As I live in my senior years I think about friends a lot. Good friends. I have a lot of friends, always have, and I think that is because I reach out to people and I also cut my friends a lot of slack and try not to judge them. When thinking about my friends I want to talk about how I met them. How did you meet your best friend? One of my best friends and I met in the 8th grade. He was friends with one of my friends and we were introduced by the mutual friend. The next day the new friend was at my house on his bicycle wanting me to go to the rec center and play some ping pong with him (he was reaching out to me). After that day we were inseparable. We graduated high school and joined the Navy, went through boot camp together, and then went separate ways, but we stayed in touch. We married and raised families and would visit and talk on the phone. He was diagnosed with lung cancer, refused any treatment, and died 9 months later at age 60. I cried like a baby. He was a special human being.
May his soul rest in peace. May whatever god he believes in look after his soul. As for my best friend, we meet in 3rd grade and stayed together for years.
I met my best female friend in the forth grade.. She is still the best.. Two other best friends from 60 years ago are gone now... and I remember them every day.. They contributed so much to my life. My best man friend I met at Shoney's... I gave him a real hard time. He was an entrepreneur with his own plane with a sense of humor that you couldn't beat.. Oh so smart. He became my mentor and from there on out I was suddenly lucky in my career life and advancement. Some of us are blessed.. somehow.. I don't know how.. I have an extraordinary boyfriend these days.. and I never expected that to happen. We are no longer young.. He's in ill health and very kind.. tender and funny. I am very appreciative of him. He's a real nice man.
The short answer is university. The longer answer is that he didn't really hang out with people much and mostly sat in the lounge all hours of the night watching news. One night I decided to strike up a conversation with him. Turns out he was in AA and didn't hang out with people much because pretty much everyone drank and he didn't want to be a stick in the mud/feel like the third wheel because he couldn't get plastered with us. Ironically enough, I more or less stopped drinking when I started hanging out with him more. I was more indifferent to alcohol anyway. Him having someone else there not drinking also made him want to hang out with others who were drinking because he did not feel like the oddball I would like less to say sorry for your loss and more to say congratulations on being able to maintain that friendship for so many decades. It will continue on as long as you do.
I met my best friend in the 6th grade. It wasn't until the 8th grade that we became really good friends. We had a day off from school and I decided to go to his house which was a two hour walk. It kind of surprised him and his family that I had done that but I figured I would just hang with a friend for a bit. From then on whenever we had a day off from school I would go visit. All throughout school(and still occasionally)everyone kept asking us if we were gay because we were always hanging out with each other. I looked at him one day while we were discussing it and I was told him that we couldn't really blame them for thinking that and he looks right back at me and said no you can't. It never bothered us though. We always laughed about it. We jokingly refer to this as "our song". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL4L4Uv5rf0 I had difficulty adjusting after he married and moved to Virginia. It was the first time I was without my little brother. Unfortunately though his marriage didn't last to long and he moved back to Florida. A few years later I would have to move to Texas because I was unemployed and couldn't find work. I was there almost a year and didn't have any friends. I was miserable almost the whole time. I'm not a big holiday person but when New Years Eve came around me, him, and another good friend of ours decided to celebrate in our way. They were an hour or two(can't remember which)ahead of me so when it was almost midnight for them we all got on the phone for a conference call and we each opened up a bottle of Yoohoo(an inside joke for us)and drank it together. Then when it hit midnight for me we got back on the phone and did the same thing. Thankfully though I was able to return home a few months later. Now I have a job and we're actually roommates. It's been almost 20 years though. It's weird how much has gone by and at the same time it feels like it's hardly been any time at all. In any case I'm grateful everyday for his friendship.
I was the Platoon Sgt in my JROTC class in high school. Some new kids joined the class at the beginning of the year and I told everyone to fall in outside in formation for the normal roll call thing. As I was walking by I accidentally bumped this pretty attractive new brunette recruit on the way outside. She looked at me mean and I looked at her even more mean (Im in charge) and we went outside. I was always the last one to leave class and I would sit outside and wait for my ride. Turns out she waited outside for a ride after school too so one day she decided to come over and talk to me rather than sitting on the other side of the parking lot by herself. We have been best friends ever since. Everyone to this day thinks or thought that we would end up together seeing how we were pretty much inseparable in high school. Every single friend I had in high school who has contacted me lately asked how me and my wife are doing. They all pretty much just assumed her and I would end up married. But we never actually got together we are simply best friends to this day. We are so far down the best friend route that us being together wouldn't even work now. The problem is that we are still so close that we both have a hard time with relationships because no guy wants a girlfriend who has a best friend thats a guy and no girl wants a boyfriend who has a best friend thats a girl. Throughout the years we have both unfortunately inadvertently broken up each others relationships by simply existing. The relationship that we have is so unique and special that most people think we secretly like each other and that drives significant others away pretty quickly. They all feel extremely threatened by our existence. In all honesty we both have a childish mentality when it comes to relationships. We have both openly said that neither of us likes it when the other one gets in a relationship because it pushes us apart. Its the whole "I don't want you but I dont want you to have anybody either". The older we get the more we both understand that we can't keep acting like kids anymore. The ultimatum is to pretty much keep our distance from each other and branch out and find relationships with other people or get married to each other ourselves because finding a significant other who will be ok with the type of relationship that her and I have is pretty much impossible.
My best friend is someone I met in the military. He was in my platoon but I didn't really know him that well until we both ended up going to a fairly long military school. We didn't even know the other was there until I saw his signature in an inprocessing log at the medical clinic. We managed to get together and ended up having all kinds of wacky adventures up until he graduated (my course was a few months longer). We've been pretty close since then, (that was 1990) and we get together every two or three months.
My mom and dad moved to a new neighborhood when I was two. They were the second family to move in to these brand, new homes. The other family had a son about a year younger than me. I guess he became the friend I had the longest and most consistently but my "best" friends were usually other kids who moved in later on. Unfortunately, none of them stuck around for more than a few years before they moved away. Outside of a couple of coworkers whom I like pretty well I really don't have any friends these days. My last "best friend" was my wife who moved away about a year ago. Sooooo ... the internet and video games have become pretty good buds these days.
I sobered up through AA myself. I was the "life of the party" (or so I thought) when I was boozin' but stopped hanging out at the bars and the party houses when I got sober. I prefer a good book or a good movie to the nightclub life.
When I started the fourth grade we got a new kid after about three or four weeks. He was so sad that his family had moved to my town and now he was in a strange school and had left his friends behind. For two days he just laid his head on his arms and cried. The second day the teacher grabbed him by the arm, stood him up and gave him several slaps on the behind. She told him to sit up and pay attention. I felt sorry for him and after school I started talking to him and we walked part of the way home together. We learned we lived in the same neighborhood and our fathers were in the same line of work. Afterwards we were always together. We're still in touch, he lives in Las Vegas and I live in FL. Yesterday we spoke on the phone and we do e-mails. It was 65 years ago we were in the fourth grade.
I met my best friend in high school, he became the guitarist after being the drummer in a band I Played in...simply a damn cool guy. Then I met my wife...best friend I have ever known.
I was talking briefly with a girl on E Harmony for a couple weeks and decided to meet for lunch. We met at Chili's at 1:00 PM on a Saturday. She stepped out of her car and I immediately began to drool. She was proud of her "power" (A Spanish term) and displayed them well. I could not take my eyes off of her. We went in and ordered a couple of salads and talked and talked for about three hours. I still could not take my eyes of this Puerto Rican beauty. I tried to hold her hand a couple of times but she coyly resisted so as to not look "easy" perhaps. When we left Chili's I told her I did not want the date to end and her eyes lit up and suggested we go to the Green Iguana over on the beach. We dropped of her car at her apt and went to our second destination in my car. It was all I could do to not stare at those gorgeous legs and the short ass skirt with the split up the side that seemed to go all the way to Toledo. We had ordered drinks and after what seemed like a few minutes, the band took a break and the lead singer came over to our table. He said we never once looked at the band all afternoon but instead we just kept looking into each others eyes. Now if the lead singer of the band noticed this and made an effort to come and tell us this, well, it must have been true. He wished he could find someone that would do the same with him. Sometime into the bands second set, she allowed me to hold her hand on the table! I still had a hard time not staring at the "power" coming from her obvious choice of tops to display her "girls" (I am drooling now). Walking to the car I put my arm around her waist and held her tight enough for her to know that I was never going to let go. That slit on her skirt some how seemed more revealing than before. I was in heaven driving back to her apt. After we parked at the apt complex, she started digging for her keys but could not find them! I know she had them when she parked her car. I told her I wanted to walk to her car and check if she may had left them in the ignition or something. When I got closer to her car Inoticed it was running with the A/C still on, radio going and doors unlocked! Obviously when she parked she was just as smitten with me as I was with her. Her kisses were the BEST I have ever felt and tasted in my life. I chose not to go upstairs to her place but the following Friday we went to the most romantic classiest restaurant where I asked for the banquette where I snuggled close and played footsie (and more) with her legs. We went back to her place and did what people in love do best. Five months later we were married on the beach here in Anna Maria Island at sunset on a gorgeous March evening. This Puerto Rican beauty was my best friend on the day we met and to this day I can not wait to come home and be with her, ten years later. I have never experienced such a closeness with this best friend so unlike others. This is how I met my best friend.
I'm lucky to have two best friends. One is my wife who I've known for 15 yrs. and just married 2 yrs. ago. The other is a co-worker who I've only known for 7 short yrs., and even though I've got him beat by about 40 yrs., he's done more living than guys twice his age-and unlike most of his generation, he learned from it! And he was best man at the aforementioned wedding. Enjoy!
Love your story..... you and another poster had said your wives are your best friends and whenever I hear that lovely phrase, it reminds me of a song "You Are My Best Friend", sung by Don Williams..... Google it and listen...... it's a beautiful, sentimental song. It brings back a lot of memories of my hunny and me, along w/"Annie's Song" by John Denver, which is one of the most beautiful ever written.. Denver wrote that for his wife, Annie......
A medal to you for helping that lonely little guy and making him your friend. A lot of kids would have teased, bullied him for crying, but you did a beautiful thing by becoming his friend and giving him happiness again...... That's all it takes is just one person w/a smile and offering a hand in friendship to turn someone's life around.....
Literally known him since I was only a few months old. We grew up in the same neighbourhood and our parents were friends so it was kind of natural for us to play with each other. Or in Trump-language; Great guy. Tremendous guy. I tell you that. And believe me, nobody knows friends like I do.
I only have two friends, Dave and Frank, and oddly enough I met them when I joined the firm they worked for in Fleet Street. But the HQ of that company is no longer based there, it moved to Canary Wharf, so every year they come here for a 48-hour bonding. It's said that the bond between males is more profound than that of females, and I'm fortunate enough to be able to testify to it. This year's visit is in a couple of month's time.
I met my best friend in a coffee shop....then married her after years of finding out she was my best friend.
My best friend in life was my high school physics and computer science teacher. We visited each other at least once a year, and talked on the phone at least an hour or two a week, sometimes more, for the next 25 years, until he died. He even managed to shock me after passing by leaving me a tidy sum of money.
He was the guy I was recently joking about. Many years ago he took a trip down a remote river in either Africa or S. America, to spend a week with a tribe that were cannibals only about ten years earlier. Among the other many gifts he gave as payment for his stay, he gave them razor blades! I never let him live that down!
We haven't got another fantasist here have we? One's quite enough, thank you very much; no names, no pack drill but HereWeGoAgain will know who I'm talking about!
