Do you have a best friend?

[Kazz]

As the title says "do you have a best friend" and what makes them the best friend? and how long have you been friends formchildhood last week and do you find they come and go as "things occur"?

[lynz85]

i would say right now, that my best friend is probably my OH! i have had a few 'best friends', you seem to chop and change when your at school, i do still keep in contact with all apart from one. since leaving school, they all moved away so you loose the closeness, you can chat over phone/internet but they make new friends and dont have as much time.

its really sad, my oldest friend, and the one who probably knows me the best, lives in dundee now. she'l often come for a visit down here, but not bother tell me and stay with another girl we met in secondary, the biggest reason im excluded is because i dont drink or smoke.

my last best friend, since hooking up with her boyfriend, shes off doing things with him and his family, despite me never excluding her just because my OH was there. i've also seen a new side to her im not too sure about. shes still my friend, but i dont know if she still classes me as her best friend, im her friend basically whenever it pleases her.

i do miss having a friend you spent practically all your time with and who knows everything, but being more grown up now work and family get in the way.

[Moli]

I have a few very close friends, I would say my best friend is my Son...

[babycakes]

I have a friend that I have known since I was 5 (34 years) and I have 4 other friends who I have known for about 23 years and we are all very close and even if I dont see her for a while we pick up where we left off.
I have a very close friends who I have known for 10 years and I have friends in work who I get on with really well and I know I will be in touch with for ever.
I am able to go to each and everyone of them for differing advice and support and we are not restrictive, jealous or pushy of each other

[Velvet]

Ive a couple - one from school days - that goes back :) & other from work.

[angieh]

My best and longest friendship is 48 years - met in the first year of secondary school. We don't see each other very often but when we do it's like we've never been apart. Have to say that I have never had the sort of friend that I would talk about everything to, and I think that has something to do with being an only child.

[PoshPuss]

My bestest friend (apart from Ceri) is my butty Susan. Were are only 10 weeks or so apart in age. We lived next door to each other until we were 18, she is more like a sister to me. We shared lots of interests growing up and although we parted and took different career paths we keep in touch every week, sometimes twice a week by phone, email etc.

She lives in Plymouth, but when Ceri had his stroke she came up every w/e to be with me and I try and be there for her when she needs me too. She had a bad divorce about 5 years ago, now she's happy in a new relationship. Neither of us have our 'own' kids but she's an auntie to my grandson and stepdaughter. She is family to all my siblings and because her parents are no longer alive considers my parents as her nearest eldest and dearest. She is a lifelong friend, always will be, miles can't separate us, ever :)

[pamela81]

My best friend is someone who was like an adopted sister to me. She was there whenever my sister and i didnt get on, i would tell her things and not my own older sister. I have known her since i was 13. She moved to New Zealand last year as her sister and the kids are there but she and her husband didnt get the visa they wanted so are coming home in August so will be great to have her back. I dont see much of her even when she is here but she has always been there if i have needed her in difficult times.

I also have an oldest friend but since she got with her first ever boyfriend 18month ago, she doesnt really talk to me now. She wouldnt come and see me when i stayed in Govan and i had to go over there if she wanted to see me. So a bit of an uneven friendship.

[Kazz]

Lots a really good stories, and Thank you all for sharing.

[CathyW]

my best friend was shanee, but sadly she died 3 years ago. still miss her dreadfully :(
i have a friend jo who when we was at school together we where *joined at the hip* and we caught up again about 18 months ago and we are in regular contact now. she came and stayed for a couple of days. and it was like the last 30 years just melted away. we talked non stop :)

[dandysmom]

I missed this the first time around. My close friend Hollis whom I've known since 1965 has been diagnosed with Alzheimers, and hardly remembers who I am; both Virginia (my breeder friend since 1987) and Nora ( from work in the 70s, and the one who got Leia for me) have died. But I still have Christopher, who you all have heard of, I've known him since the mid-80's. That's one thing about getting older, people die. And oddly enough, AS I was typing this I got a call from a former workmate that I haven't talked to in ages ... he got the e-mail with my new address that I sent to everyone; we had a nice long catch-up chat. Not a best friend, but an old friend, known him since 1952!!

[Kazz]

Almost forgot about this thread Eileen. Thanks for bringing it back.

But I am now wondering if all friends are technically "best friends" because they make you feel okay.

[Squirrel]

There is that Kazz...

It's bizarre - I've got 'best friends' on different levels. There are two people who I know mostly online (they living a bit far away for me to meet up with them regularly) and I only met one of them for the first time in the last month. They hear pretty well everything about me - one of them has been dealing with my stress out's for the last 5 years - over the internet!!! So they have to qualify as pretty good friends regardless.

The other, my RL 'best friend' is a bit of a strange one... She isn't terribly well - has been told at least twice if not three times in the last four years that she's got 6 months left to live, and the situation keeps getting more and more serious - this for someone whose still not yet 30 is very scary. She's the sort of person who becomes the 'best friend' of so many others. I'm sure there are lots of people who think about her that way. And yet, she can't think of us all as 'best friends'. I'm sure she thinks of us as very good friends, but there are two people she thinks of in that way. One being a childhood friend whose no longer living, and the other being someone who lives 'down south' and so she only sees occasionally. My friend has been rather adopted into her family.

Because of this I've rather come to wonder. Is someone really able to be a 'best friend' to so many others? or is 'best friend-ship' something that can only really be true if both parties think of the other as their 'best friend'?

I've had to accept that I'll never be the 'best' friend of the person I think of as my own 'best' friend, and that's been pretty hard going in some ways. As well as being pretty unwell, she's also got lots and lots of people who take up her time - that's not even going into the world of work, and yes, she's still somehow managing to hold down a job - so sometimes it seems like months go by and I never see her. I've had to learn lessons about jealousy, and the fact that my friend has the right to choose what she wants to do, and that it doesn't always have to include me. And I've had to learn how to keep those feelings to myself - or at least, not let her know about them, cause those feelings are mine to deal with. She really doesn't need to have to consider all of that along side everything else she has to cope with. What I need to do is enjoy what time we have together, cause things are very serious, and she is talking about choosing not to spend the last months of her life in hospital and going through op's which probably won't help, but rather, wanting to enjoy it. And I can see me really regretting it if I were to tell her those things. I can put up with a bit of extra head guff to work through, if it makes the last of her time here less difficult.

Is she accepting of where she's at? No, not really, she wants a miracle, and everyone else wants one for her, but...

Sorry for the rant!!!