I was devastated to discover I wasn't on a secret WhatsApp group. Here's the controversial method I used to work out who my REAL friends are: FLORA GILL
If you're Lily Allen 's friend and haven't heard from her in a while, you may be wondering where you rank on the pop star's list of friends.
This isn't a theoretical ranking; it turns out the singer has a list of friends 'in order of how much I like them', so her assistant can use the data to appropriately organise catch-ups. God forbid she organise a one-to-one with a 12th-place mate.
Ranking your friends may sound cut-throat, but the truth is it's something we're all encouraged to do from that first moment your primary school teacher calls out 'Everyone get into pairs!' and true allegiances are revealed.
There was always that devastating moment when a tripod friendship was forced to fracture and someone found out they were the spare part.
Girls in particular are repeatedly told we need a 'best friend'. But not everyone can be your best friend, so the potential for emotional turmoil and toxicity is high.
As a child, I was given one of those ubiquitous best friend necklaces by my parents for Christmas. The idea was that I would wear one half and give the other to my best friend.
The only issue was that I didn't have a best friend. So I wore the half-heart necklace that read 'BE FRI' and hid the other in a drawer, telling everyone at school they just didn't know my secret bestie who lived in another country, proudly sporting her 'ST END' necklace.
I looked at the other girls in my class wearing their matching jewellery and felt jealous, sad and lonely. Why was I not good enough to be anyone's number one?
Yet one of the most scarring friendship rites of passage for my generation came in the brutal form of the
MySpace 'Top 8'.
For anyone lucky enough to have missed this horror show, MySpace is the social media website that predated Facebook. As well as collecting online 'friends', you had to publicly rank your top eight friends on your profile.
Who you picked was a diplomatic minefield capable of shattering friendships – and fragile teen hearts – as your social standing was brought into harsh focus.
Nothing was more humiliating than putting someone into your top friends, only to realise they hadn't reciprocated. A reshuffle – something that happened constantly as fickle teen friendships shifted from day to day – would often involve a sudden phone call from a friend incredulous at having been usurped from their spot, followed by a negotiation for their reinstatement.
We'd like to pretend that such behaviour stops when we leave school, but we all know that's not the case. If anything, friendship slights hurt more in adulthood when 'groups' become weaker without the glue of everyday classes, and making new connections becomes harder.
Now, there's the secret side chats of WhatsApp groups (I once found out some friends of mine had one I was excluded from and made them immediately delete it). Or discovering someone has a 'close friend' list on their Instagram stories . . . and you're not in it.
Nothing makes the ranking of your 'best friends' clearer than a wedding. The process of deciding who gets to be among your bridesmaids or groomsmen is the adult equivalent of MySpace Top 8. Many a friendship has ended over who was, or wasn't, granted this honour.
I've been to a wedding where there were 15 bridesmaids in matching outfits so that the bride wasn't forced to choose between her friends. At my own wedding last summer I just had a maid of honour (I did eventually find a best friend) but forwent bridesmaids to avoid any drama.
But, most of the time, we rank our friends in secret. Which is how, like Lily Allen, a few years ago I came to compile a spreadsheet where I scored my own friends.
I too found it quite helpful to ensure I met up with the friends I valued most, and realised who I'd grown distant from. Points were awarded for their level of fun and uniqueness but docked for consistently turning up late or not reciprocating invitations.
But the thing about friendships is they're constantly in flux – and the friendships that last the longest aren't necessarily the ones you'll need in a given moment.
On that original list I had a brutal one point deduction for new parents, as our priorities weren't aligned. But now, as a new mother myself, if I were to resurrect my spreadsheet a fellow new parent would earn an extra point - I need people who won't be bored to death by conversation of wake windows and weaning techniques.
So while I applaud Lily's list, I just hope she realises it needs to be constantly reshuffled. Maybe MySpace, emotionally fraught as it was, was on to something after all.
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