Originally Posted by Rain Man
My best friend in grad school was a woman who was probably 22 years old and single, and at the time I was 29 and married. And my best friend in my first Denver job was a married woman about my age. In both cases, we were good friends for a long time until our life circumstances changed, and we still do the Christmas card exchange.
I imagine that if all parties were single, there would've been dating involved in each case. But in all cases at least one of us was married, so nothing ever happened or was even considered or discussed. We were just good friends.
Having said that, I guess there are three caveats:
First, as donger said, one's spouse is one's best friend by default. I'm talking about best friends outside marriage.
Second, we were best friends in our common environments, but not outside it. At grad school, I hung out with my friend and we had lunch together and did projects together and stuff, but it's not like we did anything socially outside school. When the day was done, we went home. In the work environment, it was the same deal. We ate lunch together and tried to get on projects together and maybe once or twice in six years we snuck out early to a happy hour, but that was it. (There were a few business trips in that case too, which is why we tried to work on projects together since you'd end up eating dinner together and stuff and you didn't want to hang out with coworkers you didn't really like, but there weren't many of those.) These people were definitely my best friends at the time and I spent lots of time with them at school and at work, but when you're married, you tend to do almost all your social stuff with your spouse.
Third, "best friend" can be defined different ways. I have a handful of past friends that I see once every two or three years who have Hall of Fame status, and I view them differently than my definition of a "best friend". I view a "best friend" as a person who I currently spend my time with and talk to frequently, but my "best friend" at any given time may not be Hall of Fame stature.
|