the friend zone

bridget allen + elise mackie

ELISE (R): Eight years ago, I bought a one-way ticket to London. I’d just started teaching and realised how full-on it was, so I decided to go see the world. I’d never been overseas before and had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t pack any clothes and had a briefcase as carry-on.

I remember seeing Bridget before I got on the flight and she looked like a serious traveller. We started talking because we had the same stopover in Seoul – she was really friendly and helpful – and we ended up having dinner at the airport together (a dirty old fruit salad). It was pretty polite conversation at that point. When we got off the plane at Heathrow, we exchanged Hotmail addresses, but I didn’t think I’d hear from her again.

Within a couple of weeks, Bridget had emailed me to get a drink at the pub. It was there we realised we had all these mutual friends, and we ended up bonding over our terrible living situations – I was staying in a crazy sharehouse of 15 people. We decided to look for a place together; as soon as we moved in, we were inseparable! We’d come home from our jobs, have some wine, then book flights to all these places in Europe. We were always looking for our next adventure.

At one point, we moved into a house with an awful guy who thought we lived a lavish life – he said we used the heater too much and did too much washing. Towards the end, he got so full-on, telling us we’d better watch our backs. I think that experience really cemented our friendship. We lived together in London for just under two years – I wouldn’t have stayed for as long as I did if it weren’t for Bridget. When she went back to Australia for Christmas, I missed her so much. That’s