Twisted sisters: on friendship & community

Minor spoilers for Grey's Anatomy seasons 1-12.

Even if you have never seen an episode of Grey's Anatomy, I personally (!) think this is still worth reading. The friendships in this show have had an unexpectedly wide impact on the way that many of us talk about the people in our lives; think of the phrases "pick me girl" and "my Person", which were incepted by Grey's. It's certainly influenced me over the 21 seasons (and counting) that I've grown up watching it. When thinking about the core friendships that are the heart of Grey's, I realised how much it has set an example for, and reflected back at me, my own friendships.

P.S If you're one of my beloved friends who is mentioned in this piece, please take nothing about these character comparisons too literally. I have merely identified one aspect about our friendship that I recognised in this silly TV show. We're all more functional and healthy human beings than the freaks that populate the world of Grey's Anatomy. I love you!

P.P.S My brain became soup writing and re-writing this essay. It's not perfect but I need it to leave my drafts :-)

Part 1: My person (Meredith and Cristina)

The two stars of early Grey's Anatomy, Meredith and Cristina, could be considered unpleasant people. They're both stubborn, unfriendly, prone to selfishness, competitive, excessively independent, messy, chaotic and emotionally volatile. And yet, they love each other with the fervency and loyalty that in most stories would be reserved for romantic soulmates. Meredith and Cristina are soulmates, just platonically; they're each other's 'person'. Many of their worst traits fall away when it comes to each other. They will be completely selfless, and even go against their own character (see: Cristina agreeing to be godparent to Meredith's kids) when the other person needs their support. There are the big moments - when Cristina faces a gunman in order to continue performing life-saving surgery on Meredith's husband - and the little ones, like when they grab each other for 'dance it out' breaks or get drunk together in Meredith's living room. Their friendship comes before every other relationship. They trust each other implicitly and refuse to sacrifice their 'person' for romance or marriage; Cristina continues to turn up in the mornings and climb into bed with Meredith for DMCs, even once Meredith's husband is also there.

I think when Grey's Anatomy started in 2005, Meredith and Cristina's friendship dynamic was not something we'd really seen before in mainstream media. Calling someone your "person" was a phrase that came into common parlance because of Meredith and Cristina - that's how influential their fictional relationship has been in the way that real people think about their loved ones. The female friendships I remember seeing on TV at that time largely took a backseat in comparison to women's romantic relationships with men. Although we were certainly given the impression that women could trust each other in a way they couldn't trust men, and that their friendships would outlast anything (see: Sex and the City, Friends, The O.C, etc), those women still tended to prioritise their romantic relationships with men when push came to shove. At the end of season 10 of Grey's, Meredith says to Cristina, "Derek is the love of my life, but you are my soulmate." Although their friendship is largely unspoken, when they do speak to it, it's very powerful. They don't shy away from the fact that they are central to each other's lives.

Their friendship is so compelling to me in large part because they could be seen as unpleasant, unpalatable women. They aren't even particularly warm toward each other, until the moments where it's really needed. They rarely hug, or say that they love each other. They're "dark and twisty" people, and are called "twisted sisters" by their friends. Both Meredith and Cristina experience ups and downs in their life circumstances and in their mental health; they go through periods of depression, anxiety, suicidality. They've both experienced significant trauma, and can find humour and connection in it. Theirs is a friendship that is genuinely tested in terms of how much they need from each other, yet their mutual support is seemingly limitless.

I see glimmers of Meredith and Cristina's friendship in my relationship with my best friend Amanda. We are not overly affectionate, despite being almost 17 years deep into our friendship. We almost never say that we love each other (it took almost 6 seasons for Meredith to say it to Cristina), and only usually hug when we're reunited after years apart (we haven't lived in the same country for 15 years). Despite our mutual struggle to be earnestly affectionate, we have been consistently there for one another when shit has hit the fan.

When Amanda went through a horrific breakup, I flew over and spent a week with her sorting out the admin of ending a relationship. When I had a mental health crisis during my university days, Amanda planned a month-long Europe trip with me, spent every day putting up with my misery and overanxious rambles about train routes, and we never really even had to discuss how I was feeling. It saved me anyway. That trip was a turning point in a really dark time of my life. When one of us gets bad news, we phone each other and process it out loud together. It's not all doom and gloom either; during the worry and boredom of the COVID lockdowns, we started calling each other for hours a day and reading books together (a tradition which we've managed to keep going to this day). I can see us reflected in the moments where Meredith and Cristina back each other unquestioningly, and will put aside everything else to survive something: like running from the altar or surviving a plane crash (thankfully things which neither me or Amanda have had to experience). We've chosen each other, and will continue to do so despite distance and changes in our respective lives.

Meredith and Cristina's shared sadness is balanced by their shared silliness - like dancing it out when everything gets too much, yapping in the mornings, downing tequila, good-naturedly competing for career opportunities. Amanda and I have numerous ridiculous running jokes (including a song about Liam Hemsworth, a man neither of us have any particular interest in) and have banked many hours watching Love is Blind. The sadness and the silliness are all part of the package. Meredith and Cristina's relationship seems strange, at least partly because they can both be so unlikeable (never to me though, I love them dearly), but it is a pillar in both of their lives. They're each other's best friend/soulmate/emergency contact/Person. Above all else. Although I might disagree that you're obliged to have just one person that you care about and trust this deeply, I love the example they set for how vital and how intimate friendship can be.

Part 2: Sisters (Meredith, Maggie and Amelia)

(MAJOR SEASON 10 & 11 SPOILERS IN THIS SECTION)

After Derek's horrific and tragic death, Meredith can't rely on Cristina - at this point actor Sandra Oh has left the show, hence Cristina is living in Switzerland. We're told that Cristina and Meredith call each other often, but Cristina doesn't ever reappear in Seattle. Meredith instead turns to Alex (we'll get to him next) and to her 'sisters' - half-sister Maggie who is new in her life, and sister-in-law (Derek's youngest sister) Amelia. Despite their loose connections, they bind together as a family. They refer to themselves as sisters. As a collective they co-parent Meredith's three kids, and take turns doing all the chores that keep a house running. They snark at each other (mostly affectionately). It's a practical partnership, but also a very loving one. Their relationship is redemptive, a second chance at family even; they treat each other in the way they wish they had treated people they've lost. For three people with complex biological family relationships, they find a functional and caring family as three women, sisters, raising three kids.

We talk about the concept of a 'chosen family', and this is exactly that. It's a very messy one, but it's characterised by practical support and love. This is the kind of relationship I've been able to build with some of my friends in recent years. Both me and Josh's immediate families live in other countries, but we're lucky to have friends who treat us like family; like Zanetti who drove us to the hospital when Josh had kidney stones, Sofia, Georgia and Claud who've delivered soup and snacks when me and/or Josh was sick, Jenny picking up Josh's korowai for his graduation and then picking it up again after they sent the wrong one, Joanna dropping off a card for me with a list of ways they can support me when I was having a rough time with my mental health, Evie and Nora letting us beg and borrow things from their house and use their oven for roast potatoes. The list goes on. We do (and always will) step up for these friends when they need us too. Our community is like whānau to us, of course because of the love and care, but crucially, because we're comfortable enough to inconvenience each other.

Part 3: Second-chancers (Meredith and Alex)

Alex officially steps in as Meredith's 'person' when Cristina moves to Switzerland. Their already close friendship levels up - they're now each other's go-to. Meredith turns up at his house to get his advice while he's in the shower, and he spends a day sleeping in Meredith's bed when he needs to escape the world after narrowly avoiding a prison sentence. They can fully trust and rely on each other, a relationship that is worlds away from Season 1 when they actively hated each other and barely acknowledged the other's existence.

They act like siblings. Even when they fight, they find their way back to each other. Alex is the one who searches the country to find Meredith when she flees Seattle, and brings her back home. He nurses her through her recovery from a life-threatening beating, even as he is devastated to witness her suffering. You don't expect them to love each other so much, because their friendship seems so unlikely to start with. They don't have a lot in common, aside from their penchant for recklessness and their die-hard loyalty to the people they love. They really only end up as best friends because they're the last two standing from their intern class.

My brother and I, though we got along well growing up, drifted apart as teenagers. He was 15 when I moved out of home, and we didn't try very hard to spend time together over the following nine years. During that period I still loved him enormously, and I know he would say the same about me. We just didn't have much in common or much desire to keep in closer contact. A few years ago when we were both in our mid-20s, we started to become genuine friends, on our own terms. I think of Ewan as one of my best friends now. We're still quite different people, but we've found commonality in our senses of humour, taste in music, and the way we see the world. He was my best man at my wedding, and sang as I walked down the aisle with Josh. We certainly never hated each other like Meredith and Alex did, but we did have the experience of discovering a friendship with someone who was on the periphery of our lives for a while. I like the idea that a relationship can have a second chance to be something different, and that our friendships might change or fluctuate over the years. It can be hard to accept that the people we love right now won't always love us in the exact same way. The flipside of that is that people can love us anew.

Part 4: The Grey House

I've lost count of the number of times my friends and I have discussed living in a commune together, but Meredith Grey actually made it happen (by accident). Over the course of the show, "everybody lived" in her house - from her intern years where they're all drunk or hooking up at any given time, to becoming a mum, when everyone pitches in to look after each other's kids. At one point, Callie, Meredith and Derek co-parent their collection of kids as a trio. Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners are hosted there many a time (inexplicably, because Meredith seems to hate hosting). Sometimes there are four housemates trying to get ready in the single bathroom at once, and nobody seems to care. People turn up at that house at any time, day or night, and find respite from the world. The house is a home to basically anyone that works at Grey-Sloan, and they're always welcomed if they need a place to be. I aspire to having a home where people will turn up uninvited. I want to be imposed upon! To be imposed upon is to be loved.

Particularly when third spaces (aside from those where you are required to spend money) are scarce, being comfortable in each other's homes and not having to worry about being 'guest-ready' is necessary. I don't want only to see my friends at a restaurant or a bar or an escape room, I also want us to just live with and beside each other. When I was living in Surrey in the UK, I spent several nights a week (and often weekends too) at my friend Eleanor's house. We would spend whole days on the sofa watching TV, and made frequent trips to the mini Tesco for snacks. I had so many sleepovers in that house! It felt like my own second home. Having that space together almost certainly brought us closer as friends. I know that as people get older and get married or have kids, their house tends to become a home for their immediate family only. My dream (however unrealistic it may be, by society's standards) is for friends to feel like they're welcome at each other's houses whenever they want to be, as whatever version of themselves they need to be that day. We should all feel free to be as weird/tired/grumpy/ugly/silly as we need to be, and to know our friends want to be with us regardless.

Ultimately, what I have loved so much about Grey's Anatomy over the years is that it continues to champion friendship and community. There's plenty of romantic drama in the show, but the most long-lasting and impactful relationships are always the friendships. For many years, I've valued my friends as being core to my life and happiness. I subscribe to the concepts of radical intimacy and relationship anarchy; I think you should love your friends with the ferocity that you love your partner and/or your whānau. We should feel obliged to be there for our friends, and to relish in the ties and commitments that come with loving people. I loved what Sally Rooney said about this in her novel Intermezzo:

“The demands of other people do not dissolve; they only multiply. More and more complex, more difficult. Which is another way, she thinks, of saying: more life, more and more of life.”

The messy web of beloved friends that keeps Meredith Grey alive is what makes Grey's Anatomy so good. I hope that - like Meredith - I can look back on my own life and know that I was a friend who was part of many webs, supporting the people I love and being supported in turn.