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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To wish I was somebody's best friend?

71 replies

lesley33 · 16/11/2011 15:54

I actually have lots of friends. But while they will often have a best friend, I am nobody's best friend. My DP just says its is common for DP's to be the best friend. But my DP does have a best friend. AIBU in wishing I could be someone's best friend?

OP posts:

TheScarlettPimpernel · 16/11/2011 19:32

If you want a best friend, why don't you go and buy a puppy?

Sorry

I think perhaps that might mean that you are very valued to lots of people, rather than focusing too much on one particular relationship? It probably says lots of good things about you :)

Hullygully · 16/11/2011 19:35

Now now.

The very words "best friend" imply a ranking and a pecking order, appropriate for age 13 perhaps, but certainly not now. It is much better to have a range of friends who fulfill different needs and can be called upon on different occasions. I have several that i love very much and who I think love me too. None of us would bother with "best friend" labels or worry about who was more important. Life is fluid and so is friendship. If you love them, that is what matters.

StepAwayFromTheEcclesCakes · 16/11/2011 19:37

oh hully a voice of reason, thank you

pranma · 16/11/2011 19:37

I have one best friend,one almost as close and an oldest friend [56 years now] so I feel fortunate.I don't have a very wide circle of friends though-just about 3 apart from the three mentioned'

Hullygully · 16/11/2011 19:40

Hully Voice of Reason Gully here

Original poster

lesley33 · 16/11/2011 19:54

Hully - I agree to some extent and I do have quite a few friends. However, the reality is that people do see some friends as more important than others and some occasions such as weddings make this clear. No we are not kids, so the - you are my bf thing really isn't appropriate. But that doesn't mean that people don't see some friends as more important than others

OP posts:

busybusybust · 16/11/2011 19:54

Yes, I have a 'best friend'. We are both single ladies (I am a widow, she is divorced) and go on holiday together, laugh together, and generally talk on the phone several times a week. I love her to bits!

But we seem to have fallen out over this last week - her fault - honestly it IS! But (sigh) someone has to make the first move - guess it will be me!

I'm much brighter and more emotionally intelligent than her .............. but she has so much more confidence and social skills than me. Honestly - I'd swap some of the brains for her social skills!!!!!

But I do love her and her me........................Mmmmmmmm - so who's going to make the first phone call?!!!!!

Really odd - but we are often taken for a pair of lesbians when we are away (although there is no physical stuff between us) - and to be honest, if we fancied each other it would be a perfect solution for both of us - but unfortunately we are both very hetero!

frumpet · 16/11/2011 20:03

I have a 'best' friend , she knows everything about me and my past and vice versa. We can continue conversations we started weeks ago ,picking up at the point we left them without any preamble, which DH finds bizzare . I love her like a sister . She now lives miles away ,but we talk often and usually manage to see each other once a week. When we are older and more wrinkly, we are going to bury our DH's under the patio and live with lots and lots of cats and other assorted animals . Without her i would be dead, divorced or depressed .

KittyFane · 16/11/2011 20:07

I have one or two good friends now but avoid the BF thing.
A woman at work refered to another colleague (friend of many) as her BF and it came across as a bit sad, as if she was marking her place above everyone else.
I've had lots good friends over the years - they have all been 'the best of friends' but none is more important than another to me.
I'm sure that each one has someone they regard as a closer friend but it doesn't matter I don't think.

vickyw11 · 16/11/2011 20:14

I have a large circle of friends with two or three that I would class as "best friends". My oldest friend is my old next door neighbour and we have been friends since we were toddlers. I have another two good friends, one of whom I see every Saturday whilst our girl's go dancing together and we have been friends since childhood. My other close friend is someone I meet recently at school and just seem to have hit it off. A true friend just seems to know when you need them and when my mum died in April, they were all there when I needed them. Even now, they regular "check up" on me.

I also have a large family with lots of cousins (but no siblings) and must say that my cousins make my life tolerable at times too.

I really think that as an adult, we can have different circles of friends and get (and give) different things to each group.

girlynut · 16/11/2011 20:24

I have a "best friend" who is godmother to my children and was present when my youngest was born. She would always have been the person I'd go to in a crisis.

However, in recent months we've been in contact less and less and a few weeks ago we had an argument and fell out. I was having a rough time and feeling low and her response was that I should stop my continual moaning and just leave my husband, quit my stressful job and drop out of college. Not the sympathetic approach I'd expected.

I miss her but I've thought long and hard about what makes a best friend and it ain't someone who criticises you when you're struggling to cope.

I don't know if I'll make another best friend easily and that makes me sad.

Towndon · 16/11/2011 20:28

I'd settle for some good friends where I live TBH. Mine are all spread around the country, including best friend several counties away!

Towndon · 16/11/2011 20:28

But YANBU, and I'm lucky to have these friends of course :)

HardCheese · 16/11/2011 20:35

I'm with Hully - I associate the 'best friend' phenomenon with teenagers and younger children, and with a slightly juvenile or socially-insecure sense of ranking/pecking order. I also think the idea of the Bestest Friend being someone you can run to at 3 am in a crisis/ who is Always There For You/ will always choose you as bridesmaid/godmother etc etc smacks of the same kind of all-or-nothing thinking that gave us the idea of 'The One' in romantic relationships.

(Oddly, I think most of us are more realistic about romantic relationships than friendships nowadays - we're OK with the casual shag, the 'Mr Right Now', that it's OK to be single etc, but perhaps because sex isn't involved, we have much more purist ideas about what an ideal female-female friendship should be, and that we should always be in one ...?)

isthisdirtyorclean · 16/11/2011 20:48

Hi - just joined up, and this is my first MN post. I just wanted to say, I think YANBU. It's great having a really intimate friend who you can tell everything to. But I used to have one and realised that it had become like an abusive marriage. She was the most loving friend one minute, then knowing all my weaknesses, could easily make me feel bad with a passing put-down. Here's an example. She moved abroad to a very posh city. I visited her a few times and once I asked, "So where are the best clothes shops round here? Where do you go?" and she said very dismissively that she wasn't that interested, because she didn't "follow fashion" like me!! (NB she was very stylish). It took a while before I realised I was OK and she had a problem. Then I sort of let the friendship slide. I felt bad because I thought I should have confronted her and resolved the tension I felt, but now I'm older I know you can't always do this. It was a great learning experience - I realised that my "casual" friends were in fact much more loyal and important. People who never got that close, but were always there with a kind word. I really value these non-best-friends now.

BTW, I think it's quite mean when people refer to their "best friend" in front of you. It really excludes you and makes you feel second-best.

Meta4 · 16/11/2011 20:59

Totally agree with Hully. I associate the best friend thing with childhood.

I have a handful of friends - not loads - but they all have their individual place in my life, and none of them could replace another.

I do have one friend, though, who despite being in her late twenties, has a best friend, followed by a second best friend, followed by a third, fourth, fifth... you get the picture. I don't tend to apply a hierarchy to the people in my life!

KittyFane · 16/11/2011 21:27

Isthisdirty (Hello!) I also think that going on about BF's is rude. I tell DD not to do it- it's mean to make her other friends feel second-best I agree.

PumpkinBones · 16/11/2011 21:58

I have my oldest friend, a couple of other people I have met along the way, and probably my closest friend for some time now has been someone I met just a couple of years ago - we just "clicked" in a way you don't seem to as much when you get into adulthood.

I'm certainly not part of a circle of friends though, and I do put this down to moving around a lot at school. It's interesting that others say their confidence around friendships was "knocked" at this time.

Towndon · 16/11/2011 22:27

Agree, it makes you feel like you haven't met the standard in some way. Not nice too when someone you've been close friends with casually drops their "best friend" into the conversation when previously you were referred to either as best friend or you thought you were among their best friends.

"I think it's quite mean when people refer to their "best friend" in front of you. It really excludes you and makes you feel second-best."

wildheaven · 16/11/2011 22:32

I know exactly what you mean. I have plenty of friends, busy social life, lots of friends from different bits of my life that I'm in regular contact with - school, uni, work, and fellow parents. But I've never been a bridesmaid and nobody has asked me to be a godparent. So I do feel sad that I've never actually been considered that special a friend by anyone. I don't waste my life feeling sad about it though, but... I getcha OP.

ViviPru · 16/11/2011 22:34

Another humble disciple here of Hully's Final Word On Best Friends. This thread has really made me think. And feel so grateful for my assorted pals who all bring something slightly unique to my existence and negate the need for a best friend.

Although I often tell houndfeatures she's my best friend. Stinky mutt.

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