My best friend, Pat, has been my friend since 1978 when we starting working together at a university student health center. Her youngest son is one year younger than my DS. We are so different in some ways and so alike in other ways. I always stay a few nights at her house when I go to visit in CA. She is a retired nurse practitioner and has been my confidant over the years. We like the same foods and have split many a veggie burrito. I couldn't ask for a better friend.

My best friend and I met in the 5th grade...that means we've been friends for 45 years. We keep in touch constantly and are both now grandmas. I was with her through her breast cancer 7 years ago, and we've just been there for each other for all the ups and downs. She has had many more downs than me but she came through them just fine. She is engaged to an old high school sweetheart now and going to move back here to live. I can't wait....she's now only 40 minutes away, but we don't see each other too often. Her fiance lives a few blocks from me ...so she will live close soon!

Viv,is my best friend.
To sum it up, we have a bond!
So much so that we complete eachothers sentences :o)

I have two best friends. Heather has been with me through every phase of my life. We have literally known each other since we were born 54 years ago. We were neighbors and our mother's were friends, so two months after she was born, I was born and we were "told" that we have been together since then!
Linda, my other best friend and I have been friends for over 40 years. Our mothers were best friends and so, we in turn became friends and then when we both had children, we got together more and more. I don't know what I would do without these two angels in my life.

DH, my sisters, and my kids. And Dotmom and Dotdad. Our lives have been so busy in the 15 years DH and I have been together, we just don't socialize much outside the family. And the family members closest to us are so few in number.

My best friend is Joyce. We met when we began the 9th grade in 1955. She was bused in for high school classes to the school that I had attended since 1st grade. I really don't know what the attraction was/is between us. She was a commercial (typing, shorthand, bookkeeping) student and I was an academic (math, physics, chemestry) student. I dated a lot through high school, her first date didn't happen till after high school gradutation. She had a job all lined up to start in Washington DC just a week after graduation. I got married 2 months after graduation. But for some unknown reason we were best friends through out those 4 years of high school. I named my first born after her. We lost touch soon after high school. I had no contact with Joyce for over 45 years. I searched for her many times after the "world wide web" came into being. I knew from friends that she had married, divorced and remarried. When someone gave me her married name, I finally found her just by googling her name and up it come in a geneology site. An email address was attached to the geneology site for contact from interested parties. I sent off an email and asked if she was the Joyce who was Marg's best friend in at MVH in the late '50's. It was her! We are still best friends, and it is amazing how much that attraction we had for each other way back then has endured. I am not going to let her get away again. She lives over 400 miles away and leads a busy life, but we have managed to get together a couple time since reconnecting and talk or email very often.

Sad to say, I don't have any best friends. My hubby was in the Air Force for 23 years and it seemed that every time I made a good friend either they had to leave or we did. It made me feel so bad that I quit making friends became a recluse and devoted all my time to my family. He has been out of the military for a long time now but I still have no good friends with the exception of my youngest daughter Beth and her two daughters Nikki and Danni. Sounds like I am calling them no good, but they are good and I love them dearly. Vique

Oh, there is Helen. I met her when another Extension Homemaker from our group brought her to one of our meetings. Short, kinda big in the seat area, curly brown hair at 68 years of age, and I can tell her ANYTHING! Awesome woman. She lives near where I used to live before 1998.

Then there is Mel. My best cycling buddy friend. Tall, gray hair, handlebar mustache, and an AWESOME friend. We just came back home from a bike tour, which we abandoned, cause of me. We tell each other almost everything as well. Our cycling time gets called therapy. LOL, we talk about our spouses then. I met Mel in 1993, and we live once again less than 20 miles apart.

Lets not forget Uschi. I met her about 5 years ago, when I was about to move to Tulsa. She lives north of there, about 25 miles from where I lived. Uschi is a red head, with lots of freckles. A bit taller than me, and much more girly. She was also born in Germany, but her husband is also German born (while Jerry is an American). She became a mom last December, and I get to be Omi (granny) to Sophia. It really was hard to move away from Tulsa because of her.

Finally, there is Chris. I met her during Master Gardeners class. We hit it of so well, we had to sit apart to not interrupt class. LOL. She has an AWESOME yard. I hope, her and I can keep our friendship up as well as Helen and I have been able. Chris is about my size, height etc. but her hair is not as gray as mine. She always has dirt under her fingernails, cause she spends loads of hours in her yard. Lots more than me.

I feel really blessed to have all my BEST friends, even if we live miles apart.

Moni

He was a friendly, jolly, always active guy.

He died.

I buried him.

On the other hand ... there's my brother.

He's about the same ... lives a long way away - I seldom see him.

ole joyful

I have two best friends. One I met when I was four (she is a year older) and we lost touch in high school, reconnected in university, lost touch for a couple years and have stayed in touch for the past 14 yrs. It's just the way it was, never any hard feelings just moving on with things. My other best friend I met when I was in grade 7 and talk almost every day still. I moved to another city close to nine years ago. In the past two years I met another great friend who I made a nice connection with. I know a lot of people but don't make that connection with many.

I made a friend in Kindergarten, her name is Andrea. Today we still correspond by email. She lives in Kansas and I've been in New York all my life. In sixth grade my family moved. I was very lonely in my new school. In gym class, we did tug of war with a big rope. The fattest girl in the class fell on top of me. But it broke the ice and we became friends and have remained so since 1963. Today she lives in Canada but we see each other at least once a year. Her name is Sue. Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.

I have 3 best friends and don't know what I would do w/o either of them. Andrea is my "oldest" friend b/c we've been friends since the 8th grade. We have literally been through everything together. Our weddings, children, parents dying, etc. I can tell her anything, and any time I'm under the weather she shows up w/ a meal, and does any errands, etc. She's known my children since the day they were born, and I, hers. My 2nd is Gail and we've been friends for 35 years. She's always there for me, and I'm always there for her. Our husbands are close friends, which makes it nice. I can tell her anything and she loves me, warts and all. She loves my children and grands, and I, hers. Kathy and I have been friends for about 25 years and she can't find anything wrong w/ me. She and her DH are our "boats" buddies and they both have a heart of gold. I could also tell her anything and it would go no further. She is one of the most generous people I know. We taught together for 15 years and never had a cross word between us. I will say I met Gail and Kathy through church, so we have a real bond there, too. I know as you get older you lose friends to death, and I know it will feel like a part of me is gone when that happens. I love these women unconditionally and there is no limit as to what I would do for them. They are the best anywhere!!!

My best friends are mostly cyber friends now, altho I do have a couple of close friends that I rehab with. One of them...even tho I know she would do anything for me....the way she does animals leaves me very upset quite often. She doesn't take the time with them that she should and when I go to her house, I always see her animals with no water. I always water them, and now always check to make sure they have water, first thing I do.

My other rehabber friend is super conscientious and also loves tropical plants...same as me.

But, I think my best friend is GW David. GW for Goodwill because that is where I met him about 20 years ago. We used to go yard saling together and he is a bigger junk fiend than I am. I love his house. I don't know how he lives in it, the way it is....think of living in an antique shop, except the things he collects are very quirky. He loves old and ugly stuff.

One thing I like about him...he is always the same. I really do enjoy men friends who share my interests more than women. I have just always gotten along with them better.
GW David is very funny, very vain, and very loyal. Sometimes I don't see him for a year. Then he will call me and we will go to Round Top to the big antique sale there, or something like that.

I would have to say that Dean (DH) is my truely best friend. We have been together for 28 years. There just isn't anything that we can't get through together. I can tell him anything and everything....okay, there might be a few things that I buy that he does't know about...but he wouldn't care anyway! LOL

I have 2 very good girl-friends (Kim & Cris) that I know I can ALWAYS count on! We may not take for months, but I know in one phone call, they would drop whatever it is to be where/do whatever would be needed.

I had a sister-in-law (for over 40 yrs) that I would have put money (HA) on that would have NEVER done anything to hurt/screw us....but a few years ago, money seemed to get in the way and she did. I am still so very sad about that.

I met my best friend at age 12, after my mom died & I transferred to a new school in the suburbs. That was 53 yrs. ago last July. She lives across the country now but we still keep in touch daily & get to see each other every few yrs. We just clicked right from the beginning & even tho she never had kids, we still share a lot in common today. We've had our little tiffs over the yrs. but I still consider her my best/oldest friend.

I'm married to my best friend...

I don't have any best women friends...I've always gotten along better with guys...

But I long for a best woman friend who likes to laugh and have a good time...and go junkin and do garden junk crafts and crafts.

patti

I met my best friend, Millie, back in 1971 on a military bus in Asmara, Ethiopia, East Africa. I got talking to this lady and when it was time for me to get off the bus she got off too. Would you believe we were going to the same persons house. lol Then a week later, when we were looking at government housing, we were coming out the front door when the door to the next apartment opened and there she was again. I told my husband that that was the set of quarters I wanted. We got along famously and my son started calling her Auntie Millie from then on.

When it was time to transfer (1972) because of the base closing she went to Alabama while her husband was in Turkey and I went to Massachusetts while my husband went to Shemya, Alaska. During that year we kept in contact and in the Spring I decided to drive to Alabama to visit Millie. Millie lived next to her mother and grandmother in a double wide trailer with her 2 girls. It didn't take long before Shannon was calling their grandma his grandma. The funny thing about all this is that this was in the south back in the early '70s and Millie and her family are black and Shannon had white blonde hair. We went shopping at the local grocery store and I went my way and they went theirs. Pretty soon Shannon started calling Grandma, Grandma. Millie's mother came around the corner saying what ya want honey chil? You should have seen the look on the white cashiers faces.

After her husbands year was up in Turkey, Millie and her family were stationed at Ft. Devens, MA where her husband retired from and they settled there until 1993. During those years we kept in touch and every time I went to visit my folks in MA I would see Millie. In 1993 Ft. Devens was in the process of being closed and Millie and her husband came to Ft. Huachuca with his job. They had a home built 6 miles from ours. I walk with Millie 3 mornings a week and we talk on the phone in between. We have become so close over the years that we feel like sisters. I would do anything for Millie and she the same for me. I am blessed to have her as my bestest friend.

Don't have one. Wish I did.

I have two best friends. The first one is the wife of a guy who was once my boss. He introduced us and we became great friends. He and my husaband are also great friends. They were our best man and maid of honour when we married in 1978
The second best girl friend is a girl that I once worked with. In fact at one time I was her boss! We've known each other for about 20 years.
The only problem is that they both live an hour or two away so we don't see each other as often as we'd like. However our phone bills tell a story!
Pattico, if we were closer I'd love to go junkin and do garden crafts with ya. That's my problem too. My best friends all live too far away!

My best friend is my sister Audry (MomBondo). We tell each other E V E R Y T H I N G. We have known each other all our lives. We are always there for each other. She is my rock. We take each other's side when we are griping about something. I admire her and think she is the best. Well...all except the whole Kool Aid over saltine crackers for lunch thing, but that's another story. LOL I love her very much!

My second best friend is Kim. She rescued me when I was going thru a divorce. She took me in and we helped each other out. If I had the money come rent time, I paid it. If she had the money when the power bill came in, she paid it. We never kept track of who paid the most. We just did what we had to do, to survive. Kim is my saint. She moved to Tennessee about 5 years ago and I have seen her twice since then. I miss the heck out of seeing her all the time. She is a nurse, so works long hours and I never know when I can call...and don't want to wake her up, so we email back and forth. I love her dearly.

I'm lucky to have one best friend. We've been friends now for 25 years. I met her a month after moving to my new town and I just hope we never move far apart. She is the most generous soul I've ever known. She's isn't annoyingly goody-goody, but she is always the first to offer help to anyone who might need it. She has a soft spot for babies and old people. She's down to earth, funny and she's raised 3 great kids. I love her like a sister. We just mesh so well together.

I probably have three best friends. Lorie is the first one, met her when I was 7 and she was 5, in California. We only knew each other a year or so before her and her family moved to VA. We wrote for all those years and sometimes made cassette tapes and sent them back and forth. We didn't actually see each other again until we were teenagers when she came to visit me in NV, next year I went to see her. We've since visited each other many times. Our life has paralleled each other's too, she became a nurse, had two kids, first a boy, then a girl, got divorced. I did the same a lot later on. She's remarried, now, though and has another son. Her mom also was diagnosed with the same cancer as my dad a year after my dad. We e-mail each other nearly every day.

My second best friend is Trudy. We met in 6th grade, met her through another old friend who I still keep in touch with from time to time. Trudy lives in NV and when I go home we usually visit. I wish she'd come to visit but she's only visited me once, when I was stationed overseas, before she got married and had kids. We e-mail quite often, but not every day usually.

The third one is Mary. She's my kids' old babysitter and our old neighbor when we were renting across town. She was about the only person nearby who I could count on when I was going through my divorce. She's not much older than me but has been like a mom to me. Her son is the one who was recently in boot camp and some of you sent cards to. He's now over in Iraq.

My best friend is Lupe.We met when i first moved to Calif.DH was in the Marine corps,but we had an apt in town.Lupe and her family were our next door neighbors and we met while we were each hanging clothes on our backyard clotheslines.She had 6 little girls,i had 3 boys and pregnant with DD.We became friends very fast and have been best friends for 44 years.

Neither of us drove,but we took care of each others kids while the other went to town to pay the gas& light bill,get a few groceries.
When i had dd she came over and helped me out,when i got sick when DH was overseas she would come over and help out with the kids,hanging the laundry etc.

She gave me my first avocado,didn't have those in N.Y. & N.J where i had come from back then.

Our kids told everyone they were cousins,even though we are different races,and still do.My GK's even tell people that they are there cousins.

We've been through a lot together and have NEVER had an argument.To this day we still live within blocks of each other and drop in without calling first if we happen to be in each others neighborhood.We've always been each others rock.

As our kids got older they used to call us the Bobsey twins.LOL
Kathi

I would have to say Eric is my best friend. My friends from high school all went and had kids and we grew apart. Still get Christmas cards and occasional emails.

Anyway, since we don't have children, most people our age are not very interested in hanging out with us. Eric's friends don't have kids, heck one isn't even married yet (not sure he ever will be). But they now live in other states.

I have never been good at developing friendships. I have been trying VERY hard to not be shy at school. I have found a couple of people in Clarksburg to visit with every couple of months. one of my school buddies has a new girlfriend so he won't be able to goof off as much. The other one has a baby but but he is still young enough that we can tote him along for visits.

I think this is why I enjoy the KT so much. I can visit with ya'll and give Eric a break from dealing with me, LOL.

My best and closest friend is my hubby of 38 years followed by our daughter.

Unfortunately, I haven't had the best of luck with best friends with non-related females. Oh well!

My bestest friend is my DH.

My other best friends are my sisters. I am very close to them.

I am also very close to my 13 YO daughter, and I hope we can always be best friends, too!

Sheryl

My friend Joni lived next door when we moved into a new house and our baby boys were both 4 months old - hers is 6 days younger. While we were moving in, Joni brought over a playpen and put it in the yard; we put both babies in it. Then she went to work helping us unpack. It was October of 1968 and we've stayed bestest friends since. She has dropped everything to come to me when I've needed her, and I've done the same for her. She's truly that once-in-a-lifetime kind of friend and I love her.

Selwyn and I also have been friends since 1968. I met her at the neighborhood pool with my 2 kids and her 3. Her oldest son and my DD are the same age, and so are her middle son and my DS. DH and I moved to Denver in '75, then Selwyn and DH moved 4 blocks from us. We moved back to Houston; they stayed in Denver. Then in 1978 we moved back to Denver next door to them. Now we live at the lake 2 houses away from each other! We say we're just destined to grow old together. *L* She's been with me through some of the worse times in my life as well as the best, and I trust her completely. She's the fiend who comforted me when Neva was sick and she went into my closet and packed for me in the middle of the night when I had to rush to Neva, then held my hand at the funeral. She's like a sister and I truly love her like one.

I thought to ask whether you felt that some women and some men can be best friends, but later in the thread, some spoke of having best friends of the other gender.

My mother was ill from the time that I was about six and I had fairly good friendships with a couple of the spouses of our farm helpers, who helped with housework, but they were rather short term, though I recognized one over 20 years later (while we visited the psychiatric hospital, where Mom had been confined and our farm helper's daughter was then, after some hassles with drugs ... and where my ex- later worked as second, then head, of food service for nearly 25 years) ... and I was rather friendly after meeting her that time, for several years with her and her husband.

While I don't think that Dad ever told me that he loved me, I knew that he did ... and if I remember correctly, brother said a while ago that he never did to him, either, that he could recall.

Brother that took over the farm said that he and Dad worked together for years and never had more than rare and inconsequential disagreements. I can't think of the major family difficulties that mar many family celebrations.

My brother is loved by most everyone who knows him, I think, as he doesn't get perturbed much, and is kindly to most everyone, often helping others when they have need ... built a ramp for wheelchair access to their village church.

We had some problems with stepmother, who came into the family after I was away to university, as she could be nice at times, but turn mean in an instant. Her daughter didn't like her and picked a cousin as sort of a substitute mother. Step-sister and my brothers got along well, as she does with me, but I seldom see her. She has said on some occasions that Dad never treated her any different than he did the boys, which she appreciated (though he never adopted her - she had a living father for years).

Our other brother died in an auto accident in his 40's, over 30 years ago, when his kids were in their teens. We keep in touch with them - I visited all of them, and sister-in-law, within the last month - in Edmonton ... and Georgia.
______________________

Hi Kathy813,

I'm wondering whether you would consider it too much of an intrusion on your privacy to discuss the matter, but when I read your message that you don't have a best friend ... and wish that you did ... I wanted to ask what you felt some of the reasons might be, whether you considered yourself too shy to reach out, or had some that you hoped would develop ito best friends, earlier, but were disappointed, or had some more or less so, that moved far away, etc.

As I said ... I don't want to trample on your privacy, to walk around over your heart with my hob-nailed boots, etc.

I think that it's apparent from what many have said that good friends are precious, add some wonderful new dimensions to one's life, etc. ...

... and worth making some effort to develop, if one has any interest at all ... and worth taking some risks to develop, I think many posters here would say.

Ask most of them whether they'd want to give up their best friend ... and they'd likely quietly shake their head, smile, and say, "No way!!".

Good wishes for the rest of the weekend, everyone.

ole joyful