At what age did you meet your longest standing friends?
I have three friends I have known from thirteen or younger. I’m kinda proud of that.
Probably between 16 and 20 years old, the majority. So, thirty years or so.
I met my longest standing friend on the second day of uni, he is also my best and closest friend
Poetry magazine
May 2026
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May 2026Bright blue cover for the April 2026 issue of POETRY with the letters for POETRY in a grid. The letters are white with pink, blue, green, and black geometric
I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss'd
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that's dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod,
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept;
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,
The grass below; above the vaulted sky.
7, 10, 13, 13, 13.
Nice Wilf. Toda.
I grew up with four boys from my neighbourhood who became my oldest friends. Have known them since I was five or so
I have made friends at all stages of my life (including at work and consider a number of ex colleagues friends), except:
as an undergraduate (I don’t really stay in touch with anyone from my uni days)
during my post work phase (only real friends I have made in the last few years are the boys from the Last Word thread)
Would you like to join us on the imaginary day out at cricket?
Genuine friends at uni. There’s one guy I met in hospital just after we were both born and we’re still vaguely in touch and see each other every few years but mainly because our mothers are still good friends.
3 closest friends are 11, 11 and 21.
Absurd q, really.
Elaborate please Knickers
duration is no guarantee of quality
I think you’re confusing friends with family.
Au contraire.
Non. Mon frère.
Can someone sort those fooking chiènnes out.
I first met Cookie in Nassau in 1961. He was a attache at the Consulate and a fearsome bowler. I believe it was he who first came up with that fullish inswinging delivery that the locals call the white devil. During one particularly fierce gin-soaked spell he had some of the villagers on the back foot bobbing and weaving and accidentally had them all impaled them all on a broken stumps and strung up on the pavilion as an encouragement. A vicious knife-fight ensued followed by a personal fifty year vendetta ranging across three continents and involving the deaths of many family members. While I still bear the scars of the incident and live in daily fear of terrible retribution, he considers me one of his closest friends. A lifelong enmity forged in blood and steel he once wrote to me in a menacing haiku delivered to my child's school in a box containing a severed ox's head - is the only true test of friendship.
5 for oldest. Infant school. He had a pink panther in a coffin which was very cool. Mrs Messingham confiscated it because we spent a lesson (probably a day tbf) doing the pink panther theme song by henry mancini.
He was called dave, obv
‘3 closest friends are 11, 11 and 21.‘
Mandatory hard drive check for Marshall.
Would you like to join us on the imaginary day out at cricket?
Nah, you’re all right, mate
Don’t play it, barely know the rules and certainly don’t get the nuances
Don't be absurd.
"...barely know the rules"
Are you mentally OK?
14 and 18
Longest standing is from age 8 and still in touch with the little gang of mates I hung out with through secondary school (so 11 for them).
11. We were paired in Home Ec and faced with each having to make toast and hot chocolate as our very first practical, decided we would be more efficient to have one heat all the milk and one grill both slices of bread. We were sent to the head who demanded to know whether we thought we could just copy each other's GCSE answers too, eh, EH?
(Same twot gave me a detention for tossing a scarf to my friend on the grounds "it could lead to fifth years throwing chairs".)
My nieces are a mix of uni and early career.
8
very much the outlier though as I have moved around a lot and am shyte at keeping in touch with people (plus old so lost touch with loads of people pre social media)
(gonna give paedorisky a heh for that)
Reported. They are my friends.
met a decent chap in the pub last week, now consider him a mate.
"it could lead to fifth years throwing chairs"
I would love to see the storyboard in his head of how this could happen!
Do you think he jumped at the intros to grange hill to avoid the sausage?
12. We moved in completely different circles back in year 7 (she was gorgeous, loud, popular and boy-crazy, whilst I was bookish, shy and bespectacled), but for some inexplicable reason became good friends. Despite months often passing without contact, we always pick up from where we left off.
it sux to be you doesn’t it risky?
Sux to be one of his "nieces", surely ?
Best friend when we were 13.
Others are a mix - a number at Uni, between 18 and 22, but none actually on my course and a few via acquaintances and not even at my Uni. A couple of others are friends of a friend that I first met when I was 30 . A few work mates from throughout my career that I consider genuine friends.
Oldest at the age of about 7. I had a bit of a clear out of friends in the last 10 years where I just stopped calling about 5 people who had been close friends but I realised hadn't really treated me that well when we were young. Or, who were just more into drinking now that I can be bothered with.
In answer to the question, between 18 and 21.
What prompted my question is a catch up tomorrow evening with one of my triumvirate of old friends. We’ve known each other 50 years and catch up once a year or so. All friends enrich, but there’s something fine about so much shared. Lawyer as it happens as is one of the other two, whose parents were life long friends of my parents and he has know me sixty plus years. Both look their age.
Probably between 16 and 20 years old, the majority. So, thirty years or so.
I met my longest standing friend on the second day of uni, he is also my best and closest friend
Poetry magazine
May 2026
Subscribe
Subscribe
May 2026Bright blue cover for the April 2026 issue of POETRY with the letters for POETRY in a grid. The letters are white with pink, blue, green, and black geometric
I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss'd
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that's dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod,
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept;
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,
The grass below; above the vaulted sky.
7, 10, 13, 13, 13.
Nice Wilf. Toda.
I grew up with four boys from my neighbourhood who became my oldest friends. Have known them since I was five or so
I have made friends at all stages of my life (including at work and consider a number of ex colleagues friends), except:
Would you like to join us on the imaginary day out at cricket?
Genuine friends at uni. There’s one guy I met in hospital just after we were both born and we’re still vaguely in touch and see each other every few years but mainly because our mothers are still good friends.
3 closest friends are 11, 11 and 21.
Absurd q, really.
Elaborate please Knickers
duration is no guarantee of quality
I think you’re confusing friends with family.
Au contraire.
Non. Mon frère.
Can someone sort those fooking chiènnes out.
I first met Cookie in Nassau in 1961. He was a attache at the Consulate and a fearsome bowler. I believe it was he who first came up with that fullish inswinging delivery that the locals call the white devil. During one particularly fierce gin-soaked spell he had some of the villagers on the back foot bobbing and weaving and accidentally had them all impaled them all on a broken stumps and strung up on the pavilion as an encouragement. A vicious knife-fight ensued followed by a personal fifty year vendetta ranging across three continents and involving the deaths of many family members. While I still bear the scars of the incident and live in daily fear of terrible retribution, he considers me one of his closest friends. A lifelong enmity forged in blood and steel he once wrote to me in a menacing haiku delivered to my child's school in a box containing a severed ox's head - is the only true test of friendship.
5 for oldest. Infant school. He had a pink panther in a coffin which was very cool. Mrs Messingham confiscated it because we spent a lesson (probably a day tbf) doing the pink panther theme song by henry mancini.
He was called dave, obv
‘3 closest friends are 11, 11 and 21.‘
Mandatory hard drive check for Marshall.
Nah, you’re all right, mate
Don’t play it, barely know the rules and certainly don’t get the nuances
Don't be absurd.
Are you mentally OK?
14 and 18
Longest standing is from age 8 and still in touch with the little gang of mates I hung out with through secondary school (so 11 for them).
11. We were paired in Home Ec and faced with each having to make toast and hot chocolate as our very first practical, decided we would be more efficient to have one heat all the milk and one grill both slices of bread. We were sent to the head who demanded to know whether we thought we could just copy each other's GCSE answers too, eh, EH?
(Same twot gave me a detention for tossing a scarf to my friend on the grounds "it could lead to fifth years throwing chairs".)
My nieces are a mix of uni and early career.
8
very much the outlier though as I have moved around a lot and am shyte at keeping in touch with people (plus old so lost touch with loads of people pre social media)
(gonna give paedorisky a heh for that)
Reported. They are my friends.
met a decent chap in the pub last week, now consider him a mate.
"it could lead to fifth years throwing chairs"
I would love to see the storyboard in his head of how this could happen!
Do you think he jumped at the intros to grange hill to avoid the sausage?
12. We moved in completely different circles back in year 7 (she was gorgeous, loud, popular and boy-crazy, whilst I was bookish, shy and bespectacled), but for some inexplicable reason became good friends. Despite months often passing without contact, we always pick up from where we left off.
it sux to be you doesn’t it risky?
Sux to be one of his "nieces", surely ?
Best friend when we were 13.
Others are a mix - a number at Uni, between 18 and 22, but none actually on my course and a few via acquaintances and not even at my Uni. A couple of others are friends of a friend that I first met when I was 30 . A few work mates from throughout my career that I consider genuine friends.
Oldest at the age of about 7. I had a bit of a clear out of friends in the last 10 years where I just stopped calling about 5 people who had been close friends but I realised hadn't really treated me that well when we were young. Or, who were just more into drinking now that I can be bothered with.
In answer to the question, between 18 and 21.
What prompted my question is a catch up tomorrow evening with one of my triumvirate of old friends. We’ve known each other 50 years and catch up once a year or so.
All friends enrich, but there’s something fine about so much shared. Lawyer as it happens as is one of the other two, whose parents were life long friends of my parents and he has know me sixty plus years.
Both look their age.
Difference between longest standing and closest:
LS: 18
C: 33
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