Today I am going to talk about best friends. Jen from Booklicity has asked me to spotlight MWF Seeking BFF, a blog dedicated to the search of a new best friend. But first, I want to share with you why I relate so much to it and why I think many of you will as well.
When I moved to Florida at age 25, it was essentially the first time I had left home. Sure I went to college (11 miles away from my parents’ house) and got married and even spent a summer in California, but southeast Michigan remained my home. In 2008, I packed all of my possessions in my car and drove 1200 miles south on I-75, and started a life here in Florida.
One thing that hadn’t occurred to me would be how much I would miss having a best friend (we’ll say BFF for simplicity’s sake). In high school, I had a few BFFs. We did everything together and they remain some of my closest friends today. In college, I had Ben (I think I was so focused on this relationship that I sacrificed my other friendships to some extent). It wasn’t until law school that I found that one BFF. The one person that I could rely on for anything. Susan and I met on out first day of law school and we were inseparable for three years. We took classes together, studied together, and just had a lot fun together. When we were both in Ann Arbor, we saw each other practically every day. During our summers apart, we emailed all day long (well, we still do that). When we graduated, I moved to Florida and she moved to St. Louis. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to not have her close by.
I’ve found some great friends in Florida, but I still don’t have that one BFF that I can call at anytime just to talk or watch endless episodes of Buffy with. They have kids or live *just* far enough away that it becomes impracticable or they already have a best friend. I would love to find another Susan and I think I just keep hoping she will show up.
Well Rachel Bertsche is tired of waiting. Like me, she’s moved to a new city (Chicago) and is in need of a new BFF. So she created MWF Seeking BFF, a blog that chronicles her adventures in BFF hunting. Along the way, she discusses various aspects of friendship: can you stay friends with high school friends? (Me: Absolutely); why your husband is not your BFF; how hard it can be to pick bridesmaids (Me: boy did I struggle with this one); the fictional people she’d most like to be friends with; and whether your twitter friends really are your friends (Me: I disagree with her on this one and think some of my twitter friends are some of my closest friends although I understand the difference).
Maybe I should be like Rachel and be a little more proactive in my search. I tend to rely a lot on my long-distance friendships and they really aren’t the same. If you’ve ever moved to a new place and found yourself a little lost without your best friend, check out MWF Seeking BFF. I know it will at least keep me entertained while I wait for Ms. Perfect BFF to show up.
my books. my life. 
Interesting blog. I can relate to the need to find a best friend. Since moving to London a year and a half ago I’ve made some very good friends but my BFF is my boyfriend. Being so close is nice but I do sometimes miss talking about girly things etc. I don’t think I’m very proactive about finding a BFF, I kind of wait for her to show up which is not very clever I guess.
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I had the same experience when I moved to Virginia Beach. My BFF lives in Raleigh (luckily only 3 hours away). There was a girl who had been working at the library for 6 months who moved here from PA and was looking for friends her age and we hit it off. She and another girl I met through book club who is from Argentina are my local BFF’s. All three of us have our own true BFF’s at home but we are very close. I think it’s definitely important to have close female friends in addition to my husband, even though I consider him a best friend.
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I came across this website last week and totally relate to the struggle. I moved cities at 21, leaving behind all my childhood friends and college buddies. I’ve really missed the BFF-ness that comes with that kind of history. It’s crazy how hard it can be to find a really close friend – and glad to see I’m not the only one having this struggle.
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I think there comes a time in a lot of our lives where the essence of the BFF changes. Around the mid to late 20’s we discover our adult selves and what we want for our future, thus completely changing our outlook on previous friendships. We want the connections we had in college, high school and before; someone who does everything with you, someone who knows you inside and out, someone who likes everything you do. Think about how we had all the time in the world to concentrate on those people. With so much more life under our belts it gets progressively harder to connect in the ways that we want with people we’ve never met. There’s too much of our past to try to explain to someone who doesn’t know it in order for them to truly see who we are, so it’s almost as if any BFF we may find later in life is just a BFF to our shells.
I have two young boys and have been on a desperate BFF search myself. I have yet to find someone that shares all my interests and can understand what it’s like to be a mom of two under 3. I have to settle with a few friendships in each department now. The BFF’s I thought I found stopped contact after I had my first son, and the BFF’s with kids are so involved with their own families, there’s no time for friends.
My Bff is my husband. Someone I can count on, talk to, can look a total mess in front of, knows everything about me and loves me anyway and I have the most fun of my life with. Sure I need someone to vent to about him sometimes, but that’s what the non BFF friends are for!
Good luck in your search!! Sorry to hijack 🙂
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No worries about hijacking. I love long, thoughtful comments. I think you’re right that we may have to find multiple people to fill that BFF void.
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What a great concept for a blog. I don’t have time to check it out now as I’m about to dash off for work, but I will definitely be giving it a good look later.
This is something I can very much relate to as well, mostly because my close friends have all moved away. It really is difficult to find a new friends that you can connect with, but that you can also depend upon and who makes the same effort with you as you do with them. It’s something I’ve struggled with as well. And as someone interviewing for jobs at the moment in cities where I know noone, I could soon be in the exact same situation as Rachel. I’ll be interested to read whether she has any good tips from her experiences.
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Ah, Michelle. If only we lived closer! I honestly have never really, truly had the quintessential BFF. In high school, I struggled with having a lasting relationship of any kind. Usually, I found out that most of my BFFs were too busy making fun of me behind my back or were so interested in X that we just grew apart.
Once I met Jim, he filled that void for me. Living by ourselves all over the world, he was the one I would lean on for everything. Now that we are settled, more or less, in the Cincinnati area, I would love to be able to call someone up some Saturday morning and see if they want to grab a cup of coffee or something. I have friends, but they are all at different life stages or they were born and raised in the area and have BFFs from their childhood with little room for a newbie. Could I reach out a little harder? If it were truly important, then yes. Then again, when life is nothing but running around with the kids’ activities, working long hours and barely finding enough time to get the chores done, am I truly at a stage in my life where I need a BFF?
I think what I miss most is not having someone I could call whenever I need to vent or need some advice. Sometimes, husbands cannot fill that void. Can Twitter friends do it? I’m not certain. I have always shied away from venting on Twitter because of the public nature of it. What do you think?
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We movied to this Cleveland suburb 10 years ago and I’ve made 2 BFF’s that have moved away and still not been replaced 😦
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