BFFs for…Life? [Frankie Says…]

Frankie Asks…

Does growing up have to mean growing apart?

Every time I’ve seen my best friend, J., over the past few years there’s been just a little more tension than the last time. Is it all in my head? Does she feel it too? Am I the only one that feels that ever since we moved out of the same apartment, five years ago, our relationship has diminished to – dare I say it – good acquaintances?

I find myself not telling her about aspects of my new ‘Hollywood’ life – so different from the party years spent in San Diego with her – or selectively mentioning this guy or that, when before I’d analyze every detail of every new date with her.

Is it just because we’re growing into different people as we live these separate lives, or is it because we’re not a part of each other’s lives anymore that I feel this way?

These questions have been haunting me for a while now, and more in the last few months since her marriage to her longtime boyfriend, C.

Funny story about that, actually. The boyfriend. So back in 2006, when they first met, she’d been seeing another guy. This other guy was a friend of mine before C. and she had started dating and I was sort of his champion, even though he was certainly of questionable character and the two of them had quite the volatile relationship. I guess I thought mad love was better than a secure relationship. (I was 22, if I can use that as an excuse…)

So when C. came along and started to whisk her away from mad love man, I told her that I thought she was doing the wrong thing, choosing him. Oops. Wrong prediction. Don’t worry, I told her at her bachelorette party that I was obviously in the delusional and that her relationship now with C. was amazing and the one she was supposed to be in.

Anyway. Now’s she married and hasn’t been single for 5-plus years. Whereas I have been the ultimate bachelorette, dating men here and there, on and off, the whole time she’s been building and securing her future love life.

And with the growth of her relationship has come, inevitably, the growth of new friendships – with other couples. Always with couples. Every time I went to visit her it’d be her and her boyfriend, me and at least three other couples. I always felt like the odd ball, the third wheel, the threat (as many women in couples see single women, even if they’re no such thing).

I eventually stopped having fun on our visits together, because I would want to go out and mingle and chat with boys, and she would prefer staying in with a bottle of wine. Ok, maybe that’s unfair. Maybe that part was all in my head. We’d still go out, but I would be trolling for male attention and she wouldn’t – and who wants to do that alone?

To make matters decidedly worse, she’s just moved to Australia for two years with her new husband. Now, it’s hard to say that we haven’t grown apart – we literally have grown half-a-world apart.

I’m happy for her. Please don’t translate this confession as otherwise. I just don’t know where I fit in her life anymore. What does she need me for? Who can I be to her?

Again with the questions. All of which I couldn’t bear to bring up to her. And now she’s gone. Far, far away in another land, with a man, going to meet other people. How would I bring it up now? Do I just let it drift…?

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featured image credit: bennylin0724