Advice needed about friendships please

[SilverClementine]

This is the first thread i've ever started so please be gentle with me. Brief bit about me - Early 30's, professional job, nice and normal, no DC, lovely DP. Pretty normal so far.

Except.

I struggle to maintain close friends. I would say in my lifetime I have had three bezzie's. I lost the first one in my late teen's in a fight in a pub over a bloke. Pretty self explanatory really, we're friends again now.

I met my second bezzie in my early 20s and she helped me through some increadibly hard times, as I did her. We were quite different, she was a SAHM living on a rough estate, I was from a rough estate but was at uni. We met when we both worked part time. I became like an aunt to her two DDs and we did LOADS together. Then after about 5 years she met a new bloke who wasn't like all the rest of them. I think he isolated her. I tried for YEARS to maintain the friendship and it was always me doing all the work. We never had a row or anything like that. She just cut me out. No explanation. Oddly we're still friends on fb but we never speak.

Then a few years ago I met my DP who had a very good female friend, who was the gf of his bezzie. He made it clear that if I didn't get on with her then we wouldn't be a go-er. Thankfully she is awesome and we get on like a house on fire. She is probably the first friend i've had who I feel 100% comfortable around. I don't even feel like I have to clean up when she comes round.

The problem is, I wonder sometimes whether this friendship too will be fleeting and it bothers me more than I like. She has just had a DS and I am struggling to figure out how I can be a good friend with this new set up. I am thrilled for her and want to be a supportive friend, especially as she has no family close by. However, it's really new territory for me and I'm not sure how to handle it.

I appreciate I probably sound nuts, I assure you i'm really nice and get on well with people, it's just I struggle to really connect with people and I over worry that the ones I do connect with will leave me oh god reading that back I do sound a bit nuts. I think it stems from the unresolved issues relating to BM2.

Any advice gratefully received!

You don't sound 'nuts' but you do sound as if what's important is the idea of having a 'best friend' rather than enjoying your friends as they are. They don't need a label iykwim.

I see exactly what you mean, and thanks for your reply. Certainly something to consider, maybe I am labouring the bezzie bit too much.

I think it's that classic thing of just going with it, rather than second-guessing yourself all the time (eg inner running commentary about whether the friend is your best friend, how to handle friendship with new DS on the scene etc). You sound lovely and as if you know exactly how to support others - you maybe just need to trust yourself a bit more.

I think you're worrying too much. The first situation - wel friendships often go wrong in your late teens because people change. That makes you 50/50 for best friendships going wrong or right. Who's to say your second bm wasn't just a bad apple and this one is actually a decent person?

I would assume the best and a) treat her as you'd like to be treated and b) talk to her rather than inwardly if you're worried about anything.

Hmm... I think it is quite unusual in one's early 30s to be so focused on 'bezzies'. Do you have other close friends? Are you maybe a bit all or nothing?

Re your friend's new baby, just express interest in the baby/how she feels and see how it goes.

Thanks all for your replies, food for thought indeed! moomcup that's a fair point, it sounds odd to me when I read it back. I do have other close friends, quite a few in fact. It's just these three have really stood out for me.

Thanks again :)

I think you should probably just go with the flow. Not all friends are soulmates or friends for life. We're fed this whole ideology of perfect friends - loyalty, complete understanding, peas in a pod, 'personal growth' etc. - from a very early age, and it takes a while to detach from it. I actually think it damaged my social life as a teenager because I was always looking for 'real' friends, as opposed to the ones who were sometimes boring, occasionally got annoyed with me, didn't always get what I was thinking and wanted to chat to other girls who didn't particularly like me (I wonder why? oh the utter selfishness of adolescence!) I only started making friends when I let go of that mythology (and a dangerously EA 'best' friendship in my mid-teens).