A girl crush – just when I least expected it

I really wasn’t open for business in the new friend department. I actively retreat from the possibility of new mates. But then her. A fellow writer. Around my age. We got on instantly.

Just as we’d taken a few tentative steps towards a beautifully deep friendship: catastrophe.

I have a pact with a girlfriend. If I die before her, she will go to the morgue and apply my signature lipstick (Mac Diva, thank you very much.) Because, well, needs must. And she did offer. Another girlfriend has requested I make sure she doesn’t have a beard in the morgue. Again, needs must. Another, that there’s no moustache, to which I replied, well … ditto.

These are the goddesses in the pantheon of mates. The few, the happy few, who I’d trust with my dead body. The ones I can be vulnerably honest with. Who are there for me in the good times as well as bad – for that’s the mark of a true friend. Women’s women, who make me feel safe. A tiny band of sisters held close.

And recently, another intriguing prospect came into my life at a time when I really wasn’t open for business in the new friend department. It was a girl crush, a woman crush, a new friend crush, which occurs so rarely now. Never, in fact, anymore. I have enough friends in my life; actively retreat from the possibility of new ones. Cannot fit in the ones I do love, enough. Am too old, too set in my ways for new people, new worlds. Am endlessly trying to simplify a crammed life. Distil.

But then her. And just as we’d taken a few tentative steps towards a beautifully deep friendship: catastrophe. I stood her up. The mortification runs deep, still. A fellow writer. Around my age. Celebrated publicly and beloved in the industry. We met at a gathering of women writers. Got on instantly, cackling like two naughty schoolgirls up the back of the class or two old witches around a cauldron of similar lives. We bonded over the novelist Jenny Offill; shared similar literary taste, the mark of a great friendship. As Jim Henson once wrote, “There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met.”

It reminded me afresh of what the best of friends are – a meeting of minds, in generosity and support. Her warmth and wisdom had hooked into my soul. I could be vulnerable, safely, with her. As CS Lewis said once, “Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought that no one but myself…’” She instantly gave me the freedom to be myself, a rare gift. I knew instinctively I could have a messy house when this one visited – it would not matter one jot, for she was not the type to judge, care, clock.

We met at the gathering but later made a date to have lunch à deux; restaurant and location my suggestion. It was a bit far but we were both keen. Then last Thursday, deep in writing, I was lazily checking emails in a feat of procrastination – and there they were. Several bewildered missives. “I’m waiting on the steps.” “Are you far?” “Did you forget?”

Nooooooooo. My head! Hello? Hate being late – see it as a lack of respect for the person left waiting. Am usually at least 10 minutes early, to anything, and not only was I late with this one but was nowhere near the meeting place. I’d completely, utterly forgotten. The mortification, embarrassment, self-flagellation.

This woman’s response to being stood up? Laughter. No problem. Understood. “Menopause, eh? My head’s all over the place too.” It was gracious, forgiving, warm. I wanted to send her flowers in apology yet didn’t have her address, so fledgling was the relationship.

As Anaïs Nin once wrote, “Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” This extraordinary woman reached out a hand and invited me into a new world, her world. I dropped that hand of friendship – clumsily, stupidly – but will pick it up again and will not let it go, thanks to the lightness of her forgiveness. Another for the morgue crew, if she’ll allow it.