Cheap Clothes and Rich People

I don't write here much anymore, because if I did, I suspect it'd all just be ranting about retail work (which is what I have fallen into for the moment - not exactly satisfying, but a job's a job) or squeeing over dresses. I try to write about things that are at least sort of important to me over here.

I will take a moment, though, to tell you to hurry along to http://www.theoutnet.com/. The Outnet is, as its name suggests, an outlet on the internet. It's an offshoot of Net-a-Porter, and it sells designer clothes at discounted prices. Well, The Outnet is celebrating its first birthday this month, and they want us to celebrate with them. On April 16th, they're having a sale and all items in the sale are just £1! You've got to choose carefully, though, because each customer is only allowed to buy one thing, except for one lucky person, who'll be allowed to buy five things. You've got to RSVP on their website before April 11th to get access to the sale. I don't know how much of their stock will be on sale, but this could be your chance to pick up a pair of Louboutins for about 1/400th of their usual price!

Anyway, onto more serious topics.

Every now and then I realise that I am incredibly lucky to have so many people to love. For most of my childhood and teenage years, I never really had a real best friend. Yes, I always had friends and yes, I always had someone to call a best friend, but I never had one of those friendships you read about. In primary school, my best friend was called Gemma. She was the bitchiest 8 year old in the world, I'm sure. In secondary school, there was Rebecca. She was, I suppose, my first 'real' best friend - we went through our dramatic crushes and first concerts and all that other stuff together, but she was incredibly jealous, attention-seeking and a compulsive liar who ended up spreading an incredibly vicious rumour when I spent more time with another friend than I did with her. She was one of those teenage best friends you have because you want a best friend rather than because you actually like them most of the time, and I'm sure she felt the same about me. We did have some brilliant fun, though. We went on holiday together twice and got up to all sorts of mischief. We used to hang around in town in clothes totally inappropriate for thirteen year olds and try and meet boys and get our hands on cigarettes. Yeah, we had fun. But I was annoyed at her more often than not.

In college, I met Laura. We had a drunken sleepover about a month after meeting (on alcopops because we were 16 and that's what I drank then) and walked for miles to the local garage because the shop nearby wouldn't sell us cigarettes. We smoked cigarettes in my back garden all night and she made weird noises when she slept. Laura was the first friend I was ever totally comfortable with. We went clubbing for the first time together and the next night, I lost my virginity while she was in the next room. At a party at her house a few weeks later, she walked into the bedroom I was having sex in and asked me if I wanted any noodles. She then stayed and held a conversation with us. I think she was one of the first people I ever changed in front of and was randomly naked in front of, one of the first people I shared a bed with, etc, all in a totally platonic way. She was the first friend to ever come to the doctor with me and we did pregnancy tests in the toilets on the seafront once. She was the first person I ever took drugs with and the first person I ever told some of my deepest secrets to. Laura was my first real best friend, and seven years later, she's still one of my best friends.

Through Laura, I met my first proper boyfriend, James, and through him I met Leanne, Rebecca and Hannah.

Leanne is my platonic soulmate. I love her to bits. We've had a few arguments and our relationship has been pretty weird sometimes because some of those arguments have been bizarre, intense and drunken outside Somerfield at 4am when I was due to catch a train back to Manchester the next day. Nobody knows me or gets me as well as Leanne does. We are bizarrely alike - even our parents' backgrounds are similar! We share the same desires to have adventures and see the world, and Leanne is in Australia living the dream right now. I miss her a lot and I'm scared she won't come back. My mum also loves Leanne - when I moved away for university, Leanne would still go round and visit my mum. I think my mum would quite like to adopt her.

Then there's Hannah and Rebecca. Hannah used to be absolutely mental. She'd get drunk and disappear and she could be very, very selfish and she also pretended she was an idiot, which she definitely isn't. She was also incredibly sad and had really low self-esteem regarding her appearance, even though she's gorgeous. Her drunken antics and ridiculous comments were hilarious when they weren't infuriating. She's a lot better now. Rebecca is one of the most genuinely lovely people I've ever met. She came to the doctor with me when I went about depression and she's always been amazing at looking after people, even when nobody was looking after her in return. Like the rest of us, she used to like drinking a lot and generally getting in trouble, but she's nothing like that anymore. She got married to Ian, who was at college when we were, three years ago and in December 2009 they had their first child. She's an amazing mother and I think she'll continue to be. That little girl is lucky to have her as a mother. She's moving away soon too and I'm really going to miss her. Things have been really tough for her, but they seem to be on the up, and I hope it continues that way.

I have other amazing friends too, particularly the Salford bunch (Joe, Frank, etc) but these four are my best friends. We've been friends for a long time and have gone through a lot of changes together. We used to see each other once or twice a week, and I used to see Leanne even more than that (and Laura more than that when we were at college) and that obviously doesn't happen anymore as everyone has other committments, but we do try and get together fairly regularly. We like to have girly meals where we dress up and eat delicious Italian food and then go for cocktails.

I'm very sad that the group is spreading out across the world but I know that we'll stay in touch. After all, we did when we were all spread out for university. When we were in college, there was a huge group of us, and the five of us stayed together even after everyone else disappeared. I'm fairly sure these are the people that will be my friends for the rest of my life, no matter how far apart we are or how little we see each other.

After sixteen years of never having a real best friend, I now have four of them and even when everything else is rubbish, remembering that always makes me feel incredibly lucky. No matter how poor I am financially, when it comes to my friendships, I'm rich.