No Thelma to my Louise...
I don't have a best friend.
I think I'm just not meant to have one. The term "best friend" feels so young to me. Not judging those of you who do have a best friend, just for me...I can't really have one. I'm shit at it, to be honest. I've been burned too many times before with people who have been my best friend:
Best friend all through elementary school, Jessica, was a pathological liar and extremely jealous and possessive of me at the same time. I wasn't allowed to have any other friends but her, and in high school things turned really disturbing as when I became friends with another girl named Emily and Emily's best friend Krista.
The four of us started hanging out, and one day Emily's dad all gave us a ride home from a basketball game. Krista and Emily invited Jessica and I over for a karaoke sleep over.
Now, I used to be really weird about spending the night over at people's houses I didn't know that well. I'm just really private. Did I want to sleep on the floor of someone's house I didn't know that well, and have them see me in my glasses? I wasn't sure. So when when we got to my house, I was suppose to run in and ask my mom if I could spend the night.
What I actually did was run in and tell my mom,
"Hey, Emily wants to know if I can sleep over...I don't really want to...Is it OK if I tell them you said no because I have to go to Dad's tomorrow?"
My mom responded by saying,
"Yeah that's fine! Just blame it on me. Tell them I say no."
So, I ran back outside and tell Emily's dad and Krista and Jessica my story of why I couldn't come over. We all agreed to hang out some time next week.
Little did I know that while I was in the house explaining to my mom that I wasn't comfortable spending the night at a new place, Jessica - my best friend - was busy spewing some viscous lie to everyone in the car about my mom being an alcoholic and that she was probably drunk and if I couldn't spend the night - that would be why.
I didn't find all this out until a year later, when Emily and I had become best friends and we found out that Jessica had been spreading vicious rumors about Emily. Emily explained that she didn't tell me about the car incident earlier because she just didn't know if it were true or not, or if Jessica actually lied as much as I claimed.
And that brings us to my best friend Emily.
Emily and I had a lot in common. We were both incredibly emotional, loved singing and karaoke, Christina Aguilera, John Mayer, Britney Spears and The Real World. We would eat McDonalds and then complain about how fat our size 5 asses felt afterwards. Emily taught me how to hate my body and how to flirt. She was an ex-cheerleader and we would spend hours in her bedroom singing and bitching about all the tradgedies of being 15.
We had a couple good summers, and then Emily started hanging around the popular kids. They liked her because her parents had the money to buy her clothes from Abercrombie & Fitch, and she was cool with molding herself into whoever they wanted her to be. I, on the other hand, wasn't.
Slowly but surely I became her unpopular best friend that was in Drama Club and Newspaper and was friends with The Mormons. She got a boyfriend and kept silent while everyone talked shit about me. She never joined in, but she sure as hell never stood up for me.
After high school, she went on to go to our local University, lived in the dorm, and joined a sorority. She broke up with her high school sweetheart after cheating on him with my former crush and Sadie Hawkins date - the son of my mom's best friend. I nursed her through her period of self inflicted heartache, and accepted the fact that she didn't seem all that enthused when I finally got a real boyfriend for the first time.
Over the next two years we maintained a distant sporadic friendship shaped of random dinners at Chiles and Frappuccinos at Starbucks closer to her home than mine. When I met Iain I'd come over to her apartment, over 20 miles away from my house, sit on her balcony and smoke while she pressed me for more details...seemingly living vicariously through me.
We stopped talking after she failed to clear her *busy* schedule of parties and sorority events when I came back home for the first time after moving to London. She sent me an angry email 3 months after my trip back home asking why I deleted her off my Myspace friend list.
I sent her another one back explaining it was because she was a self absorbed bitch who cared, scratch that, has ALWAYS cared more about her social life than being my best friend. How was it that she doesn't make time to see me, ignores me for three months, and then emails me to say, "We're no longer friends on Myspace?"
How about no longer friends in real life??How about I got married and you were so busy planning mixers for Alpha Pi Douche that you didn't even fucking know.
She responded by telling me that I was demeaning the "life she had worked so hard for" (more like "the life my parents have paid so much money for") and that I don't "know her anymore". Oh. And "goodbye".
Haven't heard a peep from her since.
The most recent "best friend" I had was named Roseanne. We had high school class together and bonded through a common interest of not doing any work for the class...ever. She welcomed me into her group of misfit emo kids and they seemed to like me alright - despite me completely lying about liking bands they did and obviously having not nearly enough knowledge of 1980's British Punk.
Roseanne weighed about 242lbs, which she quickly lost through using laxatives, binging and purging, and a burning desire to be thinner than her popular, punk princess best friend. She transformed herself into a warped version of her best friend, and even went as far as to make-out with said friend's long time ex-boyfriend behind her back. She, in every way, had turned into a skinny bitch.
I always kept Roseanne at bay because she was clearly in need of some intense therapy, and had a malicious, controlling streak that unless you were aware of what she was doing, you would become her puppet on a string. We drifted apart after high school (mainly due to me avoiding her and her awkward boyfriend), but she got in contact with me in early 2005 when she suddenly inherited a lot of money. She got extensive plastic surgery, decided to go to school in England and thought that now would be a good time to rekindle our friendship. (Wonder why.)
For some reason, I didn't see through this and thought she had *changed* a lot since high school. She seemed to be more mature. She seemed to be less controlling. So, when she moved to England in September 2005, we kept in contact and became really good friends through our daily email conversations.
I booked a ticket to see her in the upcoming January in September 2005, before I had ever even started talking to Iain.
Basically, during my visit to her in January, we made a 3 day trip to London so I could see the capital..and meet Iain. Despite having her boyfriend with her, she turned into a jealous, controlling, malicious bitch. She ruined my last night with Iain, and we spent the whole night, and early morning, arguing and screaming at each other. I was called a cunt, she tried to convince me that Iain was a liar and "not the right guy for me" and that "all the therapy in the world wouldn't be able to help me if I stayed with him".
Obviously, I spent the rest of my vacation with Iain in London, and then had to drive all the way to her flat up north to retrieve the luggage I had left behind. Upon opening it I found that she took back all the things she had given me for Christmas, and had slipped in a Chlamydia test kit into my belongings. You know, because I'm a whore. Get it?
Needless to say I haven't talked to her since. (Despite her "I'm sorry, but you still used me to get to Iain and are wrong about everything that happened" email that she also had published on her then public Myspace blog.)
She was the last person I called a "best friend".
Since then, I have met some incredibly fabulous women.
I think that I have some soul-sisters dotted across the globe. In San Francisco, in Davis, in Egypt and in some strange corners of the earth that I've yet to visit.
I have a good feeling about these women and I feel like I will know them a very long time; see them marry, see some of them have children, see them find their way in the world and make their dreams come alive.
But the label "best friend" is just dead to me.
Best Friend used to mean constant phone conversations, shopping, driving around with the windows down singing Britney Spears, back stabbing, being ditched and being lied to.
Now, I'm quite happy to email my friends. Talk to them on MSN when we're both at work. Get coffee whenever we're on the same continent and have champagne pajama parties. Plan websites together and how we'll take over the world.
On an everyday basis, in real life, I am friendless. When my laptop is off, there is no friend to meet with for lunch. There isn't a girlfriend that I can call and be like, "Hey, dude. Coffee?" without there being an incredibly expensive plane ticket involved.
I've met some really cool girls in London...
But we all know that we're not friends like that. There are a couple that I think we could be. I think that we could be friends for a while. But I just wouldn't be comfortable sharing all the ins and outs of my life and skeletons in my closet with them.
Maybe that's my fault for not opening up more, or maybe it's just me growing up, and realizing that friendships are not going to look how they did when I was 14.
While I love that I have friends around the world...I still wish that I could have them all in one spot so we could go out for coffee every once and a while.
That would be superb.
Comments
It wouldn't be so damn hard if plane tickets weren't so fucking expensive!!
Moving to the South of France, drinking and knitting sounds fucking perfect. This will be the next step after we have houses next door to each other in Hawaii, and I get a chihuahua that becomes best friends with Rudy.
I've always wondered why I don't let myself have "best friends". Its like I am afraid of the label because of all that it brings. My last BF was a Jessica too and she was very controlling an close-minded. I think it great that you've met other women all across the world, that though you don't label your friendship with them your bond is much stronger than a "best friends".
I had a similar experience with a female BFF in middle school, bc I moved away and you know how kids (even adults) are bad at keeping in touch... and I found out the awful news about how she's trying to be popular so she got all skanky with the douches on the football team. I still miss her sometimes.
I didn't have another BFF until college, because in high school, girls are fake as hell! I had such a hard time finding a chick who wasn't concerned about reapplying makeup during every break between classes.
Krystal - Yeah, it's the Jessicas and the Controllers of the world that really do fuck up friendships. I agree about not labeling stuff. When you label something, sometimes you end up spending more time trying to make it like it *should* be, rather than enjoying what it is.
Min - OH god. I remember people fixing their makeup in between classes. Ugh. High school is just one of those things that I would really like to forget, for the most part.
Girls are vicious, catty and, of course, bitchy. Maybe that's why finding a best friend and managing to hang on to one is so rare. I'm lucky like that.
This post makes me sad, cause I remember high school, where you switch friends like you change classes, at least once a semester...ha ha.
I hope you find a girlfriend that get's you. Because that's really all it takes. Someone who get's you, understand you, and by God, loves you anyway, or despite your flaws and imperfections.
This is my favorite post ever.
I had a BFF in elementary school, who was just like your friend Jessica. She would stay here for a week, and then go back to school and tell everyone my dad cheated on my mom, we didn't have nothing good to eat and that we would sleep on the floor [I had bunkbeds so my friends could spend the night there]. I ditched her, because obviously, she wasn't a good person. Then she got herself a new puppet, and she started sex rumors about her [at age 11... isn't that disturbing]. In middle schoolm, my ugly mummy looking new best friend ditched me for some basketball player, who never paid attention to her, and probably ditched her 2 days after they met. And in high school my best friend was a guy. I simply gave out on girls. My two best girlfriends right now, are 2 my college classmates, they make good shopping buddies, and they help me keep my grades up, but still, I don't feel as comfortable being the girly girl I was back then, when no one paid attention to me. So next time I try to be friends with someone I will make sure that he's a guy, and he's gay. So I can have the friendship of a girl without all the backstabbing shit.
I do have one very dear girlfriend, who sadly lives on the other side of the country in Philadelphia. She was actually my last "best friend" who was a girl. And we are still very close, but it's hard when, like you say, you can't just call a group of girls to hang with on a lazy sunday, and obviously a country in between us makes it really hard.
I have a lot of guy friends, and my best friend is a guy (who lives in NY - again, other side of the country - damn!). I love having guys as friends, because you keep the catty, competitive, bitch quotent low, but i do dream of having a close circle of girls to hang out with here, because there is something to having a close circle of sistas to bond with.
i do have some girlfriends here, but none that i can truly call up and bitch to, or spontaneously go to lunch with at a moments' notice. the sad part is it really gets harder as you get older - i had a ton of people to call and do things with in philadelphia, the number grew smaller in NY, and in LA, kept about the same level as NY, but in the east bay, it's like a ghost town. people start living their lives and doing their thing, and it's hard to carve out that time to just do nothing but hang with the girls.
i am fortunate to be blessed with an amazing family that i can call or count on at any point of the day or at any point in my life. my mom, dad, brother, and my extended family are such a great support team, and i love them dearly, but they are, you guessed it, on the other side of the country. I envy talking to them and hearing about how they just drop by each other's houses to just shoot the shit or grab something to eat, or plan a get together. this is what i should be able to do here. this is what i am used to.
I have made a conscious effort to make a dinner date with two girlfriends that i have here - we just had one last week, and it was so nice to hang out with the girls. we have set a date for next month as well, so hopefully this trend will last, because i really look forward to it. i am not to the point where i would call these friends and share a cry or a laugh or a hardship, and i wouldn't dream of just dropping by their place without a call or a plan, but maybe some of this will come with time.
I've been wondering for such a long time if I was alone in this feeling. After high school the people who were my "best friends' all ended up changing and I started to realize that my friendship with them was more a competition than camaraderie. And here I thought friendships were supposed to be full of support and compassion.
All I really want in this world is someone I can sit down and shoot the shit with.
Are we all destined for a life with our true friends far away?
I really hope not. Thank you, Cate, for reminding me that we're not alone on this big spinning rock, even if sometimes it feels like we are.
Guy friends are awesome...as long as you don't fall for them.
Even now, I still just get on naturally better with boys. I have some great guy friends, including my partner, who I have such a good time with. But with girls is so much more complicated...and that's why my heart breaks that my girl friends are so fucking far away.
Thank you for such a thoughtful comment!
and wishing would could have a cuppa.
This is one of those few posts where I read the whole conversation in the comments section as well as the post itself. I can relate to the situation although my experiences with my best friends were not so traumatizing as yours. My ex best friends were not evil, thankfully. Still, I'm still put off by the titles and when the last one started calling me her best friend, I was hesitant to return the sentiment even if it seemed like it was true.
I think what you said above was true - that the label itself can hamper the relationship at times because you focus on what it should be (due to the label being there) rather than enjoying what it is to both of you. I also don't have any friends I can call on in times of need in my area. They are all oceans away, but we hold each other dear. I don't use titles to label us.
It's a mental thing for me because my previous experiences have killed the childhood idea that friends are forever. For a while, I bitched about it in my head how boys are temporary and your girls are forever, while the opposite was true about me. my boyfriend stood strong by me while the girlfriends fell out. It turned what I was taught upside down and I'm still working my way through the stereotype and understanding that that isn't always so.
I also agree on the comment about Sex and the City's popularity. I am a huge fan of the show and I surely see why. I also do realize I am not alone by the abundance of "Where's my SATC girls?!" posts on Craigslist. =)
I've had many girlfriends.
I've had many girlfriends. Some were absolutely amazing, and I just lost touch with them. Some were vicious, mean-spirited bitches who were jealous of me for whatever reason, and they turned on me at some point in my life. It's happened to me many times from when I was a little girl to adulthood. I have two girlfriends right now, whom I love dearly, but they live on the West Coast. One of them was my college roommate; she left college and moved to Seattle. The other one I met a few years ago; she moved to California last year. I cried for a week. I consider myself lucky to have found them. I have never been the type of girl who has a ton of girlfriends. I was the girl in school all the girls ganged up on because I was different, plus I wasn't a vapid moron like they were. I dressed the way I wanted to dress. I did my own thing. Most girls hate that. They hate individuality and intelligence. You're either a clone like they are, or you suck.
I have accepted the fact that I don't have a best friend I call every day and gossip with. I'm okay with that because at the end of the day, I have a loving family, great boyfriend, and two beautiful girlfriends who live 3,000 miles away, but they mean the world to me. I wouldn't trade that in for the world.
I can totally relate to this. I've always been good at attracting so-called 'best friends' who are so needy and emotionally manipulative that the friendship becomes one-sided. In almost every case I have been the one to pick up the pieces if something goes wrong in their lives, but the favour is rarely, if ever, returned.
The best part is, now I am old enough to recognise these people, and am confident enough in myself to realise I am better off without the friendships that have ended.
And, I think it better to be 'friendless' than waste time on fake, manipulative, insincere users, because at the end of the day, the one's who matter will be there for you come what may.
Eventually you do find yourself being friends with different people for different reasons. During a crisis I can go to Emily, Danielle, Kirsty or Lizzie and know no questions will be asked and they will listen and help. If I want unsentimental advice without the effects of the lingering sense of sisterhood (basically, if I want an arse-kicking), I go to Aaron. Emetic as it sounds, Ashley is also my best friend, and has been since a while before we got together.
It used to bother me, until I realised that it wasn't about having a little Sex & The City troupe, but simply surrounding myself with people who weren't suddenly going to get bored, or stop talking to me for some spurious reason, or use me to get at someone else.
This is timely because Ash has just had a falling out with an old friend of his that, frankly, I think is a scheming, manipulative madam. And though I totally reserve his right to keep his friend if he wants to, I have also pointed out to him that old or new, close or distant, a friend should be someone who treats you with respect.
Sorry - I've gone off on one slightly...
You described the old school best friend definition perfectly, I suppose that's why I too am, over it. People throw the term out like breadcrumbs. The first bird that comes and snacks, wins the prize. It seems that people are only truly interested in surface level friendships. Or...they're interested in seasonal friendships, ones that they sink into like a warm bath and then leave when they're feeling fresh and clean again. Such is life.
I'm glad that you have a pool of people within your life (albeit not as physically close as you would prefer) that you can really consider your inner circle. Sometimes of gifts comes to us in some strange ways.
Great post, but I would expect nothing less from you.
Heck Yeah.
I'm totally with you on that one.
I am yet another girl who can sadly relate. The term "Best friend" had lost its meaning for me back in high school too but I couldn't help but still hold onto the sentiment of the term and for a long time, I did until recently. Now, I'm not sure if I could ever call any other girl (as close as we could be) my "best friend".
I find that the reason why that term is so dangerous is because it puts a million morals and values and responsibilities on it that some people can't handle them -- and usually those are the people we expect to be able to handle them and therefore, we are sadly always disappointed. I think what also comes with the term is sometimes those "best friends" will sometimes take advantage of you because they know they can being that they're you're "best friend". it's like, oh, what's this one time of not calling? or flaking out, or etc.. which turns into 10 more times, but in the end, that person still thinks everything will be okay because they're you're best friend after all -- shouldn't we forgive? It's like a neverending cycle. On top of that, sometimes having a best friend can feel you're in a relationship. And sometimes it just feels like an obligation, which it never should.
And I agree about the whole SATC thing, that it's unbelievable for me to believe that four girls could get along all time.. not even as professional actresses could those four women get along for the amount of 6 years they had the show. I don't know though, there are a small few that I know that strictly get along better with girls more than with guys, but I know for myself, that just not something for me.
I so want to move to London. Too bad Boyfriend isn't really down with the idea.