Should friendships have a best-before date?

The first butt crack I ever recall seeing is the one that belonged to Marley*. 

We'd been swimming in an inflatable pool when he asked me, suddenly, if I wanted to be mooned. I nodded eagerly. If there was a rulebook telling me wrong from right, I'd never heard of it. I was utterly smitten with him. He was the boy I'd follow off of a bridge. 

Then he pulled down his pants, inches from my face, and let one rip. 

Marley was my childhood best friend. 

Something changed in the months before kindergarten year. During one sleepover and after bath time, my mum pulled me into a room. 

"I didn't know Marley was a boy," she told me — his long hair had fooled her for a while. Her lips were half smiling, her eyes were dancing. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to tease me for having a boyfriend — but it wasn't like that. Marley was just my friend. My greatest friend in the world.

It didn't matter what anyone thought, things were changing anyway.  

"They are a bit odd," she told me the last time I saw him. 

I'd held his hand through the car door window, told him I'd see him soon and watched his mum's beaten-up Honda throw dirt in the air as they drove away. Marley moved to another state a little while after. His mum wanted to leave Brisbane, but we didn't know where they ended up. He was my first real friend. And now he wasn't my friend at all. 

I never heard from him again but I recently found a photograph of us from when we were four years old. In the photo, our hands are interlocked and we are shirtless. We're grubby and shameless and totally unaware that one day, things will be different.

Marley was meant to be my very first friend, but now I know he wasn't supposed to be my only friend.

Watch: Celebrities on female friendships. Post continues after video. 

I've lost a lot of friends since. Some have fizzled out, others have blown up in my face and on the rare occasion, a few have left as quickly as they come, kicking up dirt as they leave.

You know those mates who you want to spend hours upon hours with? You both know each other's parents well (or at least their parents' names). You possibly live together or work together and went to school with one another. But eventually, the spark dies out — perhaps because you moved cities or got a new job or graduated. 

Whatever the case may be, that's a best-before friendship and they are the relationships that aren't as important to you because, well, they just don't fill your cup like they used to.

And even in the digital age; where it is possible to learn languages, build connections and start a new beginning — things can't always go back to the way they were, especially our relationships.

Mamamia spoke to Associate Professor at Deakin University, Dr Priscilla Dunk-West, to explain why a best-before friendship very much exists. 

"If we think about life in contemporary times, we are more mobile and engage in advanced communicative technologies greater than in previous generations," Dr Dunk-West explained. "We are also more likely to enter long-term intimate relationships later in life than in previous generations."

She continued, "All of these are important to understand the contexts in which friendships in contemporary life play out because people move away from one another, for example, to take up an employment opportunity. In this scenario, the friendship may shift from face-to-face contact to an online connection."

Dr. Dunk-West said it's important for friendships to "come and go". 

"People fall in and out of friendships for a variety of reasons, but friendships are always tied up with questions of identity," she said. "For example, in my research, I remember one middle-aged woman participant, who was recently divorced and reconnected with a childhood friend. She told me that she didn’t like the person she had become in her marriage and her childhood friend was instrumental in reminding her who she used to be prior to being married."

Listen to this episode of Mamamia Out Loud on friendships. Post continues after audio. 

There are some friendships we should be putting a little more focus on though — and they're the ones that remain connected over time, no matter how many changes there are.

"Of course, some friendships come and go — some may be connected to workplaces, leisure activities and more akin to companionship than deeper friendships. Like intimate relationships, friendships have changed over time. Newer forms of friendships include 'friends with benefits'," she said. 

"What remains consistent, however, is that, unlike intimate relationships like marriage, the bond between friends is one that is chosen rather than a legal arrangement," Dr. Dunk-West continued. "Friendships are a site where the private is important: secrets are told and kept and those disclosures help to deepen the connection. Across someone’s life, friendships can outlast intimate relationships such as marriage. Yet if those rules of friendship are broken, this can spell the end."

In saying that, our expectations from our friends will surely change – along with what's required of us from those we love, too. But in an era where authentic friendships are hard to find and arguably harder to keep, it's a wonder why experts are recommending we place value on our "bonded" relationships. 

It's also important to note while some friendships definitely need to have an ~ending~, we should still value the ones we have while we have them. 

"Deeper friendships have a kind of 'bond' and researchers have found that these kinds of friendships require both freedom and intimacy," said Dr. Dunk-West. 

"Being able to 'be yourself', feel accepted and valued and having a friendship that withstands challenges in people’s lives [for however long this is], is one worth cherishing."

I don't think of my old friend Marley often, but when I do, I feel grateful we knew each other before life really kicked into gear. Before we grew up and had the societal pressures of boy-and-girl friendships pushed on to us. Before we knew his long hair was girly and my short curly afro was tomboyish. Before we changed and grew up. 

Before either of us knew how to be anything other than great friends to each other.

We were very lucky to be tiny kids together and I'm now okay with the fact we weren't big kids together.

Our friendship certainly had a best-before date, and I'm glad it ended when it did. It meant I had a perfect friendship that was deliberately designed for that chapter of my life. 

*Names have been changed for privacy reasons.

Feature Image: Supplied.