FRIENDSHIP

On holiday together with friends & family - Bulgaria 2011

I can miss some of my friends intensely if I haven't seen them for a while. One such friend is Tove. Our friendship goes back a long way - to 1980, when we first met. But we didn't become close friends until the following year.

We happened to be studying at the same university in England in the seventies. There weren't many Norwegians at the University of Sussex, but I'd heard rumours that there was this girl in the year below me. Our means of communication at Uni back then in the stone age was leaving messages for one another in our "pigeon holes", so I did a little detective work and found out her name and department, then left her a note suggesting we meet up. So Tove and I met and had a drink. We hit it off, but that was it. I left England just a couple of weeks later, while she had one more year to go before graduating.

A little over a year later I was sitting at my desk in the bank where I worked in Oslo - in the foreign exchange dealing room, and suddenly I recognised the newly employed girl who walked in. Tove! We became colleagues and from then on inseparable friends. We've often talked about the probability of fate and coincidence working in our favour. We were meant to be.

And we have remained friends to this day - a friendship that I appreciate immensely. Our children are good friends too! We are different in many ways, but this adds an extra dimension to our relationship. There's no one I know who can give me such good advice, who can listen to me and my predicaments with such a clear and detached mind and suggest a totally obvious answer that puts everything in place.

She's also very beautiful and has always made men's heads turn! She's intelligent, spiritual, incredibly well-read and yes! Funny! She's the one who taught me to take books along to give to friends when you visit, so that they too can enjoy the same reading experiences.

This afternoon we drank tea and talked for four hours. It was too short - we both felt that. So the next time I see her we'll talk all night - although she's not the night owl that I am. Well, she has been known to be a night stayer - I've seen it a few times over these past thirty-one years! Because she lives out of town, we usually spend the night at each other's houses. This is perfect - it means we can continue our conversations in the morning!

After I'd visited Tove this afternoon I went to see another friend who lives in the same neighbourhood - a childhood friend I've shared a lot with and that I hadn't seen in a long time. Been missing her too! But I'm meeting her on Friday - I so look forward to it!

For me friendship is profound and important. It must give me strength and positive energy. I have to feel that I've been stimulated and enriched after spending time with a friend. It should be emotional, fun and educational to engage in conversation with a friend. But basically it's all about mutual respect. And love.