A “Squish” – a strong desire to develop a platonic relationship with someone (The Smart Girls Guide to Polyamory). It’s the squishy feeling you get when you start a friendship with someone – that friendship chemistry.
A deep friendship is a bond formed by the culmination of shared experiences.
Making friends as an adult is challenging – especially when you’re a little to the left of mainstream and looking for some common ground. Especially when you want new friends because you’ve lost some over the years due to toxic behaviours (yours and theirs), dissolution of relationships (drifting to one side in the break up of a relationship), the demands of family life, and people moving away. These things are meant to happen – as they say; friendships are for a season, a reason, or a lesson. (Don’t ask me who “they” are).
Whilst I don’t have a vast array of everyday friends, I have, through shared experiences, a handful of people in my life that are my touchstones. We’ve shared laughter until we’ve cried, cried until we laughed, engaged in many drunken shenanigans, stood by each other’s side as relationships dissolved, stood up for each other in the face of criticism. Most of these people have now moved away; some as far as South America, some to Sydney, and some are just in a different life stage than I am. I love them dearly.
Timing, chemistry, compatibility, and values are the core pillars of any solid relationship; romantic or platonic. This brings me to the “Squish”. I’ve met people in the last couple of years I’ve squished on and for various reasons it hasn’t worked out – demanding work and family schedules (timing), incompatibility of partners (they aren’t keen on mine or I’m not keen on theirs), and lack of effort (which I put down to values or maybe compatibility). But I am so happy to have also made some amazing friends that I squish on. Covid had made socialising difficult, but with these friends, it has also accelerated those shared experiences. We hang out at munches and events, our kids play together, we have dinner parties, and weekends away. Someone told me the other day he thought the four of us had been friends for years when in fact we only met at the beginning of this year. I would have to say these friendships are the most positive experience I’ve had this Covid year.
I highly recommend the “squishing” experience. P.S. My friend thought squishing was a type of porn where you smash cakes with your butt. Either way, I’m down for that. Friends and cake!
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