So far every one of my life-long friends have been made in the face of what my instincts have told me about them. It’s always someone who I’m almost instructed to hate.
I am essentially no longer employed at the company in which I met two of my best friends. Both of them have since left the company but remain very close friends. Both of them were the least advantageous for me to befriend as a co-worker but I did anyway (I was in a high position and at an advantage to do this). Since then the friendships have grown larger than I could ever have expected and now overshadow the (long) employment I’ve had at the job.
But it makes me look back at all my friends through life and I notice that every single one of them (that I still know) was an unlikely choice.
If you’re wondering… I became friends with the person with whom I met my wife through many years before when his little stepbrothers wanted him to beat me up (he was only visiting).
When I was in 3rd grade, I was a very shy kid. Anybody that talked to me directly often caused me to feel flustered. Early in the school year another boy was seated next to me. Apparently he was very talkative and was moved because he was disrupting others around him.
He was telling me this, and amazingly I didn’t clam up like I did with most people. The first thing I ever said to my best friend of ~14 years is “Do you like video games?” and the rest is history
My best friend in grade school was this kid I got in a fight with. After I beat the snot out of him one day (I was being picked on and went off. I’d be suspended and probably arrested today for it, but then all I got was a warning to behave.), we slowly wound up being best friends.
I used to smoke cigarettes on the side of a house that was right next to the junior high I attended. This was in 1967. There was a guy that lived there that had a hot rod and he’d always be there working on it. He had just got home from the 'Nam the year before.
Heh. I married him. Thirty years later. Go figure.
My longest-term friend and I met when we were four. We had just returned from Japan (dad was a Naval officer), and he was my first friend back in the States. He always got the best of everything. He got first choice of the crayons. He got first choice of toys to play with. If I accused him of lying, his grandmother said “Maybe he’s just mistaken.” The kid could do no wrong. He’d cause trouble, and poor Johnny would be left holding the bag. But we were best friends.
If I were to meet him now, I wouldn’t have anything to do with him. He is an egomainiac who has gone nowhere with his life. He “is mistaken” more often than he is truthful. It’s bad enough that I see him lying to other people. It really bugs me when he lies to me (as if I can’t see through it). But longevity counts, so while I don’t see him very often I’m not dumping him completely.
My best friend and I met in high school. We had a mutual interest in science fiction, horror, and filmmaking. Twenty-odd years on, we’re still the best of friends. I’m buying his house from him. I’ve been involved in most of his films, and we’re heading up to Canada on Tuesday to research his next one. (And to get a little kayaking in.) He’s talking about having my 16mm Eclair NPR modified to super-16, and paying for it out of his budget (if we don’t decide to shoot in 35mm).
As an artist, he has his quirks and moods; but if there are any women in the Vancouver BC area looking for a cool guy…
Most of my friends have a strong streak of irreverance. So I am always attracted to the least ‘advantageous’ people at work.
In social contacts, a single sharp-tongue ‘aside’ in a group is enough to attract me as a friend.
Now that I think of it, I’ve made most of my friends through shared vices (smoking in the lav in high school, hanging out in dive bars or drinking bad coffee at 8:00 pm in college, tap-dancing around powerful people at work, hanging out on the loading docks).
My best friend (who happens to have the same RL first name as myself) and I met in the 7th grade. We despised each other on sight.
Somewhere around the 10th grade we exchanged phone numbers (it was somewhat inevitable, we were in all the same classes all those same years and both were in band) and we became BEST friends. 12 years later, still best friends, can share anything that is going on in our lives, even though we live in different states and don’t get to see each other more than once a year.
After some bad experiences, I choose my friends very carefully.
I trust my instincts, and this seems to work for me. I can’t think of anyone I’m friends with whom I disliked initially. When I met my partner it was pretty much love at first sight. I saw her, and I knew. With friends, the feeling is not always that strong, but I do usually get a pretty strong idea of whether or not this person is someone I’m going to want to be friends with or not.
Maybe I’m missing out, but I’m happy this way. I think I’m a good judge of character, and when I dislike someone on first impressions, I’m usually right too.
I met my best friend on my first day of day care when we were four. I remember sitting down at the table and she was playing with LEGOS and just glaring at me from across the table. I remember being frightened of her, but somehow we became best friends.
I have a group of friends that met by playing Dungeons and Dragons through work. This was in 1979. There are six of us that are pretty much the original crew. We have kept meeting every Sunday night since then with no breaks. We have been together through a lot of stuff and luckily are still good friends. In fact one was so good a friend, I married her four years ago.
I met my best friend in first grade. Her sister is 6 months older than me (best friend is 5 months younger than me) and we have all been together for 27 years. Their mother treats me like a third daughter. When we were in 6th grade we picked up 2 more girls. The five of us are all interchangeably best friends (although the best friend I met in first grade and I are a wee bit closer. Likewise, the two we acquired in mid-school are a wee bit closer to each other). We meet for dinner once a month without fail and go on a “Girl’s Only” trip every December. I didn’t think we could be any closer until one of them almost died last year. I guess after almost 30 years of friendship, we took it for granted we’d always be together “as is.” It really brought it home that that ain’t necessarily so. We’re even closer now. Hard to explain. Almost like one soul living in 5 seperate bodies.
Most of my friends have gone by the wayside in the past 15 years as I focused on career/marriage/kids, sad to say. Those I am close to now are somewhat like me (bohemian accountants).
And, then of course, there’s YOU guys…
Two of my friends and I are approaching our mid-thirties. All of us went to grade school together. One of them I have been friends with since the second grade, the other since the fifth grade. We don’t see each other as often as we did when we were kids, but we still stay in close contact and get together every now and then.
