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Post by quaco on Sept 9, 2021 18:28:46 GMT
How many of you have a best friend?
"I called up my best friend and said..." "Went on a vacation with my best friend..." etc. I see and hear people say those words often, but I can't tell if it's their one, single best friend (who presumably would reciprocate), or if it just means "one of my best friends".
Besides my wife, I can't really say I have a best friend. There are people I'd call in an emergency, or whom I would trust with a secret. But I've never checked with them that I'd be the same for them. Can I then call them my best friend? Is it a relationship that has to be agreed-upon, or can you call someone your best friend, but they might have a different best friend?
I think I did have a best friend in elementary school, but that changed. He changed! Maybe that's the root of my issues...
Thoughts?
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Post by oh oooh on Sept 9, 2021 18:55:38 GMT
I don't have a best friend. I have a small number of close friends, but only one I spend actual 'real life' time with regularly - and that's Gonzo in Whitehaven. I was best man for two good friends but they both live in different parts of the country and I hardly ever see them (actually I'm meeting one in Bucharest in a fortnight). I send audio messages to one close friend almost daily but haven't seen him in years. Another is in Prague and we send nonsense to each other on Messenger. And so on.
It's true that you don't really make any new best friends after you're 20 or so.
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Post by Half Machine Lipschitz on Sept 9, 2021 18:57:37 GMT
I think my feelings on the subject slash situation are pretty much the same. I had a best friend in elementary school (actually I had three friends back then that I called my best friends, but they weren't friends with one another), but when my family moved away after I finished grade 8, we fell out of contact quite quickly.
I have good friends - ones that'll gladly meet up for a drink or six - but I definitely don't think I'd ever refer to any of them as "my best friend". I would kinda even feel weird calling B my best friend, even though she and I are the closest thing each other has to a best friend.
For me, it's a concept rooted in childhood because it never lasted beyond my childhood.
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Post by quaco on Sept 9, 2021 18:58:52 GMT
I don't have a best friend. I have a small number of close friends, but only one I spend actual 'real life' time with regularly - and that's Gonzo in Whitehaven. I was best man for two good friends but they both live in different parts of the country and I hardly ever see them (actually I'm meeting one in Bucharest in a fortnight). I send audio messages to one close friend almost daily but haven't seen him in years. Another is in Prague and we send nonsense to each other on Messenger. And so on. It's true that you don't really make any new best friends after you're 20 or so. Everybody moves around, and it's hard to have a real daily best friend unless you see them all the time. I suppose it could happen with somebody you meet at work and find you live nearby to and have a lot in common. When you're thrown together, as in school or the army, you naturally pick people and stick with them.
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Post by quaco on Sept 9, 2021 19:00:22 GMT
I think my feelings on the subject slash situation are pretty much the same. I had a best friend in elementary school (actually I had three friends back then that I called my best friends, but they weren't friends with one another), but when my family moved away after I finished grade 8, we fell out of contact quite quickly. I have good friends - ones that'll gladly meet up for a drink or six - but I definitely don't think I'd ever refer to any of them as "my best friend". I would kinda even feel weird calling B my best friend, even though she and I are the closest thing each other has to a best friend. For me, it's a concept rooted in childhood because it never lasted beyond my childhood. Well, you always see people's posts saying "Happy anniversary to my wife, a great mother, and my best friend". I mean, OF COURSE!
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~ / % ? *
god
disambiguating goat herder
Posts: 5,532
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Post by ~ / % ? * on Sept 9, 2021 19:25:10 GMT
Lost mine in a harrowing listening experience.
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Post by souphound on Sept 9, 2021 20:53:42 GMT
I do have one. Met this person about 7 years ago. There have been occasions where this status has been tested through necessity, especially in the last two years. I have my proof. That's all I need.
Much like finding the one tat's meant to be your life partner, you do not go looking for a "best friend". It just happens. You just have to open the door at the right time, and be there when the knock comes.
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toomanyhatz
god
I've met him/her. He/she's great!!
Posts: 3,242
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Post by toomanyhatz on Sept 9, 2021 22:20:52 GMT
I do have a friend that I'm most likely to refer to as my 'best friend'. I've known him since 1975, and we've never been out of touch for too long. He was Best Man at our wedding. If someone asks if I have a best friend, I'd probably say him (well, him and my wife, anyway). But I don't go around referring to him that way really. Amusing side note - I have another close friend that I've known for many years who I invited to be a groomsman. His response was that he'd be honored to be "second-best man." I have a lot of people in my life that I don't talk to often but I consider to be faithful friends (as in, I trust whenever I DO see them we can just pick up where we left off and not have to reestablish the friendship). There are a few of them here, in fact (including Quaco, who met both my wife AND my best friend before he met me). (And yes, said "best friend" is a former BCBer. He would probably refer to me and DtfB as his two best friends. In fact, I think he has.)
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Post by Charlie O. on Sept 10, 2021 0:12:44 GMT
I do have a friend that I'm most likely to refer to as my 'best friend'. I've known him since 1975, and we've never been out of touch for too long. Same here, down to the year. In actual fact I haven't seen him in ages, although we do text or e-mail each other every so often.
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Post by tory on Sept 10, 2021 18:36:27 GMT
My best friend isn't really that any more. We are still in contact but our rhythms of life are different. To a certain extent, having children does put you in a different cycle to those without them, particularly when they are young. Furthermore, he's something of a hermit and has never been the "let's meet up and go for a drink" sort of person - he gets his partner to do it for him. After years of being the person that said "Let's do something" I just gave up because I felt a little aggrieved that it was always me doing it. Covid didn't help that either.
In some respects too, we've drifted apart. We were closely involved in music for a long time and now I am no longer in that world whilst he is very much immersed in it - he makes and produces music, whilst I have lost my interest or passion for what he does. We still send each other a birthday present. I think the drift of my politics towards a Brexit/Conservative position has lost me a few friends from the circle that we are both a part of. Other people (not necessarily people I know) talk of the same thing, in that they lost friends because of their political orientation.
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Post by sloopjohnc on Sept 10, 2021 23:13:22 GMT
I have around 4-5 really close friends I have known since elementary school. As Dave wrote, we may not talk very often, but I can give them a call and we can talk about anything and do. We all have different roles too in that cadre.
Even though we're all grown men with families, most of us anyway, we all kinda adopt those original roles we had when we were in our original "gang." I have probably stretched out of that role a little more than others. I used to be pretty quiet when younger, but being away from those friends in college and after, made me adopt and adapt a personality, for better or worse, more than I had to in high school. All my friends were known as the funniest guys in school and we're voted that in high school yearbooks. I always kinda wondered what they saw in me to let me hang around, but funny people appreciate funny people, so maybe I had a little of that going for me.
I wonder what they'd say.
Quaco and Hatz have met one of those guys. I took one to see Jim play and Hatz hung out with the two of us at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass one year. Minnie has met him too and I think she hated the ride home where I dropped off my friend in Berkeley because there were so many inside jokes we shared.
In jr. high and high school, my group widened so I'd say outside od those four or five really close friends, I have another four or five that are almost as close. Facebook is good at keeping in contact with that.
I use to really try and attend parents' funerals or events I was invited to in the Bay Area to connect and show my respect, but now that I'm away, I think some of those friendship will wane to a degree. And you can sense when some people just aren't interested anymore.
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Post by bungo the mungo on Sept 11, 2021 13:00:38 GMT
Minnie has met him too and I think she hated the ride home where I dropped off my friend in Berkeley because there were so many inside jokes we shared. anymore info on that ride home? was minx simmering? she must have hated not being the centre of attention.
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Post by sloopjohnc on Sept 11, 2021 13:06:37 GMT
Minnie has met him too and I think she hated the ride home where I dropped off my friend in Berkeley because there were so many inside jokes we shared. anymore info on that ride home? was minx simmering? she must have hated not being the centre of attention. I think there was a little of that. My friend, Kevin, is a pretty funny guy - he was one of my two friends who was voted funniest in our class every year - he switched off with another friend every year. I think it was hard for her to keep up in American. The hardest part is he's not one of those over the top funny people so it's hard to get outwardly mad at him because he's not cracking "jokes" all the time. We've been friends since first grade - six years old. Kevin was in music publishing and I discovered this video of him being interviewed while he worked for a music publisher. He's the guy on the right if you want to see what one of my best friends is like.
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Post by bungo the mungo on Sept 11, 2021 13:09:34 GMT
yes, but what about minx?
how was she showing her displeasure?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2021 13:13:30 GMT
Give it a rest A, for goodness sake.
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