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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ask if you have a best friend?

86 replies

HexagonalQueenOfEverything · 02/07/2012 23:51

I don't have one and sometimes it seems as though the rest of the world does! I had one at school but the 'best' friend bit never continued into adulthood. I've met a couple of people in adult life I'd like to be best friends with too, only for them to refer to someone else as their best friend.

It does bother me a bit. Not a huge amount but I do sometimes with I had the security and closeness of a best friend.

OP posts:

DamselInTornDress · 03/07/2012 11:07

I don't have a best friend. I thought I did, but 12 years living in different countries changed all that when we met up again.

I go with what Kipling says:

if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

KellyElly · 03/07/2012 11:12

I have three best friends who are more like like sisters to me. We all went to school together.

GetOrfMoiiLand · 03/07/2012 11:17

I had two best friends - one who I met through work 10 years ago and we were very very close, but she moved to bastarding new Zealand. I miss her very much, it is hard when someone moves to a drastically different time zone, I often think 'ooh I will just ring Sue' and then I realise that she will be at work in NZ.

My other best friend I met when dd was a baby, I love her to bits, but when we meet now we often sit in silence as we have nothing in common any more. We end up reminiscing about when we were younger and the laughs we had when we were close. It is a bit sad.

amillionyears · 03/07/2012 11:24

I agree with that getOrfMoiiLand.One of my friends has got kids so much younger than mine.It is like she is 15 years behind me.We are still very good friends and I love playing with her children,but to me,I feel like I am going back in time.

GetOrfMoiiLand · 03/07/2012 11:29

It's really sad isn't it. We live in different towns which makes things hard, but she still lives with her mum and dad at 34, and still goes out on the piss every Friday and Saturday night on the pull. The only things she cares about are getting a new peugeot every 3 years and Take That concerts. She thinks I am a boring bastard and a bit of a geek. We have nothing in common. Which is sad because I love her like a sister really.

weasar · 03/07/2012 11:32

I dont think I've ever really had one best friend, like I imagine other people to have.
no one I know everything about, knows everything about me, known for years, 100% comfortable around etc etc.
With my 2 sisters however I feel all of this so I always say they are my best friends!

lowfatiscrap12 · 03/07/2012 11:44

I've got some good female friends, but my best friend could only ever be my sister. There's nobody on earth who knows me as well, and who I can relax with as easily. No friend could ever match up to my sister. I think that's why I back off slightly when friends get too close suffocating because I already have that really close, confessional friendship with my sister, and don't need any other.

EmilieFloge · 03/07/2012 11:50

yes, I have. He's a man, which is fine with me, and we can talk about everything.
I feel very lucky.

I have had a succession of best friends since starting school, the first was lovely, she moved away when she was 9 but we kept in touch with letters...she still keeps it up but i feel like we have drifted apart as we have totally different lives and she keeps moving around in the USA so I lose her address all the time

Then I had another from 11 to about 14, again we drifted, we aren't in touch now. And another from 15 to about 24 but I became very ill (ED) then and she went abroad and got married, and her life went very much to plan and mine went all wrong so we didn't stay close.
I met my longest friend at 21 and we stayed very close until she died in 2010 of cancer. I miss her very much.

So my now best friend is the boy I met when I was also 15 and have known for 23 years through various ups, downs and relationships in both our lives, and we promised to marry each other by forty if neither of us had found anyone better

So we have about a year to do this

EmilieFloge · 03/07/2012 11:51

I feel sad reading the sister ones. Me and my sister have periods of being very, very close indeed and she is like no other, and then I'll do something that pisses her off and she'll rant at me then not speak to me for a year or two...currently she is angry that I am pregnant again, and won't talk to me at all.

It makes me grieve every time. I love her so much but boy oh boy she is a difficult one.

Cheriefroufrou · 03/07/2012 11:57

"No best friend here either. I think the term is a bit childish anyway"

its such a different relationship to other friendships that it seems funny to not distinguish it, it'd be like introducing your husband or sister as "just" a friend - when they are a whole different level of closeness. Does that make sense SoleSource ? if its childish to distinguish your best friend then IMO its childish to distinguish your partner. Which it isn't. It would be odd if you met someone who told you a story about "a friend" and it turned out they were talking about their husband or brother IMO

Spuddybean · 03/07/2012 11:58

i had 2 'best friends' 1 since we were 3 and the other (latecomer) joined us when we were 5. The 3 of us were very close and did everything together.

Best friend 1 is now with my exH and best friend 2 never spoke to me again after i found out best friend one was seeing my husband. So now i am completely alone and have no friends at all. (all other friends stopped contact with me too when it all came out too)

It is very lonely when you have such close relationships to go to having nothing. It has taken me 2 years to mourn them all (it feels like a mass bereavement - we didn't even argue, everyone just stopped answering emails, calls and letters). One day they were there and the next day gone. I even sent some very heartfelt letters about desperately needing them and that i didn't see why they couldn't still be friends with me and the other 2. ExH even had a word as he was very upset on my behalf. But none of them would even say why they had made this group decision.

It is very hard at 35 to start completely again. As most friends you make are thru mutual friends and connections. But if you have absolutely none then you are just a weirdo stranger talking to randoms with the stench of desperate loneliness oozing from every pore.

Cheriefroufrou · 03/07/2012 12:00

my best friend passed away. I have lots of close friends but I don't think it's possible to ever have another best friend relationship with anyone else. We grew up together - you can't re-create that!. Loosing your best friend affects you differently to loosing another friend as you loose a part of you, its like when you loose a family member.

Cheriefroufrou · 03/07/2012 12:05

I think its rare to form a new "best friendship" as an adult. You just don't live in friends pockets the same way as an adult so you can never know each other as intimitely! Most best friends are people who at some point you spend all day every day just hanging around with (who has time to spend that much time with friends as an adult?) or you shared a flat at uni/after school and went on holidays or travelling together and just had a level of intimacy and sheer QUANTITY of time spent together that you just can't do with friends once people develop their adult lives with partners and children and careers etc.

So its so much more like family then friends in that respect

BonnieBumble · 03/07/2012 12:06

No I don't. I have had a couple of people who have called me their "best friend" and I'm ashamed to say that I distanced myself from them after that. I don't like to feel that I have a responsibility to someone else if you know what I mean? Having a husband was a big enough shock for me. I don't need another one.

A few years ago I met a woman and she was just too intense for me, she expected us to see each other every day and wanted our families to go on holiday together. It was too much pressure for me. I like my space.

knittynoodle · 03/07/2012 12:06

I have one best friend who I have known since school. However I do seem to have fleeting intense friendships with people that fizzle out after a year. I am still trying to work out if it's them or me!

knittynoodle · 03/07/2012 12:07

I think like Bonnie, I distance myself when people call me their 'best friend'. I get bored easy!

Spuddybean · 03/07/2012 12:08

Agree cherie i will never let myself feel that about anyone way again. The pain was cataclysmic. Even if i could i would never risk being so hurt again.

When i mourned my loss i also mourned my innocence, that trusting person in me died and i visibly aged over a period of 3 months. There is a deep sadness in me which is always present.

I am 32 wks pregnant now and all i think is apart from DP i have no one to share this with. No one to laugh with. No one to confide in. No one to call after the baby's born. No one to show pictures to.

Sorry - feeling a bit sorry for myself at the moment.

bacere · 03/07/2012 12:14

I have three and they are so alike but I am so different from them! No 1 known from school, no2 known since birth of pfbs and no 3 known through parents being good freinds. I am very lucky but unfortunately we are miles apart would be lovely if we could just meet up now and again without it only being phone/text/once a year now.

Cheriefroufrou · 03/07/2012 12:15

"I am 32 wks pregnant now and all i think is apart from DP i have no one to share this with"

that's it isn't it, you can "update" friends, you can "catch up" with them, but there's always that sort of.. limit as to how much you can bore them about your kids, or how much you can moan to them without them getting sick of you, or how much of your bad mood you can show to them when you're feeling grumpy... but a best friend is like family in that respect, I'm not saying you can/should take them for granted and take things out on them..... but you don't have to worry about them seeing you at your absolute worst the relationship will always be there, just like someone will always be your brother even if they go through a shitty few years! your best friend is always your best friend even if you go through an awful phase/ take a pill that doesn't suit you and turns you into satan for a few months etc.

You are "there" for oridinary friends, but you live your best friends life with them in a more feeling way.. even if you don't get to physically meet that often if life takes you that way.. if one of you is anxiously awaiting say exam results, the other one is counting the days too. Just like if your partner is awaiting big news.

SoleSource · 03/07/2012 12:58

Spuddybean I know what you mean. I mourn the trust part of me that has been so badly damaged. Fours years ago I was lied to used, conned and cheated . They were not true friends. Feel OK about YOU spuddybean maybe get some exteranl professional help as I have done. It has helped me.

How could your friends dump you because you wre cheated on?

KitCat26 · 03/07/2012 13:00

I have two very good friends are from secondary school (we are in a three way swap as godmothers to each others children) and a small group of friends locally with the same age DCs.

With my two good friends we speak every couple of weeks but live fair distances appart.

MarthasHarbour · 03/07/2012 13:16

darksideofthemooncup i came on to say just that too.

I had a best friend of 21 years, she died 2 weeks ago.

We had the type of 'best friendship' that YourFired describes

Best friends are not overrated - if you have one then cherish her/him. But i agree that mutually exclusive friendships are not healthy.

happystory · 03/07/2012 13:26

So sorry, martha

CamperFan · 03/07/2012 13:26

So emilie, would you actually marry each other?

I don't have a best friend and I haven't done for years. I do have several very good friends though, who I can rely on and have a real laugh with. I find it difficult to stay in touch with people when I've moved - I sort of need to see them on a regular basis iyswim, and whilst I regret not making more of an effort with some people in the past, I have no plans to move at all now!

CamperFan · 03/07/2012 13:27

So sorry for your losses, martha and darkside.

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