As kids we went through a lot of friends before we found a best friend. We had to experiment until eventually we found the ones that complemented our personality best. Friendships are a lot like relationships – you have to click, you have to be compatible, and they have to be able to take a slagging. Otherwise, they won’t pass the vibe check.

When forming your first core group of friends as a child, you ignored the stuff that should really matter, like, ‘Do these people add positive value to my life? Can I trust them? Can I rely on them?’ As a kid, the only thing you cared about was, ‘Does this person have the latest Barbie dream house, because my parents can’t afford to buy me one, so I’ll exploit Katie up the road and use her dream house until I get bored with it and just refuse point blank to go out and play with her from there on.’ Friendship was built on a foundation of pure exploitation.

Sometimes that works out ok, though! A personal example is one of my best friends of twenty-five years; she became my bestie due to her father, Paddy, working in a biscuit factory. We were playing a game of chasing with all the kids on the road one summer’s evening back in the year 1998 and it went something like this…

I was the only child who took him up on his offer. I walked over to the garden with his daughter and was greeted by a big box of chocolate Kimberley biscuits.

I thought to myself, Get friendly with her, Enya, and you’ll never starve. I’d knock into her house on the daily, not really giving a shite if Sally was in or not, I just wanted the goods. And every day without fail her dad would answer the door.

I walked into her room and lo and behold, a plate of Fig Rolls was upon her bed. Jackpot.

Sally would always insist we make beaded bracelets or play with our Baby Borns. No problem, Sally! Whatever I had to do to earn those biscuits was fine by me. I was always waiting for the next delivery. Biscuits on the way into the gaff and biscuits on the way out. My ma was always sorted for those unexpected visitors; our cupboards were bursting at the seams. One day, a few months into our friendship, one of the kids from the estate across the road robbed my Barbie clean out of my hands and ran away with it. I thought it was gone for good. I didn’t know where they lived, I didn’t stand a chance of getting it back. I was distraught, it was my favourite Barbie. Days later I was lying in bed, still grieving the loss of my beloved toy. Sally knocked on my front door. My mother called me downstairs, and I dragged myself from the room. There Sally was standing in my hall with my Barbie gripped to her chest.

A fresh box of chocky Kimbos! It was from that moment on I started taking our friendship a lot more seriously. Sally was actually all right. How many Fig Rolls would fight to get my toy back for me? That’s right, none. Bickies will come and go, but a friend who would willingly risk getting grounded for your welfare, they’re for life!

It was after that incident that I began to befriend people based on actual values. Would they have my back? Do they make me laugh? Are they a good influence on me? And all the materialistic stuff that came with them was just a bonus. Let’s go through the types of friends we must all go through before forming a core group.

The Rich Friend

You befriended this person in school because they didn’t live in your council estate; their parents owned their house. That was the first hint your friend’s parents had money. ‘Rich’ did not necessarily mean they lived in a mansion and had an indoor pool; it meant their parents had a bigger disposable income and had jobs they’d probably gone to college to qualify for. For example, I had a friend who came from a well-to-do family. I would often go to their house after school for dinner. And the dinner was always top tier. You wouldn’t get waffles, spaghetti hoops and fish fingers in this gaff. It was stir fries or a pasta dish, and fresh fruit to snack on. All their cutlery matched (unlike my mother’s collection of miscellaneous utensils collected over the years.) Katie had a massive trampoline out her back garden that was built into the ground and her parents had two cars and could afford Sky digital, meaning they had the Disney channel.

Back in the 90s or early 00s if you had a downstairs toilet or double-glazed windows you must have had money to burn! The first time I had dinner at Katie’s house, I got home and my mother aggressively interrogated me about everything. The kitchen was like a casino, she went through that many cigarettes with the stress.

The Bad Influence Friend

Mixing and experimenting with kids around the area was part of growing up. Finding those friends who suited you most. But there was also a lot of trial and error. Friends who you thought were good for you, but your mother was old enough and wise enough to know no good would come from being friends with Mad Becky around the corner. Becky’s house was the only one on the road with no central heating, and boarded-up windows. They'd been put through so many times, I don’t think her mother wanted to waste her money fixing them anymore. My mother would always tell me the PG version of what Becky’s family was known for and to stay well away or I’ll end up just like her. She’d constantly repeat that old saying to me, anytime she’d catch me with Becky, ‘Show me your company and I’ll tell you what you are.’ Becky and I ended up becoming pals through a mutual friend. Becky gave me my first smoke at the age of twelve, and I coughed up a lung.

‘You’ll be grand, everyone is like that after their first!’ she said.

‘No, they’re not for me.’ I replied.

She was the first friend to bring me on a bus into Dublin city centre without parental guidance at the age of ten. I felt like Kevin McCallister lost in New York. All I had was my bus fare, so I spent the whole day window shopping. My mother was worried sick.

Becky was mad for carnivals too, anytime a carnival came to town she’d be begging me to go on these extreme rides that I was barely...