Now Taking Applications.

My humbling search for a new best friend.

In August of 2021 I lost my best friend to the pandemic. She didn’t die, but after 20 years of navigating our vast differences in religion (me: atheism, her: catholicism), career (me: creative entrepreneur, her: corporate exec), politics (me: so very liberal, her: conservative), and just about every other area of our lives and personalities, we had to break up. I thought it all started for me over her denial of COVID, her anti-vax position, and her subsequent embrace of right-wing pandemic conspiracies (ivermectin, anyone?) But, really, after the dust settled, it became clear that the end of the friendship had been a long time coming, and the pandemic was just the proverbial livestock medication that broke the camel’s back. I could write a whole Netflix series about our friendship—the really great things, the not-so-great things, the mistakes I made, the things I miss, and the things I feel freed from a couple years after the shit hit the fan. But that’s not what this is.

There’s a pattern I’ve been known to follow—that I learned about in therapy of all places—where I latch on to people whose approval I feel desperate for and know I will never quite get. I spent my whole life with sisters who treated me like I was stupid and incapable until I kinda felt like it was true. While I was able to therapy my way out of standing for that from those particular women in adulthood, I managed to replace the healthy void with other friendships over the years where the approval was always just out of my reach. I’m sure it goes both ways. Maybe people form friendships with me because of some deep-seated, trauma-based need to push away people who need them, or to be needed by someone in the first place. Who the fuck knows? What I do know is that I somewhat abruptly reached a point in life, whether due to age or just hitting my tolerance level, where I realized I didn’t want close friendships with people like that anymore. I was done feeling judged and like I wasn’t enough or was too much, or whatever the hell else seemed to always be wrong with me in other people’s eyes.

Speaking of which, here’s a sampling of what’s wrong with me: I’ve been known overshare. My feelings get hurt way too easily. I’m desperate for constant connection, until I’m suddenly desperate to be left alone. I’m an open book, often in situations that call for me to please, please shut up. I talk too much, I interrupt, I make crass jokes without reading the room, I accidentally swear in front of people’s children. I promise things with really good intentions, and then they completely slip my mind. My foot is in my mouth so much that I’ve actually acquired a taste for it.

I know all of that is a turnoff for some people; I know I can be—finger quotes—a lot. But I’m also old enough to know that I bring—remove finger quotes, add italics—a lot to the friendship table. I’m at an age where I’m allowed to know that I have merit and that I’m fun to be friends with and that people are lucky to know me. I know now that the blame isn’t always on me. I spent so many years worrying that I messed everything up, that I forgot to pay attention to the fact that other people make mistakes, too.

It took me a full year to accept that ending this friendship—although I wish it had happened on better terms—was and is a positive thing for me. I miss her as a person, to be sure. I’ve never laughed harder with someone, and I respect her even if I don’t understand her views. I don’t think you have someone in your life for 20 years without them leaving an imprint on your memory. However, in ways I never expected, things are better for me without her in my life, and maybe they are for her, too, which would hurt and make sense at the same time. I think the weird thing, a couple years removed from the drama of it all, is that what I miss most isn’t her, it’s the act of having—and being—a best friend.

I’m lucky to have a lot of friends. For an introvert who likes to hide in the corner at parties, I’m actually pretty good at making friends. I have a big circle of long-time women friends, a great group of neighborhood mom friends, and friends I’ve known for decades with whom, even after a long time out of contact, I can, as the cliché says, pick up right where we left off. I have former colleague friends, gym friends, friends I’d do anything for, friends I share almost everything with, and friends who are, (as one of my closest friends says) sports-and-weather friends—the kind who are fun to hang out with but not someone to trust with any soul-baring stuff. I have a husband best friend who’s amazing, but I don’t have a best-best friend anymore, the Netflix series kind. And until two years ago, I’ve always had a best friend. Having a best friend has been a security blanket for me my whole life. It’s a flag to fly that says someone picked me as their favorite. It says, my family might suck, but I am someone’s chosen family because I am so lovely and worthy. It’s a fuck-you to shitty siblings and bad boyfriends and a middle finger to the bullies who made fun of you in junior high. I could rattle off the names of all my past best friends right now, several women and one man, a list of people who I’m mostly still in touch with and still care about, but whose paths only combined with mine for a few years before they diverged or grew at different rates and in different directions. Some of them I still consider my close friends, but we’re just no longer besties. It’s possible there’s not that big of a difference—between the close and the best, between the bare-all and the ride-or-die—except that I sorta know there is.

So I guess my questions are these: Do people find another best friend when they’re pushing fifty? Are best friends still a thing for most people at this age? Is the concept of a best friend only for children and the lucky few that maintain those childhood friendships into middle age? Am I being a baby when I say I’d really like a new best friend? Can I accept applications and hold interviews? Do I just promote one of my current friends and hope she promotes me back? Why does this mean so much to me? Is there an app for this? Did I just invent one? Is it called FRENDR?

When I put these essay ramblings on paper, I typically come to some sort of conclusion and tie it all up with a bow. In this case I’m left with that big-ass list of questions. I guess the conclusion is more like this: life is full of things that end, even things you thought never could. It’s full of new beginnings, too, and you typically can’t predict those or, like, force them with some sort of platonic dating app (but still, I might be onto something with FRENDR™️). I think we’re just supposed to keep being ourselves, keep understanding our own value, and keep being good people. Maybe I’ll find my new best friend tomorrow, or next year, or in some Netflix-worthy meet-cute I haven’t even imagined yet. Or it’s possible, and hear me out, that as I get closer to the age where I fully accept myself and my mistakes and my imperfections, it turns out that I’m actually my own goddamn best friend. And maybe this is the one that’s going to go the distance.