The year is 2021, and after a 13 hour flight from Bangalore, endless immigration queues and a dodgy cab ride, I finally arrived at my student accommodation in South London.
Doe-eyed and ready to become ‘that girl’ who’s consumed by her silly little Masters, I lugged my bags to the main gate while mapping decor plans for the *new* room in my head. Right outside, I bumped into another South Asian girl, who, surrounded by her many, many bags, looked equal parts exhausted, nervous and frustrated, unable to access the building’s entry code.
When I helped out, I thought she’d relax a bit. I was prepared to call her up to my room in the evening for a quick hang, maybe we could even explore the neighbourhood together? Hello, first friend in London!
However, my premature dream quickly came crashing as she gave me a cold, blank stare and insisted on dragging the luggage up the stairs on her own, leaving me stranded with mine.
“Um, okay we know who to avoid,” I remember thinking to myself. We didn’t know each other’s names and I didn’t see her again until a couple months later at the building’s Halloween party.
There I was, in yet another awkward situation, this time with a friend who was inconveniently convinced that he was my date.
Spotting my BFF-to-be in a room full of strangers, I held eye contact with her and used dramatic eyebrow action to plead that she intervene and join our conversation.
Slightly tipsy on the free-flowing wine and more willing to step out of her comfort zone, she rushed in, asking me to take pictures of her — a special mention to the uncanny David Rose (Schitt’s Creek) costume she had on, it served as the perfect alibi.
We moved from one aesthetic setting of the building to another, taking photos from odd angles and strutting weirdly until the date, persistent yet not relentless, finally decided to give up on following us around.
That was the moment when I knew that Akanksha and I were going to be best friends, and sure enough, now we live in a cute-but-mouldy Bermondsey flat and have supported one another through graduating, first dates, job interviews, subsequent rejections (ugh), stressful house viewings and everything in between.
In fact, a month ago, when a hopeful situationship became shaky, Akanksha, an unwavering romantic, told me, “Maybe my big meet-cute is both of us, me and my best friend and not some guy I date.” In between sobs, we giggled at this realisation. It was comforting to know that we could tick off one of the textbook, aspirational tropes for each other.
Having grown up on Bollywood ballads and Hugh Grant movies, Akanksha, an illustrator and graphic designer, has long dreamt of the larger-than-life, unwavering, storybook romance.
You know, the kind that begins with a classic meet-cute where the protagonists bump into each other in oddly funny yet flattering circumstances, wildly unaware that they are meeting the love of their lives.
Think Julia Roberts haggling and propositioning Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, the fiery banter between Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love or Isla Fisher telling Hugh Dancy she needs to buy a “desperately important scarf” in Confessions Of A Shopaholic — all gooey beginnings of great love stories that make us hopelessly romanticise that one time a pretty stranger helped pick up the contents of our bag off the tube floor.
Somehow, this dreamy magic rarely extends to origin stories of friendships, no matter how long lasting or fulfilling they may be.
“Historically, women are primed to find ‘the one’ and we spend our whole life placing emphasis on meeting a romantic partner but this attitude doesn’t typically extend to friendships,” says Danielle Bayard Jackson, a Florida-based friendship coach.
Just like standard boy-meets-girl fairytales, countless best friend duos also have movie-worthy meet-cutes that lead to life altering relationships, only here, we don’t celebrate them with the same fervour, or host a wedding dinner to recall them at.
Take Ringwood-based Bethany Jenkinson and bestie Natalka Antoniuk for instance. A few years ago, Natalka reluctantly hired Bethany at a marketing agency but steered clear of her because “she was too Fiat 500 for me.” Now, they’re building a coffee empire together and can’t imagine trusting anyone else with their business baby.
Similarly, fashion curator Claire Vagner met her best friend Charlotte Steffen while cycling along the same path in the Netherlands. “At some point she said ‘fiiiree’ as a reference to BTS’ song and I instantly knew what she was alluding to. I asked her if she watched AOA on Queendom and when she said of course, I knew we were going to be inseparable,” she says, adding that she cannot imagine having gotten through lockdown without Charlotte.
In non-platonic relationships, we have established milestones that signify when a dynamic is strong enough to be revered, like the first “I love you”, moving in together or the infamous down-on-one-knee proposal. But do we have (or even need) such equivalents in friendships to raise them up to a precious status? Over the years, several studies have shown how close friends can help improve physical and mental health, and make us feel seen and appreciated.
Case in point: Tara Shariff, a London-based radiographer, met her best friend while they were both in-treatment at a hospital, and this bond helped her get through a challenging phase. “She was a stranger who was unwell and panicking, to calm her nerves I counted backwards with her and that’s how we started trusting each other. Last year, I was a bridesmaid at her wedding,” she shares.
But unlike married couples, the duo don’t have an anniversary when people congratulate their love and support, in fact few of us ask anyone when and how they met their best friends. “There’s a real lack of ritual and celebration in friendships,” says Anahit Behrooz, the author of BFFs: The Radical Potential of Female Friendship.
Thinking of her best friends from university, Anahit explains, “Structurally, if I’m married to someone that’s reason enough to keep them in the same country with a visa, but no matter how close or indispensable a friend is, there’s no way I can create that space. Even though observing a friendship meet-cute is a small step, it’s a move towards a system that looks at living communally away from male validation or units of family.”
As more of us realise that romantic relationships aren’t as all-encompassing as movies sell them to be, finding our main character moment in the start of a friendship can be affirming.
For so long, we have measured our worth and how successful interactions are by how good the sex is or how long the relationship lasts.
Maybe it’s finally time to switch up the narrative and glamorise healthy friendships the way we treat grand love stories.
Perhaps the next time you’re looking out the window, while the wind rushes through your hair, take off the pressure of dreaming up a romantic meet-cute and think about your most fun friend date or how you found your BFF; it can be a liberating break.