5th grade in the school cafeteria. I was talking to another friend about how I had just recently finished the Kings Quest series going backwards from 4 and I BF said that he had KQV and I was shocked because I didn’t know that V was out yet. I went over to his house that afternoon to play it and we have been best friends ever since.
I met both of my best friends in elementary school. One in first grade and one in sixth.
Nonrelatives: My sophomore year of college - she was a freshman, living with someone I’d known since forever.
Relatives: We met in a hospital, shortly before my seventh birthday. I was wearing a striped dress, topped by a yellow paper gown; she was wearing a knitted hat and some sort of stretchie. We’d glimpsed each other through the window of the NICU the day before, but not really met; that day, I got to hold her. I don’t remember her saying anything interesting, but she seemed cool nonetheless.
The only friend I can remember the event of meeting:
It was freshmen orientation. He walked by in a bright green suitcoat while carrying a briefcase. I was bored and figured “Eh, seems interesting” so I struck up a conversation. Contrary to original believe, he was not in fact a leprechaun.
Seventh grade TAG class.
The three people I am closest to right now I met at hockey games.
One at high school, another at my (parent’s) house - she was dating my brother’s friend and he brought her over when he came to visit, and the third at her 21st birthday party (I was there as her cousin’s date).
Latest BF, in our daughters’ dance class, 5 years ago. See each other weekly or more often.
Other BF, in primary (junior) school 35 years ago. See her yearly, ring each other weekly, or more often.
At my best friends house. If you see what I mean.
We were mutual friends of my best friend, he faded from the picture I was left with a new best friend.
I can’t say I have anyone I’d call a BEST friend.
I do have two very close girlfriends I met while working at Baby Gap. We were all newly single after long-term relationships and learning to date again… we bonded immediately over some hilarious bad date stories. I can’t believe it’s been 8 years since then.
The last person I would’ve called a best friend was a girl I met the first day of high school while eating lunch on the front lawn. We ended up spending so much time together that people often mistook us for sisters (damned if I know why… she was half-Japanese and I’m not), and that lasted all the way through HS and well into my university years. That’s one friendship I truly regret losing, especially since I can’t even remember now what it was that we argued about - obviously, not anything so important that it was worth ending a friendship.
The closest friends I have, in arbitrary descending order of how much time I spend with them, how well we know each other, etc:
- The internet (never met face-to-face, but in daily contact, often for many hours)
- At a party (became my wife for 20 years, separated amicably a couple of years ago)
- In an office, as a colleague in the mid-1980s
- Same as (3)
All of them are very valuable friends.
In the living room of a mutual friend’s house. We played Trivial Pursuit, and she kicked my ass.
She’s 1400 miles away now, but we’re still very close.
I met my BFF at my first day of a new job back in 1994. We instantly hit it off. I worked there for 11 years and then moved to SF. She retired shortly after that. We still talk every single day. I’m going to see her in Feb for the first time in 2 years.
Don’t know if I use “best” friend, but the folks I hang out with the most right now were sitting behind me at an agility trial a couple of years ago.
I will add this response to the other one I get from folks about me and my best friend. The other one I get is, “they gotta be gay! No way they can be that close and not be gay”.
As soon as I hear that attitude, I know I am dealing with someone that has never known what the true definition of ‘soul mate’ is.
When you learn that definition, you learn there can me more than one soul mate. You are lucky to find even one (like your spouse), and damn lucky if you find more than that. When you find someone with whom you get along, they understand you, like to travel where you travel, find humor in the things you do, find you truly beautiful inside and out, gives you the gift of love that means you can get away with having some really bad days with them and they will not hold it against you…when you find that in another person and they don’t want to have sex with you!!!, well then you know you got you a best friend. If you think for a minute that you are ‘picking’ someone as a best friend, then I’m afraid you just don’t get it.
In descending chronological order of “best friend” status:
–At a professional conference (and now my partner)
–At a lesbian bar (introduced by another best friend)*
–While visiting her roommate at college*
–On the same visit, in a hallway (he died in 1994)
–Playing Dungeons & Dragons in 9th grade
*Still very good friends, but geography takes its toll
Best friend I met in college - we had friends in common.
Met him again maybe 5 years later at a party hosted by those friends in common.
Became friends after he asked me to go golfing.
I have racked my brain but for the life of me I can’t remember when I first met her. 15 years is a long time ago. I will have to say it was most likely at my boyfriends employment. Her boyfriend worked there too and they lived right next door so I am going to say there.
She still has that boyfriend, I on the other hand do not.
My second best friend was at a bar and again my boyfriend was old friends with her and her husband. I actually knew them for awhile but I was never really friends with with her.
Again, she still has the husband and I do not have the boyfriend.
They both make fun of my old boyfriends every time we get together. 
I don’t mean this as snark and I could be wrong but my guess is you are a male and ‘most’ males just don’t get the whole best friend thing.
Like several others here I have best friendS.
The first I met in 1983, first year of high school, in line for a history text book. We were both going through a major obsession with WW2. Being teenagers full of agnst we both decided rather then being non-religous Kiwis it would be more dramatic to be Jewish and Polish…my “Polish” name was Kelly Case-of-whiskey! We went on to travel overseas together (and apart) for the better part of 5 years.
Now she has a 3 yr old and I have a 16 yr old but we are each others crisis person…plus we have FUN at least once a month (damn her lil kid :D)
My second best friend is only second because of the timeline. I met her in 1992. I taught her daughter at kindergarten and we just clicked and became friends. She is frequently the person I need just to gas with, but she is always there for life’s serious moments.
Beadalin Sometimes best friends last longer then spouses and can be almost as close as a spouse (and when you don’t have a spouse they can be your home base).
One was my son’s kindergarten teacher. She was loads of fun and completely NOT the Kteacher mold that is out there.
One I met in my son’s preschool. The first day our sons played together her son punched my son square in the nose. I have no memory of this, but we groove together like we’ve known each other for our entire lives. She is also a Football Mom, so, for the first time in my life, I have a little clique to belong too at a sporting event.
Two I met during the sidelines of my son’s wrestling practices. They are the most awesomenest mom’s. This is my other clique. We are the laughing like loon’s mom’s at these things.
My husband met one of his best friends in HS while at a football game with his bestest friend evar. Someone stole someone else’s hat, words were exchanged and someone jumped from the top of the bleachers ( This is before those big ass fence thingies went around the bleachers to prevent dumbassery and Darwin from happening. Y’now, before Safety existed.) . The three of them together are like conjoined triplets who drink beer and tell stories of dumbassery in the past.
One friend, I’ve had for 30 years or so, neither of us can remember the first time we met or how we met or when we started playing together. We had a 17 year break in the friendship due to life and graduation and stuff like that there, but when we reconnected - after the visitation at the funeral home stuff for one of my brothers - it was like we had never been apart.