My Anecdote on Friendship.

I met Jen in the second grade, when my parents moved me to the town I consider my hometown. We quickly became friends, but she and I barely talk now. We have reconnected a number of times, mostly online, and typically only for short periods of time. She still considers me her best friend though. I have lately avoided the subject with her, because I wasn’t so sure. We’re very different people now; she still lives close to where she was raised, has three children, an ex-husband and a new boyfriend many years older than she is; I on the other hand have no children and don’t want any, moved a thousand miles away from ‘home’, and am still very happily married to my first husband who is several years younger than I am.

What makes it hard to return the “best friends” sentiment is exactly that; we’re not the same people we were growing up. In grade school, we were inseparable. I spent weekends at her house, or she came to mine. We wandered our small city without a care in the world. I went on vacations with her family. We liked the same music, dated the same boys, got into the same trouble. Even in high school, after my parents moved me an hour away, we stayed friends. She came to my graduation; a year later (because she was held back a year) I went to hers. We shared those important moments still; we had common interests.

Enter Facebook. Now we exchange brief snippets of our lives with one another. I know that she hates her job most of the time, hates her ex-husband all of the time, and adores her children. She knows I enjoy my job, am stressed by school, and happily spend my nights knitting with my husband and friends. We no longer have common interests; but we do still share the things that are important to us. Perhaps I can still call her my best friend, if being a best friend doesn’t have to mean sharing the exact same interests and experiences.