I mentioned in one of my recent blog posts, that one of my close friends is one of only a small number who might be my “best” friend. But it’s interesting, I guess, because I don’t really have anyone who easily fills the “best friend” role in my life and it has been rare for me to have someone who does.
I remember having two different best friends in the past, one in the early days of primary school and the other during secondary school. Once in university a friend of mine kind of described me as their best friend too. All three of these people remain very important to me and are also distinct from the other “best friend” mentioned in the other blog post. It’s just that, as time passes and my role in their lives diminishes, it often doesn’t feel that it would be appropriate to call myself as such.
I know a lot of people tend to have a single best friend who they’ve known for years and with whom they, presumably, will always be best friends. But for me, I have quite a large number of friends and it’s difficult for me to value one over the other, because they all provide me with unique, positive additions to my life. I tend to find that the most important person to me, is the person who I’m spending time with at that exact moment. Overall, if I really had to think about who has had the largest, most positive impact on my life it’d still be hard to pick between about five or six people. Collectively it’s easy to say I have twenty-six best friends, narrowing it down to a single one is hard.
On the one hand, I think it’s quite healthy that I have cultivated such close friendships with lots of different people. The idea of depending too much on a single person is something which makes me a bit uncomfortable, because it can go badly. On the other hand, I do think it would be nice to have a clear best friend, as it would kind of make me feel special, as it would be nice to know I was valued so highly. Not that it’s something that gets me down, just a fleeting thought I have from time to time.
Friendship is something which is very important to me, so of course it’s something I think about quite a lot. This is a result of that.
(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)
