POPFESSIONS

Of course, Westlife were already starting to ruin things other than their musical legacies. I used to be best friends with this girl since we were five year olds attending the same morning masses and Wednesday night Rainbow unit - and eventually the same class in school. We always ended up grouped together through height and academic levels, and I supposed that this perceived closeness deluded me somewhat. Our friendship took a few knocks - we went to separate secondary schools where she formed closer links with the same crowd and I struggled with the new cliques I was parachuted into; she clearly already had a best friend already and I was just someone weird that they couldn’t shake off and we both had differing levels of Westlife fandom.

At the start of Westlife’s imperial period, the best friend and I were thirteen year old Girl Guides. Thursday night meetings were the only time we could get together following these changes to our circumstances, and our meeting discussions were clearly excuses to talk about boys and teachers rather than organising activities for our badges. 

The best friend was talking about how she was going to see them on the Smash Hits tour and then on their own tour the next year. We were discussing the Westlifers we liked, to which I happily enthused about lovely Shane’s perfect features and hoped we could have a slightly fun argument comparing the best haircuts triggering from that.

“Oh no, real fans don’t have favourite members” my friend said. I felt a bit patronised, as if my friend failed to switch off after coralling Brownies in another hall, but I also had the feeling that I just cut into her feelings about Mark and Bry(i)an in some way. We had this healthy relationship, despite being in the same choirs, reading streams and Guiding units - and now we had to one-up each other. The best friend achieved perfect academic grades and social relationships, all whilst in the comfy world of Westlife fandom. Me, I floundered a little and flitted through group to group, all while trying to find a new favourite band as a result.

I was only reminded of this in a busy bus trip one afternoon, where a couple of thirteen-year old girls bitched about their friend who was unhealthily obsessed with the Irish twelve-year old off One Direction and wasn’t a “real fan”. It was heartening to hear, knowing that seemingly close friends are still falling out over boybands, but I felt lucky that my own break-up was not triggered by Twitter trending topics.

Westlife are over, but not before a farewell tour which I’m sure my best friend bought the tickets for on the morning of sale. I’m not going to lie and say they will survive through the music, but I might just watch their appearance on the SM:TV Pokefight a bit more.