Best Friends

A lot of us older folks don't seem to have them anymore.

With best friend Lucy in the early ‘70s. We both took off our glasses for the photo.

My first best friend was another two-year-old I no longer remember, back in Buenos Aires. I think her name was Inés.

Since then, I’ve had a number of best friends. A best friend seems like something we’re supposed to have — at least, women are. But these days, although I have many good friends, I couldn’t really name one best friend.

Early friends

One of the first best friends I remember having is Lucy. Though she was calmer and more dignified than me when we met at the age of six (yes, even then!), we had a lot in common. We were both introspective and thoughtful, and we loved to read and write. We could get lost for hours making clothes and furniture for our pipe cleaner dolls. We laughed together at the variety shows of the ‘70s, laughed at the weird classes we had in seventh grade — why did our social studies teacher have us watch an episode of The Waltons? — laughed at the world.

While friends come and go — especially friends you make at such a young age — Lucy and I knew what we were doing. We’ve gone for long periods not being in touch or seeing each other, especially since she moved to Scotland, but we remained on the same wavelength as adults, even both becoming editors. I’d pick her all over again now.

Right around when I met Lucy, I also met Mary Grace. She grew to become my best friend in junior high, when Lucy transferred to another school, and retained that title till she died when we were 38. Mary always said we were kindred spirits, and we certainly bonded over our abhorrence of junior high, our love of literature and the arts, and our tendency not to fit in. Yet we had some deep, undeniable differences that caused friction in our friendship. She was more rigid and uptight, prone to getting ruffled by the smallest social faux pas or perceived slight, and in some ways more conservative than me. I’m not the most relaxed person, but I probably seemed downright laid-back next to her.

With Mary in Golden Gate park, mid-’80s.

Despite all that, our bond was one of the strongest I’ve ever felt, one that’s with me to this day. Twenty-four years after Mary’s death, I still think about her often; occasionally, she shows up in my dreams. I know that’s not just about her — given what an important part she was of my growing up, she also represents the now-distant promise of youth. But a lot of it is about her and her strong personality, which I keep feeling even now.

I’ve had other close friends before, during, and after these two — too many to name. Some even achieved best friend status, a few overlapping with Lucy and Mary. So, what’s changed in recent years that makes me feel a hole where a best friend used to be?

Spreading the love

Don’t get me wrong — I have a number of close friends, some of them very close. But with less time spent hanging out, greater physical distances between us, and the many demands on our time in this complex modern society, it seems harder to fit in that one special best friend. Not to mention that I’ve gotten to know some of my current closest friends as couples, rarely if ever spending time with the individuals.

These days, our spouses are supposed to be our best friends, which puts a lot of pressure on that one relationship. It’s likely a result of people retreating more and more into some kind of nuclear family while also having less time to cultivate close friendships. I suppose if I consider my best friend the person I spend the most time with and reveal the most of myself to, Rafael would qualify. But as nice as that is, it doesn’t feel the same as the best friends I used to have.

Should we have just one best friend, though, whoever it is? Isn’t that a lot to put on one person, whether they’re a spouse or a non-romantic friend?

Instead, we could embrace “best friend” as a tier, à la Mindy Kaling.

I recently read Rhaina Cohen’s The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center, hoping it would be about building community with friends. Instead, the book urges us to allow for close friends living together and/or supporting each other as a couple would, but without a romantic attachment. The author provides many examples of these super-close friendships — as close as, and maybe even taking precedence over, a romantic relationship. I’m all for supporting all kinds of close relationships, including these. But relying primarily on one person — whether it’s for emotional, financial, or physical support — seems to be asking for trouble.

Lilly Dancyger’s First Love: Essays on Friendship, another recent read, is more my speed. It’s also on another level — a book of beautifully written essays that together constitute a love story about the author’s friendships, centering one in particular but covering many. Coming from a fraught background, Dancyger forged strong friendships with other young, wild women that helped them find support, and some kind of family, in the midst of chaos. My own life has been more stable, which may be why my friendships haven’t been as intense as hers, but one similarity is the weave of various best friends through my life — like threads in a tapestry, emerging and then fading, overlapping, some robust and others more frayed.

Lately, the whole cloth feels more fragile.

All tiers of friends

The other night, I had a dream in which some authoritative-looking guy — maybe a therapist? — asked me what I like doing most. I replied without hesitation, “Writing, reading, hanging out with friends, listening to music, hiking.”

I guess my unconscious knows my priorities. To be fair, they’ve been getting clearer the older I get. Friends are up there; after all, Rafael and I moved from San Francisco to Oakland in part to be closer to friends. Building the community we seek is still challenging, given how busy everyone is, but we keep trying. Prioritizing time with friends is part of that.

Sometimes I feel sad that I don’t have a best friend in the way I did when I was younger. What I do have:

• Many good friends. When I think about who my friends are, I realize the list gets long. If you’re lucky, you accumulate friends over the years, and I’ve lived 63 years.

• Old friends. Not everyone has friends from childhood. I’m so fortunate to have friends I’ve known for 60 years, friends I’ve known for 20 years, and everything in between.

• New friends. I don’t need more friends, but I’m always happy to make new ones, as I did when I made a career change a decade ago and when I joined a book group a few years ago.

• All tiers of friends. One of my closest (and oldest) friends, Bill, used to talk about the pleasure of what he called “associates” — people you come across regularly while going about your life who don’t quite achieve the status of friends. We all need networks of varying closeness: associates, acquaintances, neighbors, friends, close friends, family. I have all of these. And yes, some of them could even be called best friends.

I guess I have it pretty good.