By Rohiman Haroon

We often wonder how friends keep their friendship alive over four or six decades long. How does a group from primary or secondary school manages to stay friends until they have children and grandchildren?

Well, it’s not surprising with advent of WhatsApp discussion thread that allows friendships glow like incandescent flames of the Olympics. Athletes carry the Olympic Torch, bandied it around across participating countries and torched in the cauldron in a stadium of the host nation.

While the Olympic flame symbolizes the light of spirit, life and friendship between nations, long haul friendship is rooted on the love and affection, and respect and mutual trust, apart from sharing common interest that glue them together.

Friendship is the Olympics flame. Thanks to WhatsApp and other social media platforms, they metaphorically stamp a-somewhat indelible ink on friendship – that’s why we have acronyms like BFF (Best Friend Forever), BFFL (Best Friend For Life) or just Bestie.

These social media platforms have been crucial in gathering friends from 20, 30 years of knowing each other. They have been ostensibly the trigger point for friends to physically meet each other outside the digital realms. Some feel happy to meet each other in a unique camaraderie, living up the glorious times together they had in the past, but some may feel rather awkward.

I have across postings of groups of friends who have been friends since 1950’s when they were in primary school. They must be in their late 70’s now.

It’s fascinating how they managed to keep the ember of friendship alive till today. While most 70-year-old could remember most of their friends, despite wrinkles on their face, grey or white haired and balding, and the change in body size, some just couldn’t.

In an instance in an FB posting, a man couldn’t remember a friend who was seated next to him all along during a secondary school reunion. They had a wonderful conversation about their life, career and how many children and grandchildren they were blessed with, but this guy couldn’t put a name to the face.

He then inadvertently made an embarrassing posting on his FB account, admitting he had no inkling of who this friend was, who in turn recognized him and knew his name. Since his FB account is open to public, the friend responded and told him off in the comments section: “I’m Azman, you senile old man! I was the one whom you bullied me in school!“

There’s an online joke about reunions as we aged. At 20s and 30s, friends would gloat about their career and ask what cars the others driving. Some would even go out to the parking lot to show off their second-hand “luxury” cars. While some women would parade their designer clothes and shoes, apart from displaying their diamond-studded rings and earrings and arm-length gold bracelets.

In another related story, a friend once told me a story about how two secondary school sweethearts who met in a high school reunion, rekindled their romantic liaison, after which it destroyed their own marriage, and leaving their respective spouse and children in anger with emotional wounds.

At this time and age, anything can happen, I suppose. Even communicating on Facebook and WhatsApp over a long period between “old friends” (that’s the excuse they give to their spouse), romantic sparkles can re-ignite. These men and women are treading on a thin line, leading to a dangerous liason especially when they were once “close” to each other eons ago. Every man and woman should believe that if there’s love and trust in a marriage, there’s always a way to restrain ourselves from going overboard.

At 40s in their seemingly prime age, some friends would still gloat about their career and big boys’ toys like swanky cars and golf clubs. Some guys would even come and parade their new wife, or a narcissistic bloke would even whisper to friends that the woman accompanying him is his third “trophy” wife for him to look good in functions.

In their 50s and 60s, many blokes become subdued and reflective of their life, some even sport a goatee and wear a “kopiah to indicate they have finally found their way back to religion, spending time to speaking about the evils of worldly pleasures and how a person should strengthen his conviction to be a man of faith.

Evidently, every minute of the day, these 50- and 60-year olds forwarded Hadiths or Quranic verses to each other on the discussion threads of FB and WhatsApp. There’s nothing wrong here, except they are just forwarded messages unless they researched on the topics and wrote the postings themselves.

By 70s and 80s, they have lost a good amount of memory, and the strength to even walk without being accompanied by their spouse or adult grandchildren. This is the time when some have difficulty of recognizing their friends. “Who are you? Were you my friend in school?“ The wife would humorously retort: “Of course, dear, this is Azman, the guy you bullied in school.” Much chagrin to Azman, I figure.

At this age, this is also the time where friends would commonly ask you this question: “Does that medicine work well on you?” Unless you keep fit and exercise regularly, friends would compliment you: “By George, you haven’t changed much except the sagging skin and loss of your incisors and molars.”

Hence, when my daughter, Elani Rohiman, told me she has a gathering with her primary and secondary school friends who are now in their early 30s, I told her to enjoy herself to the hilt with exception of the things mentioned above. I kind of admire how she and her friends managed to come together in this manner of union, since their primary and secondary school days.

As for me, I keep in touch with my collegiate friends when we meet during special occasions like wedding receptions of their children but not with my primary and secondary school friends. I do have friends from the primary and secondary school years but unfortunately, we do not meet or have reunions of that sort.

It’s amazing how my daughter and her friends have kept their friendship close-knit. They now meet quite regularly, parading their newborns and toddlers garbed in their best Sunday clothes for each other to see and admire. I assume this group of friends talk to each other in a medley and myriad of conversations, that they don’t realize it’s time for goodbyes.

Like you and your close friends, they are the best friends for life. Best friends are the people in our life who make us smile brighter, laugh louder and live better. Best friends make the good times better and the hard times easier. Friendship consists in forgetting what one gives and remembering what one receives. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for those who are really my friend.

As we aged, our lives sometimes change. Our preferences change as well. We change because of our social status. The higher our social status is, the more exclusive our friends would be, sometimes inadvertently marginalizing some friends who are not so successful in life. It’s sad that this has become a stark reality of most societies.

If a man has a higher social status, associated with his job, clubs he is a member to, and elite friends, it’s easy for him to turn down a primary or secondary school friends’ reunion invitation. He may do it for selfish reason or not. I know of a court judge who did not want to attend his secondary school reunion because he cannot be seen in public, having to enjoy a swell time with his school buddies, as the rule and social etiquette don’t allow him to do so.

Whatever it is, we should always cherish our friends and friends. Friends, what more good and best friends, are diamonds that will continue to glow in your heart and soul. Sometimes, friends are so much better than siblings and relatives because they would come to you in times of hard or joy.

C’est la vie.