When my friend Emma turned 18, my band and I were fortunate enough to be invited to play at her birthday party. Twice, in fact. As it happens I was also a member of her chosen support band, which meant that I accidentally upstaged myself by playing far better in the opening set than the headline slot, much to the chagrin of my band mates.

It’s quite something to play at your friend’s birthday, and I was reflecting on this glorious recollection earlier in the week when Emma attended my performance at the ‘Room D’ jam night in Haslingden. 18 years have passed and Emma is still watching me play ridiculous cover versions of unfashionable hits from yesteryear (this week we took on Dire Straits; next time we may opt for Dead or Alive).

How strange it is to think that, aside from one or two blips, we have spoken to one another more or less every day for half of our lives. For some periods the level of correspondence was incessant – an ongoing dialogue, predominantly via email and text, that almost certainly cost our respective employers countless hours’ of lost productivity along the way. Still, it’s important to know one’s priorities.

Once I found myself entangled in a relationship with a person who objected to this level of correspondence. Rather than scaling it back, I attempted to continue my conversation in secret, doubtless presenting myself to the girl and her friends as a bona fide incontinent (or possibly a closet drug addict) for the endless trips I was making to the bathroom.

Eventually I was rumbled, at which point it began to become clear that my other half not only had a problem with the correspondence; she had a problem with the friendship itself. Having suffered several years of unhappy singledom, I went against my better judgement and attempted to scale back the friendship. It remains one of the most deeply shameful acts I have ever undertaken (and I have undertaken many deeply shameful acts).

Fortunately, it would ultimately transpire that my girlfriend had fundamental problems with all male-female friendships, to the extent that she attempted to forbid me from making any new female acquaintances, the moment at which I realised that the relationship was not probably not destined to last.

It took several months of grovelling to repair the damage sustained to my friendship with Emma; in fact, judging from the despicable way in which we treated one another a year or so later during our holiday in the US, it could be argued that the healing process took far longer than either her or I recognised at the time.

Emma has decided to stop ageing (i.e. lie about her age), so I’m not sure our friendship can actually exceed 18 years now without my giving the game away. But 18 years is still a good number. There are adults alive today who haven’t known themselves as long as we’ve known each other.

I don’t know if we will always feel the need to speak to one another every day, and frankly, no one should actively want to speak to me that often because I’m extremely annoying. But irrespective, it’s an achievement we should be proud of. So much time wasted, so much procrastination and distraction, so much mutual irritation, and yet so much gained.