Kind of a weird question, but I was thinking about the concepts of "BFFs" the other day, and how it's very rare that you actually end up being best friends with anyone forever. This led to me thinking about all of the people throughout my life that I would have referred to as my "best friend" at one point or another.

Here is the list that I came up with, roughly in chronological order:

1. "Toast" (This was her nickname; I don't remember her real name lol) — Preschool
2. Cameron — 1st grade, then again from 3rd to 5th grade
3. Gerald — 2nd grade
4. Zach — 2nd grade, after Gerald moved
5. Tyler — 3rd grade
6. Olivia — 3rd grade to 5th grade
7. Parker — 4th grade
8. Colin — Summer camp between 4th and 5th grade
9. Andrew — 5th to 6th grade
10. Ricky — Summer camp, summer before 6th grade to 8th grade
11. Anthony — Summer camp, summer before 6th grade to 10th grade
12. Deanna — 6th grade
13. Julia — Summer camp, summer before 7th grade to 12th grade
14. Paul - 7th grade to 8th grade
15. Ryan - 7th grade to 11th grade
16. Joe M. - 7th grade to 12th grade
17. goodboy - Vizzed, during 8th grade
18. Joe B. - 12th grade to present
19. Kasey - Work at summer camp, summer before freshman year of college to sophomore year of college
20. Dom - Freshman year of college
21. Kenzie - First (and only) year of grad school to present

Not sharing this because the names are supposed to mean anything to any of you, but because I find the timeframe for each "best friend" to be interesting. It seems like when I was younger, my best friends changed pretty frequently. This makes sense—young kids don't really have any way to hang out with their friends outside of school and other places that their parents bring them to regularly, so as they move from one grade to another and their former best friend ends up in a different class, they get replaced by a classmate from their new class.

Is 21 different best friends in 26 years of life a lot? Too many? And what does that say about me? Does it mean that I make a lot of friends, or does it mean that I'm bad at maintaining friendships? Or both?

I'm wondering about everyone else's experiences. How many "best friends" have you had? What does your best friend "timeline" look like?

i only have one best friend, not gonna name names tho lol,

but i'll tell you this, he's a youtuber with almost 10k subs

wears black pants and a white shirt, and eats mcdonald's

This one friend is the only "best friend" you've ever had? You never had any other people that you considered to be your "best friend" at other points in your life when you were younger?
blindlemoneyes :

tgags123: well there's another best friend i have.

he's back in nevada, and his name is dylan, we both used to hang out ALOT back then, we messed around with his stuff, screwed around at school, heck, we'd even talk about each other, if you'd like, i could tell you more about him

I think I've only had two and they both came from the same high school friend group. The first one stopped hanging out to do his own professional stuff after graduating and the rest of us from the group still do stuff now more than ten years later.

just the one. met on the bus on the way to the very first day of school. shoulda been friends for life, only got 15 years. miss the good ol days. hope you well out there. whereever you are in this world. -friendo


now i wanna play some nintendo & maybe ride bikes.

I have had a few.

Westly from 1st grade, all the way til 4th grade.
Nolan from 2nd grade all the way til 4th grade, we were on and of best friends.
Dylan from 1st grade til 4th grade.
Ashton from 4th grade to 4th grade.
Zachary from 4th grade to 4th grade.
And then currently my best friend his name is Isaac, and we've been friends since 2022.


If you count online friends I have a few. Definitely everyone on my friends list here on Vizzed, or at least the ones higher up on the list, and the Charm (which is her nickname) is my best online friend, tbh better than any of my IRL friends I've ever had lol.

I've had a few in person ones, I think totalling around 10, most of them I kept for a couple of years at least, before the friendship was ended due to outside circumstances (usually going to different schools or classes).

I was an awkward nerdy kid for most of my school years, who didn't really fit in with the popular crowd. I was also a bit picky with who I'd let myself befriend and once I finally did find someone I like I tended to try to hold on to those friendships rather than let them fizzle for no reason. Unfortunately lots of those type of reasons seemed to exist as a kid. Particularly before smartphones and social media became widely available as a method for communication.

To this day, probably my closest friendships are with a person I met through high school, and another person I ended up getting closer to through him (who went to the same high school). In total we've been friends for around 11-13 years. Even if nowadays we can go periods of not talking for a couple of weeks.

I consider myself pretty lucky for that, even if I often feel like we've drifted apart in terms of the people we've become. It's still a rare and valuable thing to have such a long lasting bond, all of the inside jokes and references that come with and for there to be someone who has known you through several different phases of your life. I've changed a lot from who I was, gone through a lot of self growth and become more social and competent in many areas of life. To have friends who accepted me before all of that always helped me feel more assured in myself.

At the end of the day, it's the kind of friendship where it no longer feels conditional, but you simply know (barring any unexpected life altering events) you're always going to be a part of each other's day to day life, and I think that's what every close friendship should feel like.

There's a few online friendships I've had in addition to that, which I considered close at one point, but on the whole I've found those friendships to be a lot more fleeting over the years. I've had many people just completely disappear and others that quickly fizzled out once the community that originally brought us together no longer acted like a glue. I think it's definitely possible to maintain close online friendships as well, but if anything it might require even more effort than an offline one. You really have to go out of your way to make yourself a mainstay in each others lives.

I've had very few people I could actually consider friends for most of my life, even though the winds are changing in the last years, so the list of best friends is even more scarce.

I had one in what you guys call elementary school, long ago. We used to hang out together a lot, eventually becoming very close (and I'd say each other's only friend of that era, at least in school). However, he was forced to move away for a reason I don't remember, and in the late 90s it wasn't as easy to keep in touch with people who moved far away, so we lost contact forever. I sometimes reminisce about him, though I've forgotten his appearance he remains alive in my memories and I hope it stays like this forever. I never made another best friend at school, I had friends at most but I never felt very close to them for reasons.

Outside school, I made another best friend on my tennis practice. I don't remember when were we paired at the same group, but we sticked together alongside a few others for some time. We spent many years together, we visited each others' home, I was there when his parents adopted his little brother... One of the most defining friendships I've ever had. But once we both left tennis, contact declined to almost nonexistent after the summer of 2009 and since then we haven't talked again. I sometimes think of searching him on instagram and rekindle what we once had, but I never get to it.

In my neighborhood, I also had a best friend. Our parents had known for some time and we lived close, so we met quite often. We became like brothers, even after his actual brother was born, and we shared a very nice time. But like everything, life separated us and I have no way of contacting him again. I still think about him and what life may have done to him.

I made a new best friend after the pandemic. Actually we met precisely the first day we were allowed to go outside again. He was an old acquaintance of my ex, and we bonded immediately (something she foresaw, and with enough reasons). For more than five years we've shared a ton of moments together and we're very close. Lately it's been hard to meet as he recently moved to his own apartment and thus his free time and availability have declined, but next week it's his birthday and we'll be able to meet again and enjoy a great night. I sincerely doubt I'll ever lose him, not only because current technology allows us to stay close but because we think of each other when coming up with plans no matter how many months pass by or how many times we've tried to do something.

Over the years, some people have attempted to get into the best friend circle. I had one in school, shortly before middle school, and we were quite close during the time we shared but once again lost contact because he moved away (we reconnected some time later via Messenger but it didn't last and we've been estranged for a long time now). Another mention would be my "brother-in-law", I don't put him as best friend because his personality is a tough one at times and me and my girlfriend get fed up with him easily and even get into arguments for his attempts to interfere with peoples' lives. And probably a few others lay around there, both past and present.

I guess this shows I'm a very shy person and I don't open up to just anybody. It also shows I'm rather solitary and I enjoy my moments of solitude. Or maybe I have the concept of best friend actually high and it's not like "one goes, one comes" but rather something that needs a special connection to be achieved. And having grown at times where it wasn't easy to stay in contact made things worse to preserve those friendships.

It's hard for me to remember someone I could consider a close friend in my life... Either my memory is awful or I had none, mayhap both.

I've had who I consider my best friend change a ton of times throughout my life the first I can remember was a guy in my kindergarten class named Jordan I think I moved away and then my best friend was named Ian for a while, then we both moved and I met an old friend named Mikey who became my best friend and we hung out all the time during the summer and even when he was in school I would head over to his house about the time he'd get home to hang out. After I moved again I didn't have a best friend for some time I don't think anyone was till Fyredove was my best friend for probably about 5ish years but we don't really talk anymore. Today it's hard for me to really pick one I have a few friends that mean a lot to me like If I was forced to name someone I guess I'd have to say my wife but several people online mean a ton to me and I trust a lot so I don't really put one person in that spot anymore cause it doesn't make sense to me to.

It's hard to pinpoint one exact person for this at certain points in time. I've always just kind of viewed certain people as really close friends but growing up I would rarely call one person my 'best friend'.

In kindergarten I had one called Maxim. He was a Polish kid who I hung out with all the time in kindergarten and on play dates. We were still good friends for several years in elementary school but grew apart when he changed schools when we were like 11 or something. I've seen him every now and then over the years but we never quite got back to that same point really as he hung out with a different crowd than I did. Hope he's doing great though.

In elementary I wouldn't say I had one best friend. I was very outgoing at this point in my life (to be honest in certain ways like number of friends and female attention I 'peaked' in elementary school lol). Our school wasn't big so my class of 28 kids was our whole grade. I was close friends with all the boys except the sports guys, but even with them I got along fine. I guess Matts & Bente, the two guys I always played and talked Pokemon with, would be my 'nominees' lol. We still see each other at least once a year for a barbecue or some other get together (including our parents).

I was more of a background character in high school. I came to my high school with a few friends from elementary including Matts, but after the first year I was the only one doing my major and so I had no classes with any of them. At some point though we kind of merged with a different friend group due to each of us independently befriending people of that group lol. I see some of them sporadically at some local events but I was definitely not one of the center points of that big friend group.

I had a best friend at my college campus named Karsten. Sometimes it felt like me and him were the only normal people in the room, just a chill guy really. We worked well together on projects and on some study related sessions or brainstorms. He graduated before me because I had to delay a few classes and then went to study something else. I haven't really heard from him in over a year, might have to randomly reach out at some point. We never really hung out outside of class related things though so I fear it's harder to maintain this one long term.

Currently my best friend is a guy called Maarten. I've actually known him since kindergarten and elementary, and we were always quite close back then, but drifted apart during high school/early college. A year or two ago we reconnected and have been able to maintain a very close friendship since then. It's a nice mix of doing activities together and being able to talk about deeper subjects as well. If you were to ask me out of all the people I mentioned, which one do I see being in my life long term, it would be him. We even went camping for 3 days this summer which was a fantastic adventure. Great guy.

I also want to give a shoutout to two people I met online who I've been really close with for years as well, being SonicOlmstead and fqur. In certain ways they know me better than any offline friend I've had, we also spent that entire lockdown period of time on call pretty much 12 hours a day. I believe these will also stand the test of time at this point.

I don't particularly have a need to add more people to this list down the road. If it happens it happens but until I find someone I want to marry I doubt it.