Let’s Talk About Friendship
I’ve never been comfortable with having a “best friend.” To me that phrase brings me right back to middle school, the constant anxiety of status and kids counting off well, Mal is my best friend but Vicki is my second-best but last week Mal was flirting with Sam so Vicki might be my best now, but Megan is definitely third. Just me? Anyway, “best” just never made sense, and as I’ve grown out of that I’m really thankful that fewer and fewer people seem to put friendship in those terms. I have people in my life that I value, whom I support and who support me, new and old, and that’s pretty great.
Maybe I’m just being defensive about it because I’ve never felt like I had a “best” friend. There is no Abbi to my Ilana (Ilana to my Abbi? I think I exhibit each of their best qualities). My theory is that my trust issues manifested in a way that let me have no qualms about telling people a ton of information and secrets about myself, because that let me control what information was out there. You’re my friend? Cool, you get to hear about my homework and my crushes and my period, even if you’re a guy. You’re hearing about it from me so you don’t hear about it from anyone else. Nobody is special. I mean hi, I’m a blogger. I just told you all of this. The only person who probably counts as my “best” friend in the sense of knowing me deeper and darker than anyone is my husband and uuughgghghhghhghggh gross.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t have close friends that aren’t incredibly special. There’s absolutely a built-up trust system that happens after years of these revealing conversations, and I am ride or die for my friends. I was just always worried to call one “best.”
Anyway now that you know all about my social life and horrible anxieties, here’s the essay on A Practical Wedding that got me thinking about them. In general, I do think friendship can get harder as we get older, just because it’s not a relationship we’re taught to really value. I mean, of course we’re supposed to value it, but not in the way we value romance or our careers, which is a shame because those relationships often overlap very heavily with friendships! We’re supposed to put work into our romantic relationships and into our jobs and passions, and rely on our friends to be there when that other work gets hard. Friendship is sold as the effortless relationship, the one that’s there no matter how long you’ve dropped it, and of course there are those friends who you haven’t talked to for months and then can pick up the phone and it’s like nothing’s changed, but that’s maybe not an excuse to not make an effort.
If there’s one thing I appreciate about adult friendship, though, it’s that I feel like my friend group is getting more diverse. Not in a token way, but growing up all my friends came from school or camp. That means they mostly lived in my neighborhood or came from the same socioeconomic group as me. Now as adult, when I become friends with someone we may live in the same area, but there’s a greater chance we’ll have different backgrounds and life experiences. That’s really valuable.
Go read it, and come back and tell me about your friendships. Do you have a best friend? Do you have a wide group of acquaintances, none of whom you feel particularly close with? Do you have no friends at all and like it like that? Do all your friends look like you? Like, do you plan your outfits and haircuts to match because you both always wanted a twin and you’ve both changed your names to “Kim Kardashian” because really you were meant to be triplets and she just doesn’t know it yet but one day you’ll meet and she won’t be creeped out at all because it’s destiny???