Is it weird that I think of myself as my own best friend?

[Link the Writer]

Huh. Is it weird that I think of myself as my own best friend? I mean, obviously I've friends online, but most of them either live on the other side of America, or on the other side of the planet. I don't really have any IRL friends partially because I have social anxiety, and partially because I'm a nerdy bookworm and the vast majority of the people in my city are mainly interested in sports, politics, and the latest gossip. None of which are interesting to me. I'm not interested in being the life of the party, or chilling downtown, etc.

Doesn't help that the people I work with see me as the odd man 'cause I'm the quiet disabled person (who may be on the spectrum) that keeps to himself, minds his business, and focuses on his work, so they mainly just ignore me unless they need me to do something.

Obviously, I shouldn't go around being a dick to others, or be a raging narcissist but to me, being your own best friend is super cool. 'Hey self, wanna go grab a bite at that store you like so much? Hell yeah, self!' 'Hey, self, today's been rough. Got'cha covered, homie. Let's have a beer and play videogames.'

Just feel like as I'm getting older, I'm realizing that sometimes the best friend you're gonna get is yourself, 'cause if anything, you're stuck with yourself and if you can't be nice to yourself, who will?

 

[Madman Starryteller]

Not too weird. Some people are more solitary than others and as long as they don't suffer from it, it should be fine.

I'm a somewhat social guy who is lucky enough to have a few best friends. And I really appreciate having them. I think my mental health would suffer if I did not have anyone around me.

It's a trope that writers are very solitary, stuck in a room writing until their fingers bleed upon the dramatic paper pages.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

Not strange at all to enjoy one's own company. I enjoy mine until I start getting weird on myself, at which point I lose patience with me. Having some outside friends and acquaintances keeps me connected to reality and provides insights that I wouldn't come up with on my own.

Though I've heard people talk about "work families," my experience is the people one works with are coworkers and not family and not friends. Blurring those lines in one's mind can lead to some dismay upon changing a job or retiring only to discover one has disappeared from the work radar as if one never existed. Over almost six decades of jobs, there have been exceptions, but not many. The same thing is true of people one attends classes with. Classmates, however congenial, usually aren't friends, especally the ones who become friendly upon discovering one takes excellent lecture notes. Took me a time or two to figure that out.

 

[Stuart Dren]

Even people around you who seem social might be more solitary than you think. Entertainment has gotten so good that we're not inclined to 3rd places anymore, at least out of boredom.

And for interaction? Quite a few people are invested in parasocial relationships to get that fix, which are commodified and consistent. Those used to be more healthy pastimes, like making a shrine to Brad Pitt with a lock of one's hair as the centerpiece. Now it's watching a streamer play an online FPS and sending them "bits" to ask them if they've listened to a song or watched a certain anime.

So if you're George Thorogood over here, when I drink alone I prefer to be by myself, I don't think you're that far from the status quo if it's any comfort.

Also it can just be hard to find compatible people, especially two that are willing to put in the effort to tolerate each other while not just using one another. That's a chance thing. You can do things to boost the odds, but sometimes there just isn't much out there.

 

[Link the Writer]

@Stuart Dren - Yep, like I live in a Red State where everyone wants to talk about the latest superficial gossip, Jesus, politics, sports, or the latest trends. I could probably fake it, but it wouldn’t be the deep meaningful relationship I’d be wanting.

 

[Stuart Dren]

@Stuart Dren - Yep, like I live in a Red State where everyone wants to talk about the latest superficial gossip, Jesus, politics, sports, or the latest trends. I could probably fake it, but it wouldn’t be the deep meaningful relationship I’d be wanting.

I mean, it can't be everyone. There might be hidden passageways to dens of nerds and artists, marked by Triforce symbols, upside down pentacles, that sort of thing.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

@Stuart Dren - Yep, like I live in a Red State where everyone wants to talk about the latest superficial gossip, Jesus, politics, sports, or the latest trends. I could probably fake it, but it wouldn’t be the deep meaningful relationship I’d be wanting.

My state is about as red as they come... or so I thought until my last visit to the region of my birth. Even the reddest states contain pockets of quiet folks who are tooling along the middle of the road, quietly living their best lives despite the politics that rage around them. I've met those folks in places ranging from museums to arts organizations to walking my dogs along the river. A friend isn't necessarly a person who reflects oneself, like an image in a mirror. One of my dearest friends embraces politics that are alien to my nature, but we avoid the subject and concentrate on the interests we have in common. This is not denial of our differences, it's respect for them.

 

[Night Herald]

I don't think it's weird. That's been the case for me throughout much of my life, especially the early bits.

I'm a pretty damn social person, when in the right mood. I love the occasional party, cherish deep conversation, enjoy quality time, all of that. I adore meeting new and interesting people and having a good time with them, if only for a night. On the other hand I have a pretty spicy form of social anxiety, and a huge need for long periods of solitude and introspection.

I've had more than one external bestie over the ages. Those are beautiful, rich, invaluable relationships. But they're tough to maintain and very hard to find. It's an incredible stroke of luck that I've had even one, much less several. And I haven't always honored them the way I should have. What's more, when I get that deeply immersed in relating to another person, I find that I lose touch with and neglect myself to some extent. Like, I can identify completely with the relationship and practically disappear into it. When a relationship like that suddenly ends, its a bit of a doomsday situation. So yeah, there's an element of fear that comes with that sort of intimacy. A certain kind of death that follows the dissolution thereof.

That isn't to say my relationship with myself is always a dance on roses. I can be pretty shitty even to people I love and care about, and that goes doubly for myself. It's all well and good being your own best friend, but I don't always get along with me. I can give myself such a hard time. I leave dirty dishes in the sink, and all that.

This raises some interesting questions about identity, but that's a whole other topic.

But yeah. Your relationship with yourself is the only one you're guaranteed to keep your whole life, so might as well try to make the best of it. You can grow apart from other people, but you can only grow with yourself. Staying deeply connected to your inner life, and being genuinely kind to yourself and having your own back in all things is great and important. I think it's one of the deepest forms of intimacy one can experience on planet Earth.

But, just as I have a way of losing myself in relationships with others, I find it's way too easy to crawl all the way up myself. I'm not ready to be a closed system, an island unto myself. I'm fortunate enough to have a great family and quite a lot of friends, even if none of my current relationships are what I would call "deep". They're sort of compartmentalized, limited in scope. I have my Nerdy Friends™ that I play games and talk about books and movies with, I have my Party People™ that I go for drinks and shenanigans with, and my That One Weird Fucking Wildcard Guy™ who serves me up fresh eccentric bullshit on the daily. I have a family that supports me, that picks me up and dusts me off when I need it. I love them all and would feel impoverished without them.

But a best friend, a true confidant, someone who's always there sharing in everything I do? That one person who understands you on a fundamental level and accepts you nonetheless? Haven't had that in a long time. Not sure I ever did, but I at least imagined it now and again. So I'm trying to be that to myself, while still being out and about in the world the way a real human being might. Still a bit of a fucking balancing act, that. My self-relationship isn't all it could be, it's a bit toxic and abusive at times, but I'm working on it. I'm considering couple's counseling. Won't they just be bloody surprised when I show up on my lonesome?

The long and short of it is... Well, you can easily see the long just up there, I kinda went on and on there. While I have a pretty insistent yearning for love, community, fellowship and all of that, I'm also really picky about how those things manifest. And it seems to me those are more often than not built on sand. That's just my perspective. I'm the sort of person who's always in flux, and I'm not sure I have it in me to put down deep roots anywhere. Belonging to something, anything, has always seemed to me like a limiting condition. It's more in my nature to flow free and briefly alight in this or that setting, to see what's up in a given place and then flap onwards, maybe to return one day but possibly not. I don't know how to keep a bestfriendship alive in that context.

And who's been with me for that entire ride, and will be with me on every ride to come? Why, it's only myself! Fucking hooray, besties until the end of time.

And I will say that a lot of the people I meet seem to be pretty shallow and one-note. I don't do shallow and one-note. In most cases that is probably a quality of me not having the opportunity or interest to get to know them very well, but maybe not. Maybe a lot of folks out there are just stuck deep in one or maybe two grooves. Hard to say. And they're no worse for it, bless them. They're beautiful in their way. It's just not for me.

Thanks for posting this thread. It triggered some self-reflection that I seem to have sorely needed.