My New Best Friend
I want trying to talk to Q the other day about one of my two best friends.
See, I have two BFFs, if you will. One, E, I met in high school when I chose her out of a pile of applications to be my costuming assistant for Charlie’s Aunt (in odd news, the guy who played Charlie’s Aunt in this play is the guy I made out with New Year’s Eve 2009. I know, right?). She lives in Denver, is getting married this summer (hence why I was trying on bridesmaid dresses) and while we aren’t much alike (she teaches yoga, likes dogs when I like cats, and enjoys florals and pastels), she’s been an amazing rock in my life. The other, A, lives in Seattle, and I was bemoaning having not heard from her in a while. We met the first day of orientation in college, at auditions for a show we both wound up in. We’re a lot more similar than E and I; she’s also very nerdy, kinky, a writer (better than I am), social justice-y, etc. However, she lives far away, and we’ve been having issues with touching base as of late. I miss her.
Regardless, I was talking to Q about A, and how I missed her, and wished we could be back at our “best friend” level we’ve maintained for so many years. She was having trouble understanding why I was upset at having not gotten to talk to her much lately (read: several weeks, where as E and I talk on the phone at least once a week, and text/facebook much more), so I asked her how often she talked to her best friend, who I assumed to be one of our mutual friends in Denver that I met at the same time I met her.
But it wasn’t. She met me with a blank stare. “What do you mean?”
“You know, how often do you talk to ___ or ____?”
She looked at me again. “But you’re my best friend. They’re not. I talk to you everyday.”
I hadn’t ever thought about it that way. I mean, I tell her everything, we share so many things together (from the good to the bad, funny to serious). But I mean, she’s my partner. And that’s different than a best friend, right?
So I thought on it. I mean, what is a best friend? Someone you can share parts of yourself with that you might not be able to share with anyone else? Someone to support you when you have successes, and someone to pick you up when you fall? Someone with whom you can laugh at silly things, and discuss serious subjects with? Someone who will actually tell you when something DOESN’T look good on, and when you have spinach stuck in your teeth?
Q is all of these thing to me, and more. She accepts me completely, whether that’s being in the adult industry/sex education, or prancing around the house, naked but for my leopard print snuggie. She sends me links to things that will make me smile, and to things that will make me thing. She cooks for me. She fights for me when I need help. She validates me. These are all things I expect from (or have expected from) E and A…so how is Q any different?
I’m not sure. Can your partner be your best friend? If so, can you still have other best friends? And if they can’t be your best friend, then what are they? What IS a best friend, and how do YOU define it?
I’m leaving this open ended, as I’d love to hear thoughts from others.
-Essin’ Em
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Yes.
I share more than just sex with my partner. I share my life with him.
He is my best friend and my rock.
100% yes.
YES your partner can be your best friend. And, truly, who else do you share your life with on such an intimate and complete level?
YES you should still have other best friends. They help keep you well-rounded and whole and balanced and can give you that outside perspective when you need it.
When I was a child, I had two friends who were obsessed with who was my “best” friend, and insistent that only one of them could have the title. That impressed upon me early the politics involved in friendship, and I’ve sort of shied away from the “best friend” label since then…
That having been said, absolutely my partner is one of my closest friends; she and I are both solitary people who don’t need a lot of social interaction for us to feel overwhelmed by people — so most of our socializing is couple-time, really. And that seems to work for us.
Still, I have two very dear friends from my earlier life — both of whom I’ve been close to since adolescence — that I will work hard to remain in touch with, despite the fact that neither of them live close enough to see on a regular basis. And I also count my family members as close friends, who provide a lot of the practical and emotional support of solid friendships.
This discussion kinda reminds me of the reluctance I’ve seen among some people to name their spouse/significant other/partner a “family member” — as if that identity is reserved for blood relatives only. I respect the point, but I also don’t know that it’s very meaningful (at least to me) to make that distinction. My partner and I have a home together, now, as two adults; “home” has shifted away (or at least expanded) from my family-of-origin space. And she and I share many of the responsibilities towards each other that my family-of-origin and I have shared.
I think intimate relationships each have their own unique flavor, sure, but I think all of those different roles (best friend, family member, partner) overlap significantly…and I see a partner — especially a long-term one — as embodying aspects of all three.
Yes, yes yes. I am currently single, but in all the meaningful relationships in my life, my partner has been my best friend. Interestingly enough, both people that I am thinking of remain my best friends, even though we are no longer romantically involved. They are the people I could share everything with, and still do.
That said, I think it is good to have a best friend, or at least a close friend, that is not your partner. Someone you can share with, who you can complain to, and who you can gush about your relationship with. As other commenters have said, balance is essential.
I don’t have any best friends outside of my friendship with Master, but I have long maintained that your partner must absolutely have been a best friend first.
Any good relationship starts with a friendship. I count those I have loved among my best friends, even if things did not work out.
I think both. I absolutely think one’s partner should also be one’s best friend, because I wholeheartedly believe that the foundation of a good romantic partnership is trust and communication — the ability and desire to confide in each other and support each other and listen to each other and all that. So I definitely think my partner is (and should be) my best friend.
But, I also think, for me (and maybe even for everyone?), it’s really, really important to have that kind of “best friend” relationship with someone else outside of my romantic partnership. I need and want to have other truly trusting and deep relationships with people in my life. Partly this is so that when things in my primary partnership are upsetting me, I have someone else to call to help me work through it until I’m able to communicate about it effectively with my partner. But mostly this is just because I love loving, and I love being loved, and I don’t think there’s a limit on how much of that we can have in our lives (well, until you become too busy to maintain it!).
To sum it all up: I <3 best friends of all sorts. ;)
it’s funny to make a distinction of who i do and don’t consider “best friends” when i can’t for the life of me define the term, but…i don’t think of (and never have) jamie as my best friend. i have, from very early on, thought she was the most perfect thing that ever happened to me, but somehow i think of her very much as my girlfriend (fiance, ahem *blush*), and of that as very different. (perhaps partly because calling her my “friend” reeks of covering/euphemism, come to think…)
on the other hand, i generally would call jake my best friend, and would have said the same when we were dating. frankly, we make better friends than lovers anyhow. and i think there is some part of callous honesty between us that would never work (for me) in a capital-r-relationship. i suppose that is a distinguishing factor.
i have to second whoever said it’s important to have best friends not your lover (even if she were *one* of them). i was bemoaning to jamie the other night that i hardly have any friends any more (it was one of those nights), and that, really, jake is about my only close friend. it occurred to me then that, while that might be a bit pathetic, it is a vast improvement over when me and her were dating *and* she was my only close friend =D