There were so many stereotypes about being an only child. But it gave me this power

One of my closest friends has four sisters, or maybe it’s five – I’m always forgetting. When some or all of the clan get together, she often sends me photos of them gathered around her huge kitchen table. I always smile at how they are faint facsimiles of each other, their DNA imprinted on their high cheekbones and heart-shaped faces.

After I reply “What a lovely family!” I will inevitably feel a small, unattractive sting of envy towards my friend for having all these gorgeous sisters who are interconnected and woven into each other’s lives and genes. They probably have multiple group chats where they swap news and intimacies with efficiency and fondness, without any need for preamble because they are forever attached and dependable. Because, as a person without siblings, this is what I imagine being a sister means.

My same friend often half-jokes to me how she has no need for any more acquaintances. So when I meet an interesting new person and suggest she might also like to meet them, I already know her response: “That shop’s closed. I’ve got enough friends!”

It was somewhere between these various moments that it occurred to me that perhaps this comes from her being one of many siblings from the off. Conversely, being an only child means I’m always greedy for more friends. More connections. More sister substitutes.

From my observation, only children seem to fall into two camps: those who collect friendships, and those who are happiest in their own company and can be content with or without companions.

I fall joyously and unashamedly into the first group. I love nothing more than meeting new people, and I really love a new best friend. It sounds childish, but it’s a delight to discover a special someone with a shared interest or viewpoint, then learn about their earlier life and hopes for the future.

My mother, herself also an only child, takes credit for this. “I always socialised you!” was and is her battle cry whenever the topic of my sibling-free status comes up.

Being an only child in the ’70s and ’80s was a relative rarity, and it was often made clear to me that the absence of brothers or sisters gave me an in-built set of deficits.

EMMA BABBINGTON

She did, and I’m grateful for it. But perhaps this sociability, combined with the lack of brothers or sisters, explains why I’ve been seeking out substitutes ever since. Why sisters – missing ones, estranged ones – always find a way into my novels. Why, despite people telling me that having a sibling isn’t all it is cracked up to be, I never quite believe them.

The cliché about only children is that we are not good at friendships. We are too selfish, spoilt and probably a little socially maladjusted. This attitude was confirmed repeatedly while I was growing up. Being an only child in the ’70s and ’80s was a relative rarity, and it was often made clear to me that the absence of brothers or sisters gave me an in-built set of deficits.

I probably couldn’t share or play nicely, went the theory. I would be self-centred and spoilt. I was likely precocious and a bit “too adult”. The lack of rough-and-tumble with a sibling meant I’d be thin-skinned.

But while I likely had – still have – some of these traits, I also had something else: the only child’s exceptional skill of making friends at speed. On holiday as a kid, I learnt quickly how to ingratiate myself into the worlds of other children and their gangs of siblings. A smile, a hesitant amble in their direction across the sand, casually watching what they were doing for a few moments, waiting for the glance and the “Do you want to play with us?” and then nodding and settling in next to them to build sandcastles, cartwheel or play tip.

I knew, even then, to hold back. To not be too keen. To not show my hand. To be cool. And it worked. In primary school, I was always surrounded by friends. By age nine, I’d already clocked up four or five besties. By my teens, I’d added two more. At a new school, another. At university, my first male best friend.

Several more were added in my 30s, amid the whirlwind and isolation of early parenthood. In my 40s, when the same women groaned at the idea of socialising at the school gate, I’d feel happiness at the thought of finding my new people in this unfamiliar next stage of life.

Now in my 50s, I hope there will be more close friendships to come. And I’m optimistic. When I look at the older women around me, I’m struck by the way this skill for connection seems to grow as the decades tick by. Perhaps we know innately its importance, how it helps inoculate us against the isolation and loneliness we’re told are so harmful as we age.

But with those extra years comes nostalgia. I’m as ridiculously sentimental and wistful about old friends as others are about former romantic entanglements. I have regrets about those I lost touch with, or who drifted away.

There is one best friend whose name I frequently Google. My other half when we were in our early teens, we lost touch decades ago, but I’ve never stopped hoping that we find each other again. And while the search engine never comes up with anything new, I know I’ll keep trying.

The Gardens (HQ Books) by Emma Babbington is out now.

Get the best of Sunday Life magazine delivered to your inbox every Sunday morning. Sign up for our newsletter.