Day 10: Your best friend
Given my introverted and awkward nature, I only have few friends. I think the ones that I really call “best friend” are just 3 people, maybe 5 in maximum. Others are considered “close friends” “good friends” “super good friends” but hasn’t crossed the line to “best friends”.
If we’re talking about close friends, I have three in my junior high school year. Three of them are the ones I consider as my best friends. Then some other close friends…maybe 3 or 4. At high school, I’m close with around 5 people, but maybe really close with only 2–3 of them. The thing is, 2 of them are very much kindred spirits so it feels like I’m third wheeling. Lots of times I didn’t understand their inside jokes, their references, I just didn’t feel right in. But we’re still good, we still talk often. At college, I was also close with less than 5 people. Maybe 2–4 that I really talk often. But again, none of them has crossed my best friend boundary.
I don’t know, am I closing myself? People said that the quantity of time you spent didn’t determine your closeness. While it may be true, it’s also not so true in my case. I feel more bond between me and my best friends because..we spent more time together? We’ve known each other longer than other friends? I also don’t know whether my best friends will think of our squad as the only best friends, or are they considering other friends they meet on other life stage as best friends as well. Maybe the reason I only considered them as best friends are because I feel like I didn’t need any friends beside them. I felt the same way at junior high school, hence I didn’t befriend any others. I got them, and that’s enough. I got friends who will never make me feel lonely. That’s what I thought.
Since I only considered them as best friends, so this post will only talk about them. We went to the same elementary school, although I only get acquainted with one of them in JHS. Two of them were in the same class as me a few times, and we got really close on 5th grade. We even built some imaginary world (which I’m too embarrassed to talk about) but that became a stepping stone to our nicknames and our friendships.
So…we were in the same class for all three in JHS. There are other friends in our circle, but at some things, it was really just the four of us. Only 4 of us liked CNBLUE. Only 4 of us would show up when there’s a planned gathering in the circle. I don’t know about others, but surprisingly 4 of us are also introverts! It was a surprise because I really thought one of us is extrovert, a really extroverted extrovert but she actually shares the same MBTI as me. When I scrolled our past photos, there were lots of pictures just the 4 of us although we weren’t secluding ourselves from others.
We parted ways in high school. By parted ways, I mean none of us went to the same school. There was a time we fell out of touch, mainly because one of us went to boarding school with no phones allowed, and you know…just that moments when we were busy with our own things. We changed numbers and social media accounts. There were times I didn’t even know how to contact them. Thinking back on those times, I wondered how come such things happen. Life, I guess.
At the end of our high school years, we reunited again. We made LINE groups, at first for 8 of us but it got narrowed again just for the 4 of us because the others really never made it to just simple gatherings. At first it was just multichat, but I remember when we made a trip to Jatim Park, the group was made. That was when I think “It was really the 4 of us”. And since then, we communicated on that media. Now, we switched to WhatsApp, though. Sigh, adulting…
We didn’t talk everyday. Countless times, we planned to do video call but failed. Or just a simple 3 hours gathering, but was cancelled at the last minute. Sometimes, it pissed me off (although I never showed it, or maybe, subtly) because I feel like I’ve spared my time so why couldn’t them do the same thing. Oh, that’s so childish. Now I’ve realized that it would never be the same as old times, due to adulting and life, sigh, but the bond is still as strong as ever. We may had thousands of unsuccessful attempt in keeping up with each other, but when we do, it lasted for hours. We always did video calls until we got sleepy. We always met up and talked until our voices run dry. Our friendship may not as glittery as others, but that’s exactly my style and I had no problem with it.
To our 10 years of friendship, and many years to come! 👩🏽🤝👩🏻👭