isn’t it a bit relationship-y? Well, yes, but in the last week I’ve discovered a new label – love-affair friendships. I picked it up in Rosie Wilby’s Is Monogamy Dead? In it she references the “impenetrable fortress of female friendship”, speaks of how “intense non-sexual trysts between women are common” and ponders whether “a world beyond the oppressive binary of relationships being either sexual or not, might be the richer and more vibrant one.”
I wonder how many of you are nodding along to that as I was when I read those words. I’d wager that many women reading this will recognise some of their friendships in those statements. Not all of them. We can ‘just’ be mates. But it’s undeniable that many (most?) of us have a handful of ‘food for the soul’ friendships that aside from the physical component can feel as intimate as the relationships we enjoy with our partners. Are those friendships more common between women than men? I don’t know!
So what was our group was like? Well, we were funny as fuck, obviously. We were so funny we decided we needed a shared Twitter account to give life to our musings and observations. That was bollocks and lasted about a month – in jokes are rarely funny to the outside world! But while the belly laughs were good, we bonded over far more than our ability to make each other laugh; all of us single, childfree and with complex relationships with our families, we recognised ourselves and our hang-ups in each other’s experiences and responses. Some of our chats about body positivity and sex probably sowed the seeds of this blog. Jedi Hamster came up with the name Exposing 40!
Should friendships like this last forever just because, for a time, they felt so significant? No, of course not! I have often thought that there’s excessive pressure for longevity and commitment placed on female friendships and an assumption of loyalty that is rarely expected of male friends or sexual partnerships. A few years back a sociologist from the University of Utrecht in the Netherland founds that on average we ‘lose’ 50% of our friends every seven years. I can believe this. Lives evolve, circumstances change and we meet new friends through jobs, travels, volunteering, new lovers.
But there’s a difference between the natural ebb and flow of ‘of the moment’ friendships and the fracturing of the ones that help shape us. And there’s no recognisable prescription for getting over those. No automatic right to mourn. If I split up with a partner and needed a cry or a bitch, that would be perfectly normal – people know how to rally for that. Break up with a friend and want to talk it out? There aren’t the same social norms around that.
But how does all this fit with a book about monogamy? Doesn’t monogamy refer to lovers not friends? Well, you might think so but Rosie explores monogamy in the wider sense. The jumping off point for her book is a survey where she poses a series of questions to help her unpick respondents’ views on monogamy and what counts as infidelity. Now, if you’re a deeply scientific person concerned with credible representative samples, then look away. Me? As a twenty-something PR who felt her cheeks burn when interrogated by a journalist about the ‘80% of Welsh respondents’ and then had to confess that the Welsh contingent in fact numbered 10, it should be said that I am not averse to a wafer-thin bit of evidence if it provides a good hook for a story. And this book is full of good stories.
If you’re endlessly fascinated with human experiences, emotions and behaviours then ignore the sample size (100!) and just soak up the stories. Through 49 pithy and anecdote-driven chapters Rosie explores what monogamy really means. If you’re not in an open relationship what counts as cheating, kissing or falling in love but doing nothing about it? Do our needs for emotional security and physical intimacy need to be found in the same person? That’s a lot of pressure for one person. If our lives are a rich tapestry of different people with whom we enjoy different connections, are we all a bit non-monogamous?
As the book is winding up she talks about the issue of language and muses that “if we don’t have the words for a particular type of loving relationship, we can’t talk about it and it remains invisible.” Like I said above, I hadn’t heard the term love-affair friendship until a week ago. I don’t actually need my friendships to be more visible in the literal sense of the word – I play a pretty open hand as far as talking about the friends that really matter to me goes! But taking that label to reconsider certain friendships was an interesting exercise.
Was our friend wrong for wanting out? No. No more than a partner would be wrong for ending a relationship if it no longer brought joy. But I also know exactly how she would have responded had a man behaved towards us in the way she did. What are our responsibilities when we decide a friendship has run its course? There’s no blueprint for ending them. But just going dark leaves a bitterness that’s sometimes a bit hard to swallow, even if the collective moaning sessions are therapeutic.
Before a night out a cheeky glimpse of bra is WhatsApped across the Atlantic.
“I want to see more of that.”
“I’ll send a better picture later.”
Five hours later.
“Bugger, I was meant to take a photo for K.”
“We can do it now. Get across the road under that sign. Quick! There’s nobody around.”
Shot by Exhibit A with Livvy on surveillance duties…
Photo courtesy of Exhibit Unadorned
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Here’s the second of the photos from mine and @19syllables’s autumn adventure last week. Words and photo by her, body mine! Anyone who knows me will guess these words made me weepy happy.
A trip in the woods with Exposing40 is a many faceted joy. During the times I’ve been out with her on photography adventures I’ve learned so much. It seems hackneyed but I’ve definitely grown because of it, both for myself, and in my attitude and knowledge of others. The comments that people write on her blog are so positive but sometimes those words make me feel that the pictures don’t tell the whole story. I think they paint a scene of calm and oneness with ourselves and nature. But although there is happiness it’s perhaps not as zen as you might think.
There is so much laughing. Actual hooting. Naked, joyful hooting. Right at the moment we should be super-quiet and inconspicuous.
There’s tip-toeing barefoot (bare-arsed) over the spikey beech nuts on the forest floor (“ooh, oww yeesh, gah!”). There’s the moment she asked me (from where she’s lying on the forest floor) how the pictures are looking and I accidentally say she looks “a little bit like roadkill” and we laugh that silent sort of laughing when tears well up in your eyes and you can’t make any noise. I backtrack:
“No, no, not roadkill. Not roadkill at all. Maybe something out of one of those Scandinavian TV thrillers..”
We hold onto our naked sides to as if to stem the laughing from bursting out of us and rethink the shot. There’s forgetting which tree we’ve left our clothes behind. There’s E40 so sweetly reminding me to focus the shots and maybe wear my reading glasses which I’m consistently failing to do because I am having So. Much. Damn. Fun. There’s discovering we’ve lost E40’s knickers, retracing our steps only to find them hanging on a twig, jaunty and triumphant, aloft in the breeze like a standard to nudity, and her whooping through the idyllic dappled shade “Hooray! I found them!”
Afterwards, I’m brimming with a special sort of wellness that can only be achieved through forests and friendships and freedom.
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” L.M. Montgomery
@19syllables, by me.
“For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.” Peter 4:3
There is nothing sinful about this photo, but the truth of the matter is the amount of this fluid consumed last night means there is zero chance of any creativity from me today. But I haven’t missed a Sinful Sunday since I started in February 2015 and today won’t be the first week that I do!
I had always intended to shoot a Sinful Sunday at Exhibit A and Livvy’s wedding, but while last night’s pouring rain would have made for a great fluid shot, it didn’t make for an appealing or practical late night photo in the orchard! So here is some wine and bubbles and a view of their beautiful marquee instead!
I love how many of my photo posts are not just photos but records of happy times and adventures had with friends old and new. It’s become something of a diary. So although there’s no nudity this week I am very happy to have this diary entry. Yesterday was truly special and you both looked beautiful and so happy. It was a delight and privilege to be part of the day. Congratulations and lots and lots of love. Xx
exposing40 