My question is not so much how you met him or her as how you guys singled each other out. For example, when I think about my three closest friends, I met one in high school, one through meetup.com, and one at work. In all three instances, I met loads of other people as well, but these three women turned into my closest friends.
The one in high school started out as part of a bigger group of friends. But as the school year went on, the other people in the group made new friends, and we started to not enjoy their company as much anyways, so she became the first person I thought to go to when I was bored, and vice versa.
The one I met through meetup: well, we saw each other at a couple meetups, and gravitated towards each other because of similar personalities and a similar sense of humor. But she didn’t become one of my closest friends until she convinced me to join kickball with her. At that point, we were getting together every week (often carpooling to games together), and that gave us a launching point to discuss our weekend plans for every weekend, and that’s when we started really hanging out a lot.
For the woman at work, when she first introduced herself to me we chatted a little. I mentioned occasionally needing breaks from work, and she suggested that if I needed a break I could walk over to her office and talk to her. When I started doing that, we ended up having very good conversations, so I started doing that more and more, and eventually we got so close that we had to start making plans outside of work in order to work in all the conversations we wanted to have.
So those are the kinds of stories I’m looking for. How did you and your closest friend bridge the gap from casual acquaintance to close friend?
I was friends with this older girl in high school. We were both in band, both played softball, both kind of oddballs. One time we were on a bus and she told me she liked one of the boys on the bus. I guessed all of the boys but one, because that last one was a goofy weirdo. But it turns out she liked that goofy weirdo.
I helped her get him to ask her to winter formal and they started dating. And we 3 started eating lunch together, and it made me mad. I don’t know if it was just sharing my friend or also that he was a goofy weirdo and he annoyed me.
When we were sophomores, she had to start going on college visits so she’d miss school from time to time. And since we had no other friends, it seemed, I had to eat lunch alone with the goofy weirdo.
The next summer, at band camp (groan), both me and the goofy weirdo got tapped as section leaders - the only section leaders from our class. This did not sit well with the senior class for some reason. Me and the weirdo basically became instant BFFs right then.
I’m sure there’s more nuances to the story but that’s how I remember it. We’ve been BFFs since the summer of 1995.
And, he married my “original” friend so we all get to be a trio of BFFs together
Worked 3rd shift together back in ’88. You develop a special camaraderie when your schedule is not like the rest of the worlds. We would be having a beer when my roommate and other friends where just starting work.
We did lose touch for about 10 years. But about 4 years ago, found each other again. It was interesting, picked up right where we left off.
She lives in a different town, but we manage to get together to do something monthly.
Truth? I’m not sure I have anyone these days I could call “a friend” without flinching a little at the presumption. Acquaintances, colleagues, fellow townies up to and including many elected officials… but not a one I could call with a general, “Hey, wassup?”
Sad, I guess. But Zathras has learned to live with it.
I’ve spent years building up an immunity to iocane powder, and I have Lorien on speed-dial anyway.
I can say that I don’t have all that many enemies, either. I’ve pissed off a lot of people - and may be about to expand that number exponentially - but my situation is more one of not-entirely-unintentional isolation rather than turning people against me.
This guy I worked with invited me to a house party. I was the first one there (dork!) and he showed up four hours late. So I was forced to talk to people. One of those people was a woman who I became very good friends with. She, in turn, invited me to go to a vegan dinner party, where I met the man who would become my husband.
I guess you could say it was by default. She was my sister’s best friend since Kindergarten. I came along when they were 9 years old. I often ended up tagging along (my mom forced my sister to take me with to the mall or movies). After my sister married (when I was 9), Sis and I didn’t really associate with each other until I was 24. When my sister and I became friends, her best friend kind of joined along. The BFF started inviting me along to girls night out type things. Over the past few years, my sister has pretty much cut off contact with her BFF and me, but we’ve remained friends. It’s at the point now where all holidays are spent with her family instead of my family.
My work buddy became that way when I trained her in 16 years ago. We both smoked, so it was kind of natural for her and I to take breaks together, since she was stuck to me all day anyways.
When I started high school, I was a bit of a loner. Someone spotted my sitting by myself at lunch and invited me to come and join the group who ate lunch in one of the home-ec classrooms. I met my future BFF there, but we didn’t bond straight away - we were just the kind of casual friends who said hello whenever we passed each other in the halls. Then the next year she and I both entered the Academic Extension program, and since most of the other kids in those classes already knew each other from the year before, we automatically gravitated together. Soon we were sitting together in most of our classes as well as at lunch, teaming up for every group project, and the more time we spent together the more it turned out we liked each other.
I guess my best friend is my husband/partner (same sex we only got “married” last year but we’ve been partners almost forty). We became friends working together in a political campaign way back when.
