Friends and when they were

I once had a friend, Muriithi, back in primary school. We both joined the boy scouts not for the discipline or to live by the ''be prepared'' motto, but because every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, we were allowed to skip classes and practice the drills. We did practice the drills, the football kind with a paper ball made nicely using the few skills learnt from Mr. Kibandi aka 'Kigo'. Kigo, everybody loved him for his taunts on kids, but if you forgot to do his art and craft homework, he wasn't funny anymore. My sister Euna used to do a splendid imitation of him and our evenings were filled with laughter, we loved the guy a little more than we cared to admit, we still laugh when my sister gives life to his taunts back in primary school years.

Muriithi was my best friend because as kids, we never really needed to pretend to be who we were not. When he was sent home for not clearing his school fees, school was boring. I did have other friends but he was funnier, more cunning, and in a funny way like telekinesis kind of way, he would feel when the afternoons or the preps weren't working for me and more often than not, he would be along the same line of thought. Ndung'u, the scouts leader was in the same class as Murithi, a few sign words and it was on, freedom to play as he would come knocking at our door calling out for scouts practice. I think the best time of any day when I was in primary school was when the scouts master came calling when class was in progress.

After clearing primary school, we went in different directions. The first few school holidays that followed, we would hook up for a football game with the likes of Samuel, William, a few more friends and Muriithi. He was a great footballer too, not like William or Samuel who were the best, or rather football was a part of them, in fact before I started watching the EPL in 1997 with my favorite team being Newcastle then, I had being recruited to support Tusker F.C by Samuel. We tried not to drift too far from each other for a while and although we never sent each other letters or some other girly emotional stuff, we did try to keep each other updated on what was going on in our lives every small chance we had. With High school however, we are meant to make new friends, join crews that best define you and all that but there is always a catch. You'll have to compromise a few of your traits to fit in. It is the rule of nature.

In high school, you meet people who have lived lives totally unrelating to yours but there are a few things that bring you together. It maybe the music that you love, the kind of movies or books that you'd miss an important appointment for, among other things. In this new found friendship, you start discovering that behind the lifestyle this new friend has is a person who is more or less like Muriithi, or a compromised version of Muriithi. At this experimental stage of your life, you start discovering new things, but with your new friend (s), and the friends you were closest with start fading away. You don't look for them during the holidays anymore, there is no more catching up over football matches and with time you move on from one friend to another.

After high school, the scenario repeats itself again and it's the high school friends that are fading. At this point, almost 20 years of age, choosing the right kind of friends is not as natural as a 5 year old nursery school going kid where the only qualification was ''will you play with me?''. People, at least most people have an idea of what they want to do with their life, including you. It becomes a more of what can I gain from being a friend of so and so, or what image do I portray if I walk with so and so, among other pros and cons. In fly’s plasticity and with the life we are living moving at an unmanageable pace, everybody leaves their masks on even when they go to sleep. We rarely find them at their most natural to find out who they are, what is their favorite colors, what they would love to do before they die, their strengths and their weaknesses ........because we are plastic too. No one is as honest as their younger version and trust has become way too fragile and rare for one to throw around.

Without even noticing it we are changing too. Our trust level is slowly diminishing with own and other experiences teach us to keep our guard up all the time. We build a protective front, a stronger cage for the susceptible heart. We don't trust strangers, and it takes much longer to turn strangers to friends, not like when me and Muriithi and I made friends using a paper ball, when we trusted playmates we met a couple minutes ago no to trip me to get ahead of me. Times were easier then.

At these points in our life, we try to look for minor signs of deceit, watch consistent routines, consistent views and other hazards to you. We don't look at the pros when making friends but cons, reasons not to trust, possibilities of disappointments. We used to look for pros at some point when we were younger, now look at us. A plastic world we have become, plasticity so deeply rooted it would take more than a miracle to unmask. I pity us, I really do.

The longer a friendship lasts, the stronger it becomes. I wish I knew where Muriithi is today, what happened after High School? I wish we went to the same high school, went to college in the same town and get a single room somewhere near campus where we would pick up university girls and hang a sock to signal a visitor from Venus is entertaining one of us. Maybe that's asking a little too much but at least a high school friend. After a few parties and concerts, we completely lost touch.

Don't get it twisted I do have friends, long term friends for almost 10 years now. I trust them with my life because even though we didn't grow up together, but by the time we met the plasticity was manageable. Even though there were pretentious, we didn't need much impressing as teenagers. But I do envy childhood friends. I am not talking about the kind that faded at some point, but the kind that still holds water. My cousin Ken is one lucky guy, he managed to hold on to more than five childhood friends, and I mean friends since nursery school (elementary school for the new generation).

When did making friends turn into a job?