I had no idea what I was looking for when I searched up “types of friendships” on google. However, a quick skim through an article titled “19 kinds of friends” made me realize just how much of a noob I am when it comes to identifying the relationships in my life and properly labeling them.
I have spent the better half of my 24 years searching for a “best friend”. The person who’s always there for you, your partner in crime, your soulmate, the person who knows you more than you know yourself, and share an unbreakable bond. Some kind of invisible attachment which pulls the two of you together, much like gravity, no matter how far apart you go. Invincible. Unbreakable. Everlasting.
This romanticized relationship had been shoved down my throat since a very young age. In TV shows, novels, and every person around me. And as an outcast myself, being constantly ostracized by others my age fueled the fire burning within me in search of that one best friend. That one person, whom I would suddenly meet one day, and my life would fall into place.
Little did I know, this quest would take me a good 20 years before finding someone remotely close to even being called a close emotional friend. The wrong label, the idea has led me to assume unnatural expectations of a relationship which merely wasn’t meant to outlive longer than a semester or club membership. It prevented me from letting people go and muddled my present with anxiety and despair for what might happen in the future. The desire of an everlasting friendship led me to, in more than one occasion, excuse questionable toxic behaviour and supress my emotional reactions. I blamed myself and brushed them under the rug with my “Everybody has faults” mantra.
This left me in toxic situations, with relationships soaked in tension, and creating a persona of myself as a high maintenance individual who is unable to appreciate anyone short of perfect.
After many years of rejections and self-hatred, with every relationship leaving me in tears and a broken heart asking “What have I done wrong?”, prompted me to take a year long sabbatical from friendships and companionships to arrive at my own definition of who a best friend is according to me. Not Buzzfeed, a novel in someone’s fantasy, or Serena & Blair.
Here’s the deal, I am sorry to inform you but:
Many people actually go by years; a lifetime without ever finding the best friend.
I went through two decades without one. I look at my parents, and other immigrant parents who uprooted their lives to an unknown place with no friends or family or much support. Having left behind family and friendships they’ve known for decades of their lives. They survive, enjoy life, go through hardships and continue to experience new things. Of course, they have friends and acquaintances because we human beings are social creatures, but not all of them have a Serena to their Blair or a Blair to their Serena.
I, myself, consciously made the decision to not befriend anybody in my first year of post-secondary education. There were acquaintances but it mostly revolved around small talk and assignments. Looking back and while living it, I would not trade that year for any other experience or for more time with any of the awesome people I met in the years following. It was a year of rebuilding my heart, my expectations, putting my needs under the microscope, and healing. I explored, tried new coffee shops, trampled through campus and discovered the hidden nooks and crannies. All by myself.
Do not ever let anyone tell you what you need in a relationship. I realized a lot of the toxicity and displeasure at my previously failed friendships resulted from a mismatch of wiring whereby I was supressing my mind’s cry for its needs to be heard with the expectation of what others were willing to provide.
supressing my mind’s cry for its needs to be heard with the expectation of what others were willing to provide.
Every ex-friend has given me something. It wasn’t always lasting or sincere, or much but they have given me companionship, laughter or the joy of a shared experience. There were also some bad ones. And some very nasty ones. When it comes down to why they failed, its simple. Everyone has unique emotional needs. Every individual is not capable of providing all the different needs the human population exhibits. Therefore, the so-called toxic friendship you are hanging on to might be providing you with love, but if it is not what you need then let it go.
And as for accepting less than perfect friendships, remember this: Yes, everybody has faults. So do you. But it is about accepting faults you can live with.
Your “best-friend relationship” is not a friends-at-first-sight atomic connection where you two instantly click and create an immortal bond but rather a train journey along a very bumpy road. It can be, for some people. But this is for those of us who haven’t been as lucky. You meet someone. Hang out. Share personal stories and live experiences. And suddenly, in a moment of clairvoyance you both experience a deep emotional warmth and BAM! You have found a best friend. Think of your joined unity with the person as two compartments of a train which travel through the rail of life together. And the rail line as the effort you put in to form the path. The more effort you give, the longer and stronger the rail. A lack of effort or insufficient effort can cause instant derailment. Sometimes, the derailed trains will make it back on the track…sometimes they don’t.
Neither of you are engineers or experts and there are a variety of train carts available. Therefore, any two mixtures of two different train cars result in a different trains. Endless possibilities. It will be rocky and experimental. It will take a lifetime of mistakes, especially as each individual cart changes, requires a change in parts through wear and tear of the years, and is regularly updated to keep up with the pace of life. The carts morph into different people than their previous selves but still try to remain joined by the same old coupler. As the cars get bigger and broader, stronger or weaker it becomes difficult to keep it on track. It is natural. Do not be alarmed. Keep building tracks, monitoring your needs and whether they are being fulfilled and if the other person’s needs are being fulfilled and head on.
You can actually have a complete, eventful life without a best friend.
Just like your SO cannot be the only person in your life, neither can a best friend. There are many different relationships and companionships to be offered and experienced in this world. Don’t let your ideal image prevent you from enjoying them. As mentioned in one of the many articles I had read, you can have a work friend, a gym friend, an emotional friend, a travel buddy, and a 3 am call friend. All these people contribute to your life. It is impossible to expect one person to be constantly there at your beck and call and want to have memories only with them.
And last but not least: don’t settle. I think this is the least likely advice offered when it comes to friendships. Its usually associated in romantic relationships where an individual is concerned about “settling” for a lesser partner. I strongly believe it applies to friendships, and actually all relationships.
Friendships are not a legally enforced relationship such as family or a spouse so we are slow to give that same sort of importance to companionship with other human beings who share our company for no selfish reason but just that: company. Their presence. Their being. Their mere existence brings us without the selfish demands of roof and shelter from our parents or sexual gratification and lineage from our spouses.
These not-so-important friendships, however, provides us with our best memories, strengthen us, shape our multifaceted personalities and introduce us to many other experiences. Friends support us, pick us up when we’re on our knees, and anchor us when we’re flying away. Therefore, we should be wise in choosing them. My clear lack of judgement in too quickly attaching myself to those who weren’t able to meet my needs resulted in oceans of tears, anxiety, trust issues, diminished self-confidence, and a sad broken wall of personal boundaries.
Don’t let a Buzzfeed quiz or a generic post on a social magazine yarn a sugar filled cotton candy like friendship for you. Look within yourself. Listen to your needs, pick up a lantern with one hand and another pressed to your chest, and march on to your quest for one of the most rewarding relationship in life. I’ve learned to not torture myself by hoping for something a person isn’t capable of, but to savour all that someone has to offer and keep on going.
